CTRank 2024 Part 5: 5-1
Welcome back to CTRank 2024. We have finally reached our Top 5 for 2024! One could make an argument for each of these players to be in first place, but ultimately our panel made a decision. They casted their 30 player ballots, awarding 30 points for first place and 1 point for 30th; those who received votes outside of the Top 25 were given honorable mentions. We considered all open playstyle tournaments (and, to some extent, single-player accomplishments) in this calendar year, with an emphasis on the standard 1v1, 18 start, 39DKS ruleset. A minimum of ten played matches was required to qualify for consideration.
Intro & Honorable Mentions | 25-21 | 20-16 | 15-11 | 10-6 | 5-1
We're also proud to present a respective graphic alongside each ranked player, summarising their year. Some things to note:
- The W/L Record table shows how elo-rated matches and games they've won and lost versus those ranked in our top 10, top 25 (inclusive of the top 10) and the field (everyone else).
- The slash line sources from the Omni Match Statistics database, which tracks all premier CTM, CTL and CTWC matches. A player's ranking in each stat is among those with at least 21 games logged (equivalent to the ranked player with the lowest amount of tracked games), of which 40 players qualify.
- CTWC regionals and CTWC itself ranks players eliminated in the same rounds first according to games won and then combined losing score.
5 SIDNEV
No spoilers, but after a first win in a certain monthly tournament, 2024 may be the year that Sidnev fans look back on with the most fondness. But let's start at the beginning; after all, her journey there is what makes her achievements all the more special. She actually started off 2024 with quite a close call of sorts, coming in 2nd in January's Masters to Fractal, who was in the middle of his insanely dominant reign. Aside from a few scattered Gauntlet matches here and there, CTM was the only tournament of note she participated in for the first few months of the year. In March, she attended CTWC Austria, where she bested Hepps and SV to take the title. Next up was Mega Masters, where she beat DAS master Sharky and Singaporean champion Allenbot before falling in the top 16 to Fractal who would end up winning the whole event.
Heading into May, Sidnev had a good few wins in the CTL regular season against Chillalla, Sodium, and Blue Scuti, just to name a few. She also made it to the semis of CTM for three consecutive months in April, May, and July, nabbing a win against Fractal, 8 games above 1.5, 2 1.7s, and 2 1.8s. In June's CTWC, she fought against jetlag and snagged wins against Opaux and PixelAndy to make it to the top 8 before losing to Dengler.
July saw some more good wins in CTL against nek0, Sodium, and Rahmations, but the real highlight of Sidnev's summer was August's Masters. Against her first opponent, DMJ, Sidnev put up a whopping 1.898 and then another 1.45 and a 1.7 to boot to get her into round 2, where she faced Dog. There, she didn't slow down at all, dropping a 1.65 and two 1.5s in quick succession to advance into the semifinals. Her opponent in that round was Dengler, against whom she scored another rollover. And finally, that fateful August that marked her 7th time in the CTM finals, Sidnev pulled off a momentous win against Blue Scuti to earn her very first long-awaited Masters title. It was an incredibly significant moment both for Sidnev and the community.
On the CTL side of things, despite losses to DanV and Cobra in August, she managed to pull off a 3-0 sweep of Dog to make her way to the Championship Playoffs. Unfortunately, a decider loss to Myles took her out early, and she also saw a round 1 exit in September's Masters. After this, she decided to take a bit of a break from competitive Tetris, having achieved one of her longest-standing goals the month prior. She returned in November for No Cap Masters, taking out Wallbant and previous No Cap winner Huffulufugus before losing in a decider to Dog, who would end up winning the last Masters of the year.
Sidnev's statistics for the year show nothing but strong performances all around. With a Fair Median score of 1,253,981, she's placed 9th overall for 2024, also placing 7th for median into-29 score. Her reputation for being an inconsistent but extremely high scorer reflects in her perhaps unexpectedly low fair 19 and 29 transition scores, but she makes up for it with a fair 39% that places her 6th overall. Though she went on hiatus for a bit after her August Masters win, she's been mounting an impressive comeback in 2025, and the pinnacle of the Tetris community awaits her again.
