EPTThe Background: Impervious is on fire, having won 11 straight 2v2 games as Terran with randomly assigned partners. He has fought through early dropped partners, partners who had no clue how to use the "Inject Larvae" ability of the Queen, and partners who were unable to send any help as he was being double teamed by dual 6 pools, among others. He has been at the brink of defeat several times, however, he has clawed his way to victory each time.
The Partner: A fellow Gold level 2v2 Protoss player. Just a random player on Battle.net.
The Enemy: An arranged team of 2 high-level Platinum Protoss players. They have played together for every 2v2 game they have played. And, the last 5 of their games were on Twilight Fortress, with no way of knowing how many more games before that.
The Beginning: Having been the victim of a proxy-gate opening on this map, Impervious opts for an economical 10 Barracks for the fast OC, and safety from early rushes. His partner opens with a standard 1 gate core opening, scouting the enemy.
What is discovered is that neither of the enemy takes their gas very early. Puzzling. We expect a proxy. But it does not appear to happen, because they decide to put some Cannons down at their choke, clearly expecting a rush even though neither of them have scouted yet..... We expect them to be terrible, so I immediately expand to my natural, and tech straight to Banshees. My partner expands as well, and techs to Observers, to get an idea at what the enemy is up to.
We take control of every Watchtower on the map, as well as the entrance to their base. Once the Observer gets to the enemy base, it is discovered that both enemies have teched straight to Void Rays.
Immediately, I start producing Vikings, and my partner opts for a sentry/stalker combination. I mentally prepare myself to expand to the nearby Gold expansion as soon as the first confrontation occurs.
When their first push with Void Rays comes, we are well prepared, and demolish it quickly. However, we end up losing control of the Watchtowers. No biggie, I expand to the Gold expansion, as planned.
The Middle: At this point, I feel that this game is definitely going to go our way. After a particularly brutal beating of their Void Rays, I decide to expand 4 times, expecting to lose 2 of them when they get a bunch of Void Rays back up. What I discover is that where I was planning on expanding twice, my opponents have already taken control of it, with several cannons surrounding them.
Uh oh.....
Valiantly, I try to keep control of my other 2 expansions. We launch a counterattack at one of their expansions, and manage to kill every single probe there, before having to retreat to the Void Rays. Eventually, my 2 Expansions kick the bucket, I am unable to fight them off.
The confrontations between the Vikings and Void Rays keep moving towards my base. As much as I try, I cannot hold them back anymore. Eventually, we are overwhelmed.
The End: We call GG, however, we do discuss the game for a few minutes. This is when it becomes evident that the enemy is a pair of high level Platinum players. We discuss the game, our mistakes, what we should have done differently, etc. Most of the mistakes revolve around not regaining control of the Watchtowers after the initial Void Ray push. We played well, but not well enough. Finally, I surrender, and leave the game.
Aftermath: Immediately, I watch the replay. What I discover is that both of my opponents had sub 40 apm. One was in constant control of the army, the other was in constant control of macro for both players. Neither had any good multitask. Even the guy in charge of the macro was not that good.
They were totally blind of what we were doing, they did not scout at all, and their first sight of our units was a zealot running up the ramp to make sure that I actually made a wall.....
It also turns out that my partner made a max of mid-30 probes..... I held off 5 base Void Rays with 3 base Vikings with minor support by my partner, for over 5 minutes.
It turns out that instead of increasing my win streak to 12 games, I lost. Normally, I don't get angered by a loss, but this was different. If I was to 1v1 either of the enemy, I'm confident I could win. If I had scouted a little better, I could have demolished them before their macro overwhelmed us.
What is worse is that these two players are like #3 in their platinum division in 2v2. If this is their strategy, they are completely undeserving of that rank. They are taking advantage of the number of expansions on such a large map, which makes it hard to scout each and every one. They are taking advantage of opponents who do not know how to handle mass void rays. They are taking advantage of players who do not rush them early on. They are taking advantage of key mistakes that most players make.
There were several points in the game where we had them on the brink of losing, yet we did not know it. If we were to face them again, I am confident that we would beat them. Because of this, I know what to look for, should anyone else be stupid enough to try this against me.
Final Remarks: I lost to a gimmick. If this is what the 2v2 Ladder consists of at higher levels, I am very disappointed. I wanted to get that shiny Thor pic for my profile, but I might just go back to 1v1 now.....
My perogies just finished. I'ma go eat and watch some SC2 streams now.
mmmmmmmm
