ST/ZT Stacking Help

[pumpupthejam]

So I've been messing around with this for a few weeks now and I just can't sustain it for any length of time.  It seems anyone good at it can get it to work with any bag but I can't!  What is the secret to it?!?    I have read the Wiki and watched Youtube tutorials and practiced but still nothing.

I also watched the Alexsweden video and he does a twist move at the start of his setups - why does he do this?  What difference does that make?

Here's as far as I can get, 3 T-spins....

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[coolmaninsano]

Have you seen flamewheel91's guide on it?

[pumpupthejam]

Have you seen flamewheel91's guide on it?

No, I haven't seen that one but I'll give it a read.  Thank you  

If anyone wants to add anything else it would be appreciated

[ManOfMiracles]

Why do people always insist there's  a secret for everything? Lol for reals
Just practice.

[pumpupthejam]

Why do people always insist there's  a secret for everything? Lol for reals
Just practice.

Thanks for the helpful reply.  Why have a forum if the answer is always "just practice."

[ManOfMiracles]

Thanks for the helpful reply.  Why have a forum if the answer is always "just practice."

Honestly, that was a helpful response.
Judging from your picture, you need practice stacking because it should look like a pattern and not a messy mess of pieces.

[pumpupthejam]

Honestly, that was a helpful response.
Judging from your picture, you need practice stacking because it should look like a pattern and not a messy mess of pieces.

But there has to be an art to the stacking, right?

[DarthDuck]

No, I haven't seen that one but I'll give it a read.  Thank you  

That's not a post you can just read through in a sitting. If you are serious about it, you will need to keep going back to the section on center stacking and especially left-side stacking. That will give you color-coordination principles which are key for not messing up your stack. Ironically, in your picture the big misdrop was with the green piece (S). The overarching theme of the left-side stacking section is green piece management.

Since it is such a long post, I will emphasize his point to keep the guns (as caffeine calls them) underneath the zigzags. Otherwise you will get S/Z overhangs. To practice this, I would also try to master 4wide center just to get the hang of the stacking. However, that will only "really" help you with left-side stacking, but as flamewheel says, that's the most important. edit: I mixed them up.. the center stack is the one with the matrix that is only 3 blocks wide. However when you mess up 4-wide center it becomes left-side stacking practice.

The center stacking method partitions a 4-piece wide section. Most of your errors while trying to stack 4wide center will have you making a 4-piece partition instead of a 3. However, when you can build 3s successfully, then you can have an edge with the 3-piece partition on the left.

Here is the fumen I put in Caffeine's post. I was thinking of Flamewheel's strategy when I made it:

When stacking to the sides it's important to keep the blue pieces under red ones and orange pieces under green ones. If you do it the other way around then you get T-ified as Caffeine puts it. That means you end up needing to dump lots of blocks in the center which will slow everything down and require more overall building.

[fumen]110@7eOycIWoB3aBUeB5UBNVBzTBXKBCFBdRBWABTGBmBB?y8AymB[/fumen]

You will need to make a 3-column wide stack like that one the left right side when doing your Z/T stacking. Good luck.

[pumpupthejam]

Thanks, DarthDuck!  That's the type of info I'm looking for.  

So, when building stacks for ZT stacking you need to keep:

BLUE under RED
ORANGE under GREEN

Is that the most important rules?

[DarthDuck]

Yes, that is the most important rule because a single gap in your stack will render your Z/T attack useless. Practicing this will improve your overall stacking skills which in turn will reflect positively on Sprint, combo towers, and tspin setups like OZJ. But don't forget that all of these "rules" are only meant as guidelines and will be nearly impossible to keep at the top of your head while dealing with the pressure of the game. And while there is no substitution for reading that thread (which is stickied under strategy if you lose track of it), I will highlight some more of the points.

1) Be realistic because this is extremely difficult to pull this off in multiplayer. I have seen a few of our top players use this technique in rare circumstances, but it is tough to do while dealing with real-time garbage. For that reason, you should only go for one of these at a time (and sometimes two) if doing multiplayer.

Flamewheel: "Generally speaking though, any combination above 4 pieces is very rare and is generally considered showy and superfluous (not to mention slower), and even double combinations themselves are rare."

2) The actual Z/T stacking can be done in the middle of the field, in which case all this talk about blues under reds and oranges under greens goes out the window. Consider what is being done on frame 18 of this TKI:

TKI (http://harddrop.com/wiki/TKI_3_Opening)
[fumen]110@7eVReI+jB3cBcgBTfBKVBtCdliBejBLdBMhBvVB6eB?NAdFgBWiBhdBsgBKQBN7cFbBAAA[/fumen]

Also the Blink SZ Prop:

[fumen]110@rdF3jbG3ibH3hbI3gbI3gbI3gbI3qbcHI7eE2DBtpc?lJB5eBAAA[/fumen]
Like a boss.

3) The left is hard because you need to make it the dumping ground for all unwanted pieces without making it too high because then you have nowhere to put extra pieces. You know that the center is mostly oranges under greens, so most everything else goes to the left 4-column matrix, including spare greens. Primarily, you will want to have the left be blues under reds, but that will barely account for half of the leftward 4-wide matrix. But if you stick to the principle of blue under reds (to the left) as much as possible, then most of the Ts, Is, Os, and Ss (greens), will find a way to mix with the blue/reds.

Flamewheel: "The main goal of the left side (apart from keeping even with the center stack as to continue clearing lines with T-Spin doubles) is to act as a dumping grounds for leading greens, so that the player can play safely with an orange lead."

The 4-column matrix on the left requires creativity and will often require S/J spins. These are dependent on using the proper rotation, but enough fidgeting always makes them work. Here is a fumen of a situation from Flamewheel's guide:

[fumen]110@tbA3obA3obA3obA3kbE3kcB3nbC3mbC3mbB3nbC3mb?C3mbB3nbC3kbE3sbnHH7eCKfB7aBpWB+bdDmbdDRe2UA7eA?HMB9b4Gob6GQe0PA7eBOhc2FPZAKE7QEJGVABBoo2AsI/dE?FbUVEPP0dEFBAAA9bxNobxNQeMjB7eAldBtbA3obA34bD3p?bAAkbEAwdkPA9bxNobxNQeMeB7eDAAAAAAAAAAAA[/fumen]

If it makes you feel any better, I can't Z/T stack worth a damn and am sharing all of this on a purely theoretical basis. I don't mind figuring this out with you in more detail since the review helps me as well.

PS. Please refer to what I scratched out in the prior post to make sure I didn't put any bad ideas in your head.

[pumpupthejam]

Thanks again, DarthDuck.

I found this Youtube video, although I find it very hard to watch because of having to follow the annotations:

I was reading flamewheel's guide again and the part about the basic combinations: Green-Orange,
Yellow-Blue, Orange-Yellow, and Red-Blue seem vital!

[coolmaninsano]

And now the obligatory linking to an Allen Iverson video.

[pumpupthejam]

Hey guys,

I was playing today and came up with this situation.....

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Where can you go with this one?

[caffeine]

Hey guys,

I was playing today and came up with this situation.....

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Where can you go with this one?

If you'd read flamewheel's guide, you'd see that he recommends dumping two T's and a Z into the left field from the start. Also, you want to have one S more than your L in your non L/S stack so that you're "leading" with the right piece (due to the bag randomizer).

[pumpupthejam]

Alexsweden - I see you're reading this thread.  Your Youtube videos are great man but you play so fast that I find it hard to tell what's going on...