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I haven't seen many threads dedicated to team strategies, and probably for good reason. For one, there are exponentially more variables when you add more players... a solid build order for 1v1 suddenly does not work for 2v2, because you cannot account for what both players can do in a single BO. God help you if you are in a 3v3 or 4v4, because all rules get thrown out the window there.
That being said, team games are a lot of fun, and can be really rewarding despite their zaniness. I think it would be worth discussing 2v2 strategy, tactics, and possibly some build orders. Team games are much less predictable than 1v1, but that can open up some creative possibilities!
I'll start off with some general observations about the 2v2 dynamic, as well as some tactics that have been useful for me:
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1. Most people play 2v2 games like two combined 1v1's. This is not the best way to play, in my opinion. For one, 1v1 build orders are optimized for specific timing windows that you can expect in a specific mu. These windows are almost impossible to predict in 2v2.
2. By the same token, strategies that would normally not work 1v1 are worth reevaluating for 2v2. You now have a teammate that can back you up, bolstering your offensive or protecting your weak point. Cheese tactics are no longer as risky, and bizarre army compositions are now workable. With proper teamwork, you can have a lot more flexibility with what you can get away with.
3. Teamwork is an entirely new skill to work on, and can make a tremendous difference. Good teamwork often rewards the aggressors: by choosing to attack together, a good team can gang up on one player, destroy their army, then turn around and finish the second. This means that combining armies can be critical. This also means that having voice communication is pretty much necessary. I can't comment on the quality of SC2's built in voice comm, but Ventrilo, Mumble and Teamspeak are great third party programs.
4. Some cross-race abilities synergize great with each other. Medivacs can heal a teammate's units. Fungal Growth can hold an army in place for Psionic Storm. Vortex can trap an army while a Ghost calls a nuke onto the area. 2 Zerg players can spread creep for each other. Use your imagination here, it can really pay off!
5. Aggression is greatly rewarded in team games because it allows you to dictate where/when you will fight, allowing you to isolate opponents more easily. Early pressure is much more effective, and defensive play is more easily punished.
Here is are 2 build orders that me and my friend use together. We both play zerg, and enjoy doing identical builds. We normally aim for early pressure, with a quick switch in focus to expanding and macro.
7 Pool
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7 Drone
7 Pool
8-9 Drone
9 OL
10 Drone
11-13 Zerglings
15 Queen/OL
17 Gas
Hatch around 20
Simple 7 pool, nothing complicated. This is a very common opening to see with two Zerg on a team together. But wait, isn't this cheese? In a 1v1, I'd say yes. It sets you back economically, and 6 zerglings aren't hard to deal with. If your opponent sees it coming, it is unlikely that you'll do much damage. In a 2v2, however, things are different. Showing up with 12 zerglings can be devastating at such an early point in the game, and if you don't win outright, you can easily do enough damage to knock one player out of the game. Absolutely don't over commit - after the initial 6 zerglings, focus on macro and expansion. Do enough damage to set the other players back, and then sit back and tech. A good team will not lose to this opening, but it will buy you time to establish a superior economy.
Here is a less cheesy opening:
5 Roach Rush
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9 Overlord
13 Spawning Pool
15 Extractor
15 Overlord
Zergling
Queen
Drone
Drone
Roach Warren (latest you should start is when queen is halfway done)
Drone
Overlord when queen pops, inject larvae
Drone
Re-inject
5 Roaches (Warren, OL, and injection should all pop very close to each other)
Overlord (31/34 food)
Zergling speed
Drone
Expansion when your roaches are walking to the enemy
Re-inject
Zerglings as you get the minerals, rallied to your opponent's base
Fistdantilus describes this opening better than I ever could, so do yourself a favor and check out his thread. I will say this: when two Zerg shows up so early with 5 roaches each, it is an absolute wrecking ball.
These are not complicated BO's: we are simply mirroring each other, and counting on our combined forces to smash our opponents early. Now start imagining more complicated builds, meant for cross-race teams... there are a multitude of possibilities.
