Tournament:Apex 2012

Apex 2012
Dates	January 6th-8th, 2012
Venue	Rutgers University Student Center
Address/City	126 College Avenue New Brunswick, New Jersey
Attendance	1,000+
Entry fees	SSB64 Singles: $5 SSB64 Doubles: $5 per person Melee Singles: $15 Melee Doubles: $10 per person Brawl Singles: $15 Brawl Doubles: $10 per person Venue: $30 (for competitors) Spectator: $10 (for non-competitors)
Pot size(s)	SSB64 Singles: $320 SSB64 Doubles: $80 Melee Singles: $6,756 Melee Doubles: $1,960 Brawl Singles: $8,000 Brawl Doubles: $1,216
Results
winners	SuPeRbOoMfAn 1v1  Isai &  Nintendude 2v2
winners	Armada 1v1  Armada &  Mew2King 2v2
winners	Otori 1v1  Otori &  Kakera 2v2
Staff
Assisted by	AlphaZealot, Bionic, and Keitaro
Housing	Hyatt Regency New Brunswick

Apex 2012 was a tournament held in New Jersey by Alex Strife and it was the third tournament in the Apex series. It featured pools for Brawl and Melee singles, brackets for Smash 64 singles and doubles, Pokémon Black & White singles and doubles, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat 9, and All Brawl, a free-for-all side event with items turned on. It was the largest Brawl tournament to ever take place, with 400 entrants, and one of the largest Melee tournaments of all time, being the second-largest Melee tournament at the time, with 318 entrants. Like many other Apex tournaments throughout the series, Apex 2012 drew its share of international competition. Of the over 1,000 attendees, about 81 of them were from countries other than the United States.

Schedule

Friday, January 6

Time	Event
9:00am-11:00am	Check in
11:00am	Super Smash Bros. Melee Doubles Bracket
4:00pm	Super Smash Bros. Melee Singles Pools, Round 1
6:00pm	Pokémon Black / White Versions
6:00pm	All Brawl
6:00pm	USA vs The World Melee 8v8 Exhibition
8:00pm	Super Smash Bros. Melee Singles Pools, Round 2
9:30pm	Super Smash Bros. Melee Singles Bracket (until top 8)

Saturday, January 7

Time	Event
8:00am-10:00am	Check in
10:00am	Super Smash Bros. Brawl Doubles Bracket (until top 4)
10:00am	Super Street Fighter IV (until top 8)
10:00am	Mortal Kombat 9
11:00am	Super Smash Bros. Singles Bracket
12:00pm	Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (until top 8)
3:00pm	Super Smash Bros. Brawl Singles Pools, Round 1
5:00pm	USA vs The World Brawl 8v8 Exhibition
5:00pm	Give-a-ways
6:30pm	Super Smash Bros. Brawl Singles Pools, Round 2
7:30pm	Super Smash Bros. Brawl Singles Bracket (until top 8)

Sunday, January 8

Time	Event
8:00am-12:00pm	Check in & Casual Play
12:00pm	Super Street Fighter IV top 8
12:00pm	Give-a-ways
2:00pm	Super Smash Bros. Melee top 8 singles and top 4 teams
4:00pm	Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 top 8
7:00pm	Super Smash Bros. Brawl top 8 singles and top 4 teams
9:00pm	Awards & Closing Ceremonies

Ruleset

Procedures for stage-striking, life-stealing, and double blind picks were incorporated into all three rulesets.

Smash 64

Apex 2012 used the Smash 64 Backroom's recommended ruleset.

Format

• Competition format is double elimination.
• All sets with the exception of the below are best-of-3.
• Winners' semifinals, losers' quarterfinals and losers' semifinals are best-of-5.
• Winners' finals, losers' finals and grand finals are best-of-7.

