This week is going to be an experimental one. The biggest thing you’ll notice is the different posting time, which is usually optimized to be Europe friendly, but I’ve decided to can that idea and just focus on the superior continent. I realize this might incidentally make it more friendly for Australia, but that’s a sacrifice I’m just going to have to make. Also, I’m going to channel my inner content creator and absolutely BEG that you follow, subscribe, applaud, comment, and share everything I have ever written with everyone you have ever met. I am beholden to the great algorithm.
The next aGameScout video isn’t quite out yet, but we all know what it’s going to be about. If you don’t, you have until the end of this sentence to stop reading and avoid spoilers, but if you haven’t heard already you probably aren’t terribly into this whole Tetris business anyway. That’s right, it’s the new Alex T game where he went super deep into the killscreen, including the famed green wall. Some people call this the new score and everything else world record, some call it fake because Gym, and some don’t care and want to eat popcorn then talk about something else. Unfortunately, Scout has resigned to going about a harrowing ninety minute odyssey into this controversy, completely abandoning his dignity and commitment to the betterment of the community. Because of this, I’ve decided to go rogue, pick up the pieces, and talk about the real issues.
Alex T has a reputation in the community for the best pop off game in the world, bar none. He’s like if Hungrybox had actual exciting gameplay, and absolutely no other differences. The most famous gag is dumping random crap on his head, and as much as I want to take a fast track to that, he’s been fostering this skillset over the course of years. In particular, there’s a generally underappreciated facet of his pop off career, which is just how much money he has poured into making everything as stylish and bombastic as possible. Other top players might do a worthwhile chunk of the practice as he does, but none have put their wallet on the line the way Alex T has.
The first major incident we’re aware of where Alex T spent a bunch of unnecessary money on Tetris came not in the form of a popoff, but in a qualifier. Those who have been following the scene for just barely long enough not to be total posers will remember CTWC 2021, where he was provided a ridiculous procession of drinks by his family that took up his entire table and eventually toppled over. Sadly, little video evidence of online era CTWC qualifiers remain, but luckily this particular thing was preserved by aGameScout before his recent descent into the dark side.
Running through the tape, we can see what the pile looked like at its peak, and calculate the total cost from there. It started with a single Capri Sun, then two more, then later on four more entirely unopened boxes. Since the family was buying in bulk, I suspect this means there was an entirely fifth opened box, which just leaves how many each box had. The video is fuzzy, but we can see at 11:05 that the flavor was all Strawberry Kiwi, and based on the size and most common item on digital storefronts, I believe those were the 10 count boxes. These currently run for about $3 American each, which might be the only thing on Earth not wrecked by inflation, so we up to a total of $15 just in that.
But it wasn’t just the famous Capri Suns he was working with. We see two separate six packs of Sprite held together by those weird plastic things that are probably now stuck around some turtle’s neck, as well as a standard box of mini Sprites, and a random can of Coke for good measure. Now, this one is much harder to calculate, because while a six pack can easily run $4 nowadays, that’s after serious corporate price gouging, which as a soda addict I can attest has hit the world of soft drinks particularly hard. Data I found online suggests the average soda price for this sort of thing has gone up 30% since CTWC 2021, which is definitely too low, but I’m not one to argue with numbers, so that’s what we’ll have to run with.
Now we just need to find the current price of Sprite, then divide by 1.3, and that’ll be good enough for me. It looks to me like Alex T is using the mini cans, partly because you can clearly see “Mini” on the box version, and partly because the Sprite appears skinnier than the Coke can it’s next to. With a current price of $4, two price adjusted six packs probably ran about $6.10 back in 2021, while the ten pack runs at a little over $6.25 right now and thus probably cost about $4.85 then. But wait, that can of Coke I mentioned has to be accounted for somehow. It’s possible they bought it individually, but seeing as that would be dumb and the family appears to prefer bulk, I’m deciding it was probably part of a twelve pack of its own. Since you can’t buy just a partial twelve pack practically, I’m including the whole modern $7.28 that would cost, adjusted down to a only slightly less extortionate $5.57 then.
The only thing left to consider now is that stack of Red Solo Cups standing on his table. The video does suggest those were generic as opposed to authentic, evidenced by the lack of the iconic booze notches in proper Red Solo Cups. I couldn’t find which specific generic led to that specific pattern of vertical grooves, so I’m just going to go with the basic Wal Mart version and pray it’s not too far off. The stack looks like an entire 50 pack, which is currently on sale for $4 in my area, and I’m just going to take that as a final number because I’m tired of trying to Google things for this.
All told, in his first major outing Alex T spent $35.52 in his first major outing, and if we add tax of 7.5%, that amounts to $38.14 total. That’s not a bad figure, but seeing as it was spread over the course of two hours and was just kind of on screen, he had a lot to improve on. It would be a long time before us in the mortal plane would see another major incident from him, but like Fractal in 2023, Alex T was practicing off screen before exploding back on to the scene. Next time, he would silence all doubt as to his explosiveness.
