Reading the Danger Line

A marker six rows from the top, and what to do differently once your stack crosses it.

TETERI draws a dashed line across the well six rows from the top, brightening to red as your stack rises towards it. It is not decorative.

What it marks

The height at which your remaining margin becomes thin. Below it, you can absorb an awkward sequence, meaning a couple of S and Z pieces with nowhere good to go, and recover. Above it, you probably cannot.

Six rows is roughly the space needed to place two or three pieces badly and still have somewhere to put the next one.

Why a spatial warning

Because the actual failure condition is invisible until it happens. The run ends when a piece cannot spawn, and that check happens between pieces with no warning frame. You do not feel the end coming; it simply arrives.

A line on the board converts that into something you can see at a glance while your attention is on the queue.

What changes when you cross it

Stop protecting back-to-back. The multiplier is worth nothing if the run ends. Take the clear.

Abandon the well if the I is not imminent. Waiting is a luxury you no longer have.

Prefer the placement that clears over the placement that is tidy. Above the line, height is the only variable that matters.

Place awkward pieces at the edges. Pieces spawn in the centre, so central height is worth more than edge height.

What not to do

The instinct when the stack is high is to keep the surface level by building higher on the low columns. That keeps the shape nice and kills you.

Go the other way: accept an uneven surface temporarily and clear whatever you can.

Getting back below it

Two or three clears usually does it. Once you are back under the line, rebuild the surface, reopen a well, and resume playing for points.

The line is not a failure state. It is a mode switch, and treating it as one is what turns near-death runs into long ones.

Read next

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• Read the Queue, Not the Falling PieceIf you are deciding where the current piece goes while it falls, you are already too slow for level ten.
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