This Week in Tetris: November 12-25

The back half of November featured some key CTM and CTL matchups, as both mainstay online events continued their last iterations of the year. With a lot of veteran players becoming inactive and a new crop of players determined to make a name of themselves, these matches set the scene for one of the most volatile Premiere Polls of the year.

We're always looking for new contributors, so if you're interested, join our Discord server and say hello. Huge props this time around to stolenshortsword and sonic; shortsword, in addition to writing contributions, also helped put together the line scores and match info. The server also features the Almost-Daily Update, which provides the scores of yesterday's big matches and lets you know what's going on in the future.

The numbers next to the players are their November Premiere Poll rankings, not their tournament seeds (or the more recent December poll). Scores in the tables are given in thousands; an (i) or (a) next to a score indicates that the topout was intentional or aggressive, respectively. As always, let me know if you found this entertaining or useful, or if there's anything else you'd like to see.

Classic Tetris Monthly

There's currently a lot of movement going on in the Tetris world as we enter the offseason, so to speak. A lot of players are getting busy at school and/or need a break. Meanwhile, there are other players who've risen meteorically to the top; this gave room for a lot of upsets and unexpected names appearing. Two of those players who've risen to prominence, of course, are meme and TetrisTime. TetrisTime had a much better showing in CTL than in these matches, but even then, meme's improvement has been so rapid recently that she was the clear favorite. No surprises here; TetrisTime simply couldn't get much killscreen play going and topped out rather early on 29 both games.

Nek0 is another player who's risen to the top recently, bursting onto the scene with an incredibly strong August performance and sticking around since. Nek0 versus Myles was one of the longer matches in the early rounds this month, and an upset win for the former. Myles took the first game with a rollover and a level 51, but Nek0 won via chasedowns in the two games after in a reverse sweep, taking Myles out to many people's surprise. Nek0's run, however, then ended swiftly at the hands of meme; he couldn't get into the same groove that took him past level 50 and beyond in the previous match, and meme was able to outlast him both games.

As for the other brackets, there weren't that many surprises: Sidnev won the red bracket after her opponents, Wallbant and Huff, were each unable to complete chasedowns. Currently ranked #1, Blue Scuti predictably stormed his way past Tommy, even as Tommy was able to put up pretty good scores. Tristop was good enough to get past Sodium, but he wasn't having a good enough day to give Scuti a challenge for the title of blue bracket winner. Meanwhile, Alex T vs Dog wasn't the big blockbuster match one would expect, as Alex was experiencing controller issues. Dog found his way easily past Alex and DanV, blazing his way through the green bracket.

As a whole, the best of three format adopted for these early rounds was quite brutal, and turned No Cap November into a much deadlier format than I had anticipated. At the time of writing, we've seen both semifinals of No Cap, and it definitely made a huge difference in terms of results, so it remains unknown what the optimal format for such a competition should have been. -sonic

November Masters Orange Bracket

CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 1 (Orange), November 17, 2024
8 MEME def. TETRISTIME (2-0)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
MEME 951 1,211 (a)
TETRISTIME 884 1,047


CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 1 (Orange), November 17, 2024
11 NEK0 def. 5 MYLES (2-1)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2 3
NEK0 1,508 1,685 (i) 1,161 (i)
MYLES 1,603 (i) 1,671 1,063


CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 2 (Orange), November 17, 2024
8 MEME def. 11 NEK0 (2-1)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
MEME 1,319 1,185 (i)
NEK0 1,248 1,098


November Masters Red Bracket

CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 1 (Red), November 20, 2024
6 SIDNEV def. WALLBANT (2-0)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
SIDNEV 1,070 (i) 1,143
WALLBANT 1,061 1,057


CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 1 (Red), November 20, 2024
17 HUFFULUFUGUS def. 16 SVNESTRIS (2-0)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
HUFFULUFUGUS 1,143 (i) 645 (a)
SVNESTRIS 1,091 403


CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 2 (Red), November 20, 2024
6 SIDNEV def. 17 HUFFULUFUGUS (2-1)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2 3
SIDNEV 912 1,121 1,296
HUFFULUFUGUS 1,042 (i) 1,104 1,287


November Masters Blue Bracket

CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 1 (Blue), November 23, 2024
4 TRISTOP def. 13 SODIUM (2-1)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2 3
TRISTOP 792 1,264 (i) 1,423 (i)
SODIUM 847 1,235 1,416


CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 1 (Blue), November 23, 2024
1 BLUE SCUTI def. 15 TOMMYNTG (2-0)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
BLUE SCUTI 1,462 (i) 2,507
TOMMYNTG 1,203 1,410


CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 2 (Blue), November 23, 2024
1 BLUE SCUTI def. 4 TRISTOP (2-0)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
TRISTOP 1,154 1,226
BLUE SCUTI 1,312 (i) 1,342


