Last weekend, hundreds of Melee players participated in Full Bloom 4, the first Super Smash Bros. Melee major tournament since GENESIS 5 in January. While GENESIS represented a shake-up, with Justin “Plup” McGrath unexpectedly snatching first place out of the hands of first seed Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma, Full Bloom showed a return to the status quo.
The event’s top three seeds—elite players Hungrybox, William “Leffen” Hjelte, and Joseph “Mang0” Marquez—stood atop the podium at the end of the tournament, placing exactly as the three were ordered in SSBMRank 2017. However, their placements don’t tell the whole story: Hungrybox was far and above the dominant player of the event, losing only two games on his way to an uncontested victory, while Leffen and Mang0 handed each other 3-0 losses in Winner’s Semi-Finals and Loser’s Finals, with Mang0 coming out on top in the more-important loser’s bracket set.
The earlier parts of the bracket were marked by upsets, with notable sets including Tri-State Jigglypuff Toussaint “2saint” Tournier’s upsets over a slew of top-level Fox players, including Joey “Lucky” Aldama—a Fox who was able to overcome Hungrybox’s Jigglypuff just last year.
Notably, Edgard “n0ne” Sheleby and Zachary “SFAT” Cordoni placed high enough to qualify for the two Smash Summit 6 wildcard spots that were up for grabs at Full Bloom. To accomplish this feat, both competitors defeated top Captain Falcon players; n0ne reverse 3-0ed Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett while on his way to Winner’s Semis, while SFAT squeaked out a win over Johnny “S2J” Kim to ensure his 5th-place finish. With the wildcard spots officially out of the picture, the race is on for the last few Summit spots to be determined in the voting round.
