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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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Pin you opponents to their bases and deny expos.
The worse you perceive your teammate(s) to be, the better spotting and map awareness you need. If your army is out of position, and the opponents attack, you're screwed. You never want to engage an army alone, and you always want to know where the opposing armies are at all times. If your opponents suck, use their armies as meatshields.
Since you play Protoss, I would suggest finding a build that allows you to harass and expand. I like to go 3-Gate Dark Templar. It comes out around 8:00 minutes. This lets you setup for a massive Gateway push, while keeping your opponents pinned to their base. Everyone seemingly rushes in team games, so they really skimp on detection. Dark Templars punish this to the max. If you want to be able stay alive and macro, you need to harass. I mentioned a Twilight Council tech path because you mentioned mass Stalkers. Mass blink Stalkers is pretty ownage in team games. Especially if your blink micro is up to task. I always use my allies for vision on the high ground to blink in.
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really there's 3 things. either try to complement your teammate as much as possible or get him to do a coordinated push with you. unless your teammate is just smart and knows how to coordinate with you perfectly...he'd have to be higher ranked...even still higher ranked players have trouble coordinating. last thing is just go gamble on some crazy strat and hope it works. dt comes to mind.
either way you won't win against good arranged teams.
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Russian Federation94 Posts
On December 19 2010 20:15 Eka wrote:With skype/teamspeak/ventrilo it becomes something COMPLETELY different.
It doesn't give any advantage, at least if you know each other and aren't too slow when typing.
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The only winning move is not to play.
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4v4 can be tricky. When I started it I played only terran because its the race which allows you to decide the game on noob level all by yourself. Just mass mm with some tech and expand when you feel safe. Attack when you have a formidable force or to assist allies. This simple strat brought me to diamond random 4v4 very fast with like 25-10 record. I play random mostly. But as zerg you rely on the teammates to macro up or on them to rush with you. And protoss is just to weak early game in my experience. Good macro often works wonders on gold level 3v3s and 4v4s. I often end the game with double the score of the 2nd placed.
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some players are just good at starcraft in general, so they can pickup 1's and team game strategies very quickly. In regards to your problem, if you don't want to rely on your partner's skill level on getting you to diamond/higher in 2's or other team games for that matter, you'd have to increase your level of play to suit x amount of opponents (of course you'll probably never beat more than 1+ decent diamond players) . I've played a lot of 1v2's and 1v3's with my friends and have won, but i would never be able to do that vs teams that are at/above high gold/maybe plat. A lot of higher tier 1's players have the skill capacity to either make up for their team mate's slack, or that the opponents arent as good as they are from mid to late game.
and that is not to say that every one that's good at 1's is good at team games.
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On December 19 2010 20:17 Battousai13 wrote:
Pin you opponents to their bases and deny expos.
The worse you perceive your teammate(s) to be, the better spotting and map awareness you need. If your army is out of position, and the opponents attack, you're screwed. You never want to engage an army alone, and you always want to know where the opposing armies are at all times. If your opponents suck, use their armies as meatshields.
Since you play Protoss, I would suggest finding a build that allows you to harass and expand. I like to go 3-Gate Dark Templar. It comes out around 8:00 minutes. This lets you setup for a massive Gateway push, while keeping your opponents pinned to their base. Everyone seemingly rushes in team games, so they really skimp on detection. Dark Templars punish this to the max. If you want to be able stay alive and macro, you need to harass. I mentioned a Twilight Council tech path because you mentioned mass Stalkers. Mass blink Stalkers is pretty ownage in team games. Especially if your blink micro is up to task. I always use my allies for vision on the high ground to blink in.
This. And especially the harras part. In team games people just expect a early rush (cannon/ling/rine) or just a straight up fight at around 6:00-6:30. Not something like DT/Warp prism/phoenix harras etc.
There's just an overall lack of scouting in teamgames after the first few minutes. So just try something unique.
Do some harras (warp prism) while you're in a straight up fight. Most of the time you can completely wipe all the workers out.
I know sometimes teammates just rely on overall luck, like going for carriers without scouting/making a single unit. It probably makes you lose the game. There's nothing really you can do about that.
You just have to depend on some great blink/ff/storm micro and of course your macro skills and hope for the best. Still If you think about it when it's a random 3v3 the opposite team probably has at least one mediocre player aswell.