Game settings

• Mode: STOCK
• Stocks: 5
• Handicap: OFF
• Team Attack: ON
• Stage Select: ON
• Damage: 100%
• Item Switch: NONE
• All characters are available
  • Donkey Kong's black palette swap (Right-C), Samus's dark palette swap (Down-C), and Captain Falcon's dark palette swap (Right-C) are discouraged if playing on Congo Jungle for visibility reasons. The opposing player may reset the match without penalty if they wish for a colour change. Taking or dealing any damage nullifies this right.

Stages

Starter	Counterpick
Congo Jungle	Peach's Castle
Hyrule Castle
Dream Land

The first match of all sets is selected by a 3-stage striking system with the Starter Stage List. An impartial observer/tournament organiser flips a coin to decide who strikes first. Rock-paper-scissors is acceptable as well, but it’s technically a skill irrelevant to smash.

General rules

• Game will be played on console
• 8/10 minute time limit is put in place for all matches, especially Hyrule.
• Draws are decided first by stock, then by percentage.
• Disrupting your opponent physically or intending to disrupt their play will result in a warning. Repeated action will result in disqualification from the tournament. Observers who physically disrupt players are to be dealt with as the tournament organiser sees fit. Disqualification is recommended if possible.
• Pausing is discouraged, and should only be done at the end of a stock, if at all. At other times, the pauser loses their current stock. If the pause causes the opponent to lose their stock, the pauser loses two stocks.
• Extreme stalling is disallowed. Any reported case of such will result in a warning, followed by automatic forfeit of the match. If this is reported again, automatic forfeit is enforced without a warning. If there is no movement from either player, the player with fewer stocks, or if the stocks are equal, the higher percentage, is considered to be stalling.
• Mages DQ is enforced. When a match is called, both players must promptly arrive. If a player is 2 minutes late, they receive a warning. At 4 minutes late, they lose the first game of the set and forfeit counterpick rights. At 6 minutes late, they forfeit the entire set.

Melee

The ruleset was based off of the Melee Backroom's recommended ruleset, with the only significant difference being that Jungle Japes was not a valid counterpick stage in doubles.

General rules

• Items are set to off.
• 4 stocks
• 8 minute time limit
• Wobbling is prohibited.
• Matches that time out will be determined by the remaining number of stocks, then percentage of the current stock if stocks are tied. In the event of a percentage tie, the match should be replayed in full. Sudden Death is not to be played, and will not count.
• If a player accidentally pauses while stealing a life in doubles, the opposing team may deem that stock forfeit. Pausing may be turned off to prevent this.

Stages

Singles stage list

Starter	Counterpick
Yoshi's Story	Pokémon Stadium
Fountain of Dreams
Battlefield
Final Destination
Dream Land

Doubles stage list

Starter	Counterpick
Yoshi's Story	Kongo Jungle (N64)
Pokémon Stadium
Battlefield
Final Destination
Dream Land

• Dave's Stupid Rule: a player or team may not counterpick to the stage they last won on
  • This is not the proper definition of Dave's Stupid Rule.The definition given describes Dave's Modified Stupid Rule(commonly referred to as Mew2king's Stupid Rule) and further clarification is required as to which rule was used during the event.
• Gentleman's Clause: Any stage may be played on if both players or teams agree to it. This takes priority over Dave's Stupid Rule.

Brawl

• 3 stocks
• 8 minute time limit
• Items are set to “Off” and “None”
• All infinites and chain grabs are legal.
• Meta Knight’s Infinite Dimensional Cape glitch is banned.
• There is a ledge grab limit of 35 for Meta Knight and 50 for all other characters. If a game goes to time and one player goes over the ledge grab limit for their character, they will automatically lose the game. If both players exceed their ledge grab limit, then this rule is ignored.
• The act of stalling is banned.
• If time runs out, the winner of the match will be the one called out by the game. If it goes to Sudden Death, then it is determined by percentage. If the percentage and/or both players die at the same time as a result of a suicide move, a one stock 3 minute tie break match is held. Ledge grab limits are reduced to 13 for Meta Knight and 18 for all other characters.
• The only other exception to this is the game ending from a Bowser or Ganondorf suicide tactic, where the initiator of the move wins.

