This is Richy aka Ruins becoming the first
player to use the revolutionary rolling technique in a live classic tetris world championships
event at the 2021 southern qualifier. Last summer Eunha and I drove 10 hours to
attend the tournament in Greenville, South Carolina so we could try competing ourselves. It was the first official classic tetris event
in 2 years due to the pandemic, and the level of competition had improved dramatically. So how did rolling do in its debut, how did
we do in our attempts to compete, and who ultimately won? Well, let’s rewind to the
beginning. Scout: “Eunha and I are just about to get
into South Carolina for the Southeastern Qualifier. It was a bit of a rough road down, we had
to completely alter our route at the last minute to try and avoid the hurricane as much
as possible but we managed to finally make it. What are you looking forward to this weekend?” Eunha: “Eat really good food, and also be
a part of like, the tetris, for the first time.” Scout: “Yeah, the last time we went to a
competition in person in 2019, Eunha didn’t play NES Tetris, but now she does. So it’s gonna be exciting for both of us
to get to put up qualifying scores tomorrow. We’re gonna be heading into a minor league
baseball game with Chris Bidwell, it’s been years since I’ve gone to a baseball game
in person. We’re gonna be seeing some other people
from the community.” Chris Bidwell had organized the meetup here
as a pre-party for people in the community arriving a day ahead of time. We found our seats next to him and his family,
along with other Tetris players Storminorman, Davesmithsays, SpiritVet, Marfram, and one
of the founders of the classic tetris world championships himself, Adam Cornelius. Typically the Tetris qualifier pre-parties
were at bars, but given how people’s ages in the community had skewed younger and younger,
Chris Bidwell had chosen a minor league baseball game so people under 21 could actually attend. And we had a great time, even though for most
of the game the action on the field wasn’t as much of the focus and instead we were talking
about what we thought the Tetris qualifier would be like or watching the Classic Tetris
Monthly master’s event on our phones, which had a bracket playing live that evening. As a special treat at the end, it was fireworks
night at the stadium, and Chris Bidwell made us all laugh when the announcer counted down
the fireworks 3, 2, 1 and then he yelled Tetris! It was an awesome way to break the ice before
the craziness that would happen the following day. Early next morning, Eunha and I headed over
to the convention center an hour early to get special guest passes, since the convention
organizers had actually included me in the official event program because of my youtube
channel which was kind of surreal. Scout: “So I was able to get a special guest
pass and Eunha got a media pass.” Eunha: “Yay!” We then went into the main hall where the
vendors were getting set up to find the tournament location, which we figured should be pretty
easy, as the qualifier was being run as part of Hal Hawkin’s Retro World Series event,
using dozens of identical CRTs he had bought at a school auction. Sure enough, we found them all lined up on
tables in the back, and for extra confirmation they were accompanied by a very official looking
sign. Scout: "What are you looking forward to most about
this event?” Eunha: “I’m looking forward to competing
in the CTWC.” If you haven’t been to many live nes tetris
events before, it is not normal to have such large and uniformly sized screens to play
on. Eunha and I started turning them on to test
them, and the image quality was great, although at first I could not figure out how to adjust
the volume. Scout: “Oh my gosh, these are so loud! I
don’t know how to turn them down. What do you think?” Eunha: “Uh, I don’t like it. It’s distracting.” Scout: “Oh no, come on, give her another
long bar. Yes!” Soon Chris Bidwell, who’d be overseeing
the tournament for Hal Hawkins, would arrive. Scout: “This is Chris Bidwell’s CTWC tournament
in a box.” Bidwell: “There it is. I got two PVMs here,
they’re heavy, if you ever watched wrestling in the 90s they would always take these out
of the announcer’s table and smack people with them. Super secret later on, these are PAL NESes.
