By Jack "Trash Day!" Clifton
The best way to describe Jestise "MVD" Negron's performances this season is workmanlike. At MVD’s 3 majors this season he never finished with both an upset factor and SPR more than 1 or less than -1. Even at COMBO BREAKER, a regional where he was upset by Onin and loaf, he was still able to make top 8. He only has one true off-ballot loss, to loaf, but that was at a tournament where the Wario was able to beat 4 PGR players.
MVD shows up, does his business and then gets out. His consistency with a technical character like Snake is unmatched, and as he starts to increase the depth of his bag of tricks, he has started to increase the height of his ceiling as well, taking a win over Chag at BoBC 4, his first win over a player currently ranked in the top 25 since he beat Dark Wizzy at Let’s Make Big Moves in January of 2020.
He has one of the highest floors in Ultimate, only missing top 24 once since October of 2021, but it isn’t outlandish to think that he can keep pushing his ceiling higher, and return to the spot as a top 20 player he had in 2019.
By Hugh-Jay "trade war" Yu
Chicago’s premier Final Fantasy enthusiast Nicholas “Ned” Dovel shows up with yet another strong PGR season, with near rock-solid consistency - something hard to find with Sephiroth, a character whose volatility and relatively young meta is driven in North America by him.
Between his four tournaments this PGRU season - LUA, Pound, LTC, and Combo Breaker - he stacked up a set of solid results, with wins on Tilde, Jake, Ikan, Colorondo8, Elegant, Chase, ESAM, Zinoto, and ATATA. Despite his outward appearance as a solo Sephiroth specialist, he has other characters in his pocket to play with. In particular, Ned’s legacy main of Cloud came out during his losers run at LUA to take wins on Ikan and Deathspade. The win over Ikan is interesting, since his Sephiroth had hit a wall in the past four sets against his Chicago co-competitor.
As Ned develops his Sephiroth more, it’ll be interesting to see whether he weathers out some volatile matchups with the One Winged Angel more or if he leans toward keeping a bevy of characters in his pocket - he competes locally with Joker and Cloud - for the true problem matchups. In either case, we’re excited to see Ned’s future in competition this season!
By Robert "BobbyWasabi" Wilson
Ricky "Ling" Gorritz carries a Smash career dating back to the late 2000s, but it wasn’t until Smash 4 as a Peach main where he would stake his claim as one of the character’s best representatives. In Ultimate, he’s reached a new peak, making his PGR debut at #28.
Ling has always been on the cusp of joining his New England top reps Light and Marss on a ranking. He was on the X-Factor survey for PGRU V1 and PGRU V2, but didn’t quite make the cut in either ranking.
This season, however, Ling went off. He beat Marss for the first time at CT Gamercon 5, clinched out a solid 9th place finish at MomoCon 2022 with wins on Toast, Teaser, Jmafia, and Myran, and remained a dominant force in his home state of Connecticut, second to only Light.
As the new top representative of Peach in Ultimate, Ling will have quite the legacy to uphold; and although he’s got a ways to go before he begins tangling with the Top 10, he’s taken a bold leap towards getting there.
By Dara "Daramgar" M. Gar
Despite being so young he can't drive himself to tournaments, Ethan Xavier "SHADIC" San Miguel is doing the unthinkable: he is winning with a character not named “Steve.” Playing perhaps one of the most underrepresented characters, SHADIC has become the face of Corrin mains everywhere, making them quite proud to call him their own. Debuting on the PGRU with a 27th place finish, SHADIC has already triumphed over many twice his age.
When it came time for SHADIC to perform on the big stage, he performed. He placed 17th at Collision 2022, 17th at MomoCon 2022, and even 7th at Low Tide City 2022, with a 3rd at DreamHack Dallas 2022 as well. Boasting a clean winning record against the legendary Cosmos as well as wins on players like Aaron, Mystearica, and Lima, SHADIC is quickly proving himself to be quite the competitor. SHADIC’s passion to improve is most evident by his sheer attendance this season. Having competed at 21 events over this season, not a week has gone by where the boy has taken a rest.
SHADIC has a bright future ahead of him in the world of Smash. He will carry his Corrin as far as they will take him, showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.
By Dara "Daramgar" M. Gar
Returning to the PGRU, Gakuto “Gackt” Ito finds himself with his highest placement yet, a respectable 26th. Gackt is the highest ranking Ness player in the world, and who is better to do it than the man who dances around his opponents both in and out of the game? Gackt’s magnet movement is just like his real life footwork: tricky, flashy, and excellent clip material.
