Who expected that the Nottingham committee were cracked at Strikers, someone would rock up in a tuxedo or that the champion of the Smash Ultimate Singles would go through the entire tournament without losing a single game? Well, I certainly did not when I left the house at 7 in the morning with a bacon bap in my hand.
On Saturday 19th of November, we at the University of Nottingham hosted the NSE Midlands qualifier. We had 50 attendees at our event ranging from places all over such as Warwick, Leeds, and Sheffield. We also had around 30 people in our Mario Strikers singles tournament which was an amazing turnout. Doors opened at 9am sharp where people instantly hopped on and played friendlies in Smash and Strikers. The event ended at 7pm once our Strikers’ doubles event was finished.
Our first of three tournaments was the Super Smash Bros Ultimate Singles. With 31 signups for the tournament, we were able to have 8 pools of 4. After many good games the pools ended and the top 16 was created. The real action started once the top 16 bracket began, with one of the favourites to win, Lucretio being knocked into losers’ bracket after winning his first set. However, Lucretio was able to make an amazing loser’s run all the way to the grand finals, beating players such as Zen in Loser’s Quarter Final and Big Z, another favourite to win in the Loser’s Finals. On the other side of the bracket, Nottingham-based Zenatti did his university proud by storming through the Winners bracket without losing a single game at all during the tournament and in the end, winning 3-0 against Lucretio in a game that was expected to be a close one. Both Zenatti and Lucretio won themselves travel and accommodation for the Warwick Finals.
Halfway through the smash singles, the truly awaited Mario Strikers singles began. With 28 sign ups and Mario Strikers t-shirts on the line, it was going to be a heated bracket. All but one player had never played the game before on the day so skill level was practically equal, and it came down to who could pick it up the fastest. Throughout the bracket, the brilliant 4 Shy Guy team comp started to spread and surprisingly was winning against teams with better characters and composition. The top 2 of the strikers Singles were the University of Nottingham’s own social secretary, Kana, and Zealously who had only forfeited 2 games throughout the tournament. Zealously won the tournament 3-1 against Kana and alongside Kana won travel and accommodation sorted for the Finals in Warwick.
The final tournament was the Mario Strikers Doubles, with 7 duos in and each match being a best of five with no loser’s bracket, every match mattered. After 2 rounds of exciting games, we came to the finals between PlatinumRobin and myself vs JamRoll and Dimentom. Every game was insanely close with goals being scored last minute or in the golden goal extra time every game. In the end, JamRoll and Dimentom won 3-2 and will be going to represent Nottingham at the Warwick finals.
I would like to just say a massive thank you to all of my committee members for being there from 8 am to 9:30pm and helping out with all aspects of the day such as setup, being pool captains and keeping the atmosphere lively! I would also like to thank Kenny and Robzi for being in charge of the event and keeping everything organised through it. Finally, I would like to thank NSE for hosting the event with us as we have never done anything like this before.
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