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Hey guys,
I've recently taken a liking to playing zerg, and have started playing as Z rather than my usual Terran, with my zerg friend.
Was curious to know how two zerg can deal with the very potent TP matchup. It seems like the Terran and Protoss really have great compliment units, and can really fuck up a zerg ground army.
What are some cohesive strategies in countering the death ball? Should we both stick with similar builds or one go muta/ling, other go roach/hydra?
I also find expanding much harder in 2v2, just because the deathball can roll in and wipe your expo out. Or any variation of drops and harass.
Any comments? Thanks
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Im part of a plat 2v2 zz team and we usually have one person be aggressive early with speedlings and banes, eventually switching to muta or infestors. Your teammate should expand early under your cover fire and do a greedy macro mass roach/hydra. Usually works pretty well although if your early pressure guy can't do much harrass or loses his army too often, you often just get rolled by two deathballs.
I've also seen some good zz teams do a double roach timing build to roll the p, but then you have to scramble to get aa before the terran banshees/valks you to death
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Try to harass and fight as much as possible to keep everyones army size small
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zz is horrible 2v2, you need to do something really cheesy in the beginning to make sure you have an enormous advantage going into mid and late game or else you're gonna get crushed by PT. Luckily, there are tons of maps with insanely wide chokes, double 6 pool usually works well to completely destroy one of the players and then you can 2v1.
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ZZ isn't too good in 2v2. You can try double ling rushing, which is actually very effective. Neither T or P can help their partner, so you can do good damage early on.
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ZZ in 2v2 is still very good, its just hard to play especially at lower levels.
Against TP its all about delaying their big 1 base ball army.
ZZ really should just both FE, I cry a little every time I get ZZZ in a 3v3 and my teams mates just scream 6pool. 9pool!
You need to harrass their front to slow them moving out and joining up their army.
You need to then counter with lings against their mains while they move out their army. Force them to either pull back or take damage at their main.
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7 Roach rush and ling/baneling play. Backstab the opponent that comes to help his ally with lings.
You should both be able to secure an expansion with the first push. Alternatively, you can choose to play all in. Roach open gets upgrades and masses up with a quick death push. Ling open gets +1 and Banelings with a macro hatch to support production.
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My friend and I also play ZZ in 2v2 at gold/platinum level. We both prefer long macro games but there's really only a couple of maps that encourage this style of play and only one that favors it (tempest). I've found the best option is to be very aggressive with any openings you can get into their base and to scout early and often.
We've experimented with a dual 21ish sling rush after you take your expansion (treat it like a one base two hatch build) and dual 7 roach rush but these can both be shut down by walling in and defending decently and can then fail against a timing push.
Really it comes down to countering what they have. I love to use upgraded slings or roaches if possible off of two bases. Banelings if there's a lot of zealots and/or marines. I tend to build a hydra den at some point just in case someone tech switches to air. You should each focus on countering one player.
If they don't wall off at their ramp a great strategy is to both 14 pool, 15 hatch or vice versa, get speed for your lings, double queens, drone up to 21, and then build about 16+ slings each. There's generally very little that can be done once you're both in a base. Look for opportunities to surround his teammate's army as they come to help. Even if you didn't wipe one or both of them out at this point you can establish map control and prevent their expansions. Then you just need to scout because they're likely to go for some sort of tech unit and respond accordingly.
If they manage to both take two bases and tech up, it gets really difficult because zerg needs to stay up a base and there's quite a few maps that have horrible options for third bases. Again map control is vital because it will help you see when they move out so you can counter attack and get good positioning to engage. The map pool really favors terran and protoss because they're just more effective on two bases than zerg. I'd really like to hear from some higher level ZZ teams and see how they handle this because it's the largest problem with my game right now.
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For those who say ZvZ is not a good combo the top 2v2 team in NA is ZZ last time i checked ranks but try double 10 pool into 1 of you expanding on 15 and the other staing on 1 base throwing down a banelings nest and him feeding you the neccesary money to susain a massive baneling attack and still pumping out speedlings constant aggression is how you do zvz you have to keep all armies low at all times No Death balls - July zerg style but 2 zergs
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Any strat that doesnt involve late game.
- double ling rush.
- double bling bust
- double roach rush
- 1 speedling 1 FE macro into midgame push
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MY partner and I play ZZ in 2s and it can work quite well against all combinations (I feel the weakest is vs toss/zerg, but thats a story for another day).
Against toss/terran we both fast expand, one player (me) goes roaches (later into infestor/ultra with maybe some hydras) and my partner goes speedling baneling (later into mutas/corrupters/broods). These combinations are obviously subject to change, but this is the basis of our armies.
Scouting is critical, poking at the top of the ramps consistently needs to be done, we both generally sac overlords around the 5min mark also.
Basically we play 2v2s similar to we would 1v1, which may sound strange but all the ideas of 1v1 we employ. Map control, harrassment and creep spread play a huge role in our games, with 2 players using overlords and creep spread you can see A LOT of the map at just about all times.
Deathballs 'can' prevent a problem, but with our reasonably good unit combination combined with map control we can generally defeat the deathballs after remaxxing. Just try not to engage on your doorstep and rather across the map, so that you will have some time to reproduce your army prior to arriving at your base.
Also as your army can move around redicuosly fast, and you should have visions of expos, deny as best you can. 12speedlings can delay an expo a fair amount of time.
Scout - Map control - Creep spread - Deny Expos - Unit composition
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zz aint good in 2v2 due to very small maps
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This depends on the level of play, but I highly discourage 6-10 pool all ins against TP. Once you hit the higher ranks, going for early pools generally doesn't work. If the remaining ally is competent, he should be able to steamroll both zergs at 9-10 minutes.
