Yea, I know I’ve been lazy. I haven’t been churning as many articles as 2014. Hey, things get busy! Anyway, here are some of my loose thoughts on day 1.

1. Day 1 Exhibitions
Yes! Instead of watching X pro beat random scrub in a clean 7-8 stock in a inconsequential match, we get to see entertaining matches between the top players on day 1. The peak viewership reached over 40,000, a new day 1 record, and the action created many exciting moments. Re-watch any crew battle featuring Europe and Kage vs. Norcal. Also props to Widl for taking 3 stocks off of Norwalk – 2 off of Lucky and 1 off of Mango. Not too many players or stream monsters are capable of doing that.

2. Teams – The streak is broken

After years of dominance, team M2Box (Mew2King + Hungrybox) have finally lost their first tournament to Team Lingdren (Armada and Android). In a rather one sided winner’s finals and grand finals, the Swedish brothers showed true grit with dominating stage control and team combos. This was the event that Armada was especially excited about, considering their heart-breaking second place finish at Apex 2015 earlier this year.

Side note: Props to Bladewise for somehow managing to make it out of pools with a level 9 Ganondorf CPU and then getting to 4th place with Javi.

3. A little taste of the Midwest
To everyone’s excitement, Abate won the hearts of many with his good loo….. great play, defeating Axe, s2j, and Duck in exciting sets, one of which spurred a weekend long discussion on a seldom talked about glitch. Along with Abate, several other Midwest players shined through the bracket with great finishes from Duck (9th), KJH (17th), DarkAtma (17th). On day 1, the talk of town was Ginger (5th on the Michigan PR) defeating DruggedFox in phase 1 of pools. Later on day 1, the Midwest crew heard the chants of the audience as they were narrowly defeated 20-19 against Europe as the battle ended in a nail-biter between KJH and Ice on Final Destination.

4. Cali-Power
At every major, it seems that one region stands out above the rest. At Apexes, that tends to be the South. California dominated TBH5 standings with 6 players making it into the top 12 and 4 making it into the top 8. The Norcal power duo, Shroomed and SFAT, seemed to regain some poise by making it into the elusive top 8 of a very stacked tournament.

5. The Poor South
Outside of Hungrybox (who played very well), the majority of Florida’s heavy hitters were nowhere to be found. Plup finished the 2nd highest at 13th place, losing to LuCky and Shroomed. Colbol drowned in pools, losing to Socal’s MacD and mikeHAZE. Wizzrobe uncharacteristically lost to Swedish Delight and then got RNG’d in loser’s bracket for 49th against Druggedfox. Gahtzu was nowhere to be found on day 3. Rumor has it that he disappeared after KirbyKaze got through with him. If there was some solace to this, ESAM, a Smash 4 player, managed to finish 25th. I’m going to chalk this tournament up as an anomaly for them. Burnout? Residual PTSD from terrible crew management against Socal?

6. Poor Mango

Many believed in the kid and probably still do. I thought he was going to kick it in 5th gear after an embarrassing (by his standards) 17th place finish at HTC Throwdown. His post-loss demeanor was painful to watch, even more so than Evo 2015. Perhaps, this will create angry Mango, moving into 2016. He’s more determined now to train harder and I’m scared to see what comes out from this. Hey, Armada experienced something similar after losing to Hbox at Evo 2014 and look at how he panned out.

7. Consistency Master
Hungrybox officially has taken over Armada’s role as silver-medal specialists. Many people (myself included) counted Hungrybox out at the beginning of 2015 when he was losing to the likes of PewPewU, Axe, Lucky, and Westballz. I wouldn’t call myself the biggest fan of watching him, but I have to give him props for surviving the 2015 metagame. He jumps to #3 above Mango, but below Armada/Leffen in 2015 in my book.

8. The gods and everyone else
All 4 of the “big 6” made it into the top 8 in winner’s bracket. Aside from the Mango-Nintendude set, they looked a step above everyone else. The striking statistic here is that all of the big 6 members have a win rate that exceeds 80% against top 7-30 level players. Perhaps the line is expanding once again.

9. Armada
2 Apexes, Genesis, CEO, Evo, and now a Big House. How do I even begin to compare legacies at this point? 19-0 against Top 7-30 level players? > 60% win rate against the big 6? Armada is really making a case for himself as possibly the best player of all time in Melee’s history. At no point over the course of the weekend did I ever feel that Armada was going to lose the tournament. If there is a line between the big 6 and everyone else, there might be an even bigger line growing between Armada and everyone else in terms of overall performance. Well done, Armada.

10. Customs
If there was a bigger argument against customs in Smash, I think Leffen could give the greatest argument. #kappa

11. TOing and Staff
Probably the least appreciated aspect of the weekend. Everything went on schedule within 15-30 minutes for the entire weekend. Plenty of volunteers and staff were available to help out. The venue was spacious and I heard very little complaints about the logistical aspects of tournament. The compendium was amazing. Having all Top 64 matches recorded/streamed was amazing. Juggleguy even made a little announcement to ensure proper respect between Melee and Smash 4 fans. I didn’t do my best performance-wise at this tournament, but it was probably the best large-scale tournament I’ve ever been to. Hats off to everyone that contributed.