Professional Super Smash Bros. competition

History

The first publicized Super Smash Bros. Melee tournaments were held in early 2002 with the Tournament Go series. Early tournaments had disputes over what the official ruleset should be, but the Tournament Go organizer, Matt "MattDeezie" Dahlgren, eventually came up with a ruleset that would become similar to the current fundamental ruleset. On March 1, 2003 the International Video Game Federation hosted the first corporate sponsored Super Smash Bros. tournament, the IVGF Northwest Regionals, won by Jeremy "Recipherus" Fremlin. From 2004 to 2006, Major League Gaming sponsored Melee on its Pro Circuit.

The period of 2003 to 2006 was the Golden Age of Melee, as the game was in the Major League Gaming circuit. Ken Hoang was considered to be the best player during this time, earning him the nickname "The King of Smash." In addition to Ken, Christopher "Azen" McMullen, Daniel "ChuDat" Rodriguez, Joel Isai "Isai" Alvarado, Christopher "PC Chris" Szygiel, Daniel "KoreanDJ" Jung, and Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman were considered the best players at the time. Although dropping Melee from its 2007 Pro Circuit, MLG still sponsored a number of tournaments as part of the underground 2007 Smash Series for a year.

In 2010 MLG picked up Brawl for its Pro Circuit for a year. During this time, Nintendo prohibited MLG from live streaming Brawl matches. At 2014 MLG Anaheim Melee was once again hosted at an MLG event. Melee was also included at the Evolution Championship Series (Evo) in 2007, a fighting game tournament held in Las Vegas. Brawl replaced Melee for EVO 2008, but received criticism for the inclusion of items. The competitive Smash scene shrank in 2009 due to criticisms of the mechanics of Brawl. The period from 2012 to 2013 was the "Dark Age" due to Melee's temporary decline and then Brawl's decline. After this "Dark Age," EVO 2013 started Smash's comeback in the competitive scene and, thus, started the "Platinum Era," otherwise known as the "Five Gods" Era.

Melee was again hosted at EVO 2013 after it won a charity drive to decide the final game to be featured in its tournament lineup. Due to the large turnout and popularity that year, Evo again included Melee at both their 2014 and 2015 event. New Jersey-based Apex is another prominent Super Smash Bros. tournament, and has a series of qualifying events that are a prerequisite to playing at Apex. In 2015 Apex announced that they were officially sponsored by Nintendo of America, which was the first official sponsorship of a community-run event. Apex 2015 was the largest Smash tournament in history until EVO 2015 and featured every official title in the series. In June 2014 Nintendo held an exhibition Super Smash Bros. for Wii U tournament at E3 2014. In addition to Apex, Community Effort Orlando (CEO), GENESIS, Pound, The Big House, Paragon and B.E.A.S.T. are the biggest active tournament series. Past tournament series included Revival of Melee, Kings of Cali, MELEE-FC, and Tournament Go.

Currently – the Platinum Era – the best players of Melee, colloquially known as the "Five Gods", are Mew2King, Joseph "Mango" Marquez, Kevin "PPMD" Nanney (formerly known as Dr. PeePee), Adam "Armada" Lindgren, and Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma. However, in recent times William "Leffen" Hjelte has broken through the barrier of the five gods that stood for many years and is universally agreed to be at a comparable skill level; he is known to be a God slayer and the top 6 are collectively known as the "Big 6" and he is the only Smash player to have beaten all Five Gods. Since the Five Gods era, the Big 6 have always taken the top two spots at all majors except for EVO 2013 (Wobbles, placing 2nd). In addition to the Five Gods, three other players, Jeffery "Axe" Williamson, Weston "Westballz" Dennis, and Justin "Plup" McGrath, are considered near top level. (Axe defeated Mango, Mew2King, Hungrybox, PPMD; Westballz defeated Mango, PPMD, Hungrybox; Plup defeated Mango, Hungrybox, PPMD, Mew2King) In August 2015 DreamHack announced that it would be hosting Melee tournaments at DreamHack London and DreamHack Winter. SmashBoards estimated that in 2014 around 3,242 events featuring a Super Smash Bros. game occurred worldwide.

