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Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Nintendo brings you the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open Spring 2020 tournament!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Nothing should stop you!

I don't know about you, but I still consider every Nintendo-Battlefy tournament to be a big deal. They have announced the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open Spring 2020, taking place on either February 29 or March 1, depending on where in North America you'll be during the tournament. The fact that it transcends over two months in the calendar means that they can't name it after a month, so it's named after a whole season. Guess that implies there won't be enough until the summer, so you better make your performance count.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open Spring 2020 logo Battlefy Nintendo
Spring 2020 brings a Halloween colour scheme.
Halloween sucks, but I support normalising it so people stop making a big deal out of it.

What's at stake? Well, the last three of these online-based tournaments—February 2020, November 2019, and September 2019—had a guaranteed round-trip flight, lodging, $350 visa card, and ticket to major tournaments taking place in... Detroit, Oakland, and Detroit, respectively. Those aren't places that are hospitable or nice to visit, quite frankly.

But this time, the prize is in Orlando, Florida, to be able to participate at CEO Dreamland 2020 from March 13–15. Orlando is a nice place to go, especially in March. There's a lack of hurricanes. The weather is nice. Full Sail University is there, which is a game design (and other media/entertainment) college that Nintendo used to plug often. If you're into theme parks, Orlando has them.

Also new for the upcoming tournament versus the one a month ago? Québec citizens are now allowed to participate (in Region 7), and the rules regarding the $350 visa card were changed from “$350 Visa gift card provided to winners only” to “$350 Visa gift card provided to winners only to be used for expenses”, which is a significant nerf preventing you from just pocketing the cash-equivalent.

Speaking of nerfs, I don't think there will be any changes to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate within the next ten days, so it will still be on 7.0.0. It will be very interesting to see how much Byleth's play rate collapses a month and a half after his introduction compared to two weeks after his introduction. I'll certainly publish that data in March.

I have good news if you already have a Nintendo Switch, already have Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but don't have a Nintendo Switch Online membership and you already used the generous free trial: My Nintendo is offering an ADDITIONAL seven-day free trial! You can use this while you're participating in the tournament. You have until March 6 to take advantage of that, which pretty much means it exists just so everyone can enter this tournament.


On March 1, Ludwig will be writing up his progress in the comments section of this article while in the tournament. The majority of entrants will be participating in the first round of the tournament, which functions as a pools round to weed the hundreds of per-region entrants into a top 32. In this, you play in a ladder-based format, meaning you get to play as many games as you can fit in three hours, and you can keep playing even if you lose several in a row. Fun times. It's free to enter.


What were the results of the Spring 2020 tournament? Click here for the winners and the character usage stats.
The next North American Online Open... isn't for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but it's for ARMS!
Alright, the real next North American Online Open for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is for May 2020... though it's really in June.

16 comments :

  1. In my case, there's still not even close enough incentive to "git gud." Like, I can DRIVE to Orlando if I want to. It's less than 2 hours away. Ohhh, that does rather narrow the field for placing me, huh?

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    1. Was I correct in making Orlando out to be a much nicer place than Detroit and Oakland?

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    2. I wouldn't know, I haven't been to either of those places. Been stuck in Florida for basically my whole life, actually.

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    3. Alright, so not relatively speaking, is Orlando nice?

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    4. As far as I've seen. I spent the most time in the area near UCF. I drove through downtown Orlando a few times though, and it definitely seemed pretty nice then. Though, this was back in the early 2010s...

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    5. Well...
      https://www.areavibes.com/orlando-fl/crime/
      https://www.areavibes.com/detroit-mi/crime/
      https://www.areavibes.com/oakland-ca/crime/

      They all get Fs for crime, but Orlando has other positive aspects that give it a better overall score. (And Orlando has comparatively less crime.)

