[G] Puppylisk's guide to 2v2, all races & matchups

On March 01 2013 02:58 iStarKraft wrote:
Wow thanks for all the effort you've put into this guide. I think this is the most helpful guide on 2v2 I've seen on teamliquid so far - though talking about concepts in 2v2 has its place I do like that you address specifically what to do in each match up.

Thanks again - I'll be using this with my friends. <3

On March 01 2013 06:59 DogBite wrote:
Nice guide, but I wish you'd explained your thoughts behind your choices a bit better and talked about alternate strategies. I don't see any reason why Zerg needs to 10pool every game in most matchups, for example.

Question for puppylisk (or anyone else good at 2v2):

What are your thoughts on the day[9] ZP style, where (simplifying it) ) P dumps gas to Z for mutas? Is it defensible in the early game?

What about ZP/ZT styles where you both turtle (on 2 bases Z, 1 base for the T/P) 'til 10-11 minutes, then move out with a big coordinated push? I've been doing a lot of these with friends recently and we're having success, but then we're only in Plat so that doesn't mean much.

On March 01 2013 06:00 oOOoOphidian wrote:
this is pretty accurate, just missing subtle details in builds and matchups. 2v2 will change a lot in HotS, imo.

On March 01 2013 11:04 metroid composite wrote:
Great guide, fun to see a lot of builds are pretty close to stuff I've been using already. (A few are new to me, like 2 base drone into speedroach).

I am, however, dubious of always 10 pooling toss. In particular, if it's like...vs ZP, I feel like 10p gets countered by 13/13 really hard--they'll have the same number of lings to defend (themselves or toss), and will get speed earlier, and can do their choice of early expo or banelings.

And they can do this reactively--with a 9 scout, you'll get there in time to scout the pool and switch your build into a 14/13 in response to 10p.


Although, I will say that if you expect cannon rush, 10p kills it whereas later pools are too slow, so...that is an argument for 10p.

On March 02 2013 06:21 metroid composite wrote:
Hm, actually, one configuration I don't see mentioned that has a very high success rate so far is...

In ZZ vs ZZ, one zerg opens 10 pool bane (the 1v1 build), the other opens a normal 10 pool. Pressure a bit, force lings out; you'll probably have similar amounts of lings so pull back for 20 seconds and wait for banes. finish banes and win.

You list the standard ZZ vs ZZ build as one 10p one roach, and I'm trying to figure out how 10p + roach holds 10p + 10p bane. Like...if you seven roach rush, there's a good 40 seconds when your opponents will have banelings and you won't have roaches. That seems too long.

On March 02 2013 21:04 daralharb wrote:
I've been trying the 11 gas into hellion banshee. What are the transitions I can go from there? I always feel behind

On March 03 2013 00:13 daralharb wrote:
I play 2v2 with random partners. I've been going 11 hellion banshee pretty much whenever there is a zerg on the other team.

On March 03 2013 00:42 Geiko wrote:
Great work, but just a note, I used to do a lot of the 6minute dt rush but I've found that it's a rather bad build.

As of now I'm doing a 13 gate, 14 gas 15 gas build that chronos out 26 probes rather fast and gets 3 dts @ 6:15 but with a maxed economy off one base. I think 15 seconds is not a lot for 7-8 more probes and enough money to transition into anything.

What server do you play on ?

On March 03 2013 00:46 Geiko wrote:
Also I think you are severely underestimating the value of Phoenixes in 2vs2.

Maybe you haven't played a lot of PT but phoenix + marine tank is pretty much the go to build to counter basically any composition in the early / mid game.

On March 03 2013 00:36 puppylisk wrote:


Okay, in random 2v2 you want to go to make sure your ally is going to do a corresponding build to your 11gas hellion, if you 11gas hellion and your ally decides to just go macro mode, you are generally going to get behind seeing you normally can't solo with hellions, if you do 11gas hellion into banshee and are playing RT, I recommend you get a medivac and just do a 4hellion drop into the not-zergs base, then start your cloak, then banshee. When transitioning, you want to make sure you pull off of 1 of your 2 refineries after you start your first banshee, and throw down a CC, at this point you want to set up your transition based on what they are going, but I personally normally end up going into mech, but it really depends on how the enemys composition is going to end up looking.