Maybe we’ll have some PAL action later this afternoon.” Scout: “That would be fantastic.” Bidwell: “Yeah, for right now, uh, shhhh.” Scout: “And then this is the box of everything
else - the controllers, the carts -” Bidwell: “Gotta clean your carts.” Scout: “Yeah.” Bidwell: “The special sauce, cause I know
how good everybody is, there’s 10 game genies in here. Do you remember the code cause I don’t,
it’s, I always forget the word.” Scout: “All of them will know it.” Bidwell: “All of them will know it, yeah.” Chris Bidwell went straight to work sourcing
all the parts that would be required for a second livestream setup in addition to the
main stage. Scout: “So this cord was particularly hard
to find, what is so important about this?” Bidwell: “We want to stream, dude! We - we
haven’t been live in 2 years so…they have a streaming setup for the finals over there
but we want some qualifiers streamed so we have a splitter now and we have two cause
Hal’s the man. So, we’re gonna get this quick and dirty streaming setup using a crappy
wifi hotspot, it might be the most potato internet connection ever but we’re gonna
be on today live chatting to everybody.” Adam Cornelius, the world championships co-founder,
was the next to arrive. In addition to the tournament winner receiving a free entry into
the World Championships, the two finalists would also get a gold and silver retro world
series medal. As Eunha kept practicing on 19 starts, she
did something unexpected. Scout: “New 19 pb!” Eunha: “Yaaaaay!” Scout: “Keep going!” She ended up smashing her level 19 start personal
best, getting 148,000 points. Eunha: “Wooooo!” As I sat down to practice, more players started
to arrive, including the1stnoel, who brought along his claim to fame. Scout: “Noel’s the famous guitar hero
controller Tetris player!” Noel: “Ah, you got me, you caught me, hello
man, how you doin?” Scout: “What is your PB using this controller?” Noel: “I have a maxout.” Scout: “You have a maxout now?” Noel: “I do have a maxout with this thing.” Scout: “That is incredible.” Noel: “Yeah.” Chris: “Is he actually playing with a guitar
hero controller?” Scout: “He can!” Chris: “He can?” Scout: “Yeah, he has a maxout with it.” Scout: “What is your name?” Chris: “My name’s Chris, I by moonlight,
I’m actually not a classic tetris player, I’m a modern tetris player so I play, like,
tetris effect, puyo puyo tetris.” Scout: “Awesome!” Chris: “So sadly, like when I saw it’s
just classic tetris I’m like, I wish I was good at it like you know like Jonas, and Greentea…” Scout: “Yeah.” Chris: “But…” Noel: “Rest in peace.” Chris: “So I’m probably gonna be like
spectating but definitely, like, if there was a modern tetris tournament, definitely
would want to check it out. I’ve seen your stuff too.” Scout: “Oh, thanks! Yeah.” Being an absolute trooper, Chris sat down
to give NES Tetris a try anyways. Scout: “You got a tuck!” Chris: “It definitely feels a lot different
when you’re playing Classic Tetris compared to Modern, so…” Scout: “Yeah, yeah. For sure.” Meanwhile, Phamtom had arrived and was on
pace to get the first maxout of the day with over 800,000 on level 26, but he hung a T
piece and ended up topping out. Shortly afterwards, noel had a run going that
was even closer to a maxout, with just 2 tetrises to go at the beginning of Level 28. Scout: “Come on, give him the T!” “Oh, there it is!” Noel: “Oh, you s - that’s it.” Scout: “Oh! Not yet, not yet.” Noel: “I need a - I need a square. I literally
need a square - nope.” Scout: “Aww.” “Unfortunate.” Then SodiumOverdose arrived, one of the strongest
tappers in the game who had brought along a middle school yearbook to place his controller
on. He soon got deep into the third run of the
day that was close to a maxout, and was just one tetris away on level 28. Sodium: “And now we just top out for the
BM.” Noel: “Why would you top out for the…” Scout: “For the memes. Nice.” Noel: “Okay, just top out.” *cheering* Noel: “Yeah!” Scout: “Level 30?” Noel: “No!” Sodium: “No, wait wait wait.” Scout: “Oooooh!” Noel: “No!” Scout: “First max of the day! Oh, gotta
post it on discord.” BeastinShen arrived to help Chris Bidwell
to run the livestream, and the players and judges all got in place at stations. Scout: “Qualifying has started!” Bidwell: “Qual - let’s go! Tetris time!
