‘The movement is crazy’: How the Empire’s ‘Shotzzy’ taught me Cold War’s seldom used slide-cancel trick

Slide canceling has become a staple in Call of Duty ever since Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro made it a mainstream movement mechanic.

Whether its most players sliding across the floor of Verdansk in Modern Warfare’s Warzone or learning the ropes in Call of Duty’s latest title: Black Ops Cold War, it’s not hard to find the most casual of players replicating what Shotzzy does best.

He used the season to stomp veterans and spent the offseason stockpiling awards from that.

There’s a slide-cancel mechanic that could become prominent in the Cold War. It was around in Black Ops 4 as well, Cuevas-Castro, star for the Call of Duty League’s Dallas Empire, said. But he hasn’t seen many pros taking advantage of it.

So I figured he could show me, and I would see if a casual player could implement this new movement. For this rendition of Learning with Shotzzy, I tried out his technique.

Here’s what happened:

Almost prone

Let’s start with what the move is. He posted about it on his YouTube channel and has spoken about it on his stream. The goal is to start going prone with your character, but as you’re about to fully go prone, you start to sprint forward and instantly slide cancel.

If done correctly, it should give your character in Cold War a significant burst of speed — more prominent than a standard slide-cancel that doesn’t ask you to go prone.

Shotzzy likes to turn around his opponents in close-ranged engagements. This prone slide-cancel is perfect for it.

“Even though it’s just a full second, with that time you might be able to get someone in the back,” Cuevas-Castro told The Dallas Morning News. “It’s pretty unique.”

He had me try it in front of him when we hopped into some matches on Saturday. It took a couple tries, but I got the hang of it eventually. His most helpful tip was purely with the order of which I should be doing actions like going prone and sprinting.

“Instead of going all the way, because it will take more time if you are prone all the way, you want to cancel that by sprinting,” he added.

The plan was to use video from that session, in which I mostly failed to replicate the move well enough, but the recording was choppy.

Silver lining? I got to improve at the move and figure out how it could be useful. It was no pioneering effort since I already had the CDL MVP show me how to do it, but I hopped into an empty custom lobby to fiddle with the difference between this prone slide-cancel and a standard slide-cancel.

Here’s what I put together:

Now for the hard part. Making it work in a game was always going to be the challenge.

Finding use for new tricks

The slide cancel in Modern Warfare was great for raiding rooms, moving quickly in Warzone and giving your opponent a weird camera angle on you that gave you an advantage in gunfights.

This Cold War mechanic gives you that, but also gives you that unpredictable burst as mentioned before.

I jumped into some public matches on Cold Ward and tried to make the move for essentially every elimination I got. Not a smart thing to do in reality, but it was helpful in getting the muscle memory down, something Shotzzy has already mastered.

This was the best clip I got.

Cuevas-Castro’s words rang true on this one. The player I eliminated probably wins that gunfight if I had done anything else. You can even see the traces from his weapon missing to my right, not expecting such a burst of speed.

“It may not seem like it on your screen, but the movement is crazy,” Cuevas-Castro said. “You can easily start doing that against opponents and you will see them start missing shots.”

Who knows? Maybe this move will become the new normal in a Call of Duty world that Shotzzy continues to pioneer with his evasive, disruptive movement.

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