How does a Terran player stop a cannon rush from Protoss?

On a small 1v1 map playing Protoss vs. Terran, if the Protoss player brings the probe to build a pylon and forge in a corner of the Terran base, what should the Terran player do?

It seems like the probe is so fast that sending all the SCVs to kill the pylon/probe would slow down mineral gathering.


When playing on a small map, you should be careful and scout your starting location. When you see a probe coming, try to kill it with two SCVs (micromanagement needed, you will have to round it up). If it starts building a pylon, send about 5 SCVs to destroy it, since without the pylon all buildings are useless. You should have at least one or two SCVs gathering minerals at all times and build more while getting rid of the rush. Then build barracks asap and you should be fine.

So the strategy is like this:

  1. if you suspect a canon rush, scout your base
  2. once a probe comes in, send 2 SCVs to kill it, micromanage the hunt
  3. if the probe starts building a pylon, go for the pylon with more SCVs
  4. always have at least 2 SCVs gathering minerals and build more
  5. Build Barracks ASAP

pull your SCVs and kill the pylon. it doesn't matter if you lose mineral production for a while because your opponent is wasting a ton of their production on buildings that you're destroying. try to keep building more scvs while you're dealing with them though. as long as you can keep your supply depot and barracks coming out roughly on time you should be fine.


If you notice the rush too late, unless they have blocked your ramp preventing your SCVs from leaving, you can also just lift off your buildings and go to your natural expansion and continue as normal. Preferably with early aggression as they will have wasted so much money on the cannon rush their base will have little in it to stop you.


Didja know terran builings can lift off? xD I just allow him to build come cannons and then just fly all my buildings to the next expansion. Build reapers ASAP while he is building cannons to attack you, and destroy his probes and forge and nexus etc. Then build some marines to support your reapers.