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I dont want to be negative or anything but the game is not balanced around 2v2 and larger brackets, so I personally dont see the point.
But I do agree its alot of fun doing it teamwise, perhaps as a nice relax from the more intensive 1v1 laddering 
My friend and I play P,T and we do a very simple build.. 3rax, 4gate only marine and only zealot. Extremly boring after 50+ games though  However we just streamroll anyone who tries to tech/expand/is feelin abit too safe. Mostly people doing 2v2+ are not as active scouters so we get away with it 8/10 times. Probably the players are not really high calibre either im not sure.
However just doing this reached top diamond in no time. Did the same thing in 3v3 but T,T,P and I think we were rank 50 in the world as highest before we just got too bored of it hehe.
Most important is to attack early, and on maps where there is some distance between team bases you need to meet up your two forces asap and push a base together.
Anyway just my 2 cents hope I helped you in some way!
Regards,
Millzi
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Oh, the game is absolutely not balanced around 2v2! Why not have a discussion around it anyways? I've had a ton of fun playing with friends, and we're always excited to come up with a new, interesting build. Besides, maybe someone out there is taking a break from ZvT balance threads, and they'd like to talk about something different for a change 
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Here is a fun 2v2 strategy that will never work ever, The team Is P and Z the Zerg player proxy hatches and Sporecrawler pushes. and the Protoss rushes for mass Pheonix, for the graviton beam and to use in conjunction with the spore crawlers.
I'd love to see a team win using this it would be epic.
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Actually 2v2 is kinda balanced, they have been heavily changing the map pool in order to get various team combinations to have a roughly equal chance of winning. The game isn't balanced around 2v2, but they try to balance the maps to fix that.
I see 2v2 as three things, one, you go in with a rush build already planned due to map distances being so long you can't scout in time to cancel it.
Two you go in with a solid BO you want to use to win/get an advantage in early game.
Three you make the minimum you need to defend while teching/expanding and winning in mid game. This third one is the hardest since it involves the most scouting and adaptation on the fly.
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I want to add an strategy that I've encountered, and seems common in Diamond AT that is very nice. With a T,P Team They go 2 gate and Reapers. And then they send the zealots through the main ramp while they sneak some reapers through the side. Your troops can't defend from both attacks.
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On August 23 2010 17:41 PuercoPop wrote:
I want to add an strategy that I've encountered, and seems common in Diamond AT that is very nice. With a T,P Team They go 2 gate and Reapers. And then they send the zealots through the main ramp while they sneak some reapers through the side. Your troops can't defend from both attacks.
10 pool speedlings with 10 rax reapers is essentially the same build, but I find it to be considerably stronger. The best part is how economic a follow-through it has.
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i think the most common gripe right now is reaper/ling. As we saw in IEM, reapers might need to be fixed.
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I just go six proxy rax, six gas, reapers. Combined with some pool, dual gateway proxy, quick marines.
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I've found that phoenixes are really efficient in 2v2, especially if you have a good ally to back you up. It shuts down many options popular in 2v2, gives you map control, good scouting and harassment opportunities, and is really strong against zerg. We usually go MMM + phoenixes and chargelots. I normaly don't even bother to get gateway tech as the time for producing zealots doesn't change, so it's easier to macro, which is important, because phoenixes are quite micro intensive. In the late game I usually transition into carriers + mothership while he adds ghosts to the mix. Works wonders.
Also if we scout any early rush I usually open 12 gate, 14 forge which is good enough to defend most of the cheese. We're still working on the opening so maybe we'll try starting with reapers into phoenixes harass and then go MMM + ghosts and carriers + mothership.
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Bump from the dead... My good reason is this is the identical thread i was going to make and this one already had good info...
Im having trouble adapting BO's for 2v2 and wanna get some insite to how the typical 12/13 gates have to become 10/11 to ward of a cheese all in rush etc...
