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Hi there TL dudes. This is my 4th time posting on the forums I think, so if this topic doesn't fit onto the intended category, I urge someone more experienced to move it to the right one.
I'm a player who likes to play on 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 games online lately, due to the greater chances of being promoted to higher leagues and also the thrill of partnering with others for a skill showdown. However, after probably 50 games on these matches, I'm starting to get bored of the seemingly poor performances shown by some of my teammates. As many of you can attest, momentum and balance of units play an important role in these type of matches, and if one teammate screws up, the entire team is in possible risk of losing. Well, I don't have the habit of partnering with specific players and trumping others; I do randomly play with strangers all the time, regardless of their skills and experiences. Because of that, I've had some problems with these matches.
Take an example. I play a 2v2 game with someone whom I don't know at all. So prior to the game starting, we both agree that I'll go Stalkers and he'll go MMM as Terran. So, I do manage to produce enough Stalkers as agreed, but due to his perhaps lack of gaming experience or his lengthy game play style, his MMM is kind of late, and does not form a formidable army for combat. So, during the battle, we, of course, get wiped out heavily, although my Stalkers did a great amount of damage. This is just one of many examples of the problems you'll face while teaming with players not equal to your skill level.
On the contrary, I'm kind of a lurker on Battlenet, and I have noticed that many Diamond players on 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4, particularly those who have been in Starcraft 2 for months, always manage to achieve Diamond rank without relying on partnering with specific partners or players. Even if they do, they mostly do it upon request, or else they just play randomly with strangers whose skills or experiences they don't know at all. How do they do it?
P.S. Because of this problem, my 4v4 Gold League (due to excellent placement match play) win/loss ratio has been seriously reduced to a mere 35% due to constant loss. 
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There is no I win button in 2v2 or 3v3/4v4; just as there is no easy strat to win with a bad partner. If you play a bad team (relative to your skill level) and have a bad partner you will win, if you play a team that can match your skill you will lose with a bad partner. Even pros couldn't do it, if you put qxc vs huk and idra, qxc is going to get overrun almost no matter what "strat" he uses.
If you know you are playing with a garbage partner I'd just recommend not relying on him as much and playing the game by yourself with some communication. Scout and build appropriate counters, if your partner isn't ready yet, adapt and be ready to go early FE. As opposed to blindly continuing with one strat. Pushes should be based of timing and appropriate counters, not just going blind stalks, this is still true of 2v2...
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The unfortunate truth is team games truly are 'team', if you have a poorly skilled ally you must play above and beyond the skill level of all of your opponents to make up for the deficit of your ally. There is no easy answer to this and no point outlining specific bo or strats because sadly if you random a bad ally, nothing we tell you is going to save you except to stop choosing random allies.
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get one or two friend who are good and do 4vs4 as group. Then you should be able to pull out some wins, but eventually it will show how good you are. Not everything depends on teammate, also it is about your unit composition and decision making like being aggressive and still having decent macro and follow up.
Also it is recommended to have various openings, there are still tons of build orders which is suited for teamgames.
Honestly, in gold 2vs2 if you belongs to dia, you should be able to cover some minor mistakes from your teammate so long he doesnt suck with fundamental things like proper micro and macro or trys to do 1a2a to the enemy base. (ofc unless opponent cheeses hardcore like cannonrush + 6pool).
Imo teamgame is more fun then 1vs1, but still there are many things you can learn like timing push, macro and tactics like HT drop while your mates distract opponent. Also some micro as you are very likely to win many matches with early attack.
Most important: Dont complain too much about your teammate, try to do your best and see what you could have done better. If your teammate is not going for onebase ultra (believe me, i saw this on PLATINUM 2vs2), you still have good chance to win =)
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Team games are unpredictable, its all cheese and fast rushes. You barely get macro games, just make friends on blizzard and make a team off that rather than playing with random players all the time which show inconsistent result. You might want to take it seriously but a lot of people on team games just want to do it for cheese.
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You just have to be really dam good. Go into every team game, especially with randoms thinking "I can 1v2/3/4 this easy".
If you look at team games this way then you'll reflect on your own flaws when you loose, not your poor teammates.
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state your game plan and dont hesitate to assign/ask people to take up roles, IE:
"going mass marine, 7 roach rush with me? lets push here *ping* at the 6min mark. "
all 2v2/3v3/4v4 can easily be won if you combine armies and smash 1 guy early in game. Unless they meet your army head on, you will usually be able to smash them as long as EVERYONE on your team is in with the attack.
Also, cannoning usually takes down 1 player, at the cost of the cannoning player. So it reduces a 4v4 to a 3v3, and your mid-early push should just target someone else.
Another thing is if you have superior macro/micro, you can work to defend or help drag out an ally's death so that someone else on your team can amass a deathball for the final death push.
