Custom 2v2s, aggression and micro

Well, I got completely stomped today in a few 2v2s.  I am going to have to work on reining in my aggression, and doing better on my micro.  I hit 2v2 platinum with one of my 4 teammates (although he's Diamond, so I guess I'm just being carried), and at this level, you can win or lose small fights with good micro.

For example, did you know that it's possible for 4 Zerglings to beat 4 Zerglings with 3 Zerglings left over, if you micro yours and the opponent doesn't?  I still have to learn the trick, but it involves moving your almost-dead Zergling away for a second, and then coming back to gang up on another Zergling.  It's a version of focus-fire, but you can't target just one Zergling with all 4 of yours, or you'll spend too much time moving and not enough time attacking.  It's very tough to do.

Aggression is normally good in 2v2.  However, what I have to learn is NOT to throw units away doing it.  It's often not worth it, either because either:

1. You force your opponent to go all-in, and after losing your harassment units, he'll have more army than you and roll you over, or
2. You don't actually do as much damage with your harassment as it cost you to make the units!

These 2 points are why Mutalisks are so good for Zerg - they are fast, their damage is quite high, they fly, and can easily escape.  Banshees are similar because they can cloak.  Blue Flame Hellions with a Medivac are also effective, because you can load up and fly away.  Protoss have their Dark Templar, but often those end up being throw-away units, or a sucker-punch that you hope will end the game.

And remember: if you're getting stomped, sometimes it's just better to stop playing for awhile rather than lose, lose and lose some more.  Go play the AI a bit, and you may figure out what the problem is.

Starcraft 2 Ranting - 1v1 screws up my 2v2!

I've been playing a lot more 1v1 on ladder instead of my usual 2v2, and while I'm enjoying Spanishiwa, my 2v2 strategy is suffering terribly - I'm trying to play it like a 1v1, and it's not working.  Worse, I'm not syncing with my partner very well - it's like we're each trying to play separately, despite being on ventrilo and everything!

Grrr...

Things to remember:

• Attack (or defend) together
• Follow up with a successful attack, but don't throw units away, or I'll die to the counterattack!
• Make sure at least one player builds anti-air and detection.  Losing to DT's when you would have won is very disappointing.

Starcraft 2 Strategies That Stop Working

I was doing very well with one of my 2v2 partners originally doing a Roach + Marine rush.  Very powerful, tends to annihilate one opponent, and then easily fend off the reinforcements / counterattack by the other opponent.  However, as we started playing against Diamond and Platinum teams, our super-strategy stopped working.  Why is this?

Simply put - scouting and preparedness.  Good opponents know how to interpret what they see in your base, even if it's just gas and when your buildings get produced.  The trick is to do this yourself, and counter what they are doing.

For example, we lost a game recently to a Zealot - Marine all-in, which was obviously directed at me, the Zerg player, since I can't wall off my base and shoot the attacking units.  I scouted it, but didn't build Spine Crawlers to fend off the massive push.  Even with my ally matching the Marine numbers of the attackers, I couldn't take on the Zealots without Roaches or Spines, and lost (despite my banelings).

This situation is similar to what cannon-rushing opponents sometimes find as they climb the ladder - eventually their cheese stops working, and they have to abandon the strategy and start learning new ones.

Morale:   Brush up on other races' builds, not just your own, and know what's coming, and when.

Why two Macro players are hard to beat

My Terran partner and I had two games in a row against the same two Zerg players, and they creamed us both times.  Sure, we drew out the game, felt like we were doing well, but they either out-expanded us or out-tech'ed us in both games, leading to a loss.

Despite repeated aggression (but no harassment sadly), we weren't able to match them on macro.  The second game, we prevented them from expanding to more bases than us (and for Zerg, that's pretty good), but they proceeded to stomp us with Ultralisks off of 2 bases each.  Strangely, no mutas that game.

What lessons were learned?  Well, Zerg certainly have mobility, and can harass you pretty much anywhere on the map with 12 Zerglings.  Double-Zerg is doubly dangerous because they could either both 10-pool you and crush one player, or they could both macro hard.  I think the trick is for one of them to do the 10pool and then both macro hard, scouting enough such that an army can be spit out if the enemy approaches.