What race unit techniques are the most powerful now? and what BO's are you and your buddys using?
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On July 11 2012 17:10 a2thej wrote:
Bump from the dead... My good reason is this is the identical thread i was going to make and this one already had good info...
Im having trouble adapting BO's for 2v2 and wanna get some insite to how the typical 12/13 gates have to become 10/11 to ward of a cheese all in rush etc...
What race unit techniques are the most powerful now? and what BO's are you and your buddys using?
Something me and my buddy like to do is FFE. Now before you all start screaming it doesn't work on all maps but on scorched haven and molten crater it works just fine. The other player (at best terran) goes ultra defensive one base. When I'm terran (I'm a random player) I go 11/12 rax into double gas and asap siegetanks. I admit it's really iffy against proxys or any SUPER cheesy stuff, else T can hold off most early pressures.
Back to toss, after expanding (you go forge first of course) you add 3 cannons, and watch your cliffs like a madman as pylon/overlord or reapers can kill you ezpz. Then you add 2 stargates + 3 gates and go mass phoenix into skytoss.
First with that forge at your choke poeple are going to suspect cannon rushes wich somtimes delays an early pushes. But most important you get mapcontrol with your phoenixes (beware the evil infestor -.-). Basically what you want to acchieve is to max out on voids phoenix and a few carriers maybe mothership while terran goes siegetank marine. As You will have cleared most overlords and xelnagas you can drop alot and you'll get vision for your tanks thanks to protoss air. You can get a relatively easy third if you're active with your phoenixes as you should know when and where attacks are coming from, so terran will be able to siege up in propper positions.
Also add maaaaany defensive cannons at your expansions, gas will be lacking so you'll end up with many overmins, and right after you max out add many many gates (like 20 depending on how many bases you have) and research charge. Why? Chargelot: good unit
A maxed out skytoss can pretty much kill any army composition so play defencively up to that point. When the first big battle comes sacrifice your phoenixes to lift infestors, tanks, templars and other key units. You will loose them pretty fast but don't reproduce them, either remax on carriers (more fun ) or warp in other units depending on the situation.
I like this strat because of two things: Zergs aren't likely to go mutas, and if they do they get raped. So you pretty much force them into roach infestor or hydra infestor roach both pretty bad against bio tank. Protosses will likely go blink stalker also surprizingly bad against high supply skytoss. Terrans will likely not have many siegetanks as they need thors and vikings to counter skytoss. This will make it easier for your buddy to contain and slow push the enemy. So you'll force a certain composition onto your oppenents and you'll know what to go for against them.
The second thing is, and this is most important, it's really really fun! :D
Ps: this also works with PP your buddy will got 3 gate robo to be safe, then expand and add a second robo + bay. Double robo is super strong with phoenixes as they can tank vikings and corruptors
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ya we play PP... so i would go forge fast expo or he would vice versa... I change it though usually and dont go nexus 1st ever cuz they will just rush like crazy usually... i almost always go 10/11 gate to ward of rushes
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I thought I would drag this up from the grave rather than post a new thread. I know the 2v2 threads are not popular on here. Me and my friend play Toss and Terran respectively in 2v2s, and we're high plat. We seemed to hit a wall, and while it might be because I'm holding us back (I'm high gold, he's diamond) we've been advancing until now.
We normally do 1v1 builds together and try to complement each other. But I feel like the losses that don't involve blunders or being out macroed are because the other team are using pure 2v2 strats and unit comps that will stomp two people doing 1v1 builds. Does anyone notice this at the levels beyond plat? I'm going to start reviewing the reps but does anyone have suggestions for TP teams? Or advice in general for people used to doing 1v1 builds?
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1v1 builds can work in 2v2 but it might help if one player goes for a more macro build and the other a more aggressive build. An example would be terran 1 rax fe and the protoss goes like 3 gate robo into a later expand.
