(Don't join the) NintendoVS Challenge Cup May 2022!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Too bad there's not much interesting stuff to add here.

Today, for everyone like me who isn't into Nintendo Switch Sports, Nintendo of America announced the NintendoVS Challenge Cup May 2022, which they are positioning as a “tournament” even though it shouldn't be defined as that.

I already wrote an article back in February about why you shouldn't join the NintendoVS Challenge Cup February 2022... and I could really just copy-paste that whole article for this time but change February to May. That is, after all, what Nintendo did with their own ruleset, which is exactly the same despite poor player reception.

They DID change the colour scheme on the logo from red and black to dark blue and light blue, though.

Here's a summary of what you'll get into if you decide to join. The NintendoVS Challenge Cup is an entirely in-game affair, accessed by going into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's Online section to the notice on the top right and registering to the Challenge Cup while agreeing to terms. For the three hours on May 7, 2022, you will participate in a Quick Play-esque scenario where you can choose your character and get match-made with someone with a similar Tourney Score as you. You start with 15,000 Tourney Score. If you win, it goes up by an arbitrary amount. If you lose, it goes down by an arbitrary amount. Then you can go back to the Character Selection Screen and pick a different character, or keep using that character. Your Tourney Score is per user, not per character, so it's the same Score even if you change characters. You won't get to immediately rematch the person you just fought, though you may be match-made against them again later. There is no way of knowing how your Tourney Score compares to others’ during the event, so you won't know if you're in the Top 8 scores necessary to win a prize. (You needed over 29,000 for February's. The winners include competitive, professional players, several of which streamed their runs for content.)

The actual matches are two-stock five-minute matches with Final Smash metre and certain items turned on. In practice, this means that it's really a one-stock game with the Final Smash deleting the second stock (even though metre-induced Final Smashes are weaker than Smash Ball-induced Final Smashes, some Final Smashes are so powerful that it doesn't really matter and they can KO extremely early—so the metagame would be a bit different than the Fighter Usage Stats I just published earlier this week because that wasn't based on Final Smashes being in play), and that one stock is heavily influenced by the unpredictable appearance of items. Since competitive players tend to be the ones who win the prizes from these anyway, it's not totally RNG-based from a macro-level, but on an individual micro match-to-match level, RNG is a large factor. That can be very frustrating, especially because it's in our nature to remember the more unfortunate incidents where you might lose due to circumstances beyond your control than remembering epic wins. Actually remembering what happens is hard, because saving Replays is disabled during this event.

Prizes include a backpack, a trophy, a jacket, a carrying case, and My Nintendo Gold Points ($100, $75, or $50 depending on your placing). Same as before. Whatever.


If you wanted actual competitive rules from a Nintendo-sponsored tournament, you should've joined the NintendoVS North American Open April 2022. Ludwig took his own advice and didn't join the February Challenge Cup. If he's a wise Koopaling, he won't join the May 2022 Challenge Cup either and will be doing something better with his time than being frustrated.


The Challenge Cup returns with the NintendoVS Challenge Cup June 2023, now with stage hazards on.