Other games

The other Smash titles also have sizable competitive scenes. The best Super Smash Bros. Brawl players include Ally, Mew2King and Nairoby "Nairo" Quezada. Daniel "SuPeRbOoMfAn" Hoyt is considered the best active Super Smash Bros. player, though Isai "Isaiah" Alvarado is widely considered to be the greatest of all time. Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios is considered the best Wii U player, while other notable players include Samuel "Dabuz" Buzby, Ramin "Mr. R" Dalshad, Nairoby "Nairo" Quezada, and Eric "ESAM" Lew. EVO 2016 had the biggest attendance of any Smash game with 2,662 entrants.

Status

The culture of competitive Melee has been met with some criticism by the game's developers. Masahiro Sakurai expressed concern for the skill gap between casual and competitive players, and has said that competitive play strays from his original vision for the game. Before Evo 2013, Nintendo of America sent a cease and desist letter to bar the tournament from streaming Melee matches, but after experiencing public backlash allowed the live stream to continue as planned.

Sakurai's subsequent philosophy for Brawl was for the game to be more readily accessible to new players. Consequentially, Brawl is less popular among professional gamers due to its perceived lack of competitive depth. In response, some players used an exploit with the Wii's SD Card save system to mod the game, creating Project M, which has a gameplay and physics environment more similar to that of Melee's. In addition, the less popular Brawl- was designed to make every character incredibly powerful and Brawl+ was developed to make Brawl more balanced, especially with the character Meta Knight being considered extremely overpowered in the original game.

For Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, Sakurai designed the game to appeal to both competitive and casual smashers, stating that his vision for the pace of two titles was between Melee and Brawl. However, some professional players have criticized it for resembling Brawl much more than Melee.

Ken Hoang, considered to be the game's best player for many years, has won over US$50,000 from Smash tournaments. The competitive Smash community was featured in a 2013 crowd-funded documentary called The Smash Brothers. The film detailed the history of the professional scene and profiled seven prominent Melee players including Hoang and Evo 2013 champion, Joseph "Mang0" Marquez. The other five players were Christopher "Azen" McMullen, Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, Isai "Isaiah" Alvarado, Chris "PC Chris" Szygiel, and Daniel "KoreanDJ" Jung. A spin-off called Metagame featuring Swedish player Adam "Armada" Lindgren and American player Kevin "PPMD" Nanney is set to be released in 2016 and raised over US$30,000 through Kickstarter.

Competitive rule set

Games played using competitive rules are generally played with lives (known as "stocks" in-game), with the timer set, and items turned off. It is played either Double-elimination format, or a double-elimination bracket seeded from pools.

Smash 64 starts with 5 stocks and the timer set to 8 minutes, Melee and Project M with 4 stocks and 8 minute time limit, Brawl with three stocks and 8 minute time limit, and 3DS and Wii U with two and 6 minute time limit. If the time runs out, the winner is determined by whoever has more stocks left; if both players have the same number of stocks, then winner is determined by whoever has the lower percent. If both players have the same amount of stocks and damage, then, depending on the tournament, the whole match must be played again, or a shorter match with a single stock each is played.

Pausing can disrupt the gameplay; thus, if a player pauses while in the middle of a match to gain an advantage, then that player must forfeit a stock or the game. In stricter tournaments, the player must forfeit a stock regardless of advantage (or lack thereof), though the pause function is usually disabled in these tournaments.

Most matches are played in best-of-three game sets. Best-of-five sets are played anywhere from top 32 to grand finals.