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  2. Set 1: Alright, 7 minutes were wasted by my opponent, Dan, not giving me the arena ID and asking me to search it from the arena list. No way. So I made the arena. He's a Dark Pit player. Against my judgment, I picked Ludwig. I JV 3-stocked him on Town & City. It was easy to bait him into using his reflector, and then I can go in and hit him. He then switched to King Dedede and I switched to Jigglypuff. We went to Final Destination. Again, a bad match-up for me, but he kept unsafely Dedede Jumping to the stage where I could Rest him in his end-lag.
    Set 2: I get to play against ShadowGirl7! I've been waiting over a year for this! We both play as Bowser Jr. (or Ludwig). I'm in her Discord server and stuff. She's a streamer. She likes to stream the Jackbox games: http://twitch.tv/shadowgrrl7/ First match, I picked Ludwig and she picked Iggy. Final Destination. Unfortunately she went and Koopa Clown Carted off the stage because she thought SHE was Ludwig. Yikes. So I won. I changed to Jigglypuff and she to Black Kirby. She really, really wanted to Inhale Jigglypuff, but I'm on Lylat, and Rollout isn't a good idea here. I'll note that Inhale's wind boxes mess up me trying to Rest, though.
    Set 3: Dammit, now I have to play Sola? Also someone I know from these tournaments for a long time. Now he plays Hero (he used to play Inkling). I'll choose Ludwig. We were on Yoshi's Story, which is difficult. I figured that as long as I don't give him room to get Bounce I'd be fine, but... His Zapples kept me away and then he could Bounce. Second match going Bowser, but Yoshi's Island Brawl is awful and makes it hard to approach Hero who can keep Bowser at bay with projectiles. He was running low on MP the whole time as a result, but it's hard to get in on him since he had stage control for the whole match. So I lost.
    Set 4: Vs. KuuRo. Unlike the previous two matches, I don't know who this guy is. He plays Lucina, and I'll play Bowser. I got lots of Lucina practice yesterday. Kalos. I two-stocked him. He's better than the Lucina I was playing against, but I'm in a very flamebreathy mood. To calm down, I switched to Ludwig as he goes Roy, playing on Battlefield. Bad stage for me, but he didn't seem to have any Koopaling experience, which helped me a lot to win!

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    1. Set 5: Vs. Wildogz who plays Palutena. I dunno how to fight Palutena so I'll just use Jigglypuff and try to be annoying. Lylat. I figured out that he just likes to back-air and neutral-air and I can just try jumping over or under that. I won. He switched to R.O.B. and we went to Yoshi's Story and I struggled with his Up-Airs (very effective anti-aerial), losing at a last-ish hit situation where he back-aired my ledge get-up. He's not as good as the R.O.B. I lost to last tournament where I went all Jigglypuff, but I'm switching characters anyway to Ludwig. So, game 3, VS. R.O.B. with Ludwig at Kalos. Had a comfy two-stock. Kalos helps a lot since there is a lot of space to not get up-air'd, though the side-platforms are low enough that R.O.B. can Up-Tilt you from below into an Up-Air. Sending Mecha-Koopas off the side to hit R.O.B. trying to recover low is pretty fun, and he can't R.O.B. Motor those.
      Set 6: I gotta fight Pelca? (His in-game name is joshua, but he's Pelca alright.) He's the Snake who won the tournament in February and went to Frostbite 2020. help I'm going Jigglypuff because she can out-manuever Nikita. Battlefield. I was actually going very even with him and then he Snake up-tilted me on the top platform and then yikes. But I took him to his last stock. On game two we went to Yoshi's Story and DID YOU KNOW THAT SNAKE'S UP-TILT CAN HIT FROM BELOW THE PLATFORM from the downward-inclined side? He Snake up-tilted me all three stocks. He actually let me survive a Rest miss and then just jumped around setting and exploding mines on all three platforms while I was on the ground. Obviously lost to Pelca here.
      Set 7: Fighting DIO, otherwise known as The Super Chugs. Dude insists on sending me a friend request which is unnecessary. Then he claims friendship is part of the rules, which isn't true. He's wasting my tiiiime. 8 minutes of it. (And we're halfway through.) I beat him easily, Bowser vs. Ken, on Final Destination. Of his Ken, he said, "I play a whole lotta street fighter so it’s pretty easy". (He didn't do any inputs, mostly just up-smashed) He then switched to Cloud and also pretty much just used Smash Attacks. He didn't even Limit Charge to get back to the stage when he was a few frames of Limit away from getting it and being able to recover. It took more time to argue about friend requests (which I'm not accepting) than the combined 4 minutes of play time.
      Set 8: Facing Zachpro21. He got into my arena without a fuss, but he's a BOWSER player. So I gotta go Bowser as well. We played on Yoshi's Island Brawl. I two-stocked him fairly easily. He didn't Fire Breath at all. He then switched to Roy (of Pherae), with me sticking with Bowser. Pokémon Stadium 2. I two-stocked him again, doing things like predicting his jump-in with an UP-SMASH.
      I've played 8 games, 6 wins and 2 losses. Ranked 32nd right now, but I'm sure that won't hold. Let's play more!

