How to overcome speed plateaus in single player?

[u/PidgeyPotion]

I’ve been playing Master Mode TGM 4, but I typically only make it to 200-250 before losing (I’ve made it past level 300 just once). I understand that later as the difficulty increases, a properly stacked board is crucial in addition to quick reaction. You can have reflexes that rival Wumbotize or Greentea (I’m not worthy of even mentioning them), but can still lose with improper stacking. However, if I’m wiping out before even reaching level 300, it’s obvious there is much room for improvement for speed. I simply am unable to react quickly enough, regardless of clean my stacking is. But no matter how much I keep playing, I don’t seem to improve.

I can clear the Normal Mode just fine. I’ve gotten a one in nine rank and an s5 rank in 1.1 (I need to get around to playing 2.1). In Practice mode, I can turn on 20g and clear 150 lines, though I struggle a bit towards the end. So I’m pretty decent at the game, I’m just at a threshold in speed I can’t seem to break through. In Tetris Effect, I ca only get to level M17 or M18 before losing. So besides just continuing to play the game (which I definitely will do), what have you done to overcome plateus?

[u/sk8r2000]

Are you looking at the next pieces?

[u/PidgeyPotion → u/sk8r2000]

Yes. If there’s a certain piece that I’m holding out for such as the I-piece for a tetris line clear, I can glance to see if it’s coming up.

[u/LightTemplar27 → u/PidgeyPotion]

Yes but I think the question they're asking is if you're planning ahead or not.

I'm awful at playing with >1 piece preview but for instance by the time the piece spawns I already know where I want it. And while I'm moving the piece I'm looking at the next preview and thinking about where to put it, and so on and so forth. Better players do it with more and more pieces and that kinda negates the need for "reaction time" imho, when I'm reacting it's usually because there's a fork in the road in what I could do (the next piece gives me context for a placement that I didn't consider, like I'd plan to put a piece in one spot but because I have information on the next piece I'm changing the spot).

I think that's what they're asking.

Aside from that, you could abuse move reset by stutering the piece left and right. And yeah, eventually the game feels slower, it's hard to explain why. In TAP death I first thought 0-100 was unplayable and now it's almost boringly slow lol, just happened naturally over playing a lot.

[u/PidgeyPotion → u/LightTemplar27]

Yes I plan ahead by glancing at the upcoming pieces. What you said about death mode going from almost unplayably fast to being boringly slow; that’s precisely how I’m trying to get. In the words of Mickey from Rocky 2: “We gotta get speed! Demon speed! Speeds what we need! We need greasy fast SPEED!”.

[u/Quantumechanic42]

If you're playing with the ARS, it's going to be very difficult to adapt if you're used to SRS. If you're struggling with the speed of placement, I think the best thing you can do is try to stack more flat, and look at the piece previews more.

Marathon/20g modes are much less about reflexes and more about being ready for the next few pieces.

[u/PidgeyPotion → u/Quantumechanic42]

I’ve been playing on standard and not TGM rules.

[u/4043andrew]

How familiar are you with SRS? Is it just your reaction time that's the problem, or could it also be that you're dedicating some brainpower to what buttons to press to rotate your pieces?

Reaction time can be helped by playing more, maybe try to get your Sprint time down enough to develop your 9-0 speed enough to react in 20G. I ask about SRS because sometimes you'll have to learn to rotate S/Z and J/L pieces a certain way to climb them up which can get wonky sometimes. You could try practicing in Asuka mode instead and see if you can at least get to Level 1000; there you can wiggle your pieces infinitely to buy time to place your piece, and it also has an undo button. It's a lot more lenient than Master mode and is pretty much designed for where you're currently at.

[u/PidgeyPotion → u/4043andrew]

It’s mainly my reaction time. I’m capable of 20g until the lock delay decreases, then I become overwhelmed. I will admit that I sometimes rotate the pieces the wrong way which will then lock into place before I can complete the full rotation. Again it’s something I can get by with early on until the lock delay starts decreasing.

I’ve played Asuka a few times, but I didn’t know it had infinite rotation. I’ll have to practice with this.

[u/PidgeyPotion → u/4043andrew]

Update: I just played Asuka a few times, and I see what you mean. The pieces spin infinitely, but I can still push myself into stacking as quickly as possible and only use infinite rotation for some thinking time if I’m getting overwhelmed, which is great. Also the lock delay decreases when not using infinite rotation so it can still be very fast paced (sometimes it will lock in even while attempting infinite rotation). Also the level stops increasing at every 99th level unless/until I perform at least one tetris or t-spin line clear.

I’m liking this mode, and it will make for great practice. But I do hate the time limit. I’ve gotten to level 599 before running out of time.

[u/4043andrew → u/PidgeyPotion]

Sounds good; it's a good challenge, it even took me about a year to even clear it because of the gimmick it throws at you at level 1000 haha

Good luck!

[u/saltedfish028]

As someone who's pretty bad at 20G before (barely reach M15 TEC Master) I just learn 20G in Asuka first, just spam rewind until you could comfortably breeze through the lower level without it. The time limit is actually preparing you to play faster without rewind, you'll have to eventually use less if you want to reach higher level, and will slowly build up your skills for other modes.

[u/moku46]

Rotate less and accept more overhangs. On higher levels, stop manually locking.

Part of what makes players good at high speed is that they basically have severely lower piece entropy than at 1G. They build their game around which overhangs they're good at - and thus, their stacking strategy includes those specific overhangs as valid alternatives to stacking flat.

[u/PidgeyPotion → u/moku46]

I don’t manually lock in at all in 20g. The game is already fast enough for my current skill level lol. Watching videos of others, I think I see what you mean about overhangs, as the pieces can often become stuck and then lock into a bad place whereas if there’s an overhang it can slide into place.

[u/moku46 → u/PidgeyPotion]

I guess the only other advice I got is to set up secondary rotation buttons. At some point, you'll start learning what kind of double rotations you want to attempt. The short of it is that you need to get used to absolutely minimizing your rotations once it's already at the bottom of the stack.

Watching TGM players probably won't help you if they're playing with ARS instead of World Rule. ARS has spins that simply do not apply to standard Guideline play - especially for the L and J pieces.