Jose Romero
senior editor
The actuation sound of buttons being aggressively pressed on controllers echoed through computer speakers as South Campus hosted their first virtual “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” tournament March 6.
“This is our first time doing this,” organizer Michael Riner said. “Bear with us, we’re learning just as much as everybody else is. This is something we want to be able to do in the future and grow.”
Competitions were held physically at the Student Activities office, before COVID-19 closures.
Organizer Samuel Ruiz said Smash Bros. was chosen as the game for the tournament because of its high demand.
In this tournament, all matches were played online and coordinated through the messaging app, Discord. Match settings were as follows: three lives, a time limit of six to eight minutes and disruptive distractions to players such as enemies on stages and throwable items turned off.
The number of matches played per set depended on the round. Rounds one and two were best of one, semi-finals best of three and finals best of five.
First place was NE student Chester Vitug, second place was NW student Jonah Banis and third place was South student Elijah Chapman. The top three spots out of 16 competitors won collectible Nintendo figurines called “Amiibos.”
After his victory, Vitug said he couldn’t believe he won. He expected to make it to the semi-finals, not win the entire tournament. He was worried his lack of training would result in a loss.
“I found out about the tournament with little time to spare, so I decided to just use a character I generally understood,” he said. “It allows me to forego spending time learning a character’s move set and prioritize matchups and feel.”
He has 1,300 hours in the game, but he hadn’t played for two months before the tournament, which he said affected his confidence.
This was Vitug’s second Smash Bros. tournament. The first was another TCC event last semester where he placed third.
In last semester’s tournament, Chapman beat him, but this time, they faced each other again during the semi-finals where Vitug won with a character named “Palutena” two to one.
During this tournament, both had one life during the final match in their set. Chapman was playing “Donkey Kong,” and he had a higher percentage, meaning it’s easier to fly off the stage. Vitug used a projectile fireball to send Chapman off-screen.
“It was harder than I expected,” Chapman said. “Chester, in particular, was the most difficult opponent.”
During the final set between Vitug and Banis, Vitug won three matches in a row.
For the first two sets, Banis used “Mythra/Pyra” — characters released as downloadable content two days before the competition. In the final match, Banis switched to another character called “Min Min.” He was able to take a life away from Vitug, but in the end, he recovered onto the stage while Vitug was charging an attack and got hit, resulting in a loss.
Currently, there aren’t any future tournaments scheduled, Ruiz said.
“After this tournament, we will evaluate the demand for more virtual tournaments and create more based on student feedback,” he said. “We’re always looking for fun ways to engage with our students.”
