Tetris Effect Boss Abilities

Credit to Doremy for outlining each boss's ability. Thanks to Enhance Discord's members for helping make this page better, especially Electra. Huge thanks and credit to Electra for tips for each boss.

Each boss has its combination of attacks (officially termed as "Blitzes") that it performs once the meter gets charged. One of them is unique to the boss (will be referred to as "Signature Attack"), while others are shared in common between bosses in the same "Area."

Knowing these are useful for playing against bosses or selecting which boss you'd like to play in Connected VS.

General

Each boss has its unique ability, but in general,

• Attacks usually alternate between the signature attack and common attacks.
• Some attacks are timed, while others are not. We'll expand on this next section.
• Attacks progress through 4 different levels of strength. The power and complexity of their attacks increase over time.
• Later boss attacks are almost always combined.

Look at bitbybyte's excellent spreadsheet to see how much weight is given to each attack when the boss decides which one to choose.

Summary Table

Attacks marked with are timed attacks, meaning that they will last for a particular duration no matter what you do. Attacks marked wih are attacks that affect a set number of your following pieces. If you don't do anything, they'll just stay there. For example, you need to drop 2 twin pieces for Twins. The rest of the attacks are one-time attacks that will affect your field once.

 Player It is possible to stall out timed attacks . While you wouldn't be pressuring the boss at all, stalling is sometimes the better option than irreversibly destroying your stack.

 Boss Due to differing abilities, each boss has its own strategy that works best for itself. For some, it's better to play very aggressively and send out attacks as much as possible. For others, you'd want to play more defensively. For bosses that send out timed attacks (e.g., Virgo and No Spin), timing is essential: Send it, upstack and/or defend while they are active, and attack again to refresh the effect once the previous attack becomes inactive.

 Boss Keep in mind that all timed attacks disappear when a new attack goes into effect. For example, if you send another attack while Unstable is in effect, Unstable will end before the new attack goes into effect.

Bump Up

All bosses have this attack. The attack itself is pretty simple as it just adds some garbage lines. However, it will often be the move that tops you out later in the game.

Area 1

Area 1 bosses require the least amount of line clears to charge their meters, so they can be charged pretty quickly. They are all pretty good.

Rain

You'll have blocks "rain" on top of your field.

Soft Drop

Self-explanatory. You can't hard drop, and it will slow you down.

Pisces ♓️

Pop In

Some blocks pop in. This attack will never target a row that has exactly 9 blocks in it because it would give you a free line clear.

Pop Out

Blocks pop out.

These attacks get powerful late-game, so later, they will disrupt your field a lot.

 Player Because the more rows you have, the more rows you will have affected, try to keep your field low.

 Boss Defend initially and then play very aggressively to keep the players slowed while bumping their field up.

Sagittarius ♐️

Laser

The boss shoots arrows that pierce through your stack. More arrows will go through your stack later on.

Similar to Pisces' attack, it can become potent late-game. It will start sending 2 vertical lasers, which will create I dependencies that can be very hard to fill if you have a high stack.

 Player Again, try to keep your field low. The higher your stack, the more it will mess up your field.

 Boss Play very aggressively, similar to how you'd play Pisces. Keep up the attacks to avoid getting killed before your attack gets truly powerful.

Taurus ♉️

Giant

Makes your pieces 4 times larger.

Once you reach level 2, you will start sending 2 giant pieces at once, which is very good (for the boss). 1 giant piece won't affect the players too much because you can hold it, but multiple giant pieces can be devastating.

 Player Try to create flat areas on your stack so that you'll have a place to put your giant pieces if necessary. O blocks are good for filling in gaps between giant pieces. 2-wide and 4-wide wells are also good. Try not to hold on to a giant piece for too long because if you're stuck with it and then you get pushed up, it won't be a good spot to be in.

 Boss Again, play similar to how you'd play Pisces. You can go pretty aggressive.

Area 2

Twist

"Twists" your stack vertically. It can create multiple I dependencies.

