Tetrinet Strategies

A strategy for tetris!!? Yes, that's right. Tetrinet is so different from regular tetris because of the special blocks. Special blocks are the key to winning a tetrinet game. The main portion of this page involves using your blocks as efficiently as possible. Also, I am writing this assuming you play on classic mode. Regular mode takes way to long to finish a game and it wastes time.

Special Block description

A - Addline block, adds one line to a field.
C - Clear line block, clears one line of a field.
N - Nuke block, clears an entire field of blocks, use on allies or yourself.
R - Random blocks clear, clears ten random blocks from a field.
S - Switch block, switches your field with another player's.
B - Clear special blocks, turns all special blocks in a field to ordinary blocks.
G - Gravity block, gets rid of all holes in a field and sucks all blocks downward, getting rid of special blocks in the process.
Q - Block quake, shifts the blocks of a field all around, destroying possible tetri. (plural for tetris, hehe)
O - Block bomb, blows a 3x3 hole around all O blocks and relocates the blocks, usually near the top of the field.

Download a quick referance file to print out (right click the link and select "save link as")

Important Tips

Defensive Offensive Misc

Defensive Strategies

Certain blocks are better than others. You would be much better off getting a nuke block than a clear random blocks block. Learn to recognize the most important blocks. If you are playing an experienced player, get them as quickly as you can, even if it means creating a hole by dropping a piece that doesn't fit just to clear the line the special is on. The reason for this is when an experienced player sees a N or a G block on your screen, he will try to clear it immediately using any means possible. When playing mediocre players or newbies I usually dont worry about this because they usually have used up all their specials or aren't paying attention to your field. Instead I use the time to set up a slot where I can capitalize on the one special by clearing 3 or 4 lines at the same time and getting 3 or 4 G's or N's.
If you have an N or a G block, you may not want to use it right away. Instead, try to do as much as possible with the field you have at the moment before clearing it and emptying yourself of defense blocks. Try and save it for when you really need it, because there is nothing more frustrating than nuking your field, only to have an opponent immediately switch fields with you and getting his crap field.
If you are on a team, help your teammates! It is stupid not to help them if they are in trouble and you have extra gravities or nukes just lying around. You are only killing yourself because when they die, there will be noone to help you or attack your enemy. Make sure you do not nuke your teammates field when he is setting up a switch though, ask if he needs help first.
Always use the upcoming piece screen. While you are dropping your current piece, be looking for a place to drop your upcoming piece. This will allow you to work quicker and more efficiently.
Gravity blocks often create long slots perfect for getting tetri. If you have a Gravity block that you are about to use, try and wait until you have a line (straight blue piece) in your upcoming piece box. When you get one, drop your current piece, use the gravity, and immediately drop the line into the slot that the G block created. If you do this correctly, you will get a tetris and add four lines to your opponent's field before he even sees your freshly gravitied field and tries to ruin it.
To elaborate on the previous strategy, if you have a gravity, and you know you are going to be needing to use it soon here is what to do: Look for the vertical line in your field which has the most number of holes, and don't drop any blocks in it or on top of it. Instead, drop blocks all around it as much as you can. Then, wait till you have a line coming up and use your G. The empty vertical slot should be enormous and blocks should be piled up to the right and left of it. If you don't get attacked, it should be good for 2 or even 3 tetrises and a mother lode of specials if you get enough lines (straight blue pieces).

Offensive Strategies

If you see an opponent about to get a devastating block such as N, G, or S, use a B block and get rid of those! Try to keep your opponent from getting such blocks or he/she will have the definate edge on you. I usually don't waste a B if I see the enemy about to get a block like R or something, not a big deal. Save it for the damaging specials
The Switch Technique: Many people have figured out how to use the Switch block very effectively. The idea is to get your field as crappy as possible, build it up to the top full of holes, and then switch fields with an opponent who is doing very well. This can drive the nail in the coffin for them if they don't have a nuke or gravity.
It is very easy to spot a player about to switch. An extremely effective strategy is to wait until they have built their field up to the top and are just about to switch, then very quickly add as many lines as you can to their field. They will not have time to switch and will die immediately. I have received and dealt this trick many times and it is devastating.
If you are setting up to switch, do not attack the other player with block quakes and the like. Instead, clear his lines if you can, and attack yourself. This way, when you switch, you will have the best field possible.
If you see a player about to get a tetris, use Q or R blocks immediately. A tetris from an opponent will add four hole filled lines to your field and put a serious curb on your performance. A quake block is the best for this situation because it frequently shift the blocks completely so that the line where the tetris was to be made, cannot even be seen.
Use the sides of your field to your advantage. Holding down the left or right arrow key gets your block over much quicker, but it is hard to get it exactly above where you want to drop it. If you need to drop a line say one blocks length away from the right side, hold the right arrow key to get it over to the right side quickly, then press the left arrow key once and space bar to drop it instantly. If you can master this technique, it will enable you to build much quicker and get the jump on your opponent.

