Editing Tournament:Smash Summit (series)

The '''Smash Summit''' series, often referred to in the ''Smash'' community as just '''Summit''', was a series of major [[invitational]]s 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 ''{{iw|wikipedia|Dota 2}}'' invitational [https://liquipedia.net/dota2/The_Summit/1 The Summit]. However, the first ''Smash'' event wouldn't take place until the namesake {{Trn|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 its impact on competitive Smash|COVID-19 pandemic]] and later scrapped.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://twitter.com/BTSsmash/status/1299421498034262030|title=BTS on the remaining Summits}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/o7wj8q/were_bts_organizers_of_smash_summit_11_ama/h31inlc?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3|title=BTS confirmation that Crossover Summit is no longer possible}}</ref>, while Smash Summit 15 was planned for ''Melee'' in June 2023,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.start.gg/tournament/mainstage-2022/details|title=Smash Summit 15 and Smash Ultimate Summit 6 announced}}</ref> but was cancelled after Beyond the Summit decided to shut down following {{Trn|Smash Ultimate Summit 6}}.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSX8YPz-HFJmt1TWhtNwiM0YawmUCiywuw9yK0GZFjRxhFkki1_tVfmkAv80l_kMjpz_OU15YzkR8Dn/pub|title=On the Future of Beyond the Summit}}</ref>

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.

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 {{Trn|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 {{Trn|Smash Summit 10 Online}}, where the majority of players qualified through qualifiers.  

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 {{Trn|Smash Summit Spring 2017}}, beginning as a swiss bracket where all eliminated players beginning on the loser's side of the final bracket. The [[Tournament:Smash Summit 5|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 {{Trn|Smash Ultimate Summit 2}}, which reintroduced the round robin format. Although {{Trn|Smash Summit 9}} briefly returned to the swiss format, the Summit series stuck with the round robin format from {{Trn|Smash Summit 10 Online}} onward. Finally, the gauntlet stage was introduced in {{Trn|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.