After all of the Round 0 matches finished, we had a short break before Round 1. In the meantime, the CTWC camera operators were recording some of the audience members. I was able to make it on the big screen for a moment.
Blue Scuti’s Documentary Crew Prepares
Ever since Blue Scuti’s Game Crash made news headlines worldwide, a documentary crew had been documenting Blue Scuti’s Tetris journey leading up to the 2024 Classic Tetris World Championship. During the break, I watched the crew prepare for the filming of Blue Scuti’s Round 1 match.
Three of the crew members were in the standing area behind the chairs. One of them held a professional-looking camera on top of a Cinesaddle, a camera support object.
More People Suddenly Show Up
Blue Scuti was going to be one of the first matches to happen in Round 1. In the minutes leading up to his match, some of the Expo organizers added 2 more rows of chairs. All of a sudden, more people started showing up and took over most of the chairs in the audience section, including those extra chairs. It took me a while to realize that a ton of people were only there to watch Blue Scuti compete.
Playing Tetris Relay Before Their Match
Kingsman appeared on stage and called several players to come up on stage. The CT1 side of the stage consisted of Rhubarb, Blue Scuti, Meme, and Fractal. Instead of doing warm up games before their match, they all decided to have some fun and play some “Tetris Relay”.
In Tetris Relay, players share one controller. One player is playing the game at a time. When a player scores a Tetris, they pass the controller to the next player in line.
Once that game was over, the players went back to their game stations to prepare for their match.
It was Rhubarb vs Blue Scuti on the top half of the screen, and Meme vs Fractal on the bottom half of the screen.
Technical Problems
When the matches began, Blue Scuti encountered technical problems. Specifically, an issue with the capture card, used to record his gameplay, prevented his game from appearing on the livestream.
Although a CTWC camera operator pointed the camera at Blue Scuti’s game, the organizers decided to stop the match between Rhubarb and Blue Scuti. They would not count this game toward their match total. The organizers wanted to ensure that all tournament games were directly streamed live.
Meanwhile, the first game between Meme and Fractal was still going on. Fractal ended up winning the game.
Round 1 Begins – Blue Scuti Competes
Finally, a team of tech volunteers fixed the game capture issue. With that, Blue Scuti and Rhubarb began their first official game of the match.
Blue Scuti’s documentary crew were filming live reactions from his family. The crew’s camera operator aimed the camera at the family. The boom mic operator held the mic above them. The crew would do this for all of Blue Scuti’s matches.
Even though I was far from the boom mic, it still intimidated me. I worried that it might record what I said. Really, it was Blue Scuti’s family that was on the mic. I wondered how intimidating it was for them to have the camera and mic pointed at them.
Just like in their rehearsal, the documentary crew went behind the seated area. They were filming the stage from behind the audience section. I suspect they would use part of that footage for the trailer.
The crew had another camera operator that was on stage to film Blue Scuti.
It was fascinating to see the documentary crew in action.
In the end, Blue Scuti swept Rhubarb to win the match. Rhubarb reached the Level 29 Killscreen in all the games, but could not keep up with Blue Scuti.
The defending champion, Fractal, swept Meme to win that match. So Blue Scuti and Fractal advanced to the Top 16, where they would compete the next day.
New Generation Of Players Collects Autographs
While the upcoming Round 1 matches were happening, I observed the crowd around me.
Elias (Littlewolf) had an NES Tetris cartridge filled with autographs. He went up to Cheez to get his autograph.
For those that do not know who Cheez is, he is a CTWC competitor and the one that discovered the Rolling technique. Cheez had discovered CTWC after watching the 2016 Finals, and had made it to the Top 8 of CTWC 2020.
I mentioned previously that Elias is part of the new generation that discovered CTWC from the media attention that came from Blue Scuti’s Game crash.
The discovery of the Rolling technique is what helped Blue Scuti to achieve game crash.
So, it was cool to see Elias get an autograph from Cheez because he played a role in bringing Elias into the Classic Tetris community.
Touring the Silver and Bronze Bracket
Meanwhile, the Silver and Bronze Bracket were finishing up for the day. I decided to walk around that area to observe the scene around those matches.
A television flat screen displayed the Bronze Bracket in front of the game stations. A judge near the television recorded the scores on a scorecard. They then delivered the scorecards to Chris Foryst, who input them into the spreadsheet.
