I understand that the moderators here have already opted not to have a fastest max category due to another site having a "fewest lines" max list. I would definitely like to have a category here for fastest max in real time though, for a couple reasons. "fewest lines" runs need thorough calculation to multiple decimal places to precisely determine the point where one had maxed out. You also need to be a 1.2 million capable player to come close to the top of the leaderboards there, where people are maxing out on level 26 and such. I was in Joseph's Tetris stream today and he indicated that he wanted a speedrun.com category for fastest max, and a number of other top players concurred, as well as myself. It would be much simpler and more speedrun-esque using a timer. For instance, someone can max on level 27 without pushing down and still be slower than a push down player maxing out with their last tetris entering level 29. This reveals to me that a "fastest max" is a different run with different strategy than a "soonest max" aka "fewest lines max". Regarding the implementation of the speedrun I believe it would be best to have one category for 0-18 starts and another for 19 starts (as a 19 start max is much more difficult but inherently faster). As for the number of runners the category can expect I would have no worries as maxing out is becoming increasingly common and the number of confirmed maxout players is soaring in recent years. Thank you for considering my recommendation and I hope to see a 999,999 category soon!
Fun fact: fastest one I could find was a ~5:52 by, of course, Joseph Saelee. Game starts at about 0:08 and the 1M+ score appears at about 6:00. Though it was only a few lines away from the earliest maxout record (~181.59 vs 178.26) it was quite a lot faster.
The earliest maxout was still "only" a ~6:31 (~0:07 to ~6:38) despite only burning 13 (!) lines before the maxout, compared to the dozens burned before the 5:52. Goes to show the difference a level 19 start makes compared to 18. High stacks will probably also be more important than clean tetris rate, much like we've already learned with the "100 Lines" and "300K Points" speedruns.
We live in a world where apparently 40 people can maxout at will within 2 hours (https://tinyurl.com/ctwc2020qual), most of them multiple times even. There's absolutetly enough filling material and desire for such a leaderboard.
Also, if ""reasonable"" TASes are anything to go by, a sub 5:00 is possible:
Bumping just for shots and giggles, but I just found out about this ~5:34 from a few weeks ago:
Given the new community standard, the dozens and dozens of people with 1.2M+ PBs, and the apparent 10+ people who can maxout seemingly every other game, I absolutely think that there'd be people trying for speedy million scores if given the incentive and leaderboard.
God knows it wouldn't be the most arbitrary record kept track of in the CTM discord, or even this page lmao
Here is my take on tbe maxout leaderbpard. I don't see a future where a Leaderboard on fastest maxout becomes popular at all. Some people might submit their games but most won't. And as a consequence, The Leaderboard will just be dead and completely untrue to reality. Sort of like how twin galaxies lists only 11 people as ever having maxed out.
It's also a lot of work to go back and add timers to games in editing programs since all runs would be played during general 19 start PB runs or just warmup games where you dont have a timer. This would further lead to a barrier of people not bothering to upload their run to the leaderboards because it's work for no gain.
Tldr. A fastest maxout Leaderboard would be cool in theory but won't work well in reality.
