The months since Smash Ultimate’s release in early December have been busy for players and tournament organizers alike. There have been four major-level tournaments—Don’t Park On The Grass 2018, Let’s Make Moves, Smash Conference United, and Glitch 6—and a slew of players have come out of the woodwork in order to make their mark on the new game. But the real test will come this weekend, when thousands of smashers converge upon California’s Oakland Convention Center for Genesis 6, the first Smash supermajor to feature Ultimate.
Over the last month, Gavin “Tweek” Dempsey has established himself as the man to beat in Ultimate, switching between Wario and Young Link to win large tournaments such as Let’s Make Moves and Glitch 6. While other top contenders such as Leonardo “MkLeo” Lopez Perez have faltered, Tweek has stayed atop the metagame, only dropping sets to Daniel “Dabuz” Buzby and Paris “Light” Ramirez at NYXL Pop-Up in late December.
Smash Ultimate’s first true test of skill is yet to come. Though the past two month’s majors have been taken into account for Genesis’s seeding, the Oakland event will be the first tournament whose results will be factored into the next Panda Global Ranking. Thus, heavy hitters such as Tweek, MkLeo, Dabuz, and Nairoby “Nairo” Quezada will be bringing their A-games to the event in order to establish early dominance in the Ultimate metagame.
These top players will be joined by a plethora of contenders from around the world, including top Japanese players Zackray and Shuton, who are respectively seeded fourth and eighth at the event. Genesis’s top ten seeds are rounded out by Light, Ezra “Samsora” Morris, James “VoiD” Makekau-Tyson and Saleem “Salem” Young.
Top talent from Smash 4 will be joined in Genesis’s Ultimate bracket by a number of top players from Super Smash Bros. Melee. All of Melee’s active “gods”—Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman, Joseph “Mang0” Marquez, William “Leffen” Hjelte, Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma and Justin “Plup” McGrath—have entered Ultimate at the event, alongside the recently retired Adam “Armada” Lindgren and other top Melee players such as Rishi “Rishi” Malhotra. While not all Melee players intend to continue to compete in Ultimate once Genesis is over, Leffen, Armada, and Mew2King have shown great interest—and promise—in the game.
That isn’t to say that Genesis doesn’t have a stacked Melee bracket as well. Though some top Melee players, including Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett, will be sitting out of the GameCube title’s tournament in order to focus on Ultimate, the tournament will still feature over a thousand attendees, including all of the aforementioned “gods” sans Armada. Furthermore, Melee specialists such as Masaya “aMSa” Chikamoto, Jeffrey “Axe” Williamson and Zain “Zain” Naghmi will be there—and ready to take the trophy out of the hands of any “god” whose Melee skill might be diluted from time spent in Ultimate.
For fans of both Ultimate and Melee, Genesis will be a riveting Super Smash Bros. event, with each bracket fielding a plethora of potential champions. To catch the action, tune in on VGBootCamp’s Twitch channel this weekend.