-catsugiri
4 DOG
Many socks might have been eaten by those who called Dog washed at the beginning of the year, because by most measures of the imagination, he's had a monster year. Rebirth certainly headlines that list, but he's had lots of competitive success too- runner-up at CTWC, a fourth CTL win in April (the most in history at the time of writing), three Masters final appearances (April, September and November), and continuing his five-year Masters winning streak with a win in No Cap November. His stats are stellar across the board: placing on every single leaderboard category on the Masters Stats sheet, including first place in Fair Median 29 Score and ranking third in FMS behind just Alex and Fractal. That's for playing in every single Masters Event this year, too, so the sample size is the second-biggest out of all players- his consistency in producing high scores in competition cannot be overstated.
In comparison to his brother, Dog's year started out a little slow. He started the year going for a game crash of his own over the winter break, and later joined the race to 10 million points, but didn't have as much success as the other players going for it; he would later discover the secrets of lineout play, but that's for later in the season. Competition-wise, though, he was doing decently- he made the semifinals of Masters in February, overcame a huge underqual in Mega Masters to end up in the Top 8 before losing to Alex T, and won his CTL division in Season 24. After Mega Masters in April was when he really started hitting his stride- a win in Season 24's playoffs (which also featured the infamous “Dog nap” incident), coming in second in April's Masters, and breaking the 2 million barrier under the level 39 linecap in competition for the first time against Somalian in CTL. This culminated in Dog's first CTWC finals appearance as a roller in June, prolonging his streak of Top 4 finishes since he played for the first time in 2020.
Post-CTWC, Dog kept up his performance in competitions- he made Masters finals again in September and finished in the top 4 of CTL Season 26, alongside two Top 4 finishes at Lone Star and Stillwater. He took two rough Top 8 decider exits at the hands of Sidnev and Dengler in August and October, but in his defense, he wasn't playing that badly in either of those matches; his opponents were just unstoppable. In this period it was perhaps his lineout grind that truly propelled him to his greatest successes towards the end of the year. He'd unveil a video of him getting a game crash in the summer, and his Rebirth run in October wrote a new page in NES Tetris history, marking the first time a human has truly reached the end of Tetris.
Struggling with controller issues at the end of October, at some point it looked bleak for him to continue his Masters' winning streak from 2020 in November when he qualified in 15th seed, barely making it in. The No Cap format played exactly to his strengths though: Dog would defeat Alex, Dan and Sidnev on his way to completely demolish Blue Scuti in the finals, mullening to an insane 12.4 million to win his first and final Masters title of the year. He would end up losing the CTL playoffs to Scuti in a decider in December, but that was an extremely strong performance, good enough to garner discussion about whether he'd gotten back up to #1 in the world again.
Being the youngest ever CTWC champion isn't easy, and we've always come to expect nothing but excellence from Dog. Year after year, he's always delivered, raising our expectations along the way. 2025 is no different; here's to more insane games and competitive success!
-sonic
3 FRACTAL
Fractal had a very good 2024 by most measures: among qualifying players, he ranked 5th overall in Fair Median Score and Fair Median 29 Score and 7th in Fair 29 Transition Rate and that was only for playing in seven of those months (January to June and October). For a really long time, it seemed like he was absolutely unstoppable: running off a win at CTWC 2023 and after a year in which every CTM Masters event was won by a different player, Fractal's back-three-back CTM wins and a regional win at CTWC Genesis, capped off by his second Mega Masters title, predicted the heavyweight runs of Alex T and Scuti that were to follow. His dominance and consistency truly set the tone for the 2024 season.
Fractal has a gift for fighting through nerves and fatigue, rising to the occasion and coming out on top during big moments. After fighting through the likes of PixelAndy, Alex T, and Gerald Freeman in grueling five-game matches during Mega Masters, Fractal said in the post-game interview that it was difficult to stay composed during the finals as money kept pouring into the prize pool. He kept it together, though, and brought home the first five-figure prize in NES Tetris history. And, though it was a DAS tournament, his victory in the inaugural Jonas Cup drove this point home. The event saw stunning moments from virtually all top players, but in the end, Fractal was the one who was able to play at a consistently high level throughout the tournament and take home the trophy.