Conduct

• In the event pause is left on accidentally and is pressed, immediately call over the tournament organizer. Based upon their judgment, the situation will be resolved. If the situation is neutral (players are not in combat), the match will be resumed as if the pause had not occurred. If the situation is advantageous to one individual and the player in the disadvantageous situation paused, the disadvantaged player will be either placed in a grab or onto the ledge of the stage. If a player is in a death situation (chain grabs, grab releases, jab-locks to a KO move, etc) and pauses while such situation, the current stock is forfeited immediately. If a player unpause before the tournament organizer reaches the station, the player that unpaused loses a stock.
• Users of the Wii Remote must take out the Wiimote's batteries. If problems persist due to the Wiimote, the owner of the Wiimote may be disqualified.
• Players are responsible for their own controller and name tag. Any malfunctions or errors that occur are the player's responsibility (including battery issues with a Wii Remote), so participants are advised to bring an extra controller(s) and make sure they are using the correct settings BEFORE a match is played. Both parties need to agree if a match is to be paused or restarted because of these problems.
• The tournament organizer has the right to save/record any tournament match if possible and has the right to upload said match.
• Any hacks, including (but not limited to) textures, music, and model changes are not allowed.
  • Hacks to allow replays to exceed 3 minutes in length and to allow player tags to display correctly in said replays were allowed.

Stage list

Starter	Counterpick
Smashville	Battleship Halberd
Battlefield	Pokémon Stadium 1
Final Destination	Castle Siege
Lylat Cruise	Delfino Plaza
Yoshi's Island	Frigate Orpheon

All Brawl

Apex 2012 featured a single-elimination Brawl side event. The cap was 64 entrants.

• 4 players per set
• All stages on with stage choice set to random
• All characters are set to random
• Top 2 players advance
• All items are on and set to medium
• First player to win 2 matches advances
• 2nd person to advance is decided in the order of: match wins, lives left in last match, most kills in last match

Road to Apex

Beginning in July of 2011 and continuing until December, select tournaments for Brawl and Melee were listed as Apex qualifiers in the United States and internationally. Each "Road to Apex" qualifier tournament would award the highest placing players a certain number of points, which would then be used to help with seeding the Apex bracket. The points are broken down from 1st place to 7th place below.

• 1st place – 64pts
• 2nd place – 32pts
• 3rd place – 16pts
• 4th place – 8pts
• 5th place – 4pts
• 5th place – 4pts
• 7th place – 2pts
• 7th place – 2pts

Additionally, the top placing regional player of each singles event will be awarded a $100 stipend upon arrival at the Apex venue to help cover travel costs.

Here is the list of Apex qualifying events.

Melee

• B.E.A.S.T II (August 11-14, Gothenburg, Sweden)
• Smash t'ill U Crash 2 (August 20, Montreal, Canada)
• Ticket to APEX Tournament (September 17, Monterrey, Mexico)
• TourneyPlay SoCal (September 24-25, San Diego, CA)
• The Big House (October 22, Ann Arbor, MI)
• Revival of Melee 4 (November 19-20, Nanuet, NY)
• Tipped Off 7 (December 3-4, Duluth, GA)

Brawl

• Showdown II (July 23rd, Santiago, Chile)
• Brawl in Berlin 2 (July 29, Berlin, Germany)
• KTAR 6 (August 13, South River, NJ)
• Smash t'ill U Crash 2 (August 20, Montreal, Canada)
• HOBO 33 (September 10, Houston, TX)
• TourneyPlay SoCal (September 24-25, San Diego, CA)
• School Is In Session 6 (September 24-25, Cincinnati, OH)

In addition to the events, vVv Gaming gave out stipends to the top three of the 2011 AllisBrawl fall ladder playoffs, in order to help cover the costs of attending Apex 2012.

