When I go 14 gas/14 pool I build a geyser right after getting my 14th drone, build my 14th drone again when the geyser finishes I'll immediately move 3 drones to get gas. At 200 minerals build your pool. If you do the timing correct your pool should finish at almost exactly 100 gas.

As to my 11 pool 18 hatch build, I typically do that build vs toss, sometimes vs terran (though it is hard to fight a 2 rax.. but easier then 14gas/14pool imo). I never do it vs zerg because I very rarely actually expand vs zerg.

1/29/2011 6:46:40 PM

zags and I are up to top 200 in the US for 2v2 teams.

We played the #1 2v2 team in the world in terms of points 2 times last night and lost both pretty bad. Didn't get good maps and the matchup isn't great, but was cool to be high enough to take a crack at that team. Wish we could have pulled off the win.

1/30/2011 11:10:14 AM

^that's awesome...any details on the matches? they must have great teamwork.

1/30/2011 2:25:23 PM

Just spent the past 2 days getting to the mission where you get the secret mission, then completing said secret mission. It was fun, but I don't really like the "run away from something big" type missions.

1/30/2011 3:18:54 PM

^^Well honestly they werent too much about teamwork as they were abusive builds. Don't get me wrong - the guys were skilled players, but basically they just go fast speedling harass + reaper harass into mass speedling/marine tank.

It certainly takes skill to win at the ridiculous like 80% win rate these guys had (One guy was 3200-500 or something, like 1200-70 in 3v3s). But I'm assuming a huge chunk of their wins came in the time when reaper harass was ridiculous in team games and I bet they contributed to it being nerfed.

And its not like the builds that titans and I do aren't abusive. Whether it is both of us going mass sling and taking out the zerg of the other team then macroing up to kill the other, or one of us going fast banelings, we do try and abuse our advantages. Part of that though is because ZZ is incredibly weak against later game ZT or TP. Though we did have one absolutely sick rape game of ZZ vs TT where we basically did some harass at the start then we each took 2-3 bases and macroed. The terrans both took two bases which should typically means we are screwed. But we had just a perfect unit composition of fully upgraded ultras, slings, blings on my end, and titans with roach/infestor. It was brutal, I think both of us maybe dropped below 170 food in the final battle at worst, and half of my deaths were banelings.

I'll have to upload some of our good 2v2's, we do have some pretty fun back and forth games. We had a good ZZvZP the other day, we did our initial ling rush and flue kept harassing while I teched to roach/hydra. Basically we ended up taking their zerg out of the game but flue was low on resources most of the game. It turned into me keeping the toss on two bases until eventually he pushed with a 200/200 army of gateway/colossi, but titans popped like 15 mutas/corrupters just in time to knock out the colossi, then my army raped.

^I thought the mission was pretty fun, I've always been a fan of small squad missions in RTS's. But yeah the ending is just sort of meh.

[Edited on January 30, 2011 at 5:38 PM. Reason : a]

1/30/2011 5:33:40 PM

Yeah hard to be critical of their abusive build when the "base" build we use each game is pretty abusive. We basically open 80% of our games with a double speed ling build that hits around the 5 minute mark with like 48 speed lings. We then transition from there.

We've played over 250 2v2 games at this point, so we transition pretty well during any scenario since we've seen about everything people try to do. Makes it fun because we just know what each other are going to do unlike playing team games with random people where you'll look at your teammates base and he is doing something completely stupid.

Our real pitfall tends to be longer macro games simply because the longer a game goes vs. good players the less 2 zergs tend to fair plus our build puts us in a pretty bad economic state. A lot of the maps don't have enough good expansions and getting beyond 2 bases is tough.

We have been moving up 100-200 points a week lately, I think we'll be top 100 or so in the world soon enough.

1/30/2011 6:41:14 PM

^^ Def upload some and post link here. I try to find good Z team play

1/31/2011 1:42:01 AM

We've had some pretty entertaining games, I never save any replays though hopefully Zags does.

Honestly, most of our games last 10 minutes with the style we play. Hopefully the next patch will introduce some changes that make Zerg's late game a little bit more viable. But against good opponents it is almost impossible to win a long macro game ZZ v TT or TP so we try to either end it early or make it a 2v1.

One huge problem we are running into is that we are high enough now where we're almost always favored but the teams we play are still good teams/players. Just not many teams that are on and active at our point range so we'll typically get 4-6 points for a win but lose 18-24 if we lose.

1/31/2011 6:48:41 PM

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays

If you search "Zags" or "Flue" you can find 4 replays I uploaded of us from today. Nothing special, some are just our normal strat working perfectly, some are us transitioning out of it, 1 is us playing a more macro game in a map/matchup that is normally an autoloss for us.

