Smasher:Mr. Wizard
| Mr. Wizard | |
|---|---|
| |
| Character info | |
| Smash 4 main | Duck Hunt |
| Team info | |
| Crew(s) | Shoryuken |
| Personal and other info | |
| Real name | Joey Cuellar |
| Location | Southern California 
|
Mr. Wizard is a tournament director from Southern California who is mostly known as one of the co-founders of the Evolution Championship Series or simply EVO. He was the main TO for the EVO national tournaments, which are the largest yearly FGC-run and Smash events ever, from its creation up until 2020. In terms of playing, he mains Duck Hunt[1], and has also played other various fighting games.
On July 2nd, 2020, amidst sexual allegations towards him, EVO dissociated Mr. Wizard from their brand[2].
Controversies surrounding Smash at EVO[edit]
EVO 2013 issues surrounding Melee + Future Approvals[edit]
Super Smash Bros. Melee was the fighting game that donated the most money for Breast Cancer Research due to the massive push from the Melee It On Me podcast staff. In July of 2013, Nintendo attempted to block streaming for Melee at EVO 2013 a few days before the tournament was set to begin, as well as shutting down the Melee portion of the event altogether. However, because of extreme community backlash, Nintendo retracted the ban hours later. This retraction allowed Mr. Wizard and EVO to run Melee as planned. However for EVO 2014, Mr. Wizard revealed the initial six games at the tournament while reserving a seventh spot for Melee, while waiting for Nintendo's approval. Nintendo approved of Melee being at EVO 2014 and officially sponsored the event. Nintendo sponsored and allowed Mr. Wizard to run Melee and Smash 4 tourneys for subsequent events from 2015 onward.
Rule decisions[edit]
Within the Smash tournaments he has organized, he has made a few controversial decisions:
- Allowing items on at EVO 2008's Brawl tournament
- This decision is considered to be by far the most controversial decision he made as Super Smash Bros. tournaments generally don't allow items in tournament play. It was also a playing card for CPU's unexpected victory as it allowed him to spam Diffusion Beam very frequently. The aftermath of this decision would result in the relationship between EVO and Brawl being tarnished.
- Allowing Customs at EVO 2015's Super Smash Bros. for Wii U tournament. (due to community feedback, customs are off at EVO 2016)
- Making Lylat Cruise a starter stage at EVO 2016, while making Dream Land 64 a counterpick; which to many is surprising since most Smash 4 tournaments have it vice-versa. This would become a standard in various tournaments following the EVO 2016 ruleset announcement.
Other criticisms[edit]
- One of the more recent criticisms comes from the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U community, as their game had the second most entrant numbers at both the 2015 and 2016 editions of EVO, albeit being treated to Saturday finals over Super Smash Bros. Melee as the latter got Sunday finals on both years. Notably in 2016, most players had about a maximum of five hours of sleep going into EVO which put a lot of stress on the players (Top 32 specifically) for the former game due to the poor scheduling. The issues with the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U's performance were fixed for EVO 2017 when it was announced that the staff would place it on the Sunday finals in addition to switching to start.gg as the tournament bracket.
Tournaments hosted[edit]
| Tournament | Date | Attendance |
|---|---|---|
| EVO 2007 | August 24th-26th, 2007 | 270 
|
| EVO 2008 | August 8th-10th, 2008 | 110 
|
| EVO 2009 | July 17th-19th, 2009 | 128
|
| EVO 2013 | July 12th-14th, 2013 | 709
|
| EVO 2014 | July 11th-13th, 2014 | 970
|
| EVO 2015 | July 17th-19th, 2015 | 1,926 
|
| 1,869
| ||
| EVO 2016 | July 15th-17th, 2016 | 2,662
|
| 2,372
| ||
| EVO 2017 | July 14th-16th, 2017 | 1,508
|
| 1,428
| ||
| EVO 2018 | August 3rd-5th, 2018 | 1,358
|
| 1,353
| ||
| EVO 2019 | August 2nd-4th, 2019 | 3,534 
|