Results

See also: Results thread on SmashBoards

Brawl singles

(400 entrants)
Bracket

Entrants were assigned into 80 pools of 5. Each entrant played a round-robin against every other player in their pool. The 2 players with the best record in their pools advanced to a second round of pools. There were 32 pools of 5 in round 2. The top 2 players in their second round pool advanced to the 64-man bracket.

Place	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	Otori		$3,600
2nd	Nietono		$1,760
3rd	Nairo		$960
4th	ESAM		$640
5th	Kakera		$320
5th	Ally		$320
7th	UltimateRazer		$200
7th	ADHD		$200
9th	Gnes
9th	Rich Brown
9th	OCEAN
9th	DEHF
13th	Dabuz
13th	Mew2King
13th	Brood
13th	RAIN
17th	Havok
17th	Fatal
17th	Z
17th	ZeRo
17th	mikeHAZE
17th	Mr. R
17th	Orion
17th	Shugo
25th	Coney
25th	Jtails
25th	Zex
25th	Tyrant
25th	TheReflexWonder
25th	Seibrik
25th	Will
25th	Atomsk
33rd	Leon
33rd	Poltergust
33rd	Logic
33rd	Mikeray
33rd	Trela
33rd	Bloodcross
33rd	HolyNightmare
33rd	Denti
33rd	Illmatic
33rd	Trevonte
33rd	Toronto Joe
33rd	Salem
33rd	Nakat
33rd	DRN
33rd	FOW
33rd	DeLux
49th	Fino
49th	GDX
49th	Shadow
49th	Dark.Pch
49th	Pwii
49th	4GOD
49th	False
49th	Sky
49th	X
49th	Kismet
49th	San
49th	Nick Riddle
49th	Vinnie
49th	Dojo
49th	Bassem
49th	Seagull Joe

Brawl doubles

(128 teams)
Bracket

All teams were directly placed into a 128-man bracket.

Place	Name	Character(s)	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	Kakera		Otori		$576 ($288 each)
2nd	Anti		Mew2King		$281.60 ($140.80 each)
3rd	Gnes		UltimateRazer		$153.60 ($76.80 each)
4th	ADHD		Nairo		$102.40 ($51.20 each)
5th	ChuDat		Fatal		$51.20 ($25.60 each)
5th	Ally		Dojo		$51.20 ($25.60 each)
7th	Sky		Zex
7th	Havok		Tearbear
9th	mikeHAZE		Tyrant
9th	Blackanese		TeeVee
9th	Kadaj		ZeRo
9th	Vinnie		Snakeee
13th	Nietono		RAIN
13th	ESAM		MVD
13th	Coney		Logic
13th	RedHalberd		Rich Brown
17th	Domo		MJG
17th	Fino		YoshQ
17th	Jbandrew		Nakat
17th	Brood		Yukhoe
17th	Espy		K Prime
17th	Chibo		Leon
17th	FOW		Mekos
17th	Atomsk		Dabuz
25th	Mr. R		Orion
25th	X		Lada Kevin Aguilar
25th	Viviff		Swordgard
25th	False		Keitaro
25th	OCEAN		Karamity
25th	TheReflexWonder		Bill
25th	Riot		Mikeray
25th	Cable		Shadow

Melee singles

(318 entrants)
Bracket

Entrants were assigned into 64 pools of 5. Each entrant played a round-robin against every other player in their pool. The 2 players with the best record in their pools advanced to a second round of pools. There were 32 pools of 4 in round 2. The top 2 players in their second round pool advanced to the 64-man bracket.

