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Monday, October 12, 2020

All About The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open October 2020 Tournament!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I told you this'd happen, and as your expert, I can walk you through how it works.

A mere three weeks ago, I wrote about the official Nintendo-held in-game casual-oriented Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Challenge Cup of September 2020 tournament, and put in a dedicated section in the article about how I thought those casual tournaments will co-exist with the competitive tournaments that Nintendo has been sponsoring with eSports (or esports, as they'd capitalise it) platform Battlefy. That was QUITE a statement, since those tournaments hadn't happened since June 2020. The last time they happened, Min Min wasn't out yet. Now Steve from Minecraft (along with Alex, a zombie, and an Enderman) will be appearing in under 24 hours from when this article was published.

...Well, many participants of the Nintendo-Battlefy tournaments didn't think those tournaments would continue to exist (with many folks on the Discord server—which I moderate, for full disclosure—asking why the server still was up despite there being no tournaments occurring), so here to surprise you (and click this to register)...

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open October 2020 logo purple
This is by far the best colour scheme yet. Love purple!

Besides the new colour scheme in the logo, some things have changed in the tournament since the previous one... PRIZES and RULES. Let's briefly discuss the changes to finish out the article (and actual details on the tournament itself), along with my opinions on it all:

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open October 2020 Basic Information


The tournament is either on October 24 (at 1 PM Eastern) or October 31 (at 11 AM Eastern), depending on where in North America (Quebec included) you're located. Please look at this page to check that out. You have until now and when the tournament starts (in your respective region) to register, and you need a high-speed Internet connection to do so, as well as a Nintendo Switch (and access to the customer support number to successfully fill out registration).

Unlike Nintendo's in-game tournament, participants will register on that battlefy.com site, and the match-ups are made through that. You also talk to your opponent through a battlefy.com match chat, and report your scores through there. All you do in-game is set up a Battle Arena, invite your opponent, and play the matches.

Understand that there are eight different regions, depending on where you are. This is so you play people within closer proximity to you, which helps reduce lag for a better game experience. The best players in the region closest to you (1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8) will converge at the end to play in the Finals Round the next day (technically making the tournament end November 1).

The actual match-making is done via a ladder format (Ladder Round), where you “[p]lay as much as you want during the 3 hours ladder round” (but a minimum of eight matches if you want to move on), which automatically matches you against people with a similar score to you who are looking for a match. You get +1 point if you win the set (a set is defined as a best of three games—also known as the first to win two games), and -1 point if you lose the set. That means people who win will be matched up against fellow winners, and vice-versa. Unlike Nintendo's in-game Tourney Score system, on Battlefy, you can always check your score and how it's doing versus everyone else's scores by clicking the Brackets tab that will be up when the tournament begins. How many points you'll need is dependent on how many points other people have, but historically, the more tournament registrants, the more points you'll need. That makes certain regions (like Region 7) much more competitive than others (Region 5).

At the end of three hours, the top 32 players who have played a minimum of eight matches with the best record will play in a single-elimination Bracket Round that also consists of best-of-three matches. Your seeding is directly based off your Ladder Round performance—the first place guy faces off against the thirty-second place dude; while the sixteenth place fellow fights the seventeenth place lad. That gives at least some incentive to try to do the best in the ladder that you can, even if you're at a “safe” spot and don't want to risk playing another match.

The top two players in your region's Bracket Round will move onto that next-day Finals Round, where you fight in a four-person double-elimination bracket against the other two people in your partner region. Each of the four Finals will be live-streamed by Nintendo in their entirety on October 25 or November 1.


Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open October 2020 Prizes


The approximate retail value (ARV) of all of the prizes this time is a whopping $3,800, which dwarfs the $710 ARV from Nintendo's casual Challenge Cup tournament a few weeks ago. This is the biggest value since Nintendo was flying people out and paying for hotels in March 2020.

What is that money going to? The four people who win their regionally grouped Finals Round will get a GOLD-COLOURED TROPHY (ARV $200 per trophy), while the other twelve people who at least made it into the Finals Round but didn't win it will get a SILVER-COLOURED TROPHY (ARV $150 per trophy). The trophy design is currently unknown, but I can guarantee you it will not be made of actual gold or silver.

