Smash World Tour

The Smash World Tour (SWT) was an annual Super Smash Bros. tournament circuit operating all around the world, but based in the United States. It took place three consecutive years from 2020 to 2022, although only the 2021 edition was completed fully, mostly consisting of a series of tournaments aiming to determine a number of players qualifying for the Smash World Championships, major singles tournaments for both games; the Championships themselves act as the culmination of the tour, with the crowning of world champions for both Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

The inaugural 2020 edition of the tournament was announced on March 1, 2020; however the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of all offline Super Smash Bros. tournaments, and therefore the premature end of the tournament mid-March. It returned the following year, this time successful completing, and returned once again in 2022. The 2021 Championship's prize pool of $150,000 remains the highest prize pool for any event in Super Smash Bros. history, which the 2022 Championship's prize pool of $250,000 was set to beat. In total, the 2022 Smash World Tour included over 6,400 offline tournaments, and featured over 325,000 players different players, making it the largest largest tour in the history of esports.

On November 29, 2022, less than two weeks before the 2022 Smash World Championships, SWT organizers announced the abrupt cancellation of both the 2022 Championships and the 2023 Smash World Tour, claiming to have been forced to shut down both by Super Smash Bros. publisher Nintendo; as part of their statement, they also accused Alan Bunney, the CEO and owner of Panda, another esports organization, of severe misconduct against the community, including efforts to sabotage the Smash World Tour in favor of the Panda Cup, a competing circuit organized by Panda which, unlike the SWT, was officially licensed by Nintendo. The announcement caused a major controversy in the competitive Super Smash Bros. community, and resulted in near-universal condemnation against both Nintendo, which denied some of the accusations and did not adress some of the others, and Panda, which denyied most accusations. Following further backslash, which saw a wave of resignations from Panda employees and many top players deciding to boycott the upcoming Panda Cup Finale, Panda announced the resignation of Bunney as CEO (but not owner) and the postponement of the Panda Cup Finale.

The Smash World Tour was created by siblings Calvin "GimR" Lofton and Matthew “Aposl” Lofton, founders of the longstanding Smash tournament organization VGBootCamp, and Justin Wykowski, a producer for Super Smash Con.^[1] Shortly after the announcement, Calvin stated that "the next step to push Smash toward a tier one esport. The bigger Smash is, the more people can make a living off of it. I want to live in a world where anyone who runs a super major, that's their only job", while Wykowski stated "I think everybody has been clamoring for it because everybody sort of understands subconsciously that we could unify and become really a bigger sum of its parts, two-plus-two-equals-five type thing. There's really no cap on how big Smash can go."^[1] While the tour was partnered with both Twitch and the fighting game tournament website start.gg, it had not waited to secure a partnership with Nintendo, something which The Washington Post deemed to have "mired past attempts" at creating prominent Smash circuits; however, the organizers were in talks with Nintendo, with Wykowski stating that "Our goal was to go ahead and create something that then we can present to Nintendo as an opportunity to be able to work with the Smash community directly."^[1] According to The Washington Post, the tour had "already sown widespread excitement"

However, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led the Smash World Tour to cancel all of its major events for March and April 2020 mid-March, and eventually all events for the rest of the year; only two relatively small tournaments took place before the cancellation, the 86-entrants Don't Stomp On Me and the 39-entrants SoCal The Hype, both on March 14, 2020.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]}

The 2021 edition of the tour was announced on February 20, 2021. Once again, the circuit partnered with Twitch, but not with Nintendo.^[4] The originally planned prize pool for both games combined was $210,000 (including the money prizes for qualification tournaments prior to the Championship), the highest prize pool in Super Smash Bros. history; the prize pool for the Championships alone was $150,000, making it the largest prize pool for a single event in Super Smash Bros. history: the prize pool was $75,000 for each game.^[3][4][5][8]

