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Other PMRank 2019 Articles

Last Year's Rankings

Credits

Brennan “ FlashingFire ” Connolly

” Connolly Paul “ Motobug ” Canavan

” Canavan Kyle “ Pegthaniel ” Guo

” Guo Peter “ Pikmon ” Woodworth

” Woodworth Ryan “Sabre” Weinberg

Paul " Motobug " Canavan

" Canavan Samoe " Samoe " Fuchs

" Fuchs Cosmetic Standardization Project (CSProject)

Brennan “FlashingFire” Connolly

“ CND ”

” Connor “ Connor ” Remington

” Remington Paul " Motobug " Canavan

" Canavan Nick " Nick " Hluska

" Hluska Kyle “ Pegthaniel ” Guo

” Guo Ryan "Sabre" Weinberg

The last of the new faces make their first PMRank appearance today, along with many veterans making large jumps.PMRank is a panel-based Power Ranking of the top 50andplayers worldwide. Players, commentators, and tournament organizers within the community had the opportunity to apply to be panelists, and we ended up with a little less than 20 panelists by the time of the project's conclusion. Initially, 70 players were qualified to be ranked based on their placings and attendance at major/+ events throughout 2019. Only 50 highly skilled players made the final list.PMRank staff collected and organized data from dozens ofevents from the past year, seeking out tournaments with significant inter-regional competition. Panelists were tasked with reviewing this data and ranking each player in order, from #1 to #70. For each player, the highest and lowest rankings on all panelists’ lists were removed when averaging votes to reduce variance. After an initial ballot, panelists were given time to discuss the aggregated results and move closer to consensus in the case of players with high standard deviations. Then, panelists submitted a second and final ballot.This project would not have been possible without the dedicated volunteers who helped us engineer spreadsheets, track down tournament data, construct head-to-head charts, create and revise ranking ballots, write and edit player summaries, and gather photographs. A number of photographers have given us permission to use their high-quality photographs ofplayers for the purposes of this project as well.Correy “” Pearlman has always been a player willing to push the boundaries of what is possible with Captain Falcon, and his dedication has finally been rewarded this last year with his first PMRank placing. While his year started off on the wrong foot at Immunity 3, where he lost to altan and Narq, Bubbles hit his stride by the middle of the year. He punched far above his 2018 weight at Frozen Phoenix 2019, where he defeated Twisty. Not to rest on his laurels, Bubbles then took down Rongunshu’s Marth and even finished the set off with a 4-stock against his Lucario to secure a 4th place finish. He only took 23% damage that final game, all during Rongunshu’s first two stocks! Bubbles placed 17th at both Smash‘N’Splash 5 and Blacklisted 5, two of the biggest tournaments in 2019. At Smash‘N’Splash 5, he defeated Morsecode762, Tealz, and Poilu before being taken out by Bobby Frizz. At Blacklisted 5, he came out on top over Arsenals and Comb. However, unlike earlier in the year, the high flying Falcon main would ultimately lose to Rongunshu. Bubbles has always been chomping at the bit to break out over his fellow in-region Captain Falcon rival, Bongo, and this year he has definitely managed that feat. With any luck, he will continue to dazzle with his sublime Falcon play.: PegthanielVeteran Houston Project M player Shahid “” Jivani’s thoughtful and patient Lucario continues its rise up the rankings for the third year in a row. Despite a hiatus from Project M at the beginning of the year, Fearless quickly shook off the rust after an early loss in pools to Havel at Smash‘N’Splash 5 and picked up clean wins over American Bowser and Rongunshu on his way to a 17th place finish. At Low Tier City 7, Fearless picked up another great win over Sothe before applying a brutally efficient combo game against Arsenals, sweeping him 3-0 on his way to a 9th place finish at the Texas major. Fearless remained a strong threat at his last event of 2019 as well with a run to Winners Finals of Smash Camp: End of Summer through Qtip, Arsenals, TomBoComBo, and Sneez. Boringman and ilovebagelz would ultimately deal him a 3rd place finish, but that in no way diminishes the value of his winners’ side run . With fantastic wins against consistent bracket threats and strong placements at some of the year’s most stacked tournaments, Fearless proved himself yet again as not only one of the best players in Texas, but one of the best in the world.: SabreDespite a series of breakout wins, Connor "" Remington narrowly missed the top 50 cut last year, winding up on the Edge of Glory thanks to some detrimental losses. This year, however, Connor's quality of losses improved drastically: his only non-PMRank 2019 top 50 losses were to Scarfy (formerly JFyst, who made PMRank 2018) and Juanpi. Connor was one of the most active players of 2019, attending nine tournaments that qualified for PMRank. His most notable of these was Blacklisted 5, where he made a stellar upset over Twisty and immediately followed that with a