No Hold

Disables hold. It is not hard to deal with when it's on its own, but it's powerful when combined with other attacks such as Twist.

Cancer ♋️

Unstable

This attack changes your next pieces to "unstable" pieces that look firey.

When one "unstable" piece touches another "unstable" piece, they'll explode, affecting the surrounding blocks.

This attack hardly does anything until you get into later phases when it sends many unstable pieces, but even then, players can wait until the pieces stop being unstable because this is a timed attack.

 Player Avoid touching an unstable piece with another unstable piece. If you have nowhere to place your piece in later phases, wait until the attack times out.

 Boss Winning with this boss is on the harder side. Twist and Bump Up, rather than Unstable, will usually be the attacks that will top out your opponents. Try to play defensively on earlier phases to survive until you get into the late phase of the game.

Libra ♎️

Hard Field

Makes certain lines in the field harder to clear. You'll need to clear those lines twice to get rid of them.

Hard Block

Makes the piece harder to clear. Note the first field below.

These attacks can be pretty good. The hard blocks can make it almost impossible to downstack. These hard blocks persist even after the boss sends out new attacks, which makes it even better.

 Player These attacks can disrupt your field a lot. Know your spins. For Hard Block, try to place them flat so that they occupy fewer lines, and if you can, try to place them all in the same lines. Filling a row with all hard blocks will clear the line at once. It could be better to just build on top of the hard blocks in some situations rather than trying to clear them.

 Boss Due to how powerful Hard Block and Hard Field can be, playing very aggressively can often be rewarding. If you're high up on your board, you should probably give up defense and just go all out.

Scorpio ♏️

Fast

Makes your pieces fall faster.

This attack is bad at lower levels because it doesn't affect the players much. However, it gets more and more powerful as the game goes on because it reduces lock delay. At the highest level, the speed reaches Level 30, which is essentially an instant kill.

 Player Try to kill the boss before it starts sending out attacks with higher speeds. Once it reaches high speeds, try to use DAS to move your pieces as it will keep resetting the lock delay and buy you more time. Spamming the rotation buttons can also help.

 Boss As with other bosses that have attacks that get powerful later on, play defensively, and survive in the early stages. Not a good boss unless you're very good at defensive play. The following applies to all timed attacks, but once you reach the max level, make sure not to attack again while Fast is active because it will cancel the effect.

Area 3

Some consider these bosses to be the strongest for Connected VS. Their signature attacks and common attacks are both good, but they do require a decent amount of lines to charge.

Spin

Randomly mixes up your stack. It's a very good move that instantly messes up your field.

No Next

Disables previewing your next piece.

Gemini ♊️

Twins

Duplicates the piece and joins them. They tend to get further apart in later phases.

Gemini is probably the weakest of the Area 3 bosses. The twin pieces can be annoying, but they're not devastating. Spin would be the greater damage dealer here.

 Player Keep your field low and flat so that you can deal with the twin pieces.

 Boss Like Taurus, its signature move affects a certain amount of next pieces. So, you can play similar to how you'd play Taurus but play a bit more defensively because it may take some time to top out the players.

Aries ♈️

Invert

Inverts your field. At first, it will only invert a couple of lines, but it will invert your whole field in later phases.

Aries is arguably the best boss in the game. Inverse is very powerful, and it can completely ruin your stack. It also meshes very well with its other Area attacks—Spin and Bump Up.

 Player Try to play very low and play smart to fix your field once you get hit with Invert. It's sometimes possible to build on top of an inverted board for aggressive plays, but this strategy is not sustainable.

 Boss Play very aggressively, even attacking during the first two zone. Its attacks are devastating.

Virgo ♍️

No Spin

Freezes your current piece's rotation state while spawning pieces in random frozen rotation states.

Virgo is also a very powerful boss. The name "No Spin" doesn't sound daunting, but it can make it incredibly hard to play for the players.

 Player Try to play as much as you reasonably can to avoid wasting time, but at a certain point, you will need to stall until the attack times out. It can help to be aware that the pieces can move 15 times at each row-level before locking for stalling. You can count 14 movements back and forth on each step of your stack before moving to the next step.