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I play mostly Team games because I enjoy playing with other people rather than solo. I've become somewhat adept at 3v3 matches and know that scouting is sooooo important. Typically you can judge the skill of your Team by who scouts, and the same for judging their Team as well.
I think the real key is to freak out your opponents. I just played a 2v2 the other day (on an 8 player map no less) where the opposing army moved Into attack. Our ramps were very close, and my plan was to do hellion harass from the Start. I got the blue flames and Medivac, and as soon as they pushed in, I used what little infantry I had to help defend with my Protoss partner. In the meantime, dropped hellions in Zerg base and burned all but about 3 drones. Then moved to the other opponent and got about half his SCV's.
This made them question their attack. Even though they could have done significantly more damage, my hellion harass forced the retreat of a good part of their army. Granted, I lost 4 hellions (400 mins), but I did at least a couple thousand in damage given the lost mining time and drones/SCV's. Then expand, macro, and block their expos.
Remember, these Team games are for FUN, not to be insanely good. Enjoy and try not to get frustrated - it's not worth it.
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I played my first 2 4v4's last night with random teams. On the first there were 2 zerg on the other team, one went spire tech while to other teched to nydus and they proceded to screw my team over from all sides.
In the next game it was Z P T T v P T T T. I got demolished at the 7min mark when 3 of them rushed me, only escaping with my drones. I rebuilt and went straight for the nydus while one terran went mass turtle mode with tanks and turrets, the protoss went mostly stalkers and the other terran left after 8mins :@ My team won after 59mins 43 :D
Basically nydus worm and overlord speed is a must for zerg in 4v4 if you want to win.
I just finished playing another random 4v4. Double team nydus for the zerg = insta win. 16mins GG doing this with terran drops and protoss warp in's is a great way to win
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High tech/micro style games will own most random team game players. A DT rush followed by 4 gate-blink stalkers alone will drive most sub-diamond players micro/macro to the breaking point.
For example, vs T, DTs can be hard countered by scans. So send in one of your 4 first DTs, waste a scan. As soon as their first scan dies off, send in another, if they scan again, wait, and send another. While doing this, for example, try and get your ally to do a drop or nydus. Such tactics will crack an under-diamond player's macro immediately, and any kind of solid pressure immediately afterward will destroy him outright if he's still alive after your original harassment.
Basically, force them to micro hard, not macro, while you do both. If you can't do both, then don't expect your presence alone to make a huge difference in team games. The bane of most "bad" players is not being able to keep up with their macro during intense micro battles. So abuse this to the utmost. Of course, doing this will make you a prime target in most big team games, so make sure your allies aren't doing a slow Carrier rush before doing all this early game harassment. Nothing worse than taking 3 enemies in a 4 v 4 to the breaking point single-handedly, then watching the 4th steamroll your base with the others help 2 minutes later, while your allies come and help with 2 banshees and 6 zealots, because they're teching up to BCs and carriers, and have no army.
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Just be ready to 1vX the games. I can't count how many games I've played as random(teammates) where my score was equal to all the other players combined...
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greater chances of being promoted in team games? I'm stuck at 1st place in plat 3v3 with 800 more points than the second.
I want a quick chat added with pings on minimap like fps quickchat (need back up, attack, look here, etc...), sometimes pinging the minimap will lead your teammates to do something stupid. press alt + a on minimap put a sword symbol on the minimap to tell your allies to mmm ... attack, a shield symbol would tell to defend, an eye to scout, etc... would help a lot.
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I play 2v2s more than any other game type, mostly because I really enjoy playing with a friend. 3v3s and 4v4s often boil down to "get a bunch of stuff as fast as possible and hit them" which is kind of boring after a while, but I feel like 2v2 has more variety, if you can hold off the first push. Clear communication is extremely important. If you have two people who aren't talking to each other at all, against two people who are in the same room or on skype/vent/whatever, it makes a huge difference. Another way to do this is give control of the army to one person, so that way you can ensure that your armies will always attack together.
