The strategy of a 3v3 or 4v4. Short Guide.

3v3 and 4v4 games at Master level do tend to see a lot of early aggression, but that does not mean that the games are always short. In my experience, you have three choices:

- Macro and defend
- Pressure and expo
- All-in and KILL.

First I will describe these strategy types, and then I will give my experience/expectation on how the strategies can/tend to play out.

Macro and defend:

In my opinion in 3s and 4s, if you macro and defend WELL, if the push has come before 7:00 (all-in), you have 95+% of the time won the game. Chances are the opposing team, if they have hit before this time frame, has committed themselves to an all-in push... If it has been defended, they have been put at a severely disadvantageous position, and will most likely lose to a counter attack. The battle will be tough to defend, but much like in 1s, if you hold, you will most likely win if you take no economic damage.

If the push comes after 7:00, there is a possibility that the opposing team has expanded to apply pressure and give them position to keep their expo, however, their force will likely be very manageable to a macroing and defending team (if the defending team has good scouting) due to a home-field defensive position. The expo/pressuring team needs to not lose their whole army, and needs to have a relatively favorable engagement if they plan to, again, not lose to a counter-attack.


Pressure and Expo:

With this play-style, you are not planning to win with your initial push. Often times this push is designed to have tactical use to try to damage economy and delay your enemy's tech. Examples of this could be a 3-gate blink harass (with overlord view into enemy base), mild ling pressure to obtain map control, 3-rax MM pressure, etc. Often times one of the teammates will tech hard in this situation to get a superior harassing capability (DT, cloak banshee, etc) while the other 2 or 3 teammates pressure just enough to allow the remaining teammate to get his tech out to harass.

Since many of the aggressive harass techs allow the teching teammate to expand (due to mineral excess/overflow, i.e. gas heavy builds), he already has his expo out to be able to continue to macro while harassing. Also, once his harass kicks in, often times the 2/3 agressive players can take their expos because the defending team will likely be trying to deal with the harassment.

The biggest part of this strategy is that all teammates are on the same page, and are CAREFUL with their armies as much as possible, not to lose units freely. Also, this build is weak at times if the tech harass has been scouted, as the defending team may be prepared for it. Either way, if you have a superior tech unit, it can indirectly contain the defending team for a moment because they do not have the necessary capabilities to deal with the tech while attacking.

This technique is difficult to be successful with, yet VERY effective, and will often times play into a long macro game with an inevitable victory. The only other caveat to this is that if one teammate goes DTs for map control, etc, it doesn't make much sense for the other teammate to go mutas, banshees, etc, because there will be detectors in mineral lines, and detectors shoot up.. therefore, you need to pick a tech path that works with the strategy of that game. Often times you will not have the ability to harass easily towards the end of the game due to an overly defensive opposing team.


The famous ALL IN KILL:

This is somewhat self explanatory. You need to be aggressive from the get-go and never let up. It's called all-in for a reason. With this strategy, your early game scouting is crucial. You should usually have 2 scouting teammates to make sure that you get all of the information necessary to determine which opponent will likely be weakest (i.e- the one who appears to be teching the fastest). I suggest 2 scouting workers so you have a lower chance of being locked out of an opponents base without getting scouting info necessary. Also, if you feel that you have found a teching player, you need to stay in their base, and keep the scouting unit alive as long as possible.

It can be good to hit that teching player with 2(3) of the 3(4) of the team. When you see the armies converging to help defend, you can have your last teammate hit a vulnerable base. There are obviously a lot of strategies here, but the main point is EVERY UNIT COUNTS, and you need to kill at least one opponent to have a chance in the late game if you don't end the game in the first 10 minutes.


Matchups:
MD = Macro/Defend
PE = Pressure/Expo
AL = All-in

MD vs MD = Usually leads to a VERY long game (relatively speaking) due to a variety of defensive positions, map control, harass, and tech paths being used. Also, sometimes it takes the longest because people never really know when they feel like they have the advantage to attack. Usually leads to 600-800 food battles.

MD vs PE = The MD team has advantages defending, but must have good scouting to determine where the pressure is coming from, and the amount. Also, the MD team must make sure to have some sort of detection in case of the PE team doing some sort of cloaked harass. These games tend to be somewhat longer because advantages aren't always gained quickly by either team. If the MD team does not have an appropriate response for the PE team's harass, sometimes the games can be very quick; however if harass is nullified, depending on the level of macro on PE team, they can lose to a counter attack.

MD vs AL = These games are usually the shortest. If the AL team attacks fast, they can sometimes cripple 1 or 2 of the MD team, which causes a quick victory unless the MD team has some sort of clutch tech that wins them the game. If the AL team gets delayed, or waits to push, or the MD team has excellent scouting and defends well, the AL team almost always loses to a very strtong counter attack.

PE vs PE - Tends to lead to a very push-pull, longer game unless a harass tech ends it quickly. Both PE teams have similar strats, and will usually be prepared for each other accordingly. These games tend to have a fast pace due to constant aggression.

PE vs AL - These games can be similar to the MD vs AL games, however, these games can put the AL team in a very bad position quickly if the AL team does not do the necessary damage. IF the AL team does not severely cripple 1 of the PE team, they can easily lose to a counter attack when the PE team has regrouped for counter aggression.

AL vs AL - These games are usually a coin-flip. It usually depends on the army compositions and early game scouting. However, these games can sometimes be VERY long if both teams reach a point where they feel the need to macro to overcome the enemy. Since the attacks are both with small early armies, they can reach stalemate, which is usually broken by aggressive/surprise tech by one of the players while the other 3 continue the all in pressure.


You may be wondering.. What is Supernova's favorite strat? I personally HATE all in strats. I feel like they can overexpose you to a PE team if your scouting is not absolutely perfect. However, sometimes, depending on the map, I will use an AL strat. Usually, my strat of choice is MD because I feel like it gives you the defensive advantage, and allows your opponents to make mistakes. If scouting reveals a severe weakness in the enemy team, I will sometimes switch to more of a PE strat because you can definitely exploit the weakness.


PLEASE NOTE: This guide is not meant to be exclusive of strategies available in 3s or 4s, however, this is an observation of what I have seen over the course of my ~1800 league wins in 2s, 3s, and 4s. I have a LOT of games played (around 3000 if you consider about 60% win rate), so I feel like this is what I've found over the last year.

Enjoy!

 

bump!

 

or you can go mass marines

 

LOL! Yes. That works too.