This entry in my series of Competitive Smash Bros Ultimate marks my last. This project began as a school assignment and I am nearing the end of the semester. For the final post, I would like to say my thoughts on what I expect to see in the upcoming months from Ultimate: characters we will see, which top players we will see, and my most anticipated tournaments.

Characters

I don’t know how many times I can say it, but Ultimate is such a treat to gamers because of its massive roster, it really makes for interesting tournaments because we can see a large variety of matchups. As the meta stands now, here are the characters I think we’ll continue to see placing well in tournaments.

The first part will come as no surprise, the top tiers that we have seen so far I don’t think will be leaving anytime soon. Peach, Wolf, Pichu, Olimar, Palutena, Inkling, Snake, Lucina, you get the picture are all great characters and backed up by some great players.

Now I want to discuss which characters I think are going to make a rise in appearances among more tournaments.

Joker
No surprise here as Joker is fresh off the DLC excitement, but with more practice I think players are going to learn how to optimize Arsene very well. Arsene is an absolute unit and unless Joker and Arsene receive a nerf, they make for an incredibly scary threat.

Sheik
Sheik was buffed in the last patch, making her fair much better. She can now string more combos together, giving her a little more juice to her kit. Yeah she does little damage, but she can chain attacks among the best of them, if she hit harder she wouldn’t be balanced. I think players are going to shine some light on some creative Sheik combos and setups that won’t make it appear as hard to take stocks as much as people make it seem.

Shulk
Shulk is one of those characters that I think is greatly untapped. This is probably because his Monado Arts aren’t the easiest to master, but I think his ceiling is high. I think he also benefits from unlearned matchups, people won’t feel very comfortable fighting against a high level Shulk. All it’s gonna take is one player to debut him in top 8 of a major and he’ll gain many more mains.

Greninja
This may not be the boldest prediction, as I do think Greninja is top tier. For some reason people are brushing right over him. Greninja has great mobility, combos, recovery, and mixups, yet he’s not getting the attention of other top tiers. Expect more of Greninja soon.

Incineroar
Incineroar scares the crap out of me. He hits hard and has crazy aerial pressure with up air and nair, and not to mention his insane counter attack. Incineroar’s recovery got buffed in 2.0, and it’s not nearly as bad as you think with the use of both side B and up B. Add in a command grab that kills very early and you find me terrified of any Incineroar. I think all of these pros outweigh his slow run speed. Tweek has been teasing his Incineroar on Twitter lately, he’ll show us what he can do.

Top Players

If you’ve been following my posts these past few months, then these predictions will come as no surprise. Since we’ve seen so many players make top 8 in tournament so far, I’m going to give some honorable mentions, then give my prediction for who I think will be the Panda Global #1 ranked player after the first year of Ultimate.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
Tweek, Zackray, Myran, Shotun, Nairo, Dabuz, Samsora, Cosmos, Void, Light, and Ally. The list could go on and on, we’ve seen some tremendous play from all of these contestants, and look forward to watching all of them.

#1
Again, I don’t think many people will be surprised at this prediction:

MKLeo

When I watch Leo play, I always notice how smart, focused, and optimized he is. Obviously he isn’t perfect as no one is, and you can’t win them all. But often when I watch, I can’t help but think how god-like his play is, and I think to myself: whose gonna beat this guy? Big props to Leo.

Tournaments to Come

Smash’N’Splash 5
This water park themed tournament is always one of my favorites. As it allows players to have fun competing and swim afterwards. Not to mention it’s just a few hours of a drive from me to the Wisconsin Dells. Smash’N’Splash takes place after my graduation, so I’m thinking of attending!

CEO
CEO is one of the larger tournaments, and I always love to see the amount of effort that goes into the presentation of top 8 within the ring. I’m eager to see who will win the belt this year.

Evo
Obviously the biggest fighting game tournament of the year is going to be on the list. The highest amount of entries and the biggest names showing up make it the most prestigious trophy players can aim for.

Those are my three most anticipated tournaments that are coming up this summer. There will be many other tournaments that I will be watching as well, but these are the biggest. What makes things most exciting is that we’re still so early in Ultimate’s lifespan, and these tournaments being in its first year makes winning first place that much sweeter. It will be fun to see how Ultimate evolves in the years to come and comparing it to what we’ve seen so far. I thank everyone who followed any of my posts throughout this spring, it has been fun sharing my thoughts with you all. Happy smashing!

Noah Borski
University of Wisconsin – Green Bay
Information Science – Game Studies
Communication