Clean Finish - This is a 10% score bonus you get in Mono (and some other modes) when you reach the end of the song with an empty grid.

Grid - This is where the blocks go when you pick them up. Once you overfill one of the three columns, the grid is cleared and the match is added to your total score. You get significantly more points based on how full your grid is when you make a match. This process is usually referred to as Matchmaking, though some players call it Gridding.

Match Timer - Very important! This is how long your match is going to stay active before it clears and is added to your score. The timer starts once you have three blocks connected on your grid. You can tell how much time you have left when you look at the blocks on your grid.
When the lines on the inside reach the edges of the blocks, that is when the match finishes. Your skin should have something similar.


You can reset the match timer by hitting another block. In Mono, you can also reset the timer by hitting a spike. You can also freeze the timer by riding the trail of a block.

Mono - This is the most popular mode for this game. You collect blocks and dodge most spikes. In general, mono modes allow you to hit the spikes without getting penalized for it. However, modes like Mono Classic and Mono Turbo will punish you for hitting spikes. Casual is a slower variant of this mode.

Ninja - This name is generally used for modes where you need to dodge spikes while collecting blocks. It is fundamentally the same as Mono (hit blocks, dodge spikes) but there is an emphasis on spike dodging. If you dodge every spike, you get a stealth bonus added to your score.

Power Block - These are the loops that appear in the track for most modes. It's referring specifically to the large block you need to hit at the start of the loop. When you hit it, it will give you much more points compared to a normal match. These are usually referred to by players as 'PBs'.
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2x pb / Big PB - Every track with power blocks will have one Big Power Block. The big one is worth 2x the score of a normal match and 1.33x the score of a normal PB. You can tell which PB is the Big PB by looking at the graph of the track. The Big PB is marked by the longest line.

Stealth - This is a bonus you get on some modes (ninja) when you finish a song without hitting a spike. It's usually a big bonus, around 20% or more.

Trail - These are the lines that are going through every block. Your match timer freezes when you are on top of one. Sometimes, holding onto a trail will be the only way to reach a Power Block!
A trail sticking out of a block. As long as your ship is riding one of these, the match timer will stay frozen, letting you hit blocks that would be out of reach normally.

Different players swear by either of these controlling methods, so is there a higher skill ceiling on
one of them? Is one of them worth learning more over the other? In short: No.

The top AS2 players are fairly split between the two, even on the ultra fast ninja modes. Pick whichever one you feel is the more comfortable. Generally, mouse gives you a better feeling of control. The only disadvantage mouse has is that you need to be more precise when riding on trails in the middle lane, but if you can handle that, go for it!

If you want to get good scores, don't use default/super flashy skins. They look nice, but it's far harder to make good matches and hit PBs with them. Similar to how you see notes coming towards you in a game like Guitar Hero, it helps to use a skin where you can see the blocks and pbs coming ahead of time.
(Also some of the flashier skins have trouble handling the track on faster custom modes such as the True Ninja or Forever modes)

For starters I recommend using one of Cilfaen's Clean skins or one of 849's Simple skins.
It's also worth trying a zoomed out skin to see if that's more your style.

Generally, as long as you can see the spikes, blocks, and loops in front of you and see what's coming ahead, you should be good.

These are all the crucial parts to scoring in this game. So before you try any of the weird advanced tech, you have to know these basics, or else your skills will go to waste!

Seems obvious, right? But you need to know just how many points you're missing out on when you neglect full matches!
A full chart can be found here[i.imgur.com]
But in summary
A match of 7 blocks (one column) is worth 1.7k points.
A match of 14 blocks (two columns) is worth 6.8k points.
A match of 21 blocks (full grid) is worth 15k points!
In other words, two matches of 14 blocks are worth less than 1 full grid match. Keep this in mind next time you consider charging into a long string of blocks in one column.
If you're just starting out, try aiming for matches of 18 blocks or more (4 blocks missing in the grid or less) to get a feel for skipping blocks and getting better matches.
This video shows a few different matchmaking styles. As you can see, thoughtful matchmaking can get you around 10k points per 100k over someone who's just hitting every block. It adds up! This alone isn't going to get you neck and neck with top players, but it's a good start.

If there isn't a block connecting the grid in the center lane, the left and right lanes will be counted as separate matches (though they'll clear at the same time). This means a grid with a full left and right lane, but an empty middle lane is worth about 3.4k points. That same grid with a single block in the middle lane is worth 7.8k points. Never leave that middle lane empty when making matches!

These should be your main focus for getting points. Do everything you can to hit these with a good grid. In addition to the normal amount of points you get from your match, hitting the Power Block will give you 1.5x the points your current grid is worth. A big PB with give 2x! That means hitting a Big Power Block with a full grid will give you 30k points!

Unfortunately, this 'feature' never got patched out of the popular modes. Once you hit the Power Block with any full columns, you will have to avoid adding blocks to those for about 1 second. Otherwise you will overfill. Overfilling will cause a seemingly random set of blocks to match automatically. This can cause you to lose a lot of progress instantly!
Keep in mind, though, that you can hit some spikes within this time window without losing any blocks in your grid. So take advantage of that!

