How to Beat the CPU

It stacks better than you and it never panics. What it does not do is adapt.

TETERI's computer opponent evaluates every possible placement for the current piece and the held one, scores the resulting board, and takes the best. At nightmare difficulty it does not blunder.

Beating it is still very possible, because there are specific things it does not do.

What it is good at

Stacking. It weighs height, holes, bumpiness and wells, and it will keep a cleaner board than you almost every time.

Consistency. It never gets flustered, never misreads a column, never presses the wrong key.

Digging. Give it garbage and it will clear its way out efficiently.

What it is not good at

Planning ahead. It evaluates the current piece against the current board. It does not build multi-piece setups, which means it rarely produces T-spins and does not construct openers.

Reading you. It does not look at your board at all. It plays the same way whether you are one row high or about to top out.

Timing. It attacks whenever a clear is available rather than choosing a moment.

The strategy that follows

Out-attack it. Its clean stacking earns it points, not garbage. If you land T-spin doubles and back-to-back four-row clears, you will send far more than it does even though its board looks tidier than yours.

Use combos. It handles a single large hit well because it digs efficiently. Continuous pressure is harder for it, because it never gets a settled board.

Do not try to out-stack it. You will lose that contest. Play for damage instead of neatness.

The difficulties

Rookie blunders often and is a good place to practise attacking. Pro stacks well and punishes greed. Nightmare does not make mistakes, so you have to out-damage it, which is exactly the skill worth developing.

Losing to nightmare while your board looks worse than its is normal. Check the garbage sent, not the tidiness.

Read next

• How Garbage WorksYour clears become rows in your opponent's well, rising from the floor with a single gap in them.
• Cancelling: Why Attacking Is How You DefendYour outgoing attack eats incoming garbage before any of it lands. There is no defensive option.
• The Attack Table: What Each Clear SendsEvery clear type converted into rows of garbage, plus the bonuses that stack on top.
• Combo Pressure: Why Small Attacks Can Beat Big OnesContinuous garbage denies your opponent the quiet piece they need to survive.
• DAS and ARR: The Timings Behind Holding a DirectionTwo numbers control how a held key moves a piece, and they change how the game feels more than any other setting.
• The T-Spin Triple and the Kick That Makes It PossibleThree rows from one T piece, using the most extreme offset in the kick table.