Jonas Neubauer Dies At The Age Of 39

Jonas Neubauer passed away on Tuesday, January 5, 2021. He was 39 years old.

On that day, it was his second day of living in Hawaii. (He and his wife, Heather Ito, had moved there from Los Angeles) Both of them were reading on the couch. Jonas got up to get something and then collapsed. He never regained consciousness after that.

I will add more information as new details emerge. This was announced on his Twitter page.

[Update 4/2/21: The cause of death was “sudden cardiac death due to cardiac arrhythmia of undetermined etiology (cause)”. In other words, his heart stopped and we do not know why. More information can be found here.]

In the past 3 years, I have joined Jonas’s Twitch stream. He played a big part of the Classic Tetris community.

I’m still processing this, so I don’t have much to write at the moment. Fortunately, the Classic Tetris community is grieving together and I look forward to all of us coming together to honor him.

I write about his Tetris accomplishments in the Champions page.

My Experience With Jonas Neubauer

I never meet Jonas in person, and now I no longer have that opportunity. I first discovered the Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) after watching the 2016 finals where he won. From there, I decided to learn more about him on the internet and found his Tetris lesson videos. I eventually found him on Twitch, and have enjoyed watching his live streams. This is something that I briefly mention in the about us page.

I enjoyed watching viewers play Jackbox Party Pack games with him, and would join in on the games at times. He was also the reason why I got into Tetris 99.

In the 2020 CTWC, I would look forward to seeing Jonas qualify. In that year, players had to submit their top 3 scores with timestamps of when the games started (along with the video). Knowing how much work it would be to find those games on a Twitch VOD, I decided to help him out.

So during his qualifying stream, I would write down the time that Jonas started his games and would write down the scores. I eventually sent him a copy of his scores and timestamps to submit to CTWC.

I became a mod for Jonas’s Twitch channel, not knowing I was going to be the last mod. When Jonas told me that I became a mod, he said it was his way of saying thank you for helping him out with score submissions.

There’s going to be more stories and tributes toward Jonas Neubauer. A GoFundMe page has been set up for Jonas’s Memorial. Boom! Tetris For Jonas!

(Update 5/13/21: Here’s a highlight video from aGameScout. Check it out below!)