I also think you should focus on improving yourself, rather than blaming your teammates. I don't have this problem as much, since I play with friends who are roughly on the same level as me, and we have a lot of experience with 2v2s. However, in your case, it's too easy to simply say "oh, I lost because my teammate was terrible, so if I can just get some better teammates, I'll win more." This is a BAD way to think. If you think this way, you have no incentive to improve yourself. What you should focus on is how to improve your own play. One of my teammates plays on Virginia Tech's CSL 2v2 team, and once, he told me he lost a game because his teammate was terrible. I went and looked at the replay, and saw plenty of ways that he could have played better too. No matter what, there's always something for you to improve. Doesn't mean you're necessarily wrong about your teammate being bad, but it isn't what you should focus on.
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In 4v4, you yell at them to be prepared for DTs and Mutas. Because there will always be DTs and Mutas. Rarely works though.
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If you're Diamond 1v1, you should be able to reach Diamond 2v2 and 3v3 RT just by mass gaming. If you haven't reached Diamond in 100 games, then you need to improve. Even if your ally is bad, your enemies should be similarly bad, so if you're truly better you should be able to exploit that. Of course there is luck in the draw of matchmaking, but you must be resigned to that in this format. I once was matched against Antimage and some buddy of his while my ally was a Protoss who decided to only make air units and photon cannons. But in later games, your enemy may be that shitty player with no game sense, and it's your job to pressure, tech, or out-macro him into the ground.
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mass tier 1 all in rush everytime; works
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I'm a semi-noob playing a lot of 4v4. Occasionally I get a diamond-esque player on my team and if you are one of those I would advice you to give simply directions to your team-mates without being rude. Of course there aren't time to give build orders or anything, but tell people when to push, what units (or simply air and ground). But most importantly, give people instructions when to attact, making sure you go together at the right time. If you see someone making a butt-load of zerglings without doing anything with them, ping the map where you want them to go. Otherwise just play normally and try to complement your team in the best of your ability.
Also if the only thing you want is to get to diamond in 4v4, mass games. I got easily in diamond just by playing a lot of games and I'm really far from diamond in 1v1.
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The best thing to do is group up with a friend and go match up in a 3vs3 Random. Or if you have two friends, do a 4vs4.
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I met a guy who would just nonstop BM me, and I though wtf...but turns out its his standart strat in a random 2v2, so his partner leaves and he can play 2v1...he still won that game, so good for him, but beeing such a dick just to win a random 2v2 or to train 1v2 is really not justifiable, maybe just gently ask them to leave, and tell them you will win that game for them.
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The trick to winning random team games is to adapt your play style to whatever awful strategy your teammates are attempting. Try to figure out who on your team is the most competent and follow their lead, even if its an inferior strategy to yours. Most people in random team games suck, so a well executed bad strategy will win more than 50% of the time.
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Typically the players in these team games are not very good. I have had many games where my ally has been lackluster, but been able to pull it out by myself anyway because both my opponents are equally lackluster. You won't win them all, but solid play will win most of the time regardless of what your ally is doing.
As the teams get larger your influence decreases, but simultaneously you are free to specialize in more constructive unit compositions without needing to make as many core units. If you're making your core main battle units, such as marine+marauder or stalkers or whatever, then a battle will cause casualties that must be replaced. Let your allies do that grunt work. In large team games I will specialize. Mass reaper is an excellent composition for such large team games, since you can swoop in, kill buildings or workers, and be gone without losing a single reaper. Just make sure you know what you're getting into before you go in, either by scanning or requisitioning an observer from a protoss. Mass raven is very efficient as well, since dropped turrets destroy assets that require resources to replace, but themselves cost only energy. For protoss you might use dark templar or blink stalker harass, or just mass void ray or even carriers if you have the macro to get a fleet off 3+ bases in a hurry. Just because it's a bad idea in 1v1 doesn't necessarily make it inviable in large games.
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Well I do random team all the time and am a plat 4v4. First of all I only play it when I'm bored or on a losing streak in 1v1.
The key is not really skill actually. The most important is communication. You need to ask him what hes doing and maybe moderate your strategy to his to avoid arguing. If hes a bit worse then you maybe you could try and ask him for control.
Also your attacks must be co-ordinated. Just because your army is 2x bigger then your ally's always attack with him. Another thing is to attack before 10 minute mark. Unless you guys successfully mass void rays or a mass unit without being rushed your probably going to lose.