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    2. I have an hour and five minutes left... Now I'm at rank 40 just for taking a 5 minute break, sheesh.
      Set 9: Vs. a guy named Grant. He complained to me that he hopes this match is fun, since he just lost to an annoying Duck Hunt player. He plays Wario. Jigglypuff, go! We played on Yoshi's Story and he outmaneuvered my aerials with his back-airs. He almost 0-to-death'd me with a Waft combo, but it wasn't at full charge. He still won. Switching to LUDWIG. We played at Kalos. I managed to three-stock him. I don't think he has Ludwig experience. He said "never played a competent bj" He then switched to Luigi. Likes overalls'd people, huh? I two-stocked him rather comfortably with Ludwig. That got me to rank 31 and 48 minutes to go.
      Set 10: Vs. juj. He's a Duck Hunt player. I asked if he just played Grant. He said yes. My Ludwig beat him on Town & City with a two-stock, though I was at very high percent. Cannonball actually beats out his projectiles. He then counterpicked to Palutena. Might as well stick with Ludwig? We went to Kalos and I got to a last-hit situation with Palutena and played very safe. She Countered/Reflectored a lot less than expected. 30 minutes left of the tournament, at rank 28. I'll keep going.

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    3. Set 11: I'm playing Rank 47, named Zach. I had to get him to remake his arena because he had Castle Siege in the random stage selection, and that's like, several tournaments ago. Good on Nintendo for knocking that horrible stage out of the rotation. While waiting, I fell to Rank 29 and he fell to 49. After waiting six minutes, he concluded he's unable to make a proper arena, so I made it instead. I dunno who he plays but he has a Villager icon. That means Ludwig is a no-no. But he picked... Zelda? Alright. LET'S GO BOWSER. Final Destination. I JV three-stocked Zelda. I'm not really sure what his game plan was. A lot of Phantoms and Din's Fire. He was good at catching my ledge rolls into an Up-Smash., but I finished him off catching his roll-in with my Up-Smash. He stuck with Zelda for Game 2, as we entered Pokémon Stadium 2. Again, I was able to two-stock him, since he had unsafe landings and charged up Phantoms a lot when it wasn't safe to do so, like off-stage when I could and did jump off and BACK-AIR.
      That got me to Rank 19. That's very comfortable.

      At the end of the February tournament I had 10 wins and 2 losses and got Rank 37, though. Right now my record is 9 wins and 2 losses and there's only 13 minutes left.

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    4. I didn't play another match.

      I fell from Rank 19 to.. Rank 24, which is still in the Top 32! I'm moving on to the BRACKET ROUND! w00t!
      But it looks like I get to play Sumgai in the bracket, the same Pichu player that pwned me in the third Online Open back in March 2019.

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    5. My character win-loss ratios... (Pre-bracket)

      Bowser: 7–1
      Jigglypuff: 3–4
      Ludwig: 8–1

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    6. TIME TO FIGHT SUMGAI.

      PICHU (flower ornament) VS. LUDWIG.
      Pokémon Stadium 2. I actually managed to win GAME 1. W0000T
      Played cautiously and didn't dumbly side-b into him.

      GAME 2 Smashville and I got three-stocked because he Thunderjolted me recovering low from my side-b, Thundered me off the side at 70%, and then all-around wrecked me.

      I don't want to repeat that...

      But, I'll still go Ludwig. I just have to concentrate and FOCUS.

      On Game 3, I got two-stocked. He picked up my habit of jumping off the ledge (back and up) after grabbing it, which he can swiftly back-air and destroy me.

      Sooo I'm out of the tournament.

      Delete
    7. (Note that Game 3 was on Lylat, which isn't good for Ludwig.)

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. I don't get the point of these kind of spam comments.

      Delete

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