Yeah!” Players would be sorted first by how many
maxouts they got, and next by their highest non-max score. The top 12 would be seeded into a head to
head bracket to determine the tournament winner. Scout: “So out of the confirmed online list
of everybody who’s attending, I rank 13th out of all the top PBs and there’s 12 spots
in the bracket, so I’ll put up some games for a while, but if it’s clear that like,
there’s 12 800ks, I probably won’t have a chance, I’ll just enjoy the rest of the
event. But I’ll at least try at the beginning.” The qualifiers were going to run for 5 hours
from 11am to 4pm, and while waiting in line I watched as Ruins, in his first in person
tournament appearance, became the first player to show off live the brand new rolling technique
that used multiple fingers tapping the back of the controller into the finger on the front
to achieve much faster speeds than traditional methods. While it was mesmerizing to watch, he was
far from the only player with an interesting grip as next to him, Blank was using a bare
foot as an anchor for the controller. Storminorman had brought an extra chair and
a backgammon board to stabilize his hands at the position and height he was most comfortable
with. Marfram, who had previously always played
on a keyboard, was one day into figuring out a grip on an NES controller. If you were holding your controller the traditional
way with just two thumbs, you were basically in the minority. Scout: “It’s all starting to come back
now. The feeling of waiting in line at CTWC or like, the stress of trying to get a good
score. Like when qualifying online for 2 years, it’s such a different vibe cause you can
just start over immediately if you get a bad score. Here it’s, it almost feels like playing
in competition again cause you just want to play out every single game, no matter how
you’re doing. As I thought, there’s a couple surprise
people here, Chad’s already here, Chad Muse the veteran. So, that’s probably gonna push
me out of contention, but I’m still gonna try and play and see if I can get a PB for
qualifying, so like a mid 600ks, I’d be happy with that. How’s it feeling so far, is it like CTWC
2019 vibes again?” Bidwell: “You know, that adrenaline kick
when you’re running things and things are actually working and it feels good, you’re
just waiting for something to break but until then… and we’re struggling finding our
password for the CTWC stream. It’s been so long. We’ll call up another long bar
and figure that out, but we’re not gonna stream until like, 1 o’clockish.” Scout: “Ah, makes sense.” Bidwell: “So, I’m loving it. And look
at our line, it’s already starting to go all the way down the thing like we thought.” Scout: “Yeah, yeah!” Eunha and I started putting up scores, and
Eunha unfortunately started out with a few early topouts, while I got an early score
of 578,000. I knew it would be nowhere near enough to qualify, but it at least put me
in the bracket for the time being. Scout: “Still on the board, for now! First
max of the day?” Bidwell: “Yep!” Scout: “Who did it?” Sodium: “Kofi.” Scout: “Kofi!” Kofi was one those players a bit under the
radar in the scene, as he had not played in the online world championships the previous
year because he wanted to wait for the in person competitions to return. But he was
definitely one of the strongest players at the tournament, having just weeks prior gotten
one tetris off a 1.4 million score before the level 29 killscreen, good enough for 6th
place in the world leaderboard at the time, so it was definitely fitting that he got the
first maxout of the qualifiers. Sodium looked poised to get his second maxout
of the day and the second maxout of the qualifiers with over 750,000 on level 25, but he ran
into a nasty drought on level 28. Scout: “Nothing! Oh man!” Eunha: “It’s a little nerve wracking,
especially when all the like, greater players are coming out, but, hopefully I can get a
good score up there.” Scout: “What’s your impression of everybody
so far?” Eunha: “Everyone’s really good.” Eunha had improved her qualifying score a
bit to 320,000, but she was still not yet above the top 12 cutoff. Scout: “How are you feeling?” Eunha: “Worried. Not good!” Right as I was recording Eunha, I looked up
and saw that puppyball was on maxout pace. He had achieved a maxout before, but had never
gotten one on video. At 229 lines, he had just one line to go before
the level 29 killscreen and needed one tetris for the maxout. Scout: “Come on, there it is, there it is!” Bidwell: “Give it to him!” *cheering* Scout: “Yay! That was awesome.” Kofi and Colin were now firmly in place as
the top 2 seeds, with Kofi in first because he had the higher non-max score. And the third maxout of the qualifying period proved
to be incredibly elusive. Blank came close with over 900,000 on level
28 but had the board spiral out of control. Scout: “Oooooh, aw man.” Sodium: “Scout, Kofi just posted one off
right now by the way. Oh never mind, sorry.” Scout: “Oh man, one off?” Right after Blank and Kofi’s one offs, Sodium
had another game where he came so close on level 28 but was one tetris short when the
level 29 killscreen did him in. Scout: “Oh no. Dang. So close, Sodium!” As it turns out, another player supermines
would get the third maxout, right before I turned on my camera to record. Bidwell: “Got another max!” Scout: “Nice job! A max!” Bidwell: “Let’s go.” Scout: “Congratulations!” Supermines: “Yeah.” Kofi almost got his second maxout of the day