This season, Gackt’s bracket runs tell a tale of contrast. Managing to finish 7th at Pound 2022 and a whopping 3rd at Kagaribi #7, Gackt managed to outperform his seed at two highly competitive events. Picking up wins on players like Atelier, Shuton, Nietono, Leon, MPG, and DM between these two tournaments is quite the impressive feat. At the same time, he underperformed at events like Genesis 8 and both MaesumaTOP #7 and #8 where he was quite far from meeting his seed, losing earlier than he was projected to do so.
Achieving consistency will be Gackt’s next step to take this upcoming season, and in a meta that seems to favor Ness and less (this writer has no bias whatsoever), the road ahead will surely be a difficult climb.
The title of Best Jigglypuff was taken long before the Early 2022 season began, but Troy “Bassmage” Waters made sure to spend the entire season furthering the gap between them and whoever comes next. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more impressive set of results from a pink puff player: 7th at Smash Ultimate Summit 4, 9th at Battle of BC 4, plus Top 32 finishes at Low Tide City 2022 (17th) and GENESIS 8 (25th).
Lest you think that these are hollow placements, these bracket runs feature set wins on Goblin, Chag, Atelier, and Tilde, and were only ever really ended by fellow PGRU members, with the exception of Back in Blood 4. Somewhere, we hope Hungrybox is popping off at the inaugural inclusion of Jigglypuff on a PGRU, but based on these performances, it’s very likely that this won’t be a one-time phenomenon.
Alexis “Goblin” Stennett has made the climb up to No. 24 in North America, their highest placement on a formal PGRU to date. Goblin’s explosive Roy had impressive highs and disappointing lows this season, creating a somewhat inconsistent record that still points to Goblin’s status as one of the United States’ strongest competitors.
Goblin was a bit upset prone, losing their second match of Collision to Wheezer and their third match of Low Tide City to Todayyz. Yet, in both instances, Goblin was able to make a deep run through the losers bracket, ultimately placing 13th at Collision and 17th at Low Tide City. Between those two tournaments, Goblin eliminated players like Ikan, Elegant, and Anathema.
Goblin also earned wins against Tea, Zomba, BigBoss, Fatality, and Larry Lurr over the course of the season. In addition, Goblin placed 17th or higher at every event they entered this season except for Genesis, where they lost to fellow top 50 players Zomba and Aaron for 33rd place. Even when incurring bad losses early in the bracket, Goblin has proven to be a player who can almost always be counted on to go far.
By Dara "Daramgar" M. Gar
Jude “Jakal” Harris has finally arrived, debuting the PGRU with a 23rd place finish. Up until this season, few knew Jakal outside of the Northeast in Smash Ultimate. At his local events, everyone knew how potent of a player this Wolf aficionado was, striking fear into the hearts of all attendees, ranked and unranked alike. Having been able to travel more and finally perform outside of his own region, the whole world now knows what a threat this player is.
At Collision 2022, Pound 2022, and [bae100], Jakal placed 13th, 9th, and 7th, respectively. With wins on players like SHADIC, Jake, Grayson, DM, Zomba, Chag, Kept, and Suarez, Jakal has amassed some incredible wins this season. Outside of major events, Jakal finds himself holding winning records against many notable players that make New Jersey tournaments as infamous as they are, including Rivers, Syrup, Gen, the legendary Beatybean, and even Dabuz himself.
By Hugh-Jay "trade war" Yu
Going into this PGR season, Brian “Cosmos” Kalu looked like the brightest star in the solar system. He had just come off of two stellar results - 3rd at the Smash World Tour Championships and 1st at Glitch: Infinite.
While his season was still very strong - defined by a win at Mexican C-Tier Casablanca over AlanDiss, Maister, and Javi along with strong wins at majors such as Stroder, Fatality, ApolloKage, and KEN - at the game's largest events, he’s still chasing those same highs that he knows he can achieve.
Between a ghost from the past as a bracket demon - Corrin, against whom he had an 0-3 set count in the PGRU v3 season - and the spirit of the Green Goblin leading him to an unfortunate end at Genesis, Cosmos has a few hurdles to overcome. But if anyone can do it, it’s NA’s best Pyra/Mythra specialist, ready to show the States the true power of the Aegis.
By Jack "Trash Day!" Clifton
The king of NorCal just keeps getting better. Despite being one of the players who suffered most from a lack of an official PGR season immediately post-lockdown, Luis "Lui$" Oceguera Ramos was able to easily clear his best previous placement of 37th on the PGRU v2.
He makes Smash look easy. His style of Palutena play seems so simple: guaranteed combos, smooth and patient neutral and strong kill confirms mean that, like any good anime protagonist, he is never out of it. He always gets back up.
