By Sarah Rescigno
On Feb. 15, the Brooklyn College Esports Club hosted its fourth iteration of its semesterly Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Tournament, in collaboration with the Kappa Sigma Phi-Phi Chapter Fraternity.
The rules included three lives per player, best out of three, no items, single elimination–out of the tournament after one loss–and a seven-minute time limit. The first place prize included a $125 Visa gift card, while second and third places received gift cards for OS NYC, a gaming cafe in Downtown Manhattan.
Every competitor received a name tag, with most picking pseudonyms like “Leafy,” “Newbie Boi,” “Objectively Ugly,” “Sans the Skeleton,” and “Skibidi Toilet.”
Three Smash Bros matches were played simultaneously, the competitors looking to win while a DJ played electronic remixes of popular music in the background.
Alexander Raff, the director of the Esports Club at BC, told The Vanguard that these tournaments are successful because Smash is the easiest way to get people in a room to play. “It’s not just because we have a good smash team,” Raff told The Vanguard. “We feel it represents the Brooklyn College community in a positive way. It’s visible. People can see what we’re doing and that we’re having fun.”
The final game was best out of five, between Moustafa Salem, the captain of the Smash Bros team, and player Oscar Lam.
Lam played Ganondorf, a character that does a lot of damage, but moves slowly. Salem lost a life early on in the first playing as a character named Steve, and in the second someone known as King Dedede. Salem explained that Steve is a DLC character, which is usually overpowered. “There’s a lot of qualms about Steve being allowed in tournaments. [I] played him for two years and then he started being banned,” Salem recalled.
Salem’s strategy focused on utilizing Steve’s strengths, which includes preventing his opponent from getting back up to the stage, known as ledge-trapping, and the ability to prevent him from reaching the ledge entirely, known as edge-guarding. This kicked Ganondorf off the stage while evading Ganondorf’s heavy-hitting attacks. Salem lost opportunities to ledge-trap in the first and second rounds, losing both matches.
In the third round, Salem resorted back to playing as Steve, met with cheers from the audience). At first, Salem lost a life early to an aerial attack as in other rounds. Soon after, the tides began to turn. Salem ultimately won the third and fourth rounds, kicking off his comeback and rendering them tied at 2-2 rounds.
In one particularly nail-biting moment during the last match, after launching Ganondorf into the air, Steve built a TNT block and then used an anvil to attempt to detonate the TNT and send it downward toward Ganondorf. Instead, Steve missed and fell right into an uppercut from Ganondorf. They ricocheted off each other, with Ganondorf landing right into Steve’s TNT block just as it was exploding. This didn’t finish off the match, but with only one stock left, Lam was on the brink of losing.
By continuing to evade Lam’s attacks, Salem was able to maintain his strong edge and triumph over his opponent in his best round yet. With a well-timed minecart attack in midair finishing Lam off, Salem won the final round with two lives left and took first place in the tournament.
“It was surreal honestly,” Salem told The Vanguard “I came in with the expectation that two people would give me a lot of problems. I wasn’t that mentally prepared, but I went back to an old [character I used to play], and it ended up working out.
For future tournaments, the Esports Club hopes to obtain a dedicated space on campus for hosting and practicing, equipped with computers and Nintendo Switches.
“That’s the thing I think everyone wants most for the club right now,” Salem told The Vanguard. “We want to be able to move from not just being online […] but forming a more physical [and] long-lasting concrete community here at Brooklyn College.”
Raff also announced their intention to create a gaming degree modeled after the Gaming Pathways at City College of New York (CCNY), which offers a bachelor’s degree in digital game design. According to Raff, the Esports Club is looking to collaborate with other organizations, and is in the process of organizing a professional development panel with the Computer Science Club. If brought to BC, the organizers hope to have a greater focus on the business side of the gaming industry, instead of game design. “Brooklyn College could be a leader in this, not just competitively but academically,” Raff said.
Interested students can follow the Esports Club on their Instagram @cunybcesports