right afterwards, but with just one tetris to go, he hung a line piece on level 28 with
the tetris well set up. Stormin: “Oh, 220. 220 difference between
the two top.” Scout: “Oh my gosh, so close!” Supermines’ highest non max score was 200
points higher than Kofi’s, meaning he was still the #1 seed. Meanwhile, even though I was able to play
much better on level 19 than I had been at previous events, I kept struggling with low
transition scores due to messy 18 games and hadn’t yet improved my score. Scout: “Somehow I am still miraculously
in the bracket but I don’t expect it to last long. Still trying for a 600k. It’s
nice, there’s enough stations that the line really isn’t too long. It’s only about
like, you know, a couple minute wait. You can watch games as you…wait.” One of the coolest things about the event
was getting to see players I had never seen before, such as this very young competitor
that was catching everyone’s attention. Beastin: “It’s the third Artiga brother.” Scout: “The third Artiaga brother?” Beastin: “Yeah.” Scout: “When did you first get into NES
Tetris?” Kid: “Um, about a month or two ago.” Scout: “A month or two ago? Wow, and it
looks like you already know what you’re doing.” Kid: “My PB’s actually 214,000.” Scout: “214,000, that’s awesome. What
was the video that you originally found NES Tetris through?” Kid: “I’m pretty sure it was the 2018
world championships. Then I just kinda followed you for a long time, learned what I’m doing.” Scout: “That’s fantastic, that’s awesome. Is this your first tournament you’ve been
to?” Tyler: “It is my first actually, this is,
I heard it was going to be South Carolina, I just had to go, and I’m really happy to
be here, I’ve gotten like a 460, but, you know, I’m just enjoying it.” Scout: “Yeah, it’s super fun to just be
able to play and be next to everybody else.” Tyler: “Oh yeah, of course.” Scout: “See maxout next to you, it’s like,
oh, shoot.” One of the big questions was when ruins the
roller would get a maxout, as he had by far the fastest piece movement of anyone there,
and soon enough, that question would be answered. Scout: “There it is, first roller max!” Ruins got the 4th maxout of the day, and even
showed off a little bit the ability for rolling to move pieces around past level 29 far faster
than any hypertapper could. Scout: “Nice job!” The battle for the #1 seed was suddenly turned
on its head when sodiumoverdose got 2 maxouts in rapid succession off camera, vaulting himself
to the top spot. The maxouters were all pretty much safely
in the bracket now and took a break to eat lunch, but for the rest of us that couldn’t
reliably max out, there was no time to rest. I finally managed to break 600,000 and was
gunning for more but in a moment of panic, I tried to put a line piece 7 rows high on
the left which was impossible with normal DAS. That one mistake effectively ended the game. Scout: “Shoot! Well, that’s a qualifying
PB at least. So close to getting back in the bracket, needed a few more tetrises on the
final levels, just couldn’t do it, but it’s the best qualifying score I’ve ever gotten
in person so I’ll take it for now.” I watched as storimorman slowly gutted out
a low 700,000 into level 27, a score that could make the difference between qualifying
and missing the cut. Scout: “The bubble’s up to 724,000, actually,
that’s you, right?” Stormin: “Yeah! That’s me.” Scout: “All right, you’re on the bubble!” Stormin: “We’re duking it out right now.” Scout: “I know, I know. Well I’ll be happy
to see you play if end up being the final seed.” Stormin: “I’ll be happy to see you play
if you make it, so.” Scout: “All right, yeah.” Stormin: “I’m happy just to be here.” Scout: “Yeah, absolutely.” Refusing to take any shortcuts, Eunha had
been doing level 18 starts all day just like the pros, but things just hadn’t been panning
out for her to get high scores. She managed to increase her qualifying score to 349,000
on a game on the livestream, but with the cutoff now well above her personal best, she
decided to call it there and rest her legs from standing all day in line. It was now 3pm, and with just an hour left
in qualifying, the pressure was on for everyone to get in their final scores. Scout: “Sodium got a max before qualifying
even started, he has 3 so far, and he is still playing. He really wants that #1 seed. All right, this has gotten significantly tougher
to get in. I don’t think I’m gonna make it at this point, I have like, 1 or 2 games
left.” In what seemed likely to be my final game,
again I got into a hole with a low transition pace. Unfortunately the end of this game wasn’t
recorded, but I remember giving it my all past the transition and it ended up being
my best game of the day, but it still wasn’t enough. Scout: “640,200, at level 28 I’ll take
it. Shoot, I needed to basically go perfect those last couple levels to get in, but, I
mean, still beat my score at the last minute so, I mean, if I’m improving throughout
the day, I’ll take it. Waiting in line, there’s one minute left
until they cut us off.” Cobalt?: “It’s not gonna happen.” Scout: “Yeah, there’s too many people
still on level 18.” Bidwell: “That’s time, it’s 4 o’clock,
we can finish these games, but that’s it.” Scout: “All right, that’s the end!” With the cutoff announced, only the people
still playing on stations could now affect the qualifying scores. One by one as players topped out, we got closer
and closer to the final rankings. Kofi was the person who had recently gotten
