Long time lurker, wanted to share a strategy I made with my friend awhile ago.
For starters I have made a video showcasing the strategy in action:
The premise is a feed strategy, I have tried this with muta's/thors/colossus but the most successful (by far) is void rays. It surprisingly has worked in master league and the reason why I think that is, is that no one sees it coming. One player micro's the other macros.
Some important side notes to the video: - The player that is going to micro the void rays needs a saturated base. This is crucial under the circumstances that the opponents rush you. Saturated base = an easy early game tech switch - Don't hard counter, if it's a PP vs PP and they mass stalkers, you're going to have a bad time - Lastly have a friend who is good at getting an economy up and playing the base defence without sacrificing too many resources. This strategy has been attempted as PZ where the Zerg fed the Protoss (makes sense since Zerg can get a massive economy the fastest) Unfortunately the static defence and for what ever reason 2v2 players seem to love to rush Zerg, best bet is PP.
So your strategy is to mass void rays. And hope your opponents never attack you.
I don't mean to doubt you, but this strategy is very vulnerable to a number of openings and mid game timing attacks, ESPECIALLY as PP, which is considered the weakest 2v2 composition by far. I have a hard time believing this works consistently against masters level players (note, I didn't say "masters teams").
I guess what I'm trying to say is: is having one player mass bases and feed another person who is massing void rays a "strategy"? Shouldn't we be looking for a way to consistently get to this point?
For instance, a very strong 2v2 strategy is VR/SH. The swarm hosts and infestors help to shut down any direct assaults while the Protoss player can deflect drops with phoenixes/voids and do small void ray pokes with the MSC to pick things off. With the addition of storm, it becomes near impossible to actually break, and the SH/VR composition slowly consumes the map. You can also transition to carriers off the back of ~10 void rays, creating a near unstoppable late game army that's very difficult to deal with, especially when the SHs get involved.
On August 10 2014 03:58 SC2John wrote: So your strategy is to mass void rays. And hope your opponents never attack you.
I don't mean to doubt you, but this strategy is very vulnerable to a number of openings and mid game timing attacks, ESPECIALLY as PP, which is considered the weakest 2v2 composition by far. I have a hard time believing this works consistently against masters level players (note, I didn't say "masters teams").
I guess what I'm trying to say is: is having one player mass bases and feed another person who is massing void rays a "strategy"? Shouldn't we be looking for a way to consistently get to this point?
For instance, a very strong 2v2 strategy is VR/SH. The swarm hosts and infestors help to shut down any direct assaults while the Protoss player can deflect drops with phoenixes/voids and do small void ray pokes with the MSC to pick things off. With the addition of storm, it becomes near impossible to actually break, and the SH/VR composition slowly consumes the map. You can also transition to carriers off the back of ~10 void rays, creating a near unstoppable late game army that's very difficult to deal with, especially when the SHs get involved.
I certainly agree with what you are saying but VR/SH is a totally different strategy. You're referring to two complementary builds, the feed into VR is not the same situation. Yes VR/SH is incredibly powerful but a solid mobile Terran team can beat it 9 times out of 10. The goal that I am trying to achieve with a mass VR build is the element of a subsidized income, you can't really scout that a player is being fed (before it's too late). In addition, the mass VR's can snowball under the fed strategy... It's all about timings, and of course if I wasn't commentating while recording I could have the first VR out very early with a cannon wall protecting. There are certainly ways to counter this build but the flexibility of not having to over commit makes it extremely versatile and effective.
- Mothership core is an early method of defense - Cannons are a deterrent - Early VR can defend the base coupled with points 1 and 2
On August 10 2014 05:24 hellokitty[hk] wrote: Lol you got rekt in your video. Kind of expected that.
?
I think that he's talking about at or around 11:30.
That being said, I don't think that you won the game with superior strategy. I think you won because your opponents made bad decisions. They chose to defend individually and got chewed up for it. Had they continued to defend like they did initially, I think that you would have lost.
I don't think that basing your strategy on not being scouted is the best idea. But hey, take my criticism with a grain of salt. If it makes you happy, so be it. If I see you on the ladder, I'll be glad to take your ladder points lol.
