Tournament:Smash Summit (series)

Smash Summit
Info
Founded	2015
Region	California, United States
Format	Double elimination
winners	Armada (1, 2, 3, Spring 2017)  Hungrybox (5, 7, 9)  Mew2King (6)  Axe (8)  Zain (10 Online)  Mango (11, 14)  iBDW (12, 13)
winners	MkLeo (1, 2)  Tweek (3)  Sparg0 (4)  ProtoBanham (5)  acola (6)
Most successful player(s)	Armada (4 events)
Staff
Organizer(s)	Beyond the Summit

The Smash Summit series, often referred to in the Smash community as just Summit, was a series of major invitationals focusing on Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that was held between 2015 and 2023. Summit tournaments span several days, with singles and doubles on the final days. The first days feature various side events focusing on its main Smash game as well as other games, in addition to other activities such as Mafia, all of which is streamed on Beyond the Summit's Twitch channel. The series featured a total of 20 Summit events, 14 for Melee and 6 for Ultimate.

The Smash Summit series became the premier invitational series for both Melee and Ultimate, as it often featured the best players of each game. As such, the series repeatedly reached major and supermajor levels for both games and were highly anticipated events. Following the series' conclusion, many other invitational events have copied their format.

Background

The Summit series began in 2014 with the Dota 2 invitational The Summit. However, the first Smash event wouldn't take place until the namesake Smash Summit from November 5th-8th, 2015. Since then, two Summit events were held every year with the exception of the series' final few years, where there were three held in 2021 (2 Melee and 1 Ultimate) and four held in 2022 (2 Melee and 2 Ultimate). In addition, two Summit events were also planned but were later cancelled: a crossover Summit between Melee and Ultimate was planned for 2020, but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and later scrapped., while Smash Summit 15 was planned for Melee in June 2023, but was cancelled after Beyond the Summit decided to shut down following Smash Ultimate Summit 6.

Smash Summit tournaments typically ran over four days, from Thursday through Sunday. The first day is often referred to as a "Media Day", as it is mostly dedicated to filming comedic skits with the invited players, which are aired throughout the event, as well as lighter side events. Pool play and side events are scheduled for Friday and Saturday while the final singles bracket is played out on Sunday. Side events include doubles brackets, commentator brackets, secondary/low-tier brackets, Squad Strike, unique rulesets (such as the "swag bracket", where fans vote for the "most entertaining" player to advance to the next round), and non-Smash-related events such as Mario Party; party games, such as Mafia; and athletic competitions.

Smash Summit presents itself as a unique opportunity for fans to watch the players interact with each other on a personal level. The competitors are invited to commentate other sets and give interviews after each set. Each Summit has its own theme and art design, often based around a real-life event or holiday occurring at a similar time.

Attendees

Typically, 16 different players are selected to participate in each Smash Summit. 8 to 10 players are automatically invited based on their placement in preceding major tournaments, or based on power rankings such as SSBMRank. The other competitors qualify through either a voting phase or through qualifiers, the latter first introduced for Smash Summit 5. In the former, fans can buy merchandise or donate cash, which grants them the opportunity to cast votes for certain players; the money then contributes to the event's prize payout. At the end of each voting deadline, two players are eliminated, while starting from the third voting round, two players are invited; this repeats until all vote-ins have been selected. Although the invitation process remained roughly the same, there has been irregularities such as in Smash Summit 10 Online, where the majority of players qualified through qualifiers.

Format

The format for Smash Summit events has changed over time. Initially, the event was a simple double-elimination event. The group phase was first introduced in Smash Summit Spring 2017, beginning as a swiss bracket where all eliminated players beginning on the loser's side of the final bracket. The following Summit event briefly switched to a the four-pool round robin format for the group phase, where the bottom two players of each round robin began on the loser's side of the final bracket, before future Summit events returned to the swiss bracket up until Smash Ultimate Summit 2, which reintroduced the round robin format. Although Smash Summit 9 briefly returned to the swiss format, the Summit series stuck with the round robin format from Smash Summit 10 Online onward. Finally, the gauntlet stage was introduced in Smash Summit 11, where all players who did not win their round robin pools faced off against each other in a new set of single-elimination brackets, and all players who lost began the final bracket on the loser's side. The first match of each gauntlet phase is between a player who was third in their round robin and a player who was fourth, and the winner of that set faces off against a player who was second.

Champions

Melee singles winners

Year	Event	Player	Tag	Character(s)	Runner-up	Character(s)
2015	Smash Summit	Adam Lindgren	Armada		Mango
2016	Smash Summit 2	Adam Lindgren	Armada		Hungrybox
2016	Smash Summit 3	Adam Lindgren	Armada		Hungrybox
2017	Smash Summit Spring 2017	Adam Lindgren	Armada		Hungrybox
2017	Smash Summit 5	Juan Manuel DeBiedma	Hungrybox		Armada
2018	Smash Summit 6	Jason Zimmerman	Mew2King		Armada
2018	Smash Summit 7	Juan Manuel DeBiedma	Hungrybox		Leffen
2019	Smash Summit 8	Jeffrey Williamson	Axe		Wizzrobe
2020	Smash Summit 9	Juan Manuel DeBiedma	Hungrybox		Plup
2020	Smash Summit 10 Online	Zain Naghmi	Zain		Mango
2021	Smash Summit 11	Joseph Manuel Marquez	Mango		Zain
2021	Smash Summit 12	Cody Schwab	iBDW		Mango
2022	Smash Summit 13	Cody Schwab	iBDW		Plup
2022	Smash Summit 14	Joseph Manuel Marquez	Mango		iBDW