I think their weakness would have been a marine drop, or even just repeated drops before Mutas were started in quantity.  Honestly, I don't know how to beat that.

Starcraft 2 - Weird 2v2 Strategies

Well, we didn't scout, and we lost to two very screwed-up strategies.  Note to self:  Scout what they are doing before 6 Carriers walk into your base.

What our double-Protoss opponents did (and made my ally rage-quit 2v2s for awhile), was cannon every expansion, base, and pathway, and then proceed to go heavy air.  I think they built absolutely no ground units all game.... and we lost.  Shame on us.

Had we been able to counter, we would have expanded before them and Turreted everything - but of course the AI turrets are stupid and target fighters.  I have no idea why.

Starcraft 2 - ZT Strategy in 2v2

I've been having a lot of success as Zerg with a Terran partner in 2v2.  There are some pretty sweet synergies that Zerglings or Roaches have with marines.  Generally, Roaches are better, because their movement speed is similar to marines, and because they soak up damage while marines deal it.  However, Zerglings can work well because it's nearly impossible to get through a mass of Zerglings to get at the marines, even with other Zerglings.  The whole thing falls apart when one of your Zerg opponents make banelings, so after the first push with Zerglings, switch to Roaches (or get banelings yourself, if you like baneling wars.  I don't, personally).

I really like the Infestor, as well.  With a range-heavy ally like Terran, stopping your opponent's army in place with Fungal Growth while getting a great concave yourself is crippling to the enemy (not to mention the Fungal growth damage itself).

One thing you may think is good, but we've beaten a ton of players who do it, is when facing a Zerg player who masses Mutas.  While a lot of mutas can destroy your economy, we've won at least 3 games where our economy was heavily damaged, but the knowledge that at least one opponent invested in harassment forces instead of a ground army allowed us to go stomp them both flat.  In our last game, I pretty much lost my main base to Muta damage (especially after stupidly not building spore crawlers despite his wall-in with Spine Crawlers), but we simply marched in and wiped out their bases.  They couldn't do the same to us because marines and turrets would have ripped up the fragile harass forces had he proceeded to my Terran ally's base.

In the words of Day9... "just go f-ing kill him!".

Starcraft 2 - Zerg and Protoss 2v2: Using 10pool early aggression

My partner and I played a bunch of Starcraft 2 games today on the 2v2 ladder, and the strategy we were trying out was a 10pool early aggression by Zerg (me) supplemented by whatever early Zealots my Protoss ally could afford to send without hurting his economy (usually 3-4), and do as much damage to our opponents as possible.  The usual result was to kill a Protoss pylon, slowing down his Gateway units, killing a Queen, reducing the Zerg's ability to spam Zerglings in defense, or to kill all a Terran player's marines and force his SCVs to come off gathering to defend.

The key Zerg tactic was to keep the first 6 Zerglings alive for as long as possible, doing as much harassment as possible (this means  you have to hotkey your Hatchery and try not to go back to look at your base for more than an eyeblink, for either upgrades, making buildings, or moving drones to/off gas).  When the second wave of Zerglings arrived, you could take on even a lone Zealot or 3-4 marines, and then go on to harass workers some more.

If you want to see what build I used, please go see my 2v2 10 pool article.

Starcraft 2 - More 2v2 Ladder

I'm gradually increasing my ranking with 3 different teammates in the 2v2 ladder.  What I've learned is:

• Scouting is more important the longer the match goes on
• There is such thing as attacking too late with a rush - your opponent's economy will outstrip yours the longer you wait.
• It is vital that your opponent send whatever he has with your rushing force.  Even 3 marines can make a big difference when the number of defenders is so low.
• Preventing your opponent from expanding or killing his expansion only works if you have enough troops to hold back his counterattack.
• It is usually better to keep attacking a weakened opponent than to stop and go heavy economy.  Usually, you will forfeit your advantage and the scales will balance again, since you sacrificed early economy to attack, and the small amount of damage you can inflict that early in the game usually balances the cost of making the attack in the first place!