On August 10 2014 03:58 SC2John wrote: So your strategy is to mass void rays. And hope your opponents never attack you.
I don't mean to doubt you, but this strategy is very vulnerable to a number of openings and mid game timing attacks, ESPECIALLY as PP, which is considered the weakest 2v2 composition by far. I have a hard time believing this works consistently against masters level players (note, I didn't say "masters teams").
I guess what I'm trying to say is: is having one player mass bases and feed another person who is massing void rays a "strategy"? Shouldn't we be looking for a way to consistently get to this point?
For instance, a very strong 2v2 strategy is VR/SH. The swarm hosts and infestors help to shut down any direct assaults while the Protoss player can deflect drops with phoenixes/voids and do small void ray pokes with the MSC to pick things off. With the addition of storm, it becomes near impossible to actually break, and the SH/VR composition slowly consumes the map. You can also transition to carriers off the back of ~10 void rays, creating a near unstoppable late game army that's very difficult to deal with, especially when the SHs get involved.
I certainly agree with what you are saying but VR/SH is a totally different strategy. You're referring to two complementary builds, the feed into VR is not the same situation. Yes VR/SH is incredibly powerful but a solid mobile Terran team can beat it 9 times out of 10. The goal that I am trying to achieve with a mass VR build is the element of a subsidized income, you can't really scout that a player is being fed (before it's too late). In addition, the mass VR's can snowball under the fed strategy... It's all about timings, and of course if I wasn't commentating while recording I could have the first VR out very early with a cannon wall protecting. There are certainly ways to counter this build but the flexibility of not having to over commit makes it extremely versatile and effective.
- Mothership core is an early method of defense - Cannons are a deterrent - Early VR can defend the base coupled with points 1 and 2
I was citing VR/SH as a well thought-out and developed game plan with fairly stable points throughout that allows you to win games. This is an example of using a "strategy". Simply saying something to the effect of, "One player mass expands and feeds the other while he makes Void Rays" does no encompass a strategy. This is simply an idea, a thought process.
In general, I am very dubious of this plan because I recently have played a ton of 2v2s against primarily masters/GM players. First of all, once you get to a certain level of game knowledge, it's quite easy to tell when a team is feeding; it's simply not that hard if you scout AT ALL. Second, team games tend to gravitate more toward aggressive openings due to the map layouts and the nature of 2's, so it's quite difficult to get up a big macro plan like "mass expanding and making void rays out of 5-6 stargates" without having a plan of how to get there. The most brutal composition in 2's is gas first hellions + 14/14 speedlings (cars n dogs, as Snute puts it), which hits at 5:30 before warp gate can be done with a 13 gate and usually no more than 2-3 gateway units can be out (And yes, no nexus cannon either for 20 seconds). Versus Protoss/Protoss, this is incredibly deadly, especially on maps where you can't wall off (obviously, it's fairly safe on the map in the video). Still, the possibility of things like DT drops, reaper cheeses, marine/mine drops, etc., etc., the list goes on, make a PP team SUPER vulnerable.
My point is not to destroy the idea that you have, but rather try to give you suggestions to improve it. Right now, what you have is just an idea. It is not a strategy. It's not even really a defined plan. It's still very vulnerable to certain things and far from reliable against good players who know what's going on.
PS Oracle openings are THE SHIT in 2s. ALWAYS open oracle first, as they save you from a lot of cars n dogs things as well as allow you the flexibility to be really aggressive and get a lot of damage done while also getting a fairly early scout on. No reason to open up void rays to start ever unless your opponents are doing some kind of weird 1-base roach rush or something.
I watched the video up to 7 mins and gave up. You were researching 2 air upgrades and the shield with 2 stargates while your ally expanded and had a cannon for defence... all without scouting.
This build is way too fragile and relies on your opponents not rushing.
