My Rankings for the May 2024 Premiere Poll

Numbers in parentheses refer to the (Premiere Poll ranking | my ranking) for April. NR stands for "Not Ranked".

1 FRACTAL (1 | 1)
What does it take to beat Fractal, the newly-crowned Mega Masters champion? Thanks to Andy, we now know: not only do you have to already be one of the best players in the game, you also have to play one of the best sets of your life.

2 DOG (4 | 5)
Trying to separate players two through four in this list is giving me a headache if I think too long about it, so I'm going to go with my gut and put Dog in second, whose 29 play has looked absolutely terrifying this month. He was a force of nature in his back-to-back sweeps of Gerald Freeman and Alex T to win CTL Season 24, and he put up 2 million points on his way to take the 39 killscreen world record in his CTL match against Somalian.

3 ALEX THACH (2 | 2)
When Alex T isn't busy innovating in the space of messy celebrations, he's racking up big wins (this month's victims include Blue Scuti and DanV), putting together massive CTM quals, and breaking his own world records. He's having fun doing it all, and he's trying to make sure you're having fun, too. His enthusiasm is infectious and our community is lucky to have him.

4 PIXELANDY (3 | 3)
Putting Andy in fourth is a war crime, and they're going to drag me away to the Hague at any moment for it. Andy played "only" three matches this month; the one against Coal wasn't much of a challenge, but Blue Scuti and Fractal sure were, and Andy rose to the occasion. His streak-ending win against Fractal is a milestone in a Tetris career that's already one of the most accomplished of all time.

5 GERALD FREEMAN (7 | 7)
Gerald is not someone you want to be up against in a high-stress situation. He made it to the Mega Masters finals after vanquishing Sodium, Huff, and Blue Scuti in the space of two days, and he pushed Fractal to a decider in the match with the most money on the line in Tetris history. His early topouts contributed to an early-round loss to DanV in this month's Masters, but his other results in the past couple months do more than enough to justify brushing that aside as a minor hiccup.

6 SIDNEV (6 | 6)
No one sees the game like Sidnev does. Though her high-risk style of play does have drawbacks, as demonstrated when she kept running into rough patches of RNG in her loss against Tugi, when it works, it works. Her win against a resurgent Tristop to make it to the Masters semifinals yet again is a classic demonstration of her formula. If you're looking for just how fun she can be to watch, though, check out her CTL set against Chiller. It wasn't her best comp performance, but it was some of the prettiest and most creative stacking you'll ever see.

7 BLUE SCUTI (5 | 4)
Scuti had some pretty rough stretches this month -- he didn't look great in his losses to DanV in Paris and Alex T in the CTL playoffs, and even his win against Ansel looked a little shaky. Two losses, though, let the positives of his game shine through and demonstrated just how much it takes to beat him. The first was his Gauntlet match against Noah Dengler, where Noah needed an incredible killscreen performance and multiple DKS lines to erase a 300k deficit in the decider. The second was to Andy, right before Andy took down Fractal, where every game had meaningful killscreen play and Andy had to fight for every inch to win.

8 HUFFULUFUGUS (8 | 8)
Huff gave Gerald a run for his money during Mega Masters, and while he wasn't able to put up huge scores in his loss to Tristop, the set did demonstrate something vital to Huff's success: he's the only Masters player in 2024 who hasn't suffered a natural topout before 29. Granted, that stat comes with an asterisk -- he's played 18 total CTM games this year, fewer than a lot of his competitors by a considerable margin. Still, he's going to punish you if you push your luck too much before killscreen.

9 DANV (12 | 11)
Here at This Week in Tetris HQ, we have an irrational love for trophies, and Dan took one home with him from Paris after a 4-1 finals win against Blue Scuti. With the pressure on in a live environment, he looked like he was in control the entire time. It's not just that championship, though; he also got the first-ever perfect transition in his CTL win against Ansel, took care of Tugi with great 29 play, and though he was given two early topouts in his sweep of Gerald Freeman, he was able to play a great game 3 to seal the deal. The only major blemish was being swept by Cobra in Gauntlet, but we can forgive the occasional PB hangover loss.

10 RAHMATIONS (14 | 12)
Rah's been putting on a show in CTL this season. His decider win against Sunny was an instant classic, and though he lost 3-1 to Alex T, he made Alex earn it and then some. His Masters loss to SV was bumpy as he had trouble adjusting to dry seeds and his typically phenomenal mechanics took flight of him, but I don't think he's going to make a pattern of it.