a second max to move up to the #2 seed, which was actually critically important, as Kofi
had a higher non-max score than Sodium and both of them were still playing, meaning there
was still a chance Kofi could get the number #1 seed if he maxed out his final game. However,
Sodium was in the driver’s seat and could guarantee getting the #1 seed if he just maxed
out his own final game or if Kofi topped out. After getting to 900,000 and seemingly having
it in the bag, Sodium got stuck in a dig at the worst possible time. Scout: “Ah, it’s not gonna happen. A,
he’s too, he’s too high up to burn down before killscreen. Unless…awwwww.” Now that Sodium had topped out, it all came
down to Kofi, the last person still playing. If he could just max out this game, the #1
seed was his. After grinding his way through the entirety
of post transition, Kofi was one tetris away on level 28. Bidwell: “Waiting!” Scout: “Oh!” Bidwell: “One piece too late…plenty of
time…” Scout: “Oh…” Bidwell: “Oh, oh…come on…there it is!” *cheering* At the last possible moment, Kofi had sniped
the #1 seed from Sodium. And in a display of great sportsmanship, Sodium congratulated
Kofi and pointed out a particular move he was impressed by. Sodium: “Kofi…you know at 25, with the
Z adjustment to the right, I don’t know, it was nasty, it was nasty.” Bidwell: “Number 1 seed, Mr. Kofi!” So in the final rankings, I finished 14th,
with a score that was at least within my hopes and expectations. Funnily enough, the person
right above me on the bubble was Cobalt, who was at his first live event and was a fairly
unknown player at the time, but has since gone on to become a fellow nes tetris youtuber,
making many videos on new world records and noteworthy stories within the community over
the past several months. Now that the rankings were set, it was time
to get ready for the bracket playoffs, snazzily announced by this now upgraded retro world
series sign. Scout: “Setting up all the game genies…gotta
be prepared for maxouts.” We didn’t have access to the main stage
yet because a smash bros tournament was still going on, and because we were short on time,
4 matches needed to be played simultaneously on all the stations, with people who didn’t
make the bracket getting assigned as judges to oversee the matches. I was originally set to be one of the judges,
but at the last minute, I was asked to co-commentate the live broadcast with Chris Bidwell, which
was super cool as it was the first official live ctwc event I’d even gotten to commentate. Because only one of the 4 matches could be
broadcast at once, Eunha filmed some clips of the matches that happened off stream. The first round was between the bottom 8 seeds
to determine who would play the top 4 seeds in the next round. All matches were best of
3, highest score wins. First up at the bottom was Noel the guitar
hero player vs Chad Muse, a longtime veteran of the scene and one of the best of the old
school DAS players, having won several regional qualifiers in the past. In this game, Noel was stuck in a dig and
hung a few pieces to top out with 770,000 on level 28, and Chad stormed his way to over
900,000 into the level 29 killscreen, an incredibly strong competition score with DAS. Chad ended up sweeping the set 2 games to
none. Next up was Blank vs Draco. Blank was the heavy favorite and Draco put
up a fight, nearly taking a game deep past the transition, but Blank ultimately swept
the match. Hideri vs Colin aka puppyball was another
competitive match, with Hideri dropping a game after having to sacrifice his entire
board for a tetris down the center, but he recovered to win the set 2 games to 1. And finally, BeastinShen vs Phamtom was the
broadcasted match that I got to commentate, and as is tradition with live events, we immediately
encountered technical issues on the first game with Shen’s game capture freezing,
but it ended up not mattering as Phamtom topped out early. Scout: “It looks like he’s - oh no! That’s
a really tough square hang for Phamtom. Think that’s probably gonna be it.” Shen and Phamtom were very close for the entirety
of game 2 until Shen got in a dig at level 22. Scout: “This is right around the height
where a DAS player would not want to get any higher.” Bidwell: “He is gonna play it safe - “ Scout: “Oh no!” Bidwell: “Oh no! He’s gonna need some
magic here.” Scout: “6 high right with the long bar,
needed a perfect long bar DAS load.” Bidwell: “He’s gonna play flat - WOW!” Scout: “Needs an L, gets it, oh no! The
pole vault doesn’t work.” Bidwell: “It’s not over just quite yet,
[Phamtom]’s gonna need a 607.” Scout: “He’s got it!” Bidwell: “He’s got it, that’s it. Decider
here!” Shen had a significant lead for most of Game
3, but Phamtom quickly whittled it down after the transition, and with a high stack, Shen
blocked his well right as the line piece came. Bidwell: “And he’s gonna be in trouble
halfway up the board.” Scout: “This is not survivable for a DAS
player 99 times out of 100.” Bidwell: “Oh no, he’s gonna top out at
563!” Scout: “Tried to nail the quick tap there,
but couldn’t get it. Only 10,000 points to go for Phamtom! There it is.” Bidwell: “There it is!” Scout: “GGs to Phamtom!” Bidwell: “What a comeback.” Phamtom’s reward for making it past the
first round was facing the #1 seed Kofi, but unfortunately the technical problems continued. Right before the transition in Game 1, phantom’s
screen glitched out, due to the sensitive game genie getting slightly misaligned with
the cartridge, and the game ended up having to be replayed. Phantom topped out with 690,000 in the redo,