Everytime me and my buddies wanted to have some easy chillaxed Games with a good Chance of Winning, we Would just Mass Tank+fenix. the idea being that toss gets to cut all gateway production, while terra cuts all mineral and air units in favor of tanks and ccs. in the early game, a bunker with 4 rines msc and a walloff usually offers sufficient defenses until your first tanks are out. Our midgame begins when we have gathered up enough tanks to take 4 bases total while maintaining aircontrol and scouting with a batch of fenixes. the plan for this phase of the game is to match our opponents economy without stretching our defenses too thin. usually terran starts to bank up some spare minerals which can be used for extra cannons turrets mass gateways(if we feel like doing counterattacks with prisms) or just be pumped into hellions for some harrasment. the lategame begins when we have secured 12-16 geysers. we would transition into carrier tempest and add some ravens and thors. we start banking and add on production after we maxout the first time and slowly trade off scvs probes fenix tanks etc for a stronger army. we would then make a slowpush of doom with 15-20 boyz tanks mass pdd and partyhats on repair duty.
On August 10 2014 03:58 SC2John wrote: So your strategy is to mass void rays. And hope your opponents never attack you.
I don't mean to doubt you, but this strategy is very vulnerable to a number of openings and mid game timing attacks, ESPECIALLY as PP, which is considered the weakest 2v2 composition by far. I have a hard time believing this works consistently against masters level players (note, I didn't say "masters teams").
I guess what I'm trying to say is: is having one player mass bases and feed another person who is massing void rays a "strategy"? Shouldn't we be looking for a way to consistently get to this point?
For instance, a very strong 2v2 strategy is VR/SH. The swarm hosts and infestors help to shut down any direct assaults while the Protoss player can deflect drops with phoenixes/voids and do small void ray pokes with the MSC to pick things off. With the addition of storm, it becomes near impossible to actually break, and the SH/VR composition slowly consumes the map. You can also transition to carriers off the back of ~10 void rays, creating a near unstoppable late game army that's very difficult to deal with, especially when the SHs get involved.
I certainly agree with what you are saying but VR/SH is a totally different strategy. You're referring to two complementary builds, the feed into VR is not the same situation. Yes VR/SH is incredibly powerful but a solid mobile Terran team can beat it 9 times out of 10. The goal that I am trying to achieve with a mass VR build is the element of a subsidized income, you can't really scout that a player is being fed (before it's too late). In addition, the mass VR's can snowball under the fed strategy... It's all about timings, and of course if I wasn't commentating while recording I could have the first VR out very early with a cannon wall protecting. There are certainly ways to counter this build but the flexibility of not having to over commit makes it extremely versatile and effective.
- Mothership core is an early method of defense - Cannons are a deterrent - Early VR can defend the base coupled with points 1 and 2
I was citing VR/SH as a well thought-out and developed game plan with fairly stable points throughout that allows you to win games. This is an example of using a "strategy". Simply saying something to the effect of, "One player mass expands and feeds the other while he makes Void Rays" does no encompass a strategy. This is simply an idea, a thought process.
In general, I am very dubious of this plan because I recently have played a ton of 2v2s against primarily masters/GM players. First of all, once you get to a certain level of game knowledge, it's quite easy to tell when a team is feeding; it's simply not that hard if you scout AT ALL. Second, team games tend to gravitate more toward aggressive openings due to the map layouts and the nature of 2's, so it's quite difficult to get up a big macro plan like "mass expanding and making void rays out of 5-6 stargates" without having a plan of how to get there. The most brutal composition in 2's is gas first hellions + 14/14 speedlings (cars n dogs, as Snute puts it), which hits at 5:30 before warp gate can be done with a 13 gate and usually no more than 2-3 gateway units can be out (And yes, no nexus cannon either for 20 seconds). Versus Protoss/Protoss, this is incredibly deadly, especially on maps where you can't wall off (obviously, it's fairly safe on the map in the video). Still, the possibility of things like DT drops, reaper cheeses, marine/mine drops, etc., etc., the list goes on, make a PP team SUPER vulnerable.
My point is not to destroy the idea that you have, but rather try to give you suggestions to improve it. Right now, what you have is just an idea. It is not a strategy. It's not even really a defined plan. It's still very vulnerable to certain things and far from reliable against good players who know what's going on.