November Masters Green Bracket

CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 1 (Green), November 17, 2024
12 DANV def. 19 ALLENBOT (2-0)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
ALLENBOT 913 1,162
DANV 1,078 (i) 1,252


CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 1 (Green), November 23, 2024
3 DOG def. 2 ALEX THACH (2-0)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
ALEX T 1,231 1,264
DOG 1,232 (i) 1,304 (i)


CTM November 2024 Masters Event Round 2 (Green), November 23, 2024
3 DOG def. 12 DANV (2-0)
Lv 18 (No Cap) 1 2
DOG 1,412 (i) 1,855
DANV 1,325 902


Classic Tetris League

Division 1A

I went into CTL thinking both subdivisions would have two Div. 2 promotees that the rest of the field would beat up on in sweeps. TetrisTime is the one in 1A that has proved that wrong, with blazing fast improvement with rolling now that he's left table tapping behind, and after great looking losses to meme and dog, he's finally got his big win. He reverse swept Coalbucket, taking advantage of Coal's inability to find his footing on the killscreen with a trio of a 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 in the last two games and showing real familiarity the post-post transition. Dog picks up a huge win over Myles in his first since CTWC (after losing to him in CTM July and Lone Star) despite back-to-back rollovers by the Great One (before a 15 line ET…). Meme somehow maintains a perfect 15-0 record with a sweep over SV, who actually played great. -stolenshortsword

CTL Season 27 Division 1A, November 13, 2024
TETRISTIME def. FUR OF KITTEN (3-1)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3 4
TETRISTIME 1,630 1,143 435 (i) 1,369 (a)
FUR OF KITTEN 1,252 1,169 288 1,250


CTL Season 27 Division 1A, November 16, 2024
16 SVNESTRIS def. 20 COBRA (3-2)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3 4 5
SVNESTRIS 1,455 447 680 (i) 712 1,422
COBRA 1,382 632 (i) 426 816 (i) 1,138


CTL Season 27 Division 1A, November 21, 2024
8 MEME def. 16 SVNESTRIS (3-0)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3
SVNESTRIS 1,327 1,362 1,107
MEME 1,493 1,397 1,189


CTL Season 27 Division 1A, November 22, 2024
TETRISTIME def. 14 COALBUCKET (3-2)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3 4 5
COALBUCKET 1,002 (i) 969 (i) 1,096 1,233 1,072
TETRISTIME 987 902 1,164 1,360 1,271


CTL Season 27 Division 1A, November 24, 2024
3 DOG def. 5 MYLES (3-2)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3 4 5
DOG 1,456 1,087 (i) 1,348 1,246 73 (i)
MYLES 1,454 894 1,666 1,682 51


Division 1B

The clear shocker for 1B this week was Alex T getting swept by Sodium. Both players said in chat they were weeks out of practice, yet Sodium showed no rust whilst Alex was straight oxidized. The box score doesn't even do justice to how mediocre he played. Retrospectively, its strange to look back on these beatdowns on the world champion after how he returned to Prime Alex versus Scuti. Coupled with another disappointing NCN match vs dog, I don't regret ranking him at the edge the top 10 in the Premiere Poll (below iBall and even Dengler) per se, but its funny how quickly he has made these takes outdated. The rest of the subdivision went as expected, save for a pretty ugly set from nek0, that together with his loss to Redshurt don't particularly inspire confidence. -stolenshortsword

CTL Season 27 Division 1B, November 13, 2024
9 IBALL def. JERPI (3-0)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3
IBALL 1,327 (i) 1,126 1,033 (i)
JERPI 969 1,047 541


CTL Season 27 Division 1B, November 21, 2024
13 SODIUM def. 2 ALEX THACH (3-0)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3
ALEX THACH 902 1,133 1,201
SODIUM 1,436 1,140 1,467


CTL Season 27 Division 1B, November 22, 2024
18 RAHMATIONS def. REDSHURT (3-1)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3 4
RAHMATIONS 742 (i) 1,326 334 1,001
REDSHURT 741 1,201 596 (i) 933


CTL Season 27 Division 1B, November 24, 2024
1 BLUE SCUTI def. 11 NEK0 (3-0)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3
BLUE SCUTI 1,111 (i) 1,137 1,448
NEK0 1,012 1,024 656


CTL Season 27 Division 1B, November 24, 2024
REDSHURT def. JERPI (3-0)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3
JERPI 250 284 250
REDSHURT 276 (i) 443 (i) 330 (i)


CTL Season 27 Division 1B, November 24, 2024
2 ALEX THACH def. 18 RAHMATIONS (3-0)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3
RAHMATIONS 621 526 310
ALEX THACH 860 589 (i) 351 (i)


CTL Season 27 Division 1B, November 24, 2024
9 IBALL def. 18 RAHMATIONS (3-0)
Lv 18 (Lv 39 DKS) 1 2 3
RAHMATIONS 1,230 445 1,389
IBALL 1,455 451 (i) 1,630



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