That meme was born in 2016, and 10 CTWCs had been held since. Who would have expected such huge change in the world of classic tetris in all these years?
Welcome to my CTWC thoughts, 2026 edition.
Like before, I am not crazy enough to watch
every bit of the stream, but I try to catch the flow and give my comments.
Qualifiers
I talked about the ranking system used last year (+most of the years prior). It was reasonable without much space for foul play. But the new point system implemented this year is MUCH better.
For those who don't know, we are not counting maxouts anymore. We award bonus for those scoring much above maxout. A maxout (1.0xM) are rewarded 1 point, and you get 1 extra point for every extra 100k you scored in the game. With super kill screen intact and how scores parabolic up at higher levels this is extremely rewarding...of course only if you can reach there.
The elimination match seeks for those who can score high on demand. When we say score high it's not maxout anymore, but to score considerably above maxout utilizing lv29+ plays. The qualification round managed to filter players who can do that by looking for those who can score high, just without extra pressure. It's working so well to the point you can clearly almost see a strict order in tournament competence by seed number.
Elimination phase
As cruel it is, top 32 is a one-sided slaughter against the lower half of the bracket.
The seeding just works so well that top seeders are literally crushing their opponents with zero difficulty. Think of the 8th place at 41 points -- that's 4-4.5 points on average which is about 1.25M. And then 24th has 25 points, so 2.5-3 (considering more games topped out without maxouts) points on average indicating an average of 1.05-1.1M. On top of that, his top score in the qualifer is merely 1.27, the average of what his opponents could score! And that is not even including the 33-48th players who in theory has a slim chance to reach top 32 in a playoff...
Take Dog(5) v. zrobot(28) as example. Dog does not have to take any risk at all. He did it safe and methodologically. In game 2, Zrobot was leading by up to 4 tetrises all the way up to level 34 or so, then zrobat struggled due fatigue, bad sequence or just lose of concentration. Once he topped out Dog has all the levels to override your scores before lv39 even without much tetrises. In the game point, Zrobat took even more risk but luck is on his side so he scored up to 1.35M. Dog just following him from behind, wait him to top out and take the game.
Unfortunately, this is not the only instance where that happened. Zrobat is already kind of the outlier who has the potential to score much higher than his average around that lower bracket with his 1.7M qualifier top score. For the rest, they simply stand no chance. Top players always play up to lv29, no exception, and they know you don't. No matter how bad they did before the two transition, they can always catch up. Oh and what if you managed to survive up to lv39 AND win on tetris rate aka score? Well, good luck doing that three time -- they wouldn't have fallen to the lower bracket had they be able to pull this out in the first place.
What's worse is the third game. You are trailing 0-2 and you have to take extra risk which is a quick way to crash out. I have to say that Zrobat is arelady one of the most potent player at the lower bracket with qualifier top score 1.7M. There is just nothing to watch for the rest of the top 32 round. There are actually a noticible portion of early topped out games, mostly due to the trailing side taking too much risk.
I talked about a balance in aggression in 2025, and perhaps that was in the context of top player vs top player. For these top 32/48 matches that barely mattered it seems. Do we really need such a large bracket in single elimination, all at BO5? Should we think about other format like Swiss?
The matchup becomes much better starting from top 16. Tetristime (7) vs. Tugi (23) is a great match...wait! Does that mean Tugi defeated upper bracket player? Cobra (7) vs Huff (11) is also a close game. Then Tristop and Scuti is a thriller with classic players and a nail-biting tiebreaker.
Finals
I skipped the rounds in between not only because they shifted to twitch, but also due to timezone. Finals is perhaps the only round I am happy to watch in the middle of my sleep. It seems that Twitch promoted the event by putting them at front page, and that also forces them to boardcast the later rounds in Twitch exclusively.
It's hard to say whether this is good or bad - Twitch is greedy with ads, but they also provide streams at high quality consistently. Decisions are strictly commerical and you can't blame them for that.
This is a final between two well known players -- Dog the two time champion (2) and Meme the founder of rolling technique. This is an ensured historical game without needing to watch the actual game since the two play quite differently. Dog prefers lower stack but has extreme efficiency, while Meme's speed allowed extreme stacking. The different in height also means Dog will trail in lines, and the asynchronization is always fun to watch.
G1 and G2 are extremely similar. Meme built a solid lead with higher stack, higher risk and faster line completion. Dog trailed but not falling behind. In G1 Meme had a tetris right into lv39, but Dog did the same too reverse the game at the last line clear. G2 was the same all the way up to Meme getting a last tetris at line 327, but different this time Dog waited too long for an I-piece at line 329 and topped out.
G3 and G4 are another pair of similar games. Both players topped out 'early' after second transition, yet at considerably high scores (1.2-1.3M) that is enough to beat most players.
G5 is special. Both players were quickly approaching lv39 at *neck and neck* scores. An unfavorable sequence struck Meme combined with the fact that he probably want to take more risk at the final game of the final round of this big tournament, he topped out before lv39 allowing Dog's tripeat.
Can you say Dog performed better than Meme based on performance? Not at all. The results simply fell on luck where the sequence favored Dog's stacking (I doubt if Dog played enough to meet that sequence by the time Meme has it, since Dog was much slower) but not much so towards Meme. They performed almost equally throughout. Both are best of the top players I would say.
Funnily, you often find Meme downstacking from a dangerous position. When you thought the lost in tetris rate must imply that Meme would start falling behind, you look on the side to find Dog struggling the same sequence as well. It seems that regardless of stacking height, they possess efficiency not far from each other after all.
Phew.
I talked about the decline of the game partially due to game format in 2024. Tried to shift my focus back to the game but still talked about how poor the view counts were in 2025. This year I find myself enjoying the game more. I bet many more audiences felt the same (shouts out to the 4800-5000 watching live with me). This is not only because of the qualification format, but also players doing their best.
Perhaps we don't need to be only entertained by players playing at theoretical precision. Watching them fighting for the grand prize at lightning speed of lv29+ is already enjoyable enough. The rise of DAS format and Jonas cup has been a success drawing more casual or nostalgic players in, leaving CTWC a hyper-tensioned format. The current format is perhaps most of the remaining audiences wanted to see.
Lastly, I hope Alex T could recover from his injury. I talked about fatigue from time to time, but he is likely the first high profile injury. He's been an extreme hypertapper, and you just can't imagine how much stress that would have accumulated in him by hypertapping. He is still young, half of Meme the finalist's age young. Just take a good break, and I am sure he will return stronger.
Other than classic Tetris
Oh by the way the GTM4 championship is back again, along with all the Japanese players. Nice to see GreenTea, CTWC veteran but also the new
GTM4 GM King of Rounds again! He just looks joyful as ever.
As for the GTM4 format it's too hard to comment with such small player pool, but the final opening all 5 modes is a very interesting format. I want to see lower rounds hosted in that way too.
We also had the SMB1 tournament at the same venue. It's a pity that the system of merging multiple Marios onto the same screen seemed lagging to much + we don't get to see the any% finals online. Good to see Niftski in good form, and I hope he will be back to SMB1 as soon as the issue around him got lifted.
And that's it! A very fun weekend to watch and write on, and I will see you in 2027.
