Ryerson’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team is set to begin recruiting players over the next two weeks in preparation for its first full season.
The team was quickly put together last winter, but still managed a third place finish at the Collegiate Star League tournament. Now, its new team manager, David (Clear) Nguyen expects bigger things for the upcoming year.
“We have a couple of returning players [who] I have no doubt will perform much better than last time,” Nguyen said. “Two of our players [Ryan (Lopp) Bilas and Edgardo (G) Cagara] have been regularly performing well at local tournaments within the GTA and another player [Ian (Melon) Howard] is considered one of the best Shulk players in Ontario.”
Members of the team all agree that the big goal this year is to gain a power ranking that will potentially help secure a sponsorship to go to more tournaments.
With Ryerson already housing the biggest Super Smash Bros. community in Toronto, the reception for the new ultimate team has been “overwhelming,” according to Nguyen.
“On club day, people were lining up to play a single game. People love the game and all around campus people try to bring their Switch to play with everybody,” Nguyen said.
Over the past year, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate became the best selling fighting game of all time, and shattered tournament viewership and entrant numbers at EVO 2019, the biggest fighting game tournament in the world.
One of Ryerson’s players, Cagara, placed 385th out of 3,492 entrants.
“I think it’s so popular because it appeals to casual players,” said Justin Wong, a member of Ryerson’s Smash club. “I’ve played since it was on the Nintendo 64, and it’s been fun ever since then. Most people can just pick up and play (and) there are so many characters that appeal to different people.”
“At the end of the day, we’re just trying to play our favourite children’s party game,” Nguyen said.
Although the eSports team is better suited for competitive players, the team also plans to host a big twice-a-year event that everybody is welcome to take part in, with the first one coming on the weekend of Nov. 2.