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Well, I feel like I have a pretty good knowledge of 2v2, having played at least 1000 games at A- or higher on the ICCUP 2v2 ladder. Being A- in 2v2 is not like being A- in 1v1. 2v2 tends to be more about teamplay and experience than being extremely good individually. As an individual player I'd probably be lucky to break B-.
I would like to write a long strategy guide on 2v2, as I like to verbalize my own thoughts on the subject since I tend to do things naturally instead of really analyzing it. It's helpful for me as well as others who might be interested in my advice.
To begin with I thought I'd just make a poll asking for what matchup advice I should write about first. I'm best as a Terran player on a TZ team, but I have played every combo with my partner to quite a great degree (barring TT, so that means TZ, PZ, ZZ, TP, as T P and Z).
If you have any questions about 2v2 I would like to try to answer them, and here's the poll about the first matchup guide I should write:
Poll: Matchup Guide #1
(Vote): TZ vs PZ
(Vote): TZ vs TZ
(Vote): TZ vs TP
(Vote): TZ vs ZZ
(Vote): TZ vs PP
(Vote): TZ vs TT
 
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Me and my friend tried playing some 2v2 as a PT team without any base at all. Did alrightish but any vague/general advice?
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I've got a question: do all teams without a zerg suck as much as everyone says? What makes Zerg so useful in 2v2?
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So I've been playing 2v2 off and on over the years, with stagnate abilities. Highest rank with my partner was something C- last season.
One thing I have a really big problem with, though, is actually the PZ vs PZ matchup (not exactly something you mentioned unfortunately, but any help would be appreciated). To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what my build (as Zerg) should be: I go 9pool speed basically in every MU, and I was wondering whether that is something that should be done.
It seems that I'm easily countered by an overpool, which seems to be growing fairly popular.
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United States4991 Posts
I'd say vs PZ....
I'd like to see some stuff about what you also find counters what you guys are doing, if possible :D
Btw I assume you're Zach?
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TZ vs PZ please, and if you could, can you also add what the PZ could be doing to counter what ure doing? So it's like to 2 sided guide. (For both TZ vs PZ and PZ vs TZ.)
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I would like an overall guide for 2v2, it's really a very uncovered subject as far as guides go, although there are a few floating around. Are you going to try to cover all the combinations, or just as a race in general?
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I would like to learn more about mu specific strats with extensive explanation, specially involving the PZ combo vs others.
For example, when PZ is facing double zerg, I often start arguing with my Z part that I should double stargate corsair, while he says I should always go speed zealots/archon.
On which situation should I go for which?
Thanks in advance 
Looking forward for this guide
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both sides of pz vs tz definitely
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#1 yes this is Zach lol  Haven't played in the last ~3.5 months but I still remember plenty.
I'm just gonna answer the questions in this thread more quickly while I write a more comprehensive TZ vs PZ guide that I'll post in a few days
On July 19 2009 14:24 MiniRoman wrote:
Me and my friend tried playing some 2v2 as a PT team without any base at all. Did alrightish but any vague/general advice?
My vague/general advice for a TP team is you either both go for turtling and getting your expo, because TP team both with nat will beat a ZX team both with nats, or you go for a huge macro 1 base kind of thing, like TP vs TZ where you might have 3 gate goon obs + 4 fac speed vults, and you wait for the obs and speed/mines then move out with a huge group of units and try to kill one either the T or the Z (the TZ T will feel pressured to expand soonish, because it's often his responsibility to get big and be the carry for the game, but occasionally you can see a zerg being the carry with mass mutas. So you can often catch them in the window that they think they can expand with your 1 base-mass). It can be difficult for TZ to scout what the TP team is doing, and if the TP T goes wraiths it completely changes what the T needs to do. If the TP T lets the other team scout him then it's a lot more difficult to win, but it's not too hard to stop since you can wall and ol's cant see anything cause of your marines. Usually when I'm TZ T vs TP I go gols, so sometimes a surprise 4 fac mass vult with 3 gate goon obs can be very difficult to stop. It's also important both you and your ally scout all the time; for example, if the TZ team knew you were gonna do that 1 base mass thing while you wait for obs/speed/mines, a good counter is for the zerg AND terran to expand fast, the T makes tanks only, gives his ally 2 before you move out, the zerg makes 3-4 sunkens, and now your goon/vult won't work vs either of them, and they've both got expos. So if you see them do that, you should both expand as well. If they let the T AND P expand it's almost always over for them.
On July 19 2009 14:32 GhostKorean wrote:
I've got a question: do all teams without a zerg suck as much as everyone says? What makes Zerg so useful in 2v2?
Zerg is important because both of the units used the most in 2v2, lings and mutas, are very mobile and lend themselves to harass and map control. Mutas can come in and attack the mineral line when anyone moves out, they can cross the map much more quickly than other units. Lings can run from one side to the other way faster than say, slow zealots. There's way too many examples to list of whats that mobility comes in handy, but I'm sure you can figure it out. TT and PP are really bad. TP can be pretty decent. However, I'd say that if any team without a Z beats a team with a Z, then they're just straight up better than the Z team. If you had 4 equally good players who were all super good, then the team with Z will always win. This isn't true of ZZ teams though; I think TT and TP both have it pretty easy vs ZZ. However, ZZ will tend to rape any ZX team.