That's not to say that he hasn't had his struggles. After quarterfinal losses in the next two CTM events and a surprise early exit at the world championships at the hands of Tristop, Fractal took a step back from rolling due to health concerns, prompting a community-wide reexamination of the ways that the playstyle can cause repetitive stress injuries. Though he participated in a few tournaments later in the year and showed flashes of his old self, arm pain was still clearly present, and he made the wise decision to not push himself too far. That didn't stop him from competing, though: he worked with Guerrero, a medical professional, to develop an ergonomic DAS grip, which he used to win the Jonas Cup and make deep DAS Masters runs. He had the highest Fair Median Score in the DAS circuit in the 2024 season, again a testament to his consistency.
More than any other player, Fractal was what made 2024 in NES Tetris the record-shattering year that it was. Even though Scuti got there first, Fractal's pursuit of the first game crash was a direct cause of the huge influx of players and attention brought about by Scuti's accomplishment. He hosted his own regional event, Boston T Parity, at the beginning of 2024, prompting discussion about the current tournament format and how it can be changed; he also served as a central character in Summoning Salt's viral video about the NES Tetris world record progression, and for many was the face of our community's sportsmanship and positivity amongst top players. His tireless advocacy for promoting the game to the outside world and fostering community among the current player base is, perhaps, what truly sets him apart.
-arbaro
2 ALEX T
If you know, you know—Alex T's 2024 was absolutely insane. 2024. After making it to the semis in his first Masters of the year, he showed up in top shape to CTWC Genesis, making it to the finals against Fractal. Don't be fooled by the 3-1 loss—it featured crazy 29 digs and games that had everyone on the edge of their seats. February's Masters was more of the same: he swept through Tristop and bested Rahmations and PixelAndy with three 1.5s and a rollover before facing Fractal again. In the finals, he scored a 1.3, 1.67, and 1.5 in quick succession—and still lost.
Though he was somewhat blocked from being the dominant player by the seemingly indomitable Fractal in those early months, Alex still found lots of success. In CTL, a series of sweeps against atkoster, iBall, and Myles as well as a win against Dengler brought him to the CTL Championship Playoffs, where he beat Blue Scuti before losing in a sweep to Dog. Alex also made another deep run in March's Mega Masters, beating Tristop, Rahmations, and Dog and scoring 4 1.5s and a 1.8 before losing to (you guessed it) Fractal.
It was in April's Masters, though, that Alex's peak really began. On his way to the finals, he scored three 1.5s and a 1.7. And in the finals against Dog, Alex was practically unstoppable—his scores of 1.9, 1.65, and 1.7 speak for themselves (and, of course, the fact that he took the title home that month). It was around then that he also crashed the game for the first time—and then another time… the very next game. And if that wasn't enough, his lineout runs at this period in time add another flood of achievements to his name: he was also the first player to cross the 10 million point barrier with an unforeseen 16 million points, winning a hefty bounty, absolutely demolishing the previous world record, and cementing his status as the world's #1 player.
But Alex didn't stop there. In CTL, he had a perfect 6-0 season, only dropping a single game to Rahmations. He went into the CTL Playoffs perhaps a little too hot—his first loss since the last playoffs two months and twelve matches ago was dealt to him at the hands of Gerald Freeman, cutting his tournament run short. This didn't faze Alex, though, since right before this he'd taken his second straight Masters title against Blue Scuti (in a sweep, no less!), slamming down 4 1.5s, a 1.6, and a 1.7 on his way there.
And then came the world championships. Alex seemed to be in form as good as ever as his first three matches saw only a single game dropped. In the semifinals, he faced Tristop, and an incredibly tight and tense decider ensued, with Alex scoring two rollovers and just barely coming out on top. In the finals, Alex didn't let the pressure get to him as he battled through, exchanging games with his opponent Dog until it was 2-2. In the decider, when everything hung in the balance, Alex got a 1.78, the highest score of the whole tournament and the game that would win him the championship. And of course, just like the Alex T we all know and love, he proceeded to bathe in cheese.
After CTWC, Alex won CTM July again like it was nothing, with 5 games scoring above 1.5. It was only in the next month's Masters event where he'd finally falter, his win streak ending courtesy of a loss to Blue Scuti in the semifinals (though we'd be remiss to not mention that he still scored 3 1.5s and a rollover that month). It seemed like Alex was finally beginning to show signs of fatigue after being the undisputed #1 for a while—he indicated that he was going to take some time off, a wise decision in the face of all that pressure. We saw a few appearances in CTL with losses to iBall and Sodium and some controller issues, but the end of the year was mostly uneventful.
