Ultimate's Rising Stars: Axiom XL, The Demon Unleashed

By Robert "BobbyWasabi" Wilson | 08/11/21

Before his breakout performance at Push The Limit 12, in which he defeated the likes of

Marss

,

naitosharp

, and

DM

, he was consistently one of New England’s best players. Many in the region would have referred to him as a “hidden boss,” someone you should not under any circumstance underestimate. With the addition of Kazuya to the game’s roster, it’s hardly a secret anymore. A demon has been unleashed.

Axiom XL's run at Push The Limit 12, held in Massachusetts on July 24th, 2021. Click to expand.

Andrew “Axiom XL” Larrazabal, 23, grew up as a fan of fighting games and considers Marvel vs. Capcom 3 to be a massive influence. In high school, his brother brought the existence of competitive Smash to his attention, which led XL to research each of the games out at the time.

XL found himself underwhelmed by Super Smash Bros. for N64, but Evo’s announcement that Melee would be a featured title in 2013 prompted him to look into the game. He describes it as “love at first sight.” XL would go on to practice the game religiously, gravitating towards Falco and spending months learning various tech.

One day, a friend of his recommended the venue Game Underground as a place to compete.

He entered a Project M event they were hosting, and even managed to make it out of pools. XL would take a year-long break before returning to GU to compete in Smash 4 tournaments.

Summer 2015 was when Ryu was added to the game’s roster as DLC. Given his Capcom FGC roots, it seemed only natural that XL would want to pick up the character. That season he made New England’s Power Rankings for the first time, earning the 15th spot.

During the Smash 4 days, New England had a Pokemon-inspired "Gym Leader challenge" in which players would get points for defeating notable high ranking opponents. One such player was Marss, whom XL hadn’t even heard of at this point. He attributes winning a set against Marss in Smash 4 as a turning point for his confidence playing Smash: “If I could beat him, I could beat anyone.”

XL’s stint with Ryu was short-lived. The character never really clicked with him. Instead, he made the switch to Cloud shortly after release and became one of the best players of the character in New England, a region that had notably few DLC-centric players at the time. By the end of Smash 4’s life he was considered to be the 11th best player in New England, having taken sets off Marss,

LingLing

, and

Craftis

during his tenure.

In Ultimate, XL gravitated towards Wario right out the gate. He capitalized off the momentum he had built up down the stretch with Smash 4 and ranked 15th in New England Ultimate’s inaugural Winter 2018 season. He would consistently place first at the weekly One Up Games tournaments in Plainville, MA, which generally saw players such as naitosharp and

Unleashed

attending.

XL would consistently be a regional threat, climbing his way to 7th on the regional power rankings by Fall 2019, but he had yet to travel outside of New England until Frostbite 2020. At the S-Tier major he placed a modest 65th, just above his projected seed of 103. It was at the pre-major tournament that XL first showed the world what he was capable of. At Ursa Minor 4, just one day before Frostbite, XL placed Top 8, upsetting

Maister

. If you lived outside of New England, this would have come as a surprise. For XL’s home region, it was Thursday.

Axiom XL at Ursa Minor 4. Click to expand.

Due to the pandemic, XL wouldn’t be able to use the momentum from Frostbite to further his reputation. While not entirely absent from online competition, he remarks that the situation was less than ideal. “I hated it. I can’t play online the way I do offline,” recalls XL. “React into parrying into killing you. I can’t do that online. I have to do way more bait and punish than I normally do.” He admits that he was concerned about being washed after the online era.

Luckily for XL, his fears were misplaced. At his first offline tournament back, Bay State Beatdown Invitational, he got 2nd place only losing to naitosharp. Less than a month later Kazuya was revealed and subsequently released. On July 5, 2021 XL made his debut with the new character, placing 2nd at the One Up Games weekly losing to DM in game 10 of grand finals. Three days later he would demonstrate what the character was truly capable of. 

At Bay State Beatdown Week 4 XL went on an insane losers bracket run. Losing early in a game 3 set to

TheRed

, he would power through and beat

Captain Q

,

DM

,

Jeremiah

, a runback on TheRed,

The Law

, and

KOM

. In grand finals he would 3-0

Nuggetz

before winning the entire tournament in a 3-1 reset. 

Later that month was Push the Limit 12, a New England regional event. XL shocked the world by upsetting Marss

3-1 in losers finals before placing 2nd to Light. Since this event, many have acknowledged that XL is the best Kazuya right now. But why did he switch to the character so quickly? Well, there are a few factors.

Ultimate Patch 12.0, which introduced Kazuya, also happened to nerf Wario. On top of this, XL was genuinely excited by Kazuya’s inclusion. “I wanted a Tekken rep in this game, right?” says XL. “I was always interested to see how Smash would implement those types of characters in this game.” It’s evident by his history with competitive Smash that he’s always wanted to main an FGC character too, but never quite clicked with what the game had to offer up till this point. In contrast to Ryu, Ken, and Terry; XL believes that “Kazuya required more execution which is what I was looking for.”

While XL failed to move past the nominations phase of the upcoming Smash Ultimate Summit 3, he still garnered more than 1300 people showing their support for his inclusion. As of the writing of this article, his current plan is to begin attending more events now that his car is fixed. He has already pre-registered for Let’s Make Big Moves 2022 and says he will be looking forward to attending more out of region events in the future.

BobbyWasabi is a Villager main from New England. He does everything from competing, video editing for Panda, writing, and tournament organizing. You can follow him on Twitter at @BobbyWasabi.