Cannon rushing in PvZ

willjay84

17 Posts

June 17 2020 05:07 GMT

Is one of the oldest trick in Starcraft becoming a meta in PvZ once again? In the ultimate bo9 battle between Bisu and Jaedong a couple of days ago, Bisu successfully cannon rushed Jaedong twice in Game 3 and Game 7 of the best of 9 series before eventually beating Jaedong. The following link as below:-

www.youtube.com

Observe game 3 from 57:20 to 58:30 and game 7 from 1:46:47 to 1:48:50. Is this becoming a meta once again?

Thanks.

CROSSED7

4 Posts

June 17 2020 10:24 GMT

Basically 12 Hatch is susceptible to a cannon rush so that's the reason you see Zergs open up with Overpool.

However recently Gate 1st builds have become more popular so that lets Zergs get away with 12 Hatch again.

Games 3 and 7 were FFE vs 12H.

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to mention 11hatch/10 pool. Some Zergs started doing this instead of 12h to get the lings out a little earlier to defend against the 1st zealot. JD does this in this series.

Game 2 and 5 was 11hatch/10 pool vs Gate 1st
Game 4 was 12h vs Gate 1st - You can see the dmg Bisu's 1st Zealot deals to JDs mineral line before it's taken care of.

11hatch/10 pool is still susceptible to getting cannon rushed if Protoss is going FFE though so it's a bit of a coin flip but since Gate 1st is at the moment picking up steam and Bisu loves to play aggressive zealot style, JD felt like it was a good risk and did it a lot in this series.

Q~Bert

United States670 Posts

June 17 2020 15:42 GMT

Personally I do not see the point of 12 hatch if you suspect a gate opening. If they 9 gate the zealot will reach your mineral line well before zerglings hatch even in cross spawns. So what is the point of the extra drone if you have to drill your workers back and forth in an attempt to save them all? With superb drone harass on the zealot as it's crossing the map you can fairly easily thwart a standard gate opening with minimal lost mining time but the risk/reward doesn't add up for me. Because in the off chance they forge first and get first scout it's gonna be a long battle before your zerglings or hatch pop to defend against the cannons. The reason Bisu was able to cannon rush is because like any good player, he's going to mix up his builds and openings - a necessity in a Bo9 series so that you are not exploited.

Jealous

10333 Posts

June 17 2020 23:21 GMT

Cannon rush on FS, at least, has been well-known and explored for a while now in PvZ. I don't think the strategy ever really fell out of "favor" as much as it is map-dependent.

Anc13nt

1557 Posts

June 17 2020 23:34 GMT

everytime i've seen cannon rush done at pro level (admittedly only 4 times) it has won basically every time. Along with the two cases here, Bisu did it against Larva in ASL semi and Rain did it against Effort a couple years ago in another ASL game. Both of them won but the game between Rain and Effort transitioned into a macro game.

I'm guessing if it became more meta, zerg might develop some counter play (maybe not though since cancelling the hatch puts you pretty behind and sending drones has already been show to be a big risk too). If not, they could always just go overpool anyway. It does seem viable at high level though.

Ej_

47656 Posts

June 18 2020 05:59 GMT

Effort also got cannon rushed by free in SSL Classic finals and easily defended with drilling through a gas. That was on CB.

Djabanete

United States2786 Posts

June 18 2020 06:02 GMT

And Bisu cannon rushed Soma in ASL9, winning that game despite losing the series.

TelecoM

United States10743 Posts

June 18 2020 06:55 GMT

That was a really nice cannon rush on FS, loved every moment of it to be honest. The 2 pylons behind gas and the drone extractor trick to force drones over the gas to the other side is actually a really nice and pretty hard trick to execute lol

Piste

6183 Posts

June 18 2020 09:42 GMT

It's always meta untill the zerg checks for it early enough.

LML

Germany1792 Posts

June 18 2020 13:14 GMT

#10

On June 18 2020 08:34 Anc13nt wrote:
everytime i've seen cannon rush done at pro level (admittedly only 4 times) it has won basically every time. Along with the two cases here, Bisu did it against Larva in ASL semi and Rain did it against Effort a couple years ago in another ASL game. Both of them won but the game between Rain and Effort transitioned into a macro game.

I'm guessing if it became more meta, zerg might develop some counter play (maybe not though since cancelling the hatch puts you pretty behind and sending drones has already been show to be a big risk too). If not, they could always just go overpool anyway. It does seem viable at high level though.

Bisu also has done it in the ASL9 Ro8 against Soma on hitchhiker iirc

Dangermousecatdog

United Kingdom7084 Posts

June 18 2020 14:12 GMT

#11

Cheese is always "meta".

FlaShFTW

United States10470 Posts

June 18 2020 20:40 GMT

#12

On June 17 2020 19:24 CROSSED7 wrote:
Basically 12 Hatch is susceptible to a cannon rush so that's the reason you see Zergs open up with Overpool.

However recently Gate 1st builds have become more popular so that lets Zergs get away with 12 Hatch again.

Games 3 and 7 were FFE vs 12H.

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to mention 11hatch/10 pool. Some Zergs started doing this instead of 12h to get the lings out a little earlier to defend against the 1st zealot. JD does this in this series.

Game 2 and 5 was 11hatch/10 pool vs Gate 1st
Game 4 was 12h vs Gate 1st - You can see the dmg Bisu's 1st Zealot deals to JDs mineral line before it's taken care of.

11hatch/10 pool is still susceptible to getting cannon rushed if Protoss is going FFE though so it's a bit of a coin flip but since Gate 1st is at the moment picking up steam and Bisu loves to play aggressive zealot style, JD felt like it was a good risk and did it a lot in this series.

Pretty sure Gate 1st also deals with 12h pretty well in close positions because lings are delayed and it allows Protoss more opportunity to deny mining and can force Zerg to overmake lings.

JieXian

Malaysia4677 Posts

June 21 2020 09:17 GMT

#13

Thanks for the video and the timestamps, that was interesting to watch.

On a somewhat related note, how does one jump a drone across the gas like JD had done at 1:47:15? I guess that the one part involves building and cancelling an extractor, then spam clicking the drone that comes out of the cancelled extractor. However what I don't get is how he got another drone to glitch onto the gas while the extractor is being built. Could someone please explain? Thanks.

Jealous

10333 Posts

June 21 2020 14:34 GMT

#14

On June 21 2020 18:17 JieXian wrote:
Thanks for the video and the timestamps, that was interesting to watch.

On a somewhat related note, how does one jump a drone across the gas like JD had done at 1:47:15? I guess that the one part involves building and cancelling an extractor, then spam clicking the drone that comes out of the cancelled extractor. However what I don't get is how he got another drone to glitch onto the gas while the extractor is being built. Could someone please explain? Thanks.

Seems to me he told all three of them to build an Extractor and if there was no Extractor there when their "float over the gas to make an Extractor" animation started, they would continue doing so even if an Extractor appears there shortly after.

XenOsky

Chile2356 Posts

June 21 2020 15:36 GMT

#15

if 12 h > cannon rush

freeelo

TelecoM

United States10743 Posts

June 21 2020 19:35 GMT

#16

He takes 1 drone, builds an extractor, cancels the extractor / immediately gets another drone to build an extractor on top of the drone that just cancelled the other extractor which then causes the drone that 1st cancelled to be bugged out / able to be floated across the gas to the other side to where the cannon / pylon are. A 3rd extractor was created simply to try and bug 2 drones over instead of 1.