On March 03 2013 06:35 ZenithM wrote:
Feeding strategies, or even worse, when a guy leaves the game on purpose right away to transfer his income before 5:00, are imo the most effective way to play 2v2, as well as, let's admit it, the lamest. You're essentially on a 2 base economy at the minute 4:00, you can tech very quickly while still have a buttload of units.
1 player on 2 bases is strictly more powerful than 2 players on 1 base, because an investment in tech from this player translates directly into a reward for a 2 base production, and not for a 1 base production. More simply, I think it's generally accepted that a full 2 base economy is more than twice as powerful as a full 1 base economy. It allows much sharper upgrades and tech timings, huge surge of upgraded units that are barely handleable and certainly not meant to be balanced.

The only downside (and why it's still fun to play 2v2) is that the game is only fun for 1 member out of 2, and not much for the feeder (or the leaver). That's why we don't see them more, people play 2v2s for fun, not for rank and glory, in general.

Rant aside, your guide is very cool and I'm glad that you left out the awful feed builds we sometimes see on the ladder :D

On March 04 2013 17:47 Hatefiend wrote:
Hello puppylisk,

I play competitively for SJSU as the Zerg in our 2v2 for CSL. Thank you for this thread. It has been a huge help. We play PZ and have a really hard time against Grandmaster level ZT teams. We feel we are up against an impossible disadvantage.

On March 04 2013 18:43 puppylisk wrote:


To be fair you will always have a really tough time vs ZT, if they are going ling hellion, you can be significantly better and still lose, you just have to play pretty perfectly, you really need them over committing and keep the hellion count low as possible, always be prepared for cloak banshees as well, if the terran takes 2 gasses, he will be going cloak banshee 99% of the time, on maps such as tyrador keep, boneyard, and molten crater, get a forge and 1 or 2 cannons and if they attack you let some of their units in and forcefield off the rest, only if you have enough units to not let them run around your base and kill workers / scout, and go 1 base collosus while your teammate goes ling roach or just roach, or muta feeds can just end the game, but its a dice roll.

But regardless ZT will always be a tough match up as ZP, if you look @ many of the top teams they are almost entirely ZT

Agreed. We usually lose at the Ling Hellion aggression. His hellions zone my lings away and the opponents lings crush my allies stalkers. There's simply nothing we can do. If I go baneling, they can simply bait me to make a ton of them and then leave and be ahead. If I make spines, they can be ahead in a macro game or avoid my spines. If I try to open up with a non-15 hatch, we straight up lose in a build order loss.

Take a look at the highest ranked game we played vs a TZ team. http://www.twitch.tv/cstarleague/b/357694939 at 47:00 and give your thoughts on how we could of handled it better (we won). I felt the Baneling defense is the only way to survive.

We are only able to play on the following maps:
Deconstructed: http://i.imgur.com/t7Ibb.jpg
Citadel of Gaia: http://i.imgur.com/0Q0L9h.jpg

Thanks ^_^

On March 05 2013 00:41 TigerKarl wrote:
I like the detail you're giving. I've found top ladder teams going for things like you're mentioning 80% or more of their games, but i would like you to consider another thing. The concept of super units is much more important in teamgames because the unkillable army plays a greater role, due to opponents never reacting as perfectly as a individual player could in 1v1. Honestly you can hold every single all-in strategy you've described by scouting and playing defensively. The calculation is easy after that, the army composition with more super units (tanks, colossi and to a lesser degree brood lords) will win you the fights and the game. If the opponent for example got tanks, you'll win if you've got tanks + colossi.
You don't have to have the economic advantage, it's all about surviving early game while building up you're late game composition.
I've won a 500€ LAN tournament by pursuing this playstyle with my friend, despite being outclassed on a individual skill level by our opponents.