Instead, a timed push incorporating banes or roaches is generally strong when targeting the P. From my personal experience, the best ZZ teams that macro generally have one person FE while the other attempts speedling map control. Then they gas feed to muta and tech to late game units.
I believe the best AT 2s is currently Protech and Illmatic/DrgnZerg something. I've seen them play TZ but I think Protech also likes to random. It's a lot of speeds/helio/banshee.
Murrr 920
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If you want to win, I disagree with going banes. it's complete nonsense against a player who knows how to use sentries.
pretty much the way to frame the early game is to think about the 6:30 mark. that's when WG finishes and a round of units gets warped in, likely when their attack will come. either have something that's a trump card before, or after that point.
so, here are my two ideas. a common one is 10 pool / 7 RR which should hit before 6 min. likely won't work on the terran, who is probably going marine/marauder/walloff/repair. if he goes 2 rax marines or hellions thats probably a different story, as marines blow vs roaches and hellions blow too (plus they wont be out in time). but the protoss player likely has a zealot and a stalker (or maybe a sentry if they're any good, but just with one FF). you can snipe the zealot and then runby with zerglings... then snipe the cyber core and that will seriously eff the protoss player. then you have to tech for the counterpush (probably to banelings) while the other expands and or goes mutas/hydras/infestors. the daamge done should be so severe it doesn't really matter, though. this works on split base or short rush distance shared base.
the other idea i have would hit aroudn the 7:00 mark. one person expo's and goes mass speedling. this delays saturation some, but you want 2 hatch anyway for mass sling. sling map control/harassment is essential as this discourages any kind of push, kills proxy pylons, forces them to split forces or waste money on defending backrocks, etc.
the other 1 bases and heads for lair tech. i don't know my zerg timings, but he either goes a shit ton of speed roaches (less advisable UNLESS he goes hellion), hydras or infestors. pretty much ZSS/ MM should roll over fragile and short-ranged zerglings/roaches, so you need to tech to handle PT tier 1.5. you should hold the first push easily, consider a counter push to delay expo"s, and go ahead economically (gg).
i'm not suer what late game shoudl entail, but it should definitely involve a lot of infestors and economic harassment.
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On March 18 2011 17:50 gnurk wrote:
zz aint good in 2v2 due to very small maps
this is not correct. in fact the larger maps have tremendously favored tz. TZ is literally imbalancedon gutterhulk.
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Wanted to get diamond on my profile one day and me and a friend won 22 straight games vs Diamond players (before Masters league patch) by having one person mass speedlings off of 14gas/14pool and the other 7RR. You will push a little after 5 minutes with 24 speedlings and 7 roaches and will win unless they have a couple bunkers. Very easy.
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Double infestor build can be really strong. Lost very hard to it (playing TP with my buddy) last week. (We were going Mass Hellion harass + zealot then expand into mass marine + colossus)
The infestors counter the mobility of the terran and neural parasite can wreak havoc with your own colossi turning against you...
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Personally I think 2x6pool is significantly weaker than an all-in speedling rush. 2x speedling is usually pretty powerful and difficult to stop even with decent walls. And of course it's easy to transition out of (either expanding or banelings for a big bust).
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overpool speedling and roach. Use OL spotting to down any wall, kill the protoss player and quickly transition. Guy who went roach goes roach/banes, other guy just pumps lings into muta feed if necessary.
I play on a couple zz teams and it's very strong. A lot of the time even top ranked teams do retarded stuff like phoenix harass.
You can do a 26 speedling expand and then have your friend do standard 7RR.
Here are some reps of 1v1 zvp. Unless he makes 2 zealots he pretty much loses. Mineral walk 2-3 drones (3 to be safe) and hit the zealot from behind as well as the front.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=198237
You will be able to solo the protoss player in all likelihood while your friend kills any terran reinforcements.
Also, you should downvote maps with shared mains because zergling speed is a major advantage that is mitigated by a shared ramp.
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roach speedling into mass muta for 1 person and the other going baneling zergling.
TP is one of the worse combos aside from PP
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Master level 2v2 here...
I disagree with a lot of the replies here. ZZ is probably one of the most annoying teams in 2v2. Your build as a zerg would be both 10 pool or one 10 pool and the other FE into splings/bane . After constantly build lings and/or send excessive mineral to the FE if someone did FE.
Both 10 pool if they both block ramp ie.. forge canon and rax n supply or double rax... you can just macro slowly into banes and then bane bust one of them preferable the terran the other protoss can't help. Both 10 pool will give you complete map control.
If TP block didn't block ramp it is GG. If T is going fast hellion (hint will be refinery before Rax or reactor) Mass speed lings and you should be fine with surround. Hopefully you have good micro. Toss would have to block his ramp or lings can overwhelm his base and terran won't be able to help. In areas where there is a share choke .. bane bust will do the trick even if you have to produce 12 banes to break a rax or gateway. Then run in with all your slings and GG.
Solid build is Sling and maybe Banes if the scenario arises.
If they go mass marine and mass zealot you can simply bane them on your creep and complete surround with splings. You might not even need banes just outproduce with slings. You should always have more units than them in early game. It should not last into a 15 minute game or else it's GG for zerg.
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I played ZZ mostly,
and I love it, and do decently with a bunch of different strats,
but if you can't get enough early damage to TT TP PP then their combined death ball is almost always an instant KO 
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If they don't share a ramp, 1 do a 3 roach speedling rush (against toss), other do normal speedling to support.
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EPT
