By Jamie “JAMJAR” Jacobs and Jason “Nardwell” Mani

Every Tuesday we will be posting reviews of the past week in Smash 64. This week we look start of one of Smash 64’s fastest growing communities and check out the results of the week’s past tournaments.

Small Scene Spotlight: Indiana

This week we travel to the Hoosier State, where two individuals have started a scene that grew around their website. Benjamin A. “Bacorn” Corn and Dasit Mane began their scene in November of 2015 after creating their website: Indy64.com. They were confident in their abilities to grow a scene from a simple website brand, as they had previous experience in creating brands from working with non-profit organizations.

After initially creating the website, these two founding members started branching out to find talent in the surrounding region. They were able to discover pockets of players in two nearby towns, as they grew their scene to a consistent 12 players. This rapid expansion played right into their hands, as Bacorn and Dasit Mane had big plans for the scene. Initially, they only had a weekly series, but soon expanded to begin hosting their monthlies: Saltblock. In January, they held the first installment of their Boss Battle tournament series.. The Boss Battle series focuses on community outreach, bringing in high level talent from out-of-state to help shine the national spotlight on this growing scene. The first edition saw Wookiee and BarkSanchez attend, while the second edition (to be held in November) already has KeroKeroppi, Janitor, and BarkSanchez confirmed for entry. They have also been hard at workwith surrounding regions to help expand the reach of Smash 64, as they aided their Ohio brethren in bringing 64 to Shuffle VIII and the upcoming Deluge. The local Indiana Smash scene also held OutFoxx’d in March. This multi-Smash event was just another example of how Smash is expanding in the greater Smash community as well.

The Indy Smash 64 scene has been dominated by a trio of Captain Falcon mains. The best player is easily Saltsizzle, a name many may recognize from online play. He has been dominating the local scene in recent months with impressive Captain Falcon play, though he is known to sometimes break out his Jiggylpuff or Pink Yoshi. The second best in their ranks is Dogs_Johnson, who was able to put a scare into the likes of Q! at Pound 2016, barely missing out on Top 32. Dogs has been readily rocketing up the Indiana rankings recently, as seen by his third place finish at Show Me Your Moves 16. A more recent addition to their scene who is going to soon be making noise is Pirate Trips. At Boss Battle #1 he was barely behind Bacorn in skill level, yet was able to beat him, but in just a few short months he has quickly outstripped the founding father. Pirate Trips even defeated the mighty Dogs_Johnson at their most recent monthly. Despite the saturation of Falcon players, Indiana does include some interesting character variety. The best non-Falcon is Geno, a man itching to show that Luigi is not the worst character on the tier list. He is also known to “show his moves” with the rest of the cast.

All of their events are streamed on ND64 on Twitch. In the past their stream ability was limited by poor internet at their venue, though the hosts are working to improve this. Videos of their events are hosted on Indy 64 on YouTube. Keep an eye on their website, Facebook, and Twitter for upcoming news on this exciting young scene.

The Rest

Saltblock II: The Saltening

This past week, the quickly growing Smash 64 scene of Indiana had its second monthly, known as Saltblock. This month’s event was deemed The Saltening. Eleven of Indiana’s best came out to compete this month in singles and four teams put their skills to the test in doubles. Singles saw a number of upsets along with rough seas for the top seeds. Pirate Trips started off strong as he came out blazing and took down B33F in the second round of winners bracket. Trips was then sent to losers bracket by Saltsizzle in the next round, but his impressive run would not end yet. Once there, he met WalkrOfSky and defeated him handily in a 2-0 rout. This brought Trips to Losers Semifinals in a battle against an unexpected foe: the two seed, Dogs_Johnson. Geno, Indiana’s resident Luigi main, had also shocked the Hoosier State, taking down Dogs_Johnson in Winner’s Quarterfinals. Pirate Trips wouldn’t be fazed, pulling out a clutch win against Dogs_Johnson 3-1 to earn a trip to Losers Finals. This left the Red Rocket to accept an unsatisfactory fourth place finish. Geno would be waiting for the red hot Pirate Trips in Losers Finals. This would be the end of the streak for Pirate Trips, as he fell to Geno in a 3-1 set, settling for third place. This punched Geno’s ticket to Grand Finals earning him a rematch against Saltsizzle, who took him down in Winners Finals. Unfortunately for Geno, the result would not improve this time around and Saltsizzle won the day in a 3-0 sweep.

Doubles this time around was a round robin format to maximize the amount of Smash played. Here we saw B33F and Dogs_Johnson come together as team B33Fy Dogs_Johnson. Doubles would give them an opportunity to exact some revenge against team SalTrips, which included Saltsizzle and Pirate Trips. The other two squads competing in doubles were team DasitCorn and WalkrCast, consisting of Dasit Mane and Bacorn, and WalkrOfSky and Alacast respectively. The dynamic duo of B33fy Dogs_Johnson proved to be an unstoppable force as they rolled through doubles. They won the event while dropping only a single game along the way to team SalTrips. This left team SalTrips with second, WalkrCast with thrid and DasitCorn with fourth.

This and future tournaments will be streamed on the ND64 Twitch channel. Replays can be found on the Indy 64 YouTube channel.

Smash 64 @ The Cave Monthly #2

The Northern Virginia Smash 64 community held the second edition of their monthly this week. The event drew twelve dedicated Smashers out to The Cave Gaming Center in Fairfax. An early upset shook the bracket as Dizzle defeated Super Smash Con founding father and tournament organizer, Justin in a 2-0 sweep. Despite this early loss, Justin was able to make it back to Losers Semifinals where he encountered Yobolight. Earlier, Yobolight had defeated Dizzle, who had been sent to losers by Mr. Sir. Yobolight then pulled the second upset against Justin on the day in another 2-0 sweep. This left Justin with a fourth place finish. Yobolight then continued to shake up the bracket by defeating Mr. Sir in Losers Finals. Clubbadubba’s challenger had been selected and Grand Finals was set. Clubba dealt with this challange handily, taking first place 2-0.

This and future tournaments will be streamed on the NovaTwitch channel. Replays can be found on the Nova YouTube channel.

Smash 4 Cash! 8

Smash 4 Cash! is a bi-weekly tournament in the NorCal Smash community. Twelve fighters converged this week to Smash 4 Cash. The battle for top four this tournament was a bloody one marked by major upheavals of the expected order. B.I, the two seed, finished in fourth place after being sent to losers bracket by three seed, Dr. Grin, and subsequently beingeliminated by four seed, Tonester. Dr. Grin also pulled off an upset against Shihman, the one seed. Facing the top seed in Loser’s Finals ended up being too much for Tonester, leaving him with an impressive third place, as Shihman earned himself a rematch against Dr. Grin.In Grand Finals, Shihman reset the bracket after a 3-2 win against Dr. Grin. He then won the reset 3-0 to take home first place.

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Want to be included in The Weekly Smashback results, have a small scene you want to see in the spotlight? Shoot us an email at thesmashwriter@gmail.com and we’ll be sure to make you a part of a future edition.