On July 19 2009 14:38 DarkOptik wrote:
So I've been playing 2v2 off and on over the years, with stagnate abilities. Highest rank with my partner was something C- last season.
One thing I have a really big problem with, though, is actually the PZ vs PZ matchup (not exactly something you mentioned unfortunately, but any help would be appreciated). To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what my build (as Zerg) should be: I go 9pool speed basically in every MU, and I was wondering whether that is something that should be done.
It seems that I'm easily countered by an overpool, which seems to be growing fairly popular.
Just a general answer, if you have a more specific question feel free to ask: PZ vs PZ is 95% of the time the same 2 strategies, 9 pool or 12 pool. If you 12 pool, you will be relegated to turtling and going muta most of the time, because your lings will just be too slow to get out to make a difference, forcing your ally to turtle as well. This can be fine, as long as you both are capable of accurately gauging your enemy and what you can and can't get away with. It's important not to overdo your sunkens if you can see they aren't massing to kill you, and are instead expanding or teching or whatever to take advantage of your turtling. Of course, this won't be the case in a 12p vs 12p or something, but that's pretty rare.
9 pool is the most common opening PZ vs PZ, because if possible you want to contain the zerg's lings, and this is the easiest way to do it. If your opponents go 12p, you're guaranteed to be able to contain his lings should he choose to make any, since you can send 1 zealot + 6 lings to his ramp, hold it, maybe kill a drone if you're lucky, and then as soon as 3 zealots get there your allies now 12-15 speedlings can control the other P, and stop him from coming out. If you see your opponent IS massing lings off a 12p, or even a 9p, but you've managed to contain him, a basic rule is that 5 zealots on the ramp (3 in front, 2 in back) is enough to hold way way more than a cost efficient number of lings.
Basic micro rule in 9p zealot vs 9p zealot is to always try to come in at a "T," so that your units are perpendicular to theirs (theirs being the vertical line in the T) so you can flank easily/get more hits in. Always try to let your ally's zealots get targeted before you bring your lings in. Lings are gonna be doing the most damage, but are the most fragile; it's kinda like ultra-ling except the ultras are zealots. This is easy obviously when you're just microing but gets harder when you are actually...playing the game. Haha. Just practice and it becomes kind of second nature.
A final note on 12p...it's quite easy once you get your timings down and scout well. If you are lazy, or don't feel like microing hard, there's nothing wrong at all with 12p into muta. However, it does let the other protoss open with goons if they catch it fast enough, or transition to 3 gate goon quickly. This is difficult to deal with if they do it fast enough because sunkens suck a dick against ranged goons, and your ally won't be able to help you.
Also, this is for the P, but generally it's not a good idea to go goon PZ vs PZ. Most of the time it's a 9p 3gate vs 9p 3 gate, and then both tosses tech to legs and dt before expoing with a few cannons (fewer if you have your ally's OL at your nat). When you go goon, you'll get raped too easily by dts. It's a very common situation in PZ vs PZ for there to be a ton of micro fights in the middle, then the Z's get their mutas out, the P's get their expos, both have DTs, both contain one another, both get robo/obs, and both come out with a large zealot/archon army with their first obs. Sometimes the Z can get OL speed if he's beating the other Z muta vs muta, which is very helpful. So really, going goon early is pretty bad unless it's the situation I described above, vs a turtle zerg where goons will defend vs the 1 hatch fast muta/rape the sunkens. Of course, later, when you've got obs, 2 base, etc, 6-7 range goons in your army are very helpful for dealing with the mass archons both P's will begin to have. Storm is not as good PZ vs PZ, but I might get it sometimes if the enemy mutas are really fucking shit up. Even then, it's better to wait til a bit past midgame before getting it. Getting early storm PZ vs PZ is a waste of money. In big middle fights archons/splash do much more than storm.
On July 19 2009 19:26 Leath wrote:I would like to learn more about mu specific strats with extensive explanation, specially involving the PZ combo vs others. For example, when PZ is facing double zerg, I often start arguing with my Z part that I should double stargate corsair, while he says I should always go speed zealots/archon. On which situation should I go for which? Thanks in advance Looking forward for this guide
If you see that both zergs are early turtling and going for mutas, then you can get 2 stargates (this is rare). What my partner and I like doing PZ vs ZZ is he turtles to muta and I get 1 gate stargate, because it's more common for the zergs to have one guy go fastish muta with lings while the other lings and then they try to hit you early/kill your Z ally. One of them will probably expand as well. The other style PZ vs ZZ is to get really early gates, like 9/10, and your ally mass lings, and you engage in micro fights...this is a much more difficult style of PZ vs ZZ and requires very good micro and very good awareness, timing, and "game sense."
