With Smash Summit 6 around the corner, some of Melee’s top players are preparing to make their bids for one of the six slots that are up for grabs during this Summit’s voting process. Twitter nominations have wrapped up, leaving twenty eligible competitors in the mix: seventeen SSBMRank top 100 players, and three regional heroes, including Chicago Puff Michael, Philadelphia Marth Stango, and Southern California Dr. Mario Franz.

This Summit voting process will be a little different than those of past years. Smash Summit 5’s voting process stirred up controversy when several high-spending and hard-campaigning nominees were left with nothing after all was said and done. In response to this fracas, Beyond the Summit has altered its distribution system, with non-voted-in players who finish 7th to 16th in the voting process earning a percentage of the total pool of money raised through the voting system.

The six players who ultimately claw their way into the Summit house through voting will be joining a bracket that is already quite stacked, featuring this year’s SSBMRank top 10 and Full Bloom 4 qualifiers n0ne and SFAT. While it’s too early to call the outcome of this year’s voting process, this writer hopes that some new faces will be seen in the mix at Smash Summit 6— this time around, there are plenty to choose from.