001Woo! >> Mhm. >> Hello everyone. Welcome to the quarterfinal round of the IHSE Tetrio postseason. I am Jayden. I am joined today by my very special guest, the principal of the school. Stacy Morrison. Mhm. And we are down to just eight players remaining in the playoffs of the league. four of our players are in the eight. We are still in the running for state finals hosted by the arena at Innovation Mile located in Hamilton County just 30 minutes north of Indianapolis. All right. Usually this is where I pass it over to a friend that I I guess I'm kind of just going A bit alone, yes, because I don't have a lot to offer. I am excited to be here though and learn a bit a little bit more about the gaming. The gaming, yes.
002The one and only. Yes. Tetrio. Well, it's traditionally called Tetris, but you know the the website is called Tetrio, but everyone still calls it Tetris. And by everyone I mean me, just me. And me. Yes, and you now. The infection. Anyway, um the players on the Cyber Tiger still standing uh four out of the eight still left in the playoffs. We have Emmett aka Lego Master, Bartolo aka xdarkninja, Jordan aka StrixyX1, and Hunter aka LazySoul7, the defending state champion looking to make it back. Now, if I remember from last year the semifinals and finals round are both at state, yeah? Yes. They are. So, this is the last round that we are playing this season here at the school. Anyone who wins tonight will punch their ticket to the arena. And starting shortly first seed
003of the entire tournament, the defending state champion Hunter, our very own, our second generation talent, is going to be going up against Obarosa, the eighth seed from Bloomington High School. Good luck to Hunter. Mhm. Good luck to both of them. Both of them, sure. Oh yeah, and this is the this is the match that is getting streamed on like the actual IHSE uh um like stream. More eyes are on Hunter than ever during one of these home games. Even more will be on him if he makes it past Obarosa or Barbosa. Don't want to mess up his name. And coming to you later tonight after this match, our third seed Jordan aka StrixyX1 is going to go up against AxSprout or ACCSprout, however you pronounce that, the 11th seed from Adams Central High School. And
004the final match of the night is going to be a sad one because it is Cyber Tiger versus Cyber Tiger. Our second seed Bartolo aka xdarkninja going up against seven seed Emmett aka Lego Master. Both Cyber Tigers. So, unfortunately we can't have an all Cyber Tiger playoff. It would have been sick. But sadly we must see one of these players from our own squad go. Have any of those other ones been Is this a second time for a chance at state? Um I believe I can't remember if Jordan went last year, but Bartolo did. So, both Hunter and Bartolo I know are fighting to get another state run. Okay, and state is when? State is the 26th. That's a Saturday, yeah? Okay. It's the 25th or the 26th. I don't remember which one. It's the
005Saturday. Oh, it's the 25th. The 25th. Thank you so much. How much practice does normally goes into preparing for these tournaments? Well, um specifically the Tetris team, they have Monday and Wednesday, I believe, practices. Um normal practices last half an hour, so 3:00 to 4:30. Game days last all the way till up to 6:00. If we don't have a game on a day that would be a game day, sometimes practice still does go for that extra hour and a half. Okay. So, all this is all year round, too. The Cyber Tigers put in work. I've I know that for sure. How much time do you think you guys are putting in and outside of your time here at the school? Well, I can't really say for them. But for for me in games like Smash
006Bros, I put in plenty of time. I'm I'm sure it's I'm sure it's the same for for people like Hunter and Bartolo playing at the level that they are. I'm sure they put in hours after school as well very often. So, right now we are just waiting for our first match of the night. Uh Hunter versus Barbosa. I believe are there scholarships now for e-sports as well? There are scholarships, yes. Okay. Is that for any of the games or just certain schools have different games that they focus on? Uh certain schools have different games, but most of the time there's like uh certain pool of games that you'll that's like normal to see, stuff like Overwatch, Smash. A lot of the stuff that we offer can be found at a bunch of different other uh
007colleges. Okay. But yeah, there are e-sports scholarships. I'm trying to get uh Hunter's looking at the the stream where his match is going to be, the the IHSE one. Yeah, I think with the I think with the exception of Hunter just looking for the looking for the stream that he's going to be on. He's going to be famous. Uh a lot of our Cyber Tigers are just uh you know, playing friendly matches, getting warm. Okay. So, if your if you're basketball game, you have a warm up, do you do that with e-sports as well? Basically, yeah. So, that's the friendly matches that you're talking about to kind of get Yeah. The friendly matches, no stakes, just to make sure you're not going in cold. Okay. It's essentially putting up practice shots. That is a good