PS Oracle openings are THE SHIT in 2s. ALWAYS open oracle first, as they save you from a lot of cars n dogs things as well as allow you the flexibility to be really aggressive and get a lot of damage done while also getting a fairly early scout on. No reason to open up void rays to start ever unless your opponents are doing some kind of weird 1-base roach rush or something.
Listen, you cannot scout a feed in this strategy because you move out before it is obvious. You can be GM but unless you've seen the entirety of the map you would have no idea at 7:30 I was being fed. I could be researching warp for 50/50 in my cyber...
Also I do enjoy oracle openings but if you open with oracles people will AA their base and register voids useless.
Alright guys, I get it, you need more proof before you drink the KoolAid. What I'm going to do is record more of this strategy in action to better illustrate the adaptability and potential of it.
PS. I love the criticism it helps develop ideas into solid builds, you may know something I don't and vice versa.
On August 10 2014 03:58 SC2John wrote: So your strategy is to mass void rays. And hope your opponents never attack you.
I don't mean to doubt you, but this strategy is very vulnerable to a number of openings and mid game timing attacks, ESPECIALLY as PP, which is considered the weakest 2v2 composition by far. I have a hard time believing this works consistently against masters level players (note, I didn't say "masters teams").
I guess what I'm trying to say is: is having one player mass bases and feed another person who is massing void rays a "strategy"? Shouldn't we be looking for a way to consistently get to this point?
For instance, a very strong 2v2 strategy is VR/SH. The swarm hosts and infestors help to shut down any direct assaults while the Protoss player can deflect drops with phoenixes/voids and do small void ray pokes with the MSC to pick things off. With the addition of storm, it becomes near impossible to actually break, and the SH/VR composition slowly consumes the map. You can also transition to carriers off the back of ~10 void rays, creating a near unstoppable late game army that's very difficult to deal with, especially when the SHs get involved.
I certainly agree with what you are saying but VR/SH is a totally different strategy. You're referring to two complementary builds, the feed into VR is not the same situation. Yes VR/SH is incredibly powerful but a solid mobile Terran team can beat it 9 times out of 10. The goal that I am trying to achieve with a mass VR build is the element of a subsidized income, you can't really scout that a player is being fed (before it's too late). In addition, the mass VR's can snowball under the fed strategy... It's all about timings, and of course if I wasn't commentating while recording I could have the first VR out very early with a cannon wall protecting. There are certainly ways to counter this build but the flexibility of not having to over commit makes it extremely versatile and effective.
- Mothership core is an early method of defense - Cannons are a deterrent - Early VR can defend the base coupled with points 1 and 2
I was citing VR/SH as a well thought-out and developed game plan with fairly stable points throughout that allows you to win games. This is an example of using a "strategy". Simply saying something to the effect of, "One player mass expands and feeds the other while he makes Void Rays" does no encompass a strategy. This is simply an idea, a thought process.
In general, I am very dubious of this plan because I recently have played a ton of 2v2s against primarily masters/GM players. First of all, once you get to a certain level of game knowledge, it's quite easy to tell when a team is feeding; it's simply not that hard if you scout AT ALL. Second, team games tend to gravitate more toward aggressive openings due to the map layouts and the nature of 2's, so it's quite difficult to get up a big macro plan like "mass expanding and making void rays out of 5-6 stargates" without having a plan of how to get there. The most brutal composition in 2's is gas first hellions + 14/14 speedlings (cars n dogs, as Snute puts it), which hits at 5:30 before warp gate can be done with a 13 gate and usually no more than 2-3 gateway units can be out (And yes, no nexus cannon either for 20 seconds). Versus Protoss/Protoss, this is incredibly deadly, especially on maps where you can't wall off (obviously, it's fairly safe on the map in the video). Still, the possibility of things like DT drops, reaper cheeses, marine/mine drops, etc., etc., the list goes on, make a PP team SUPER vulnerable.
My point is not to destroy the idea that you have, but rather try to give you suggestions to improve it. Right now, what you have is just an idea. It is not a strategy. It's not even really a defined plan. It's still very vulnerable to certain things and far from reliable against good players who know what's going on.
