THE BIG 100 — the biggest Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (SSBU) competition USC has ever seen — occurred March 9th with over 80 competitors and 10 top ranked players from various regions duking it out to win USC Smash Club’s 100th tournament.
With big names coming from Northern California, Mexico, and Chile, the 100th tournament evolved from a small, unranked college local tournament into what is known as a “C-tier event.” This meant that the tournament would count for top players in the end-of-year global rankings.
Amari “Calamari” King, the President of the USC Smash Club, was the tournament organizer and didn’t expect for the tournament to become a C-tier event. She said that the tournament becoming ranked was partly thanks to the best Ultimate player in Southern California (SoCal), Anthony “Monte” Montes, for also bringing top Arizona players.
THE BIG 100 becoming a C-tier tournament was just the icing on the cake for the USC Smash Club. This tournament was about celebrating the history of the USC Smash scene. A bi-weekly local tournament going through eight years, exchanging leadership a few times and even switching games, from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U to SSBU was no easy feat.
Ryan “CSharp” Stevenson, commentating the tournament and a USC Smash Club alum, said it was cool to see how far the club has come.
“We’ve come from Wii U gamepads with no monitors, all the way up to sponsored events, and then all the way here,” Stevenson said. “We’ve somehow carried the torch all the way.”
King has been in the USC Smash club since the founders of the club were seniors. To her, THE BIG 100 was to celebrate the legacy of the club.
“I’ve known all the people who have ever been a part of [the USC Smash Club], pretty much,” King said. “Those are the people who made it all worth celebrating.”
For this event, King invited Marcus Lombardi, a controller modifier for Smash games that owns CV Smash Mods, to have a booth at the corner of the tournament. Lombardi customizes gamecube controllers and nintendo pro controllers with different options like outer shells with character designs or more technical modifications like a snapback capacitor.
“A lot of people commented on how they got their controllers modded during the tournament,” King said. “Now they got a fancy new controller to play with and I thought that was cool. I’m just glad they could have a nice little present for attending.”
Top players steal the show
Top players coming from all across the Pacific region packed into the USC venue like Global Lumirank #80 Monte, #174 Andrik, #116 Chase, and a myriad of other top players.
Monte, despite being a top 100 player, lost a set early in the tournament to an Arizona player he brought to the tournament, placing him in the losers side of top 16.
Therefore, while Monte was on the losers side of the tournament, Andrik “Andrik” Gonalez was given the green flag to go on a crazy run. The player hailing from Mexicali, Baja California is considered the best Captain Falcon player in all of Mexico and he demonstrated why.
His aggressive neutral game led to devastating combos and he decimated his opponents through top 16, winning against NorCal PR #2 Lammers44. Andrik then easily knocked out players Oriole and Kiriyash to make it to the Grand Finals with no sets dropped.
As Andrick comfortably sat in Grand Finals awaiting his final opponent, Monte was going on an elimination spree. Monte’s Game and Watch was a wall that blocked all aggression. His competitor had to play perfectly in order to win. His top 16 losers bracket was lined with ranked players in SoCal and even globally ranked players. Yet, he showed he was considered the best player in SoCal for a reason.
Monte tore through his losers bracket with wins against five ranked players in a row: SoCal PR #10 Tohru, SoCal PR #4 Evan “FD” Meyers, SoCal PR #14 Tale, Global LumiRank #116 Chase and 2023 Global Lumirank #135 Kiriyash.
Although the players put up a good fight against him, none of the sets were truly close. While his set with Chase came to last stock in the last game, Monte’s wins felt dominant.
It was expected that Monte would make it to the Grand Finals, so Andrik excitedly awaited Monte to prove to himself that he could beat a player on Monte’s caliber.
“I would get a really good challenge with Monty, because he’s really good,” Andrik said. “I want to beat all the people.”
Unfortunately for Andrik, that game plan didn’t work out so well. Monte, known to be one of the best Game and Watch players in the world, stopped most aggressive plays Andrik tried to go for. After two sets, 3-1 and 3-0, Monte won the $500 prize pot and took the crown for THE BIG 100, marking the first ranked tournament winner of USC’s SSBU legacy.