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Splitting roles and/or choosing complimentary units is a key difference in 2v2 from 1v1. For instance, in 2v2 a TP team vs a ZZ team can do a hellion immortal push, which if well controlled and executed can be brutal to hold, as the protoss no longer really needs sentries to deal with lings...they can instead focus on more immortals by going 2 robo. The terran doesn't need the marauder half of the hellion marauder all in, so they can instead get even more hellions.
Some other good examples are a terran going mech, and their ally going a more harass oriented build, and generally making sure they have air control. This can mean mech + phoenixes, or mech + muta ling, or even mech + bio with drop harass. Infestors paired with tanks or colossi works fantastically for obvious reasons. Tanks aren't so good if things get close, sentries are great for preventing things from getting too close. Lo and behold, they work extremely well together.
By splitting roles it allows both players to focus their upgrades and production more than a player could otherwise. Don't forget to take advantage of the ability to share resources if you find the need to shift your army composition balance between your roles. For instance, you are going mech + air and the air player trades his air army with the opposing teams air while the mech force has remained untouched, transfer some funds to the air player to make sure he can maintain that vital air and map control to prevent drops and flanks from crippling your entrenched mech player.
A few possible early game compositions for a TP team:
Stalker/Hellion
Conc shell marauders + zealots
Marine/Sentry/Immortal
Hellion/Immortal
Sentry/Tank/Marine/Zealot
Bunkers + Sentries and possibly tanks for holding early expands
Scan + low ground pylon to warp onto high ground
Elevator push + low ground pylon
Blink + money dump for more stalkers + scan for high ground vision
Just think of the weaknesses of a particular build or unit composition that one of you can make, and then think how you can offset the weaknesses or complement the strengths with the units of the other race. There are really a ton of combinations that can do quite well together.
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Agree HarbringerOfDoom. Lot of good stuff.
Some things to add:
The mass hellion + mass immortal strategy also works against PP, with good micro. You need to survive until the "midgame", and probably will need a bunker until enough immortals are out. You also have to be prepared for phenixes/VR with canons & turrets. Once you begin to have a good number of units, all the protoss units will melt fast, even colo in few numbers. Then the protoss player has to switch for colossi himself and the terran willl probably need to make some raxes in case they go air, as you have no mobile antiair (except canon/turrets).
I really like the TP team combo because one of the 2 players can easily tech behind the wall. In 2V2 two units are stronger than in 1v1: the Phenix and the Hellion. Both are especially good against zerg, but they work vs Terran and Protoss because they give you a LOT of map control in the early game. Against ZZ, if they go both Hatch 1, you can tech both to phenixes + hellions and you will be a huge pain for them, as they have to spam queens/spines/spores and will be negated map control. They will also have to play blindly, losing the Xel'naga towers and their scouting overlords, and in 2v2 this is huge.
And often the P player who goes for phenix play will be able to directly transition into carriers, as they will be way ahead with the map control and the terran can cover him with a solid defensive force (tanks+marines, mass bioball...). And carriers massed will destroy everything.
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I've in (havent played much 2v2 last two months, but it will still work) high masters in a ZT team (im Z) and basically does this:
T scout. If there they are walling on a shared base map (PP, TT, TP teams tend to wall) then we go fast nuke with lings and hellions. With this we have a 19-1 win ratio. The Z can either opt for mass slings or +1 melee slings. If they are not walling we always do some early pressure. Either a 10 pool with slings or fast cloacked banshee, while the other goes heavily macro and tech. Its VERY important to have splashdamage in teamgames as the armies get pretty huge combined. So after initial push we usually go siegemarine with ling/(bling)/infestor into BL's with thors late-game.
I can post a replay or two of the nuke/hellion/ling build when I get home if that is of any interest.
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On October 10 2012 13:48 Dabba wrote:
I thought I would drag this up from the grave rather than post a new thread. I know the 2v2 threads are not popular on here. Me and my friend play Toss and Terran respectively in 2v2s, and we're high plat. We seemed to hit a wall, and while it might be because I'm holding us back (I'm high gold, he's diamond) we've been advancing until now.