PS Oracle openings are THE SHIT in 2s. ALWAYS open oracle first, as they save you from a lot of cars n dogs things as well as allow you the flexibility to be really aggressive and get a lot of damage done while also getting a fairly early scout on. No reason to open up void rays to start ever unless your opponents are doing some kind of weird 1-base roach rush or something.
Listen, you cannot scout a feed in this strategy because you move out before it is obvious. You can be GM but unless you've seen the entirety of the map you would have no idea at 7:30 I was being fed. I could be researching warp for 50/50 in my cyber...
Also I do enjoy oracle openings but if you open with oracles people will AA their base and register voids useless.
Alright guys, I get it, you need more proof before you drink the KoolAid. What I'm going to do is record more of this strategy in action to better illustrate the adaptability and potential of it.
PS. I love the criticism it helps develop ideas into solid builds, you may know something I don't and vice versa.
Yes, you can lol. If your ally has nothing, no tech or anything at 7:30, he's probably feeding, especially if you're running 2 stargate VR off of 1 base. Trust me, even if you go for the most economic FE possible, you'll still have SOME kind of tech down before 7:30, so it's pretty obvious. I'm not theorycrafting here, you are simply wrong that decent players can't figure out what you're doing.
EDIT: As a side note, please format multiple responses into one post. It's just sort of an unwritten rule in TL to make sure that things are kept clean and concise.
Your partner has ONLY 3 probes mining minerals in his second base at 7:50 and not a single probe on gas there. At this point in the game, you should 44 probes in total if you msc expand (16 on minerals and 6 on gas in each base). In other words, his economy is awful.
I see no reason why you wouldn't want to expand yourself to get an overall stronger economy earlier. You can have a 4-base economy by 8 minutes if both players go msc expand. If your ally actually went ffe properly (which he didn't, because he expanded at like 5 min), you'd have an even better economy. Even if a player goes msc expand with a fast third, he won't really have a solid 3-base economy until about 10 minutes into the game. In other words, you staying on 1 base slows you down by a lot, and him not saturating his bases properly slows you down even more since his third takes ages to make a difference.
On August 10 2014 03:58 SC2John wrote: So your strategy is to mass void rays. And hope your opponents never attack you.
I don't mean to doubt you, but this strategy is very vulnerable to a number of openings and mid game timing attacks, ESPECIALLY as PP, which is considered the weakest 2v2 composition by far. I have a hard time believing this works consistently against masters level players (note, I didn't say "masters teams").
I guess what I'm trying to say is: is having one player mass bases and feed another person who is massing void rays a "strategy"? Shouldn't we be looking for a way to consistently get to this point?
For instance, a very strong 2v2 strategy is VR/SH. The swarm hosts and infestors help to shut down any direct assaults while the Protoss player can deflect drops with phoenixes/voids and do small void ray pokes with the MSC to pick things off. With the addition of storm, it becomes near impossible to actually break, and the SH/VR composition slowly consumes the map. You can also transition to carriers off the back of ~10 void rays, creating a near unstoppable late game army that's very difficult to deal with, especially when the SHs get involved.
I certainly agree with what you are saying but VR/SH is a totally different strategy. You're referring to two complementary builds, the feed into VR is not the same situation. Yes VR/SH is incredibly powerful but a solid mobile Terran team can beat it 9 times out of 10. The goal that I am trying to achieve with a mass VR build is the element of a subsidized income, you can't really scout that a player is being fed (before it's too late). In addition, the mass VR's can snowball under the fed strategy... It's all about timings, and of course if I wasn't commentating while recording I could have the first VR out very early with a cannon wall protecting. There are certainly ways to counter this build but the flexibility of not having to over commit makes it extremely versatile and effective.
- Mothership core is an early method of defense - Cannons are a deterrent - Early VR can defend the base coupled with points 1 and 2
I was citing VR/SH as a well thought-out and developed game plan with fairly stable points throughout that allows you to win games. This is an example of using a "strategy". Simply saying something to the effect of, "One player mass expands and feeds the other while he makes Void Rays" does no encompass a strategy. This is simply an idea, a thought process.