Misc Strategies

OK, here is a cool setting I found that can help you build faster. Go to the Control Panel and double click "keyboard". Move the repeat delay all the way up to the short side, and move the repeat rate all the way up to the fast end. Now, when you press and hold an arrow key to move your blocks right or left, it will not only start moving them faster, but once they start moving, they will actually travel at a faster rate. A small improvement, but every little bit helps.
If there is a special block you want, you can get it by clearing the line that it is on (not with a C). However, if you clear two lines in the process, you get 2 of those special blocks. It is the same way with 3 lines, and even 4. So, if there is 1 nuke block, and you clear 4 lines while obtaining it, you will get a gauranteed 4 nuke blocks, plus other goodies that pop out. Waiting for a tetris can be risky though, because other players may see what you are planning and clear your special blocks, or use a quake and ruin your tetris.
You can change your name color in Tetrinet. Download my help file, or Ross Korsky's program to find out how. (both available in the files section of my page)
You can join a tetrinet game multiple times! All you do is run tetrinet, join the server, run another tetrinet, and join the server again under a different nick. This is usefull because sometimes when you change your name color, it looks different to you then it does to other people, so you can create a server with your colored name, then join your own server and see for yourself what other people see. Also fun to play tricks on friends :)
You can make your score on the winlist whatever you want! Go to your tetrinet.ini file and open it with notepad. There should be a line that looks something like this:
Winlist=pPulper;58 pJoe;17 tDestroyers;5 tTnetBoyz; 4
That tells tetrinet that pulper has 58 points, joe has 17 and etc. The p before each name stands for player, and the t before each name stands for team. All you have to do is edit the winlist to make the data appear how you want it. For instance if I was playing Joe again, I might edit the winlist line to say something like this:
Pulper;528 Joe;12
Try not to make it too obvious by putting Pulper;9999999 Joe;0 because that is just lame. Now sometimes, for some reason this doesnt always work. I don't know why but I know how to fix it. If you edit your winlist line, then start a server on tetrinet and it shows what it showed before you edited it, you will have to do something else. Here is what I do if it doesn't work, I edit the winlist to the way I want it in tetrinet.ini, then I delete tetrinet.exe and extract a new one from my backup zip file of tetrinet. That has worked every single time for me. Usually you should be able to get away with just editing the tetrinet.ini winlist line and saving it though.
OK, this is really something you need to be aware of. Tetrinet veterans I'm sure know this already but for the newbies, here it is: There is a glitch that occasionally occurs in tetrinet using the switch fields block. Here is what happens. Say you have a nice field, and somebody else has a bad field. They switch with you, and you get their bad field (you know the routine). Sometimes what happens is, when they switch with you and get your good field, it doesnt fully register on their screen to you. So say you have a freshly nuked field and a guy with a crappy field switches with you, you will get his horrible field, but instead of getting a freshly nuked field, TO YOU he will still have a bunch of extra blocks up top. Now, to him, his field is freshly nuked.. you just don't see it that way. This is not good because if you try to switch back with him, you will get all those extra blocks that you can see which aren't REALLY there. This usually does not happen with a single switch at the beginning of the game. It is more prone to happen using multiple switches, or late in the game when a lot of things have been going on. I have also noticed that a combination of block bomb and switch will almost always leave extra blocks where they shouldn't be when switching. This was not meant to happen and it is unfair, but it happens to everybody so you just have to learn to recognize it and deal with it.
Here is a very interesting thing to play around with. Set up a tetrinet server, only dont put your nickname in. Instead put in a space or two for your nickname. You will have to hold the spacebar and click "start server" at the same time. Anyway, once you have the server started and people have joined, there are some weird side effects. First of all, people will see you as "<>" when you type, and you will not be in the names list at the top right of partyline. Also, people can not attack you! This means if you take off classic mode, you will be invincible! Another cool side effect is this: You can select a blank spot under the names list and hit the "kick" button. It should say *** has been kicked. You have to change teams to see it, but once you do, you will see "kicked" up in the name list, and nobody will be able to join that slot. This means you can limit the people who join your game to however many you want just by kicking blank spots multiple times. Isn't that cool?!
Another weird worthless tip, and you heard it here first! :) You CAN have spaces in your name when joining a tetrinet server, but there is a special way to do it and it has some weird effects. If you have tried to type in a space for your name like "Bob Smith", Tetrinet has most likely deleted the space as soon as you typed it. Even if you typed "BobSmith" and then went back, held the space button and pressed connect (like you do with color), tetrinet will give you an error message like "tetrinet version () does not match server's (1.13). So here is what you do: Go to a text editor and type in your name.. using our previous example I will go with "Bob Smith". Only in between the Bob Smith, type "1.13" So it will look like this: "Bob 1.13 Smith". Now highlight this and copy it to the clipboard. Go into tetrinet, type in the IP of the server you are connecting to, then press CTRL V to paste your nickname and while you are pressing CTRL V, press the "connect" button. What happens is that you will join the server and go into partyline, and people will just see you as "Bob". You will see yourself as "Bob 1.13 Smith" however, AND when you go into the show fields tab and type, EVERYONE will see you as "Bob 1.13 Smith". I have no Idea how this could be usefull except to confuse people (which is what I do :) ). I join the server as "A 1.13 TnetMan", then people see me as "A" and when we start playing I type "hi guys can I play?" and they're like, hey 1.13 tnetman, where did you come from? How come I dont see your field? HAH!