As part of the 2021 tour, 19 events specifically created for the tour took place, including 11 "Qualifiers", Ultimate-exclusive online open tournaments, six "Regional Finals", 16-players invitational featuring selected players for Melee, and players who qualified via the Qualifier tournaments for Ultimate. The final two events were the Last Chance Qualifier event to determine the final entrants of the Smash World Championship, the circuit's final event.^[5] The switch from the original system making independent tournaments part of the tour via a point system to a series of events dedicated solely to the circuit where offline tournaments would have a limited number of players, took place in order to make the event possible in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, although the organizers hoped to resume using the 2020 format the following year.^[3]

The pandemic still caused a number of issues: both Oceania Regional Finals were cancelled, with Australian players Sora and Jdizzle selected as Oceania representatives for Melee and Ultimate respectively due to being ranked #1 in Australia for their respective games.^[9] Due to the state of the pandemic in South America, the Ultimate Regional Finals in the region where held online, while Melee's were cancelled entirely, with a panel directly selecting Chilean players Chape and HP to represent the region at the Championship.^[10] The East Asia Regional Finals, which took place in Japan and were meant to feature players who had qualified via either the Japan Qualifier and East Asia South Qualifier, encountered significant issues as none of the qualified East Asia South players (all from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, or South Korea) were able to travel to Japan for it. As such, Hong Kong player XIFL, who had taken first place in the East Asia South Qualifiers, directly qualified for the Championship, and the number of qualifying Championship spots for the now all-Japanese East Asia Regional Finals was reduced from 6 to 5.^[11]

The 2021 Smash World Tour culminated at the Smash World Championships on 17–19, 2021, featuring 40 players in both the Melee and Ultimate tournaments. American player Plup became the inaugural Melee world champion, and Mexican player MkLeo becoming the inaugural Ultimate world champion.^{[12][13][14][15]}

The 2022 edition of the Smash World Tour was announced on March 9, 2022. It marked the return of the original planned 2022 format, using a point system applicable to many tournaments part of the tour and working with the Smash World Tour, but unlike tournaments part of the 2021 tour, not organized directly by them. The organizers once again partnered with Twitch, with new partner online coaching platform Metafy.^[16] The prize pool for the Smash World Championship at the end of the tour was $250,000, beating the previous year's $150,000 record for biggest event prize pool in Super Smash Bros. history.^[17][18] Platinum and Gold events, the highest tier ratings for the tour, took place in countries whose Super Smash Bros. scenes usually receive little attention internationally, such as Brazil, Cuba, Qatar, and South Korea.^{[18][19][20][16]}

The tour officially started with Virtuocity Smash Open 2022, a Gold-tier tournament taking place on March 17-19, 2022 in Doha, Qatar, although several tournaments dating as early as March 12 were retroactively recognized as Silver-tier events.^[21] In total, the 2022 Smash World Tour included over 6,400 offline tournaments, and featured over 325,000 players.^[22][23] The completion of the gold-tier tournament Apex 2022 on November 20, 2022, the final event of the tour before the Last Chance Qualifiers and Championships, marked the end of the points ranking competition, and the confirmation of the 30 qualified players for each game (not counting two future final two Last Chance Qualifier qualifed players); American player Hungrybox topped the ranks for Melee, while MkLeo topped the ranks for Ultimate.^[24]

On November 29, 2022, less than two weeks before the Smash World Championships on December 9-11 and with all 60 qualified players having already been confirmed (30 for each game), the organizers of the Smash World Tour announced the abrupt cancellation of both the Melee and Ultimate events (as well as the Last Chance Qualifiers), and therefore the immediate and premature end of the Smash World Tour. They also announced the cancellation of the planned Smash World Tour 2023.^[25][26][27]

