Practical Tetris Openers

With our current Tetris guideline rules, players have developed many openers over the past decade. Some openers are made for fun, and some openers are more practical than others; each opener has its benefits and drawbacks. However, because of the vast number of openers that exist, it can be confusing for beginners to know which opener they should learn.

The purpose of this page is to show setups that are most widely used among players as their Tetris openers, depending on the order of pieces they get in their first starting bag. These openers should cover every possible opening bag sequence.

Early I

Example sequences: JTISLO, IZSLTJ

TKI

TSD積み. TKI is a very popular opener where you can send a TSD from the start, and the only requirement of this opener is an early I. This opener allows the player to have a flat stack, which is great for both offense (easier to build subsequent TSDs) and defense (downstacking).

Note: TKI refers to C-Spin in the Japanese community.

Early JL

Example sequences: LJTSZOI, JLSTZOI

DT Cannon

DT砲. DT Cannon is very popular opener as well. Since it requires 2 bags to set up, your attack will be slower than the TKI opener. However, once you build it, it sends 11 lines (TSD + B2B TST), which delivers a huge spike to your opponent.

For the first bag, notice how the L, S, and T on the stack does not require any rotations or movement from their spawn positions. Since you can just hard drop these pieces, it allows the player to build this setup extremely fast.

MKO

MKO has experienced a relatively recent surge in popularity because of its ability to match TKI's efficiency when not using T as the overhang. Having good stacking skills absolutely required, so this opener is not recommended for beginners.

Early STZ

Example Sequences: ZTSJOLI, SOTZLJI

TKI and DT Cannon cover the majority of bags, but sometimes neither are possible or hard to see, especially when your opening bag has an early SZ. For these cases, here are some options you can choose from.

PCO

A popular option. The player will attempt to start with a perfect clear (sends 10 lines) with this Perfect Clear Opener. Even if you are unable to make a perfect clear, there are many follow-up options to choose from.

C-Spin

TKI積み. TST → TSD or TST opener. The greatest strength of this opener is that it leaves a clean field. Much of the follow-ups after the opener are done free-style. Read more about it here.

Like MKO, the better you get at stacking, the better this opener becomes.

Early OSZ

Example Sequences: JOZLSIT, ZOSILJT

Perfect Clear Opener and C-Spin can be used for many of these sequences, but Hachispin is a relatively popular choice as well.

Hachispin

Hachispin used to be a niche opener, but it has been becoming more and more popular due to how reliable it is while having minimal dependencies.