If 2016’s shitstorm of a presidential election hasn’t obliterated your sense of civic duty, you can get another taste of the ballot box by voting your favorite Super Smash Bros. Melee players into the third Smash Summit invitational. Every nominated player is terrific in their own way, which makes the decision a difficult one. As a respected—nay, the most respected—esports journalism outlet, we consider it our duty to weigh in on important matters like these. We won’t tell you who to vote for in the presidential election, but we can at least tell you which Melee competitors deserve a Summit slot the most.
The Meta’s Endorsements for Smash Summit 3 Community Voting:
COG.Wizzrobe
Ice
Tempo.S2J
CLG.PewPewU
Selfless.Lucky
DNL.Duck
Our Rubric:
80% – Skill Level
20% – Excitement Factor
Summary:
Melee matches are most entertaining when they’re close. Therefore our main consideration when judging candidates is skill level. We want the six slots to go to players who can keep up with other top competitors. It’s no coincidence, then, that five of our six endorsed candidates happen to be the ones ranked most highly on Smashboards. The one exception is PewPewU, who at 20th is ranked below Professor Pro, an amazing and no doubt deserving nominee who didn’t quite make our list. But PewPewU’s recent results, Top 8 at Big House 6 and 1st place at the Blood for Blood regional, demonstrate his ability to play at a level higher than his Smashboards ranking would imply.
That’s not to say that all our endorsements carry the same weight. While we firmly believe that PewPewU, Lucky, and Duck deserve slots, we feel even more strongly about the other three. In our view, it would be an absolute tragedy if Wizzrobe, Ice, and S2J are not in the final six. Below, we’ll highlight why these three candidates deserve your vote the most.
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Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett
At 10th on the Smashboards rankings, with eight Top 8 finishes in 2016, Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett is arguably the strongest player on the list. Having been overlooked in Smash Summits 1 and 2, Wizzrobe’s appearance in the BeyondTheSummit house is long overdue. He plays Captain Falcon, perhaps the most explosive and stylish character in the game, and stands the best chance of any nominee at taking a set off one of Melee’s four attending Gods.
Vote for Wizzy.
Mustafa “Ice” Akcakaya
Another player qualified by his phenomenal skill alone, the insanely technical Fox Mustafa “Ice” Akcakaya is unique and valuable in several important ways. First, his mechanics are crisp and polished, capable of matching any top competitor’s, as demonstrated by his takedown of SFAT at Big House 6. And he’s the only top-tier German Melee player, which in addition to making him a solid choice for ephemeral reasons of geographic diversity means he lacks practice partners at home. Considering how far Ice has climbed on his own, it’s hard to overstate how much he stands to gain from a week of console time with the world’s best players. This justification was key in Ice’s election to Smash Summit 2, and we hope to see him included this time as well.
Vote for Ice.
Johnny “S2J” Kim
While Johnny “S2J” Kim attended each previous Smash Summit and failed to break into Top 8 either time, we still believe he deserves your vote this year. The thing about S2J is that, in addition to being an absolutely tip-top Captain Falcon player, he has a preternatural knack for pulling off impossible out-of-nowhere combos, which makes him, in this reporter’s opinion, just about the most entertaining player to watch, period. Look at this double-kill knee he perpetrated at the Smash Summit 2. Look at this stomp to take a game from Westballz at EVO 2016. (S2J won the set and finished 5th.) Now try to tell me he doesn’t deserve your vote. You won’t.
Vote for Johnny.
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Vote online: https://smash.gg/tournament/smash-summit-3/voting