We normally do 1v1 builds together and try to complement each other. But I feel like the losses that don't involve blunders or being out macroed are because the other team are using pure 2v2 strats and unit comps that will stomp two people doing 1v1 builds. Does anyone notice this at the levels beyond plat? I'm going to start reviewing the reps but does anyone have suggestions for TP teams? Or advice in general for people used to doing 1v1 builds?
I'm (T) on a 2's team with a good friend of mine (P), maybe I can give you some advice. We were a mid-master's 2s team for a long time before the two of us stopped playing for ~6 months. We've just recently started to play again and we've slid into diamond, but are on our way back up.
1) Always block the shared ramp. Pylon Gateway+supply rax is enough to block most ramps. Be careful on that map with the heart shaped mains, the wall looks tight but it's not, we lost to to a cannon rush there because we thought the wall was tight (lame). If you scout that your opponent is going for a fast rush realize that they'll attack they pylon since it can't be repaired. If they're attacking the pylon the P player can use a FF if available to buy some time, or drop a second building behind it. Typically if you scout a rush a T should put a bunker up just behind the wall. If you play it right you shouldn't lose to any very early rushes, the wall+marines+bunkers+stalkers should hold off any early aggression.
2) Composition. I find for the terran either mech or marine tank medivac works the best, I lean much more to marine tank these days. Toss should be gateway heavy and move towards storm. I don't really like col, 1 or 2 is okay, but I feel like it's redundant.
3) Tanks, use them. Tanks synergize very well with the toss army. Toss troops provide a great shield for the tanks. Make sure the toss player knows how to work with a tank push. The tanks should siege hop and the toss shouldn't get too far out infront unless he's trying to bait the enemy into the tank fire. I usually skip tanks (or only get 1-2 to force engagements) if we're up against PP but against everyone else you should get tanks.
4) Strategy. Our strategy depends on mood and map:
On a map with difficult to take naturals we tend to do a 1 base marine+tank+gateway push while expanding behind it. Terran opens gas on 13, 1 rax -> factory -> 3 rax. Make marines and tanks. I'm not really sure what my friend opens, but it usually ends up 3 gate robo or there abouts.
On a map with 2 easy to take expos you can think of a tank expand (Toss 1 gate FE, Terran 1 rax -> tanks, roll out a few while taking an expansion of your own at 400 mins). If your opponents aren't showing 1 base aggression the terran can skip the tanks for the faster expand.
On one of those maps with 1 inbase expansion and 1 other expansion that is more difficult to take (either because of a rock blocked backdoor into the main or the second expansion is out in the middle of nowhere) what we like to do is toss does a nexus first (with the first pylon at the front door). Terran does a no gas 2 rax (rax at 12 and 14) to block off the front. Terran plays it safe by making marines, adding a gas and moving towards tanks. The toss plays eco heavy for a bit then builds up a big force which you can move out onto the map with. Terran can expand once the toss has a big enough force that you can move onto the map with.
5) General. The toss terran synergy is very good and you can get a very strong army. Medivacs heal zealots and scvs can repair stalkers. During a push I'll bring along 3 or 4 scvs and set them to repair. They keep the tanks alive, and when the tanks are well guarded the scvs can keep the stalkers alive. Forcefield is a really nice when paired with tanks. A lot of times I'm worried about the enemy force and think they're going to make it in range of the tanks, then a bunch of FF's pop and cut the army in half, it's a pretty thing.
Overall we do our worst against teams with 1 zerg, since you need to be aggressive as the zerg tends to play very eco heavy and can give you a big headache later in the game. Against 2 zergs there are a variety of pushes/playstyles which you can roll over zerg with (bf hellion+immo, bf hellion+phoenix, ... ) we have a great win pct vs double Z.
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Wow, that's an amazing writeup of advice. I'll show my friend. Thank you very much!!
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EPT