I get 1 stargate (no +1 either) just to ensure that my ally will always win muta vs muta fights vs the zerg who got his mutas (usually the guy who expanded) at the same time as my ally. Even though the guy has 2 gas it takes awhile for that to give him an advantage over my ally, and with my sairs, he can't hope to match my ally until that point. Once my ally is significantly ahead my sairs can be used for killing ols etc. I rarely make over 4 at any time, as that's enough to 100% ensure my ally will win all his fights and get a huge headstart. Once he has that, he can expo pretty easily. I get legs and some dts at the same time, kind of old school PvZ (sair->dt->cannon->expo), although you often don't need any cannons in a 2v2 since it's doubtful the other zerg is gonna have enough hydras/ol speed to make it a real problem. Once your ally is beating the other zerg's mutas and you've got your expo it's a simple matter to win.
Beating ZZ is really just about denying their mobility advantage and then preventing them from expoing more than once. If the zerg who expoed can get 3 bases, or the zerg who didn't expo can get his nat, that's when it can get really difficult. If you cut out their mobility advantage so that they can't translate that into free expos later in the game, then ZZ actually becomes quite bad later on.
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It's gonna be a few days before I finish writing my TZ vs PZ guide, and I will be sure to cover both sides and what counters what as well.
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Funny how things work out
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what do you mean, talk to me
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why, are you going to write another 3rd grade essay psychoanalyzing my motivations?
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If you want to troll me, do so via PM; I've banned you from this blog because it has a purpose and you are clearly here to divert it.
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Vatican City State491 Posts
Can you post a link to your accounts, where you got A- and on which you played 1000 games?
I also find some of the things you wrote dubious - fast expand in PZ vs PZ with DTs? I dont have that much 2v2 experience but I always saw protoss going quite early cannons and 2stargate corsairs to rape the enemy zerg, which lead to corsair vs corsair battles.
As for XZ vs ZZ I always thought that the exanding zerg did not go muta, because it would be simply too slow... despite the fact that the XZ zerg will be probably turtling with sunkens.
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not entirely true, you can expo with zerg and still go mutas O_O
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i dunno wtf essays people are writing about you, but I'd like to see your accounts as well, i might recognize you from the 2x2 ladder page
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On July 20 2009 08:24 closed wrote:
Can you post a link to your accounts, where you got A- and on which you played 1000 games?
I also find some of the things you wrote dubious - fast expand in PZ vs PZ with DTs? I dont have that much 2v2 experience but I always saw protoss going quite early cannons and 2stargate corsairs to rape the enemy zerg, which lead to corsair vs corsair battles.
As for XZ vs ZZ I always thought that the exanding zerg did not go muta, because it would be simply too slow... despite the fact that the XZ zerg will be probably turtling with sunkens.
No, I'm not going to post a link to my accounts, but you can go look at them if you want to...my akas are nazareth, apparition, xiagongguan, krishna, immortality, disgraceful, disturbing, smashed, nirnaeth, honkhonkbeep, littlebigboy, intheautumn, mutemedia. You're not going to see any A-'s in my previous records...you'll see like 8 B's, a few B+'s, etc. I never played for my stats, I played to play. I didn't worry about stat whoring to get an A-, then stop playing on the account and start a new one like half the 2v2 players. I didn't sit around for weeks between games waiting for noobs to finally get to B- so I could bash them for +97 pts to get my A-. I got A- with 80-17 in my last season and I ended it with stats like 150-100 or something 8 weeks later. I played 2v2 for something like 4 seasons, but I haven't played the last full season nor this current season. I don't have any single account with 1000 games alone... I haven't really played SC in ~4 months now, I quit because it was messing with my academics too much. I also really disliked the 2v2 atmosphere. Almost every single "top" player is a complete asshole. If you were to put some sort of recording bot into the 2v2 iccup channel and have it only record lines more than a few letters long, I think you'd be pretty disgusted by how unpleasant it is. Even the Koreans at the top in 2v2 spout broken English curses all the time. I suppose if you're looking for a green icon on one of my accounts, I can't provide it, and you'll just have to take my word for it. If you want to ask metal[x], since he has those green icons, I've played him quite a few times on those names up there and he ought to be able to verify that I am "A-" 2v2 (this is not a huge accomplishment). The koreans who are always high up on the 2v2 ladder - Batista, Hotba, Core, Yan...they are all in aaa clan on Asia, and they played in the CKBTV Hunters 2v2 tournament for that team. They all got completely massacred by guy[sss] and kiss[sss]. It just goes to show that A- in 2v2 on ICCUP is defined only by the lack of real Korean teamplayer interest.
