Four Wide

[Kitaru]

nonono Kitaru I was agreeing with you

i.e. you had just shown up other people's bigotry for what it is which Aaron set out to put an end to in this thread.

hence I said thread over because we'd identified it

Oh okay, I misunderstood.

If a combo is an atom bomb, and REALLY REALLY OP in tf, why the hell was only 1/16 who went into the TTO finals a comboer, and 0 4 widers? If it is so OP, there should have been more.

The thing is you can stop an atom bomb with your own atom bomb -- maybe there is some weird world politics analogy here but I'm not going to dig for it. If you block each other out, you go to mid-game as neither player is really in the position to throw another atom bomb out there. I think most of the top players realize this futility and focus on combo as it is able to be integrated into the general toolset rather than fuss with trying to use it with an all-in start. You can't be particularly sneaky about a 4-wide opener; this isn't Starcraft cheese with fog of war and all that.

The way I see things currently breaking down at high level play is that either there aren't enough 4 widers that can get a big one off before they either start getting countered and leave the faster player clean garbage, or the top players already know how to combo well enough to weather a combo start if the 4 wider is particularly fast. For instance, Blink counters fast 4 wide with a fast 3 wide. Either way, you make it to mid-game.

As far as I can see, it's a strategy that starts to lose relevance at high level play because of either a speed imbalance making it a bad idea or even speed making it a dud because the other person just threw the same attack out. Meanwhile, it creates an odd dynamic in lower level play. It's not earth-shatteringly game-breaking, but something is not quite right here.

I don't see why the combo start should necessitate a combo start in response for players of like speed. It is the only strategy in the game with this property.

[chopin]

I don't see why the combo start should necessitate a combo start in response for players of like speed. It is the only strategy in the game with this property.

Yes, I agree. I also like the comment you put on the video on YouTube. I feel that that is a good description of the imbalance of combo starts. Also, we should also be talking about mid-game combo setups as well. There are some players (SOOOOOO ANNOYING) who do like 2-4 3-Wides a game. This is present mostly in FFA but there are some faster players who also take advantage of this mid-game 1v1.

Kitaru also makes another good point. At high level of plays (assuming Combo player doesn't mess up) a perfect T-Spin game can almost win sometimes against combo. At lower levels of play however, the gap widens to an even further extent. Now again they have to hope that the Comboer fails in order to win. This is a large degree of uncontrollable luck.

i.e. you had just shown up other people's bigotry for what it is which Aaron set out to put an end to in this thread.

hence I said thread over because we'd identified it

I think that most people will realize that that it's not combo starts they hate, but rather how powerful it is and how helpless they are against it. You have to remember that there are even Tetrisers out there and if at max efficiency master T-Spinners can't keep up, then what chance do Tetrisers have? I feel that Tetris is somewhat like Starcraft in the sense that there are 3 main races - Tetris, T-Spin, and Combo. The balance doesn't have to be perfect, but they should be at least somewhat close to one another, don't you agree? As of now the distance seems to be as follows:

[blockquote]Tetris=Tetris
T-Spin=T-Spin
Combo=Combo
T-Spin......Tetris
T-Spin.............Combo
Tetris..........................Combo[/blockquote]

It seems like all of those who are pro-4-Wide here accept the fact that yes, it's overpowered and that it's a 'nuke strategy.' Again, this is why people hate it and because not everyone wants to combo back just to have a fair chance at survival. Sonic has even said that if you don't feel like comboing and you're playing a combo player, go to a different room. I find clearing single lines over and over and sending over 40 lines in one attack to be incredibly boring and not fun/fair for the opponent either. In my opinion if you look at the max amount of TSTs (6 TSTs using 18 lines = 41) versus using the same amount of lines for a combo (18 combo = 60 lines on TF) it is already apparent that something isn't right. 6 TSTs is much harder and exponentially more dangerous than a side or middle 4-Wide stack, yet even if the combo player waited for all the garbage from T-Spin, T-Spin would still receive a full red bar.

I feel that Tetris isn't just all about winning and that there's more depth to just a single strategy that will win you a ton of games. I'm sure that many ex-comboers can vouch for this same reason why they no longer combo. Even take Blazen as an example. He IS THE 4-WIDE. He told me today that he hasn't 4-Wided on TOJ for over 5 months. We all know that he's good at it and that he wins with it. There are other players that have left it behind as well such as Mippo and many others. Personally I don't use it because I feel cheap when I do because I do know that it is OP and I do know that there's no way many of the people of whom I play from day-to-day can win against it. We all know it's overpowered yet everybody is trying to find some excuse to why not to nerf the technique.

[Paul676]

If you give no garbage to the 4 wide player then it's doable to get an 18 combo to send that much. If you send them garbage, then it's impossible most of the time. This is the advantage the tspinner has over the 4 wide player; they get garbage off earlier, damaging the power of the 4 wide.

