Coming from Canada to the United Kingdom, Soonsay took home the gold at Nang 4, defeating Frenzy, Setchi and Professor Pro. In California, Spark won the latest NorCal Gator Games monthly over Umarth while Android 0 won Sudden Death over Zack Fair in San Diego. Meanwhile, in Australia, Sora won Phantom 2020 over Davox22, and in Oregon, FatGoku won the Epic Games monthly over Aura.

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1. The Weirdest Regional of All Time: Quarterly Rapport 7



Wacky results in New Jersey are nothing new. Wheat and I always joke that events within New Jersey “don’t actually count” because the entire region continuously eats itself across the top and mid level. To put it succinctly, there are somewhere around 25 players in the state who, at any given national, could finish 9th in their pool or make Top 64. New Jersey is the only region in which a No. 18 seed can enter a regional and have a nonzero chance of either going 0-2 or winning. It makes no sense.

there will never be another region like new jersey pic.twitter.com/so2udKIkIE — free political prisoner Wobbling (@DarkGenex) March 8, 2020

Yet that’s what happened at the latest Quarterly Rapport. Asidyx, a notable but unranked local Marth player, beat Mot$, Wally, HDHR, and TheSWOOPER, the event’s only Top 100 player, to win the tournament. Here are some fun notes about the most recent QR (along with some notable sets).

Winners semifinals was Mot$ (9 seed) vs. FMB5K (12 seed) and Asidyx (18 seed) vs. HDHR (11 seed)

The top half of loser’s round 7, playing for ninth: TheSWOOPER (1 seed) vs. Wally (2 seed), Panos (4 seed) vs. Just Jason (3 seed)

Mot$ (9 seed) 2-1 TheSWOOPER (1 seed)

Tommy (25 seed) 2-1 404cray (8 seed)

FMB5K (12 seed) 2-1 E-tie (5 seed) and 2-1 Panos (4 seed)

Fable (14 seed) 2-1 Just Jason (3 seed)

Sc00p (27 seed) 2-0 PudgyPanda (6 seed)

Faber (23 seed) 2-0 Artron (10 seed)

Dawson (13 seed) and his loser’s run to fifth place, with wins over Artron, E-tie, Fable & FliiNcHy.

If I were to go through every upset in detail, I’d be here all day. I only ask that this bracket be forever saved for posterity.

2. Monday Morning Mailbag

Where do you think Icies are projected to place this year with the circuit’s ban on wobbling? – Mandraxon

Most of the top Ice Climbers players (ChuDat, ARMY, Bananas) are strong enough players to where they’d likely still be able to “better player” mid-level and regionally ranked players, but I’m hesitant about their chances against the Top 50 without wobbling. If I were to guess, somewhere around 25th is about as high as an Ice Climbers player can get at these supermajors. There’s too many potential roadblocks for them in a bracket.

Thoughts on this guy’s question? I did my best but you have a much better historical perspective. – DavidL1112

The question about historical “tournament tier lists” is fascinating. When Pikachu942and I did our Top 100 all-time players list back in 2018, we knew that one of the issues we’d face was trying to determine both the number of sets we’d evaluate and the difference of “importance” between tournaments. Originally, we had an imperfect system, but it provided a basis for my editorial partner, Pikachu942, to continue keeping track of major results in her all-time major database (which you can ask her for). The way she defines them is in three categories: “lower majors, upper majors, and supermajors.”

At least three top five players in a given year should be in attendance and competing within the Melee singles bracket. The performance of top five players must be at a level in which the results of said tournament cannot suffer from competitive illegitimacy, due to either sandbagging, bracket manipulation, splitting or any other out-of-game anti-competitive tactics through a majority or significant portion of the tournament. The tournament must take place after the start of 2004: considered to be the first year of competitive Melee directly relevant to or sharing enough qualities with the modern scene to be a point of comparison. If not following Rule No. 1, a tournament victory in this list must feature at least two of the following to qualify as a title:

At least two top five players, along with alternative players to whom there is LEGITIMATE REASON to believe had comparable talent to be argued for top five at the time of the tournament, but otherwise isn’t ranked top five because of lack of tournament data, a near-negligible disparity in perceived skill with a player ranked above him, a hiatus from another top five player rendering them out of the active player pool or any other set of forgivable circumstances.

A victory over a world No. 1 in their championship-winning years, due to their extraordinary amount of success and the level of impressiveness in which merely winning any tournament over them, presuming they are seriously competing, would be considered a title-esque victory and, in select cases, enough to warrant a tournament from being a supermajor-level title to being a championship.

Said tournament must have enough “prestige” and history within the scene that winning it carries a level of importance greater than even its competitors – enough to where its status as a tournament may be upgraded from a non-title to national, national to supermajor and supermajor to championship.

The world’s No. 1 must be in attendance of the tournament, or someone who could reasonably have an argument to be on that level for a whole year

The long story short for the current Melee climate: the most important major series of the last 2-3 years are Genesis, The Big House and Smash Summit. If you want to adjust for recency, you can add GOML to that list. The upcoming Smash World Tour Championships in late December is all but certain to be in this tier.

Just under them are Super Smash Con, Shine and probably Mainstage too. Pound, Double Down and LTC will likely enter this second tier in 2020. We’ll see how the Europe, Australia and Japan SWT events go, but my guess is that they will be closer to”lower majors”, with two or three former supermajor champions (Hungrybox, Mango, Zain, Leffen, Axe, Plup and an in-peak shape Wizzrobe), a higher share of “god slayer” players (think Fiction, iBDW, Hax, n0ne and S2J) and strong in-region talent in attendance.