Zerg 2v2 Strategies: The 10pool + Macro Team in ZZ

When you are your Starcraft 2 teammate are both Zerg, here's a strategy for you to try.  I've tried this out quite a few times and it seems to work well, especially when the enemy bases are spread apart.


The Builds:



The first player will do a 10-pool build, meaning that they will build drones to 10 supply, followed by a Spawning Pool, then an Overlord, then Drones to keep larvae from being wasted (you want to make a drone or two before your pool finishes), and then 3 Zerglings as soon as your Pool finishes.


Meanwhile, your ally will fast-expand with a 14 hatch build and scout on 10.  If he scouts an early attack, such as a double-10-pool, two gate zealot, 2-rax, he will 14-pool instead, and help you with the defense and counterattack.  However, it is still likely that even if the map is large, your early zerglings will mess with at least one opponent's build, and if you don't throw away the Zerglings too quickly, your ally will have time to get his pool up even if he's doing a 14-hatch.


Things your Zerglings SHOULD be doing:

• Scouting
• Destroying Pylons that power key structures
• Harassing / destroying SCVs building structures
• Kiting Zealots
• Killing stray workers
• Making sure your opponents cannot easily combine their early forces (if bases spread apart)

Things your Zerglings should NOT be doing:

• Getting pinned in the worker line (his workers will kill your Zerglings and you'll lose more zerglings than you'll kill in workers.
• Trying to kill more than 1 Zealot or more than 2 Marines.

Starcraft 2 Strategies: Denying Expansions in 2v2

One of the most effective things to do in Starcraft 2 when you're playing 2v2 is to deny expansions to the enemy while expanding yourselves.  It's not that important to destroy your enemy's main - that will come at the end of the game.  Instead, try to take the map and expand, while denying your enemy any expansions.

This strategies does two things - first, it gives you a bigger economy while only attacking in a hit-and-run style, then retreating.  Most of the time, the defenders won't mass their army near one of the expansions, but rather at their main base.  Their placement thus gives you the ability to quick-strike their expansions.  All you have to do is force them to cancel or to destroy the Nexus/Command Center/Hatchery, and retreat.  Don't go for the drones unless you are attacking with such a small force that you aren't going to be able to get the main building before the defenders arrive.

Better yet, do a two-prong attack.  Station your main army outside their base, and send good building-killers to an expansion (anything that does high damage to armored is good), and simultaneously do a drop on one of their mineral lines.  Most non-pro players will react by moving their WHOLE army to one location, which both splits their forces and allows one of your attacks to do good damage.  If they DO overreact to the harass, you can use your massed army to hit their front door and destroy some buildings or defenses.  After this, retreat - you will have likely lost some forces, and only the presence of your expansions (and the loss of theirs) will gradually gain you ground.

Starcraft 2v2 Strategy: Don't Overcommit Your Early Attack

Starcraft 2v2 Strategies usually involve either an early wall with fixed defenses, or an early army to either attack, or defend-then-counterattack.  If you're the one on the attack, and you notice that your opponent has built an early army, you are far better off doing a bit of scouting and then retreating rather than going head-to-head with his army, when he has the defender's advantage.

A common mistake when early-attacking is to bring your combined army into one opponents' base, but then get pincered into the base by his ally's army.  That army, plus any reinforcements the first opponent may field, might be enough to hold you off and have enough for a counterattack.  I've lost many games doing this.

The other important factor, which I've mentioned in another blog post about 2v2 macro, is to continue to macro when attacking, such that if you DO lose your whole army on the attack, then you have enough defending units to fend off the counterattack.

Starcraft 2: Macro is key to 2v2

The key to winning Starcraft 2 2v2 matches is macromanagement.  My recent realization, which should probably be accompanied by a "duh", is that what wins you games is the ability to macro as your units are attacking.  Why?  Well, if you lose the battle, you still have units coming to defend you. 

