Top 100 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate player, Abraham “MKBigBoss” Slane Parra, didn’t drop a single game with R.O.B. at the SC Biweekly #99, USC’s student-run Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament, including against two notable power ranked Southern California (SoCal) players Demon and Chowder.
MKBigBoss comes to town
MKBigBoss hails from Mexico City and is ranked the 77th best Smash Ultimate player globally for 2024 according to LumiRank, an algorithm that ranks Ultimate players based on their offline tournament wins.
“Randomly, very strong top 100 player, MKBigBoss, decided to show up to our tournament,” said USC Smash Club President Amari King. “I have no idea why but he’s in the region, so I guess he might as well.”
She assumed MKBigBoss came to the SC Biweekly because he just came off of winning a bigger local tournament, The Last BYOG in L.A., a day before.
MKBigBoss is familiar with the SC Biweekly however. Despite living in Mexico, he often travels to Southern California to compete.
“[I come here] all the time,” he said. “Every time that they do a tournament and if I’m in town, I come to USC. It’s one of my favorite locals in SoCal.”
He is currently in Southern California to prepare for one of the largest Smash Ultimate tournaments of this year, Genesis, happening in San Jose on February 14. For players, getting into the top 8 at Genesis is incredibly difficult because of how many head-to-head matches with other pro players they need to go through just to get a chance to be at the top.
“I want to [place] top eight,” MKBigBoss said about his upcoming Genesis performance. “I think I have a big chance. It’s very hard. It’s one of the hardest tournaments in the year, but I have the motivation to, so I really want to do my best and I think this year I can do it.”
His confidence is not blind trash-talk, it was backed by his impressive R.O.B. gameplay during USC’s tournament.
An impressive adversary
Top eight winners side of the SC biweekly started with MKBigBoss against SoCal Power Ranked (PR) 13 Chowder’s Greninja.
MKBigBoss took the Greninja’s stocks early with gyro confirms into side special and dominated the air-space with R.O.B.’s up special momentum and falling neutral airs. Everybody watching the match could tell MKBigBoss’s playstyle was on another level.
“He’s someone that’s so good that even though I understand his character and how to play against his character, it just doesn’t matter, because he makes such smart decisions and he plays so differently than anyone else that’s piloting his character,” said Chowder after losing 0-3 to MKBigBoss.
After dropping to the losers bracket, Chowder made quick work of his losers quarter-final opponent, EL JANDO before bowing out in 4th against SoCal PR 7 Demon’s Bayonetta this tournament.
Demon’s Bayonetta lives up to his gamertag as MKBigBoss called him one of his hardest adversaries he faced due to R.O.B.’s bad matchup against the character combined with Demon’s electric playstyle.
Demon is really impressive in his use of Bayonette’s combos and unique mechanics. The character has a passive mechanic called “bat within” that allows her to teleport to safety if the opponent’s hits miss by one frame with an air dodge or a roll. Demon takes this mechanic to the extreme, baiting his opponent into hitting him, then using “bat within” to get huge combos that, once again, carries them into the side blast zone.
“[Demon] always used to beat me,” MKBigBoss said. “That matchup is awful — R.O.B. vs. Bayo — it’s very awful.”
Keyword is “used to.”
MKBigBoss won against Demon 3-0 in Grand Finals using R.O.B. ‘s transcendent item/projectile, gyro, and finding early kills with reads using his active smash attacks. He won a solid $80 for taking first place and thanked the Southern Californian community..
“Shout out to the whole SoCal community,” he said. “... they have always been very welcoming with the Mexicans. I know all the Mexicans that travel for smash, all of them have been at least once to SoCal, and they are always very welcoming with us. So shout out to the community and to all these smash players there.”