008way to put it. All right. Is that usually a half hour before, 15 minutes, or what do we Um yeah, the players have had about um they've had their hour and a half of normal practice and they've had their half an hour before 5:00 when the games are scheduled to start. Okay, so they practice the same day as the event then. Yes. >> Same day and then do their warm-up matches as well. Yeah, on almost all of our eSports I believe the game days are the same days as practice days. I think Mario Kart was like the one exception. Like I think that's it. It was just like Okay. scheduling stuff. Okay. I was watching some of the warm-ups and they move pretty quick with Tetris. There's a lot of decision-making that's going on in
009a very small amount of time. Yeah, a lot of it is just instinct when you're going that fast. Yeah. But yeah, they go they go so hard. I barely even know how to commentate it sometimes. I I remember the first stream, I think the first stream I ever commentated on was a Tetris stream and I wasn't like very good yet. I didn't really know what was going on. So then you fill for me, right? >> Yeah. I I To an extent, I know what it is like to not know how to commentate a game and then go straight into commentating a player like Hunter. It is very rough. The famous quote, "This is uncommentatable." I'm very proud of that quote. Great. So that's the one you choose me for. The tough one. Yeah, the good
010job getting so lucky. At least I've played this version of this game, the old school Tetris. Yeah, to an extent I believe most people who are familiar with just video games will probably know how Tetris works. But um when you turn it into like a one-v-one battle format game, that's where some explaining needs to be done. And I might as well now because everyone's just kind of like sitting there congregating around Hunter's PC waiting for him to start. But um so in Battle Tetris you got two different boards, two different people. If one person clears a certain amount of like lines, they will send garbage blocks, gray blocks that appear at the bottom of the player's board Okay. >> over to the opponent and the goal is to push them all the way up so
011they cap out before you. Got it. So they just the Tetris game already decides what junk blocks or they're just junk blocks they're blocking off. Does it matter? Like is it one level, two, three lines? How does that work? What's a junk block? It just depends. Oh, they're going. But yeah, it it just depends. Like you know, clearing four lines will send more lines than just two. If you clear a bunch in a combo but the moves that you'll be seeing a lot to send the most amount of garbage, they would those would be quad clears where you clear four lines in a row and T-spins where you make a T-shape hole and you spin the purple T-shaped block into it and a double of that sends as much as a quad and triple is
012the most damage you can do normally. >> was pretty quick. Yeah, in the time that it took for me to explain T-spins, it is 1-0. On the left side of your screen, your cyber tiger Hunter trying to go to state for another run. Yeah, there's the T-spin double I was talking about, that T-shape hole. Spin it in there, sends that gray sends those gray blocks to push up on his side of the board. So he apparently just made a great move there because it is 2-0. Yeah, very solid move. These matches can go very fast. This probably isn't going to be a very long stream. We only have three of these. This is the first on the card. Looks like he's making a lot of good decisions and good placements again. Setting up all the
013T-spins that he can, sending a quad to finish off the round. And Hunter, the defending state champion, number one seed in the tournament, has punched another ticket to state. Nice job. Mhm. I'm sure he'll stick around to see how the rest of the cyber tigers do. Maybe we can get him in for a talk. This is a good big accomplishment. >> Yes. Mhm. And state is in Indianapolis? Or close to it, Hamilton County. Yeah, pretty close to Indianapolis. This is a venue we haven't been to before. Last two years it's been Ball State hosting it. Okay. Arena at Innovation Mile. Mhm. When they have these games at state, do they put them up on a huge screen? Kind of I've seen some of the larger arenas, I think with Japan maybe, some of the those
014countries seem to have eSports are huge and they do the whole arenas where everyone can see. Is that how it is with state or how do they do that? Yeah, it will be this year. Yeah, I mean I I wouldn't say it's as like grand as like the huge eSports tournaments that you see but they're but it still usually is when you have like an event with spectators, it's usually two computers, two rigs, whatever setup they are. Maybe they're side by side, maybe they're facing each other. And then like it's usually like a projector or a different TV that's got both of their screens on it. Okay. So everyone can watch. Is it kind of like the main arena almost like if you have a wrestling match or whatever and then the um the spectators
015on the outside? I I want to advocate for that. I've seen some like eSports arenas that are inside of like a wrestling ring. It's just so it's so over the top, I love it. But Jordan getting started. Yes, we have our second match of the night, Jordan StrixyX1 on the left side of the screen, that is your cyber tiger going up against Sprout from Adams Central. Looks like he's made another good move or a move. Mhm, yes, a good move. Setting up another T-spin. This might cap Sprout out. No, Sprout's not done yet. Jordan just got a little bit left to go. There it is. >> Round one of the first to three going to Jordan. Setting up another T-spin double, setting up a T-spin triple which into another T-spin double. Have you noticed that