Some of the CTWC legends were also nearby, watching the Bronze bracket matches.
Focusing On Too Many Matches At Once
I was exhausted at this point. Focusing on too many matches at once drained me. Four matches were happening simultaneously.
This time, I primarily focused on the matches streamed on CT1, located on the left side of the stage. After the CT1 games concluded, I briefly observed the CT2 matches.
The reason why I opted to focus on CT1 matches is because that was commentary that the audience is able to hear. We do not hear the commentary from CT2. It is for the livestream and future YouTube uploads of the matches.
Finishing Round 1 Matches Before The Expo Closes
After 7:20 PM, it was finally down to the last group of matches in Round 1.
The one match that stood out was Dengler vs EricICX. Dengler was the #2 seed in the tournament, his reward for that was facing EricICX (#31 seed) who was the 2022 World Champion.
The first game went the distance, with Eric getting Tetrises in the later levels to win the game. However, Dengler won the next 3 games to win the match and eliminate Eric.
The other match happening was PixelAndy vs Rahmations.
Rahmations was the #7 seed, but had to take on PixelAndy who was the 2020 Finalist.
At last year’s tournament, PixelAndy had the #6 seed. But in this year’s tournament, he was the #26 seed and had to compete in Round 0 to make it to Round 1. I later learned that PixelAndy had an injury that prevented him from playing to his full potential.
This match was expected to be competitive. The first game went past Level 29, with Rahmations topping out at Level 32. PixelAndy won the game to lead the match, 1-0.
In Game 2, Rahmations had a high messy board and could not dig out of it, causing an early top out. PixelAndy wins that game. In Game 3, Rahmations had another surprising early top out. With that, PixelAndy sweeps the match.
While those 2 matches were going on, there were 2 other matches happening on CT2. It was Sidnev vs Opaux and Dillan vs Koster.
The match between Sidnev and Opaux and a rematch from last year, where Sidnev defeated Opaux in Round 2 and would eventually reach the finals. This time, they were facing each other in Round 1. Sidnev managed to sweep the match to get back into Round 2.
Battle of the Hypertappers
The other match on CT2 was Dillan vs Koster. At this point, a few players were sitting next to me in the audience. One of them mentioned that Dillan and Koster were hypertapping in what turned out to be a Battle of the Hypertappers. This guaranteed that a hypertapper would advance to the Top 16.
Dillan won the first game. Game 2 was wild, Koster finished with an impressive 1.2 million points but Dillan managed to win the game with 1.3 million points. Dillan had managed to clear enough lines on the Level 29 Killscreen to reach that score. This was impressive since it is very difficult to clear lines on Level 29 with the hypertapping technique. Dillan led the match, 2-0.
In Game 3, Dillan reached Level 29 with 1.2 million points. At that point, he managed to set up a center well and score a Tetris to reach 1.3 million points to win the game. With that, Dillan swept the match to advance to the Top 16.
Dillan accomplished an impressive feat, becoming the first hypertapper to get back to back 1.3 million in a CTWC match.
Commotion in the Silver Bracket
While I was in the audience watching those last group of matches for the day, I heard some noise behind me. It came from the crowd that was watching the Silver Bracket Finals between Tytris and Bendy.
They were reacting to Tytris topping out on the first game. And then they were cheering on Bendy to get a maxout, which he did. Bendy won that game.
Moments later, there was more noise coming from that crowd. It turns out, Tytris had an early topout in Game 2 and lost.
Right before Game 3 started, the crowd started chanting CT3 (ClassicTetris3). That was the Twitch channel that was livestreaming the Silver Bracket.
Later, Vince Clemente (President of CTWC) asked the crowd to quiet down, explaining that they could be heard from the main stage. That did not happen. Moments later, screams erupted from the crowd again. Followed by Bendy chants. Needless to say, word was spreading that Bendy had won the Silver Bracket.
The End of The Day
With that, the Bronze Bracket and Silver Bracket were finished. As for the Gold Bracket, it was down to the Top 16.
At this point, it was already past 8 PM. So I left the Tetris area, and walked down the main hallway which had arcades lined up on the wall. Some people went up to the arcade machine to play a game, but the security guard told them that they had to leave because the expo had already closed. (The expo closed at 8 PM that day)
The next day would be less hectic, as only 16 players remained in the competition. One of them would become the 2024 Classic Tetris World Champion. Check it out in Part 7.
