Classic Tetris Monthly Preview: May 2024

It's the last month before CTWC, and this iteration of the Classic Tetris Monthly tournament is one of the last chances to get some competitive reps in before heading out to Pasadena. As a result, not only is the Masters Event jam-packed full of talent, but four ranked players are participating in Challengers as well, in addition to a slew of players within striking distance of a spot on the list. (This Week in Tetris will provide recaps for the full Challengers bracket this month.)

The numbers in front of the players' names are their Premiere Poll rankings for May.

Masters

Orange Bracket
3 DOG (Seed 1) vs. 19 ALLENBOT (Seed 16)
17 IBALL (Seed 8) vs. 4 PIXELANDY (Seed 9)
Allenbot won Challengers last month, which means his grand prize is a first-round matchup against a guy who came one game short of winning it all in April. iBall similarly got a great qual and gets rewarded for it by facing Andy, one of a very select group of players for whom a 1.46 is an underqual. iBall has had some pretty big wins over the past few months, including ones over SV and Noah Dengler, but taking Andy down would be something else entirely. I'm not sure what the quickest turnaround between Artiaga brothers matches has ever been in the Masters Event, but if both of them can take care of business in the first round, we've got to be pushing that record.

Blue Bracket
LAZER (Seed 4) vs. 22 SUNNY (Seed 13)
6 BLUE SCUTI (Seed 5) vs. 11 THEDENGLER (Seed 12)
Lazer is clearly an accomplished Tetris player, but his infrequent participation in comp and limited interaction with the community in general make him a complete wildcard. He'll be facing Sunny, who has consistency issues but has threatened to take a set over a powerful opponent more than once recently. In the other match, Scuti has been on a tear lately, with a long streak of massive scores spanning across a CTW event and CTL match play, but we know that perfect-maxouter Noah can bring some heat as well, with big statement win against Fractal in CTL. The person who comes out on top in that match will be favored to move onto the semifinals, but either Lazer or Sunny could get hot.

Green Bracket
2 ALEX THACH (Seed 2) vs. 10 MYLES (Seed 15)
18 PORTALLL (Seed 7) vs. 13 TOMMYNTG (Seed 10)
Alex T, the defending Masters champion, has been crushing it lately, and Myles even keeping pace would be a story -- he was able to snag a game off Fractal in his first-round loss last month, but Fractal kept putting up 1.4's, and we know Alex is capable of the same. Tommy is a compelling entrant; he can put up big scores, and he made it to the round of 16 in Mega Masters and was a permanent fixture in the later rounds of Masters through a big chunk of 2023, He has skipped a couple months of CTM this year, though, and a lot of folks will love to get a chance to see what he can do. He's up against Portal, who had a great Mega Masters run but has struggled a bit to find his footing in the CTL season. If he gets through that, there won't be many tests bigger than his potential second-rounder against Alex.

Red Bracket
1 FRACTAL (Seed 3) vs. 15 TRISTOP (Seed 14)
7 SIDNEV (Seed 6) vs. 8 DANV (Seed 11)
Sidnev draws yet another early-round matchup against Fractal, but in order to get there, they both have to get through some intimidating foes. Tristop showed he could bring it in last month's blue bracket, overwhelming Huff and making Sidnev sweat, and Fractal could find himself in trouble if he doesn't bring his A-game. DanV has slain enough giants at this point that it's hard not to consider him a giant himself, with big wins against Scuti and Gerald in April. Sidnev's been honed in and winning matches, though, and Fractal has been beatable lately. However it shakes out, this is the toughest bracket of the month, and no one can take anything for granted.

Challengers

Orange Bracket
SMOLJORDAN (Seed 1) vs. PEEKAYRIC (Seed 16)
MARK MIGAS (Seed 8) vs. ANDREY K (Seed 9)
The first CTM bracket to get going this month; you can catch it on Friday at 2000 UTC. Jordan had the qual of his life, getting within striking distance of his PB and almost making Masters. He's rewarded for his efforts by going up against Peek, who just made a semifinals run last month's Challengers and almost caught SV off guard in CTL. The match on the flip side involves Mark Migas, DAS player extraordinaire, who gets into Challengers consistently with the playstyle and demonstrated his PAL chops by winning the LOL Pog Cup. Andrey is the November 2023 Challengers champion, but he hasn't been able to make any deep runs in CTM tournaments since then.

Blue Bracket
ANSEL (Seed 4) vs. NIGHT (Seed 13)
TUGI (Seed 5) vs. TETRISTIME (Seed 12)
Tugi, a longtime contender for the best DAS player around, has made the switch to rolling recently, and he's picking it up real quick. He's holding his own in a CTL Div 1 season that includes an admittedly pretty weird win against Sidnev. He'll be up against Tetristime, who is 1-1 in CTL Div 2 this season after a long time away from the scene.. Night hasn't played much lately, either, other than a series of friendlies; she'll return to Elo-tracked comp against Ansel, the Tetrisfish dev who took down NGC man in a CTL 1/2 playoff and has nabbed at least a game in every match since getting to the top rung. A potential Ansel/Tugi round 2 matchup would be a rematch of their recent CTL bout, which Tugi won 3-1.

Green Bracket
NEK0 (Seed 2) vs. CHILLER (Seed 15)
16 SODIUM (Seed 7) vs. SOMALIAN (Seed 10)
Neko has been one of the surprise stories of the CTL season; he's currently 2-2 in Div 1, and even his losses have been deciders. He'll be up against Chillalla, who took home the Futures title last month. The other side of the bracket has Sodium, who will be looking for a deeper Challengers run after being knocked out by Hydrant in round 2 last month, and Somalian, the tap/roll switcher who's been having a better CTL season than his 1-4 record would suggest. There are a couple of potential rematches of recent CTL sets in round two here: Somalian beat Neko in a decider, while Sodium swept Chiller.

Red Bracket
11 SV (Seed 3) vs. 25 COBRA (Seed 14)
FUR OF KITTEN (Seed 6) vs. 21 COALBUCKET (Seed 11)
What even is this. Pour one out for Cobra, who has to have one of the most unlucky first-round Challengers matchups of all time in the form of an underqualing SV. Last month's Challengers semifinalist Cobra is as good candidate as any to take him down, though; he swept DanV in Gauntlet in April and has a very consistent win record since. When you do beat him, you need to do something like Kitten did last night against him, going Super Saiyan to get the sweep. Kitten has also had a good string of wins lately, with reasonable losses against eventual finalist Hydrant in April Challengers and getting knocked out by Coal in the February Challengers finals; they'll get their chance for a revenge in round 1 this month. Coal has had some impressive results earlier this year, winning February Challengers and making a deep run in Illinois, but he's been in a bit of a slump in April and will be looking to get back on track. There's a high chance of players who are familiar with each other meeting in round 2: Coal swept Cobra in a Gauntlet match in February, SV beat Coal in an ugly CTL set a few weeks ago, and, as mentioned previously, Kitten went into a frenzy and swept Cobra in div 2.

Everything Else

Incredibly, 20 VICIOUS RHUBARB slotted into Green bracket as the two seed, while WALLBANT is in the Blue bracket with NGC MAN. If Rhubarb and Wallbant meet in the finals, it'll be an an Illinois regional rematch, which Wallbant took.

Longtime fixture of the scene SALTEDSOFA returns after a year away from comp and will compete in Hopefuls.

KINGSMAN SMURF WATCH: King had a good qual this month and got up to Tier 2 where he belongs.