If you got 3rd to 7th place in the Bracket Round in your region (that's six spots per region, so forty-eight total), you'll get the runner-up prize, which is 2500 My Nintendo Gold Points, or $25 in Nintendo eShop money. If you value digital spending money more than a trophy which may or may not be awesome, maybe you'll want to purposefully lose a match once you get far enough into the Bracket Round. Still, just getting there will be tough. The best I've ever done in these tournaments was 17th place in the Bracket Round, which is a nicer way of saying that I've always lost my first match. (That still makes me better than the vast majority of people who enter these, since they never get into the Bracket Round to begin with.)

This all means they're giving a lot more prizes to a lot more people than ever before!


Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North American Online Open October 2020 Rule Changes



The rules are almost the same—3-stock matches with a 7-minute time limit. No items, no Final Smash metre, no Spirits. Stage Hazards are off, and Stage Selection is random, with stages being in normal form. Ah, but the stages are different. Below is a table to summarise it:

May 2020 October 2020
Battlefield Battlefield
N/A Small Battlefield
Final Destination Final Destination
Yoshi's Story Yoshi's Story
Yoshi's Island N/A
Lylat Cruise N/A
Pokémon Stadium 2 Pokémon Stadium 2
Smashville Smashville
Kalos Pokémon League Kalos Pokémon League
Town & City Town & City

Lylat Cruise (RIP) and Yoshi's Island (YES! This stage is AWFUL!) are out. Small Battlefield, which is the best stage on the list and was made for competitive purposes, is in. Too bad Fountain of Dreams, which is the best stage in the whole franchise, continues to be excluded. Its aesthetic would match the new purple tournament logo so well...

Unlike the horrible slants on Yoshi's Island which let you do cool but counterproductive things with a Koopaling's Clown Kart side-b move, you can do very cool and productive things with the same move on Small Battlefield, by accelerating off one platform and landing on the next one. I look forward to doing this trick, and less stages on the list means a greater chance for each individual stage to be selected.

Big unknown: How does Steve perform on these? Because you can bet that he (and Alex/Zombie/Enderman) is going to be used. ...A LOT. Will the Minecraft freaks dethrone Joker as the most-used character? We'll find out... And if you want to join, and it's free, click here to register.



Ludwig is playing on the October 24 date. This article will have details on his matches in the comments section when that happens, and then KoopaTV will have usage stats in probably the first week of November, assuming the United States presidential election isn't taking up article space for that whole week. This article is KoopaTV's 2000th published article.


Here are the winners of the October 2020 tournament, and the fighter usage stats! Was Joker the most-used again, or did Steve take the spot?
Nintendo is not paying the prize winners for this tournament weeks after it has ended. What is going on?
The next time there is a Nintendo-Battlefy Super Smash Bros. Ultimate event is October 2021, though it's only open to the United States.
The time after that has a tournament in April 2022... and it's open back up to all of North America again!

6 comments :

  1. After technical difficulties for the first 3 minutes where they put the end time as the start time (delaying the tournament), my first match was

    Match 1: VERSUS SCHLUNGUS. Of course, he's playing Steve. I played Jigglypuff and two-stocked him on Yoshi's Story, losing my first stock because I'm an idiot who needs to stop trying to get cool Rollout KOs but misses completely and then dies because of the slant at the edges making it unstoppable. Match 2, on Smashville, was a lot closer (down to my last stock and he even got the first KO), but he fell apart because again, he was forgetting to Mine. Also, I need to really hold down the shield button for the whole magma block duration. Jigglypuff won though.

    Match 2: Versus CrazyBB. He picked Pikachu Libre. I went Bowser. Yoshi's Story. Two-stocked them. Game 2, he switched to Waluigi-Mario. Still going Bowser. At Kalos. He got 97% on me on the first stock before I even touched him once. That plumber is incredibly frustrating, but I still won because while he's doing his lagless aerials juggling me up, he's susceptible to being Down-Aired. I also baited him into multiple Fire Breaths, and just Up-Smashed him as he was approaching with his Back-Airs on the ground.

