General Improvement Advice

[eight]

I started Tetris about a year ago and only recently joined harddrop. I'm looking for advice to improve my game because I'm trying to get serious about Tetris, but I haven't exactly acquired all the necessary skills.

Here's my background:

I started playing on TF, which has heavily influenced my key configuration (where I need some advice). Only recently have I started learning to rotate both ways, but I feel like my key configuration is awkward. I have the default TF settings with the V key as left rotate, so I pretty much have my old configuration with just an added key. I'd really appreciate any alternative configurations that have worked well for others.

In terms of other aspects of my game, my fastest time on 40 lines was 39.51 on nullpomino, but I was only rotating right. After getting that time, I stopped working on 40 lines and shifted my focus to the arena mode on TF to work on other skills such as spins and practicing left rotations. In arena, I generally start out with a b2b tetrises and move into t-spins. I think I'm pretty good at setting up and using t-spins doubles, but I can't set up t-spin triples as well and rarely use them. I know how to S and Z spin to fix errors, but that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge on spins. I generally do pretty well in arena and win most of the time, but I sometimes encounter players who just wipe me off the board. I don't think it's my speed either, because I'm generally going at the same pace. So yeah, I'd really appreciate advice on any part of my game that could use tweaking or improvement. Thanks

[Paradox]

i'd have to watch you play to see what problems you have against certain people. You are a pretty fast player so it is probably something to do with APL or downstacking.

[eight]

Thanks, Paradox, but what's APL? haha

and I'm mostly concerned about learning to spin both left and right, which would help me play faster.. so any thoughts on my key configuration?

[bigwig]

One thing that instantly made a difference once I changed it was to make the piece preview vertical a la TF unlike the preview up top the nullpo defaults to.

[eight]

yep, bigwig, that was one of the first things I did in nullpo, definitely helped

[kwanholee]

[Paradox]

APL is add per line. So its basically how much of your line clears are going into sending lines to your opponent. I'm a pretty fast player but my APL is lower than other players and I lose to some slower players. Another problem could be that your downstacking is lacking, maybe you aren't digging through lines well enough.

[eight]

Yeah Paradox, when I play on nullpo, my APL definitely isn't as high as some of the people I play, but I feel like those people either 3 or 4-wide or do some crazy spins.

But yeah, any thoughts on my key config?

[Paradox]

your configuration doesn't really matter as long as its comfortable. Make sure you learn to do other rotates. Don't worry about any crazy spin openers. You can win just by getting really solid at T-spin doubles. Try to put a lot of early pressure when people combo to weaken the combo as much as possible.

remember that b2b tspin double has slightly better apl than b2b tspin triple, and its also much easier. triples are useful when you see an opportunity and you can win with a spike.

[Rosti_LFC]

Yeah, against comboing players your sole aim for the first 15 seconds or so should just to be to send as much stuff as possible, and to not stack up whatsoever (which is also a reasonable strategy for the rest of the game to be fair )

[DarthDuck]

Yeah, against comboing players your sole aim for the first 15 seconds or so should just to be to send as much stuff as possible

I get confused on how to counter combo players if they are in a big room. Sending a bunch of fast lines with clean garbage just gets distributed everywhere and threatens no one.

[Anonymous]

Making lots of T-spins doesn't necessarily equate to more adds to your opponent. Although making T-spins is good, I think it's more important to be able to downstack fast. If you can downstack fast, you can cancel out your opponent's garbage easier, survive longer, and send more garbage spikes to your opponent.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do T-spins though. T-spins are essential if you want to be good. However, they're only good if you know how to use them as a complement to downstacking, which is why I think it's more important to improve downstacking.

I would suggest you play some dig challenge 10 lines and try to get as least amount of pieces as you can. If you can average under 30 pieces a game, that's pretty good.

[Rosti_LFC]

I get confused on how to counter combo players if they are in a big room. Sending a bunch of fast lines with clean garbage just gets distributed everywhere and threatens no one.

If it's not 1v1 then there's nothing you can do about it other than to play defensively and do your best to not die right at the start. But again, that's the general best strategy for large rooms anyway.

[DarthDuck]

If it's not 1v1 then there's nothing you can do about it other than to play defensively and do your best to not die right at the start. But again, that's the general best strategy for large rooms anyway.

That's how I tend to win with 20 lines while second and third break 100. Doesn't feel right but I guess I'm developing downstacking skills in the process. As I get faster I suppose I will learn how to do this while maintaining a permanent back-to-back status.

As far as 1v1... Just played Killabee until I deranked into gold, and I tried everything. But if a player is literally twice as fast as you, there's probably nothing that can be done except take a beating and hope you learn something.

[toppingoutivan]

Not quite. You can outplay a player faster than you by throwing a bunch of garbage at them when they have nothing to counter/block with.