1. The Basic Setup
This is the primary setup I gave when I wrote my first post on the Long Combo. It is easily transformed into an Ace by swapping the position of the T and Z, giving it trickery and option coverage. Of course, even this one has a few variants. The fastest is this:
This is fastest because the rightside can be placed in pure drag-right-and-drop--the O does not need to be placed one away, as above. On the left, the S can be placed very quickly with one left tap and a hard drop, and the I, Z, and T are all left-drag and drop, though we do need to be a bit clever with using our rotation after the drag to properly space the Z and T one away from the wall. Conversely, in the first variant, the Z was placed two away from the righthand wall, which is a pretty awkward placement to do rapidly unless you've practiced extremely precise timing on hard-dropping mid-drag.
I still say this basic variant is among the most powerful for its deception and flexibility. But even back in 2017 when I wrote that post, another variant was also pretty popular:
2. The Central Tuck
In this variant, we leave a little notch at the bottom of the hole we'll have to tuck a piece into before we start breaking: typically an I, S, or T. A couple nice things about it: we get a free, non-breaking placement at the bottom of the hole, which we can use while building our combo if we get into trouble with a piece we can't easy place on our columns. All placements here are hard drag and hard drop, making it easy to learn fast execution. The notched setup at the top of the left column can be a little bit easier to work with, making it easy to switch the LOJ and STZI columns for evenness if you're so inclined. The downsides here are that we eventually have to lose a little bit of time with our tuck, and that we lose the duality with the Ace that the above setup boats.
As I've pointed out elsewhere, though, this setup is dual with the Music for five pieces of placement:
While I don't know of anyone who uses this as an option select, this theoretically gives us an out if they try to counter with a side Long Combo: we can switch into a multispin to bully them into breaking early, then use our many options from there.
The no-soft-drop constraints on this one are those of the Basic Setup plus S < I, so it doesn't add any option coverage as far as first deck ordering. Thus, you'd only use this one if you prefer it to the Basic Setup. I don't, but many do.
Many other setups for a central Long Combo, on the other hand, exist largely to give us this deck-order option coverage, letting us set up without soft-drops.
3. Deck Order Handling
Handling T < S|Z
The above setups both place the T after both the S and Z, which can be awkward if your deck is something like TSZO. So if we're determined to Long Combo, we can just place the T first:
Bam. The T provides 3 squares of material in the hole, and the rest forms our columns. Of course this is for when we've decided in advance to Long Combo--obviously, we're giving up the option to first-deck T-spin by placing the T first, as well as a bunch of other options.
Another possibility, which I see rarely if-ever, is to handle O < LZ. Here we do something like this:
Kind of awkward. Essentially we're relying on getting either J or I+L towards the beginning of next deck so we can fill in the blanks. Getting JLO allows us to go straight back into the repeated 3x4 pattern:
So far, I haven't seen anyone try to handle JL < O in order to Long Combo setup, likely because most players instead choose T-spin openings with such decks. But theoretically, we can just use a JZL or JSL 3x4 instead of a JOL 3x4:
Finally, we can just drop a flat S or Z on one side, a J or L on the other, and improvise something. Your mileage may vary:
All the above is concerned with efficiently starting a Long Combo in the center. But, as I've remarked before, a Long Combo on the side builds faster, allowing it to counter the central Long Combo at the expense of greater vulnerability to quick damage. How shall we start one on the side?
4. Ctrl+Shift: The Shifted Central.
Here, we act just as if we were building a central Long Combo in the basic setup, but shift one column to columns 1-3 and another to 4-6, rather than working on 1-3 and 8-10. This is useful to people used to building central Long Combos, since we can essentially use all the exact same movements, and also preserves the duality with the Ace: we can Ace on the right.
This has downsides, though. By not taking advantage of placing things across columns two through five, we're taking some speed hit--though we're still faster than the Central because we drop pieces closer to where they start. We're also starting with the STZI column in the middle. Until we break the left-JOL / right-STZI pattern, we're building the center faster than the middle, and furthermore not having a flat center. A flat center is important to allow us to get the maximum number of breaks without exposing us one line closer to death, and it's columns 4-6 which kill us with their height rather than columns 1-3, so we'd much rather have columns 1-3 be generally higher.
5. The Flat Stack
Here, the idea is to place the I flat in columns 6-9 then build as flat as possible above it. The flatness both keeps us out of trouble in terms of piece placement and limits our vulnerability to a quick bop.
Just stacking pieces in Tetris is pretty fundamental, and everyone has their own approach. But to be a little bit formulaic here, note the immediate use of the various 8/9s: JO, LO, JZ, and LS.
The easiest thing to do is to place an 8/9 or just the S on top of the I and put a JZ or JO 8/9 on the left. From there we get a reasonably flat surface to continue the use of 8/9s, or put something into the notch and smoothly layer S and Z pieces on any little bumps. With an early T, we can just drop it next to the I and place the 8/9s on top.
6. The Side Tuck
Similar to the Central Tuck, we can just omit the I and tuck a piece later. This can be nice if the I comes late in our deck, but we've decided to side Long Combo anyway as counterplay. We may want to tuck a piece fairly early in our build, though, since if we're at height 10 and they hit us for 11, we'll be in trouble we cannot immediately break one line.
above: height 10 without having a tucked piece, against the Left-O. If they get the second T-spin before you can tuck one and break the next, you die.
We don't have to do an actual soft drop for this early piece in the hole, though. We can just put an O on the right, and we'll be able to spin in a T, S, or L if we really need to.
7. A Thought of Mine
Finally, here's a largely untested idea I've had.
The idea here is we open with the Suzy to T-spin single at piece 5. While we drop the T, we look at our opponent's board. If we've stuffed an Ace, or if they're going into a central Long Combo, we go ahead with a side Long Combo. Otherwise, we play our usual T-spin + Tetris game.
In theory, this should work as counterplay against opponents who use the Ace and the central Long Combo a large proportion of the time--we stuff the Ace with our T-spin at 5, and we counter the central with the faster-building side. Hopefully, the speed difference allows us to catch up after our initial T-spin. And if they do neither of these, we should end up reasonably even with T-spin versus T-spin.
It needs some testing. Anyone want to practice partner?
8. An Exercise
Most of the above is concerned with starting a Long Combo as fast as possible. But beyond this, one must also build the rest quickly. In particular, there's little point in a side Long Combo as counterplay if one is unlikely to outspeed or outbuild one's opponent's central Long Combo. How do you know if you're fast enough?
I recommend playing Adventure Mode Scene 10-7. This requires you to score 500 points in 15 seconds. Whichever technique you use, you should be able to pass the level the majority of the time without breaking a line. You might not always succeed, but hey, if you're not making mistakes, you're not playing fast enough.
See if you can get to height 15+ in the central and 17+ with the side in the allotted 15 seconds.
Conclusion
The many variants on the Long Combo can help us efficiently start from a wide variety of decks and counter a wide range of openings. However, effective usage requires quick building, accurate combo execution, and wise reaction to one's opponent's play. All of this comes from practice, practice, practice.
