The first of the Quarantine Series Minors online tournaments happened this past weekend. The tournament series boasts some sizable prize pools and has been a nice distraction from the lack of offline tournaments and events due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Over 5,000 players signed up to play Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with many of the world’s best players participating in the tournament as well. It may not be the perfect environment for competition, but these wifi events featuring some of the best talent in Smash can still make for an exciting experience.
Plus, there’s money to be won, so even if players don’t like online play, the prospect of winning some coin will help them get over it.
The Quarantine Series Minor #1
Perhaps the most notable result from the tournament was Best Ness making a tear through the bracket to claim first place without losing a single set. It was only a few months ago that Best Ness was considering retiring after Genesis, and now he’s got the full spotlight on him after this big win. He won 3-0 over Sparg0 in grand finals, a dominating performance to cap off an already dominating run.
Speaking of Sparg0, the young Cloud player has been riding the recent buffs to his character and netted himself 2nd place out of the thousands of entrants. Sparg0’s results during these wifi tournaments have been getting stronger and stronger, and it will be interesting to see how he performs at offline tournaments when they start back up again.
Players who have made a name for themselves during this wifi era, such as Kola and Benny&TheJets, both made top 8 to continue their stretch of performances as strong players. This put them ahead of top professionals such as MKLeo, ESAM, Maister, Dabuz and more.
But perhaps the most hype aspect of this tournament was the return of ZeRo, who entered the tournament with the prospect of going as far as possible. This marked his first real return to competitive play in over a year, and he placed a respectable 25th overall, losing to Tweek and yumeko. We can only hope he’ll continue to enter these online events and try to reclaim his former glory.
The next event will be on April 25th, and it’s already got over 5,000 people signed up. Be sure to check it out!