This Week in Tetris: April 15-21
Tetris fans were treated to an overstuffed calendar this week, as a busy CTL season gets going in earnest, two Masters brackets are played out, two sets involving top-25 players are completed in Gauntlet, and a big-time in-person matchup happens in Paris.
Numbers refer to the April 2024 Premiere Poll rankings, not tournament seeds. As always, let me know if you liked this, if you notice any errors, or if you have any suggestions for improvement.
CTWC France Regional
The Paris event had the full weekend to stretch out into, letting them have a flat bracket (you can view it here) and best-of-seven matchups in the last four rounds. This coming weekend will be the premiere of the Dallas Underground, with four top players (3 PIXELANDY, 4 DOG, 9 MYLES, 17 SODIUM) taking each other on in a round-robin in-person tournament on April 27 at 2200 UTC.
CTWC 2024 France Regional Finals
12 DANV def. 5 BLUE SCUTI (4-1)
Not a lot of killscreen play on this one, though every game made it there. Game 1 was close, with both players going into killscreen with 1.1's, but Dan had a narrow edge when the same RNG sequence shot both down on 30. Scuti couldn't stay clean during a dry game 2, topping out on 30 with a score under 900k without Dan having to look at 29. DanV got into some early digs and went down early in game 3, but was able to claw it back in 19 play before topping out on 31 and letting Scuti line out the chasedown. Scuti didn't get the RNG to get his stack down on 28, leading to Dan taking it with a level 30 tetris. Another 29 topout allowed Dan to button it up, winning the trophy in front of what seemed like his entire extended family.
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Classic Tetris Monthly
6 SIDNEV def. 10 THEDENGLER (3-2)
Sidnev took the first one after Noah had a high-up square hang on 18, but then Noah threatened the upset by taking two straight -- game 2 by going up big pre-killscreen while Sidnev couldn't get the bars to make anything happen after 29, game 3 by keeping pace while Sidnev lost control of her board on level 22. In the end, though, he ended up giving both back, with a 19-speed topout and an overly ambitious up-high setup very early in the decider.
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Tristop looked like a heavyweight here. Every game in the set hit the killscreen; games 1 and 2 featured good pre-killscreen pace, but the players took turns topping out right after hitting level 29. Games 3 and 4 were both 18 suffer games for Huff. In game 3 he ended up going down big into killscreen as a result, with Tristop playing well enough to never really give Huff a chance to catch up. He did have the chance in game 4, going into the killscreen virtually tied right around the max, but Tristop turned on the jets and reaped the benefits of risky play, while Huff couldn't stay clean and topped out after failing to get a few five-taps. This was the seventeenth matchup between these two longtime fixtures of the scene; Tristop evened up the all-time series 8-8 (with one draw; I have no idea how Classic Tetris Brawl worked).
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Classic Sidnev, full of beautiful solves, scary moments, and lots of 29 pace. Tristop didn't suffer a natural topout pre-29 yet again, but he was down pretty big going into the killscreen in game one, where a crazy 29 dig was thwarted by untimely pieces. Tristop had to sell out the stack in the next game and couldn't recover, while game 3 was a late 18 top from Sidnev after trying to cheat death one too many times. Game four was very tight, with Sidnev maintaining a slim margin through great killscreen play for both players until both players skidded out on the same patch of ice on level 34. Sidnev moves on to face Alex T in the semifinals.
Fairly dry seeds here, with SV showing some good survival (nothing unusual for him, though). Rah topped out right before killscreen after a dig that went on forever in game 1 (though was only down by a tetris somehow) and couldn't deal with a spire in 18 in game 2. He did push game 3 into the killscreen, but his normally top-notch rolling wasn't there.
Classic Tetris League
CTL Season 25 Division 1B
17 SODIUM def. CHILLER (3-0)
Not Chillalla's day, with the furthest they got being level 23 in the last game.
CTL Season 25 Division 1C
4 DOG def. SOMALIAN (3-0)
Record-breaking set for Dog. Somalian absolutely did not play badly here -- while he had an early top in game 3, the first two games showed some solid play over all three phases. But Dog dropping 2 mil? Back-to-back 1.3's into killscreen? What do you even do with that?