and Kofi seemingly had an easy chasedown, needing only a tetris and change to win, but
ran into a high double long bar dependency on level 25 that he just barely got out of. On level 27 he had a dangerous misdrop with
just a few thousand points to go, but managed to clutch out the final few lines for the
victory. In game 2, both players were incredibly tight
in score all the way until right before the killscreen, and Phamtom’s screen glitched
right before he topped out with 951,000, and Kofi got one final tetris into the killscreen
to finish just barely in the lead with 955,000. The judge wasn’t sure what to do. “Oh no!” Scout: “Some TV issues. We’re waiting
on an official judge ruling on what to do, I think from what I saw it happened right
before 29. I don’t know if a Tetris was at stake. The only recordings that exist are
on people’s phones, basically.” Looking closely at the replay from Eunha’s
footage, Phamtom’s screen had indeed glitched out at 229 lines, meaning he could’ve had
the chance to set up one more tetris for the victory before getting distracted by the glitch. Bidwell: “They had a screen malfunction
almost at the end of the game. They are going to move over here.” Scout: “Oh! So that game is being replayed.” Bidwell: “They are replaying it. It was
the right call and, makes you reconsider the use of game genies but, whatever. We are turned, our backs from them, watching
the screen instead of, you know, turning around and watching the television. But, that’s
broadcasting.” Scout: “Yeah. I’ll take a little behind
the scenes video of the experience I’ll post later.” Bidwell: “How’s it going.” Now that they were on a stream with stable
setups, Phamtom and Kofi could complete the rest of their match without issue. On level 28, Phamtom was maintaining a 1 ½
tetris lead and could likely seal the victory with another tetris while Kofi needed to go
perfect. Scout: “Kofi desperately needs a long bar.” Bidwell: “Oh my god, what is this drought,
this is so bad, not at this level.” Scout: “OH NO!” Bidwell: “Ohohoho!” Scout: “Kofi blocks the well right as the
long bar comes! And pham takes it!” Phamtom had forced a decider against the #1
seed. In game 3, Phamtom got behind early digging
out of a messy board, and Kofi had amassed a 200,000 point lead by the transition. Knowing
he had to be efficient, Phamtom went aggressive, and got droughted to put himself in a high
dig. Bidwell: “He is just fighting for his life,
I mean it’s - “ Scout: “Needs a long bar now.” Bidwell: “Yeah.” Scout: “And he gets it!” Bidwell: “Is that gonna be it?” Scout: “That’s gonna be it, and Kofi advances!” Bidwel: “What a war.” Phamtom had one of the best sets of the day,
but ultimately Kofi would go on to the semis. The match between Supermines and Hideri resulted
in a straightforward sweep with supermines heading to the semis, but the veteran DAS
player Chad Muse continued to show he can hang with the hypertappers in his match against
Sodium. After Sodium won Game 1, he got into a high
long bar dependency shortly after the transition in the middle of game 2, and after two square
misdrops and a drought he topped out at 559,000. Needing just one tetris to win, Chad went
all in after getting tetris ready, not burning any lines to avoid blocking the well and was
rewarded just in time with a tetris to stay alive in the tournament and force a decider. Even with Sodium regaining his form in Game
3, Chad managed to stay within 100,000 points until his board fell unraveled with alternating
wells on level 26, topping out with 645,000 and sending Sodium to the semifinals. And finally, Chris Bidwell and I commentated
Blank vs Ruins…the live competitive debut of the rolling playstyle. For those who follow the scene, of course,
rolling is commonplace to see nowadays as it’s used by nearly all the top players,
but less than one year ago, it was a huge deal to see anyone doing it at all. The broadcast was using one webcam mirrored
for both players, so we tried to position it to be able to see Ruins’s hands rolling,
and ended up duplicating his hands across both sides. Bidwell: “You get double roll…it’s,
it’s, it’s like, insert some toilet paper joke here.” As the playstyle was still young, it hadn’t
been completely perfected yet, and as is also characteristic of new rollers nowadays, Ruins
was experiencing quite a few random misdrops, but his piece mobility allowed him to dig
out of unprecedented heights and situations, and despite falling behind early, he stormed
back into the lead after the transition. Scout: “Blank on the edge of death, going
for it, going for the Tetris, gonna have to burn at some point, oh no! The long bar doesn’t
come in time, it’s gonna take a miracle to survive, and Blank is done at 687. At 732,
Ruins wins game 1!” However, the misdrops would eventually catch
up with Ruins, as they cascaded in game 2. Scout: “Ruins is in trouble.” Bidwell: “Uh oh.” Scout: “Oh no, and some critical misdrops
from Ruins.” Bidwell: “That’s gonna be it.” Scout: “Yeah.” Bidwell: “Blank is going to take game 2.” In a decisive game 3 both Ruins and blank
played exceptionally well, but blank had a 2 tetris lead going into the final levels
and Ruins set up for an aggressive dirty tetris. Bidwell: “Give him the freakin’ line,
there it is, got it but he’s in trouble still. 849, he’s down 2 tetrises. And blank
has been rolling - ” Scout: “Uh oh, ruins. Oh, and he gets the
long bar over.” Bidwell: “My god.” Scout: “He needs a long bar now. Gets it!