2/1/2011 10:10:06 AM

Zags,

here is the BO I had mentioned we should try(From TL):

BO is as follows.

10 ovie
10-13 drone
13 pool
12 gas
11-14 drone
15 queen
17 roach warren
16 a pair of lings to deny scouting
@ 100 gas ling speed
17 ovie
inject on queen pop and on every injection timing from there on out or the build will greatly suffer
3 roaches, pull drones from gas, and the rest lings.

Ling speed will finish at about the time roaches show up to your opponent's base. Make sure to have a spotter overlord to do what damage you can while you wait for any sentries to expend their energy from FF. Keep making lings, get them inside the base

2/2/2011 10:18:22 AM

Yeah i read the thread and watched a replay of it. It definitely is strong but I just think in a 2v2 situation its not going to be as good. IMO its better to have a solid ling build from one person and a 6 roach build with fewer speed lings from the other. That extra roach warren is 6 additional lings we could have. And I think this build would only work well against toss/something specifically with spread out bases. As we saw yesterday roaches mobility sucks in 2v2s. Same reason we abuse lings, mobility is key in the 2s.

I do want to try the build out in 1v1 vs toss tho.

Ill also upload a few more of our replays from today if anyone wants to see. One features a build we have been working on where one of us walls the choke with a hatch/evos/spines while the other techs straight to mutas. It works pretty well in 2s since the mutas give so much map control.

2/2/2011 3:36:55 PM

Dzags are you able to kick people out of the Espn beat the streak group or like have someone else run it? We want to get all the non players out so we don't have 2 pages of leaderboard

2/2/2011 3:43:26 PM

^^Yes, do it pls. The other ones were pretty typical, but I like watching replays in SC2 rather than on youtube.

2/2/2011 5:39:18 PM

Yeah there were some good ones from today. The resource sharing we do with some of our builds is key in 2v2... nothing is more frustrating then doing like team games and you are losing and hurting for gas and one of your teammates leaves the game and all the sudden you have 2000+ gas that you could have been using. When we do that method one of us just has to control and upgrade lings, the other control and upgrade mutas. So you save also on not having to double up on upgrades.

Zags, I think the build would work especially vs. Toss/Terran. The problem with the RR + speed ling is that I can't follow up with speed lings to keep pressure on, the roaches are to slow to keep streaming in.

If we do this build, we'd have 6 roaches + a similar amount of lings hitting just a bit later and we'll both have speed lings. Then we either keep pumping lings or we can both block our ramps for helions, stop banshee, and go from there. I think it is worth trying. Here is an updated version that should be better:

11 overpool
12 gas
15 queen
17 roach warren
16 ling
17 speed
17 ov
17 3 roach -> take drone off gas
23 ov
mass lings

2/2/2011 7:12:21 PM

^^^Haha sorry I hadn't looked at beat the streak in forever, I'll have to start doing that again. Just PM me whoever you want out and I'll boot them. I tried to see if I could switch the owner of the group but it wont let me.

^^I'll uploaded two more now, one is a ZZvTT where I pretty much straight teched to broodlords (which I never do) and flue went infestors (which he never does) and with some pretty clutch fungals we ended up with good results in a MU we didnt expect to win. The other is the one I mentioned earlier where I wall off zerg style (and fail at it) and flue techs straight to mutas. These replays have just been from the past few days so we dont really have anything exciting yet, but I'll definitely try and save more special ones as we go. Just wanted to get some uploaded to show you guys our strat.

^You know I'm always up for trying something new. I just think we should take a look at some builds and maybe only have one of us go roaches. Theoretically if we are breaking into 1 persons base then we should only need the 3 roaches. Then the other person can just go mass sling. It would get us a few extra slings which should be more beneficial since we aren't almost guaranteed to lose them once the other teammate comes over like we would be with roaches.

[Edited on February 2, 2011 at 8:14 PM. Reason : a]

2/2/2011 8:13:22 PM

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/134345-2v2-protoss-zerg-twilight-fortress

Titans and I just played that one. Lets just say we were moving on up with a pretty sizable force, we break down their front door and endless streams of banelings and zealots pour out. It was pretty entertaning.

Would've been more fun if I didn't lag out at that point so I could've fungaled them all inside their base, but it was still hilarious.

2/3/2011 9:47:12 AM

Yeah we had 2 pretty good ones today, that being one of them.

I just wasn't sure if Zags was waiting to fungal air units or were lagging. The guy must have been maxed out on banelings... had enough to take out basically 2 maxed armies of roaches and hydras. These guys had talked shit to us the game before because we beat them w/ mass speed lings, making the comment along the lines of "learn how to actually play the game." We then got them again and destroyed them in a long macro game, which is what accounts for the shit talking at the start.