Place	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	Armada		$3,046.50
2nd	Hungrybox		$1,489.40
3rd	Mango		$804
4th	JAVI		$536
5th	Dr. PeePee		$270.80
5th	KirbyKaze		$270.80
7th	Hax		$169.25
7th	Shroomed		$169.25
9th	Lovage
9th	MacD
9th	Wobbles
9th	Unknown522
13th	VaNz
13th	SFAT
13th	Zhu
13th	Tope
17th	PewPewU
17th	KoreanDJ
17th	DaShizWiz
17th	Mew2King
17th	Darc
17th	Silent Wolf
17th	Chillin
17th	S2J
25th	HBK
25th	Weon-X
25th	Eggm
25th	Jman
25th	Teczero
25th	Bladewise
25th	I.B
25th	Westballz
33rd	Tang
33rd	Ice
33rd	Kage
33rd	Redd
33rd	Tai
33rd	Sol
33rd	Amsah
33rd	DruggedFox
33rd	Leffen
33rd	Axe
33rd	ChuDat
33rd	Plup
33rd	Darrell
33rd	StriCNYN3
33rd	th0rn
33rd	Reno
49th	Eggz
49th	MattDotZeb
49th	Swiftbass
49th	Vist
49th	Colbol
49th	Vudujin
49th	PC Chris
49th	Cactuar
49th	Azen
49th	Linguini
49th	Stab
49th	Cyrain
49th	Ambix
49th	HugS
49th	Ravenlord
49th	ZoSo

Melee doubles

(98 teams)
Bracket

Place	Name	Character(s)	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	Armada		Mew2King		$882 ($441 each)
2nd	Hungrybox		Plup		$431.20 ($215.60 each)
3rd	Dr. PeePee		LoZR		$235.20 ($117.60 each)
4th	G$		Mango		$156.80 ($78.40 each)
5th	ChuDat		Kage		$78.40 ($39.20 each)
5th	Hax		Jman		$78.40 ($39.20 each)
7th	Colbol		Linguini		$49 ($24.50 each)
7th	Alukard		DJ Nintendo		$49 ($24.50 each)
9th	Duck		Teczero
9th	PewPewU		SFAT
9th	OTG		PC Chris
9th	Lovage		S2J
13th	Amsah		Ice
13th	Axe		V3ctorman
13th	Alan		Shroomed
13th	Azen		Tope
17th	Bladewise		Vish
17th	Cactuar		DoH
17th	HyugaRicdeau		Toph
17th	Eggm		DaShizWiz
17th	Chillin		Cyrain
17th	StriCNYN3		Westballz
17th	Eggz		Silent Wolf
17th	HBK		Nando
25th	Darrell		Tang
25th	C!Z		Tyga
25th	KirbyKaze		VaNz
25th	BEN!		PB&J
25th	Leffen		Zoler
25th	I.B		Unknown522
25th	Darc		MacD
25th	KevinM		ZoSo

Smash 64 singles

(64 entrants)
Bracket

Place	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	SuPeRbOoMfAn		$160
2nd	Isai		$80
3rd	JaimeHR		$32
4th	Kefit		$22.40
5th	Nintendude		$12.80
5th	Sensei		$12.80
7th	Megavolt
7th	King Funk

Smash 64 doubles

(8 teams)
Bracket

Place	Name	Character(s)	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	Isai		Nintendude		$48 ($24 each)
2nd	SuPeRbOoMfAn		JaimeHR		$24 ($12 each)
3rd	Sensei		King Funk		$8 ($4 each)
4th	Firo		Ownasaurus

All Brawl

(64 entrants)
1: Deltacod
2: Ally
3: Tearbear
4: ESAM
5: Dapuffster
5: NAKAT
5: Kiwi
5: Mr. R
9: John12346
9: Pwii
9: Xaltis
9: Jtails
9: Nairo
9: KoRoBeNiKi
9: ZeRo
16: DMBrandon
16: Orion
16: 2Link
16: Riot
16: Jbandrew
16: Mink
16: Xzax
16: TheReflexWonder
16: Pidgezero
16: Tac

Exhibition matches/other

Melee exhibition matches

Winner	Character(s)	Loser	Character(s)	Score
Captain Jack		Isai		1-0
Mango		JAVI		2-0

Brawl exhibition matches

Winner	Character(s)	Loser	Character(s)	Score
Mike Haze		Vinnie		3-0
Mike Haze		Leon		3-1
Mike Haze		Mr. R		3-1
Ally		ZeRo		4-0

Melee USA vs. the World Crew Battle

Like in past international smash events, a crew battle was held pitting some of the best players from the United States those eight from abroad. There were originally supposed to be eight players for each crew, but this was modified after Mew2King defeated Leffen with 3 stocks remaining, giving USA an 11-4 stock advantage. The USA crew allowed Captain Jack to join the World crew in addition to Amsah, who otherwise would have been the last member of the World crew.

