Last year, Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma began his rise to SSBMRank No. 1 status at GameTyrant Expo, where he pulled out a last-stock victory against Adam “Armada” Lindgren to take home one of the biggest cash prizes in Super Smash Bros. Melee history. This weekend, GT-X will return for a second year, boasting a stacked line-up featuring some of the biggest names in Smash. It’s all going down this weekend, and it’s worth tuning in—I promise I’m not too biased.
This year, GT-X boasts over 150 Melee singles entrants, many of whom are members of the Melee Panda Global Rankings top 50. Defending champion Hungrybox will return to see if he can acquire a second GT-X title; though Armada will unfortunately be absent due to his recent retirement, Hungrybox will have to fend off challenges from his fellow elite-level attendees Joseph “Mang0” Marquez and William “Leffen” Hjelte. Though Hungrybox is coming off of a victory at Canada Cup 2018, his loss to James “Duck” Ma showed that he is not as dominant a force as he was earlier this year.
Though Hungrybox, Leffen, and Mang0 are the only Melee “gods” who will be competing at GT-X, they will have to contend with a host of “demigods” who are capable of defeating them as well, including Zain “Zain” Naghmi, Jeffrey “Axe” Williamson, Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett, and Zachary “SFAT” Cordoni. These demigods are themselves threatened by a field of high-level players in the next tier down, such as Joey “Lucky” Aldama and Armand “ARMY“ Del Duca. All told, 19 members of last year’s top 100 will be in North Salt Lake, Utah, for GameTyrant Expo.
On the Smash 4 side, GameTyrant has brought in such luminaries as Saleem “Salem” Young, Samuel “Dabuz” Buzby, and Larry “Larry Lurr” Holland to compete this weekend. All in all, five Panda Global Ranked players will be joined by a number of unranked contenders, including Shawn “K9sbruce” Bruce and Guillermo “Stroder” Martinez.
If you’re in the area, be sure to make it to the GameTyrant Gaming Center in Salt Lake City to catch the action in person! If you can’t make it there, don’t be discouraged: you can catch all the action on GameTyrant’s livestream between November 2 and November 4.