There are stages that are deemed legal by the tournament organizers; these stages are starter stages. Players strike the starter stages before a match to determine the first stage they will play on; also, players must choose their characters without the other person's knowledge for the first match. In subsequent matches there are also counterpick stages allowed. For instance, in Melee singles, the starter stages are Battlefield, Final Destination, Dream Land N64, Yoshi's Story, and Fountain of Dreams. Players use a 1-2-1 format to strike which stages they do not want to play on until one is left. Once the first match is complete, the losing player can choose any of the starter stages or he or she can also choose a counterpick stage – in this case, Pokémon Stadium. After the first match is complete, the losing player chooses a stage, then the winning player chooses his or her character, then the losing player chooses his or her character before heading to subsequent matches. In best-of-3 sets, the winner can ban one stage so the losing player cannot choose that stage. Generally, players cannot select a stage on which they have previously won, this is known as "Dave's Stupid Rule". However, a modified version of this rule is being used currently, in which a player can select a stage he or she won on only with the other player's approval.

Competitive play may be either singles, or doubles. In singles, two players face off against each other. In doubles, two teams of two players fight each other. Sharing stocks with your teammate is allowed. Friendly fire is enabled, so teammates can damage or save each other. This is to ensure fairness, as certain combinations of characters in teams can prove to be overpowered. It also ensures that two-on-one situations aren't overwhelmingly tilted in the winning team's favor. It also adds a couple of extra strategies. For example, some characters can absorb attacks, to heal themselves or to charge an attack for later use. With friendly fire on, a player can attack their ally specifically to allow them to absorb it. Additionally, most characters have a triple jump that, once used, prevents the character from taking any action until they are hit with an attack, land back on the stage, are KO'd. If a player is not going to make it back to the stage, their ally can hit them with a weak attack, allowing them to re-use their triple jump and make it back. A similar thing applies to Jigglypuff's Rest move, which is extremely powerful, but immobilizes Jigglypuff for several seconds, unless she is hit by an attack. An ally can use his or her weakest move to knock Jigglypuff out of this state, denying the enemy the chance to use a powerful move on her. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U adds an eight player mode, which allows triples and quadruples teams, although there have been comparatively few tournaments.

In addition, a player gets port priority when he or she wins in a best-of-one of, usually, rock-paper-scissors. Smasher Mew2King found out that the player who is player 1 or is closest to player 1 has priority in attacks that hit each other at the same time. Also, a neutral start may be enacted if a player suggests it.

In some Brawl rulesets, Meta Knight is either banned from certain stages or is completely banned from tournaments due to his overpowered nature of attacks.

Smashboards

Smashboards (originally known as Smash World Forums) is an online forum centered on games from the Super Smash Bros. series. The community hosts discussions of techniques, news, and professional competition of the Super Smash Bros. games of all generations. They are also a service used to announce Smash tournaments. Users on the website also discuss tournament rules and create tier lists that rank playable characters in all five games of the Super Smash Bros. series.

Smashboards started off in 2002, as a site named Smash World that Ricky "Gideon" Tilton in Pennsylvania created in dedication of his favorite game, not realizing that his site was to become one of the largest independent competitive gaming communities in the world. At September 28, 2008 Major League Gaming acquired Smashboards.com. On November 27, 2012, moderator Chris "AlphaZealot" Brown purchased Smashboards from Major League Gaming.

Between August 25, 2013 and September 17, 2013 the site was targeted by a distributed denial of service attack from an unknown source.

Smashboards has been cited as an independent "scene" for Smash tournaments.

Forum discussions range from in-game techniques to collaboration projects such as the user-made PC version of Super Smash Bros. entitled "Super Smash Land." Additionally, players frequently discuss the rankings (or "Tiers") of each playable character and the administrators release forum posts that officially list them. These lists are generally accepted among community members and can be found at Smashboards.com, for each game in the series.