    Match 3: I'm fighting KongoMan, again. You may remember him from Set 5 of the May 2020 tournament ( https://www.koopatv.org/2020/05/smash-bros-online-open-may-2020.html?showComment=1590860015616#c9087027414040340352 ). He certainly remembers me. He was a Banjo player and we had VERY close sets. So we're doing Banjo vs. Ludwig again, on Small Battlefield. It was very close, and I would've won, but he fell out of my Forward-Smash and Wonderwinged shield-poked to KO me.
    He had this to say:
    KongoManOct 24, 2020 11:35:33 am
    Your ludwig is still amazing man
    KongoManOct 24, 2020 11:35:58 am
    Like your movement is so good and you calculate everything so well

    Well, I'm changing to BOWSER game 2. How does Bowser do against Banjo? I dunno, but I think he's used to my Ludwig. We're on Town & City and I got JV 2-stocked. Bowser can't do much against Banjo's projectiles so I should've stuck with Ludwig.


    Match 4: Versus Dad. …Does he play as Bowser? I had to wait over 6 minutes for him to set an (incorrect) arena up.
    I keep talking to him like this:

    Koopa#5969Oct 24, 2020 11:46:24 am
    I'm sorry, Dad, but your arena isn't legal.
    Koopa#5969Oct 24, 2020 11:46:31 am
    You need to have the Stage set to Random, not Choice.
    DadOct 24, 2020 11:46:53 am
    Oops sorry one second
    Koopa#5969Oct 24, 2020 11:47:02 am
    That's a setting you need to make a new arena for.
    Koopa#5969Oct 24, 2020 11:49:16 am
    ...Dad?
    Koopa#5969Oct 24, 2020 11:51:43 am
    DAD?!

    A few minutes later, he remade the arena, but Stage was still set to Choice. So I told him to join my Arena, which I made in less than a minute and not the ten minutes he's taking.
    Obviously I gotta go with Ludwig, because… I'm fighting Dad. He's playing as Ganondorf, who, to my knowledge, is not a dad. We're in Yoshi's Story and I two-stocked him in 2.5 minutes. He's not very good. Not enough neutral-airs. A lot of Wizards Foots.
    Game 2. He's playing as Roy of Pherae, who is a son, but not a dad. Ludwig three-stocked him on Pokémon Stadium 2. Surprisingly, he didn't Counter once.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Match 5: Versus BeastKid. He has an Incineroar avatar… and plays Incineroar. Fits his name too. I two-stocked him on Small Battlefield with Jigglypuff game 1. Unbefitting of him, Game 2 he switched to Enderman. Sticking with Jigglypuff. Battlefield. I won fairly easily, again.

      Match 6: Versus JFrito18. I'm sticking with Jigglypuff, since he's using Black Villager. It was an excellent decision, since I three-stocked him on Final Destination with only 42% damage taken. He then switched to white King K. Rool! I'm sticking with Jigglypuff. We're going to Town. I two-stocked him in under a minute and a half, and it didn't help he more-or-less self-destructed because he tried to up-air me from right above the bottom blast zone, which put him in enough end lag he got KO'd. He also began the match immediately dashing towards me and dash-attacking. At least this whole match was quick and easy, racking up KOs for Jigglypuff.

      Match 7: Versus Zretton. He made an Arena, and it was set to Stage: Choice, and he said he goofed up and told me to set my choice to "Random Omega", which… isn't what the setting should be, at all. He's a Captain Falcon. I'm gonna go Bowser against my better judgment and see what happens… I won (Smashville), because he kept trying to approach me with Raptor Boost. He then switched to Samus and I switched to Ludwig on Kalos. I two-stocked him, strongly helped by me finally only getting KO'd by a Charge Beam at, like, 200%. He really liked showing off his Samus wall-jumps!

      Match 8: Versus summit. He plays a red R.O.B… I'm going as Ludwig but I don't know who I should use. Small Battlefield. He won game 1 but it was very close. My forward-air from the ledge missed his Arm Rotor and I got KO'd. Game 2, going as Ludwig again. Final Destination. We exchanged R.O.B combos and Ludwig combos and I did much better, winning the game. He got surprised by me catching his discs out of my up-b. Game 3 he 0-to-deathed me by exploiting my suckage if I get hit out of an up-b, and he one-stocked me. It was again Small Battlefield, which is a lot more frustrating to deal with than Final Destination vs. R.O.B.

      One hour to go. I've got 8 matches. 6 wins, 2 losses, rank 46. Let's make a comeback?

      Delete
    2. Match 9: Vs. koop. Guy has a good name. He thinks mine is good as well. I let him make the arena while I went to wash my claws after how intense Match 8 was, and he sets Stage to Choice. <.< So I made the Arena instead. He'd a MIN MIN player. I was gonna play Bowser but I have to go Jigglypuff vs. Min Min. Game 1: Min Min vs. Jigglypuff, on Smashville. Game 2 was on Battlefield. I wrecked them, with a zero-to-death each game, because Min Min is probably the most fun character for Jigglypuff to edgeguard.