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The trouble with relying on countering in 2v2s is you have two people to counter, and sometimes the optimal strategies will pull you in the opposite direction. It's possible to over-counter one player and then get easily crushed by what the other player is doing.
In 3v3 and 4v4, you're best off almost ignoring 'counters' and just making sure you get STUFF, including anti-air and some detection. I'm highly ranked in diamond 4v4, and half the time I'm just testing build timings or getting a specific unit I want to practice micro-ing with.
You're better off going with some flexible and versatile unit composition, rather then trying to do something that's very specific. Pheonix builds are quite good against Zerg, but unless you're Nony, they don't perform well against Terran.
Two main things that will help you a lot in team games imo:
1. Macro, macro, macro. Partly because it's the most important skill in the game anyway, partly because because I've noticed lower-level team players have a real hard time 2-basing. (And most can't 3-base very well, but that's not so much an issue because the team map pool makes getting a third extremely difficult.)
2. Rely on muscular, versatile units, rather then slippery, tricky units. Economic harass is always good, but doing a build based around it (like blue flame hellion drop) is not as good as a build that gives you units that let you kill the enemy army straight up (like 3-rax, marine/tank, etc.)
Finally, you could just play 1v1, and then you don't need to worry about your ally. You can also do more MU-specific builds.
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On December 19 2010 17:26 chukahleong wrote:On the contrary, I'm kind of a lurker on Battlenet, and I have noticed that many Diamond players on 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4, particularly those who have been in Starcraft 2 for months, always manage to achieve Diamond rank without relying on partnering with specific partners or players. Even if they do, they mostly do it upon request, or else they just play randomly with strangers whose skills or experiences they don't know at all. How do they do it? P.S. Because of this problem, my 4v4 Gold League (due to excellent placement match play) win/loss ratio has been seriously reduced to a mere 35% due to constant loss.
The way I did this is to just go complete macro games. The same way you can pretty easily beat gold/platinium/low level diamond players by just outmacroing them in 1on1, you can do it even more in random teamgames. Trying to rely on cheese rushes is just vastly inferior to dragging the game out and play on your superior economy management and lategame decisions. I will always open 1 gate expand and if I must, I will sacrifice one or even two of my teammates to get my economy and production rolling, so I can eventually 1onX them.
Obviously this is just one way of doing it. Some people just prefer to be the "chief" of the group and decides everything, or you can go the "AT" route and just queue random 3on3 with one friend etc.
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I have a nearly 100% win rate in random 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4, so here is my advice : play only one game, and never touch those modes again.
Here you go!
On topic : there's no easy way to win a 2v1 if your not awesomely skilled.
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there's no way it's always your teammates fault if your win % is 35
look to improve your gameplay first before blaming others
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On December 19 2010 18:12 awu25 wrote:
there's no way it's always your teammates fault if your win % is 35
look to improve your gameplay first before blaming others
This is the most important thing ever spoken about a team game. Virtually everyone bad blames their teammates in team games instead of looking to themselves as the issue. This goes beyond just SC2 team games, but all team games.
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Play it more like solo. Don't ever rely on your teammate to complement you or boost you =)
Good harass makes most RT players crumble, so most of the time if you are aggressive with that they will just be crushed for it. The thing that makes you get promoted in RT is your skill to win games regardless of your teammates skill. (the only way to "climb" so to speak) This will require your micro to be somewhat good, and you can afford to "slip" up a bit in macro doing it.
You also said you massed stalkers one game, that is a sign that you aren't playing very good teching wise, and mass stalker can be hard countered easily. At least mix in some sentries and zealots early, and preferably robo/stargate/templar tech reasonably fast. A good macro/tech game can turn the games in your favor like this, this can be a bit more defensively though. And this will complement "bad" allies fine. You just need teammate decent at massing units to "protect" your teching.
If your macro/micro skills aren't up for the play styles I mentioned, Railxp's suggestions are probably better, a practiced rush build executed well, will win you lots of games. I just hate doing it since I like longer games and actually outplaying my opponents rather than "cheesing" them.
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Just Focus on yourself and try to help/defend ur team till his is ready to attack.
or focus on harass while his getting his army ready.
Another NICE strat is to go Cloacked Banshees / DTs or Mass Mutas. so you can give massive damage
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for 2v2s: i 4 gate every game, and tell my partner to attack with me when i'm going. we almost always kill off one guy then i just macro up while my teammate does whatever, no way we can lose 1v2.
3v3: i can't help you there, as i play with a friend of mine (it's still random if you queue with 2 ppl) who is pretty much the same skill level as me, and we can do whatever strategies we want it seems and win, diamond 3v3 people aren't good and if you just have ONE other person who is good you can do it easily (my friend went pure zealot/mothership one game and we dominated....) Blink stalkers and Mutas are insanely good here - if you know how to use them well!
4v4: ah, battle of the cheeses. this is mostly just luck, and i get very frustrated a lot of my 4v4 games. it seems you just have to have at least 2 other people that are decently good then its easy pickings, but if you don't, it's hell.