016this is a rather prominent move? There we go. >> 2-0. And there's there's a lot of decisions that have to be made in a very, very, very small amount of time. It's impressive. Yes, all these like setups that you have to memorize with all the like bags and possibilities of blocks that you can start with. And having to actually execute that at this speed with the pressure of the competitor. It's not like you're just against yourself. You've got someone that you're going against but he gets it done. Yeah. In an impressive showing, another cyber tiger punching his ticket to state. Jordan StrixyX1 is going. And we still waiting on the next one then. Final match is Bartolo. Well yeah, we do have Bartolo and Emmett both in a lobby so I'm sure we're just moments
017away from starting our last match of the night. The cyber tiger v cyber tiger Bartolo, seed two of the tournament versus Emmett, seed seven. When preparing for this game, do they memorize strategies almost like a chess piece when you're playing chess? You have all kinds of moves and strategies that you prepare. Are you doing that with this game as well? Um, I'm not sure how comparable Tetris is to chess. I'm saying memorizing moves and looking at strategies. Is that I I guess I guess you could say that in the sense of like they have like openers and specific like ways they want to do things in a specific order. I guess you could compare it to that a bit. All right. Much faster but Yeah, way faster. Debatable if it's more thinking. I imagine it's
018more instinct. I I have to guess chess is more thinking. All right, this screen seems to be set up a bit differently so Bartolo is the big board in the middle, Emmett is the one off to the side, the smaller one. Uh this is a setup that some people use to just like emphasize their board more so they just have like they're just more comfortable with where they're looking at and stuff. A bit more confusing on the viewer. But like if it's if it's what gets it done for you. And Bartolo with the T-spin triple into a T-spin double combo setting up another T-spin double. Emmett actually holding his own. I was expecting a lot of pushback from that attack from Bartolo. 17 seconds. Yep, they go fast as you've seen. 2-0 right now. Bartolo,
019one round away from going on another state run. Setting up a T-spin triple. Only gets the single off of it. All right. So yeah, now that now that his plan messed up, I don't think he executed it exactly how he wanted to. So he's got to adapt a little bit more, take some time, breathe a little bit, look at your blocks. He He misdropped again there. See, it's the It's the execution part of it that just adds a whole other layer of difficulty just to playing Tetris. Emmett's holding his own on this one. He is. From From 17-second game to we are already at 45 seconds. Mhm. They've been canceling each other's attacks pretty well. They're not too far away from each other in terms of like where they are on the board. Bartolo sending
020a quad over. That's going to do some damage. Emmett close to capping out. He sent a good attack. Bartolo with another unfortunate misdrop while he's trying to counter. Sending a solid combo. Emmett has been playing at the top of the board. He has been surviving though. Just barely though. It's a good game. >> it. >> Good game. A very solid effort coming through from Emmett. I I dare to say that might be That last round might have been one of his like best performances of the season that I've seen. I've commentated quite a few Tetris matches. And he put up quite a fight. But it is Bartolo who is going to punch another ticket to stay looking to win it all this time after being I believe taken out by Hunter last year in the
021semis. So we have three advancing, correct? Yep, three of the four players in the state finals are Cyber Tigers. We have Hunter, seed one of the tournament. We have Jordan, seed three, and Bartolo, seed two. So we might be seeing it for a Cyber Tiger v Cyber Tiger finale. It could be. It would be incredible. That'd be great. Mhm. Do they livestream these at state? I believe they do. I'm sure that they they do this, they would die too. Mhm. All right. Thank you so much everyone who came out here today to see the Cyber Tigers in action. Our last three Tetrio matches of the Not regular season, that's over with. Of the season in general. So yeah, we will be back tomorrow for our last Overwatch playoff match against Plymouth County Community High School.
022Join us at 5:00 p.m. for some more exciting eSports competition. Very big pressure. That's another match with state with the state visit on the line. Okay, great. Mhm. This week is a very stressful week for the Cyber Tigers. We got state qualifier tomorrow. We had state qualifiers today. State qualifiers on Wednesday with Smash. Wow. A lot of stuff going on. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a great week. Mhm. Hopefully tomorrow we're just as successful. Exactly. We started off very We started this week off very strong with the Tetris team. But thank you so much for coming out. Thank you. >> See you.