Tournament:Glitch (series)

Glitch
Info
Founded	2016
Region	United States
Format	Double Elimination
winners	VoiD (Glitch)  Mr E (Glitch 2)  WaDi (Glitch 3)  Tweek (Glitch 4)  Lima (Glitch 5)
winners	Tweek (Glitch 6, Glitch 8)  ESAM (Glitch 7, Glitch 8.5)  Cosmos (Infinite)  Light (Regen)
Most successful player(s)	Tweek (Glitch 4, Glitch 6, Glitch 8)
Staff
Organizer(s)	Tantalus, Xanadu Games

Glitch is a tournament series hosted by Tantalus and Xanadu Games in Laurel, Maryland. The series began as a regional for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, but grew larger following the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and eventually became one of the largest Smash tournament series on the East Coast. Outside of the main events, the series also holds unconventional side events at every tournament, much like how glitches are unconventional. Some of the events included are low tier singles, mid tier singles, custom singles, triples, Super Smash Bros. Brawl singles, ARMS singles, amiibo singles, speedrun brackets, Squad Strike, and Morph-Meter.

History

2016-2018: Super Smash Bros. 4

The first Glitch tournament took place March 12th, 2016 as a Super Smash Bros. for Wii U event, and not only featured many of MD/VA's best players, including Pink Fresh, Seagull Joe, and Remzi, but also featured talent from outside the region, most notably VoiD and Mr.R, the former eventually winning the event. Subsequent Glitch events also regularly featured top-level invaders, and despite competition from in-region players, the invaders were often the event winners. The sole exception was at Glitch 3, where MD/VA's then-#1 player WaDi eliminated Darkshad and prevented CaptainZack from winning the event.

The first Glitch also started the trend of Glitch tournaments having unique side events, in this case being low tier singles and custom singles. Subsequent Glitch events began adding newer side events, with Glitch 2 holding Super Smash Bros. Brawl singles and a Smash 4 triples bracket and Glitch 3 holding an amiibo singles event. No events had a similar lineup of side events; for example, Brawl was eventually dropped by Glitch 4 while custom singles was removed from the Glitch 3 lineup.

Despite regularly being at superregional-levels, the total attendance at Smash 4 Glitch events in slowly decreased as the series progressed, with the first Glitch being the only event to surpass 200 entrants. This culminated in Glitch 5 only featuring 122 entrants, making it the smallest event in the series. The low entrants count was attributed to declining interest in Smash 4, as Ultimate was only a few months away, leading many top players to retire during these last few months.

2019-2023: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

With the release of Ultimate, the Glitch series entirely switched its focus to that game. The attendance for Glitch 6 singles was noticeably larger compared to the previous five, with a staggering 551 attendees (a 429 increase from Glitch 5). There were two side events, both being completely unique to Ultimate: Squad Strike and Morph-Meter. In addition, Glitch 6 became the first tournament in the series to reach major status, and subsequent Glitch events up to Glitch - Infinite would become majors or supermajors. Thus, Glitch became one of the biggest Ultimate tournament series on the east coast, and was one of MD/VA's premier tournament series alongside Super Smash Con.

Glitch 7 - Minus World became the first event to have a "theme", in this case being the Super Mario Bros. series. A notable controversy took place during this tournament, where Stroder's dropout from the event demoted it from S-tier to A-tier on the Fall 2019 PGRU, upsetting many players. This incident was later dubbed "GlitchGate", and despite its demotion, the event is still considered a supermajor. Glitch 8 - Missingno followed months later, becoming the largest event in the series.

Glitch - Infinite was later announced to be part of the Smash World Tour 2020 as a Gold stop. However, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the event's postponement, with the date being repeatedly pushed back as the pandemic worsened, eventually being held in February 2022. Instead, the next event in the series became Glitch 8.5 - Konami Code, which acted as Glitch's main event in the time period immediately following offline's return. Due to the remaining threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the first event to feature an entrants cap.

The series' final event was Glitch - Regen, held months after Glitch - Infinite as a Gold stop on the Smash World Tour 2022. However for the first time since Glitch 5, the tournament failed to reach major status despite reaching Category 4 on OrionRank 2022; the event became part of a trend in the second half of 2022 where a tournament's tier on OrionRank did not properly reflect its actual talent size.

An additional Glitch event, Glitch: Duel of Fates, was set to take place from January 13th-15th, 2023 and was themed around Legend of Zelda and Fire Emblem. However, VGBootCamp's financial future became uncertain following the Cancellation of Smash World Tour 2022, and the event was cancelled. Since then, no new Glitch event has been announced, effectively ending the series for the time being.

Champions

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Winners

Date	Event	Entrants	Player	Tag	Character(s)	Runner-up	Character(s)
March 12th, 2016	Glitch	255	James Makekau-Tyson	VoiD		Mr. R
September 24th-25th, 2016	Glitch 2	198	Eric Weber	Mr E		Pink Fresh
May 6th, 2017	Glitch 3	158	Chris Boston	WaDi		CaptainZack
April 28th, 2018	Glitch 4	171	Gavin Dempsey	Tweek		CaptainZack
September 29th, 2018	Glitch 5	122	Bharat Chintapall	Lima		Mr E

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Winners

Date	Event	Entrants	Player	Tag	Character(s)	Runner-up	Character(s)
January 19th-20th, 2019	Glitch 6	551	Gavin Dempsey	Tweek		Nairo
September 14th-15th, 2019	Glitch 7 - Minus World	566	Eric Lew	ESAM		Light
January 18th-19th, 2020	Glitch 8 - Missingno	729	Gavin Dempsey	Tweek		Dark Wizzy
September 24th-26th, 2021	Glitch 8.5 - Konami Code	421	Eric Lew	ESAM		MkLeo
February 18th-20th, 2022	Glitch - Infinite	615	Brian Kalu	Cosmos		Zomba
September 23rd-25th, 2022	Glitch - Regen	422	Paris Ramirez Garcia	Light		Kameme

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Winners (side event)

Date	Event	Entrants	Player	Tag	Character(s)	Runner-up	Character(s)
September 24th-25th, 2016	Glitch 2	32	Daniel Rodriguez	ChuDat		Seagull Joe
May 6th, 2017	Glitch 3	24	David Silberberg	Seibrik		Tantalus

External links

• Twitter