Month: August 2016

Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not reflect Shoryuken.com as a whole.

After several tournaments, many upsets and top Smashers playing musical chairs with placings, we’ve finally reached the end of the Summer of Smash. The road ended at the Seaport World Trade Centre in Boston, where New England put on a fantastic show to finish off this summer season. While not as explosive as Super Smash Con’s roller coaster ride, there were still plenty of interesting moments and surprising placings during Shine 2016, which acted as a fitting end to a tiring 3 months of top level Smash 4. Shine has definitely put itself on the map as one of the majors to attend after this past weekend, so look out for tickets for Shine 2017 next year.

ESAM Returns to Top 8

ESAM has not been performing quite up to his usual high standard during the Summer of Smash, missing out on a number of top 8 finishes and actually placing higher in Melee than in Smash 4 in some cases. Well, something must have clicked in his brain as he decided to finish the summer on a high note, gaining a stellar second place finish after not placing in the final eight of a major since Low Tier City 4 back in June. He thundered through Winners’ Bracket, defeating XL-XCVII, Spark (AKA StaticManny), Mew2King and fellow Floridian Dath on his way to Losers’ Side of Grand Finals, where TSM|ZeRo brought the hammer down upon his tournament run. Especially against Mew2King, ESAM’s Pikachu was able to regain momentum and turn games around which is no mean feat against a character like Cloud who is notorious for taking the lead and running with it. Hopefully, this second place finish may be that second wind ESAM needed to launch himself back into the top 10 of Smash 4.

Dath Tips the Scales

When it comes to breakout performances however, Shine 2016 belongs to EVB|Dath, who claimed third place using solo Robin. Dath has been known to cause upsets, having defeated ANTi, Nietono and Pink Fresh at previous tournaments but he really hit his stride at Shine. Robin is a character considered as mid to low tier by many, due to terrible mobility and an inability to hold stage control for more than a couple of seconds. However, these downsides didn’t phase Dath one iota, using Robin’s projectile traps and strong kill confirms to send top players like Team eLevate’s Larry Lurr and Circa 6WX out of the tournament. A lack of matchup familiarity, combined with Dath’s commanding knowledge of Robin’s options made some matches a pushover. Every Arcthunder charge was perfectly spaced and even with Robin’s terrible run speed, controlling stage never seemed to be a problem for Dath. While Robin isn’t exactly going to be making a leap up to top tier status, I imagine many Robin mains will be vindicated knowing that their character can finally see some decent results and can perform at tournament level in the right hands.

Flashbacks to 2015, But Plenty of Variety

Watching some of the matches during the course of Top 8, one couldn’t help flash back to 2015 at points, as matches played out on the big stage. We saw ZeRo dominating with solo Diddy and facing off against ESAM in Grand Finals, similar to Super Smash Con 2015. 6WX had one hell of a run, just like he did during Apex 2015 and bar that one high speed match between Denial Marss and Larry Lurr, matches seemed to be of a slower pace as we have seen them during the course of this Summer of Smash. With the sheer amount of events over the summer, it was only a matter of time before many of the top players were afflicted with tournament fatigue, as was seen with the lack of many usual top 8 suspects during Shine like Ally, Mr.R, Dabuz and VoiD. As such, many of the usual top tiers were notably missing during top 32, with there being no Rosalinas, one Mario and only two Sheik appearances and even then, those matches were counterpicks. Diddy only had a single representative in top 8 and much to the annoyance of the stream, Sonic was the only repeat character – resulting in an aggressive Sonic mirror between Craftis and 6WX.

Besides Pugwest going into Losers’ in round one and ANTi being knocked out at 17^th, Shine lacked many of the shocking upsets that Smash 4 majors are usually categorized by. This is partially due to the low number of elite players attending Shine, as well as the fact that we are finally starting to see some consistency among the upper echelons. Players are smashing through the “wacky zone” of play you get around the mid to high level and upsets will naturally become less and less likely as the top players begin to cement their position. However, with there being a bit of a tournament lull in September, we should see players taking a well-earned break and coming back invigorated for The Big House 6. By then, the spirit of Smash 4 will have oiled the roulette wheel and will be ready to cause some more upsets.

New England Brings Out the Best

While some of Smash 4’s best may have given Shine a miss, New England came out in full force to exhibit their talents and ability to put on a show. The top 32 bracket was full to the brim of hometown heroes wanting to show off the might of the East Coast. Despite a bit of a shaky start, brothers Pugwest and Marss made it to top 32, with Pugwest falling to Oatmeal’s Meta Knight while New England number one Marss made it all the way to top 8, acting as the sole Zero Suit representative. Elsewhere in bracket, you had Mr E almost marking up a second win against ZeRo, taking him to a game 5 before ZeRo beat him to qualify in Winners’ Side of top 8. New England Peach LingLing was able to knock ANTi out of the tournament, before getting teamkilled by another New England hopeful, Craftis. Craftis then went on to beat out Mr E, acting as New England’s second representative in top 8, alongside Marss. Almost half of top 32 were New England natives which is a big achievements for a region that has yet to make a name for itself in out of state events. Next year, we will no doubt see more talent coming to defend Boston and take the trophy back for New England.

By all accounts from the majority of the attendees, Big Blue eSports and their crew ran a tight ship at Shine, running events on time or even ahead of schedule, as well as providing separate setups and areas for top 8 players to warm up. Many claimed that Shine was one of, if not the best tournament of the Summer of Smash in terms of organization and venue, so hats off to all the front of house and organizational staff from putting on a top quality event.

And with that, the Summer of Smash is officially over and what a few months it has been. We are nowhere closer to creating a top 10, more players seem to be coming out of the woodwork and a solid tier list still looks impossible to create. Luckily, these are the symptoms of a thriving metagame which shows no signs of slowing up any time soon. The Big House 6 is the next supermajor and with international attendees already signed up, there are just under 2 months for people to train in readiness for another global slobberknocker. It’ll be quite the wait.

Results:
1. TSM|ZeRo
2. PG|ESAM
3. EVB|Dath
4. Circa 6WX
5. FOX MVG|Mew2King
5. eLevate|Larry Lurr
7. DNL|Marss
7. Craftis

Source: smash.gg