Reaper Rush Defense - Brought to you by iPro

[awpertunity]

Okay, so everyone seems to be talking about the P1 Adorables rush on Reaper and how unstoppable this is. As a result we (iPro) have been experimenting many different ways on how to deal with this, especially without using a special of your own so that these strategies can be used by any race.

While it is certainly true that the rush is extremely powerful, it is not unstoppable. The following strategies to defend this rush are brought to you by the iPro think tank and we invite you guys to try them out for yourselves.


The basic idea of the strategy can be seen in

Replay

Of course there are various variations of the rush and the attacker can make minor differences based on what you do, so the following are some games exploring different responses from the attacker.

The most standard "fast rush" is stopped in the following replay

Replay

Since in the above game, the early soldier can be seen by the attacker, it may also be common for the attacker to delay the rush by a turn to deal with this. This can still be stopped as seen in the following games

Replay

Replay

We have also begun working on an alternate strategy. The following game shows this alternate strategy and it may in fact be more effective in stopping the rush, but it has a large drawback in that you don't get to take your own witspace until your second turn. The problem with this is that it is very clear to the opponent right from the start what you are doing, and thus if they decide not to spawn the mobi on turn 3 and continue the rush, it may in fact hurt you more. But if they do decide to continue the rush, the following game shows how it can be stopped

Replay


Note that this is still not a guaranteed defense strategy and only successful blocks are shown here. However, we have found that this opening does indeed turn it into a more normal game where either player can win, as opposed to an automatic P1 Adorables win as many people have been complaining about.

[Jakeyboy20]

Interesting. I thought it was near impossible. Thanks!

[terenceshiu2005]

(12-28-2012 03:35 PM)Jakeyboy20 Wrote:  Interesting. I thought it was near impossible. Thanks!

It depends on the reactions of the rusher and defender! At least we can say it is possible, but not guaranteed.

[garcia1000]

This is interesting technology, thanks for sharing it!

[Exzachtlee]

(12-28-2012 02:01 PM)awpertunity Wrote:  Since in the above game, the early soldier can be seen by the attacker, it may also be common for the attacker to delay the rush by a turn to deal with this. This can still be stopped as seen in the following games

Replay

Replay

I noticed that Emuchu moved his sniper into runner range in the first replay and he moved the heavy in the second replay. Both were unnecessary moves and might have changed the outcomes of the games. Whether or not avoiding those mistakes would have changed the games in a relevant manner remains to be seen, but it probably would have made a bigger impact on the second game where his runner stepped up to the 1HP soldier and couldn't make the kill. lol

[alexjiang1]

Great stuff awpertunity. Thanks for compiling it and in depth descriptions from the replays in our forums. Hope this helps everyone out in their defense, we've got lots more

[Mr.Banger]

Awesome stuff. Yay! Thanks for compiling all the helpful information for everyone so that we can all stop the rush! I'm testing something against thrutchy and emuchu right now... Hope it works.

[awpertunity]

(12-28-2012 07:54 PM)Exzachtlee Wrote:  

(12-28-2012 02:01 PM)awpertunity Wrote:  Since in the above game, the early soldier can be seen by the attacker, it may also be common for the attacker to delay the rush by a turn to deal with this. This can still be stopped as seen in the following games

Replay

Replay

I noticed that Emuchu moved his sniper into runner range in the first replay and he moved the heavy in the second replay. Both were unnecessary moves and might have changed the outcomes of the games. Whether or not avoiding those mistakes would have changed the games in a relevant manner remains to be seen, but it probably would have made a bigger impact on the second game where his runner stepped up to the 1HP soldier and couldn't make the kill. lol

I think you mean heavy not soldier. But yes, you are definitely correct. The point is that this opening/defense turns these games into actual games that are winnable and require strategy from both sides, rather than an automatic defeat for P2.

[vegaprom]

Thanks a lot!!! Usually I make an assumption on Reaper with the Adorables that he'll do a Mobi rush. But I wonder if are there any Adorable players who don't do a Mobi rush???

[Necrocat219]

(12-29-2012 10:21 PM)vegaprom Wrote:  Thanks a lot!!! Usually I make an assumption on Reaper with the Adorables that he'll do a Mobi rush. But I wonder if are there any Adorable players who don't do a Mobi rush???

When everyone begins to always set up against the mobi rush it'll become a game of Rock Paper Scissors as the adorable player decides to let the opponent waste resources countering the rush.