In their official statement, SWT claimed that numerous talks were held with Nintendo throughout 2021 and 2022 in hopes of getting an official license for the 2022 circuit. Nintendo appeared supportive of these efforts, but formal approval had not been achieved by the time the circuit was launched in March. In further discussions, Nintendo suggested that a single event license for the Smash World Championships being held in December would suffice, but kept on not giving SWT a definitive answer until November 23, when Nintendo officially denied their application to license the 2022 Championships and additionally denied them a license for a 2023 tour, despite SWT not having requested a license for the later. According to SWT, "Nintendo expects us to only operate with a commercial license, and [stated] that we would not be granted one for the upcoming Championships, or any activity in 2023". Due to existing contracts and obligations, SWT estimated the cost of this cancellation to be "hundreds of thousands of dollars".^[25]

In their cancellation announcement, SWT accused Alan Bunney, CEO, owner and co-founder of the esports organization Panda, of attempting to sabotage the Smash World Tour. According to SWT, Bunney tried to discourage major tournament organizers from joining the Smash World Tour, claiming that the circuit would be shut down. This was allegedly done to secure exclusivity for the Panda Cup, a competing new circuit hosted by Panda and officially licensed by Nintendo.^[25]

The Panda Cup's official status was also allegedly used in an attempt to seize broadcasting rights from fellow esports organization Beyond The Summit for several tournaments partnered organized by BTS but part of the Panda Cup. SWT claimed that Bunney threatened BTS' ability to operate in Smash, citing taht he could use his connections to Nintendo to shut their events down.^[25] BTS co-founder David "LD" Gorman corroborated this claim, publicly stating that Alan had been "basically running a protection racket" and that "BTS will absolutely never participate in a circuit led by Alan".^[28] Tracy "nazhjin" Parkes, Director of Partnerships for Golden Guardians, further confirmed the claims of misconduct.^[29]

Nintendo responded to SWT's claims via Kotaku, stating: "Unfortunately after continuous conversations with Smash World Tour, and after giving the same deep consideration we apply to any potential partner, we were unable to come to an agreement with SWT for a full circuit in 2023. Nintendo did not request any changes to or cancellation of remaining events in 2022, including the 2022 Championship event, considering the negative impact on the players who were already planning to participate."^[30] SWT disputed this, stating that Nintendo had confirmed both verbally and in writing that the 2022 Championships and any 2023 circuit were not to proceed.^[31] Per SWT, Nintendo's written notice reads as follows:

It is Nintendo’s expectation that an approved license be secured in order to operate any commercial activity featuring Nintendo IP. It is also expected to secure such a license well in advance of any public announcement. After further review, we’ve found that the Smash World Tour has not met these expectations around health & safety guidelines and has not adhered to our internal partner guidelines. Nintendo will not be able to grant a license for the Smash World Tour Championship 2022 or any Smash World Tour activity in 2023.

In a second statement given to IGN on December 2, 2022, Nintendo claimed that "when we notified the SWT that we would not license their 2022 or 2023 activities, we also let them know verbally that we were not requiring they cancel the 2022 finals event". They also reaffirmed their commitment to Panda as a partner, and stated how "Panda continues to advocate [with Nintendo] on behalf of the Super Smash Bros. community". Allegations regarding Bunney's conduct were not addressed, nor was the cancellation of the 2023 World Tour.^[32]

SWT quickly responded, stating that the timeframe of Nintendo's actions did not make sense if they intended to let the Smash World Championships proceed. It was also reiterated that Nintendo provided their decision to deny SWT a commercial license in writing. According to SWT, Nintendo acknowledged all potential impacts of the cancellation, including "some positive, some negative, and some really negative".^[33]

On December 2, Panda published a statement denying their involvement in the cancellation of the Smash World Championships and most of the accusations against Bunney. However, the statement acknowledged that the dispute between Beyond The Summit and Bunney did occur, and that the latter "spoke in a manner which did not reflect either guidance from Nintendo or our own standards."^[34]

Amid the growing controversy, a wave of resignations from the company and the growing number of players boycotting the Panda Cup Finale, Panda made a second statement on December 5, announcing that Bunney was no longer CEO of Panda (although he remains its owner), and that the Panda Cup Finale had been postponed for "due to security concerns."^[35][36]

