Before the tournament began, Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers made an appearance on stage. Henk Rogers talks about how he went to the Soviet Union to get the rights to Tetris. Which led to Alexey and Henk becoming friends.
The 2023 Tetris movie, starring Taron Egerton, portrays their story.
Before the tournament started, Henk Rogers had a surprise for some of the players.
Certificates for the Game Crashers
Henk Rogers announced a surprise gift to the first 4 players who crashed (“beat”) NES Tetris. The Tetris company (TTC) created certificates for those players. Blue Scuti, Fractal, PixelAndy, and Alex T went up on stage to receive their gift.
Six players crashed the game. Tristop and Myles were the fifth and sixth players to crash. They did not receive certificates because TTC had already created them. However, their accomplishments were acknowledged.
The Tournament Begins
Alexey and Henk had the honor of counting down the first match of the tournament. They initiated the countdown: “3, 2, 1, Tetris!”
With that, all four matches have begun. It was surreal to see the matches on 2 giant LED screens. One screen showed 2 of the matches, while the other one showed the other 2 matches.
The video quality on those screens were much better than what online viewers saw on the livestream. One of the volunteers remarked that the LED screens were a significant improvement over the projectors used at previous CTWC events, as they were much brighter.
Since the rows of chairs were already filled, I stood behind them.
How Does A CTWC Game Work?
Each match is played 1 vs 1, in a Best of 5 format. In each game, the player with the higher score wins the game.
(aGameScout explains it very well with a short video)
The games start at Level 18. After clearing 130 lines, the game transitions to Level 19 and the speed increases. From there, the level increases after every 10 lines.
At Level 29 (known as the Killscreen), the speed increases again. The pieces fall at a speed that makes it nearly impossible to survive with DAS and Hypertapping. Rollers are able to survive it.
To prevent games from going on indefinitely, the organizers implemented a Super Killscreen at Level 39, which goes twice as fast as Level 29. It is nearly impossible for any player to survive that speed.
Level Breakdown
Speed increases after Level 19, 29, and 39.
- Level 18 – 130 lines
- Level 19-28 – 100 lines
- Level 29-38 – 100 lines
- Level 39 – Super Killscreen ends the game
Not Playing To Your Potential
In those first four matches of Round 0, there was one match that stood out to me. That was Meme (#41 seed) vs Mecex (#24 seed). In the qualifying round, Meme got 5 maxouts and Mecex got 8 maxouts.
Surprisingly, Meme won the first 2 games. Mecex was in danger of elimination since all matches were a Best of 5.
In Game 3, Mecex had a misplay where they could not flip the long bar in time. This caused the board to be messy. But as a roller, they were able to clean the board. Unfortunately, Mecex double flipped the Z-piece, causing the board to be messy again. They cleaned the board out and attempted to lower the stack, until they double flipped the S-piece. That became fatal as Mecex eventually topped out.
After the game, I watched Mecex walk off the stage on the right side (Stage Left). Mecex exited the stage through the aisle on the right side of the audience section. Observing Mecex walk down the aisle, it was clear that they were frustrated with their performance. And I don’t blame them, especially after they had traveled from Spain to be here.
Camera Angles
One thing that was noticeably new this year was the different camera angles of the players. Once in a while, the player camera will switch to a close up shot of the player’s face, showing their intense focus as they deal with the pressure of a World Championship match.
The production team would also show footage of the player’s hand when they were using either the Hypertapping or Rolling Playstyle. (None of the DAS players made it to the Gold Bracket)
In one instance, they captured close up footage of TetrisTime doing a grip switch from Hypertapping to Rolling.
Hanging Out With The Tetris Community
While Round 0 was going on, players were casually hanging out behind the audience section, while they waited for their matches to start. There were Game stations for anyone to casually play some NES Tetris.
Since I was in the standing section, I took the opportunity to talk to some of the people. It was easy for me to approach the players because they knew who I was, the perks of being a journalist.
Players were casually hanging out behind the audience section, while they waited for their matches to start. There were game stations for anyone to casually play some NES Tetris.
I had a chance to talk to Fractal and get a good look at the certificate that he received from the Tetris company. Unfortunately, the close-up photo I took was blurry.
Blue Scuti Casually Playing Level 29 On A Laptop
Since Blue Scuti had a bye to Round 1, he was able to have time to have some fun.
Right behind the last rows of chairs, I observed Blue Scuti sitting on the floor with a laptop. He was casually hypertapping on the buttons as he cleared lines on Level 29. Maya Rogers (CEO of the Tetris company) was also watching, she was standing behind Blue Scuti with a Starbucks cup in her hand. It was tempting to go up to Maya, but I decided to leave her alone as she observed the CTWC scene for the first time.
Meeting Blue Scuti’s Mother
As I continued to watch the tournament, I looked around at the crowd. I saw Blue Scuti’s mom, Karin Cox, in the standing crowd. I decided to talk to her, since she knew about my website, Tetris Interest.
She mentioned that had been creating QR codes with links to the Brackets. Although the links were shared on the CTWC Discord server, not everyone uses Discord. So Karin sent the QR codes to her family so that they could view the bracket.
Another thing we talked about was how the 4 player display that they have can be confusing to new viewers. That display features 2 players competing head to head on the top of the screen and the other 2 players competing head to head on the bottom of the screen. But new viewers may not notice that and think that all 4 players are competing in the same match.
Karin mentioned to me that the organizers can make it clear that there are 2 separate matches happening by putting colored borders around each of the matches.
Another conversation topic we had was about crowd size. I noted how large the crowd was for Round 0, with all the seats filled up. Karin noted that this was the crowd size during the Top 4 of last year’s CTWC. So it would be interesting to see how large the crowd will be for this year’s finals.
Blue Scuti’s Family Sit In The Front Rows
Eventually Round 0 ended, and Round 1 was going to start soon. Blue Scuti was going to be one of the first matches to happen. So, Karin and the rest of Blue Scuti’s family had to sit in the first 2 rows of chairs.
The organizers reserved the first 2 rows of chairs for a documentary crew who would film their reaction to Blue Scuti competing in his first match of the 2024 CTWC.
I got to see the behind the scenes of this documentary, which I wrote about in Part 6.
