The Rundown (10/26/21)
Students at UNC-Chapel Hill were on fall break this past week, meaning the Esports Club skipped the latest edition of its biweekly Spare Change series. Nevertheless, Tar Heels have continued to compete in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournaments as nearby as Raleigh and as far away as Herndon, Virginia.
Before fall break, Sugarland took first place at Empty Pockets 4 without dropping a single game. He cruised through the bracket with wins over the next oof, CthuluKarioa and Struggler, as well as a pair of wins against Arctinox.
In addition, Lollicat and CthuluKarioa both had breakout runs to fifth place at Empty Pockets. Lollicat defeated El Chicharrón, Miasma and Ke’ena. Meanwhile, CthuluKarioa beat Cityblazer, bussin, wasp and Bumm.
Meanwhile, a handful of Chapel Hill’s players traveled to Virginia to compete at Super Smash Con: Fall Fest, a major tournament with 769 entrants. Spandex led the charge, finishing in 97th place after eliminating C.Falcon, the No. 1 player in Louisiana. Additionally, ForFor and Grubbin both made it into the second wave of pools.
Even with fall break ongoing, a number of Chapel Hill’s Smash players competed at the Triangle Throwdown Arcadian in Raleigh on Oct. 24. After months of excelling at Chapel Hill events, Sugarland finally got the chance to show off his skill to the broader North Carolina community.
Outside of the main bracket, Sugarland received a special invitation to the PRCadian, a 16-person invitational consisting mostly of players who had previously been ranked on the statewide power rankings. Sugarland finished in second place, only dropping sets to Frostbyte, the No. 3 player in the state. Meanwhile, he defeated Jiggs (No. 4), Regalo (No. 5), Shotgunraptorjesus (No. 13) and DEEPBLUE (former No. 1).
Then came the main Arcadian bracket, which was limited to players who had never been power ranked. After his phenomenal performance in the PRCadian, it’s hardly surprising that Sugarland dominated the Arcadian. He won the whole thing, only dropping two games along the way. In the process, he beat Tomba, Sausage, TidalTao, Yazzy, Stormy and Fulk, along with double-eliminating JustTheIce.