As made famous by Linespin media, Alex utterly demolished his bedroom after a match with EricICX. This wasn’t even a CTM win, just making the finals, but he saw fit to unleash his skills on the world right then. He starts by slamming his chair onto the ground, with his controller and headphones on top. He then throws a foldout mattress and drops a room divider onto the chair, leaving the spot in front of his CRT a desolate wasteland of wrecked property. A few months later, after another victory over now world champion EricICX, he did a lesser version after a round two match. This one sees him wrecking another room divider that looks just like the last one, as well as doing significant damage to his chair, and punting a pack of wet wipes and a coffee mug.
There’s so much to break down here. I’m going to start with the dividers first, which based on how many segments they have and a quick Amazon search, I believe to be $100 items. Right off the bat that’s $200, but this spirals quickly when including the cot thing. I’m not sure what specific model it is, so I had to go off of general thickness and another Amazon search, so this is probably the fuzziest part of the whole piece. Since it’s most likely a bedroom cot and not a camping one, the cheapest it could run at is probably $180, so even if we assume the sheets are fine, I’m pegging this at another $200 expense. I believe his chair runs around $80 for a set of two based on some more searching, and though the second is salvageable, I’m still charging for both because that figure could easily be higher depending on what specific chair it was.
The smaller items are luckily much easier to deal with. Because of the way Alex T trashed his chair the first time, and the resulting items landing on it, I think the headphones and controller might have actually been mostly unharmed. That leaves the wet wipes, which appear to be Clorox branded lemon scented, which currently runs for $6 for a regular canister. That plus the furniture adds up to $486, or a staggering $522.45 after taxes. The only thing I didn’t count was the coffee mug, which as an avid coffee drinker I can attest has incalculable value. Every mug is sacred, even basic ones that look like they could belong to my grandparents, so just add infinity to that past mark.
With that dominance established, Alex T moved on from raw money spent to focusing on creativity and excitement. His next major move came in Mega Masters, starting with winning the green bracket and dumping a can of Sprite, and followed by winning the whole tournament and dumping the famous Parmesan. Luckily, I’ve already calculated the Sprite, so I’m just going to reuse the six pack price of $3.05. For the Parmesan, I think he used a 24 oz grated canister of Kraft, which runs about $15, which is good enough for me. The real value of this move came not from the initial dump, but from the reputation it established for Alex T moving forward.
I’m already way too deep into this to cover the next year in total detail, but post Mega Masters Alex T was the absolute master of finding new and inventive ways to pop off. Sometimes it’s basically nondestructive, like his win over Myles in January 2024, but even then he’d manage an absolute masterful display of content. The best example is beating TommyNTG in December 2023, where all he spent was a bottle of Gatorade and a bag of Lays chips, yet by carefully not destroying other things managed to put together a seven minute odyssey across his room. On the flipside, there’s his win over Fractal in August 2023, where he dumped what probably amounts to over $100 worth of chips, coffee, Sprite, and a couple other snacks I couldn’t place.
But the biggest innovation came from his win over Rahmations in February 2024. Having established the idea of the Parmesan head dump, Alex T moved on to other containers of various matter. He went with lotion next, then used water to suds it up, allowing him to spread it throughout his hair onto his biceps as he flexed. He closed with a bottle of Coke, then moved on to throwing random stuff on whatever ottoman he was sitting on. This was a great leap forward, but he took it to another level with his new sort of don’t at me world record.
This one had a smaller variety of items dumped, starting with the classic Parmesan and continuing with some red substance that I hope soap or shampoo or something. He continued with a giant swig of milk, which got all over his front, leading to him doubling down and dumping some on his head. But the real innovation came in the post dump sequence, as he spent time playing in the Parmesan that landed on the ottoman thing, speaking directly into his headset mic, and doing all kinds of weird dances and shakes. It might not have had the most destruction or the most time, but it was the most densely packed entertainment yet. Not an inch of it was wasted or did anything but play a note in this beautiful symphony.
All told, Alex T has poured so much more than his heart and time into Tetris. He’s gone through a couple hundred dollars in consumable items, plus hundreds more in very much not consumable items, but the real kicker is the cost of cleaning services. I looked it up and apparently market rate is at least $20 an hour, and considering how many times he’s done this and the severity of each, that might total up to 15 hours. I think it’s a real possibility that Alex T’s popoff game is so well developed that he has sunk a thousand total into the noble art of letting your opponent and the audience know how good you are and how well you know it.
Normally I’d have something more to end on, maybe a heart wrenching tribute or a final point to invite further thought and discussion. Instead, this time I’m just going to first shoehorn in the traditional small sample size song, as I couldn’t think of where else to put it, and then I’ll end with some good ol malarkey. Top professionals in Classic Tetris need to get it together with their swag game. The original pros were absolutely full of it, and even in the tappy teen days we had guys like Joseph and Greentea absolutely carrying the scene swag wise as in all other things, but nowadays that art is dying out. It used to be, for example, that every world record and achievement was of the utmost importance, and you’d thus see top pros grinding out weird speedruns, Game Genie codes, and for the wildest of players, PAL. Today it’s just a bunch of level 29 starts of various flavors and all around wholesomeness, which has its place in this world, but no Esport is complete without a healthy dose of spice and edge that Classic Tetris currently lacks. Alex T is the primary one keeping the art of swag alive, and for that he is likely the most important player in the entire scene.