I believe you misread what I said about PZ vs PZ. I did not say you should FE PZ vs PZ. I said a common pattern you'll see in PZ vs PZ is 3 gate zealot + 9p lings fighting in the middle for the first 7-8 minutes while both zergs are teching to spire and both P's get to templar tech, then both Z's fight with mutas while both P's expand and contain one another with dt because there are no speed ols and no robo yet. Both P's try to time their robo so it won't fuck their macro too much but still will allow them to come out before the other P, so there is often a small 3-4 minute lull during this period. And you are watching very noob players if you're somehow seeing sair vs sair in all the PZ vs PZ you watch....sair is fucking terrible in PZ vs PZ and I've literally never ever seen it used past a C- 2v2 level. The description you gave suggests a game where one toss would turtle...go 2 gate sair...and then the other toss counters this by going sairs as well? That would just be like D----- logic.
Expanding zerg can easily go muta and match the XZ zerg's mutas, ESPECIALLY on a ZZ team (suppppper easy to expand, even a 12p expo to muta is still going to be fine vs a fast muta XZ zerg, since 1 hatch muta will be a 12p build), and if he needs to, he can get a couple spores (only if he fucks up his timing badly). After 1 minute or so he'll rape the XZ Zerg if the X race doesn't help at all. ZZ is a tenuous matchup and while ZZ is supposed to imbalanced in 2v2 it's only imba when the players are good...ZZ is pretty damn bad when the players are not both experienced 2v2 players who know what they are doing and have good teamwork. The only way a ZZ team can't have someone expand fast is perhaps vs a smart PZ team, which is when I personally do a 12p expo build, or if the non-expo zerg stupidly does not 9p. Even if the PZ team knows how to deal with the expo early with zealots and lings if their timing is off by anything more than 10 seconds then they won't be able to do anything about it.
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a question, why would you consider PP such a bad combination? I've played with it for quite a while with a friend, and even though early game can be difficult against TZ, it seems balanced vs PZ and ZZ. Also, I don't know if it's because PP is strong in lategame or that all 2v2 players suck, but it seems like we rarely lose games past 15 minutes even against A- 2v2 teams. I'm not sure how often you play vs PP cause it's not that common, but how do you know it's so bad?
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Who is your teammate Shauni? I don't mean to brag but I do recall playing you and your teammate and I think we 6-0 or 7-0d you TZ vs PP 2v2 on a variety of maps, maybe 2 Python 3 Andro and I can't remember the last, one of the MOTWs at the time. Maybe it wasn't your teammate; I don't recall who it was; your name was Get.Shauni. I have to express skepticism to your claim that A- teams can't beat a PP team after the 15 minute mark.
My point is that a good TZ team will always completely dominate a PP team, even if you let both P get an expo. TZ unit combo just rapes PP units, even 2x as many. One game my ally and I won a PP vs TZ but it took us 40 minutes and mining out the entire map. The terran had 3 bases, the zerg 2, and my ally and I each had 3. We ended up winning in the end mining out our islands and using recalls and carriers. Our opponents were significantly worse than we were individually but they knew how to use their units. I recall one attack we had in the midgame where we had probably 350 pop of units combined and it all melted to ling/hydra/tank/mines, you cannot control a P ground army vs T ground army when there are lings and mutas and hydras fucking with your units while they try to advance on tanks and even mines. If you want to try to "split" the tech, temp vs robo, then you can go ahead and do that but its very difficult to have one person controlling obs properly for both armies while macroing microing and just doing all that normal stuff, while the other guy is supposed to compensate in terms of temp tech. Most of the time both P's have to get all the techs. It's also pretty unlikely that a P will ever get his expo up vs a TZ team. The few times that any PP teams manage to even get 1 expo up for 1 player it is completely raped a few minutes later by my 6 fac push because I'm able to expand soooo much earlier than the P can once I lay a few mines. I give my ally a couple tanks, he gets his expo too, the P's finally come out...and they can't do shit against us, both with expos, turtled up and seriously outmassing them while they still don't even have expos. It's even worse if you have to tech split, and only one guy has obs and has to have 1 for his choke, 1 for his ally's choke. Yea you MIGHT get to expand right after your obs is out but I expanded 3 minutes ago and your expo is only going to last a minute tops.
I wouldn't even say it's really that accurate to say PP is difficult "early" vs TZ...if you want to not die, you won't die vs TZ. It's really easy to defend, actually, cannons or 5 zealot goon. But you'll be stuck and absolutely wrecked in midgame, and there's quite literally nothing you can do about it. TZ vs PP is a free win for us, and we don't even have to try very hard.
I honestly think 2 C+ 1v1ers but very competent 2v2ers could beat a PP team with TZ even if both P's were A level 1v1ers.
PP is not AS weak vs PZ and ZZ as it is vs TZ, but I think it's still weak. I'd say PP <<< TZ, PP <<PZ, and PP < ZZ with the number of < equaling how much worse.
PP vs PZ is bad because it lets the other P tech easily while his ally goes 9p to keep zealots from annoying his ally going goons. There are two options I generally go for PZ vs PP, I like goon/reaver and obs if I see someone going DT (rarely, if ever, goes this late), and occasionally if I'm being lazy and don't want to micro I'll go for DT (weak vs PP, since you need that obs to move around since one is sure to do DT tech). PZ vs PP almost always is able to kill one of the P's or at least really fuck them up with Ol sight and goons to kill zealots on the ramp. This forces both P's to get cannons early, probably before they even get to tech. This is a massive disadvantage. By the time they manage to move out I usually have my reavers, goons, and expo done/near done. They'll have far fewer units because I've been picking off zealots all game as well, if not outright killing them.
