By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - 32 events open to adults in North America!
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.
The whole tournament is conducted on the start.gg eSports platform (used to be called smash.gg, then they got bought by Microsoft and rebranded). I don't actually like the platform. It's difficult to navigate, but you should be able to figure it out. Anyway, every region gets a Thursday and Tuesday day after standard work hours, and a Saturday and Sunday event at noon. Equal opportunity inconvenience! Ahaha... well, it should be a fun time. You don't win anything (like money) besides points for winning the individual online events, by the way. Prizes with value come if you go to the physical Panda Cup Finale in December and win there. Have fun!
And if you are only interested as a spectator, all of the above events (or at least their latter halves) will apparently be streamed on the Panda Cup Twitch channel. That's a lot of action to watch!
Ludwig doesn't plan to write an article after every Panda Cup event or anything. It's just a good time to do that now before the online qualifiers start. He also won't be supplying Fighter Usage Stats like he has in Nintendo's officially sponsored Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournaments that took place on Battlefy, since the methodology would be quite different. If he got any details wrong (and there are many details he could've screwed up on), please let him know in the comments section.
Ludwig wrote about his experience in the Panda Cup Online Qualifiers here, including the regional final qualifier.
Soooooo...you gonna try for this? Because I sure as heck am not. I never got past "0-2 at locals" level, and frankly I'm not even whatsoever interested in "gitting gud" in the kind of ways I'd need to to get above that level.
ReplyDeleteI haven't decided.
DeleteI’ve never played Super Smash Bros but I didn’t know they would do something like this!
ReplyDeleteYou said the same thing a month ago! You gotta remember!
DeleteNaz here hi
DeleteOh, the guy from Smash Bros. today.
DeleteAre you joining the Panda Cup too?