CTL Season 25 Division 1B
7 GERALD FREEMAN def. ANSEL (3-0)
Gerald was back to his old self, throwing up a 1.5 and almost making it to level 40 in game 1. Even when he got behind big after an 18 dig in game 2, he stayed collected, cut the deficit with efficient play, and gave himself a manageable killscreen chasedown. Despite the sweep and an early game 3 topout, though, Tetrisfish progenitor Ansel impressed, throwing up back-to-back maxouts into 29.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1C
10 THEDENGLER def. TEGAMECH (3-1)
It took a couple games for Tegamech to find his sea legs in his first online match since 2022, leading off with a pair of 18 topouts. He took a game after Noah suffered a series of cascading misdrops on level 20, but while Tega pushed game 4 to the killscreen, he wasn't able to keep up with the king of pace and lost control of his board on 30 after setting up.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1B
TUGI def. ANSEL (3-1)
Tugi got himself a 2-0 lead after keeping pace with Ansel through 18 and keeping clean in post while Ansel kept having to get himself out of small-to-medium-ish digs. Ansel was able to get one back after Tugi had a misdrop-filled suffer game that resulted in him going into the killscreen 250k back, but Ansel suffered a similar fate in game 4, transitioning into 19 with a 393 before the misdrops finally ended it for him on 25.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1B
6 SIDNEV def. CHILLER (3-1)
Chiller's game 3 win came after Sidnev demonstrated some stacking that was poetic but maybe not particularly effective. Other than that, it was all Sidnev, with her putting up a C-score into killscreen on game 2 and happily receiving two games through level 18 topouts.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1A
3 PIXELANDY def. 21 COALBUCKET (3-0)
All three games followed a similar template -- the players were roughly even through 18, Andy developed a 100k-ish lead before the killscreen, Andy turned on the jets and left Coal in the dust through 29. Good, consistent play from Coal, but you can't do much when your opponent mullens for back-to-back 1.4's.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1C
NEK0 def. 16 PORTALLL (3-0)
Very strong 18 play from both players throughout the set. Portal gave two away in post -- one through misdrops, one through letting his stack creep up too high. In game 3, a close game into killscreen gave way to an impressive Portal dig, but it was undone in the chasedown after he set up left-well when he probably didn't need to and couldn't get the bars over.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1C
13 SV def. TIMMYKIM (3-0)
Rough outing for Timmykim, where compounding misdrops kept putting him in stressful situations. He was able to cheat death a few times, but ultimately could only push one game past the nineteen transition.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1A
2 ALEX THACH def. 24 SUNNY (3-0)
I'll say this much for Sunny -- you don't top out on level 34 with a 577k score without immaculate survival skills.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1A
14 RAHMATIONS def. PEEKAYRIC (3-0)
Peek clearly had the edge in all three games pre-29, overcoming dry seeds to score three maxouts in a row. Peek couldn't do anything on the killscreen, though, letting Rah complement some tense pre-29 digging with killscreen chasedowns.
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CTL Season 25 Division 1C
1 FRACTAL def. 9 MYLES (3-1)
The highest-profile match of the CTL season so far started off great, with both players throwing up numbers into killscreen in the first couple; in game 1, Fractal let his board get a little too spicy on level 29, while in game 2, Myles kept pace with Fractal until level 28, after which Myles was doing some safe down-low digging while Fractal went absolutely nuts and developed a large lead very quickly (he ended up mullening for a 1.8). Myles gave the next two away, topping out after blocking his well on 18 in game 3 and having a gnarly misdrop mid-post in game 4.
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Classic Tetris Gauntlet
Stochastic Squad (9-5) got a 4-0 win over Sparks & Minos (3-9) as we get down to the final third of the very long Gauntlet season.
CTG Ascension: Sparks & Minos vs Stochastic Squad
COBRA def. 12 DANV (3-0)
DanV was sapped of the power he used to sweep Gerald by a post-PB hangover. Game 1 was an early top, and while DanV limped into killscreen in the next two, Cobra was able to play a couple great games to get a big lead with back-to-back 1.1's into 29. DanV's killscreen play is clearly better than Cobra's, but maybe not make-up-a-200k-defecit better.
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CTG Ascension: Sparks & Minos vs Stochastic Squad
10 THEDENGLER def. 5 BLUE SCUTI (3-2)
MATCH OF THE WEEK. Pace aficionado Noah Dengler stayed within striking distance of Scuti in game 1 before misdropping and topping out on 30, while Scuti gifted an early topout back to Dengler to even the score. Noah gave himself a huge lead with great 18 play in game 3, but was done in by a couple long bar hangs on the left side of his stack early in post, giving Scuti plenty of room to chase it down. In game 4, a slight lead for Scuti with 1.1's into killscreen led to a tense showdown, both players grabbing tetrises when they could, until Scuti topped out on level 33. In the decider, Noah couldn't keep clean pre-killscreen, going into 29 down big -- almost 300k big. Scuti survived some scary digs and was able to tack on two killscreen tetrises before losing control on 35, but Noah put on an amazing late-killscreen performance. After grabbing three tetrises after Scuti's topout, and with his double killscreen transition score still not enough, he cleared five lines on 39 to take it.
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