Ultimate's Rising Stars: Makoto Appears Out Of Thin Air

By Robert "Bobby Wasabi" Wilson | 09/01/21

However, none of these can even compare to that of Makoto

. A Sheik main out of Michigan, they’re already gearing up to be one of the most fearsome rookies in competitive Smash Ultimate history and, dare I say, gaming itself.

Why’s that you may ask? Well it just so happens that this week was their first recorded week of playing competitive Smash. No indication of any previous tournaments can be found on Smash.gg, PGstats.com, or anywhere else. Despite this, they're already off to an incredible start with what little data we have to work with!

At their first ever tournament, Traverse City Smashdown, they landed a 1st place finish by beating out 51 other completely real competitors! Not only this, but they did so without dropping a single game, an incomprehensibly impressive feat. Especially when this event was host to some of Traverse City’s strongest competitors including Vladimir Leffen

, Expand Dong, and OwO

. In Grand Finals they managed to defeat Ganonman

in an intense 3-0 victory.

That wasn’t the end to Makoto’s unprecedented first week. The following day in Presque Isle, MI they attended Lighthouse Smash and managed to place 3rd. In their defense, the competition was fierce at this event. Even though Makoto fans may shed a tear over their hero’s defeat, they can rest easy knowing each of their losses must have been a close 3-0. Despite a disappointing showing, 3rd place is nothing to scoff at for such a stacked bracket. Michigan Smash is known for its intense competition, but nobody could have foreseen the strong lineup this tournament had which included ‘Eddie’, ‘Eddie (Ohio)’, and ‘Eddie (Canada)’.

Sheik has been making waves as of late, especially after VoiD’s spectacular showing at Ultimate Summit 3. It’s inspiring that a player such as Makoto could pick up the sticks following that performance, inspired to help put Sheik on the map, and make a name for themselves so early on into their career.

(We reached out to Makoto for comment but did not hear back by the time of this article’s publication.)

EDITOR'S NOTE FROM Jack "Jackie Peanuts" Moore: First of all, a huge thank you to Aghi for going through the work to unearth the absurdity that was Makoto. If you haven't read through his Twitter thread detailing everything, do so right now. To summarize: Makoto is not a real player. Somebody made these two fake tournaments on Smash.gg and they were a part of the data readout I use to compile the weekly map posts; the only reason I didn't include the other one on the local map was the bracket was unfinished.

As a grassroots scene, Smash's data collection is a community effort. We can't make posts like the weekly map posts without relying on data from tournament organizers and bracket runners across the world. I will certainly keep a stronger eye out for red flags like the three Eddies (I'm an Eddie (Canada) fan for life now), and I'm currently looking to see if there have been other instances of this kind of dupe in prior map posts.

However, I'm just one person, and in the process of cross-checking 50+ tournaments per week, something is bound to slip past me in the future. If you ever see anything that looks out of place or just plain incorrect, please fill out a data feedback form and we will look into it as soon as we can.

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.