PP vs ZZ is ok just in the same way TT vs ZZ is, you can kind of play it as a 1v1 and P does better off 1 base than Z does, while only 1 Z is likely able to expand on the ZZ team. P needs significantly more/further tech than T does to "melt" a zerg army though, so they are not able to move out as quickly.
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Yeah, as I said TZ vs PP is slightly imba to put it mildly, and I wouldn't doubt anyone saying they beat me and my ally (coulthard) with a TZ team. I'm not even a 2v2 player and I know for sure my mechanics only help me in lategame, that's why I said that once we get past 15 minutes with expo up, even with a disadvantage, beating good teams is far from impossible. We still haven't figured out how to get past early game in a good way without using any kind of allinish build against TZ. If you do a timing attack at 2x 7 zealots you can usually kill the zerg or cripple him before the vultures appear (especially if zerg techs to mutas, although most common is 3 hatch ling), but if he survives it'll be painful to deal with the terran. If you try to tech to fast observers, you'll get raped by early vultures + lings when you try to move out so I think best way would be for both to stick with a zealgoon combination with lots of gates (and drag mines) to be able to deal with the ling mass. But yeah, it's still pretty difficult. I was basically responding to ask you how to deal with TZ teams as PP (this is a question) , not to claim that we beat them all the time. But I would say that PP fares quite well against both PZ and ZZ, especially on maps where you can both forge expand.
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Well I'd say you're pretty much correct about how to deal with a TZ team with PP, because really there's not much you can do about it except get "lucky." I think that often the T on the TZ team expos very soon after he lays his mines at each choke and that using some zealots to mine drag and then getting out with a good number of zealots and some goons from both P can be strong early. This is cause the T won't have kept his macro up right when he's expoing and you might catch him with his pants down while his ally stopped linging and his siege mode isn't done cause they thought they had you contained.
My solution to this from PP is to only lay 2 mines from every vulture I use so that if they do break out and I did stop making enough vults I still have enough mines to lay some more and stop the push past the P's nat choke. A mistake a lot of T's make that let's a PP team do that kind of attack is laying all their mines at the chokes, when in reality its often more psychological; most P's won't try to come out when they know there are mines there, so you can lay just a couple to fake them out and save the rest in case they are smart enough to mine drag to try to get out.
And yeah I wasn't trying to brag about beating you, I was just using it as an example that I don't think PP can really ever win vs TZ even if the individuals are better players than the TZ players are.
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do you think maps like god's garden make PP teams more viable because they have an easy to secure expansion?
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I plead ignorance because I haven't even seen any of the recent maps. Early expansions for PP only work vs ZZ and PZ, vs TZ it's still suicide
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
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Hi. I'm only D+ so sorry if these are obvious questions. Me and my partner play PZ on iccup and have been having a lot of trouble lately. When we are playing PZ v PZ I usually go 12 gas 11 pool. Then I start my lair right when the pool finishes and get muta from there. My ally always goes 2 gate and slowly techs to templar/archon. I feel like the later pool gives me a slight econ advantage over a zerg going 9 pool, but at the same time I have less lings. I always end up building a sunken as well. Is having more lings more beneficial than having an extra drone?
Also I never know when to expand in that matchup. I never feel safe enough to take my nat.
And my last question at the moment, when playing PZ v PT, could it be viable to do a lurker build? I usually open 12 hatch, then go muta. I know muta provide good map control but it seems like lurkers could work to me.
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On July 26 2009 04:12 Chaos- wrote:
And my last question at the moment, when playing PZ v PT, could it be viable to do a lurker build? I usually open 12 hatch, then go muta. I know muta provide good map control but it seems like lurkers could work to me.
I remember metal[x] (A- 2v2 terran) saying to do muta regardless of the matchup because the zerg will always have less units and therefore needs to just abuse mobility and harass as much as possible. Also lurkers splash your ally's units so I don't recommend them personally
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Thanks. I didn't think about splash killing my ally, I guess that could be a huge problem.
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I kind of went over 12p vs 9p already. 12p is relegated to going muta, going lings after 12p won't work vs a good PZ team. Vs a bad PZ team, you can do it because they won't contain you. Maybe if they decide to suicide all their units against your opponents blocked ramp, you can make some lings, but odds are you wont' have gotten speed and you won't be in a production mode.