And, oh my gosh.” Bidwell: “He needs something over but he’s
at 28, even if he burns this down, it’s…OOOOHHH!” Scout: “And Blank almost…and blank misses
the final tetris!” Bidwell: “Wow! Blank! God, I missed this!” Ruins was eliminated, but he had shown a glimmer
of the future of what was to come in the scene with his unbelievable moments of survival
that had blown Chris Bidwell and I away. Blank moved on to become the final member of the
semfinals. The semifinals were supposed to happen on
the mainstage, but there were yet again, more game genie issues with the setups, so we started
things off with Sodium vs Blank again on the makeshift stream. In Game 1, Blank went on an absolute tear
and got 1 million 90 thousand, which was actually the official in person competition record
at the time, leading sodium to say “What the frick dude.” By the middle of Game 2, the rest of the convention
hall was beginning to close down. Scout: “Blank with some crazy survival during
this vendor announcement.” Bidwell: “Break that Quaid curse, there
we go. Well done, players! Haha!” Blank would enter the killscreen just a few
thousand points behind Sodium. Scout: “Here we go. First killscreen run
of the day. Ahhh!” Bidwell: “Oh no!” Scout: “And Sodium wins!” Bidwell: “This is a great match.” Adam: “3, 2, 1, Tetris!” Sodium would build a huge lead in game 3,
requiring blank to be aggressive, and it ended up not working out. Bidwell: “And that’s gonna do it, Sodium
-” Scout: “Sodium takes it.” Bidwell: “In the fight for his life, to
make it to the finals.” Scout: “All right, I think we’re going
over to the main stage on the stream.” Bidwell: “All right, we’re gonna shut
the stream down, we’re gonna pick us up on the other semifinal.” Unfortunately there were still more technical
delays on the main stage that needed to be sorted out. Eunha had nabbed a seat in the front row of
the audience, and Storminorman passed the time by trying to hypertap on top of his head. The final technical issue was one of the setups
not having the sound come through, but after all the setbacks, we decided to just finally
get the show going. Kofi and Supermines had played their first
two games off stream, and were tied with one game apiece, meaning the first broadcast game
was a decider, but it was over almost as soon as it began as supermines got into a high
dig. Scout: “Taking every burn he can get, tops
out and Kofi has taken the decider!” At long last it was time for the finals, fittingly
between the top two seeds. All the other convention attendees and vendors
had left, with the tetris crowd being the only people still in the main hall. Adam: “Let’s give these guys a hand, they
made it all the way here.” *cheering* Shen: “3, 2, 1, Tetris!” Bidwell: “Look at them going back and forth
just talking, it’s just like they’re on discord when they’re playing online at home.” Scout: “Yeah, the discord vc. It’s where
all the magic happens.” Sodium and Kofi were memeing with each other
throughout the first game, at one point even flashing their next boxes on and off, which
seemed to cause sodium to misdrop a long bar for a tetris. Scout: “Uhhh…Sodium in a bit of trouble.” Sodium: “It was worth it.” Unfortunately, the missed tetris festered
into an extremely difficult dig. Bidwell: “We are neck and neck, 125 each.” Stormin: “Neck and neck!” Bidwell: “Neck and neck.” Scout: “Oh my gosh, Sodium is not getting
the square, ah, and misdrops the T! And Kofi has taken game 1!” In Game 2, Sodium and Kofi called a truce
on the memeing, with Sodium saying “Library?” And Kofi responding “Yup.” Sodium still opted for the trendy moves though,
pulling off a textbook vits, or perfect vertical I tuck setup. By the transition, Sodium had built over a
100,000 point lead, and Kofi got stuck in a dig after a delayed burn that wouldn’t
resolve. Bidwell: “Line piece now.” Scout: “Oh, and misses the pole vault! And
sodium is ahead and takes game 2!” Bidwell: “Guess what?” Scout: “We have a decider.” It all came down to a winner takes all game
3, not just for a free entry into the world championships, but an additional 250 dollar
cash prize. Sodium continued with the perfect meme moves,
executing a flawless adjustment known as “five and below”. Bidwell: “Ooh.” Scout: “Ooohoho!” Bidwell: “Did he - did he know that was
coming?” Both players were on maxout pace past the
transition and sodium had a small lead, but ran into an s burst. Scout: “Sodium going aggressive.” Bidwell: “Look at that spire.” Scout: “Cannot fill out the center.” Sodium’s board was ravaged for several levels
and he was unable to score consistent tetrises while Kofi took the lead. If Kofi just stayed clean and coasted, he
would have the victory in the bag, but he got into an extended delayed burn and missed
getting a square all the way to the left. Suddenly, Kofi’s game was just about over
and Sodium was just a tetris and a half behind. Scout: “Kofi’s about to top out. It’s
