GARBAGE CHAINING

As you know, VS mode consists of dropping blocks on the opponents screen and making him die before you do, and as explained before, the most efficient way to do that is by performing big Chains, NOT big Combos. However, the BIG difference in creating large Chains in the VS Mode is that you can actually use the garbage the opponent has just dropped on you to create some of the biggest chains possible!

The way that this technique can be achieved is as follows. As mentioned in the "Garbage System" section, there are two different types of garbage. Combo garbage and chain garbage. As described, chain garbage is MUCH more effective than combo garbage, because it takes a WHILE to work on and to make it disappear.

If a chain garbage block falls on you and you clear pieces that are touching it, only the bottom row of the garbage turns into regular blocks, while the rest of the garbage block stays intact. We shall call this the "converting process". Although garbage has just been dropped on you, rather than looking at it like "boy, it's sure gonna take me a long time to get rid of this!", you can think "boy, now I have a LONG time to pull off the biggest chain possible!!!"

The "converting process" takes approximately one second per row to happen. So if somebody drops a garbage block 6 rows high on you, and you begin the "converting process" by clearing pieces that are touching it, what will happen is the bottom row will convert into pieces (which takes about 1 second) and then the rest of the garbage converts (which takes 5 seconds). However, during this "converting process", once the bottom row of the garbage becomes regular pieces, it does not fall!! In fact, it does not fall into place on the board until the ENTIRE garbage block has converted! So what does this mean? Well, because you know what pieces are going to fall after it has finished converting, all you have to do is set up the pieces in such a way that when the pieces finally fall, a chain is achieved. However, you can take this a step further! You can EVEN set the pieces up in such a way so that when the pieces fall, not only does a chain occur, but the chain is actually a match that is touching the garbage once again!! So this starts the process all over again!! Only this time, you have about one less second to do your set up. And you can continue like this until all of your garbage is gone!! Remember, in order for this to work, you must perform a chain with the highest elevated piece available on the board. The reason for this is that if you form a chain with a piece, but there are pieces higher in elevation, the garbage will just rest on the HIGHER pieces, rather than on the ones you are chaining with! Check out the movie below to see "Garbage Chaining" for yourself!

ADD TIME LAG INTO THE MIX...

Now let's take "Garbage chaining" a step further. Once you have set up the pieces so that they will cause a chain AND clear the garbage block, you can go set up another hit for your chain, only make sure it is lower in elevation than the one you have already set up, or else it will just count as a combo! Because the matches will occur in different elevations, they will actually not happen at the same time. "Time lag" occurs, and you get a hit for each one of these you can manage to set up! Check out the movie below...

Remember also that once the screen says "?" for your chain, you must intentionally stop your chain. If not, you are wasting valuable time, because the garbage you will drop on him will NOT increase after that. If you are not playing to win, but to create the biggest chain, then by all means chain away!! You must keep track yourself however, since the counter stops......

NOW GO FOR THE COMBO BREAKER...

As mentioned before, combos do very little damage and chains do a lot of damage. A breaker can be performed if you want to "break", or, stop a combo from occurring when the pieces from two different matches are going to land at the same time. What will happen is the pieces (although landing seamlessly at the same time) will actually give you an extra hit for your chain, rather than just one hit + combo. What you must do is ARTIFICIALLY create the time lag by delaying the matching process by one frame. You only have one frame to pull this move off. If you do it too soon, you will just get the combo as if you did nothing at all, and if you do it too late, you will just get a normal match. To pull off a breaker, you must switch one of the pieces out of the path of what is about to fall, but then switch it back INTO the match at just the right moment! The match will count as a hit instead of a combo! You have just pulled off a combo breaker! Check out the movie.