This is an alternate way to all-clear at piece 10, with lower probability but better fallbacks than the standard Ace. Given the first deck build, we get the piece 10 all-clear two times out of seven, but when we don't get it, we usually get to T-spin with both our first two Ts. Not bad.
I call this the T-block Ace both because when I originally wrote this I'd only seen it played against me by a player named T-block (#1 in Canada at the time) and because it's built around two T tetrominos. Let's look at how it's built.
1. The first deck
Constraints:
L < Z, J < S
We see from the picture that we can do this whenever we can play L before Z and J before S. This is much like the Justice/Elvis and somewhat like the Left-O in its constraints, and significantly rarer a situation than the basic Ace, so this opening does not add much option coverage. But if our opponent plays way-too-many multispins, it may be worthwhile to do in lieu of other openings which don't counter multispins as strongly.
I've faithfully reproduced the first deck as played by T-block. But I should comment that this does not appear to be the fastest variation. For example, we can swap the positions of the I and O:
This allows us to place both the I and the O by hard-pulling to the right edge. For the O we just hard-pull and hard-drop, for the I we hard-pull, hit B (counterclockwise spin), then hard-drop. This naturally places us two spaces away from the wall. Of course it might be easier to just move the I to the right twice and hit A.
Additionally, we could instead play the mirror of this:
This allows us to instant hard-drop the J, since it starts in the correct position, and gives us an easy placement for the S on top; B + hard-drop.
Your mileage may vary, of course. Playing T-block's version has advantages, such as being able to place the second-deck J/L in the O-hole if we're not all-clearing.
Note: since writing the draft of this two months ago, I've seen this opening used against me by Maguro ( まぐろ ), then ranked #3 in the world. He used this variant, matching the logic above, but curiously didn't do an all-clear even with applicable pieces:
2. The second deck: all-clear at 10
It turns out we can all-clear at 10 whenever we have both T and O in the first four pieces of the second deck. The above show all-clears with the S, Z, J,and L; every remaining piece except I. After playing the T in-hand there's no ordering constraint, and even if we get an I in our first four pieces, the other piece we get is guaranteed to be one of those 4. The probability of getting both the T and O in the first four pieces of a deck is 4/7 * 3/6 = 2/7.
It should also be noted that given the S or Z, we can do a two-line clear with our first T and still all-clear. This will put a line of damage on their screen at piece 7, which should zone out an opponent's basic Ace opening--or against Puyo, it's a nice four blocks of damage and some animation delay. Having T, O, and S or Z in the first four happens 20% of the time.
For those interested in squeezing every last percentage point out, it's also useful to know these ones, which use J, L, and O:
These require holding the T while playing the J and L, and add another 1/35 chance to our all-clear, bringing us to 31.4%.
3. The second deck fallback: T-spins
The general rule here is that if we get an S or Z before our next T, we get an easy two T-spins. If the T happens first, we may have to take just the one. With the S or Z, we could set up a quick two T-spin combo:
Of course, doing our first T-spin in row 3 and 4 requires a few pieces before we play the T, with which our second deck might not cooperate. If we just have S,T or Z,T as the first two pieces as our second deck, we need to start by T-spinning in row 1 and 2 before we are forced to play our next T:
If our second deck starts with a T and we can't all-clear, we'll just take the one T-spin here:
4. Beyond
Beyond the all-clear is much like the Ace, but we know a lot more about the pieces we have remaining in the deck: we'll have used the T and O, and not used the I. Given that we'll always have the I to play, we can usually set up a variant on the Izzy with our four remaining pieces. For example, after Acing with TOS:
In the next deck, we'll take our T-spin. This will leave us with (4+7)*4 - 2*10 = 24 squares of material, which is about right for starting a repeated T-spin pattern. For example:
Beyond the T-spin fallbacks, we can again start repeated T-spin patterns, or do a Tetris Tea pattern in column 7 or 8. Our worst variation, where we get an early second-deck T and just get the one T-spin, will probably see us switching into a Column 7 Tetris Tea pattern at least for a cycle.
We can also all-clear at 20 in our most common T-spin fallback in various ways:
I haven't done much experimentation on the frequency with which these can be achieved, but it does lend us some hard-counter potential against openings like the Long Combo. The second, third and fourth look to be pretty darn achievable, with O < J the main constraint if we place the inverted L first.
Analysis
While we all-clear less than the basic Ace, when we don't get the all-clear, we do almost as well as more standard quick T-spin openings. However, unlike an Izzy or WumbOJ, we sometimes end up needing to waste our first T. Our first attack also happens later, but this doesn't matter much: if we see them doing an Ace, we can just do a two-line clear with our T at 7 to stuff it. Since this two-line clear happens in pure hard drops, it should always be fast enough, unlike a move 7 T-spin. And of course it's often followed up with an all-clear of our own.
Speed-wise, we're quite excellent. Our all-clear can always be achieved in pure hard-drops, unlike a basic Ace. In our recommended first-deck variant, our piece placement is optimized to not need any particular finesse--almost everything is either an instant drop, or a drag-and-drop. We don't have any particularly difficult constraints, and don't need any fancy spins to get our setup.
Counterpunch-wise, we're well behind the Izzy and WumbOJ in our T-spin fallback. We generally end up blocking any damage blocks we might wish to clear throughout our first few T-spins, not opening up our board until we do a Tetris or a weaker clear.
Enough talk! Let's grade:
Damage: B
Speed: A
Followups: B+
Counterpunch: C-
All-clear: A-
Anti-all-clear: A+
Flexibility: B+
Explosiveness: B
Now let's look at TvT opening matchups, theory-Tetris-wise. + is "slight advantage", +++ is "major advantage".
Tetrises: ++
Izzy: - The quick T-spin zones out our initial all-clear possibility, and we end up being a worse T-spin opening head to head.
OJ: - See above.
WumbOJ: - See above.
Ace: +++ They should not be able to all-clear us, but we can all-clear them.
Long Combo: ++ Here, speculating that the 20 all-clear is sufficiently achievable to make the occasional hard counter in the T-spin variant as well as seriously denting the Long Combo game-plan with the piece 10 all-clear. If the 20 all-clears are impractical, count this as a mere single +.
Left-O: ++ Multispins can always get hit by our all-clear, and our T-spins are at least as good as theirs. Furthermore, even the fastest Left-O piece ordering doesn't really have a speed advantage versus our fastest variant.
Jail: ++ See above.
Conclusion
This is a very middle-of-the-road opening, soft-countering multispins with its occasional fast all-clear possibility but being slightly weaker head-to-head against other quick T-spin openings. As such, it's worth doing against those who do too many opening multispins--most of the current online ladder--and theoretically as a feeling-out opening against an unknown opponent. However, against someone you have a hard read on, it's likely more viable to use a harder counter. In an optimal metagame sense, middle-of-the-road openings are not required since we can just mix it up with hard counters. Thus I don't feel this opening a necessary addition to one's toolkit and will probably not add it to my usual repertoire at the current moment.
For those confident in their greater speed and skill who just want an opening that won't leave them too far behind and might put them well ahead, though, this opening could be a good choice to lead to consistent wins. If you end up adopting it, let me know how it does for you.
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