One player has been completely dominating Super Smash Bros during the current busy period. Zain won his second straight Major at Pound 2022, continuing his domination in 2022. Over in Ultimate, we saw the top few competitors trade places once again with Glutonny beating out MKLeo this time around.
Credit: @RellFGC
Zain came into Pound 2022 off the back of a strong performance at Genesis 8. Back there, he won his second Genesis event in a row. However, the victory here was by no means a done deal, as he faced strong competition the whole way through. However, looking back at his run through Pound 2022, you have to note it was particularly strong.
Zain’s run began with a matchup against Hungrybox. Zain stuck with his Marth up against Jigglypuff. While he lost the first set, the rest of them proceeded smoothly with Zain clinching the next three. Hungrybox wasn’t quite done here though. He faced aMSa in the losers’ final, sticking with his Jigglypuff as he passed fairly smoothly back into the finals.
In the grand Finals of the event, Zain blew through Hungrybox in the finals, securing his second straight Melee run here.
While he dropped some lives previously in the tournaments, he dominated the finals and proved once again why he’s on the top of Melee. Hungrybox and aMSa all had solid runs through the tournament, but Zain remains secure for the year’s Melee events.
The Smash Ultimate side of Pound 2022 went a bit differently. Rather than seeing the last winner pull out ahead again, another player took the top spot. Glutonny won the final bracket, and this time around, the final bracket was a lot tenser than usual.
The opening match of the winner’s bracket was close. Glutonny started well taking two sets, but eventually dropped 2 to light. It was beginning to look like Light was returning to form, but he just lost out in the final set. This was a close match-up, but Gluttony eventually moved ahead to the Grand Finals.
In the losers’ bracket, MKLeo first faced Riddles which he won fairly easily. He continued this run also only losing a set against Light. That ended the chance of Light making the jump after a bit of a rough year, but third place is still a respectable finish when the top two slots are these two players.
The final match at Pound 2022 was a lot closer than a lot of finals. Glutonny went in with his Wario against MKLeo’s Byleth. Glutonny took game one, but Leo then started to really dominate. He won the next three games with two stocks remaining in each. After a bracket reset though, Glutonny really started to push back, although eventually, things came down to a final stock for the player. Glutonny managed to take MKLeo’s last two stocks while down to his last chance, taking home the win for the event.
Pound 2022 was definitely an eventual tournament for Smash Bros. We’re seeing Zain maintain his top spot, and the player looks very strong for future Melee events. Over in Ultimate, things seem as up in the air as ever. Light is continuing to place highly, even if he’s not managed to win another major yet this year. Glutonny and MKLeo demonstrated some fairly evenly matched gameplay across the finals, while Glutonny won this one it’ll be interesting to see their next match.
One fun thing from Pound 2022 outside of the winners was just how diverse the characters were. In the final 96 for Ultimate, over 50 characters were in use. This even included a Ridley. This goes to show how well balanced the game is, and that we might still see big changes in pro-level Ultimate.
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