In general, I am very dubious of this plan because I recently have played a ton of 2v2s against primarily masters/GM players. First of all, once you get to a certain level of game knowledge, it's quite easy to tell when a team is feeding; it's simply not that hard if you scout AT ALL. Second, team games tend to gravitate more toward aggressive openings due to the map layouts and the nature of 2's, so it's quite difficult to get up a big macro plan like "mass expanding and making void rays out of 5-6 stargates" without having a plan of how to get there. The most brutal composition in 2's is gas first hellions + 14/14 speedlings (cars n dogs, as Snute puts it), which hits at 5:30 before warp gate can be done with a 13 gate and usually no more than 2-3 gateway units can be out (And yes, no nexus cannon either for 20 seconds). Versus Protoss/Protoss, this is incredibly deadly, especially on maps where you can't wall off (obviously, it's fairly safe on the map in the video). Still, the possibility of things like DT drops, reaper cheeses, marine/mine drops, etc., etc., the list goes on, make a PP team SUPER vulnerable.
My point is not to destroy the idea that you have, but rather try to give you suggestions to improve it. Right now, what you have is just an idea. It is not a strategy. It's not even really a defined plan. It's still very vulnerable to certain things and far from reliable against good players who know what's going on.
PS Oracle openings are THE SHIT in 2s. ALWAYS open oracle first, as they save you from a lot of cars n dogs things as well as allow you the flexibility to be really aggressive and get a lot of damage done while also getting a fairly early scout on. No reason to open up void rays to start ever unless your opponents are doing some kind of weird 1-base roach rush or something.
Listen, you cannot scout a feed in this strategy because you move out before it is obvious. You can be GM but unless you've seen the entirety of the map you would have no idea at 7:30 I was being fed. I could be researching warp for 50/50 in my cyber...
Also I do enjoy oracle openings but if you open with oracles people will AA their base and register voids useless.
Alright guys, I get it, you need more proof before you drink the KoolAid. What I'm going to do is record more of this strategy in action to better illustrate the adaptability and potential of it.
PS. I love the criticism it helps develop ideas into solid builds, you may know something I don't and vice versa.
Yes, you can lol. If your ally has nothing, no tech or anything at 7:30, he's probably feeding, especially if you're running 2 stargate VR off of 1 base. Trust me, even if you go for the most economic FE possible, you'll still have SOME kind of tech down before 7:30, so it's pretty obvious. I'm not theorycrafting here, you are simply wrong that decent players can't figure out what you're doing.
EDIT: As a side note, please format multiple responses into one post. It's just sort of an unwritten rule in TL to make sure that things are kept clean and concise.
You're still not quite understanding. I'll make it more simple for you... What is more likely in a 2v2, 4v4, 3v3 match; a feed strategy or a hidden cheese tech? At 7:30 you don't know the entirety of the map (unless you mh), pro players see this and think they're getting proxied/cheesed/fooled. Although I do applaud your confident criticism it is a much different scenario in-game.
On August 11 2014 01:43 vhapter wrote: Your partner has ONLY 3 probes mining minerals in his second base at 7:50 and not a single probe on gas there. At this point in the game, you should 44 probes in total if you msc expand (16 on minerals and 6 on gas in each base). In other words, his economy is awful.
I see no reason why you wouldn't want to expand yourself to get an overall stronger economy earlier. You can have a 4-base economy by 8 minutes if both players go msc expand. If your ally actually went ffe properly (which he didn't, because he expanded at like 5 min), you'd have an even better economy. Even if a player goes msc expand with a fast third, he won't really have a solid 3-base economy until about 10 minutes into the game. In other words, you staying on 1 base slows you down by a lot, and him not saturating his bases properly slows you down even more since his third takes ages to make a difference.
You're right, my partner isn't the greatest and we still win :D. But to answer your question, the entirety of the build is to have one person with a 100% probe supply and the other partner to have a 95% army supply. Fast expand takes away from my partner's safe bases and cuts into my unit supply...