General

Dont pick protoss, we're practically crippled, We need a MAJOR freaking buff

Watch Day[9]
[url=http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft2]Team Liquid[/url]
[url=http://starcraftarena.net/forum/]Starcraft Arena (Made by HD and Husky (commentators))[/url]
[url=http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Main_Page]Team Liquid's Wiki. You can find builds here.[/url]
Save your replays, watch them, learn from your mistakes.

As a toss player I just use 4 gate every game with robo fac units, I hardly ever get a stargate. I create whatever units that would best fit the situation, stalkers for general use, a few sentries for mass marine or for force fields, more zealots and use the unspent gas on heavy support units. Note that stalkers are the fastest protoss land unit and the only other land unit that can outrun it are zerglings, hellions, upgraded banelings, or stimmed infantry. Whenever I force the enemy to retreat I am always super aggressive and pick off a couple of units before they get up their own ramp.

If you're facing a heavy infantry army, it might be tempting to just pump out a ton of gateway units for a fast army. But what you really need to do is to tech up to collosus because marauders murder gateway units and so do ghosts. Unless you have charge/blink you're just not going to win and it still won't be easy. Or if you have an overwhelming force, and that doesn't happen often.

If you see banelings you shouldn't really have a problem since the only light units from the protoss are probes, zealots, and sentries. It takes around 9 banelings to kill a single stalker and a hell of a lot more to kill an immortal, so when you see them you don't really have to worry. If the player seems to have a ton of banelings and nothing else it means he's sacrificed gas or tech to get all those units. So put your meaty, armored units up front and push through.

If a zerg player techs straight into roaches and rushes you, all you need are stalkers. Since the roach's range has been raised by 1, it's a little harder to micro them so that you get shots out of their range but not impossible. Unless you're facing a 100000 diamond league player, his macro will fall a bit from trying to micro his roaches so that he can catch your stalkers and his reinforcements will get thinner or just stop completely.

And you always need to keep calm, you can't just say, "Alright, there's no way I can win". There is always a way out. Unless you really screwed up, then you need to know when to call gg.

Ehh, in my opinion, HD and Husky don't do enough analysis. You really don't learn much about the strategies. It's one thing to see a vague build order, but it's another to know exactly how to pull it off.

And don't do Cheese Ray rushes. They're easily scouted.

I guess I'll restate some tips that day9 gives out.

Keep looking at the minimap and your minerals/gas/supply. Paying attention to the minimap will ensure you won't get any surprises in your base, and keeping an eye on the resources will make sure your macro is solid.

Keep your money low. Don't overbuild your production buildings. If you have 8 warp gates off one base, you're not going to be producing out of all of them, so you'll be wasting tons of resources on buildings that you don't use.

Keep building workers and supply buildings. As day9 puts it, "Pylons and Probes. Pylons and Probes." You want a strong economy, and unless you're Zerg, you should be able to produce your army while making workers at the same time. Just don't build 150 workers. Stopping at 50-60 is fine. With supply, if you get supply blocked, you're going to fall behind on production, and your money will rise. You want to have open supply to spend your money.

Scout the front. You can tell a lot by just running a unit near the enemy's front. You see very few units? The guy is teching. You see a lot? He's probably getting ready to push. What units attack you? What buildings do you see near the army? Does he have a lot of gas-heavy units? That probably means you won't be seeing tons of other gas-heavy units. Most people think they have to actually see inside the main, but that's not always the case.

If you're ahead, expand. Don't try to kill the opponent right away. There will be times when you make a blunder when you're ahead, and then your opponent will catch right back up by capitalizing on your blunder. It's much safer to take it slow and just make your lead even bigger.

Keep map control. If you have vision over the entire map, you won't get any surprises on you.

And don't rush tech. Many times you can get overrun since the money that's supposed to go into defense will go into your tech. A great example is a Protoss player who rushes to Colossus right away because he's seen so many videos of Colossus completely overrunning other people. What he probably doesn't know is that the Colossus is a support unit and requires lots of Gateway units to protect it. If you have 1 Colossus and a handful of Stalkers/Zealots when a timed MM push comes along, that Colossus is going to get rolled over, and you'll feel that the Colossus is worthless. Make defense first and get your higher tech units at the right time.

Basic ones would be...

-Constantly produce workers to mine minerals and gas
-Know keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys for commands
-Know your units' strengths and weaknesses

Going straight for Void Rays? Maybe turtle up.

Watch lots and lots of day9 and implement your newfound knowledge of the game mechanics to the fullest on ladder.

And don't play Zerg until you've become quite familiar with the game. Zerg is not newbie-friendly.

[quote=aznseal]1. pick toss
2. 1a2a3s
3, Win![/quote]

what does that mean?

1. pick toss
2. 1a2a3s
3, Win!