After a rocky start to the season at LEVELUP arena 4, he didn’t lose to anyone outside the top 35 at any qualifying tournament, and he mostly lost to players ranked above him. He’s settled in as the top level gatekeeper of the Smash world, but he has the potential to go even higher. He’s shown that he has the potential to play at a Top 10 level, finishing in the top 12 of each of the six major tournaments he played in in 2021. Now it’s up to him to take that next step.
By Jack "Trash Day!" Clifton
Jayjay "Ouch!?" Basilan has a strong case to be considered Smash Ultimate’s biggest hidden boss -- or at least he did before this season. Despite not being known by most of the community, at his four tournaments of more than 100 players this season he finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. But there are plenty of regional threats who place well at mid-size tournaments. What sets Ouch!? apart?
Ouch!?’s run at BoBC4 was, to put it lightly, insane. He lost to the legend himself, Larry Lurr, in his first match outside of pools. He then cracked off 8 straight wins in losers to make it to 3rd at a 400+ person major tournament as the 17th seed. He played a grueling 31 games in that run where he not only beat 5 PGR players, but 2 players that have been ranked in the top 10 and 4 that have been ranked in the top 25. Even the non-PGR players he beat all have PGR wins under their belts.
A season is more than just one tournament, but Ouch?! went from Canada’s biggest secret to a top 20 player in a weekend, and has only continued his streak from there. Ouch?! is only 17 years old, so this is only the beginning. If he starts to travel more, there might be a new top 10 contender to look out for.
A half-year chock full of volatility comes to a close with Yonnas “Yonni” Gadissa mining his way into the PGRU’s top 20, cementing his status as a top Steve representative. Not many players can say that they’re as committed to the grind as Yonni, as he made a point to compete somewhere just about every week, starting from the beginning of the ranking season in early March to the end in mid June.
Pulling from his most notable results, you’ll find dual 13ths at MomoCon 2022 and GENESIS 8, which featured runs that claimed the souls of Skyjay, Maister, Lui$, Cosmos, and Zomba. A 17th place finish at Low Tide City 2022 and a set on Anathema in the process also helped strengthen Yonni’s resume, as well as giving him a lot to build on going into the second half of the year.
With him showcasing his ability to keep up with Ultimate’s top talent, seeing how his late year resume stacks up against his early year variant will be interesting to say the least.
Next up out of Georgia’s never-ending belt of young talent, “Ddee's" ascent to top player status was predicted by many during the quarantine era. Now, just shy of his 16th birthday, he has officially made one major step towards making that a reality, debuting at 18th on the PGRU.
Even with his age playing a big role in his lack of travel in the first half of 2022, Ddee managed to cobble together some pretty big wins, defeating the likes of Kola, Peabnut, Sonix, Jake, Dark Wizzy, Lui$, Goblin, and Riddles. He also made great use of his limited opportunities to compete at qualified events, posting a 2nd placer at Keep it REAL: Collegiate and winning 6 straight sets in Losers bracket to finish 5th at MomoCon 2022.
The only real knock against Ddee is his sample size, having only entered 5 events total during the season, but this will likely be remedied as he ages. Regardless, there’s no denying what we’ve seen from him so far: he’s legit.
By Robert "BobbyWasabi" Wilson
Tyler "Marss" Martins reemerged this season like a time traveler in an unfamiliar world.
Fighters Pass 2 had added 5 new quirky meta threats to the roster; and his once-great main ZSS, the character he piloted all the way to first at Genesis 7, just wasn’t the same anymore. He had also taken a notable departure from attending his scene’s local events, allowing in-region competition like Axiom XL and Ling to run wild, besting Marss in game five sets at CT Gamercon 5 and earning spots on the PGRU for the first time.
The world didn’t stop while Marss was away, but that didn’t stop him from adapting and overcoming.
At Genesis 8, Marss showed the world he was still fully capable of thriving in a post-lockdown meta, taking sets off Rockman, Lancelot, ESAM, Kola, and Aaron. He might’ve even gone further if not for one of his personal demons, Olimar, as he got caught in ‘The Myran Zone’ for 7th place.
There’s a fight in Marss awaiting to be reignited — the spark that gets everyone on the edge of their seat; a determination to be the best player in the entire world.
The journey ahead will be difficult, but it’s not one he hasn’t already conquered before.
While most other players accrued points for the Smash World Tour by attending events in their home regions, Santiago “Chag” Pérez Checchi went on his own Chag World Tour. The Mexican Palutena main has entered major tournaments in seven different countries so far this year, earning plenty of good wins in the process.
At Virtuocity Smash Open in Qatar, Chag tore through many of the Middle East’s best players on his losers run, culminating with a 6-0 win over eMass in grand finals. He also double-eliminated MkLeo’s freshly-minted R.O.B. to win Ultimate Tropical Arena in Cuba. Meanwhile, he finished in the top 8 of North American majors like Collison and Delfino Maza RETA.