Wombo Combo meme

A December 2008 Melee doubles match is the centerpiece to an internet meme. In a shortened segment, which as of January 26, 2016 has more than 10 million views on YouTube, the match consisted of the green team of SilentSpectre, as Captain Falcon, and Tang, as Fox, against the blue team of Zhu and Lucky, both Fox. After Lucky loses his stocks, only Zhu is left against SilentSpectre and Tang. The duo went on to perform a doubles combo against Zhu's Fox while the commentators, HomeMadeWaffles, Phil, and Mango, exclaim "Happy Feet, Wombo Combo. That ain't Falco" and then yell wildly as Zhu's Fox is KO'd. The Wombo Combo is the subject of a mini documentary. Wombo Combo is one of the memes seen in the Wii U eShop game Meme Run. It has also been used in many "MLG Montage" parody videos

2016 Melee power rankings

The 2016 SSBMRank is a ranking of the 101 best Melee players based on results from tournaments throughout 2016 compiled by Melee it on Me and published on Red Bull eSport's website. The group of 42 panelists included top players, such as Ice, HugS, Zhu, and Hungrybox; notable commentators, such as D1, King Funk, Webs, and Vish; and other active members of the community, such as Juggleguy (The Big House), Tafokints (Melee It On Me), SleepyK (Smash Studios), and Reno (Team Apex)

^†Change since the 2015 SSBMRank

2016 Wii U power rankings

These rankings are based on the Panda Global Rankings. A player's X-factor is the difference between the Panda Global Rankings and the panelists' rankings.

2016 SSB64 power rankings

The 2016 SSB64 League Rankings listed the world's top 64 Super Smash Bros. players from 2014 and is compiled by SSB64 Central. These were voted on by Smash 64 players, tournament organizers, and community members. Panelists used the tournament results from GENESIS 3, Super Smash Con, SuperBoomed, Boss Battle 2, SNOSA II, Pound 2016, ODS II, and GOML 2016 to determine rankings This is the first official rankings for this game.

2014 Brawl power rankings

The 2014 SSBBRank listed the world's top 100 Super Smash Bros. Brawl smashers from 2014 and is compiled by Smash organization CLASH Tournaments. It is similar to the SSBMRank. To be listed, a player had to attend at least one tournament in the United States, starting with Apex 2013, as to allow easier judgement of players' skills compared to other players; as a result, some top international players who rarely travel to the United States were left out of the list. This was the only and final official Brawl rankings.

^†DEHF is known as Larry Lurr in Smash 4. In Melee and Brawl, he is known as DEHF

^‡Names unknown

Tier list

A tier list is a list that ranks all characters based on the strength of their fighting abilities and their potential to win matches under tournament conditions, assuming equal skill on the part of each player. A tier list is decided based on:

The metagame of each game in the Super Smash Bros. series encompasses all the currently known techniques and strategies that have proven useful during tournament matches; thus, the tier list for each game ranks and measures the expected competitive performance of every character, based upon analysis of these techniques and strategies. The most widely accepted tier lists in the English-speaking community are those produced by the Smash Back Room on Smashboards.

The first Super Smash Bros. tier list was compiled on March 11, 2008 by GameFAQs. The current tier list, the fourth one, of the original Super Smash Bros. game is from May 12, 2015. It had a total of 86 voters, including SuPeRbOoMfAn, JaimieHR, and Mariguas.

The first Super Smash Bros. Melee tier list was released on October 8, 2002 by Smashboards. The current tier list, the twelfth one, is from December 10, 2015 by the Melee Back Room, which takes in its "tier averages."

The first Super Smash Bros. Brawl tier list made its debut in September 1, 2008. The most recent Brawl tier list, the eighth one, is from April 25, 2013. It is based off the Brawl Back Room community.

The first Super Smash Bros. for Wii U tier list, which is also applicable for the 3DS version, was unveiled on February 1, 2016 for patch 1.1.3. The second one, was unveiled on August 22, 2016 on patch 1.1.6. The most recent Smash for 3DS/Wii U tier list, the third one, was made by the Smash for 3DS/Wii U Back Room.

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U

†- indicates change from game's previous tier list

(*)- Tie between characters sharing the same spot(s) on the tier list.