The Rundown (11/9/21)
The past two weeks have included the most important Smash Ultimate tournaments of the year for both UNC-Chapel Hill and the entire state of North Carolina. In total, three different UNC students have won tournaments, while several others have put up impressive results.
The Monster Smash Invitational, the brainchild of NC Sam, highlighted 16 of Chapel Hill’s best players outside of the top five: Sugarland, Spandex, Grubbin, ForFor and Arctinox. With members of the top five commentating rather than competing, the field was open for other competitors to shine. As it turned out, the Monster Smash Invitational marked its creator’s first ever tournament victory.
NC Sam had a perfect run through pools, sweeping Dilly-Jo, CthuluKarioa and Skowboard without dropping a game. From there, he reached grand finals on winners side by defeating Brad, meenis tiny and No. 1 seed Azuza. Finally, NC Sam conquered meenis tiny yet again in a five-game grand finals set to win the tournament.
On the next day, Halloween, players from Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh flocked to the Carolina Gaming Arena for Hands Off My Bread 3, the Esports Club’s premier Smash event for its semiannual GameFest. The event notably included a Halloween costume contest, which Miasma won with his creative and detailed Solid Snake costume.
Even with a larger talent pool than normal, Hands Off My Bread 3 still marked a predictable victory for Sugarland. He beat Basilisk, Gaopow and Arctinox without dropping a game before losing 3-2 to Grubbin in winners finals. Nevertheless, Sugarland eliminated ForFor 3-2 in losers finals, then won both sets of grand finals over Grubbin.
After several impressive showings during UNC’s free Wednesday night Smashfests, meenis tiny entered his first paid brackets of the semester over Halloween weekend. He performed phenomenally at both events, placing second at the Monster Smash Invitational and fifth at Hands Off My Bread 3. Between those two events, meenis tiny racked up wins over Azuza, geezer, c4zywinz, Brad, BEEP BOOP, Punx, bussin, wasp, Yuum, Young and SuperManny.
The next weekend, many Chapel Hill residents traveled to Morrisville to compete at Just Roll With It! 13, the latest edition of North Carolina’s premier Smash Ultimate tournament series. Of them, Spandex had the best performance, placing 13th out of 323 entrants. In the process, he defeated ecosamo, Welp, Bananime, Struggler, Chugs, Ferf and Kresent. Meanwhile, Spandex only lost sets to Jax and omega, both of whom are ranked in the top 15 in Georgia.
Back in Chapel Hill, Sugarland came out on top of a smaller crowd at Empty Pockets 5. He reached winners finals by defeating sticc, Bumm and Azuza without dropping a game. Like the week before, Sugarland lost to Grubbin in winners finals. And like the week before, he overcame his losers finals opponent, Arctinox, then defeated Grubbin in both sets of grand finals.
Additionally, Trinket and Punx both earned impressive wins en route to fifth place at Empty Pockets 5. Trinket notably eliminated Miasma and cyan, both of whom had previously beaten him, along with beating Bumm. Meanwhile, Punx earned victories over Trinket, bussin and Brad.
Finally, ForFor rounded out an exciting two weeks of competition by winning Smash Sans Frontiéres on Monday, Nov. 8. He managed to win his round one match against Zehvor, who had beaten him the last time they played. From there, ForFor won sets against Teesa, Tony Guava and Cyphus to win the tournament.