That game has a lot of good fungals too, 2-3 times catching mass amounts of phoenix and at the end 20 or so mutas.

2/3/2011 11:45:29 AM

I actually went back and counted, there were 38. Granted you had 15 or so of your own that helped kill them. Would've been hilarious if I had killed all 38 with just fungal, granted that would've happened anyways, would've just taken a little bit longer. I had those suckers nailed down.

2/3/2011 3:55:39 PM

For any zerg who have issues with 4 gaters.. here is how you beat a 4 gate:

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/135169-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns

He lost like 4 zealots, 5 sentries, 2 stalkers.

I lost 5 zerglings.

2/5/2011 8:13:19 AM

^You build 40 zerglings and 2 spine crawlers and you let the opponent run 15 gateway units into them in an uncoordinated attack and then quit? Yes, you are the master strategist.

2/5/2011 10:08:38 AM

^Haha chill man, I just thought it was funny how horribly owned the 4gate got. Of course the guy also had some of the worst force fields ever. He had over 1200 games played and from what I could tell most were 4 gates, you would think at some point in there he would learn how to play.

2/5/2011 10:12:43 AM

^He is saying you suck and got no skill.

I agree with him, what a crappy replay bragging about yourself. You are so bad that even your opponents can't coordinate their attacks against you because they are confused by your badness.

2/5/2011 12:07:55 PM

To be fair his attack was coordinated. It just unfortunately had a counter attack that was designed specifically for what he was doing and my counter was more coordinated!

For real though, I feel like I can't lose to toss anymore. I can't remember the last time I lost while going my standard build (11 pool, 18 hatch). Did have one really funny game this morning against a toss who was 4 gating, but didn't push out. I was like wtf? Sacced an overlord, only saw gateway units. So I saturated both bases and added some blings. He pushed out with like 20 zealots, all his drones, a bunch of stalkers. I barely held him off by bouncing my drones from natural to expansion while I tried to get enough lings to kill his last 7 zealots that were stilll hitting shit :p

2/5/2011 12:16:26 PM

I struggle with Toss if they get to 3 bases and can start to make that death ball of colossi and void rays. It is mostly because I don't tech to Broods enough. I wish hydras had a bit longer window for being useful vs. Toss too, that would be helpful.

2/5/2011 12:30:41 PM

Thats why I like opening speedlings. That way they can't get to three bases.

2/5/2011 12:38:14 PM

Yeah what I've been having to do. Speedlings to hydra to corrupter/roach. Pretty much have to since every toss basically opens up fast expand, to gateway units to VR/Phoenix, to Collossi. Just sucks when you end up with 20-30 hydras and basically have to just sacrifice them late game since they are so bad at that point. Would be helpful if Ultras weren't the most useless unit in the game and could tank while hydras are behind but doesn't work.

2/5/2011 2:06:17 PM

Quote :

"To be fair his attack was coordinated."

Oh, come on. A better player would've retreated and maybe picked off some zerglings. That guy marched his stalkers up to spine crawlers and started shooting overlords. Then he threw up force fields that sortof saved the zealots from the zerglings but not the spine crawlers. It looked like half the zealots and sentries didn't even attack anything.

Don't mean to be an ass but seems like an odd thing to be proud of beating.

2/5/2011 3:25:19 PM

^I was only proud of beating it because its a stupid shit build that every protoss does and unfortunately manages to make work pretty often. My point is that it is pathetic that just that build played by someone that bad can get you that high into diamond.

2/5/2011 3:45:21 PM

i can actually 4 gate at a gosu level with forcefields

zags, how often you face things like 14 forge 18 nexus (with cannons at the natural as needed) into 6 gate? takes a little more knowledge of the match-up to pull off and a little more skill than a 4 gate, and if you do it properly it's a lot better than a 4 gate

2/5/2011 5:26:18 PM

Forge FE or 3 Gate FE is getting pretty standard. There either adding more gates or voids/colossi.

2/5/2011 5:32:52 PM

3 gate fe is super standard i'll agree, forge fe made a bit of a comeback.

2/5/2011 5:38:24 PM

Forge FE is just less popular because I think people want the option to be aggressive and not count on static defense. It is also map dependent as well, like shakuras you can almost always open forge fe and it is easy to defend with the small natural choke. A map like Xel is tougher because the nat is more open so having the units helps.

I've been playing some toss lately and going forge FE which I use to do in BW all the time and tearing it up easily. You can produce a pretty nice army fast off 2 base w/ toss.