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Back on SCBW i remember as a kid i would play vs computers to see how many i could take on 1v3/1v4. And it was possible. Just go into a game with the mindset of this is a 1v4 so i need to turtle until i can do some damage with harass. If your allies damage or even just distract the opponents for a little bit this is awesome!
Trying to get players to chat is your best weapon. A organized team is much better then a unorganized team. Share builds, let players know your plan and ask theirs. Or at least just ask for money all game long.
Dont engage battles without your team. Its a no brainier that in a 1v3 1v4 your going to lose your army. Thus communicate more. I cant count the number of time players move out alone and get ran over. If you see a teammate moving to far out or is in a dangerous spot....SAY SOMETHING TO THEM. This could save a army that you could possible need in the next 2 minuets.
On maps like Arakan Citadel and The Bio Lab proxie rushes don't work as well because the distance between opponents mains is little to none. Not saying its not possible but like mentioned before its a no brainier when a solo army takes on a allied army.
How many times do you wall off in 2's 3's or 4's? Sometimes? Few times? Try ALWAYS. There is no need to not wall off. This shuts down ling rushes and run in's.(Don't whine banelings because you should be walling with mass buildings.)
Last of all don't do the same build as the other players. Cant count the number of times that a team of 4, 3 go ling rush or mass reaper and get countered by just a few murders or well placed cannons.
I hope some of this is helpful. With this information and a very low set of skill you should be able to win 70% of your games.
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Thanks very much for the comments and advices, guys. I truly appreciate it. 
I'll give y'all a more detailed version of my 2v2 game. I'm Protoss, and my partner is Terran, and we're spawning on Twilight Fortress against 2 Terran players, who are Favored than us. At the beginning during worker production, both of us communicated a little and I decided to go Mass Stalkers with Blink and he'll go MMM push. *I guess it was my fault during this plan deciding; we didn't agree on a more detailed plan.* So we pretty much focused on our own builds while scouting and harassing some workers, until about 10 minutes game time. At that time, I already had my 4 Warp Gate running and had about 10-12 Stalkers. My Twilight Council was also there, and I was chronoboosting my Blink ability. I had a little gas problems at that time, so I was producing Stalkers at a gradual rate. I happened to scroll over to his base and I was practically worried. During that 10 minutes he only produced 2 Barracks and virtually no combat units, except for a few Marines standing there, and he didn't expand. Nevertheless, I didn't question him anything, and I wanted to start attacking. He said yes and we went to the enemy's base. Well, apparently, the enemy, who were both Terran, had massed Marines and Marauders with Stim and Combat Shields, so they were brutal in the attacks against us. I tried to use my Stalkers to blink around and did some kiting so as to delay the attack and kill some stray units, but I knew the game was lost. After some 5 minutes of Blinking and kiting, I gg-ed and left the game, as the main enemy force was already moving to our base, and we had nothing left to defend, save my few Zealots and Stalkers. What do you think went wrong actually?
there's no way it's always your teammates fault if your win % is 35
look to improve your gameplay first before blaming others
Thanks for the criticism, friend. I did look back at the match for awhile, as I do for every single match I've played, and I've outlined a few mistakes of my own.
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in 3v3 and 4v4 RT just go for something which allows you to do a lot of damage without your allies helping. Drops or harras with some air units are good. You will not win every game, but you don't need to to get into diamond anyway.
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What do you think went wrong actually?
You just got countered really. Stim and marauders vs Stalkers isn't funny. You would probably had to do some heavy tech to beat those guys, or capitalize on a mistake from their part to win it.
Buying time like you said you did for 5 mins could have bought you enough time to outmacro them, but I don't know how close it was when fighting or if you bought time with blinking up into their mains and out all the time etc. and them being idiots chasing you ^^ (that's the only way I can see you outmacroing them with)
If you just kept pressure on from your 4 gates and fought hard it's almost unwinnable. Can't win them all 
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Well, I would join the guys who's advice is to get a partner/partners and play together. With skype/teamspeak/ventrilo it becomes something COMPLETELY different. Day9 had a daily on teamgames, and he focused on how 2 armys vs 1 at a time will conquer. So getting your micro tight with you partner can win you alot of games.
Also Id like to point out that, atleast for me, it took ages to figure out how to play teamgames in each division. I have friends who is in the range of bronze to diamond and tbh, every leauge is very different from each other. I sorted it by grinding the **** out off them all just to get a good game sense and figure out what race suits the leauge best.
I have alot of games with randoms though, and if you are ahead and have a great timing push it will get crushed if you go alone. I try to stay flexible to make pushes together and in sync with each other even if the "amazing timeing push" window closes.
And as a side note: If you have FAAAR superior macro you could win 2v1 in the lower leauges. Ive done it with when my gf was really new and we were grinding through bronze.
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EPT