You can possibly give your teamates advice. But dont use like swear words or be impatient. Instead of saying "WTF WHY DID YOU MAKE 6 STARGATES" Especially if he sucks, he will have low apm and wont be able to do anything while arguing. You could say something like start expanding and stop making unit produce structures or something. When they make a successful harrass say like "nice" or "good job". They will feel better and perform better as well.
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I'm going to post because I think I have something different to say compared to everyone else. My "credentials" (horrible.227) are that i'm rank 1 diamond in 3v3 and 4v4.
3v3 and 4v4 are very different than 2v2. 2v2 plays a lot different than either 3v3 or 4v4. Below are my thoughts on 3v3 and 4v4, but NOT 2v2.
If your better than your teammates, play to your strengths. For example, I'm not very good at rushing, but I am pretty good at macro games. So when they want to rush, I opt-out of the rush (but they can rush if they want)
At some point you'll have to trust your teammates, so if someone is going to BC rush, I just sigh (in my head) and try to delay for as long as possible so they have time to get BCs. This means less teching and more army.
In general (not always), I prefer a more robust army than cutsy stuff. This means less DTs, VRs, Mutas, hellions, in favor of a robust ground force. This is because you can save your teammates from dying and also save yourself. It isn't that good to go mutas and then have the opponent steamroll your base and hope your teammates save you. I also disagree with some other peoples opinion that you should specialize, and not get as many core units. If your good, you should be doing the 'grunt work' and the heavy lifting and let other people do the specialized cutsey stuff.
My general strategy is the kill all expansions, and never attack into anyone's main. Win the resource war, especially since most maps have limited bases.
I almost never talk to my teammates. I probably should, but I disagree that 'communication is everything'. communication helps, but its not everything. If you scout a forge, its good to say, 'check base for cannons' , 'DTs ' and 'his spire popping soon', but I don't say much besides that.
Be very active, don't just build up and army and sit around. You should be doing a lot of poking. Most 3v3 and 4v4 players are sooooo scared to push out without everyone on their team with them. Don't be like that.
Make it your business to counter what's giving your team trouble. For example, if mutas are really killing your teammates, make it yoru business to hunt them down with a fungle and hydras, or thors. If you are a better player than your teammates, you can spare the resources and try to help them out by removing any headaches for them. i.e. build some turrets for them, send an overseer to each base, etc.
You want to be the 800 pound gorilla in the game. If your are the best on your team, It's your responsibility to be the muscle. Anyone can DT/VR/BC/Muta rush, but its much harder to find a great macro player that can just make and maintain huge armies of terror and doom.
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United States10081 Posts
On December 19 2010 18:14 Ocedic wrote:Show nested quote +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.
People normally just rage because they aren't good. not saying this for you however, just the next time some1 rages, just say that, hey, don't blame me, this is a team game, so it's your fault too.
If you get a bad partner, this will help and teach you how to get better in solo. let's say your skill is a 3 (IF) and your teammate is a 1... lets say the other team has a 3 and a 2... so its 4 vs 5 in skill. this will teach you how to raise YOUR skill level to match the others if the other is incapable. thus, you raise your skill level to a 4 now. so next time you play, you'll be something like a 4 and 2 vs a 3 and 2. this time, you have the advantage, instead of being tied. So don't say this is a bad thing, it can help you.
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On December 19 2010 18:14 Ocedic wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I'm going to copy the guy above me because this really is a great point and I agree 100%. I think its rare to find a diamond player in 1v1, but bronze in all other leagues (because of bad teammates!).
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Someone said that Cannon Rushing usually turns a 4v4 into a 3v3. I've found that in 3v3, it usually results in a situation where I, as a Zerg, love in which the Cannon Rusher not only knocked out a player, but usually also secured an expansion which allows me to take the rusher's nat for my third. Tech some Mutas and use them to snipe Collosi and Siege Tanks when they inevitably tech to them to retake the Rushed Player's Main but by that time 2-2-3 base can pump out a lot more units than 2-2-1 base play.
That said, if your partners are mouth-breathers, it's extraordinarily difficult to pull a win through. In a recent match, one of our team mates couldn't take himself off one base play on Typhon. I transitioned into 3 Base and went Mass Muta to harass for most of the match, even knocking out one players economy and did my best to deny expansions (One of the in-Base Naturals had untouched nodes an hour into the match since I repeatedly chased off the OC that was trying to mine there) Expand and denying expands while preserving your gas as best as you can. Fight them economically, it's a long fight but you feel great when you are able to put BLs into the air against an enemy that can only make Marines, Lings, Zeals, Queens, Hellions and Prisms.
