Editing SmashBoards

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[[File:SmashBoardsHome.png|thumb|300px|Homepage]]

[[File:SmashBoardsLogo.png|300px|thumb|Current logo of Smashboards.]]

[http://smashboards.com '''Smashboards'''], also formerly known as '''Smash World Forums''' or '''SWF''', is a forum devoted to the {{uv|Super Smash Bros.}} series, allowing users to discuss strategies, as well as find and host [[tournament]]s. In addition to helping players organize tournaments for the games, Smashboards is notably where the most widely-accepted [[tier list]]s are published.  

First opened in 2000, the website has over 250,000 members, making it the most popular ''Super Smash Bros.'' forum on the internet. Despite its age, Smashboards remains popular, though with the rise of other forms of media such as [[Reddit]], [[Twitter]], and [[Discord]], it has had a steady drop in usage, with most remaining users being from outside of the competitive scene.

Prior to the formation of Smashboards, {{Sm|Gideon}}, a thirteen year old smasher, created [https://web.archive.org/web/20071224064352/http://smashworld.org:80/main.shtml Smash World] in 1999, a website devoted to ''Smash 64''. One year later, he founded Smashboards.com as a companion site, hosted by {{s|wikipedia|UBB.threads}}. Initially referred to as the "Smash World Forums", Gideon founded the site as to help players of ''Smash 64'' talk to one another, as well as allow smashers to discuss the then-upcoming ''Melee'' and his upcoming site, Super Smash Bros. Melee World; Gideon also had one board dedicated to The Battle Arena, a side project of his involving Flash animations he created with his friends.

With the continued expansion of ''Melee's'' tournament scene, the game was eventually picked up by [[Major League Gaming]] in 2004, who helped promote the site and further assisted in making Smashboards the world's largest forum and community devoted to ''Smash''. The site continued to rapidly expand following ''Melee's'' inclusion in several MLG events, including the opening of Super Smash Blog, a website devoted to ''Brawl's'' development after its showcase at [[E3 2006]], and opening [[SmashWiki]] in March 2007.  

The MLG kept ''Melee'' in its circuits for many years, only dropping the game in 2007 due to declining interest in the [[Nintendo GameCube]] and the development of ''Brawl'' underway. In September 2008, with ''Brawl'' having been released worldwide and beginning to be analyzed as a tournament game, the MLG purchased the forums from Gideon in September 2008 for an undisclosed sum. While the move allowed Smashboards to gain servers that were less prone to crashing than before, a large number of threads and posts from before 2008 were also lost in the transfer. As a result, information about many tournaments held before 2008, and similar topics, have been lost. Furthermore, the forums's original namesake, Smash World, and all of its variants, were all shut down at this time.

In 2011, the forum was officially renamed Smashboards, after its domain name, though the term "SWF" is still sometimes used as a shorthand for the board. On November 27, 2012, Major League Gaming officially ended its involvement with ''Smash'' by selling the website to {{Sm|AlphaZealot}}'s company Xyelot LLC.<ref>[http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=330262]</ref>

With the upcoming release of ''Smash 4'' in 2014, Smashboards expanded to act as a news network for ''Smash'' in general, covering the release of ''Smash 4'', tournaments for the various games, and promoting videos of players on [[YouTube]].  

A sister site to Smashboards, [http://squidboards.com Squidboards], was launched in 2015, serving as a Smashboards-style forum for the {{uv|Splatoon}} community.

 

On June 1st, 2023, AlphaZealot stepped down as the owner of SmashBoards. His company Xyelot, LLC sold SmashBoards to Equistellar Media, Inc, a company owned by {{Sm|Warchamp7}} which will serve as the business entity for SmashBoards and SquidBoards going forward.

As of 2023, the following boards are available on Smashboards. All of them can be immediately posted in, with exception of the Back Rooms.

 

 

*Platform Fighter Hub

**''Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl''

**''Multiversus''

*Community VIP

**Community Discussion

*{{forwiiu}} / ''[[Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS|3DS]]

**[[Online play|Online]] Discussion

**''Project M'' Videos, Livestreams, and Other Media

*''Smash'' [[Tournament]]s

**Tournament Discussion

**Online Tournament Listings

**Rankings & Results

In addition to the above categories, a further category of forums are present on Smashboards, the '''Smash Back Rooms'''. The Back Rooms are only accessible to specific users who must apply to be able to view and post in these forums; a majority of users of the Back Rooms are generally highly-regarded [[tournament organiser]]s or high-level professional smashers. The Back Rooms can be considered somewhat of a central governing body for competitive ''Smash'' in North America and Europe, and the Back Rooms produce the most widely-accepted [[tier list]]s and publish the official tournament [[ruleset]]s for the games. The Back Rooms also made the official [[character matchup|matchup charts]] for the games, though the last matchup chart to be released was ''Brawl's'' in 2013.

''Smash 64'', ''Melee'', ''Brawl'', and ''Smash 4'' all have their own dedicated Back Rooms, as does ''Project M''. The ''Brawl'' Back Room also formerly featured its own offshoot, the [[Unity Ruleset Committee]], which attempted to create a universal ruleset for ''Brawl'' tournaments. Initially accepted, the URC's [[Meta_Knight_(SSBB)#Ban_from_competitive_play|decision to ban Meta Knight from ''Brawl'' tournaments]] later led to fractures in the ''Brawl'' competitive community, and the URC later disbanded in April 2012, owing to its failure to create or foster a truly universal ruleset for ''Brawl''.

 

''Ultimate'' does not have a dedicated back room, only having the standard publicly available forums. No official statement has been given on its lack of creation, though the decision was likely influenced by a combination of a general decline in usership and those that would otherwise be in a backroom electing to do business elsewhere.

In 2015, Smashboards became Shaqboards, which made everyone's profile picture into images of {{s|wikipedia|Shaquille O'Neal}} while character mains became emoticons of Shaq. Tier Lists for the game {{s|wikipedia|Shaq Fu}} were posted as well as a guaranteed {{SSB4|Luigi}} [[Green Missile|misfire]] tech being discovered.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20150402002455/http://smashboards.com/</ref>

In 2016, Smashboards would become Emblemboards as an inside joke to the huge amount of {{uv|Fire Emblem}} characters present in the [[Super Smash Bros. (series)|Super Smash Bros. series]]. It made everyone's picture into images of characters from the ''Fire Emblem'' franchise as well as turning character mains into emoticons of characters from said franchise. Users notably tiered ''waifus'' and ''husbandos'' during this day.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20160401233156/http://smashboards.com/</ref>

In 2017, Smashboards became Knucklesboards as an inside joke to [[Knuckles the Echidna]], who was intended for inclusion in ''[[Project M]]'' before development of the mod ceased in 2015. Each user had their picture changed into artwork of Knuckles from various {{uv|Sonic the Hedgehog}} games, while character mains became an emoticon of Knuckles. Tier lists were notably based on Knuckles' appearances in ''{{s|wikipedia|Sonic the Fighters}}'' and ''{{s|wikipedia|Sonic Battle}}''.<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/20170401154240/https://smashboards.com/</ref>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Players first discovered and discussed [[wavedash]]ing on Smashboards, with it first being discussed in this [https://smashboards.com/threads/new-strategy-easter-egg-all-reader.12593/ thread].