 Boss Try to keep the players in No Spin as much as possible. Attack to activate No Spin, then charge the attack meter to be a bit under full to prepare the next attack. As soon as No Spin ends, attack again, and then do another attack as fast as possible to reactivate No Spin. In between, upstack and/or defend as much as possible.

Area 4

No Hold & No Next

Identical to the attacks in Area 2 and Area 3.

Hi-Stakes

Instantly creates multiple I dependencies, which greatly disrupts your stack and makes you top-out. The difference between this attack and Area 1's "Rain" is that the blocks will never be next to each other and that they'll always be 4 blocks tall. It's similar to Countdown in single-player mode.

Capricon ♑️

Trimino

It gives you minos that look like:

Pentomino

Gives you the standard pentominos.

Broken

Later on, Capricorn will give you "broken" pieces. It will give you weird minos like:

Oshisaure has created a nice overview of what kinds of pieces are in the game, including broken minos:

Alright I think that's every piece in Tetris Effect: Connected, grouped by how they rotate (which also groups them by shape kinda). From top to bottom:
- ¼ turn symmetry
- 4x1
- 5x1
- 3x2
- 4x2 left handed
- 4x2 right handed
- 3x3
- 3x3 with diagonal symmetry
- T5 acting like T4 pic.twitter.com/6dp9bXcnhM

— ＜∫∮｡•﹏•)＼） (@oshisaure) April 12, 2021

Once Capricorn gets to Broken, it's very tough to deal with. It's almost guaranteed that each piece will disrupt your stack. Broken goes well with Hi-Stakes, the common attack shared by Area 4 bosses.

 Player Place as many pieces as you can, but with Broken you will often have to stall because these can really mess up your stack.

 Boss In the beginning, play rather defensively to get to the later phase where you will start sending Broken. If you can get to this phase, you will have a high chance of winning. Don't forget that Trimino/Pentomino/Broken are timed attacks, so don't cancel them by sending the next attack too quickly. Defend and/or upstack in between.

Aquarius ♒️

Squeeze

It creates "walls" that restrict the columns where you can place your mino. It can restrict up to half of your columns.

This is a timed attack. It's very effective, particularly with No Hold.

 Player Play low, play smart. You may have to stall, especially when you can't hold. Fortunately, the walls don't move unless you place a mino.

 Boss Try to keep the players in a constant state of Squeeze by instantly refreshing the attack as soon as it ends.

Leo ♌️

Hide Field

You'll need to drop a certain number of pieces to see your field again. Later phases require more drops.

Leo isn't that great against good players, and Hide Field in the earlier phases essentially accomplishes nothing. Great players won't have much difficulty playing on invisible fields, even in later phases.

 Player Being good at memorization helps. Remember what the top of your stack looks like. Try to think about where your next pieces could go before the attack starts. Looking at the ghost piece and moving it around can help you get a sense of your field. Knowing which piece combinations can go together without knowing the stack beneath (e.g., JOL) can help.

 Boss Like the other Area 4 bosses, Hide Field is a timed attack. Try to keep the players in this constant state.

Area 5

Tetrimidion is the Area 5 boss. It can pick from any of the attacks, but charging will take a lot longer.

It essentially picks a random area and then sends a signature blitz from that area. The common blitzes will always be from that area too. For example, you can get Twist/Fast (both from Area 2) but not Spin/Fast (Spin from Area 3 and Fast from Area 4). The attacks start out stronger too.

In the regular Connected mode, the third phase of this area requires all three teammates to be alive to defeat the boss. If you enter Zone in phase 3 and a player is dead, your Connected Zone attacks will do 0 damage.

See Also / References

was bored so i decided to write a small guide about tetris effect connected mode

here is all what i gathered about how the attacks work, and the abilities of all 12 zodiac bosses.

might be helpful if you're looking for something specific

last image is a table sum up. pic.twitter.com/fNY6myHO9S

— Doremy (@doremypuyotet) November 22, 2020