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On topic : there's no easy way to win a 2v1 if your not awesomely skilled.
I'm not awesomely skilled, but I can 2v1 against gold level players easily. I 2v1'd more or less all of my placement matches. I pretty much avoid 2v2 because of crappy people though, rather win a lot with my buddy and just roll people.
I've probably had the most experience in 4v4 muscling. I'm like 47-24 plat playing mostly diamonds. It's all about your own play. I've won more then one game by walking up and killing 2-3 players armies with my tank/MM without losing much at all. A good 3 rax timing push can easily steamroll any noob, and even on maps where they are all together I basically 1v4 them and win (when they're bad). 85% of my games I'm top score, by a long shot. Sometimes you can't do much about losing though. Macro is the key to victory, and solid play. Most players tend to cheese or rush carriers/BC/whathaveyou and then I just walk up and kill them.
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Motivation is what i use in these team games. Like xVigilante said, always congratualte your teammates in doing a good thing and suggesting them advice on what to do next.
Ling/Bling/collosus decimates marine medievac ball = say Nice/gj/LOL
One word of appreciation will help you in the long run.
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A lot of team games, especially on non-macro maps will be under 12 minutes or so, the only advice is really to not do any 1v1 strategies on team games....going banshee rushing will often get you to lose, unless it's a 4v4 where people can mass tech units faster. Lower tier can hold the game for longer.
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Well, as a bronze 1v1-er in gold 4v4, what i can recommend is to be the carry as much as possible. I realize gold isnt that good, but it is for a new-ish starcraft player. I only lost 1 placement, and I was the carry the other 4 times.
Because you are in 4v4, i recommend to go builds you wouldn't even look at in 1v1. Forexaple, one game i played in I went mass HT and zealots, which is fairly uncommon (exept in sc1/bw). Its 4v4, so experiment, and have fun with your builds.
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also remember to communicate, TW is important too, but try to give effort and lead that push.
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One thing to remember is there is an equal chance of the other team having a noob as well. One thing you can do with solid scouting is try to exploit the weak link on the other team. Try to identify who the weaker player is; loses the scv building the barracks, doesn't saturate the gas, behind on macro, and etc., and then try to either pressure him early on because he will have less units, or attack someone else and the noob will likely be poor help to his teammates.
Also try to stick with your teammates as much as possible, even if their army is weaker, you always want to take advantage of double or triple teaming the other teams smaller armies.
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I find that as long as you yourself are a good player you will end up getting high in Diamond regardless of how your partners play. I myself am in Diamond 1v1,2v2,3v3,and 4v4 for random teams and believe me I've had and still have horrible teammates.
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when i have a bad teammate (and this is only 2v2), and the ranking of players is Me > Opponent A > Opponent B >>> Opponent C, I try a few things depending on what the opponents try to do:
a) if everyone is really, really bad, I just outmacro everyone.
b) if my opponent has passable macro, i can do one of the following
- convince my partner he's bad or we're better off if i take the driver's seat, i.e. we'll win if we do resource trading. rarely works, but has worked before. if a partner asks if you're good, he would be a good candidate for this. then just tech before your opponent does.
- turtle and try to catch them by surprise or have them make a mistake. if you are better than them you might be able to scout and exploit a strategic weakness, like a lack of detection. i've sniped tech buildings with banshees or warped in mass zealots to eliminate mineral lines, etc. if they are going all-in and you turtle, maybe you can roll them at 200/200, such as when they have T1-T2 units and you have T3. a lot of 2v2 players don't expect to play macro games, and don't transition speedily out of the initial rush
- try some cheesy rush. if you think about where most players are initially bad, its when macro is at a premium. i.e. their 4 rax might be off, but their 10 pool is just fine. have them rush zling speed, while you give a few marines and micro a reaper or a hellions or abuse FF on ramps or whatever.
in general, as far as how race influences this, you can afford to turtle if you are protoss or terran. not if you are zerg. you don't want to, in general, fight a 200/200 protoss under any circumstances.
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Carry the team. Take all the expansions. Be the leader and tell them you are attacking and to come.
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EPT
