Over the last few months, large scale Super Smash Bros. Melee tournaments have been few and far between. Many of Melee's top competitors have sequestered themselves at home to rest, attend smaller events, and train for the busy summer season. Since GENESIS 5 in January, no Melee tournament with the majority of the SSBMRank Top 10 in attendance has come close to exceeding 300 entrants.

In a few days, Full Bloom 4 will bring an end to this drought. With 47 of Melee's top 100 players among the tournament's 350+ attendees, the Bloomington, Indiana major features seven Top 10 players, including Smash "gods" Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma, Joseph "Mang0" Marquez and William "Leffen" Hjelte.

Although its registration numbers are lower than those of longstanding tournament series such as GENESIS or The Big House, Full Bloom 4 is proof that the Smash scene continues to grow at the grassroots level.

"We will grow by about 100-150 total entrants [from last year]," said head organizer Louie "PhD" Limas. "We will also double the number of MIOM[-ranked players] represented...in terms of quality, we will now be a two-day event with a 24-hour venue."

Full Bloom is a relatively new tournament series, and its popularity comes from the wealth of unique experiences that it affords Midwest Smash players and fans, including opportunities to meet their top-level idols.

"Last year, our Mango announcement was followed by a jump of like 150 entrants a month out in 24 hours," said organizer Jack "Jackzilla" Harmening. "It was insane... [top player attendance] really does push people to register earlier, and often gets them to show up in the first place."

Full Bloom 3 was one of 2017's most exciting events, with regional hero James "Duck" Ma defeating a string of elite players on his way to a second-place finish behind Hungrybox. This year's iteration will be bigger, louder and far more stacked. If its predecessor was any indicator, Full Bloom 4 will be sure to end Melee's majorless period in spectacular fashion.

Resting, but not dormant

Despite the recent scarcity of major tournaments, the broader Super Smash Bros. competitive scene has been as active as ever. Instead of congregating at nationals, Melee players have turned their attention to regional events, such as California's Noods Noods Noods or Pennsylvania's Smash Valley 7.

At many of these smaller tournaments, Hungrybox has reigned supreme, easily dispatching lower-ranked opponents in the absence of other Top 6 players. Last weekend, he hosted and won his own regional, Overlords of Orlando, without dropping a single game. Other large regionals, like Philadelphia's The Gang Hosts a Melee Tournament, have allowed players outside the Top 10 to enter the spotlight.

Although Hungrybox's GENESIS 5 loss to Justin "Plup" McGrath is a recent memory, he has since been able to get revenge against his fellow Floridian. In March alone, Hungrybox has bested the 5th-ranked Sheik main in four tournament sets. However, these victories have come with caveats: the first two occurred at CFL Smackdown, a local tournament where Plup has been known to take the competition less-than-seriously -- and the last two occurred at the Enthusiast Gaming Live Expo in March, where the Grand Finals set between Hungrybox and Plup was marred by frigid temperatures following the accidental opening of a venue door.

At Full Bloom 4, Hungrybox will hope to defend his title, achieve an unblemished victory, and reassert his dominance over the rest of Melee's elite.

Meanwhile, Leffen hasn't been as active as his No. 1-ranked rival. Since GENESIS 5, the Swede has focused much of his energy towards becoming a top-ranked online player in Dragon Ball FighterZ. However, when he has shown up, Leffen has demonstrated that practicing another fighting game has not reduced his Melee skill.

At Phoenix Blue, a Swedish regional in February, Leffen exclusively used Mewtwo and Marth while brute-forcing his way to a second-place finish. Although he fell to Álvaro "Trif" García Moral in the Grand Finals, this disrespectful use of secondaries underscored the massive skill gap between Leffen and most of his European competition.

Last weekend, Leffen once again sandbagged by using his secondaries at The Mango, a Southern California super-regional hosted by Mang0 himself. Mired in a battle with jetlag, Leffen focused on commentary, ending his tournament run at 13th place. Mang0 also took the opportunity to sandbag, finishing at 17th.

Leffen has been known to use Marth at Full Bloom as well. Last year, he switched to the swordsman before the third game of his upset loss to Duck. This time around, Leffen will put his Fox to the test against a cohort of highly capable competitors and perhaps redeem himself against his Samus-playing Midwestern demon.

Aside from the non-serious effort at his eponymous tournament, Mang0 has been relatively inactive, though he continues to stream and practice regularly. At GENESIS 5, Mang0 dropped sets to Plup and Leffen to finish at 5th, his lowest-ever placing at a GENESIS event. While Plup won't be present at Full Bloom 4, Mang0 will surely hope to avenge his loss to Leffen and show Hungrybox that he's still a force to be reckoned with.

Chasing the Summit

While all three of Full Bloom 4's top seeds are are capable of winning the tournament, they're not the only competitors with high stakes at this weekend's event. In February, streaming organization Beyond the Summit announced that Full Bloom's Top 2 non-invited finishers will receive wildcard slots for Smash Summit 6, the next installment of Melee's fan-favorite invitational event.

The collaboration between BtS and Full Bloom was Beyond the Summit's brainchild.

"I like to think that our reputation of being one of the few established premier spring majors helped get their attention," said PhD.

Traditionally, Beyond the Summit extends invitations to the Top 8 SSBMRanked players. At Full Bloom, that means the top three seeds will not be eligible for the wildcard spots, along with Jeffrey "Axe" Williamson and Justin "Wizzrobe" Hallett. Following SSBMRank 2017, the top three contenders for these precious Summit berths are likely Zachary "SFAT" Cordoni, Johnny "S2J" Kim and Daniel "ChuDat" Rodriguez.

Having automatically qualified for every Smash Summit but the first, SFAT will be vying for a Summit spot for the first time since 2015. Both S2J and ChuDat would greatly benefit from a chance to compete at the Summit as well: the former has been on a meteoric rise since summer 2017, having recently broken into the world Top 10 for the first time, while the latter has experienced a decline in results after his stellar run in 2017 -- and would relish a chance to take another crack at top-level rivals Mang0 and Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman.

These three are far from the only players who have a good shot at the Summit wildcard. Hitters such as Masaya "aMSa" Chikamoto, Jack "Crush" Hoyt and Joey "Lucky" Aldama are only a few of the attendees who have the potential to steal a Summit berth at Full Bloom. Many of the contenders in this third tier are Summit alumni already: a whopping 20 of the tournament's entrants have competed at the Summit in the past.

"The Summit slot made Full Bloom a must-go for those in the 10-30 zone who were on the fence," said Jackzilla. "It's pretty inconvenient to get to Bloomington, and Indiana is far from home in many ways for most of the Top 100, so they need a good reason to come."

Of Full Bloom's top seeds, only Zain "Zain" Naghmi has not attended the Summit yet. The Marth main has risen significantly since the last Smash Summit, and Full Bloom is an opportunity for him to grab a Summit spot that would give him the exposure and experience necessary to break into the Top 10.

Since Full Bloom is the last Melee major until May's Smash Summit 6, its results will greatly impact the Melee community's expectations for 2018's summer of Smash. With the level of talent in attendance, it's impossible to predict who's going to win -- or who's going to snag the coveted Summit spots.

One thing is for sure: this weekend, all eyes will be on Indiana.