Melee Doubles Winners

Year	Event	Player	Tag	Character(s)	Player	Tag	Character(s)	Runner-up	Character(s)	Runner-up	Character(s)
2015	Smash Summit	Kevin Toy	PewPewU		Zachary Cordoni	SFAT		Armada		Mew2King
2016	Smash Summit 2	Adam Lindgren	Armada		Jason Zimmerman	Mew2King		Hungrybox		Plup
2016	Smash Summit 3	Adam Lindgren	Armada		Jason Zimmerman	Mew2King		SFAT		PewPewU
2017	Smash Summit Spring 2017	Adam Lindgren	Armada		Jason Zimmerman	Mew2King		Leffen		Ice
2017	Smash Summit 5	Adam Lindgren	Armada		William Hjelte	Leffen		Mew2King		Plup
2018	Smash Summit 6	Adam Lindgren	Armada		William Hjelte	Leffen		SFAT		Mango
2018	Smash Summit 7	Jason Zimmerman	Mew2King		Justin McGrath	Plup		Hungrybox		Bananas
2019	Smash Summit 8	Joseph Marquez	Mango		Johnny Kim	S2J		Plup		Zain
2022	Smash Summit 14	Justin McGrath	Plup		James Ma	Duck		Hungrybox		Joshman

Ultimate singles winners

Year	Event	Player	Tag	Character(s)	Runner-up	Character(s)
2019	Smash Ultimate Summit	Leonardo Lopez Perez	MkLeo		Dabuz
2019	Smash Ultimate Summit 2	Leonardo Lopez Perez	MkLeo		Samsora
2021	Smash Ultimate Summit 3	Gavin Dempsey	Tweek		MkLeo
2022	Smash Ultimate Summit 4	Edgar Valdez	Sparg0		Light
2022	Smash Ultimate Summit 5	Naoto Tsuji	ProtoBanham		Light
2023	Smash Ultimate Summit 6	Mashita Hayato	acola		Tweek

Players with multiple appearances

Melee

Tag	Appearances
Mango	14
Hungrybox	13
Plup	13
Axe	12
Leffen	10
SFAT	10
Wizzrobe	9
Zain	9
aMSa	8
iBDW	7
Mew2King	7
n0ne	7
S2J	7
Armada	6
Shroomed	6
PewPewU	5
Westballz	5
Ginger	4
KoDoRiN	4
Lucky	3
Magi	3
2saint	2
Duck	2
Hax	2
HugS	2
Ice	2
Jmook	2
Joshman	2
moky	2
Pipsqueak	2
Spark	2
Swedish Delight	2

Ultimate

Tag	Appearances
MkLeo	6
Dabuz	5
Tweek	5
Glutonny	4
Light	4
Sparg0	4
VoiD	4
Cosmos	3
Maister	3
ProtoBanham	3
Riddles	3
Zackray	3
Aaron	2
acola	2
Armada	2
Kola	2
Leffen	2
Marss	2
MuteAce	2
Nairo	2
Samsora	2
Tea	2

Trivia

• Mango and Plup played against each other at every Smash Summit for Melee, with the exception of Smash Summit 6, Smash Summit 12, Smash Summit 13, and Smash Summit 14.
• Hungrybox and aMSa played at every in-person Smash Summit for Melee where both were in attendance (starting with Smash Summit 5), with the exception of Smash Summit 14.
  • Hungrybox won every time he played at odd-numbered Summits, whereas the reverse was true for aMSa at even-numbered Summits.
• Mango and Hungrybox played against each other at every odd-numbered Smash Summit for Melee starting with Smash Summit 7.
• Only seven players - Armada, Leffen, Mew2King, Mango, Plup, ESAM, and Hungrybox - have attended a Smash Summit for both Melee and Ultimate.
• The winner of each offline Smash Summit were invited to the following Summit with the exception of Smash Ultimate Summit 3, where the winner Tweek qualified for Smash Ultimate Summit 4 at Mainstage 2021 before anyone was invited.
• Tweek and Sparg0 are the only players to place both last and first in a given game's Smash Summit (both for Ultimate):
  • Tweek is the only player to place last at a Summit that would go on to win a Summit, placing 13th at Smash Ultimate Summit 2 before winning Smash Ultimate Summit 3.
  • Sparg0 is the only player to win a Summit that would go on to place last at another Summit, winning Smash Ultimate Summit 4 before placing 13th at Smash Ultimate Summit 6.
• Dabuz placed 9th at every Summit he attended aside from Smash Ultimate Summit.
• Although SluG never competed in a Smash Summit, he qualified for the cancelled Smash Summit 15 at Mainstage 2022.
• Mango is the only player to compete in every Melee Smash Summit, and MkLeo is the only player to compete in every Ultimate Smash Summit.
• Light and Plup are the only players to make multiple Grand Finals appearances without winning a Smash Summit.