I think the NES Tetris score attack ruleset is better suited for pure competition. Both players receive the same pieces with the same RNG seed and it comes down to who can balance the management of their stack and maximizing the score the best.
1. Center 4-wide combos: While largely hated, this is not a "luck based" strategy. Its memorization of the various forms that a center-4wide well creates, to maximize the quadratic damage formula of modern SRS Tetris Games with respect to combos. Perform the longest combo, you deal a LOT of damage.
2. Perfect clear players: I've played vs people who can consistently get 2-perfect clears at the beginning, and often times can hit me with a 3rd. Perfect-clears do 10-rows of damage (against a typical Tetris field of 22 or so), so 2x Perfect clears in the opening is darn near lethal. Regardless, the "Perfect Clear" is the epitome of "planning ahead".
3. DT Cannon: Amemitaya loves his TSpin Double + TSpin Triple setup, and can even perfect-clear or side-4wide afterwards.
4. TKI: A technique to get a TSpin-double within 7-drops. Its the fastest way to damage the opponent, and can stuff a Perfect-clear opening (it takes 10-drops to create a perfect clear. It only takes 7-drops to TKI).
5. BT-Cannon: The reversed DT-Cannon is a TSpin Triple followed up by a TSpin Double. It has different properties and its own set of followers. Honestly, I don't understand this at all, but that's the cool part of SRS Tetris: there's lots of different strategies!
Some Youtube References for non-Tetris folk:
1: Wumbo does 4wide when he gets serious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieLTP0mIV0o
2. Wumbo also does Perfect Clears sometimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YjTu0mByfg
3. Amemitaya usually does DT Cannon into various followups. I can't find any Amemitaya videos, but this guy on gets the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJVN0Wlv-Uo
4. TKI followed up by King Crimson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXraaMWK6PI . You can see the speed at which TKI is executed, which makes it good vs Perfect Clear players.
5. BT-Cannon->CSpin Perfect Clear loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umNTGq9p0qQ
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There are a LOT of different strategies in modern "fast" Tetris games. You play vs the same opponent a lot, like first-to-20 or so, to figure out which openings they like and try to switch your openings to best theirs.
Anyway, the main difference between "Modern Tetris" and "Classic Tetris" is that the RNG of modern Tetris is far more forgiving. "Classic Tetris" is a truly random piece, with a lookahead of 1.
"Modern SRS Tetris" is a bag-RNG (every 7-pieces are permuted, and then given to you in a random order), ensuring an even distribution of pieces. Furthermore, you have a lookahead of 5, so you can plan out your strategies far more reliably in Modern Tetris.
I personally prefer SRS Tetris. But I give credit to the classic-Tetris players. Due to the RNG being so much less forgiving in classic-Tetris, its an entirely different skillset and a different game. Furthermore, SRS Tetris is more forgiving with placement of pieces. SRS Tetris looks faster: but a lot of it is because its controls are easier.
Classic Tetris is kinda like watching a Street Fighter 2 player. Laypeople won't be able to tell how difficult some of those moves are. SRS Tetris is more like Dragonball FighterZ, with easier to do combos and automatic-tracking enabled. The combos are flashier and longer, but that's because they're way easier to do than SF2 combos.
I definitely have more traditional tastes when it comes to fighting games, though. As far as Street Fighter games go, I don't think anything has surpassed HF or ST, nor do I think anything ever will with Capcom's current fighting game direction. I do love me some Guilty Gear and Marvel 2/3, though. DBFZ was fun for a week and I LOVE the polish that it received from ASW, but the game itself is sort of bland and repetitive due to its simple universal mechanics.
I used to have Top 100 records on both Sprint (sub 50 seconds) and Ultra, and one day, confidently challenged a top-Classic player to a classic game and got crushed. So much respect to classic players.
Those classic Tetris masters are truly nuts. That game is way harder and less flashy. I'll stick to my SRS Bag Randomizer thank you very much...
The only thing is: DBFZ and other Arc System Work games look like they're hard to play, with 20+ hit combos going off all the time. But people need to realize that a lot of it is auto-combo or auto-gatlings with very forgiving timing. And Arc-System-Work's hit-stop graciously extends the period for which you can extend a combo.
It really is a fighting game on training wheels. But that's what makes it more fun IMO, because you spend less time practicing mechanics or timing... and spend more time trying to read the opponent and interact with them.
