My friend and I are in a 2v2 team together on battle.net for StarCraft II. We’ve both got a pretty good handle on advanced StarCraft strategies, know the units and their counters and are fairly good at micro. Naturally, we figured we would rise through the ranks without breaking a sweat. We started up our team ladder matches and got smoked in most of them. My friend and I were at a loss as to how this could possibly happen. Two good StarCraft players should equal one good StarCraft team, right? Well, not necessarily. As cliched as it sounds, teamwork needs to be the cornerstone of every good team, and without it, all but the very best of players are doomed to fail.

One of the first things my friend and I noticed was that we were not talking to each other, at all. Naturally, in a competitive StarCraft game, the keyboard is for hotkeys, not chatting, which poses a problem. It also makes for slower communication, and slower response times. StarCraft II is a game of seconds; those lost seconds spent typing are going to cost you. I would recommend an external voice chat client, like Ventrilo, to allow for instant communication between you and your teammate(s) without sacrificing any time on the keyboard. Multitasking has always been vital in StarCraft; being able to multitask team communication with the game itself is a high priority indeed.

Having strategies that complement each other is a no-brainer. I remember one game that I played with my friend. We both played Terran, and both of our opponents selected Zerg. After some early skirmishes between marines and marauders and enemy hydralisks, we decided to tech up. I would build up some vikings to repel air and execute quick attacks on the enemy economy, while my friend would build banshees to dominate the ground. In a pinch against a good anti-air ground force, we could cloak the banshees and turn the vikings into ground walkers. Well, our opponents teched up, too. Soon, we started seeing brood lords and ultralisks. The problem for our opponents should be obvious. Our strategies combined to repel both ground and air; the units our opponents got could only attack ground units. We only had air units. Needless to say, the game did not last very long after that point. The point is, talk about your strategies, and about what units both (or all) of you will be building. Teams have multiple people, which means there is even less of an excuse for not fielding a balanced offensive force.

Lastly, there needs to be a diffusion of responsibilities. There’s no reason both players in a 2v2 team should scout when one can do the job perfectly well. Early-game, one person can scout, while another sets up preliminary defenses. Later in the game, one person can focus on heavy-hitting offense, while the other pumps out support units that can disrupt enemy forces for the big guns. The little things can be split up even more now that you can give your teammate the ability to control your units, useful in a pinch if he or she sees an incoming threat before you do. Of course, that last part requires the most crucial part of teamwork in StarCraft II, and teamwork in general: trust. No trust, and your team won’t be going anywhere.

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