It is not only grindy but also challenging to 100% this game! Be prepared that learning some fundamentals to play Tetris might be unavoidable.
My goal is to make this guide beginner-friendly as much as possible. If any term used in this guide confuses you, let me know in the comment.

Here I'll recommend 2 types of playthrough, one is what I considered the most suitable way to enjoy the game, another is for earning all the Journey Mode achievements in the fastest way.

• The "progress and enjoy the game" way :
  
  1st run : Beginner/Normal difficulty
  You can learn how to use zone but at this stage don't need to worry too much about the score, just immerse yourself in the visual and the music.
  
  2nd run : Beginner/Normal difficulty, A rank in all areas
  Learn to use zone and scoring efficiently.
  
  3rd run : Expert difficulty
  If you can get A rank in all areas in Normal difficulty, you might be ready for this.
  
  
  
  
• The Fastest Way :
  
  Finish Journey Mode in Expert difficulty while having A ranks in all areas. Do it in this method only if you are already experienced in Tetris, otherwise it might be really frustrating. Knowing when to use zone and can keep up with the speed in Expert is crucial.

Zone is an essential feature for you to play this game comfortably. For more informations of Zone, see the Zone section of this guide.

Area 1~4 are available for all difficulties, you can even unlock them in Practice.
Area 5~7 are not available for practice, so you have to clear them in Beginner, Normal or Expert.
you can unlock levels in lower difficulties when you play them in higher difficulties.
For example, if you cleared 1-1 in Beginner, you can unlock 1-2 in Beginner.
If you cleared 1-1 in Expert, all difficulties of 1-2 will be unlocked.


If you didn't forget to use Zone while playing Journey Mode, you should get this naturally.
clearing line during Zone doesn't count towards the line clear goal to advanced to the next level, so you can clear more lines before going to the next level.
For more informations of Zone, see the Zone section of this guide.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2959897059
I wrote a separate guide for this achievement, showing you how to adjust your settings, what strategies can you use, and some tips for surviving in Expert difficulty.

for Beginner difficulty, A rank requires 30,000~50,000 score for an Area.

Play in Beginner. it requires 7 line clears to fill 25% Zone meter in this difficulty.

Try to do special line clear as much as possible. clearing 4 lines with the straight bar (known as I piece) will be considered as a "Tetris" which gives more score. When your next line clear after Tetris is either a Tetris or T-Spin, you get Back-to-Back score bonus.

For more informations of Back-to-Back, see the Back-to-Back section of this guide.

Turn on CC captions for more tips
the score multiplier for Zone can be a little bit complicated, but I'll share 2 strategies below and demonstrate them with video.

• "Tetris Absorb" (Starts from the video 0:00)
  Basically you only do Tetris (or T-Spin, if you can) to gain Zone meter. 2 Tetris should fill your meter by 25%.
  
  after your meter is filled by 25%, keep stacking until you have an I piece in hold, and another I piece on hand.
  
  When your board is high enough for 2 I pieces to clear 8 lines, activate Zone, drop the I pieces to make 2 Tetris.
  
  
  I got the record by using this method with Tetris and T-Spin, and I didn't use some mind-blown trick for this. I hope it's a convincing evidence that this method works.
  
  
  
• "100% Zone" (Starts from the video 2:25)
  If you aren't experienced with Tetris game, this method is recommended.
  Basically, you only activate the Zone when it reaches 100% meter, as it gives extra score multiplier.
  

  Originally posted by TetrisWiki:

  During Zone, there is a multiplier applied to all points earned during Zone. If Zone is activated when fully charged, additional multiplier is applied.

  since it requires 7 line clears to get 25% meter, and each level's line goal in Beginner difficulty is 30, it is possible to reach 100% Zone in every level as you only need to clear 28 lines to get it.
  Activating Zone with full meter lasts 20 seconds and it stops the gravity, this will allow you to slowly think about how to clear more lines during Zone.
  Just be aware don't let your Zone meter overflow, which is clearing lines when you have 100% Zone meter.
  
  This achievement shouldn't be a barrier, you may already earn this naturally if you know that Zone exists when you play Journey Mode.

Tetris and Chill
Play and finish PLAYLIST: SEA, PLAYLIST: WIND, PLAYLIST: WORLD Effect Modes.
each playlist has 4 levels, so it's 12 levels in total.
It's impossible to game over in these modes, just play them normally.

The Classics
if you want the really fast method, just start these modes, spam Space (or your key for hard drop) until you gameover, This method won't take you more than 1 minute to get this achievement.

Play Countdown Effect Mode, press Space (or your key for hard drop) button 10 times.

