The Attack Table: What Each Clear Sends

Every clear type converted into rows of garbage, plus the bonuses that stack on top.

The complete conversion from clears to garbage in TETERI.

Base attack

Bonuses

Back-to-back: plus one row on any difficult clear that follows another difficult clear. This never turns a zero into an attack, so a back-to-back single still sends nothing.

Combo: additional rows as the chain lengthens. Nothing for the first few links, then a growing bonus, up to five extra rows on a very long chain.

Perfect clear: plus ten rows. This is enormous and usually decisive.

What the table tells you

Singles are worthless offensively. Zero rows. If you are taking singles in a duel, you are effectively not attacking at all.

T-spin doubles match four-row clears. Four rows each, but the T-spin needs three columns rather than a whole well and sets up faster. In versus, T-spins are often the better attack.

Combos are underrated. Nine consecutive small clears send more total garbage than two four-row clears, and they send it continuously, which is far harder to cancel.

Perfect clears win games. Ten extra rows against an opponent with a mid-height stack is usually fatal.

Reading it as a plan

Two viable attacking styles fall straight out of the numbers.

Heavy: build a well, land four-row clears with back-to-back for five rows at a time. Large, spaced-out hits that a good opponent can cancel.

Continuous: keep a low messy stack and chain combos. Smaller hits arriving constantly, which denies your opponent the quiet moment they need.

Neither dominates. Against a player who cancels well, continuous pressure is usually stronger.

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.
• Combo Pressure: Why Small Attacks Can Beat Big OnesContinuous garbage denies your opponent the quiet piece they need to survive.
• How to Open a DuelThe first twenty pieces decide more duels than anything that follows.
• Rendering: Sprite Caches and Layer BakingDrawing four hundred glowing blocks per frame is slow. Drawing four hundred cached bitmaps is not.
• The Song Everyone Associates With Falling BlocksA nineteenth-century Russian folk tune about a pedlar, and how it became the most recognisable video game music ever written.