Essential lore:

The current world champ is dogplayingtetris. He took #1 in 2020 and 2021.

Between these two trophies, another player named Cheez invented a new technique for holding the controller, called rolling, allowing players to play past what was once called the killscreen at level 29

Rolling explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-BZ5-Q48lE

Deep dive on rolling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2xCQT0BUcw

Very few players were rolling at the 2021 tournament, but this year ALL of the top players are. Rolling has broken more records in the past year than I can even link.

Essential how-to-watch competitive teturs:

Two players go head to head with the same seed (so they get the same pieces in the same order) and see who can get the higher score, starting on level 18. You can still win after topping out if your opponent also tops out with a lower score.

The overlay shows who is ahead with the red/green plus/minus score up top. It also shows the total number of lines a player has scored, their Tetris Rate (TRT), which is how many of their line clears were full 4-line Tetrises.

The game starts on level 18, and as players clear more lines, the game levels up and gets faster. It gets to max speed at level 29. All play after that is just a matter of endurance and skill, and hopefully not having a long bar drought.

A long bar drought is when you go longer than you "should" without getting a long bar. This indicator appears overtop of the Tetris rate as a blinking red line with a number underneath. The number counts up for each piece that isn't a long bar.

Who do I cheer for this year?

https://youtu.be/G9uINGUdBP4

^ This is a short profile of each of the six players that have been winning recent tournaments. Odds are very good that we'll see all six of them in the finals.

Links and stuff

Bracket (and qualifier data) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JrjDmV987c8ZkrBzn_XaIqN8kjP__7TpxhbfMsvo9K4/htmlview?pru=AAABg_z7qic*zg83NEXvKq3G-yMJvLzndA#gid=1012468031

Official rules and schedule
https://thectwc.com/rules/

Twitch streams
https://www.twitch.tv/classictetris
https://www.twitch.tv/classictetris2