You see the long lines that are sticking out of blocks and Power Blocks? Stay on them! Doing this will freeze the match timer and they will bridge gaps that would otherwise be unreachable. Consider that some Power Blocks can only be reached by staying on their trail!

Once you have a matchmaking method down, it's time to start squeezing out those extra points and figure out how to keep matches alive for as long as possible.

So once you've figured out the general idea of "pbs = good, big matches = good", it's much trickier to balance those two out during a run. You will run into plenty of situations where you're coming up to a pb with a near full grid, but there's still a bunch of blocks left between you and the loop. Do you finish your match and get the extra blocks? Or hold the match for a long time? Well, it's typically worth more points to hold for a long time and hit the pb with the better grid. But many times, you can prevent this conflict by looking ahead and predicting! The map at the top left is there for a reason!
You shouldn't hold onto every match near a pb, and sometimes it pays off to end one early.

Unless you're playing on a stealth mode... but if you're not, it's time to start using spikes to your advantage.
The most helpful thing spikes can do is reset your match timer. Just like hitting colored blocks, hitting a spike can keep your match going. And in many cases, it'll be the ONLY way to keep a match going. There will sometimes be a gap between you and the rest on the match (or in more extreme cases, you and the pb) and the only way to bridge that gap is by hitting a spike.
Apart from timer resetting, spikes can also clear up space in your grid. Filled up a column too early and you need a space open to keep it alive? Use a spike! PB is coming up and your grid is full too soon? Use a spike! Think of these spikes as little erasers than can fix some of the problems in your grid.

Sometimes you can squeeze just a little bit more out of a match by saving up a few blocks. This is mainly used in very slow sections, or on songs where the power block has a small amount of matchable blocks before it.

PBs have some weird mechanics. I've already told you about overfills... but there's more to them than that!
First, block duping. If you hit a pb without a 3 block match, it will double whatever is currently on the grid. So, if you hit a pb with a 2 and 2 pattern, it will turn into 4 and 4. Very useful!
There's also a weird type of pb overfill that can be caused by block duping. This is pretty rare, so don't worry about this happening, but it can get you by surprise. There's an example of it at the end of the video below.
Next are the oddities that can happen in the free fall zone. When a block or a spike is falling into the grid while you hit the pb, it won't count towards the pb's score. So you might think you hit the pb with a full grid, but the last block ended up being too close to the Power Block to count.
And if you hit a spike close enough to the Power Block, it won't cause you to lose score, meaning you can get a nice little timer extension without having to worry about losing points.

Thanks to Pokebon for getting this video of a block-duping pb overfill!

And thanks to Derrick for this explanation of why this probably happens.
"When you're hitting a pb, it counts you the blocks stocked and duplicates the falling ones. The only time pbs won't duplicate is when stocked+falling blocks make a full column(that's what I noticed).
So if we look at your video, you've got 2 and 2 (and therefore double blocks bonus as we can see on the left column) and 3 falling blocks on the right.
The game thinks "2+3=5, 5<7 so I can duplicate". And now you've got a column of 10 blocks.
Same for pokebon, 4 stocked + 2 falling=6 ,6<7 so I can duplicate. and now he's got 8 blocks."

An important thing to remember is that you can use a block's trail without hitting the block. Imagine you have a full column, and the only upcoming trail is in that lane. Hitting the block would end the match, but you can hold onto the trail to freeze the timer, and then skip over to a different block or spike once it's close enough.

There isn't a widely used name for this technique, so whatever sticks, sticks. Free Fall Matching isn't a bad name either. Anyways...
Gravity matching is one of the most tricky tactics in this game, but it can also net you the most amount of extra points if you know how to use it.
The match timer is frozen while a block (or spike!) is falling into place on your grid. It takes longer for a block to fall 7 spaces than it does to fall 2 spaces. And so, there are some gaps that can be bridged by using this small timer extension. Some pbs are separated by these gaps! If you can hit it, you have a huge point advantage.

No matter how good you get, sometimes your opponent's song version is truly unbeatable.
Many times, your opponent will have an mp3 of a song that will have way more blocks, or an extra PB compared to you. And yes, eventually you'll end up being the one with the wack version. From lots of experience, I can tell you it'll go either way many times. But don't always be so sure about it. Getting frustrated and constantly blaming track versions is one of the quickest ways to get discouraged and burn out on the game, regardless if anyone's purposely cheating or not. If you hone your skills enough, you might be able to top leaderboards even with track disadvantages. There were many times I thought someone's version was unbeatable, only to revisit it later with more skill and end up beating it. So don't give up right away.

And of course, some players will send you their song version if you ask them.
Don't forget that some offline leaderboards got mixed with the youtube leaderboards when that was active!

You don't want to be the kind of player who gets frustrated to the point of altering their song versions to get higher scores. Focus on upping your own score and pushing the limits of what you think is possible to get. You'll improve a lot faster!