The tournament season for Super Smash Bros. 3DS is finally in motion throughout the world. With the game now out across the globe, tournaments have picked up the game to see who can survive the gauntlet of hungry opponents for a chance at early glory. Until Smash on Wii U hits shelves, the 3DS is our only means of competitive play, but that didn’t stop the hundreds of players that made it out to Smash 3DS events in the past week.

Bushy-eyed hopefuls woke up in the wee hours of the morning this past Saturday to get their spots in the many National Open Tournament qualifiers held at Gamestop stores across the United States. Open only to the first 64 people to enter, players had to duke it out in frantic, item-filled free-for-alls to qualify for the championship event in New York City in the coming week. Nintendo World Store, the site of said championships, also held its own qualifying event.

New York Smashers Dabuz and Deven 3000 cleaned up the NYC Gamestop and Nintendo World Store qualifying events, respectively. Both have earned spots in the championship event, as well as brand new Smash-edition 3DSs to take on the competition with.

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Meanwhile, the latest entry in the long-running KTAR tournament series, KTAR X (featuring Smash 3DS as well as Melee and Project M), had to take a detour to Nanuet, NY when a car struck the pole holding up power lines leading to the planned venue. 59 players entered Smash 3DS singles at Toy Wiz alongside 12 unique team entrants for doubles. Jtails’ Diddy Kong bested Nairo’s Robin in a quick 3-0 grand finals set. Jtails’ Diddy Kong drove through winners bracket to topple Nairo’s Robin in a quick 3-0 grand finals set.

It was sweet revenge for Jtails after falling to Nairo and LoF Nakat alongside juice.Doom in Smash 3DS doubles. Then again, Jtails and Doom found their way into grand finals of doubles with the help of the dreaded Thunder Bucket – after filling up Game & Watch’s down special Bucket with only one Thunder from Pikachu, Game & Watch’s oil spill attack can one-hit KO any opponent at any percent and break practically any shield. Nothing will be able to explain it better than this video.

On the other side of the country, Long Beach, California games store Gameplay clocked in 74 entrants for their Smash 3DS singles event on Saturday, a double-elimination bracket with a 3 stock, 8 minute ruleset played solely on Final Destination and Battlefield. Link main Scizor stayed steady throughout winners bracket to face Edge’s ROB and Mega Man, claiming victory without a bracket reset.

Before the tournament-studded weekend kicked off, we got a look at a new Smash Bros for Wii U stage, a Star Fox stage set in, of course, a high-flying adventure through outer space. Orbital Gate is an interactive stage where players will have to move from the Great Fox to other, nearby ships to stay in the fight.

Over on the official Smash Bros website, the site has been updated to include some secret characters hidden behind a spoiler-warning page. I wonder who they are?

Incidentally, Nintendo spilled the beans on not a character but a stage with this image posted to the official Super Smash Bros. Facebook page. It features some recent news on the new game, like the recently-revealed Orbital Gate stage…except that one of the screenshots was a previously unseen shot and was not revealed during the week as the Facebook post implied. Many believe the stage is inspired by the Great Cave Offensive, a sub-game in Kirby Super Star/Kirby Super Star Ultra.

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If you’ve been playing For Glory mode, you have likely felt the wrath of the Mac Nation ten times over. Little Mac has been the talk of r/smashbros, where players are constantly chattering about how to play with and against the boxer. Over on Smashboards on the Little Mac boards, however, things are getting much more technical. Little Mac user Yoki posted “Perfect Pivot and Fox Trot based ATs,” an in-depth look at the applications of perfect pivots, fox trotting, turnaround tilts, and dashdancing with Little Mac. Though the inputs do not seem very practical for tournament use, we may finally recognize their potential when Gamecube controllers once again grace our fingers.

Some Japanese players may have some issues trying out that new tech, though. Japanese sales source Media Create found that the lessened sales of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS in its third week was not the result of waning interest but because stores in Japan were completely sold out. Smash 3DS, it seems, has the match-up against Japanese wallets mastered.

But how will it fare in its match-up against Melee? Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar has pit the two titles against each other in an unofficial poll to gauge interest as to which Smash Bros. game should be featured at next year’s Evo 2015: Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Gamecube or Super Smash Bros. 4, very likely the Wii U version. Cuellar has also opened discussion on Twitter and Smashboards. Although the poll will not completely affect the decision, almost 7,000 votes have been cast, with Super Smash Bros. Melee sitting at 53% over Smash 4’s 47%.

And finally, Shoryuken celebrated the release of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS with a special entry of its “Lab Notes” series featuring Super Smash Bros. caster D’Ron “D1” Maingrette. With his extensive Smash knowledge and prowess, D1 explains how to approach such a unique fighter like Smash and how fighting game fundamentals carry over from traditional fighters.

That’s it for this week’s Smash 4 digest. Be sure to stay tuned to Melee It On Me for more Smash 4 news next week.