jaw-dropping upset over ThundeRzReiGN. Connor's winners’ side run would end there, however, as Flarp sent him down to losers’ bracket, where he defeated Pikmon before losing the runback to Twisty. Connor’s performance at other events, particularly his wins over Drugfreechu and Wyld, further demonstrated that his Blacklisted 5 performance was no fluke. Neither Minnesota nor Roy are very well-represented in the current Project M metagame, but Connor has emphatically put both on the map with his deep foray into the upper levels of PMRank 2019.: MotobugA man of many regions, Luke “” Ferris rises the highest amount of spots of any player on this year’s PMRank. The red Meta Knight main started his year at the Connecticut regional, Judgement 3. Despite taking a loss to Mr. Watch & Learn in winners’ side, he ran through Bubbles, Twisty, ex-PMRank Kumatora, and took two sets in the runback against Mr. Watch & Learn to win the entire event. Quaff’s sole international venture at Frozen Phoenix would see him obtain wins on Wyld and Poilu before placing 7th. At events inside of his former home region of Massachusetts, he acquired wins over Boiko, Arsenals, Grzly, and another win over Mr. Watch & Learn for a 17th place at Blacklisted 5 and a 4th place finish at In the Nick of Time. Yung Quaff’s standout event would be his final one of the year, in his new residence of SoCal. At The Encore, he fell to losers’ bracket in Round 1 after a 3-1 loss to Rongunshu, but the quick and technically proficient Meta Knight main did not falter, trouncing Dumshiny, El Shroomo, and Sneez to meet Pikmon in top 8. Yung Quaff entered into a counterpick war with the Game & Watch and Ike player, switching over to his secondary Ivysaur halfway through to walk away with a win after a tense game 5 set. While his run would end in the next round due to a loss to ThundeRzReiGN, Quaff finished at an impressive 5th place. With his multitude of top 30 wins and complete lack of losses outside of the top 40, Yung Quaff proved that he can hang with the best of the best no matter where he is situated.: MotobugA staple of New England Project M, Will “” Gomez retained his title as one of the best players on the East Coast this year, with great wins at home and across North America. At his first major event of 2019, Frozen Phoenix, Twisty not only defeated Altan and Nave, but Massachusetts rival Yung Quaff as well to place 5th. At Smash’N’Splash 5, his Wario faced a gauntlet of Floridians, taking wins over Nogh and Jagz$ after dropping a set to Cala in pools, and eventually being eliminated at a solid 13th place by Illinois denizen Drugfreechu. With wins over Bubbles, Motobug, Wyld, and Comb at various smaller events, Twisty consistently lived up to his reputation as one of New England’s best, but when challengers across the world came to his home turf for Blacklisted 5, he turned it up a notch. After a loss to Connor in pools, Twisty went on an incredible losers’ run through Vaporeon, Kycse, Yung Quaff, Dirtboy, and Flipp, before taking revenge on Connor in their runback with a 3-1 victory to place 4th at one of the year’s biggest events. Twisty wouldn’t appear at a notable Project M event for some time following his run at Blacklisted 5, and nearly six months later he suffered losses to Cala and Jagz$ to place 7th at Lazer Lazer 20 in December. Overall the stylish Wario main put together an impressive year complete with myriad quality wins and his best major placement since 2017. If he can build on the momentum that he created in the first half of 2019, we could easily see Twisty “Go!” up the rankings in 2020.: SabreOne of NorCal’s most well-established players, Parker “” Boring and his diverse roster of speedy characters make their return to the top 25 of PMRank for the fourth year in a row. Although he started off 2019 with a relatively mediocre 7th place finish at Neon Genesix Evangelion after losing to Sugydye and Pikmon, Boringman regained his footing for subsequent events. At Smash‘N’Splash 5, he utilized all three of his characters throughout the bracket as he took home wins over Pyrrhus, Scarfy, Fearless, and Cala to place 9th at the most stacked event of the year. While most of the remainder of Boringman’s summer proved to be uneventful, his final tournament of the year proved to be his best: a sweeping victory against a field of elite threats to claim 1st place at Smash Camp: End of Summer. He took decisive victories over Ca$ino Wolf, Dumshiny, and Fearless to make his way to Grand Finals without dropping a game before closing out the tournament with a game 5 set against hometown hero ilovebagelz, clinching perhaps the most impressive tournament win of his long career. With his character choices seemingly solidified for the first time since the conception of PMRank, Boringman may be able to further hone his edges and bring even more trophies home to NorCal.: SabreMany Massachusetts players have risen up the rankings this year, but none have made as much progress as Zack "" Gordon, who climbed 23 spots. Despite his limited attendance, Flarp’s slick Luigi and budding Ice Climbers performed exceptionally well at the events within his purview. His