Play Mystery Effect Mode to gain them. Random effects will occur during this mode. these effects are completely RNG.

tceffE ediS sirteT
This effect turns the board upside down.
just keep playing Mystery Effect Mode until you get this.


Gold Mine
This effect will make your blocks golden and give you 2x score.
just keep playing Mystery Effect Mode until you get this.
According to Dakrkplayer2 on TrueAchievements, you are more likely to encounter this effect if you set your Mystery Mode's initial speed lv to 13+.

Just keep playing Purify Effect Mode until you get this. Infected Blocks can be accumulated.
You don't have to reach 1,000 in one game, although it is possible.



In Purify mode, you need to clear the garbages underneath which constantly spawn.
It is a good mode to practice downstack, downstack means focusing on cleaning garbages to make your board lower. You can treat downstack as a way to defend in Tetris game.




you don't need Classic Score Attack in order to get this achievement. Can't confirm if this is intentional or will be fixed in future patch.

My guide for Seriously? Seriously. achievement have provided some tips of these effect modes.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2963324443
You can check the requirement for A in TrueAchievements[www.trueachievements.com]

Play any level in Journey Mode, clear lines to gain meters, and press A (default key) to activate Zone.


The circle with "ZONE" written within it at the left side is your Zone meter, after certain amount of line clear, (varies with difficulty, in Beginner it's 7) you can fill it by 25%.


You can activate it by pressing A(default key) anytime as long as the meter is not empty.

during Zone, the gravity stops, line clear will remain on the board. In Zone Battle, it also prevents garbages from appear on your board temporarily.
When time runs out or the player tops out, Zone ends and the completed lines explode. Lines you clear during Zone will give more score, also they don't count towards the line clear goal (see the LINES above the meter while I was clearing line), so you can grind more score before advancing to the next level.

Every 25% meter gives you 5 seconds in Zone, so activating Zone in full meter lasts 20 seconds, activating Zone in full meter 30 times should get you this achievement.
If you always use Zone without the meter overflow, you might earn this after you finished Journey Mode.



Perfectrist requires you to almost fill the whole board while Zone is activated.
I recommend doing this with 2W or 3W, which is stacking while leaving 2 or 3 columns empty.
here's the step by step of how I do it :

1. Enter a Journey mode level, fill the Zone meter until it's 100%
   
2. Leave 2 columns empty and keep stacking
   
3. When the stacks are really high, activate Zone and start clearing lines. You have 20 seconds to do it if you activate Zone at 100% meter

You can do all combo achievements in Chill Marathon Effect Mode.

10 Combo
You can do 3W, which is leaving 3 columns empty on one of the corner and stack on the other side. While 4W is the more devastating setup that leads to bigger combo, 3W is a more stable way to maintain your combo.
While doing combo, be aware of your Next piece, and always think twice before you decide to switch to your hold piece.(since you can't hold twice)

15 Combo
You need to switch to 4W. It's the setup that leads to the longest combo.
While it is powerful and gives you tons of combo, it also requires good downstacking and vision for your next piece.


Source[harddrop.com]
In order to do 4W, we need to leave 4 columns empty while having 3 residual blocks remain within it. the image above shows how you can make the residual blocks.


After that, keep stacking the left part until it's high enough for you to do tons of combos.
And then start doing line clear. This will take a lot of practice and a bit of luck.

Combo Setups from Harddrop[harddrop.com]
The link above shows you possible solutions for each residual block shapes. to do 4W stably, you have to foreseen where next 2~4 blocks should go.
When you are ready to combo, pay attention to what shape will your next block placement makes, and make sure it didn't prevent you from placing its next block.
Play mindfully, and your brain will slowly memorizes them.

Garbo has a excellent video explaining 4W.
for more details of 4 wide, check four.lol 4W guide[four.lol]

There are 2 ways to get this achievement :

1.T-Spin setup from All Clear Effect Mode
Play All Clear Effect Mode. Some map gives you T-Spin setup. The more All Clears you have, the more complicated the map gets. If you get to 20 All Clears everytime, you should get 2~5 T-Spin everytime.
If you don't know how to T-Spin, first you have to softdrop them, and then rotate until they fit.
gifs below show the maps with T-Spin which will appear after you have 10+ All Clears. Please note that these are aimed specific for T-Spin, thus I won't be showing every All Clear solutions.












Special Case

This one is the well known DT Cannon setup, it requires you to do rotate counterclockwise (default key Z) 3 times to insert and clear the first T, rotate counterclockwise 2 times for the second T, and 1 time for the third T.
most people start playing Tetris with only rotating clockwise (default key ↑ or X) as it leads to less confusion. Although you could clear other maps mentioned above only with rotate clockwise, You MUST rotate counterclockwise for this one.

If this looks confusing for you to perform, do the following steps :

1. rotate it once so the T points to right side, move it to where you are going to insert it.
   
2. Softdrop(↓) it. Don't release the Softdrop button until the line clear is performed
   
3. Once it touches the ground, press "Z" 3 times to rotate counterclockwise 3 times.
   
4. When the line is cleared, let go your softdrop button, repeat the same step with next T piece, except you only rotate 2 times in the step.3 with the second T, and rotate 1 time with the third T.

This one Sacrifices All Clear for T-Spin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.Learn the T-Spin Basic
"T-Spin" is a line clear mechanic which you clear line with the T piece when its last action is rotation and it fits into a T-shaped space. The most common T-Spin is T-Spin Double, which your T-Spin clears 2 lines. it's equally efficient to a Tetris.

here's a video of Garbo explaining T-Spin.

T-Spin is a really big topic to cover, but I can go for the most basic concept of how to create a T-Spin double setup.

First, place your pieces, think about how you can create a T-shaped gap. It should looked like the Pink part.

Now we needed a lid, also known as overhang, to cover this T's "ear".
you have to choose one side of the red part shown in this image and fill a block in there.
In this step, I look at my hold, my current piece, my next piece and think about what could creates the overhang.

My next piece is an O, this is my fastest option to create a overhang in order to cover T's right ear.
I could just place it at where the ghost piece locates.

Or, I can throw the O to the corner, and use S to cover T's left ear.

Either way, you should leave a passage for T to enter. Softdrop it in, and rotate for the T-Spin!

There are some setups which can make you do T-Spin constantly, but since this is merely an achievement guide I wouldn't go too detail in here.

I always check https://four.lol/ or https://harddrop.com/wiki/T-Spin when I wanna learn new fancy stuffs.

There are too much to learn! If you don't know where to start, I would suggest people to get their Sprint Effect Mode record within 2 minutes 30 seconds before learning anything else.
If you want to start somewhere, I highly recommend TKI and 6-3 Stacking. There are tons of guide online for them, good luck with your study!

*BONUS* Here's a T-Spin looping method that doesn't require too much thinking, however since the way it stacks and rotate isn't beginner friendly(And it isn't practical for PVP)
It is better to just do the All Clear Effect Mode or learn the basics of T-Spin.

You can get them easily by playing All Clear Effect Mode.

All Clear is also known as Perfect Clear. When the player's line clear leaves the board empty, it will be considered as Perfect Clear. It rewards you with good score, or damage your opponent heavily.

In All Clear Effect Mode, you must clear line with your every piece drop, dropping pieces without clearing line will make you fail the map.
The complexity of map will increase as you had more All Clears. Some requires you to do fancy spins that you need to know which direction you have to rotate.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2963324443
I have mentioned some basic spins in my guide for "Seriously? Seriously." achievement, please see the All Clear section of it.

For all the All Clear solutions, see Doremy's video of All Clear Mode.

Perfect Clear is practical for versus, If you want to learn it, I recommend starting with Perfect Clear Opener(PCO).
Perfect Clear Opener Guide[four.lol]

Originally posted by harddrop.com:

Back-to-Back (BtB) or Back-2-Back (B2B) clears are any combination of two or more "difficult" line clears without an "easy" line clear between them.

in Tetris Effect, you can achieve Back-to-Back with T-Spin and Tetris. The easiest way to do Back-to-Back is to do "Tetris" twice. When you successfully perform it, the text "Back-to-Back" will show up at the left side of the board.

It doesn't necessarily have to be one after another, you can do a Tetris, hold your next I piece, stack other pieces on board as long as you don't do normal line clear. Any line clear that's not a T-Spin or Tetris breaks your Back-to-Back.
certain maps in the "All Clear" Effect Mode gives you free Back-to-Back, but I recommend playing the "Sprint" Effect Mode and do 1W.

The achievement "Back-to-Back Attack" requires you to do Back-to-Back 10 times without breaking it, you can use the method I use for "Savvy & Strong" achievement, but do it with Chill Marathon Effect Mode or other Mode that requires you to clear 40+ lines.

You could earn these by playing naturally. However if you wanted to grind it, I recommend doing "Avatar Rockstar" at the same time, since getting avatar you already own will be transferred into XP.
Level 100 requires 2,125,700 XP in total, I earned this while grinding for the achievement "Avatar Rockstar".
Find a Effect Mode you can easily get high rank in short time, Quick Play and All Clear Effect Mode seems to be the popular choice for this. getting A~SS rank gives you 1500~2500 XP in these modes. Quick Play can be more efficient, but I think you can learn much more while playing the maps of All Clear.
For more tips of Quick Play, check the sections for the achievement "Savvy & Strong".

Play a lot.
If you want to grind for the clear line achievements, you can go for All Clear or Combo Effect Mode, as they provided maps for you to clear the lines.
for the rotate achievement, you can grind for the clear line achievements first, then you might earn this naturally.


If you still haven't get Spin Artist after getting End of the Line, bind both your rotation to mousewheel.
Then choose All Clear Effect Mode, mindlessly rolling the mousewheel for 1 minute.
After the game finished, my achievement record went from 23,626 to 27,438, approximately 5K.
You might be able to do this achievement in any mode, but the record isn't increasing for me after I quit Chill Marathon mid-game.
It's not recommended to pick mode with no Game Over, since I don't know when will the game records your rotate count.


Tetris is a special line clear which you clear 4-line at once, normally done by using I piece.
Some maps from All Clear Effect Mode provides Tetris setup, but since this is such a common way to play Tetris, you probably got these achievements without realizing it.
If you never have the habit of doing Tetris, you can start learning as it's essential for you to get high score or beat your opponent in versus.

Weekly Ritual is a time-limited event which starts at 12:00(UTC) on every Saturday and ends after 24 hours. If you missed it, you'll have to wait for the next Saturday.
Weekly Ritual is also essential for the achievement "Avatar Rockstar".

Every Effect Mode belongs to a certain category. When Weekly Ritual is on, the Effect Modes in the chosen category for this week will have "EVENT" label on them. Choose one of them to play and you will get this achievement.

Multiplayer avatar DO NOT COUNT.

You can check your avatars in Effect Modes -> Edit -> Avatar.
each avatars have 3 color variations : blue, red, rainbow.


You can earn avatar by completing the challenges in "My Records". 16 of the challenges give 3 versions of an avatar as reward, which means you can earn 48 avatars from this. The rest 52 avatars need to be earned from Weekend Ritual.


The other way to earn avatar is by playing Effect Mode with "EVENT" label during Weekly Ritual.
earning D+ rank will give you a random avatar, You can grind it by getting the requirement for D rank and then quickly lose the game, but you might get avatar you already have, and the red or rainbow variations of avatar are most likely to appear when you have better rank.
So you should play Event Effect Mode which you can get high rank easily.

List below tells you what category does each Effect Mode belongs to. I'll mark the Effect Mode which I recommend for avatar grind with bold and underline. the Effect Modes under Adventurous category are too time-consuming, I would consider skipping it, or play Purify if you really need the avatars.

I got this achievement by playing Sprint at Classic Weekend Ritual for nearly 3 hours, but the choice of event varies from time to time.

You can get SS rank by reaching 10,000+ score in "Quick Play" Effect Mode. Time cost doesn't matter.
Video guide of how to do this, open caption for more tips.
Below are some tips to help you with it :

• Avoid I piece dependency
  I piece dependency means you can't keep your stacking flat without using I piece to fill the gap.
  While placing pieces on the stacking part, pay attention to the gap. If the placement for your current piece will create a 3-block high gap, avoid it and find another place to put it.
  
  
  
• Do a Tetris whenever it's available
  By keeping your board low, you also have more opportunities to fix the I piece dependency if you had one.
  Be aware that only clearing 4 lines at once gives you "Tetris", so don't place your I piece when the board is way too low!
  
  
  
• Leave a space for your next piece
  This is a little bit advanced tips, but it'll help alot for you to keep the board flat.
  For example, if your next piece is a square block(which we call it an O block), you want to make sure there's a 2-block wide floor on the board after you placed the current block you have, so you won't face a situation which it's impossible to keep the board flat when you place the O block.
  
  
  
• Learn to fill the overhang or special spin method
  Overhang means there are empty holes that can only be filled by soft dropping other pieces.
  By learning how the spin works in game, it will be easier for you to keep the board flat if you accidentally created weird shaped hole.
  
  https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2963324443
  The "All Clear" section of my guide for "Seriously? Seriously." introduces you some basic spin methods.
  
  or Check KezDaBez's video of spins if you want to learn them all.

You need to get S in every Area of Journey Mode, every Effect Mode except Classic Score Attack.
I also wrote a separated guide for this, you can check it out here.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2963324443

If you got this achievements, congrats! Getting this achievement means you have good knowledge on Tetris games.
It took me 40 hours to platinum this, however I started playing TEC with enough fundamentals of Tetris. So the time to 100% could vary depends on player's skill level.