Chag’s greatest obstacle this season was his inconsistency, as he dropped sets to unranked players like Luma and Stocktaker69. Even so, he racked up wins against the likes of Tweek, Riddles, BigBoss, Elegant, and Skyjay, proving he is still a solid pick to make a deep run in any bracket.
By Jack "Trash Day!" Clifton
Robert "Myran" Herrin came into this season under the radar. He hadn’t been in top 16 of a major tournament since MSM 240 in August of 2021, and he was missing the top tier wins he needed to break out of the Area 51 limbo he inhabited in PGRU season 2.
That all changed this season. His Genesis 8 run alone would be enough for him to crack the top 50, defeating 5 players on the PGRU ballot including 3 that made the top 50, but at his 3 majors this season he beat five PGR players and only had one loss outside the top 10 to Ling, who is ranked 28th.
This season, Myran reminded everyone of two very important facts:
By Dara "Daramgar" M. Gar
Pau “sisqui” Caire, the greatest Samus in the world, debuts on the PGRU NA with a stellar 14th place finish. Hailing all the way from Spain, sisqui is one of just two European players on the NA PGRU, representing his home country of Spain.
sisqui traveled to a total of just two North American majors this season, and both times he managed to crush his seed, racking up some impressive wins along the way. Originally seeded a mere 27th at Genesis 8, Sisqui instead places 9th, beating Big D, MVD, and even Riddles himself. Similarly, at Battle of BC 4, instead of placing 10th as anticipated, he overcomes the odds and instead takes 7th, beating ESAM and Cosmos. Throughout events both in NA and back home in EU, sisqui managed to pick up notable wins on Kurama, Raflow, Varun, and both Mr. E and Mr. R.
If you ever find yourself at a tournament and need to know exactly where sisqui is, just follow the cries of an entire European crowd yelling “vamos” for their favorite Samus. And, by the way, make sure to stay tuned to see where Sisqui lands on the PGRU EU.
By Jack "Trash Day!" Clifton
Antony "MuteAce" Hoo got to be both the unstoppable force and the immovable object this season, riding his complex defensive movement in neutral and explosive combos to 2 major top 8’s and wins over some of the best players in the world. He was one of two players with a winning record on Sparg0 (the other being MkLeo), and was also able to notch wins over Scend and Yonni at Momocon to finish his best ever season.
There’s no reason to think that MuteAce will slow down either, his pre-season results were also excellent with a 3rd place finish at Let’s Make Big Moves 2022 and a pair of 9th place finishes at the SWT Championships and Mainstage 2021.
Carlos “Sonix” Pérez is the name, consistency’s his game. The Dominican Republic’s premier player showed off his unique ability to dodge upsets by placing 5th at both Pound and MomoCon. Along the way, he exclusively dropped sets to top 5 players in North America; quite literally every other player on this ranking had worse losses than Sonix this season.
In addition, Sonix proved to be no slouch against the lower-ranked opponents he faced. His resume of wins for this season included the likes of MuteAce, Myran, Jakal, Goblin, and Gackt. However, his failure to secure wins over any higher-ranked opponents kept him from getting into the top 10.
Even so, the future looks bright for Sonix. After the end of the season, Sonix placed 1st at CEO with wins over Riddles, Dabuz, and Tweek, proving that he is still capable of taking down players in the upper echelon of competitive Ultimate. With his impressive consistency against lower-level players and his increasing ability to challenge higher-level players, this Wi-fi warrior turned offline threat is poised to reach greater heights than ever before.
A great philosopher once said, “What goes up must come down.” Yet, Sonix’s feet don’t show signs of touching the ground any time soon.
By Hugh-Jay "trade war" Yu
In 2003, SephirothKen won Tournament GO 4, North America’s first ever Super Smash Bros. Melee major. Nineteen years later, Kengo “KEN” Suzuki would be the second man with the tag “KEN” to take home a North American major at Battle of BC 4 - and he’d accomplish it, coincidentally enough, with Sephiroth.
KEN’s route to the throne at BoBC was no easy feat, also; his run involved taking out some of the strongest players in Canada and Japan in Riddles, Shuton and Tea. KEN’s other stateside venture at Pound was less impressive than his BoBC run, but still involved strong wins over Puppeh and LeoN.
Whether it be with the Blue Blur or the One-Winged Angel, nobody controls the tempo of a match quite like KEN, and it’s always a joy seeing him show his dominance in North America. We’re looking forward to another strong season of performances in America, and with two strong North American major results racked up in the back half of 2022 already (5th at Crown II and Double Down), KEN has more than established himself as a top player in the West, and he’s a threat to watch out for any time you see him in bracket.
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