Read the whole cluster before it lands
Each falling cluster is made from one, two, three, five, or six circles. The landing trace shows the complete resting footprint, including unusual elbows, forks, wings, stairs, crowns, and long hooks. Look at both the color signals and the shape: a safe landing can preserve an opening, while a careless side circle can close the lane you planned to use next.
The queue does not solve the board for you. The useful question is not only where the current piece fits, but which contacts it creates and which future columns remain reachable. The cluster bank lets you hold an awkward shape and return to it when the field gives it a better purpose.
- Move and rotate the active cluster before committing to a landing.
- Use the full landing trace to check every occupied circle, not only the center.
- Bank a cluster when keeping it would damage a stronger connection already in progress.
Connections clear; full rows stay
Stacks does not use the familiar rule where a completed row disappears automatically. A full row remains locked. Clears begin when five side-connected circles share a signal, or when a qualifying chain of plus sidecars creates a shape-aligned wipe. That rule makes open routes, side contact, and the order of collapses more important than flat row completion.
After a clear, circles above the removed group fall into the available spaces. Those drops can create another connection and start a gravity chain. Planning one good clear is useful; planning the board that will exist after the clear is where longer runs are made.
Powers change the landing decision
Powered clusters preview their outcome before they are dropped. Blast, line-cutting, support, signal-copying, color-rail, gravity, and forge effects each reward a different board shape. The preview is part of the strategy: compare the immediate clear with the structure that will remain when the effect resolves.
Points and cosmetic unlocks come from play. Visual skins, backgrounds, and clear effects change presentation rather than the rules, timing, score calculation, or competitive power of a run.