Massi4h's tst repeating technique is a template, and that will send the 41 or so lines. Why is that higher skill than a 4 wide, which is also a template? Also, an 18 high 4 wide will die most times if someone gets a hit in. Massi4h's tst repeating technique won't. 4 wide is a big risk, but it pays off big. A nuke can hit your own city too...

I'll take the example of SecretSalamander then... he used 4 wide as a throwaway tactic against Blink - he said himself that it didn't work against mase at all. He then played against rowa/hebo on TOJ and "they will flat out not let you do it". With tspin doubles, I imagine. A top player can get the first tspin double out within about 2 seconds. That gives time for 1 more, making 9 lines, and rendering the 4 wide as having a fair power.

Blazen obviously isn't the 4 wide if he hasn't done it for 5 months... and his reasons were the same for giving up - playing against the top players in TOJ, they mashed him for playing it.

I'd suggest that in a real scenario, tspin=combo. I have even found that tetris roughly= combo for me playing a good player (Agamemnon). In a test I did where I played 20 games against him, 10 of tetris, 10 of 4 wide, I was getting about 10 higher apm with 4 wide on average, but 10 lower lpm than with tetris starts.

I don't think that the full story of 4 wide has yet been told

[meow]

did you consider what games they were playing?

ss beat blink with 4wide in tf. whenever he pulled it off, blink had no chance to survive and i think blink is faster than ss on tf.

massiah's or any tspin technique doesn't hit you all at once. the attacks are spread out.

ss played against rowa/hebo on toj. hebo/rowa are probably faster than ss when he is 4 widing.

[chopin]

If you give no garbage to the 4 wide player then it's doable to get an 18 combo to send that much. If you send them garbage, then it's impossible most of the time. This is the advantage the tspinner has over the 4 wide player; they get garbage off earlier, damaging the power of the 4 wide.

Didn't we already agree that the garbage helps the 4-Wide? 40% of the time it will be under the well, but 100% of the time that easy garbage will be returned after the combo. And as Kitaru said, "I don't see why the combo start should necessitate a combo start in response for players of like speed. It is the only strategy in the game with this property."

Massi4h's tst repeating technique is a template, and that will send the 41 or so lines. Why is that higher skill than a 4 wide, which is also a template? Also, an 18 high 4 wide will die most times if someone gets a hit in. Massi4h's tst repeating technique won't. 4 wide is a big risk, but it pays off big. A nuke can hit your own city too...

Because at the same speed, Massiah's Infinite TST will never beat a 4 wide. And how will an '18-high 4 Wide' die if it 'gets hit?' Unless you are talking about side 4-Wide (of which we here are talking about middle), though both situations are ok. Assuming that the side Comboer isn't a total fool and continues to stack when a kill attack is about to come, he has no problem. If he does continue to stack, this is like having a TSD at the top yet wasting your T and not T-Spinning... And for the record, Massiah's 'TST repeating techinque' is one of the riskiest setups with a mediocre rate of success out there and it is easily countered by simple downstacking. How is 4 wide a big risk?? And how is Massiah's TST not??

[Paul676]

ss played against rowa/hebo on toj. hebo/rowa are probably faster than ss when he is 4 widing.

Yes, but I don't think they are faster per se. I think middle 4 wide for various reasons is slower than tspins or tetrises to pull

[Paradox]

MDing is a risk for any setup paul lol. Its not unique to 4wides.

My table was based on my opinion on the difficulty and for the apm it was what I average when I do each type of set up. None of it is supposed to be hard facts that apply to everyone. I even put the disclaimer "This is how I see it"

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. I'm saying that in my personal experience combos are moderately difficult yet give me more success than other set ups when I pull them off.

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]If a combo is an atom bomb, and REALLY REALLY OP in tf, why the hell was only 1/16 who went into the TTO finals a comboer, and 0 4 widers? If it is so OP, there should have been more.[/quote]

Because the people who made it to the finals are REALLY REALLY OP compared to the people who tried using combo strategies. What I mean is that they are beastly players in comparison. Of course combos can be beaten, but combos are still stronger by far it seems. Many people think that since some people can beat weaker players who combo that its easy to counter combos. Not really the case.

Some combo starters from TTO that I saw relied on it too much and weren't good at mid-end game.
Some were just not good at comboing lol. If they were good enough they would definitely be able to make it to the finals. Just because they didn't make it doesn't mean its not OP.

Also I think that middle 4 wides are unstable, its sort of luck based when it comes to pieces(personal experience). Which is why I don't use it.

A lot of people who 4wide me screw up half the time and lose. The other half they get it down and I have no chance to downstack due to the line clear delay. I often clear the first couple of lines then I get maxed out.