Smart opponent Z will make his first 6 lings, see you doing nothing with his ol, and go pure drones and catch up to you in muta quickly. Noob will continue making lings and lose to your sunkens because it's easy to build really irritating sunken hatch formations. If you 12p, use this BO: 12p, 11 drone, 12 gas, 11 hatch, then sunkens for when pool finish. Pure drones. Place your hatch to help block any units that try to attack. On Python, you can place the pool so the top right corner makes a diagonal with the extractor's bottom left corner on all spots but 9; then you can place a sunken directly to the right
You can expand as soon as you have map control with mutas. If they don't have any anti air, how can they stop you from expanding if you are way ahead in mutas? Abuse your mutas. If you're unsure, wait for your ally's DTs to control the map, and snipe your opponents OLs at your base, any cliffs, and your ally's base. Then he can expand with his tech.
PZ vs PT lurker is ok, it can work, but muta provides much better map control and in skilled micro hands can do far more damage. It also lets you strike at the workers of the opponents, which is important because PT relies on both getting expos to be effective, which can be severely limited by worker harass. It also requires a lot more static defense to defend vs mutas, which costs a lot more money. A T can have 6 turrets at his mineral line or 1 at his front for mutas vs lurkers, respectively.
Here are some sunken placements I like when I'm turtling, you can swap out any sunken for a spire, in a couple I put like 3 hatches just to show you can put the 2nd in either spot.
Make sure you watch your opponent zerg very carefully to avoid being offensive sunkened. It's easy to stop when you know it's coming but if you don't have to it's always better not to have to make a weirdish sunken to stop it. These are all positioned so you can hotkey your drones to something and when enemies come in, maynard the drones to you extractor to then spam stop and fuck with their units and block them. Only problem with any of these is that at 9 any good sunken formation necessarily blocks your drones maynard OUT of the base, so if you were trying to run away and somehow the top sunken between mineral and gas was still alive your drones will go completely stupid and refuse to come out. Hatches below one another are better than horizontally, usually, cause it's easier for sunkens to cover both of them.
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Awesome. Thanks for taking the time to do all that! So when the Z is turtling like this, should the P be doing 2 gate or 3 gate? My partner can never decide when to 3 gate. (I'm still assuming the PZ v PZ matchup) If I recall correctly, in ZvZ, you're supposed to get +1 armor upgrade for muta. Should I still do this in 2v2? If so, when? Thanks for all this it's been super helpful so far, especially for someone like me who prefers 2v2.
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If you are turtling, your ally should be 2 gating and getting a tech advantage over the P. Then your mutas kill the ols and the DTs let your ally expand and get map control.
If you fuck up though, and don't defend properly, it's possible you can lose cause he simply won't have enough units to help you vs 3 gate zealot + mass lings. It really depends. If he has been going 2 gate zealot the entire time and you barely survive an all in, he can give you 3-4 and it's fine. He can also send you his first zealot to help your sunkens if you can manage it, this makes a huge difference in close fights.
Both of you need to be capable of properly gauging the number of units your opponents have and defending with the minimum necessary. If you end up making 19 sunkens your tech won't be any faster.
Don't 3 gate unless your ally goes 9 pool, otherwise neither of you will be coming out of your bases. The 12p is too slow and lets them contain either one of you. Get +1 attack with muta if you are doing more sniping kinda stuff, get +1 carapace if lots of muta vs muta fights, don't get it when it's fairly close, get it when you've got a bit of an advantage in muta numbers. It's not a huge deal like it is in 1v1.
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Ok I feel like I have a decent understanding of how PZ v PZ works at least.
A few days ago my partner and I played PZ v ZT. The Zerg and I both opened 9 pool and went really ling heavy early on, both of us getting early speed. My ally went 2 gate (probably should have gone 3, but we didn't know that yet), and the Terran went vult. Basically what happened was the Zerg held off me and my ally long enough for the vults to wreak havoc. When I say he held us off it was more along the lines of him slowly dying and slowly losing a drone or two here or there, but we couldn't do enough damage to really finish him. The vults came out and the guy had speed for them along with some really good micro, so he just plowed through our lings and zealots, then pretty much killed all my allies probes. The Zerg was then able to ling me down far enough for me to leave the game since all of my lings died to those vult.
So I guess my question would be what should we typically go for in PZ v ZT? Should the toss get goon relatively early? Should I not get as many lings and tech straight to mutas? I've heard things where the Z can 9 pool and just fight off the other Z while the toss cannons in the T. Does that ever really work? I feel clueless about this matchup and we lose it pretty much every time.
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I have a question for PZ vs TZ. If my ally goes 9p ling and i go fast goon, eventually into 3 gate goons, is it neccesary to cannon incase of mass mm.
Another question, this is off-topic but do you play hunters? I noticed your ]N[exus tag.
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Goon 9 pool is designed for a very specific game flow and if it goes awry you are basically fucked. 9p + first couple goons need to ensure your ally contains the opponent Z, then you goon contain the MM. If you have to goon AND cannon vs MM you'll probably end up losing. MM + lings completely rape goon + lings on open ground so its very important you keep them separated.
Chaos- I'll address your stuff when I finally get around to releasing my guide, real life became very busy recently so I haven't finished it.
I was in ]N[exus 4 years ago, I just use the tag now for fun.
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As someone who will probably be thoroughly reading your guide (as if that isn't already obvious), I figured I would list a couple general things that would be really helpful to include.
