Super Smash Bros. Melee professional William “Leffen” Hjelte announced on Twitter last weekend that he would be taking some focus away from Melee in order to compete seriously in popular fighting game Dragon Ball FighterZ. Over the last few months, Leffen has become a popular Dragon Ball FighterZ streamer, at times reaching the number one ranking in online play.
Leffen has seen some success in real-life tournaments as well, winning Wednesday Night Fights, a Southern California local, over several top-level players. After placing well at last weekend’s Full Bloom 4, a Melee major event, Leffen tweeted that he was confident in his ability to place well in Melee while still improving at DBFZ.
While the Team SoloMid member’s interest in DBFZ has come with a decrease in Melee activity, this decision doesn’t mean that he will be eschewing the platform fighter in which he is notorious entirely. Between now and June, he will still be attending Canada's Get On My Level 2018, Smash Summit 6, and potentially Smash & Splash 4 or Flatiron 3.
Leffen’s main intent in focusing on Dragon Ball FighterZ is to qualify for Beyond the Summit's DBFZ "Summit of Power" event in early June; after this invitational, he will ostensibly return his focus to Super Smash Bros. Melee. And while some fans of Leffen’s Fox will surely be disappointed to hear that he is briefly stepping away from the game, his success in Dragon Ball FighterZ will surely increase his profile among fans of other fighting games and may bring some of them into Melee once he returns.