      Match 10: Vs. shaneous32. He has a Charizard avatar and the Poké Floats music (RIP), but he plays Ganondorf, so I'm going Ludwig. I get to fight TWO Ganondorf players? I beat him on Battlefield game 1 fairly easily (though he figured out he could dash-attack at the right time to pick up Mecha-Koopas). He then switched to PIRANHA PLANT, which makes him smarter than the usual Ganondorf player. But I two-stocked at Smashville. He didn't Ptooie enough, though he did love to drag-down neutral air into jab flurry.

      Right now at 8 wins, 2 losses: Rank 28. That won't last, so I gotta keep playing.

      Match 11: Vs. Sola. Before the tournament began, Sola told me: "Ludwig, we can gentleman to FoD if we play against each other." (Meaning, we can screw the rules and play on Fountain of Dreams.) Clearly, this match was destined. Sola is a Byleth player nowadays, and I went Bowser. I was doing well… until I wasn't. So I lost game 1. Game 2: Jigglypuff vs. Byleth, and we randomly went to Small Battlefield. I got wrecked because I'm an idiot and picked Jigglypuff against a bad match-up, thinking that she's doing so well against more recent DLC characters like Min Min and Steve.

      8 wins, 3 losses, rank 44, 19 minutes. Eek

      Match 12: Versus NazzJSB. There's 15 minutes left in this. But this guy's arena has the wrong number of minutes on the timer, and a very wrong stage list. UGGH HE'S WASTING TIIME It took him until 11 minutes left in the tournament to finally have the right ruleset. Game 1, Ludwig vs. Miibrawler. Final Destination. He's playing very evasively, spamming his B moves and making it so I won at 1:54 PM. He switched to Wii Fit Trainer on Small Battlefield just to be an annoying staller. and I went to Bowser to hurry it up. I won at 1:57 PM.

      Match 13: Versus Liam.m. Dude's arena is Stage: Choice and there's only 1 minute left and he's wasting time by being wrong. HE'S A TOON LINK PLAYER. I made an arena and invited him. Bowser vs. Toon Link. Kalos. I won game 1. Game 2 he literally went and grew up to Link. On FD I choked game 2. Game 3 switched to LUDWIG vs. Link. Won on Small Battlefield in climactic fashion.

      IT'S 2:16.

      I'M IN TOP 32.
      10 WINS, 3 LOSSES. RANK 27

      Delete
    3. Saturday, October 24, 2020
      2:20 PM

      I apparently dropped to Rank 28 from 27, but at least I'm still in the Top 32.
      This does mean I'm facing someone different than expecting: They go by… Z.

      This guy, in Top 32, still has the wrong ruleset and has Stage set to Choice. Yikes.

      He's a Diddy Kong player. I picked Jigglypuff and we went to Kalos. Unfortunately, I don't actually know how to fight Diddy Kong, and I spent most of the time floating around while he had a banana, and losing to his faster forward-air. (His is Frame 6; mine is Frame 8. My neutral air is also 6.)
      So I got two-stocked.
      Switched to Ludwig game 2. Yoshi's Story. Also got two-stocked, though if the match went on another half a second it would've been a JV two-stock.
      I keep thinking spot-dodge works against Diddy Kong and it NEVER DOES. EVER.
      So I'm out at round 1 of Top 32, again. But at least I made it this far.

      Delete
    4. Stats...
      Win-Lose records:

      Jigglypuff: 8–2
      Bowser: 5–3
      Ludwig: 8–4

      (Jigglypuff's wins were against easy opponents, though, so that's not as impressive as it looks.)

      Stages:


      Battlefield: 3
      Small Battlefield: 7
      Final Destination: 4
      Yoshi’s Story: 4
      Pokémon Stadium 2: 1
      Smashville: 4
      Kalos Pokémon League: 4
      Town & City: 2
      Fountain of Dreams (gentleman): 1


      I'm happy I got lots of Small Battlefield action.

      Delete
    5. Two videos from this:

      Me versus summit, game 2:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfYuV6zEiSg

      Me versus Liam.m, game 3:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIOnpQwKg-A

      Delete

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