First, I think a general explanation of how 2v2s should work in general would be extremely helpful. Things such as map control are extremely important, but if you could really go into detail about how to get advantages and then how to use them, that would help a lot.
Second, A general idea of what to do in common situations. For example, PZ v PZ, both teams go 3 gate and 9 pool. So that makes it pretty even both sides right? So how do you gain an advantage when your opponents are doing the same thing as you? Is there a way to adjust your build to gain an advantage or do you just have to outplay them at that point?
I'm just trying to think of what would be most helpful to me as a D+/C- 2v2 player. The way you have gone about answering questions in this thread has already been very helpful. ^_^
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As a no skill 1v1, but a 2v2er with only slightly more skill, I look forward to your guide.
=D
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I was wondering if you could give me some tips on a TZ vs PZ mach up. I play TZ_T my ally plays TZ_Z. We are around a 2000 in 2v2, and never play 1v1. We play on python
I know you have already given lots of information about these builds, which i greatly appreciate, but i haven't found a solution to our issue. We can normally stand our own very well, in fact, i think we had like a 70 % win ratio at one point. We normally don't have a problem with these mach ups as long as we can get past the beginning. See, if we get rushed, we always loose. The situation is this. My ally gets attacked by zerglings and zealots. The enemy protoss gets a 2 gate which with he makes 3 zealots. Both my ally and the enemy zerg do either a 12 pool or a 9 pool, it doesnt matter which. The enemy presumes to attack my ally before he can place sunkans by his ramp. The enemy attack as he is making his second hatchery by his ramp. It is usually almost done when he gets attacked. Both zergs are generally teching to mutas. When this attack hits, we always loose, as this 8 lings cant beat the enemy 8 lings as well as 3 zealots.
This attack also happens before i can pump out any vultures, or medics, so there is nothing I can do to help him. If he instead makes a lot of lings to prottect, then he gets hit by mutas, and we still loose.
Thanks in advance
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So, I'm a bit confused. Is this the 2v2 guide itself, or are you/were you planning on writing another guide?
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I'm the OP. I'll be writing this guide in a few days; I'm sorry I thought I had time when I made this blog but I didn't. I'll be moving into my apartment in 2 days and then there is about a week before school starts that I can use to write the guide. I'll be sure to incorporate all the questions in here as well.
A few days ago my partner and I played PZ v ZT. The Zerg and I both opened 9 pool and went really ling heavy early on, both of us getting early speed. My ally went 2 gate (probably should have gone 3, but we didn't know that yet), and the Terran went vult. Basically what happened was the Zerg held off me and my ally long enough for the vults to wreak havoc. When I say he held us off it was more along the lines of him slowly dying and slowly losing a drone or two here or there, but we couldn't do enough damage to really finish him. The vults came out and the guy had speed for them along with some really good micro, so he just plowed through our lings and zealots, then pretty much killed all my allies probes. The Zerg was then able to ling me down far enough for me to leave the game since all of my lings died to those vult.
So I guess my question would be what should we typically go for in PZ v ZT? Should the toss get goon relatively early? Should I not get as many lings and tech straight to mutas? I've heard things where the Z can 9 pool and just fight off the other Z while the toss cannons in the T. Does that ever really work? I feel clueless about this matchup and we lose it pretty much every time.
I realized I never really answered this because I said I'd put it in my guide, since it was such a general question. I'll answer it briefly and go into more detail in a few days.
Quick note: when I say "you" and "your" I'm referring to you being the protoss player, even though you said you're the zerg. I guess I'm just used to being the P/T on a team.
When the Terran on the Z side techs, the #1 goal for the entire game is to get your team's zerg to rape the other team's zerg in muta vs muta. If the TZ team goes mech, then usually the zerg on that team will go fast muta to ensure that they have air control. As you can imagine, if the TZ team has no air control, then the PZ team having mutas can be a huge problem for the T, as he's now forced to make enough goliaths to protect himself/move out while the P is free to go goons.
If the TZ Z does go fast muta while his ally mechsm you can just go 3 gate goon with obs for the P and get muta asap for the Z. You want to pressure the other Z to get your ally ahead. Goons really own sunkens so it's not hard to fuck with the zerg, and the T probably only has vults and mines vs your goon/obs; he won't have enough tanks to actually MOVE, only to defend at that point. Your ally can usually expand as well if you do well enough; the T probably mined you in, maybe he tried to harass your ally (a few well placed sunkens can defeat this), then he almost assuredly expanded, because it's too hard to get enough tanks after a vult opening to actually do anything without an expansion in 2v2.