The next day, Bunney claimed that he had chosen to resign as CEO "to protect the safety and wellbeing of the team", and that he would come forward in the future with evidence that "SWT lied" and "BTS leadership put the community in jeopardy."^[35][36]

SWT's original announcement led to strong backlash and condemnation from both Super Smash Bros. players and fans towards both Bunney and Nintendo, with many calling for a boycott of Panda events.^[37][38]

On the same day as the SWT statement, VGBootCamp, one of the main organizations behind the Smash World Tour, announced that "based on our recent communications with Nintendo, we would be putting ourselves at further risk if we continued forward with our current plans", that they were unsure of the future of their company due to these communications, and were forced to cancel the upcoming major tournaments Glitch: Duel of Fates and Double Down 2023, leading to further backlash against Nintendo.^[39]

Following SWT's statement, players and fans near-universally decided to boycott the Panda Cup Finale, the event acting as the culmination of the Panda Cup circuit. Many top players qualified for the event, both on the Melee and Ultimate sides, publicly announced that they would not be attending the event as a result of SWT's allegations; none of the qualified players who did not officially announce their boycott explicitely stated any intention to attend.^{[40][41][42][35][43][44][45][46][47][48]}

Esports organization AITX eSports claimed they would not support Panda or their events in the future, stating "This community is the lifeblood of the game and we’re are deeply saddened to see the efforts of @SmashWorldTour wasted."^[49] Player and tournament organizer Aiden "Calvin" McCaig claimed that he would not attend any future event licensed by either Nintendo or Panda in the future, accusing Nintendo of using Panda as "a means to the end of controlling the scene, choking our last drops of independence from us as a community."^[50]

To help offset the damage done to the community, Beyond The Summit re-opened registration for their upcoming tournament Mainstage 2022 held two weeks before the Panda Cup Finale (and a week before the cancelled World Championships), with all newly received venue fees going to the SWT organization.^[51] As a result, a number of top players who had originally qualified for the Smash World Championship and/or Panda Cup Finale registered for Mainstage at the last minute, and the event, now seen as de de facto climax of the competitive scene for 2022, received a large increase in interest.^[52][53][54]

Panda's original December 2 response to the controversy was overwhelmingly negative, and more players announced their boycott of the Panda Cup Finale.^{[55][56][57][58]}Wizzrobe no longer attending the Panda Cup Finale</ref>^[59][60][35] Bunney's claim in December 5 that he would come forward with evidence of wrongdoing from both SWT and BTS was largely mocked by the community.^[35]

Reactions from players and talent employed by Panda was very negative, and many Panda employees resigned from the company in the days following the December 2 response.^{[36][61][62][63][64][65]} Those departures included top Super Smash Bros. players iBDW, Plup and WaDi, and prominent commentators Coney, TKBreezy and VikkiKitty.^{[66][67][68][69][70]}

On December 2, popular streamer and tournament organizer Ludwig announced The Scuffed World Tour, an invitational tournament for both Melee and Ultimate conceived as a counter-event to the Panda Cup Finale and a spiritual successor to the Smash World Tour (with "Scuffed World Tour" also making the initials "SWT), scheduled to overlap with the Grand Finals of the Panda Cup Finale. For both games, invites were extended to 8 players with the most points in the Smash World Tour 2022, and all money raised by the event was pledged to VGBootCamp; several Panda Cup Finale-qualified players expressed interest in attending Ludwig's event instead, and with the eventual postponing of the Panda Cup Finale, the event is no longer planned ot take place concurrently with The Scuffed World Tour.^[71][35]

The 2020 and 2022 editions of the circuit followed a point-based format. Tournaments part of the tour would receive a tier, with each giving a number of points to its highest-placing players; when all other tournaments would conclude, the highest-placing players would qualify for the Championships, the final event of the tour, to determine the world champion. The tiers were, from highest to lowest, Platinum, Gold, Super Silver (only in 2022), and Silver; each tier gave the same amount of points per tournament result, except for Silver-tier tournaments which received a sub-ranking in 2002 going from Silver 4, the highest, to Silver 1, the lowest. The points do not accumulate without limit: a player's points are limited to their three best in Platinum results, their three best Gold results, their best single Super Silver result, and the six Silver results which earned them the most points. As the tour was fully focused on traditional singles competition, results for doubles tournaments or other forms of Super Smash Bros. competition featured at events part of the Smash World Tour had no impact on points, and only open tournaments were eligible, ruling out invitationals.^[16][4][18]

