Blitz 4,316,825: HOLY Double-Nova SHITstrat - Bejeweled Twist

"Another Bejeweled Twist upload from El Polo that's not a world record? 😱" is probably what you are thinking right now (well, at least if your name refers to the most pleasant to touch domestic feline)
Feels awesome to finally achieve 4M in Blitz
Music is a mod, made by SlinkyCoil, of the original theme. I applied a 4-semitone pitch increase as well.
Visit SlinkyCoil's UA-cam channel: / @slinkycoil
============= So much to say =============
A little anecdote: Gwen The Worst, from the Bejeweled Fans server, once asked me to try Blitz with the Triple-Nova strategy, to which I replied that I wanted to achieve 4M with the Double-Nova strategy first because, well:
Rainnye first achieved 4M on video with a "Zero-Nova" strategy, i.e., Gigaspeeds only (link: m.bilibili.com... )
Pomeriggio first achieved 4M on video with a Single-Nova strategy (link: • Bejeweled Twist (Blitz... )
softestcat first achieved 4M on video with a Triple-Nova strategy (link: • Bejeweled Twist - Blit... )
so, you know, wouldn't it be awesome if the next player to achieve 4M on video did it with a Double-Nova strategy? ^^
Strictly speaking, I actually used 3 Supernovas in this run, but only two of them were used in the end to destroy Coals. So this run still qualifies under the Double-Nova strategy in my opinion
After the 3.37M that I shared during Season 4, Double-Nova strategy took me to 3.82M (not shown in the leaderboards, as I lost my data) and then 3.898M, and then I lost interest in Blitz for a while. But when softestcat shared his 4.38M Blitz score less than a month ago (link: • Bejeweled Twist - Blit... ), it gave me an incentive to get back into it. I have probably grinded more Blitz during the past month than I have during the rest of my gaming life
Why am I telling you this? Well, playing Blitz extensively for a while gave me an opportunity to improve on the strategy here and there:
First, I realised that I could easily guarantee myself a few more Coals when I detonate the Supernovas, simply by moving all Coals currently on the board towards the bottom next to the Supernovas. But at the start there are usually only one or two Coals on the screen, so I also started to create and detonate Supernovas at the start of my runs just to get one or two more Coals on the board. Usually, one Supernova is enough, after which it starts to become counter-productive as you need to be careful not to clear any Coals.
Second, I tried to avoid creating Flame and Lightning gems as much as I could. Sometimes I would even purposely break the chain just to avoid creating Flame gems in a bad spot, but that turned out to be counter-productive as it would keep me from getting Gigaspeeds and reaching higher multipliers, and consequently my score would barely increase during the first 4 minutes. Hence, now, I accept clearing a few Coals prematurely when necessary, if that allows me to keep my Gigaspeeds streak.
And finally, there comes the big boom. For the longest time, this part of the strategy was the most frustratingly difficult to get right for me, and that was compounded by the fact that not only were my Supernovas often isolated from other gems of the same colour to avoid having them in a position where they could be matched, but since I was preserving Coals, they would also often get buried under them. This meant that simply setting up the triple-match with a Supernova in it was far too time consuming in most of the cases, and I would often have to resort to a double-match or a lower multiplier despite giving myself a full minute to do it. So the first thing I did was to add one, and just one more gem of the same colour right next to the Supernova. That, combined with a more methodic way of setting up the triple-match, helped a little, but was still highly uncertain. And then, one day, as I only had less than 30 seconds to create the triple match, there was the big "Eurêka!" moment: using both Supernovas in the triple-match. That turned out to save a lot of time as I would only need 5 more gems, with only two gems having a fixed colour, to complete the setup. This is what I am showing in this run
In the end, what you are looking at is a much more refined version of the Double-Nova strategy that I showed in the 3.37M video. Since adopting this refined strategy, I have been getting a lot more 3M+ runs and a bunch of 3.5M runs, but the highest score I was able to achieve overall in this grind was 3.69M, still pretty far from 4M. And yet, I also had the feeling that my score could fluctuate more wildly with this strategy, as it relies a lot more on Coals than Gigaspeeds. You be the RNJudge. Was not expecting to fly right past 4M though
...aaand I almost hit the limit of 5000 characters here (this description contains 4919 characters)

[@wandom_boi]

bro was coalmaxxing

[@gwenbui24]

You reached 4 million.
Way to go! 🎉

[@Rubycored]

needs more numbers filling the screen

[@softestcat]

LOL that description.
Also that is probably the craziest highscore move I've ever seen.

[@pomeriggio5479]

Damn, this video made me realise I haven't played this masterpiece in a long time 😆 It's a shame I can't play like I used to do with just the keyboard since my laptop's left arrow key has been broken for over a year 😅
Anyway, félicitations as we would say back home, that was an amazing run 👏

[@elpolog.7163]

Merci le goat ! 😊

[@gwenbui24]

Welcome back!
And you should have brought that laptop to a repair shop much sooner!

[@Oct204]

Another Bejeweled Twist upload from El Polo that's not a world record? 😱

[@charles1167]

Tu t'amuses bien lol en dehors des matchs 😂😂

[@elpolog.7163]

Oui mdr