11 THEDENGLER (10 | 14)
The King of Pace had a memorable decider win against Scuti in Gauntlet, where he needed singles in 39 to chase down a 300k deficit, and he pushed Sidnev to a decider in Masters, though a big reason he lost was a pair of early topouts. Accomplishing the first-ever perfect maxout gets him extra credit.

12 TRISTOP (19 | 15)
Tristop looked the part of a top-shelf player in Masters this month. He beat a resilient Huff with a combination of pre-29 efficiency and killscreen magic, and Sidnev needed to put on a show to knock him out in round 2. He's not playing CTL this season, but he did qualify for CTM again, so hopefully we'll see plenty more of him.

13 SVNESTRIS (13 | 9)
SV swept a surging Rah in a bizarre Masters set, handling some rough seeds very well and showing he can play 29 when it mattered. His decider loss to Sam Finch in Gauntlet showed more good than bad -- Sam is a deeply underrated player who had to do a lot to beat him -- and he didn't play too shabby in his loss against Dog, either. He has had the occasional ugly match, though; he came on top against Coal, but he didn't look good doing it.

14 MYLES (9 | 13)
Myles played three matches this month, but two of them were against Fractal and one of them was against Dog, so, y'know. All three matches had good games in them that challenged his opponents, and he was even able to pick up a game in both of his Fractal sets, but he's giving away way too many early topouts.

15 SODIUM (17 | 16)
Sodium was knocked out of Challengers this month by Hydrant. Though the decider featured 29 play, Sodium wasn't able to do much there but survive, and the previous four games were all early topouts. He made Dog work for it, though, in the Dallas Underground finale, and we'll see more from him as the CTL season unfolds.

16 IBALL (15 | 10)
Radio silence from iBall this month, though his wins against SV and Noah earlier are still worth noting.

17 ALLENBOT (18 | 22)
Allen took care of business in Challengers this month, taking home the Free 40 Characters after being tested by Cobra and Hydrant. Of course, this means he'll have a gnarly first-round Masters match in May, but that's life, I guess.

18 TOMMYNTG (11 | 17)
17 might have been way too low last month, sure, but he didn't play any matches in April. I can't exactly move him up now, can I? He's in CTM for May, so maybe I can end this farce next month.

19 SAM FINCH (NR | NR)
Sam would be way higher on this list if he played outside of Gauntlet more often. He hasn't played much recently, but the matches he has played include a sweep of Noah Dengler in Feburary and a thrilling decider win against SV this month.

20 PORTALLL (16 | 18)
Portal's CTL campaign hasn't been great; he was swept by Nek0 and, though it was a win, the less said about his match against Somalian, the better. His Mega Masters run showed his potential, though, and I hope he keeps getting chances to meet it.

21 SUNNY (24 | 25)
Ah, the duality of Sunny. His match against Alex T is infamous, but getting to level 34 at 577k does show that he can survive a dig, though it doesn't necessarily show he can get out of one. His decider loss against Rah was an all-timer, though, and even if he hasn't actually won anything since Challengers in December, he will if he keeps up whatever he was doing in that match.

22 VICIOUS RHUBARB (20 | 19)
Rhubarb didn't look great in his loss to Meme in the Milwaukee finals, but was able to get some good killscreen action going. The bad results are starting to pile up, unfortunately.

23 COALBUCKET (21 | 21)
Coal continues being a bit Jekyll and Hyde. His decider loss against SV was ugly and he had a pair of early topouts against Alex T, but he put in a strong, consistent showing against Andy despite the sweep. The remainder of his CTL season should be a bit more indicative of his ability.

24 TUGI (NR | NR)
Perhaps this CTL season's biggest surprise has been Tugi, whose newfound rolling has made him a tough opponent, especially pre-29. His 29 play isn't quite there, but that hasn't prevented him from picking up matches against Ansel and Sidnev, the latter by playing relatively safe and using Sidnev's aggression against her. The potential upside is enormous.

25 COBRA (NR | NR)
Cobra had a huge win over DanV in Gauntlet, put on a good showing against Hydrant in the Challengers, and is currently 3-0 in CTL Division 2B. His Achilles' heel is his 29 play, but it should get better with time.

FIRST FIVE OUT: O, DAVIDMJ, PEEKAYRIC, HYDRANTDUDE, NEK0