So, vs a mech opening, you should definitely turtle to muta asap while your ally turtles to obs and mass goon with maybe 5-7 zealots, depending on what you see the other zerg doing. If they go 9p mech then you almost certainly win, because you can just go 12p muta and get map control and air control. If they do go 9p tech then your ally does have to make those 5-7 zealots so he doesn't die to lings, but if they go muta/tech which is a much more common/viable combo, then your ally probably won't even need to make more than 1-3 zealots and can just go straight into 3 gate goon. Muta/ling does own goons but if you have a good number of goons, like 12, which is very easy off 3 gate goon, it takes a lot of lings to take them down (plus he went mutas, and 12 goons can take down a 1 base muta build pretty easily). What I'm saying is that goons are not a problem because the other zerg either won't have enough mutas to matter vs it, or if he went lings first will get pwned by your team's mutas anyways, and the T won't have enough units to move into open ground aggressively vs 12 goons off a vult opening once you've got obs. In other words...scouting is everything. You need to know what openings your opponents are using and then just counter them.
It's much much more common to face MM in PZ vs TZ, which I'll cover in greater detail in my guide in a few days. To answer your last question, it's actually quite common for a P to cannon in the T, or to cannon his ally's ramp so his ally can go fast muta with a good economy and not use drones on defending himself. Just think about the fact that a P can go 2 gate, forge, then have 3 zealots and cannons warping in at the T choke while the T only has 4-5 marines. The 3 zealots will rape that, or at the very least keep him in long enough for the cannons to finish. Meanwhile, the PZ Zerg is 1v1ing the TZ zerg's lings long enough for the cannons to swap. Then you can just take the zealots to hold the ramp of the TZ zerg while the lings go help the cannons, since their speed makes them much better vs marines. P then goes dt/templar tech, can expo, depending on game, the Z can go muta or not, it all depends on what each team is scouting.
Basically...2v2 is scouting. lol
was wondering if you could give me some tips on a TZ vs PZ mach up. I play TZ_T my ally plays TZ_Z. We are around a 2000 in 2v2, and never play 1v1. We play on python
I know you have already given lots of information about these builds, which i greatly appreciate, but i haven't found a solution to our issue. We can normally stand our own very well, in fact, i think we had like a 70 % win ratio at one point. We normally don't have a problem with these mach ups as long as we can get past the beginning. See, if we get rushed, we always loose. The situation is this. My ally gets attacked by zerglings and zealots. The enemy protoss gets a 2 gate which with he makes 3 zealots. Both my ally and the enemy zerg do either a 12 pool or a 9 pool, it doesnt matter which. The enemy presumes to attack my ally before he can place sunkans by his ramp. The enemy attack as he is making his second hatchery by his ramp. It is usually almost done when he gets attacked. Both zergs are generally teching to mutas. When this attack hits, we always loose, as this 8 lings cant beat the enemy 8 lings as well as 3 zealots.
This attack also happens before i can pump out any vultures, or medics, so there is nothing I can do to help him. If he instead makes a lot of lings to prottect, then he gets hit by mutas, and we still loose.
Thanks in advance
Ok, your problem is very simple, haha. Don't ramp hatch TZ vs PZ. A ramp hatch WILL die vs a good team. The only time you can ever ramp hatch is if you 12pool and then you are able to place a sunken so it covers the hatch at the ramp as it is building, and you make lings nonstop the entire time after your pool finishes. Otherwise, zealot/ling is just impossible to hold without the help of sunkens if they choose to pressure you once they see your ramp hatch.
Another consideration is that if you ramp hatch and you end up having it live, but your opponent gets mutas first, then you've got to spore at your main hatch AND your ramp hatch. This can be a real pain in the ass. Sometimes in TZ vs TZ even if you get a chance to ramp hatch it can be better not to if you know you will be behind in muta speed.
Really you only ramp hatch vs a TZ team, when you are on a PZ team. You also can ramp hatch vs PT, TT, etc, depending on what's going on (although I usually take an expo with my 2nd hatch vs those teams).
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a friend of mine and me are playing with ZZ and I want to know how to beat a PZ if you say it's easy for ZZ to beat ZX
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@ OP... hmm, someone said you are zach.. wouldn't happen to be zackbum on some account would you?
Also, I have a question about when to use reavers in 2v2, if at all. So far every situation I've tried to use reavers in, be it harass or whatnot, I feel like templar or some other unit is a better choice. So, is there ever a situation to get reavers (in a PZ vs XX)?
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LJT uses reavers relatively often in PZ vs TZ. o_O
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This guide will never be posted, will it? I'm finding that opening with 3rax is not so good, and anderoo suggested I tech faster, (does that mean I just go fact-->port after 2nd rax while pumping?) what does that mean for my ebay timing? Before after the tech?
I've been playing quite a few games, but I haven't played with consistent allies in forever, and some random Zerg allies I got to vs PZ went 9pool then expanded. - -;
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3rax can only be good if they arent doing the stupid fast lair + cannon build. All other times you basically just want to tech as in vessals or dropship. Ebay timing shouldnt really matter, bc you have your ally ol for detection. Just add it whenever you have the spare minerals.
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On November 18 2009 11:11 Metal[x] wrote:
LJT uses reavers relatively often in PZ vs TZ. o_O
If only I had reps, if only ;(
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what do you need reps for? just cannon your front and make reavers T_T
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