The Protoss Cannon Rush is the most infamous tactic in Starcraft 2 so far. Whether you are Zerg or Terran it is a giant pain in the rear. As tactics go, it’s dirty and works like a dream.
The core of the Protoss Cannon Rush is of course, cannons. They are hugely powerful and wipe out infantry like there’s no tomorrow.
And what do you want to do with those cannons? Yup. You wanna dump a few of them in your enemies base.
I’m going to outline a build here and then link you to another page with an excellent video showing you exactly how to execute this extremely fun, or annoying depending on whose side you’re on, tactic.
The Protoss Cannon Rush is a quick game ender. As you may have gathered from the name, it’s a ‘rush’ tactic meaning if you use it successfully the game will be over in less than 10 minutes. Excellent!
Against experienced players this is much harder to pull off due to
a) An experienced player will have been burned by this tactic on more than one occassion so will be on the look out for it
b) A good player will make sure he scouts pretty early on and will also know exactly what is going on at his base
So, let’s start…
Build up to a dozen or so probes and while doing so create a pylon at your ramp, along with a forge. You’ll also need to send the all important probe to your enemy’s base. Now a clever cannon rusher will ensure that his probe is not in the sight of the enemy or he’ll soon find that probe smashed into tiny pieces. Now while your mining all those minerals and setting up base, drop a pylon at your opponent’s base. Once this is being built you may wish to consider building a couple of cannons at your own base to prepare for a possible counter-rush.
Drop a cannon at the perimeter of your enemies visibility line and when it’s almost finished send your probe in to drop 2 more cannons in the base itself, but also within range of your original cannon. When your opponent sees you drop this 2nd/3rd cannon he’ll be incandescent with rage and send his worker units or light infantry equivalent to wipe out the emerging cannon. To then be blasted by your original cannon.
Zoom off with your probe, attempting to dodge any attacks and lay down another cannon and also a probe very close to it. This will allow you to lay cannons at will right inside your enemy’s base.
Cue game over, some insults maybe and yet another victory thanks to the super-sneaky, yet fabulously funny PROTOSS CANNON RUSH!!!!1
If you're having trouble executing this tactic, like I did at first, you should get ahold of Shokz Guide, the videos make everything easy to understand.