2/5/2011 5:45:19 PM

Honestly the only times I really lose in ZvP regardless of build are when I decide to go roach/hydra. Whenever I go ling/muta I do so much better. I do fine against the FE expand pushes most of the time since they can't cannon me into my main anymore.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=190620
Watched this game earlier today on a 56 inch tv in HD. That was epic.


[Edited on February 5, 2011 at 10:01 PM. Reason : a]

2/5/2011 9:43:36 PM

Pretty crazy game.

MVP just lost to many tanks throughout the game, he was always to low on them for each big engagement. Some key fungals too..

2/6/2011 3:31:08 PM

I'm still pretty sure that Grack and Artosis are in a relationship.

After like 10 games of SC2 again, I'm already back on BW. I just can't enjoy SC2 for some raisin.

2/6/2011 3:34:07 PM

Played my first masters game on the ladder today. ZvT... After going 11 pool 18 hatch he calls my game all in, despite the fact that I was on 3 bases and 1 was a gold.. he was on 1 base.

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/136636-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns

And after the game he whined that I played the most imba race in the game.

2/8/2011 11:31:25 AM

Yeah I'm done w/ ladder until a new patch for 1v1.

Just way to many openings for p and t vs. zerg and I'm tired of losing games simply because I scout and guess wrong. If you wait to react everything is always just a few seconds late, whether it is a speed upgrade, lair tech, spire build etc.

Something needs to be done to speed up zerg's ability to react if they are going to make it the race where you are reacting all the time. I think simply a cheaper lair(just 50 gas) with a faster upgrade time would do the trick. Other option would be speeding up queen build time.

Other option is just to go mass queens/lings/sunken/spores. But I'd prefer to not play that way even if it works.

2/8/2011 2:19:25 PM

http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4737515/

catz doing the funday monday mass queens idea... broodlord/queen is OP and broken vs. terran

2/8/2011 4:34:56 PM

<3 day9

2/8/2011 7:18:32 PM

One of the games from the Queen Monday had me laughing so hard I was crying.

It was a game on steps, both players were horrible and the Terran player ends up proxying a barracks and an engineering bay. Day9 goes into him doing "proxy upgrades." The guy later makes a planetary fortress on like the far right side of his base. The game is a complete disaster and day9 just has great line after line the whole time.

2/9/2011 1:08:57 AM

that game was hilarious. the double gas steal was funny too.

2/9/2011 1:59:19 AM

GSTL games 6,7,8 in the finals were pretty epic.

And I just went 17-0-4 as the stalker in sotis, haha.

2/13/2011 9:54:31 AM

i take it you're back to full pwnage form? need to show you my tass, gets stupidly strong late game, but can never seem to get more than 6 kills before the other team surrenders

2/13/2011 10:00:25 AM

I'm getting there. I've been playing mostly as Roulette and going like 5:1 most games. But I decided to random one and got the stalker and absolutely raped.

I've still been playing a good amount of ladder, playing Masters folks on a regular basis so I should get promoted soon. And Flue and I are up to top 150 or so in NA in 2v2.

2/13/2011 10:15:23 AM

I play a lot of random because when you have a decent team of guys from the channel, the only way you can have a decently entertaining game is if you random and don't get an ideal team comp or a guy you use often. of course when you think it's gonna be tough to get to pull out one of the guys you're actually good with (tass and zeratul are my goto characters)

2/13/2011 10:20:57 AM

Just had the most ridiculous game of sotis ever. My team was me as stalker, zeratul and mandrake vs biotron, zealot, rory, zeratul and hybrid. We had two folks who fed at the start and dropped out early. We were down about 15-4, had lost all our outer towers. We just kept picking them off with lance until I got shard/hammer, then we went to down. At one point I was 0-6, I finished 30-10-22. We ended up winning by a final score of 62-25. Ridiculous.

2/14/2011 7:58:52 AM

it's sad when you play with a premade team, and you lose to another premade team because your teammates suck and no one picks mandrake

2/15/2011 3:43:43 AM

Zags and I got crushed this morning.. twice.. by 2 pro gamers in 2v2 games.

2/17/2011 11:04:36 AM

Quote :

"broodlord/queen is OP and broken vs. terran "

I wanna see a game where the terran switches to mass ghost/banshee.

2/17/2011 11:30:17 AM

It is amazing all the options Terran haven't even started to abuse yet.

Mass Banshee/Raven/Viking, anything involving Ravens, more ghost use vs. Zerg players especially sniping queens, more ghost use in general, mixing reapers back into armies for late games..game is in a terrible place at the moment and needs a decent patch desperately.

2/17/2011 12:30:19 PM