Canopy
The Canopy is a flat 7x7 platform of leaves with two logs in the middle that can be deployed via ender pearls.
Deployment
When the player throws an ender pearl, it transforms into a Canopy after 10 ticks of uninterrupted flight.
If the ender pearl hits an obstacle before this time has elapsed, then no Canopy spawns and the usual ender pearl teleport behavior takes over.
If the player dies before the Canopy fully spawns, they are not teleported back onto it. Also, if the player dies while their ender pearl is in midair, the ender pearl dies as well (this is vanilla Minecraft behavior).
When thrown near the player’s own base, the Canopy “quick deploys,” fully constructing itself in roughly a third of the time. Otherwise, the player is frozen in place for 2 seconds and continuously teleported on top of the Canopy while it animates the leaves growing from the central log.
Duration and Counters
Once fully deployed, the Canopy remains alive for 20 seconds until the logs break automatically, after which point the leaves rapidly decay (the randomTickSpeed gamerule is set to 25).
A Canopy may expire before the full 20 seconds have elapsed if one of the logs is broken by hand, replaced by another structure, or exploded. Also, if an enemy Nova Rocket is launched at the Canopy, it instantly explodes and is almost guaranteed to kill the player on top.
A Canopy may also be “fire-poofed,” which sets all of the leaves on fire and destroys the central logs, thus killing the Canopy. This occurs under the following conditions:
- A Fireball is shot at or near the logs
- A flame arrow lands directly near the logs
- Fire spreads to the logs by other means (note that Fireballs and flame arrows set any leaves they contact on fire).
- A player on fire stands near the logs for a maximum of 4 seconds (known as “Canopy smoking”).
- Lava flows on top of the Canopy (for instance, from Lava Splashes in Powerups Mode).
- TNT explodes in a 7 block radius of the logs.
The Canopy duration can also be extended by 10 seconds if water from a Splash falls on top of it. This is known as “Canopy watering.”
Use Cases
The Canopy is most useful to give players a chance to save themselves from certain death or gain significant vertical/horizontal distance.
Throwing a Canopy directly upwards gives players height advantages, which are very valuable in a game where all the missiles spawn with a downwards offset.
Also, throwing the Canopy downwards gives players low-ground riding opportunities, putting enemies at a disadvantage since they would incur fall damage if they try to jump down. (Note that this can be mitigated in several ways, such as landing on slime blocks and throwing Splashes, or fully removed with the No Fall modifier.)
Throwing the Canopy off-sides (adjacent to the bases) puts players in a position where missiles usually cannot directly reach them, again affording some strategic advantages.
Canopies are especially useful when you have already been hit by a Nova Rocket, which propels you into the air and would normally result in certain death. Combined with the height the Nova Rocket gives you, you can get some immense vertical distance from a single Canopy throw.
Any benefits that the Canopy affords in this manner do come with significant drawbacks, however, due to the sheer number of counters that other utilities can have against them (the Nova Rocket chiefly among them).
Canopies cannot be used to break portals. They also cannot be spawned in a 7-block radius of either team’s spawnpoint.
As a projectile, the Canopy ender pearl may be used to launch Fireballs similar to arrows and Shields.
Gamemode Specific Behaviors
Canopies can be exploded by Nova Rockets from the player’s same team in Chase Mode, since only Blue team is joinable and friendly fire is enabled.
The Canopy is not obtainable in Swap Mode, as the items are so overpowered already that it need not exist.
The Canopy is not obtainable in 1v1 Duel Mode, as it too heavily alters the normal Missile Wars gameplay meta so as to make ranked-style 1v1 matches less competitive.