By Brendan “Bean” Murray

It has been a short time since Super Smash Con 2017 occurred, and with each passing Shears tweet, I realize that I made a huge mistake by skipping this event. Thankfully, there was a large NYC crew in attendance — and they showed that New York is quickly becoming the region to watch, with many solid performances and a few upsets that helped our local legends make a national impression.

Reptar, NYC’s top Falcon main, made a huge improvement over last year’s SSC, where he went 0-2. This year, he placed second in both his placement pool, losing only to Finio, and his Division 2 pool, dropping a set to KaZ. In Division 1, he upset The Protagonist in a tight 2-1 set, finishing his pool with a 1-3 record, behind Wangera, HAMMERHEART and Cafil | Jason. With a solid 7-5 record, Reptar placed 49th and is looking to climb even higher as the year goes on.

Dark Gentleman, resident Jiggs main, top NYC TO and the co-creator of WTF, also placed well. After going 3-1 in PP, he tore through his D2 bracket, not dropping a single game and beat Darkhorse in D1, finishing at 33rd. After losing to MHJ and Daniel, he is looking to level up his Falcon for the Pika matchup and start taking sets over players of that caliber to prove he belongs at that level. DG was not the only NYC player to place 33rd. Time Machine, an NYC expat, went 4-0 in PP and 2-2 in D1. Horbie, our yellow Kirby main who had his breakout performance at Keystoned, lost only to The Protagonist in PP, then swept his D2 bracket and went 2-2 in D1, beating JAMJAR and R3$T | Dizzle. Korobeniki lost his sole set to BarkSanchez in PP before mimicking Horbie and sweeping his D2 bracket to make D1, where he had to face off against Time Machine, unfortunately coming out on the losing side in the only NYC head-to-head match of the tournament.

Jimmy Joe, the face of NYC Smash 64, had an incredibly difficult bracket. Half of JJ’s initial pool were DQed which allowed him to go 4-0 relatively easily. He then got placed in the same D1 bracket as BarkSanchez, Nintendude, JaimeHR and MadRush, and unfortunately placed in the bottom of his pool, finishing at 33rd. Jonnjonn, our other alliterative-J smasher and rising Ness/Pika main, was placed in D3 after his initial pool. In D3, he went 4-1 (including an incredibly close 2-1 match versus atari) to place second and move on to D2, where he went 1-3.

Firo was the highest placing New Yorker at Super Smash Con 2017. He swept through his PP to reach D1, where he placed second behind Zero, whom he lost to 1-2 — his only dropped games in his pool. He also defeated fellow low-tier hero Mr. Sir and earned a spot in winners’ side of top 32. He then faced off against the Japanese combo king Prince, where he lost a close 2-1 set and was knocked into losers’ bracket. After defeating Daniel 2-0, Firo was finally knocked out of the tournament by BarkSanchez in a 2-1 set that earned him a 17th place finish, further establishing him as the premier low-tier main in the US. He also placed 9th in teams with longtime doubles partner Nintendude.

As always, the real hero of this tournament was the WTF bracket, which allowed talented players like Reptar, Dark Gentleman and Horbie to fight their way through divisions of similarly-skilled players and test their might against some of the best players in America and the world. Instead of drowning in pools and being knocked out after an hour, they — and many other up-and-coming players from various regions — were able to play a huge number of sets (7-15, depending on how well they did) and level up in a way that previous tournament structures would not allow. Next, we turn our eyes to Shine, Boston’s multi-game major that runs from August 25th-27th, to see if New York City can continue to climb and compete with top caliber Smashers.

Brendan Murray is a smasher from NYC who joined the scene in mid-2016. He mains Samus, which he regrets every day. You can find him on Twitter at @EatDrnk_BMurray