I really recommend attacking first in 2v2, especially when the bases are separate, not shared.  It's not very common for players in the lower leagues especially to set a common rally point for their units, and if you can take your combined army and hit half the opponents' army, you are going to simply roll them over.  Granted, they will reinforce, but so will you, and if you manage to do economic damage (which you should), then the game is yours.

For the sole reason that you have TWO players' combined income against you, I don't recommend "all in" type of strategies in 2v2.  It's far better to have that multiplicative-macro bonus working for your side, rather than trying for the quick kill and have your opponents possibly get ahead of you.  It's even possible for ONE of your two opponents to beat you if they are left to build up and tech up fast enough.

Day9 coined an interesting phrase in his podcast on 2v2 strategy.  He called it "die slowly". He implied that in some games, where you and your ally are separated by a fair distance, it may not be possible to save your ally's base, while still being possible to win the game.  Simply put, the more time it takes for your ally to be finished off, the more time you have to tech up, expand, and put down fixed defenses.  Meanwhile, you opponents have likely sunk a great deal of resources into their attack, at the expense of economy.  This sacrifice of theirs allowed them to destroy your ally's base, but should also have given you time to create an army capable of defeating the remainder of their COMBINED armies.  And thus, back to the idea of macro winning you games - if you can't build up in the time your ally gives you, you need to work on your macro.

2v2: Learn your Lategame Strategy

I was recently in a 2v2 where I felt like I was winning.  It was Terran-Zerg (us) versus TT (them, double Terran), and some early aggression seemed to put us ahead... or did it?

Watching the replay, I noticed that our aggression really only put us back even, after all the resources spent on banelings and marines.  We expanded with our perceived lead, to match their existing expansion.  As Zerg, I double-expanded, and again, felt that we were in the lead after some more poking and prodding.

Yet, lategame was a huge fiasco.  In an attempt to break their Siege-tank + mass Raven (with Vikings added later), I built Corruptors and Broodlords.  This turned out to be a big mistake.  Why?  Well, simply put, we weren't going to outproduce both players making Vikings, and their vikings would kill Corruptors + Vikings, because of attack range and point defense.  So we gradually lost the air war, and then the game.

Thinking back, I should have ignored the air and tech'ed to Ultralisks, and gotten 3/3 upgrades on them.  Heck, I could probably have even dropped the Ultras on the Siege tanks, or even just a few zerglings and let the Siege tanks kill each other with splash.

So what am I trying to say?  Well, despite what the enemy does, you still have to think of how you're going to push him back, NOT how to kill his existing units.  We didn't NEED to push back the Vikings, only to kill the Siege tanks and get the ground back, so we could take the middle expansion, instead of seeing it fall to the enemy.  So, try to make your opponents' mix "irrelevant", and get an army composition that they'd have a hard time dealing with, rather than playing "their way".

Starcraft 2v2 Team Games: Aggressiveness as a Defense

In a recent 2v2 team game, my Zerg partner was the type of player who liked to sit back for a bit and macro up, whereas I advocated early aggressiveness.  Whether I played Terran or Zerg, aggression seemed to pay off - the opponents were thrown off their game, assumed that we were going to keep sending units, so when we backed off for a bit and pumped economy, they would be preparing for an attack that could come any second, but never did, thus setting them behind economically while we surged ahead.

What's sad about some of the greatest resources on the web, where Diamond-level game-casters tell us all about great strategies and show top-level games, is that there's really nothing I've found (so far) for team games.  It seems that the focus is all on 1v1.

The main problem with 2v2 is that it's possible to completely overwhelm an opponent by about the 25-food mark simply by having you and your partner send 3-4 units each to one opponent's base, especially if they are Zerg and can't wall-in.  To anticipate this early aggression, you also have to have minimal defense, meaning you're probably going to have to make some attack units regardless, sacrificing economy.  However, if you make attack units, don't attack, and your opponents don't attack either, you are behind on economy and you're eventually going to get rolled over by a larger enemy army.  Thus, early aggression gives you both scouting, defense against their early aggression, and keeps your economy even with your opponents', and might even help you win the game.