[Sc2 Battle Report] Froadac & Blazinghand 2v2

Blazinghand

United States25562 Posts

September 06 2011 09:48 GMT

So, it's been a little while since I've written my last battle report, so I thought I'd write one up on this particularly epic game that Froadac and I played together. It was a ladder 2v2 on Tempest. I'm a Master League Terran and Froadac is a Diamond League Terran, but I was off-racing as Zerg since Zerg is baller and TT isn't as good as TZ (imo). Our opponents were both diamond (and a prearranged team, we learned after), TP.

We were playing on Tempest, the 2v2 map that plays like a 4-team map, and has 4 spawns. There's a shared choke at the mains (but not shared ramp), and a fairly wide shared natural choke. A Xel'Naga tower oversees most of the middle. There's a lot of airspace, so drops are common, and the cliff-paths between the bases mean that colossus, blink stalker, and reaper shenanigans happen pretty often as well.

Froadac and I spawn in the bottom right, and our adversaries, REAPER and avenger spawn in the upper right.

For those of you unfamiliar with 2v2, take a moment to imagine a standard game where you spawn with an extra base/expo and 10 workers instead of 5. In a situation like that, instead of going up to 20 supply and making a supply depot or whatever, you'd probably want to slap down a unit-producing structure fairly quickly. Applied to 2v2, this means that as a general rule, one or both players try to get aggressive very quickly due to the large starting economies compared to 1v1.

I decide to take advantage of the non-shared ramps and go for some early pool play to cover for Froadac's expo. 9 pool is always cool.
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Both of our opponents are random, but thanks to lucky overlord scout we quickly find out their races.
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This is where coordination and team play come in. Neither Froadac nor I had microphones, but he knew what needed to be done: the anti-wall in preparation for the zergling attack.
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He cancels the depot just as my lings run in, of course.
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Protoss eeks out a zealot before the pylon goes down, but he has to pull probes. The damage is done, and he won't be attacking anytime soon. Froadac's expo, in the meanwhile, is going up.
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For their valor, the 5 surviving lings from the initial 6 are promoted to banelings. I decide to continue my aggression with a very ill-advised baneling bust just as ling speed finishes.
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The bust successfully destroys a supply depot in return for 5 banelings and 8 zerglings. Yay. I'm so cost-efficient...
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My keen master league tactical sense comes into play here. No expos at 7 minutes? I'm offended. They must be rushing me! But I'm such a big macro player with my 19 drones!
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This is actually looking pretty scary. My hero zergling (he dies a hero, rather than living long enough to become a villain) spots the push incoming. With lightning reflexes we form our armies together and desperately try to get bunkers up in time to stop their enormous force.
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Their huge gateway/barracks army hits us just as the bunker and banelings are finishing.
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As the dust begins to settle, it's clear that we cannot hold. The stalkers are still alive and they've probably got a proxy somewhere. Clearly this is a job for my 19 drones.
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Somehow, my 19 drones surround the stalkers. I have no explanation for how I did this other than that I'm gosu as all get out.
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I clean up the stalkers, losing merely 2 drones in the process (Stalkers so cost-ineffective without blink! cost-ineffective against drones even! imba imba imba). Froadac and I are both producing military units in time to deal with the next round of warpins.
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The push is over, and they both expo. Time to drone.
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Their 4-base timing attack hits just as we're trying to climb from 3 bases to 5 (Froadac taking his 3rd and me taking my natural). Our army is looking much better than it did during the first fight. With stimpack and various upgrades, it should be a much more even battle.
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It is.
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For about 2 minutes, nothing happens as Froadac and I recover from our expos. Then, suddenly, all of us begin moving at once. I baneling nydus the Protoss main, Protoss begins a push, and the Terran drops Froadac's 3rd.
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I clear out most of Protoss's probes, and he pulls back his push to deal with the nydus. Froadac counter-drops the Terran, losing his dropship to a turret, but fends off the Terran player's drop with some marines.
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Pushed out of the Protoss Base, I immediately nydus the Terran base. At the same time, Froadac calls down a Nuke on the Terran player's tankline. Will they have the apm to deal with this?
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...Yes.
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Protoss has gotten wise to my "Nydus erry minline all day erry day" strategy.
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Confident in their anti-nydus defenses, they begin a chargelot/archon/bio/tank push. My terrified, terrified scout ling spots it and spots for a flank Nydus, too. The battle will be vicious.
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The battle is vicious. We trade mineral dumps but we can't even begin to approach all those sieged up tanks. We DO know that nukes caused Terran to unsiege before....
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YES

After successfully Nydusing the Protoss main (a little to the left of the cannon, this time), the Terran puts an end to the Nydus harass. I burrow a few lings in the Protoss main to save for later. Froadac, in the meantime, has not been idle; he drops the Protoss main as soon as the nydus harass is over, and my speedlings scout the Protoss 3rd.
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The third is denied, tightening the noose on our adversaries. Trapped on 4 base and with nowhere to go, they have to all-in.

I prepare.
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It's a parade of gateway/biomech!
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Every parade deserves fireworks.
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Froadac makes short work of their decimated push.
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After a game spent in a constant state of fear, blind panic, and hasty crisis management, our opponents quit without a GG. Bio Drops, constant nydus, nuke harass, burrowed banes, ling flanks everywhere, they never had a non-panicking moment once the midgame hit. Nothing demoralizes quite like fear that banelings and nukes are everywhere.

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<3 Burrowed banes. If I weren't so bad at Zerg, I might give it a go 1v1.

Thanks for reading this far. It was definitely a fun match. Shout-out to Froadac for being a fun 2v2 partner. Let me know what I can do to improve these battle reports in the future!

http://drop.sc/32466

Felo

Germany392 Posts

September 06 2011 11:04 GMT

Aww,

its been a long time not reading battle reports. I really liked your layout with the picture-in-picture and the colors

Interesting game as well, when I play teamgames I'm always scared of teams that are able to apply constant non-all-in-pressure because a lot of players tremble to that.

Good job winning the game!

redoxx

United States333 Posts

September 06 2011 13:42 GMT

Oh man this makes me want to 2v2 really bad now. Thanks for the report! To improve, lets see... just do more of them!

NeoLearner

Belgium1847 Posts

September 06 2011 14:01 GMT

Awesome battle report, always enjoy reading Zerg battle Reports. Very nice move though, forcing them to unsiege with a nuke and then flanking with a nydus.

Shows that all those: "You should Nydus more" people of the beta were actually talking about 2V2

Wyred

United States52 Posts

September 06 2011 21:28 GMT

Nice post. The split screenshots and colored/bold words made me be able to actually read it through. Do more.

dose banelings. wtf is stealth detection?

Froadac

United States6733 Posts

September 06 2011 22:31 GMT

Lol. Was such an epic game >.>

The game before we got stomped, but I was like .04 seconds away from dropping a nuke on the enemy army before my ghost died.

Blazinghand

United States25562 Posts

September 07 2011 02:28 GMT

On September 07 2011 07:31 Froadac wrote:
Lol. Was such an epic game >.>

The game before we got stomped, but I was like .04 seconds away from dropping a nuke on the enemy army before my ghost died.

Yeah in that previous game we were not very coordinated. I'm very pleased with the results of this one though. Next time we have a particularly epic 2v2 I'll make a report of that, too. I can't do these too often since it takes a fair amount of time to take screenshots that do the game justice, but I'll see if I can't do more.

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[Sc2 Battle Report] Froadac & Blazinghand 2v2

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