The Modern Tetris Dictionary
General terms
Upstacking - Stacking upwards on the board, making it higher and creating more attack to send
Downstacking - Stacking downwards by clearing lines and garbage, as well as sending attack through combos
Line clear types - The amount of lines cleared with one piece determines line clear type e.g. single, double, triple, quad
Garbage - gray lines that opponent sent through attacking you that have one hole in them
Cheese - when many garbage holes that are 1 or 2 high are present and don't line up well
Combo - done through consecutive line clears to send cheese to opponent
BTB - back to back is when you only clear quads or tspins, but it doesn't need to be consecutive line clears
PC (perfect clear / all clear) - when all the blocks on the board are cleared, sending 10 attack
T-spin / tspin - when you spin the T piece in a hole to double its attack depending on its line clear type e.g. TSD sends 4 lines, TSS sends 2 lines
Misdrop - a misinput, or where a piece is unintentionally placed
Early game /opening / beginning - the start of a game, usually lead with an opener
Midgame - usually period of gameplay after an opener is completed to the end of the game, which may not happen due to early topout
Spike - a large amount of attack (usually more than 10) sent in a short amount of time
Multiplier - the way a high attack such as quad or TSD is multiplied after a large combo, prevalent in TETR.IO
Top out / block out / lock out - when you place a piece or a piece is placed out over the board
7-bag - the randomiser system that all the main modern games use to randomise the pieces, where for example there is a bag, and each piece is taken out of the bag until it is empty, then it repeats with a fresh new one
lock delay, amount of time in frames that a piece on the board will take to lock of place when at the bottom
ARR - Auto repeat rate, amount of time it takes after das is engaged for a piece to move to the next column
DAS - amount of time after an initial input left or right until it automatically starts moving
SDF - Soft Drop Factor, how fast the soft drop speed of a piece is
Gameplay styles -
- Strider: plays fast but with low efficiency, thus sending lower attack than usual
- Plonker: plays slow but with high efficiency, sending more attack than usual
- opener main: can setup an opener very fast but usually suffers during midgame
- inf ds (infinite downstackers): tanks attack and sends it back through downstackign
- ppt (puyo puyo tetris) player: plays with high efficiency and has high arr and das to maintain feel of puyo puyo tetris
Rank - the amount of TR you have in tetra league determines rank, and the ranks from highest to lowest are: X, U, SS, S+, S, S-, A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D
Tspins
Tspin double (tsd) - t spin double orrurs when you spin a t into a t shaped hole, where 3 out of 4 corners are filled in and the last move was a twist, as well as the amount of lines cleared being 2
Tspin single (tss) - t spin single is a tsd but only clearing 1 line
Tspin triple (tst) - t spin triple occurs when a t is kicked into a t shaped hole where all corners are filled, clearing 3 lines
Tspin mini - a lenient way of awarding a tspin, thouh they don't give bonus attack and only maintain BTB
Fractal - 2 tsds stacked directly on top of each other
Cut Copy, 2 tsds that can be performed right after each other where the overhang of one is used for the other
Dt - tspin double which creates a tspin triple right after
Cspin - tspin triple which creates a tspin double right after
Kaidan - tspin double using staircase shape near edge of board
Stmb cave - floating tspin double using s and z
Stsd - 2 tspin doubles where the first tspin is performed like a TST but only clearing 2 lines, which then creates a 2nd TSD
Imperial cross - TSD into TSD, first tsd performed like a TST, but only clearing 2 lines, shape looks like a cross
Fin/Iso/Neo tspins - abuses certain t kicks to perform tspin in unintuitive way
Yoshihiro SD - tspin mini single leading into TSD on edge of board
Openers
TKI3 - TSD, can lead into many other things
DT cannon - TSD, TST (can loop)
Stickspin - TSS, TSD, TST, TSD (can loop)
SDPC - TSS, TSD, TSS/TSD, PC (can loop)
Gamushiro stacking - TST, TSS/TSD, PC (can loop)
MS2, TST, TSS/TSD - PC (can loop), easier to learn than gamu
PCO - PC at start of game, low chance to solve at 60-80%
BT cannon - TSD, TST (can loop)
DPC - NOT AN OPENER, TSD, PC, used after 8 line pc to bring back to a fresh bag and board
Hachispin - TSS, TST, PC
Mr. Tspins STD - TSS, TST, TSD
MKO - TSD, can lead into many other things
Godspin - TSD, TSDm, TST, meme opener
Amongus opener - meme opener, looks SUS
">Show 1 example of each opener
Other
Kicks - The way a piece rotation interacts with obstacles in its way, where the result may look like the piece was kicked there
ST stacking - Using the S, T and sometimes I piece to form infinite tspins
LST stacking - Using L, S, T and sometimes I piece to form infinite tspins
9-0 stacking - Stacking in the nine columns to the left leaving 1 to the right to get quads easily
6-3 stacking - stacking in the 6 columns to the left and 3 colums to the right leaving a column for quads and tspins
4w- c4w combo/side 4w combo - a method to create an extremely high amount of combo through leaving a 4 column gap with 3 pieces in the column, either in the center or side of the board
Finesse - the most efficient ways to move a piece to a certain spot
Counting to 4/5 - counting 4 rows up to guarantee a quad, or counting 5 rows up to guarantee a quad and tspin
Attack - garbage lines sent to the opponent after a line clear. When in the context of a whole bag, the type of line clear that sends garbage within the bag.
Back-to-back - (abbr. B2B) consecutive line clears where each line clear is either a Tetris, or a T-Spin.
Bag - a group of seven pieces so that each of the seven possible tetrominoes appears exactly once. For example, first bag, or bag 1, refers to the first seven pieces, which will always have exactly one of each piece.
Combo - clearing lines with consecutive pieces.
Kick - When a tetromino rotates, but would be blocked, forcing the game to look through a table to shift the piece so that it can be rotated.
Perfect clear - (abbr. PC) also All Clear, Bravo. Clearing the whole board, so there are no minos remaining on the board.
Soft drop - dropping a piece without it locking. Opposed to hard drop, which means dropping a piece and locking it immediately after.
Types of openers
Counterspike opener - an opener that builds a large T-Spin setup, so that they can be executed quickly to send a lot of garbage lines. These openers benefit from clean garbage, which may allow them to combo in a Tetris as well, sending even more garbage.
DT opener - an opener that sets up a Double Triple Cannon. Can sometimes refer to an opener that sends a T-Spin Double on the first bag, and then a T-Spin Triple on the second bag, without building a Double Triple Cannon. Not to be confused with DT Cannon opener, which refers to one opener that is very commonly used by beginners.
Freestyle opener - an opener that requires the player to stack freestyle early, usually in the second bag.
PC opener - An opener that sends a Perfect Clear, usually after 4, 6 or 8 lines cleared. Not to be confused with Perfect Clear Opener, or PCO, which refers to a popular opener.
TD opener - an opener that sets up a Triple Double, usually on the second bag.
TSD opener - an opener where the first attack is a T-Spin Double. This includes openers where the first bag has no attack but sets up a T-Spin Double on the second bag.
TSS opener - an opener that begins with a first bag T-Spin Single.
Other terminology
180 spins - also 180s, 180 rotations. The ability to rotate a piece 180 degrees, which on an unconstricted board has the same effect as rotating counterclockwise or clockwise twice.
Dependency (1) - a hole in the board that can only be filled with specific pieces.
Dependency (2) - (in the context of a bag) a specific ordering of pieces within a bag that allows a setup to be completed.
Fumen - an online tool used to show Tetris setups. Often used to generally describe a diagram showing setups.