On March 06 2013 09:59 PsychoBob wrote:
There's definately a lot of information here but nothing about cross race synergy. I know there are other threads about it but it is missing from this one!

For example, As Zerg/Protoss 2v2 we like to position Overlords early on to allow fast blinking into the back of an enemy base.

25 Energy Queen (1) Creep Tumor, walk Queen to your natural

Both Zergs Should Generally open 15 Hatch, 1 going Ling, Bane, the other Zerg going Roaches

Both Zergs Should open 10pool, and 2 10pools should generally very easily be able to kill off 2 protosses.

On March 06 2013 03:16 metroid composite wrote:
Hmm, ok, one build that I haven't seen mentioned that I have been having a lot of trouble dealing with is...

us: Zx
them: PT

PT shows potential signs of aggression (like three rax in their wall with no addons) but stays one base until the 7-8 minute mark, and then pushes out with a deathball of sentry immortal siege tank marine, using forcefields to protect the tanks and marines.

Like...sure, on paper, kill them before that can happen, but not every partner wants to rush. if I was completely metagaming this, I could drone till the 5 minute mark and then pump units, but droning that long against one-base opponents is definitely not safe, so I usually have only a mild econ advantage.

And all the zerg tech options just seem so bad against this. In 1v1 lings do ok against sentry immortal, but marines kill lings much, much faster than immortals or sentries do, benefitting a lot more from FFs, and Siege Tanks one-shot lings and deal splash. Roaches dislike immortals, dislike siege tanks (especially without speed which I usually don't have), struggle a lot more with those units when there's FFs, and are only mildly cost-efficient against marines. Banelings get FF'd. Spine Crawlers get hit by siege tanks, but at least they delay the push. I've never tried Hydras but I assume they're bad as usual. and I don't think there's enough time to tech to mutas or infestors, but I haven't tried. (Mutas would be a pure counterattack option anyway; fighting sentry marine seems like a bad idea).

Not that I've never held it off (maybe 15% winrate, going spines and lings with some very good ally support like a toss ally going something like 3 gate robo). But I think it's probably the build I'm struggling with the most right now (moreso than ling hellion, which at least dies if they screw up their micro; sure, flawlessly executed ling hellion should never lose 15 lings to one baneling, but you don't exactly need flawless execution to get into masters with ling hellion on NA...).

On April 19 2013 15:48 kubiks wrote:
I got a free technique to beat all this strategy, and without any work !
Just click on spolier
+ Show Spoiler +

On April 19 2013 17:43 padfoota wrote:


4 gate yeah maybe. 6 pool into baneling bust naaaah. As long as both you and your ally is terran its cool

On April 19 2013 23:38 tili wrote:
Woah, this is fantastic - are there plans to update it for HotS?

Puppylisk: Quick question, what would you do as a ZZ team when the protoss goes early mass voidrays? It seems really difficult to deal with.

On May 22 2013 19:21 phillyd wrote:
Very much a HOTS question - does anyone have any thoughts on dealing with double 2 rax reaper in TT vs TZ?

My friend and I are in Diamond on Europe, so we're not horrendous but not great either.

I'm the T, and usually SCV scout, and follow that up with a reaper scout shortly after. From that, we can usually respond to anything that the other team can do in the early game. Against this though, I scouted and saw a fairly early second rax, along with early gas (likely 11/11 with the first rax). I thought that this could mean mass reaper, or it could mean early stim with marines. I didn't change anything I was doing, and got my reaper out to scout again. By the time I got to their base again, he had two reapers, and then four when he met with his friend who was doing the same build. By this point, they have 4 reapers coming to my base, and I have 1/2 marines and a reaper. I can't kill any reapers if they micro well, and the number of reapers just gets out of control quickly, and they just end up having free reign of my base.

Any thoughts of anything I can do to deal with this without just blindly building inbase bunkers before I know they've got reapers? Seems like even that would put us behind...

On June 17 2013 15:53 dumamilk wrote:
update this please :D

On August 13 2013 06:52 puppylisk wrote:


There will most likely not be an update for HotS anymore, I have completely lost all interest in team games, and this game in general for the most part.