Smash 4 Tournament Rocks Seattle
Seattle Celebrated Veterans day with rain this year but the bad weather didn’t stop nearly 200 gamers from coming into the Emerald city to play some Smash. Smash 4, Super Smash Bros. on the Wii U to be exact. The semi-annual tournament was held at the University of Washington in the new Maple hall dorms. It featured both a singles and doubles bracket. The tournament used the Smash for Wii U 2017 rule set was and was organized through Smash.gg.
We got a chance to sit down with the Tournament Organizer, Scott “Gyromight!” Thomas. Thomas is also the President of the Washington Gaming Association Smash 4 group on the UW campus. He explained to me the road that he took to making this event happen and how necessary it was. Smash players in the Pacific Northwest are isolated and he said this event was created “To put Pacific Northwest Players in the Spotlight.” He also explained how the name itself, Port Priority, invokes both Seattle as a port city and Smash gamers.
Thomas discussed the difficulties in setting up an event of this size saying that he had to take a lot of it on himself in addition to the 17-18 others helping him. He also said that working with Smash.gg was great as they set up the infrastructure, bracket, and software.
This sentiment was echoed by Jimmy “Viviff the Great” Ihander. Ihander is the Executive Director of Cacaw Gaming, whose green and white jerseys were present throughout the venue. He was assisting as one of the pool captains for the event. Ihander spoke to me how events of this type have become the standard for Smash and had moved from spreadsheets to using Smash.gg.
This tournament was the second of its kind after the first Port Priority this past May. Featuring both local gamers as well as ones from as far as Singapore. The event also featured some of the most talented Smash players from the Midwest including #5 ranked JJRockets and Nicholas “Ned” Dovel.
The Results
Dovel would go on to be the big winner this weekend. Starting from 189 contestants early Saturday he was the last one standing beating Pacific Northwest favorite Calib “KoL Konga” Byers in the final match of singles. Dovel won big in the doubles bracket as well finishing first place there with his teammate “Captain L”.
Thomas made a final comment to me addressing Smash players elsewhere in the world. He said, “Come to Seattle events. Our players will take you by surprise.”
If you didn’t make it out Saturday you will be able to see Vods on – https://gaming.youtube.com/channel/UCqB7d-vcBxxlccHB3oMk6ew by at least Tuesday.
Detailed results are availble at https://smash.gg/tournament/port-priority-2-midwest-invasion/details
