
Did you enjoy the first event of the officially licensed Panda Cup Super Smash Bros. circuit? That was CEO 2022 at Daytona Beach Florida, featuring Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (and other fighting games). If you missed the fun as a spectator, Panda Global has set up a video-on-demand channel with the hours-worth of exciting Super Smash Bros. action.
For Super Smash Bros. Melee, the three qualifying players who will get to play in December's Panda Cup Finale based on their performance at CEO 2022 are Chem, Magi, and Plup. For Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, those three are Riddles, Toast, and Sonix. The next in-person event, which will have two players for each game, is Get on My Level 2022 in Toronto, Canada. If you go down the list of in-person events, they're...very geographically isolated. There's a great chance that it'd be inconvenient for you to travel out to them. If you're a Super Smash Bros. Melee player, you're out of luck. But for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, you have several opportunities to qualify from the comfort of your home.
Here's an overview of how that works: The Panda Cup Online Qualifiers keeps track of what place you finish per event (and there are four events for each of the eight regions—note that these regions laid out quite differently than the ones you've seen in the Nintendo-Battlefy North American Online Open series), which is on public display here. Depending on where you finish, you'll get a point value. First placers get 100 points, second placers receive 70 points, third placers earn 45 points... down to 65th place finishers winning 1 point. By the time all four events are completed, it'll add up your point values within your region across all four events. If you're in the Top 32 (or tied for it), you'll be entered into the finals for your region. If you are the top one winner in your region, you'll get to go to the Panda Cup Finale in California in December (and receive flight and lodging for it). That means there will only be one Panda Cup Finale qualifier for each region, and therefore eight total across North America. This means there are actually forty online events (four per region and one finals per region), as Panda promised.
Participants must be 18 years or older to participate. (I see this as a good thing.) You have to be physically located in the region in order to be able to play in its event. The structure assumes that you're going to stay in the same region for all four of the events, so I recommend you don't move across regions to go to college starting in the summer or get a new job or whatever. Based on the days of the week that these events actually occur, you're... probably not meant to actually enter all four of them, but you can if you really need those points and feel like you have a chance. Also important to note: Unlike the in-person events, these are all FREE to enter.
Here's the table to all of the events. Note that the Panda Cup Finale qualifier links aren't available yet, and probably won't be until the start of October.