By Jamie “JAMJAR” Jacobs, Josh “BarkSanchez” Brody, Jason “Nardwell” Mani

Every week we will be posting a look back at the previous week in Smash. This week we visit a growing scene in New England, see a leading 64 scene try out the Japanese version of our beloved game, and bear witness to a series of upsets in tournaments across North America.

Small Scene Spotlight: Massachusetts

This week we travel to the Bay State, where a very young Smasher has put in the work to grow a scene in Massachusetts. Adam “Heny935” Henderson was filled with a love for Smash 64, but did not know of any other players near him. He simply wanted to gather a group of people together on a regular basis so he could play the game he loved.

Heny935 heard of a Project M weekly nearby and knew this was his chance. He had been attending these weeklies, bringing along Smash 64 setup, hoping to draw in some curious players. Eventually, he was able to gather enough attention to truly create the beginnings of a scene. After much hard work and perseverance, this Massachusetts scene held their first official tournament on April 9th. Currently, they host a weekly every Saturday when eight players are available, though this coming Saturday they expect a nice turnout of 16 players.

This scene is interesting due to it being populated largely by players who transferred from other Smash games. The best players in the scene are the Heny935 himself, Bread, and staysleepin. The 15 year old Heny935 is a Kirby main; hopefully his youth will give him the time to develop his Kirby to challenge the meta. Bread prefers the top two on the tier list: Kirby and Pikachu. This duo gives him a wide range of coverage in matchups, making him a force to be reckoned with in the scene. staysleepin plays the duo of Captain Falcon and Jigglypuff. Both of these characters are filled with the potential for hard hitting combos, enabling staysleepin to switch off with ease. Two up and coming players are Captain and Flarp. Captain plays to his name, and mains Captain Falcon, while Flarp prefers Mario. These two players are relative newcomers to Smash 64, but have proven to have great potential due to their developed Smash fundamentals from having migrated from other games in the series.

The members of this scene are largely unknown in the great Smash world. However, there are two exceptions to this. Boink, who is relatively inactive nowadays, attended Beast of the North East in the past. Heny935 has attended one tournament outside his weeklies. At Gauntlet 3 he was able to take 9th place out of 30 attendees. In the future, Heny935 hopes his scene will continue to grow so they can enable their players to attend larger tournaments in the future.

Unfortunately, this scene does not currently have streaming capabilities, but they expect to begin a stream in the near future. Stay tuned to The Smash Writers for news on that front. For further details on how to join the Massachusetts scene you can contact Adam at thehendog100@gmail.com.

News

The 4th week of the Baltimore Club’s Darkhouse series featured the “J Version” of Smash 64: Dairantō Smash Brothers. The original Japanese version of the game features several obvious and well-documented differences from the North American release, the “U Version”. However, many details about the game remain shrouded in mystery. Current Wikis and databases are somewhat inaccurate or incomplete, due in part to a disconnect between North American and Japanese smashers, as well as a lack of testing from both communities. The Baltimore Smash Club’s “J Version Week” also coincided with the Kansai 2016 tournament in Japan, which featured Revan, Karajan, Mr. Sir, and Y (formerly known as A to the Z). These forays into the Japanese version of Smash have highlighted a necessity for further exploration, creating conflicting opinions on the differences in the meta. While some feel their experiences exposed flaws in the North American style of play, others noted the weaknesses and strengths of the characters themselves. Keep an eye on the SmashWriters page this week, as these players had plenty more to say about their experiences.

The Rest

Smash On Tap

Smash On Tap is a Toronto, Canada weekly that occurs on Wednesday nights. This week, the Toronto Smash 64 power ranking committee’s lives were made much harder after a myriad of upsets. It all started with Adrian taking down Socrates in the first round in an unexpected 2-1 win. The Big D then came out blazing and sent Snorlax to losers bracket after another set that went the distance. In the same round, Sax was making some moves of his own as he burdened Zombie with his first loss after a 2-0 sweep. In Winners Quarterfinals, The Big D was given a trip to losers by Fck Vwlswhere he met Zombie. Showcasing his preparedness for this week’s tourney, he eliminated Zombie from the bracket in a 2-1 victory. Snorlax was able to battle his way back to Losers Semifinals after an early entrance into losers bracket. Here he had earned a rematch against the red hot upset man, The Big D. This time The Big D truly showed his force and summarily routed Snorlax in a 2-0 sweep. This punched The Big D’s ticket to Losers Finals. There, his opponent was YBOMBB, who was surprisingly sent there by Fck Vwls after a 3-1 loss in Winners Finals. Unfortunately, this was the end of the road for The Big D’s Cinderella story as he earned an impressive third place after being swept 3-0. The stage was set for an epic rematch between the top two contenders. YBOMBB would have to win six games to claim the title at this weeks tournament. The first set went to game five, but regrettably, Fck Vwls took the final game, dethroning the current champ and taking home the gold.

EGLX

This week, the Enthusiast Gaming Live Expo (EGLX) was host to a Smash 64 tournament which drew 28 competitors to its battlegrounds. A number of these were players who competed at Smash On Tap earlier in the week. Shadow, the 11 seed, made a statement early taking out the 6 seed, Whoopiecow, in the first round. After being sent to losers bracket in the next round he eliminated the 9 seed, Genesis. Sadly the run of upsets for Shadow ended in the next round where he was swept by the 7 seed, SSBMTL Kyle. Vanilla Rin also made an impressive run through losers. Once he was sent there by YBOMBB in the second round he defeated Whoopiecow and SGK to make it to Losers Quarterfinals. There he met Sax and was defeated 2-1. Losers Semifinals saw JV, the 4 seed, and Sax, the 3 seed, square off. Sax won handily in a 2-0 sweep. This gave Sax a chance at Losers Finals and an opportunity to try and take down Fck Vwls. Vwls had the tables turned on him this time when he and YBOMBB met in Winners Finals and was sent to losers bracket after a 3-0 sweep. Vwls swept Sax 3-0 and got his shot at YBOMBB once more in Grand Finals. Vwls took the first set to the limit and reset the bracket after a 3-2 victory. Following the bracket reset, the final set went to game five again, but this time Vwls was unable to pull off the win and would have to accept second this time.

Winnepeg Smash Monthly

Winnepeg was host to its 17th Smash monthly this week. The new Smash 64 community rallied 19 contestants for this edition. Sticking with this week’s theme, upsets were the star of the day starting in Winners Quarterfinals. The 3 and 4 seeds emerged victorious from Winners Quarterfinals. Roman and piylo defeated SPLORCH and Talon, respectively, in full sets 2-1. The top seeds then battled back from Losers Quarterfinals to face off against each other in Losers Semifinals. Talon swept SPLORCH there and was able to face off against piylo, the same man who sent him to losers bracket, in Losers Finals. This match was a rout and piylo was able to sweep Talon 3-0. This gave us a rematch of Winners Finals where we would see Roman and piylo face off once more. Lamentably, the result was the same for piylo as he was eliminated 3-1 once more by Roman.

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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.