all up to what Sodium can do on the killscreen!” Bidwell: “Let’s go! 942, needs 950. He
needs 950.” Scout: “Oh my gosh! Can’t get the T spin!” Bidwell: “Oh no! 7 thousand point difference!” Scout: “And Kofi is your winner of the South
Carolina Qualifier!” Sodium: “Kofi, what the frick dude! What
the frick!” Sodium and Kofi were congratulated by their
peers as Adam Cornelius wrote down their scores to make the results official. Kofi was handed his 250 dollar cash prize
and Kofi and Sodium received their gold and silver medals. Chris Bidwell didn’t want second place to
leave without a cash prize so he personally gave 50 dollars to Sodium, enough to cover
a world championships entry fee as well. Then it was time to pose for photos. Sodium’s mom: “Can we get one of choking
Kofi?” Sodium’s brother: “Wait, you should do
that though.” Sodium: “I’m not gonna choke him, mom.” After we took a few group shots, it was time
to head out, but the day was far from over. Chris Bidwell lugged out his tetris tournament
in a box and we met up for dinner at a great Mexican restaurant that was ironically named
Corona. Eunha’s flip phone ended up being the highlight
of dinner as she passed it around for people to try the NES Tetris emulator she had installed
on it. After that we went over to the lobby of Chris
Bidwell’s hotel and he finally unloaded his PAL NESes, which ran on European frame
rates that most of the North Americans had never played before. Sodium and Kofi took advantage of the being
together in person to have their first experience on PAL be a mindmeld game, where Kofi controlled
the side to side movement, and Sodium controlled the flips. Sodium: “This is PAL mindmeld world record
already.” Kofi: “Wait…why is DAS so fast?” Sodium: “It’s already world record.” Tyler: “I’m gonna have to get used to
this DAS.” Sodium: “That was theoretical Buco with
no movement. Oh. That’s such a weirdchamp burn.” We tried to honor as much as possible the
hallmarks of pal tetris commentary. “Woop tetris! Woop! Woop!” Scout: “Blank, what is it specifically about
the foot that helps you?” Blank: “So like, the ankle, there’s like,
this is a really hard surface that I can tap on, like, most people use their knee but that’s
really awkward for me. Like, the ankle’s just a lot easier for me.” Scout: “Ah, ok.” Unfortunately Ruins was unable to attend the
afterparty so we were left on our own to figure out how to roll properly. Scout: “Blank, we need your review of this
grip.” Eunha: “Blank, yeah you gotta do - watch
this.” “What do you think?” Blank: “I think Tega does that, like…” Storimn: “Really?” Blank: “He actually rolls like this.” Scout: “But does he hold it in his toes?” Stormin: “Look, I’m gripping the controller
with my toes because then I don’t have to hold it with these and I can just - I can
tap like this.” Hanging out in the hotel lobby was so much
fun and honestly one of the biggest highlights of the weekend. One of the final things we had fun with, again
taking advantage of being together in person, was playing with the game genie code that
allows you to access the unfinished 2 player mode in nes tetris. Sodium: “give me the bar, give me the bar.” Scout: “Ohohaha!” Sodium: “give it…no! I didn’t lock(?)
the bar!” The next day Eunha and I finally explored
the rest of the convention as we had spent the whole previous day in the Tetris section,
and there were an impressive amount of sellers, even the US military was there trying to recruit
people through video games, but in the end we couldn’t escape tetris, and both ended
up trying out tetris on an original 1983 apple computer. I rounded out the day by practicing Dr. Mario
with Chris Bidwell in preparation for the Dr. Mario World Championships that were coming
up quickly, and the next day we drove back home to Pennsylvania. But our tetris journey for the year was far
from over. Shortly afterwards we traveled to new york
to attend the Blank’s Garage qualifier, which had served as a replacement for the
canceled East Coast Qualifier, and that’s going to be the next vlog but it’s also
going to be the next in person tetris qualifier I’m attending. This year Blank has upgraded the venue to
be at the Contender eSports Gaming Center in Wappingers Falls, New York and it is now
officially the new east coast qualifier. The tentative list of attendees is pretty
star-studded, so if you are interested in attending, it’s on July 2nd 2022 and I’ll
have some links and information in the description. And if you’re near Greenville, South Carolina
and want to attend the southern qualifier this year, it was just confirmed to be happening
again this year at the Southeast Game Exchange on July 9th and 10th, 2022. Again, I’ll also have links in the description. Thanks for watching, and if you want to watch
my previous in person tetris vlog where I traveled to the Stew York City meetup, you
can click right on screen to watch it.