stand-out tournament was Blacklisted 5, where he defeated Dirtboy, Connor, and Narq to land himself 5th place, only being defeated by ThundeRzReiGN and Switch. Flarp performed well in his other showings with two wins over Yung Quaff and one over Twisty at "I can't Beelieve it's not 3.6!," and wins over Poilu, Motobug, and MPGR #47 Stango to take a 5th place finish at Resting Stitch Face 2. Complementing his enviable wins, Flarp demonstrated impressive resilience this year, with his worst losses coming at the hands of Silver and Mr. Watch & Learn, both top 30 players in their own right. With his improved consistency and a plethora of notable wins, it's no surprise that Flarp’s PMRank 2019 placement has risen in kind.: MotobugJacob “” Smith has been one of the only top-level Squirtle players for over four straight years, and 2019 only saw improvement for the Michigan native. Dirtboy also continued his streak of being one of Project M’s most active players, attending an astonishing 14 qualifying tournaments and placing no worse than 17th at any of them. On three separate occasions this year, he traveled to tournaments outside his home region on consecutive weekends. The most notable of these back-to-back out-of-region tournament weekends was when he placed 5th at Super Smash Con in Virginia, and then traveled overseas the following weekend to Germany where he defeated Europe’s best to win Awakening 5. This admirable work ethic earned Dirtboy frequent wins over top 25 players such as Rongunshu, Drugfreechu, Twisty, Connor, Silver, Bubbles, and Sneez, as well as even more wins over lower-ranked players. Almost as impressive was the quality of Dirtboy’s losses; he did not drop any sets to players outside of this year’s top 50, excluding former top players like Junebug and Fuzz. With consistently impressive performances at so many tournaments, Dirtboy has remained an extremely strong player capable of making top 8 in nearly any bracket. While Squirtle is a perpetually underrepresented character, Dirtboy’s outpouring of tournaments with high placements makes the slippery turtle Pokémon a torrential threat to competitors.: ConnorOne year ago, we deemed Kyle “” Carrero a “bastion of consistency.” In this tumultuous past year of waning attendance and the changes brought about by Project+, Kycse continues to show that steadfast skill despite the evolving landscape, earning the same PMRank placing for the third consecutive year. His biggest result of 2019 was at an early Project+ New England event, "I Can't Beelieve It's Not 3.6!" There, he narrowly defeated Motobug in pools before going on a wild killing spree only stopped by his long-time nemesis, Switch. With 3-0s against Twisty, Flarp, and Flipp, as well as a 3-1 vs Silver, Kycse set out to let the world know that Project+ Charizard is still a speedy powerhouse in the right hands. In Grand Finals, Kycse would once again face Switch, and despite a tight set coming down to the last game, Kycse would lose and place 2nd. Although he placed a disappointing 17th place at Blacklisted 5 after losing the runback against Twisty and faltering to Narq, Kycse put up another great result at Resting Stitch Face 2. He picked up another win over Flarp in a tense game 5 set and claimed wins over Bubbles and Stango to place 4th after losses to his classic East Coast rivals, Malachi and Switch. It’s no surprise now that Kycse reappears in the upper echelon of PMRank, and we eagerly await 2020 to see if he will break through his plateau.: PegthanielAs the best player in one of the most active regions in the world, Tony “” Rolens lands just outside the top 10 of PMRank 2019. Drugfreechu was a paragon of consistency this year, which is likely a result of his methodical Game & Watch play. You would be hard-pressed to find a recorded example of Drugfreechu rolling the dice with Judgment or sliding across the stage with a hail-mary Up Smash. He instead relies on his quick decision making and extensively-practiced execution to thoroughly outplay his opponents. This dedication to the fundamentals of the game led to marked improvement, as seen by his significant increase in rank from 2018. His only losses this year to players ranked below him were to Connor and Dirtboy, both of whom he has positive records against. Barring a loss to DVD (#10 on PMRank 2018), the remainder of his losses were exclusively to players ranked above him this year. Drugfreechu’s wins consistently impressed, too; he took sets over strong midwest players such as Dirtboy, Connor, ORLY, Wyld, and Ripple at several regionals in the first half of the year. Smash’N’Splash 5 was Drugfreechu’s landmark performance of 2019, as he finished in the top 8 of the biggest tournament of the year by beating Forrest (formerly MrLz), Twisty, and Ivayne. He ended the year with a solid run at Blacklisted 5, beating Bubbles and Darc on the way to a 13th place finish. Although Drugfreechu did not earn any wins over top 10 players this year, his bedrock consistency marks him as an inspiration to those hoping to reach the coveted top level of play.: ConnorPMRank Staff:Graphic Design and Character Renders:Editor-in-Chief:Additional Editing: