Earlier this month, many in the Smash 4 community were forced to confront the fact that registration numbers at GENESIS 5 were down from last year—way down. This year’s GENESIS Smash 4 event drew 676 attendees, only slightly more than half of GENESIS 4’s 1,012. Community members threw around a number of theories about the cause of this decrease; some blamed Bayonetta for saturating the Panda Global Rankings with many players of the same character, while others posited that Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios’ dominance had put a damper on other players’ motivation to become the best.

Frostbite 2018 is an enthusiastic rebuttal to the doomsayers of the Smash 4 scene. The tournament, which will be held in early February in Dearborn, Michigan’s Edward Hotel & Convention Center, will be the largest Smash 4-only tournament of all time. At the time of this article’s writing—seven days before the final registration deadline—Frostbite 2018 is capped at 846 Wii U singles entrants, 93 more than the previous record-holder, March 2017’s 2GG: Civil War. Furthermore, the tournament is the biggest Smash 4 event ever held in Michigan, topping the 777 entrants of October 2016’s The Big House 6.

Undoubtedly, the success of Frostbite 2018 is due to a multitude of factors, but it doesn’t hurt that last year’s Frostbite event was one of the most exciting Smash 4 tournaments of 2017. At Frostbite 2017, the previously-underrated Japanese player Tsubasa “Tsu” Takuma went on an all-time great bracket run, defeating James “VoiD” Makekau-Tyson, Takuto “Kameme” Ono, Saleem “Salem” Young, and Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios in consecutive sets to earn himself a spot in winner’s side of grand finals.