From my recent training: If you reach 300 at 1:59 or less, you don't need to lock at all from 300 to 500 to reach 500 at 3:24 (but still need to play clean and don't loose time at counterstops) 1:55 is perfect because you can make plenty of mistakes without locking at all (well, unless you loose 10 seconds at 399 ) If you reach 300 at 2:05, you won't need to lock IF and only if you play perfectly clean, get some tetrises and so on (I frequently start to lock at around 485 because I realise I won't make it). If you lock a bit now and then, it's perfect. In my opinion, the easiest section to improve massively is the 200-300 section. It's still "not that" difficult and you get really fast time if you lock aggressively. To conclude, I would say that if you can lock all the 300 section, you won't have any problems reaching M grade consistantly. So... play only the 300 section from now
the problem is that reaching 300 in 1:55 requires much more skill (on a western scale at least) than simply surviving 300-500, i've done it maybe once only
Concentrate on reaching level 300 between 02:05 and 02:10 and surviving 300-500 for now nicofromtokyo. Check out my first m that I linked to in my signature. It's a good example on how to obtain m without manual locking through 300-500.
I really wonder why, we white people, should suffer any kind of complex compared to any asian players
It's just a matter of time, I think. Beside a few players that saw exceptionally fast improvement, the Western community is about where it should be considering that it sprouted up a few years after TGM first hit Japanese arcades.
I wanted to stress that 300@1:55 is very very good altough some guy like 309 can reach it in less than 1:40. I believe that if you can do that 1:55 you are already at M level.
I shoot for... Code: 100 @ 0:40-0:47 200 @ 1:15-1:25 300 @ 1:58-2:07 400 @ 2:35-2:42 500 @ 3:15-3:25 I am usually 1:58-2:07 at 300. Manual locking 300-400 gets me to 400 at about 2:35-2:40. I can manlock 400 but usually don't, training for the m speed, and get m at 3:18 or thereabouts.
I think your own manual-lock comfortability and style (osaka-style? >) should determine where you should manual-lock, given the rough constraints. Clearly you need to lock all of 0-300, but beyond that you have some flexibility. I myself prefer to go through 0-300 trying to go "pretty fast", but not blazingly fast because that ends up making me slower as I end up making more mistakes. Then I manual lock all of 300, possibly making a few mistakes in the process. Once I hit 400 I stop manual locking immediately and focus on clean stacking and downstacking, which helps me hit 500 with a lower stack (and therefore better time). Basically, exactly what rednefed said. Here's a video of my first M where I got a stupidly terrible 50-second first section time, hit 300 at 2:08, and then manual locked till 400 at 2:44, where I focus on downstacking and reach 500 at 3:20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9g7mssvOwQ Again, you may choose to try and get through 0-300 faster, using either smart stacking (though, keep in mind that line clear is more negligible in death mode), or osaka-style bruteforcing, and then manual lock little (or even none) of 300. Or you may choose to manual lock the whole thing, even 400-500. I think crazedreveng does this and was probably doing so when he got his M. If you're one of those people where not manual locking seems to throw you out of control, you might want to try it if you can handle the speed. On the other hand if you're like me and you handle non-manual lock finesse a lot more comfortably, I think manual locking 400-500 is really unnecessary considering you can focus on downstacking instead (it'll prepare you for the transition into 500 anyways). I also personally don't recommend "lock half of the time" for any section. Maybe other people have had more success with it, but I find that I need to either commit myself to locking or commit myself to not locking--if I try to "lock when I feel comfortable and then stop when things get hectic" it leads to a very unstable feeling of play trying to transition between the two modes.
My biggest problem is that if I don't lock at 400, I don't feel like I control the game ,therefore, I play the 400 section better if I lock. However, if I lock at 400, I absolutely need to lock at 500 (which is rather, er, HARD lol) or else, I will do a lot of "IRS misdrops" (pressing one button thinking I will IRS when the previous tetromino wasn't actually locked). Damn do I hate that 400 section T___T Edit: felt like I didn't improve for ages I wish next time, I'll improve a lot more
I think I mainly do better when not manual locking not because of the raw speed, but because I can spend lock delay time thinking about and preparing for the next piece's placement, which is a lot longer than ARE alone. I guess the technically the ramifications of shorter lock delay + ARE are similar to as if you had cut lock delay yourself by manual-locking, but it still feels different since you're "done" with the current piece earlier. Theoretically you could learn to recognize situations where rotations or horizontal motions won't affect the current piece, and use it to your advantage to "pre-" IRS or DAS the next piece, but that's probably too complicated to really think about seriously, and shouldn't be necessary anyways.