Clearly, Alex has had an amazing year, and he has the stats to back it up. He's third in FMS for 2024 with a whopping 1,357,460. His fair median 29 score is just short of 300,000, putting him second. But one statistic that may be unexpected for many is that Alex's pre-29 is actually just as strong (or maybe even stronger?) than his 29 play. 2024's #1 player in terms of fair median 29 transition is none other than Alex T, and he's the only one whose FM29 transition crosses 1.1 million. Are you surprised? He's a phenomenal player in every way, and we've already seen him come back from his break with an absolute bang thus far in 2025. He'll no doubt continue to make waves in his career, and all of us wait with bated breath.
-catsugiriAnd now, our 2024 CTRank champion...
1 BLUE SCUTI
Hot off the first ever game crash, Blue Scuti was set to make a bang no matter what in 2024. We all know about the buzz that came from being “the boy who beat Tetris” in the news—but what the members of the Tetris community know just as well is that he isn't just a one-trick lineout pony. When it comes to competition, Blue Scuti has been unrivaled for a large part of the year, and he has the results to show for it.
Amid the hype and publicity of being the first person to crash the game, Blue Scuti showed up consistently in various tournaments during the first few months of the year, racking up wins at CTWC's Desert Regional and CTL Season 26, and garner himself another world record in the level 29 start score category. Yet he wasn't at the top in competition at this point: he picked up top 4 finishes at Waco and Genesis with losses to Myles and Fractal respectively, fell to Gerald Freeman in Mega Masters after a high-scoring run through the bracket, and lost to DanV after flying out to Paris for a regional. At June's CTWC, Scuti was one of the centers of attention, as documentary directors and cameramen scrambled to get shots of the famous player. And he did make a run- getting through Rhubarb and Coalbucket, but Tristop got the better of him in the top 8.
Things turned around quickly in the summer though. Blue Scuti came out strong at the Lone Star Championship in mid-July, winning against Cobra and Myles. From here on out, out of the 46 remaining matches he'd play in the year against top-tier opponents, he'd lose only 5 of them. One of these was to Alex T in the finals of July's Masters, where Scuti would get swept despite scoring a rollover and looking incredible. At this time, Alex was more or less the undisputed top player in the world, and he was one of the biggest obstacles in Scuti's path to become the best. However, Alex seemed like he was getting ready to take a break, which left Scuti a perfect opportunity to take more titles. Or did it? After a phenomenal run to the semis, he'd face Alex for the last time in 2024, in a match that could only be called absolute cinema. Three rollovers and a 1.4 later, Scuti would come out on top in a 5-game nail-biter that left him mentally exhausted but victorious. Unfortunately, there was still one match to go if Scuti wanted to take the title—and an incredible performance from Sidnev led to a four-game loss that perhaps also showed just how much beating Alex had taken out of Scuti.
Then began a 21-match win streak where he took the CTL Championship for the second time in a row, won September and October's Masters without dropping more than a pittance of games, and won the CTWC regional in his hometown of Stillwater. This absolute dominance was almost expected of him—his rise to the very top had been a long time coming—but it was insanely impressive nonetheless. In this time, he'd achieve multiple wins against Myles, Dog, Tristop, and Meme, all of who were at the top of their game before losing once more to Alex in CTL. His last loss of the year came to Dog in CTM's No Cap November, but Scuti would quickly wave away any thoughts of slowing down by winning the CTL Championship for a third time in quick succession. He ended 2024 in top form; nobody could argue with his sheer power.
As expected of our #1 player, Blue Scuti's Fair Median Score of 1,358,960 places him squarely at number one for the year. But that's not the only statistic of his that's notable. He's also first for 39 transition rate, beating second place, Dog, by about 3%; this just goes to show Scuti's overwhelming dominance in 29 survival. As if that wasn't enough, he's also first for fair median 29 score overall in the year, showing not only his ability to get to the late levels, where scoring potential is higher, but also efficiently utilize the lines for Tetrises. 29 is what sets good players apart from great players, and clearly, Scuti has 29 proficiency in spades. Ultimately, he stands above every other player this year with his outstanding play in every aspect of the game, with amazing results to show for it. Scuti's poised to continue his dominance throughout the first few months of 2025, and he's the one to beat if you want to go for the top.
-catsugiri
Comments
Post a Comment