For both the Melee and Ultimate tournaments of the ultimately cancelled 2020 Championships, the 31 players with the most points would have qualified, plus one final player who would have qualified via a Last Chance Qualifier tournament taking place on the first day of the event. The 2022 version followed a similar yet different system, also based on points: the highest-scoring player for each of seven territories earned a qualification, with the territories being North America, Central America, Europe, Japan, Oceania, South America, and the "Wild Card Region"; the latter was a spot given to the player with the most points from outside any of the six previous territories. The 23 other players with the most points regardless of territory, and two last players would have been decided via a Last Chance Qualifier, rounding the number of players qualified for the Championships to 32 again.^[20] In 2022 tour, the Wild Card Region point leader for Melee was Sala, an American player eligible for the region due to residing and mainly competing in South Korea, while Ultimate's was eMass, a player from Saudi Arabia.^[24]

For the 2022 tour, any offline tournament in the world could try to apply for the Smash World Tour as a Silver event, with the organizers accepting or denying their application; all the Platinum and Gold events were decided in advance.^[17] Although it did not take place, the 2022 Smash World Championships would have followed a format similar to 2021's.^[72] Each game would have had a prize pool of $125,000 split between all participants, from $40,000 to the winners to $500 for the eight players tied for last place (25th).^[73]

The confirmation of the players qualified for the Smash World Championships in late November 2022 led to some controversy, as, unlike they had claimed in their original ruleset, the organizers counted points for tournaments players had entered but DQ'd from without actually participating; when the discrepancy was pointed out, the organizers added a clause to the rules stating the they could count DQs at their discretion. If the rule had been upheld, Japanese player kept and Chilean player Sekai Doggo would both have qualified for the Ultimate Championship, but instead came up short points-wise.^[24][74]

The 2021 edition used a completely different format due to the COVID-19 pandemic making holding large, open offline tournaments impossible; instead of having pre-existing events be part of the tour, the Smash World Tour organized its own events dedicated to qualification.^[1][3]

To qualify for the Championships, players would have to place high in the Regional Finals, 16-players offline tournaments; each region had a different number of players that would qualify for the Championships at each Regional Finals. To avoid large concentrations of players during the pandemic, Ultimate players had to quality for the Regional Finals via Qualifiers, large open tournaments held online, while notable Melee players were directly invited to the Regional Finals. Each tournament had eight final entrants joining via the Last Chance Qualifier, making the total number of participants in the Championship 40, instead of 32 like the other years.^[4][3]f

The regions for both games are North America East, North America West (for Canada and the United States), Central America (including Mexico, although it is not considered part of Central America), South America, Europe, East Asia, and Oceania.^[8] Not counting the Last Chance Qualifier, the 2021 Smash World Championship was divided in two parts. In the first two days, a round-robin phase saw all 40 entrants divided in eight groups of five players who would all face each other, with a double-elimination bracket phrase taking place on the third and final day. For each group of the round-robin phase, the player ranked first started the bracket phase in winners side, the players ranked 2nd and 3rd would start on losers side, and the players ranked 4th and 5th would be directly eliminated. The $75,000 prize pool for each game would have been divided between all 40 qualified players, from $20,000 going to the winner to $500 going to the players ranked below top 24.^[5]

In addition to the World Championship and Last Chance Qualifier, a few side-events took place during the event, mainly for players who had participated in the Last Chance Qualifier but failed to qualify: doubles tournaments for both games, a "low tier" tournament (for characters considered lesser on the competitive scene) for Melee'", and a Squad Strike tournament for Ultimate.^[14]

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