While the Smash scene is touted for its grassroots efforts, several outside organizations have recently partnered with the Smash community to produce new major events. Beyond the Summit, primarily known for hosting Dota 2, began running the Smash Summit invitational series last year. DreamHack also started hosting Smash a little over a year ago.

Starting Friday, the Ultimate Gaming Championship (UGC) will run the UGC Smash Open at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, Illinois, for its first-ever large Smash event, boasting a generous $40,000 pot to be split between the WiiU and Melee events. UGC is widely known in its roots with the Halo series, but has expanded into other games in recent years.

Smash enthusiasts in the Midwest will be excited to see another Smash major in their part of the country. Top players in both Smash games will be coming in full force. On the Melee side of the event, players such as Adam "Armada" Lindgren and William "Leffen" Hjelte are traveling from Sweden. Along with them, Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma, and several others will compete in Melee singles and doubles. On the WiiU side, power houses such as Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios, Nairoby "Nairo" Quezada and Elliot "Ally" Bastien Carroza-Oyarce will be competing. The WiiU talent pool has plenty of depth with several other top 20 Panda Global ranking players making an appearance.

With the year coming to an end, players from both Smash games aim to make one final push towards their global end-of-the-year rankings. In Melee, Armada seems to be the frontrunner after wins at Smash Summit 3 and DreamHack Winter and could continue to his growing win streak at UGC. Meanwhile, Hungrybox lurks closely behind Armada, but he could shake things up with a win at this event.

Meanwhile, the 2016 WiiU results have been exciting in their unpredictability with plenty of upsets from rising stars against known veterans. Yet, Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios has quietly strung together quite a résumé with recent wins at KTAR XIX, The Big House 6, and 2GGT: Abadango Saga. His 2016 effort is not nearly as dominant as 2015, but that's a testament to how strong his competition has grown in the past year. Though ZeRo is the favorite, many others stand in his way, and no one has an easy route even into the top 8. Expect to see exciting matches and even more upsets at this event.

The action-packed weekend begins on Friday as players enter in exciting exhibitions for viewers to watch, and the singles and doubles bracket will continue throughout the weekend into Sunday's finals.