USA Player	Character	Stocks Taken	World Player	Character	Stocks Taken
Jman		5	JAVI		3
Axe		6	Unknown522		3
Zhu		4	KirbyKaze		3
Mango		3	Ice		4
Hungrybox		7	Armada		4
Mew2King		6	Kage		2
Hax		2	Leffen		2
Dr. PeePee		3	Amsah		4
—	—	—	Captain Jack		3
Total		36	Total		28

Players are shown in the order that they played from top to bottom, characters played are shown in chronological order from left to right.

Brawl USA vs. the World Crew Battle

This crew battle was canceled due to lack of time, however, had it occurred, it would have matched eight of the best American players against eight of the best international players. Havok was the captain of the USA crew, and Ally was the captain of the World crew. Below is the roster for the World crew; the USA crew did not decide on their roster before the tournament.

1. Brood
2. Nietono
3. Ally
4. Kakera
5. ZeRo
6. Mr. R
7. Leon/Otori
8. RAIN

Alternates: Orion, Leon/Otori
Leon and Otori were supposed to play each other, with the winner earning the spot on the roster and the loser becoming an alternate along with Orion.

Ganon Gauntlet

Ganondorf main DLA held an event which pitted the challenger against seven Ganondorf players in seven consecutive one-stock, 3 minute matches. Winning the gauntlet required the player to defeat all seven Ganondorfs. Timeouts and Ganoncides count as a win for the Ganondorf. The challenger may choose any character for any match. Challengers are restricted to 10 ledge grabs; Ganondorfs have no ledge grab limit. Stages are chosen by each Ganondorf player from the tournament stagelist.

Players may bet $5, $10, or $20, for payouts of $10, $25, and $50, respectively.

Ganondorf roster:

• Vermanubis (Verm)
• Gunblade (GNBLD)
• Bloodynite (Blood)
• DLA (D L A)
• Inui (KAI)
• Tearbear (TUPAY)
• Vex Kasrani (COMBO)

• Substitute: Izumi (Izumi)

Of the 21 players who entered, only Seibrik, who played as King Dedede, survived.

Criticism

Apex 2012 has garnered criticism for various issues related to how the event was managed. A lack of setups caused Brawl to run over schedule, delaying pools matches and necessitating the cancellation of the USA vs. the World crew battle. Though the quality was excellent, many viewers were irked by the presence of non-Smash Bros. games on the livestream, as well as the lack of moderators in livestream chat where viewers criticized Smash Bros. as not a real fighting game in comparison to traditional fighters, such as Marvel vs. Capcom. The performance of a specific Brawl commentator, Pierce7d, drew fire for being overly disrespectful of the players. Another issue was the fact that the Japanese players had to travel to and from the tournament in the back of a U-Haul truck that was carrying many CRT TVs along with their luggage.

Trivia

• Apex 2012 was the second Apex tournament to have a Japanese Olimar player finish 2nd.

Gallery

A full set of photos from the weekend can be viewed here.

• Apex2012Predictions.png

  Keitaro's predictions of the top 4 in Brawl singles, showing Otori, Nietono, 9B (Kuroobi), and Kakera

• 

  Nairo defeated by Otori in Brawl singles winners' finals

• 

  OCEAN defeats Mew2King in Brawl singles

• 

  Armada, Melee singles and doubles champion

• 

  The trophies

• 
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External Links

• Official Apex website
• Official YouTube channel
• SmashBoards thread
• SmashBoards results thread
• SmashBoards Brawl video thread
• SmashBoards Melee video thread
• SmashBoards SSB64 video thread
• NintendoDojo page