A shot of the venue at last year’s DreamHack Winter.
With the release of Smash Ultimate around the corner, there’s no doubt that the upcoming Nintendo Switch title will be one of the most popular Super Smash Bros. releases of all time. High-level competitors of both Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Melee have indicated that they will be competing in Smash Ultimate tournaments, and the fact that upcoming national event Don’t Park On The Grass is scheduled for only a week after the game’s release means there will soon be plenty of top-level Smash Ultimate play to watch. But there’s still room for one more exciting Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament before Ultimate’s release: DreamHack Winter 2018.
This weekend’s event is the fourth consecutive DreamHack Winter tournament; past iterations of the series have been major-level events, with past champions including Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma and Adam “Armada” Lindgren. This year’s event, going down in Jönköping, Sweden, is a bit smaller—more of a regional or super-regional than a national tournament—and is guaranteed to have a new champion, as both Hungrybox and Armada will not be in attendance. However, there are still a few top-level European players who will be taking advantage of the event to add some last-minute results to their resumes for the 2018 Melee Panda Global Rankings.
The tournament’s top seed is William “Leffen” Hjelte, the only “god”-level player currently registered for the event. However, Leffen has tweeted that he will not be taking the tournament seriously and will primarily use secondary characters, opening up a possible path to victory for the other top 100 players in attendance, such as Spanish legends Alvaro “Trif” Garcia Moral and Roberto “Overtriforce” Iglesias. Other challengers on the cusp of the top 100, including Swedish Samus main Jacob “Daydee” Stenberg, will also be in DreamHack Winter’s bracket.
Unfortunately for these hopefuls, Leffen’s secondaries are still incredibly strong, and he has used them to place very highly at past European events. At late February’s Phoenix Blue, Leffen placed second, losing to Trif after defeating Overtriforce with his secondaries (though the Spanish Sheik main was able to pull out a win over Leffen in winner’s side of the bracket).
No matter who wins, DreamHack Winter promises to be an entertaining look at Europe’s top Melee talent, both veteran and up-and-coming. If you’re in Sweden, register for this weekend’s event on smash.gg. Otherwise, you can catch the action on DreamHack’s Twitch stream all weekend!
