Versus play

Garbage, cancelling, attack tables and pressure. Everything that changes when there is someone on the other side of the screen.

12 articles

• 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.
• How to Open a DuelThe first twenty pieces decide more duels than anything that follows.
• Reading Your Opponent's BoardTheir well depth, their stack height and the shared queue tell you when their attack is coming.
• Defending When You Are BehindA tall stack and a full meter is recoverable, but not by playing carefully.
• Clean and Messy GarbageWhether the holes line up decides how survivable an attack is.
• Latency in Online Duels, and Why It Does Not Ruin ThemNothing about your own board depends on the network, which makes this genre unusually tolerant of lag.
• How to Beat the CPUIt stacks better than you and it never panics. What it does not do is adapt.
• Two Players, One KeyboardSplit-screen has a texture online play cannot reproduce, and a couple of practical quirks.
• Rematches, Tilt, and Playing the Next GameThe most common way to lose a set is to let the previous loss into the next match.