The world of Tetris has a new king after 16-year-old Joseph Saelee took a three game series over reigning world champion Jonas Neubauer to become the new Tetris Classic World Champion.
This 16-year-old toppled the 7-time champion to become the king of Tetris
Simply amazing.
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
Saelee is relatively new to the Tetris scene, with his YouTube channel only dating back to March of this year. In seven short months he’s gone from setting a personal best of 746,212 points to now winning the world championship with a score of 934,880.
It’s not just that Saelee is a Tetris wizard considering his age, it’s who he had to beat to get here. Neubauer had won seven of the last eight world championships, Vice ran a profile on him just a few days ago as he prepared to try and win his 8th World Championship — instead Saelee pulled off one of the biggest upsets in competitive gaming this year. Up 2-0 in the best-of-three final, Saelee overcame a long drought where he couldn’t find the straight block needed to complete his tetris — but instead of getting nervous he played smart, waited for his moment and it finally came.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that there’s not a lot of money in the world of competitive Classic Tetris. Saelee won $1,000 for his performance, but it’s much more about being able to hoist that T block over his head.
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