Event
Tipped Off 16 was a tournament running from June 7-8th in Atlanta, GA at the Atlanta Zoo. On the whole, I think Tipped Off was one of the strongest events I’ve been to in the last year and a half, and quite possibly the strongest I’ve attended since Riptide 2023.
For positives, I think that we must first talk about the zoo. I am very much a “travel the world and sit in the convention center to play Melee” kind of competitor. I know what I like. I know why I go to tournaments; to play Super Smash Brothers Melee For the Nintendo Gamecube. I have been to multiple Riptides and never set foot in the water park. That being said, I had to go the zoo, and had a great time doing so. Being able to look out from the playing area and see elephants and giraffes was also a trip in the best of ways, and it would be neat if more events sought novel venues like this to add a bit of memorable spice to the package. I think it would generate some of the good kind of FOMO in terms of getting people to come out, and it certainly enhanced the experience for everyone I talked to about it in this case.
Nextly, the event deserves props for the incredible amount of streaming it did. I knew there would be a main and quad stream, but when I realized I had heard not quad (singular) but quads (plural) while setting up I nearly did a double take. There really isn’t much to say about that besides acknowledging that a bar has been raised, and while other events should necessarily be detracted from for lacking this level of streaming, TO should be lauded for putting together the logistics and resources to pull it off. The only way I could see it realistically topped in the future would be if both quads had Slippi.
Lastly, in terms of the raw scheduling and logistics of the event, singles ran nearly flawlessly. The enormous amount of streaming made a very convenient central hub to wrangle top players to, which cut down on associated delays, and staffing/pools running was plenty adequate. I do think that pools captaining was a little “loose” for first time attendees (would have been a disaster to apply the same attitute toward Ultimate if it had been there), but there were enough veterans in each pool that it worked out well. Furthermore, I personally like the round 1 straight into round 2 structure, and I feel vindicated in that yet again with another event pulling it off to great success. By contrast, I do think that the doubles-all-on-Sunday experiment was worth trying, but ultimately constituted a failure. Simply put, too many teams dropped out as a result of salt or wanting to focus on top cut of singles, and the level of focus and intensity in the room for doubles was noticeably less than usual at an event this size. Furthermore, creating a situation in which top teams like Panda/Krudo feel the need to drop out so they can not have to switch between doubles/singles, and having the end of doubles play out offstream, are simply not it. Credit where it is due for trying something new, but that particular piece of the formatting is not one I recommend anyone repeat or imitate.
For further negatives, I really only have very minor complaints. The first one is that the setup situation was not perfect, but truthfully it was still more than adequate, and suffered more from physical space limitations at the venue than supply or planning deficits. It was not at all a situation like most Big Houses or last year’s Genesis where getting games was impossible half the time, but it also wasn’t quite on the “grinder’s paradise” level like the last couple of Riptides or the old Shine series. Additionally, while I usually go to bat for the South as a region for hosting events, I admit that ATL traffic is singularly awful, and the comparatively high prices are less “quaint and Southern” and more what people may expect in major population centers. Still, these amount to quibbles, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Tipped off and in Atlanta.
As for the bracket, two things stand out I think to both me and everyone else: The continuation of the rise of Kyle Krudo and the seemingly unstoppable forces of Cody and Zain. Firstly, the one that virtually everyone is pleased to see: Krudo is no longer “on the cusp” or “next up” in any way; He is here, and he is him. Winning Full Bloom and then taking wins over Moky, Mango, and amsa means there should be no further doubt. I’d say hats off to him, but at this point it feels like kneeling reverence might be closer to appropriate. As for Cody/Zain…I know Zain has had a couple of events lately where he didn’t look up to his usual standard, and that Cody will inevitably lose to a random low tier in the next couple months, but it’s obvious to me that these are the best two players in the world. I know that sounds like recency bias, but to any naysayers I ask you this: did you, in your heart of hearts, really believe that Zain was the fourth best player in the world going into Tipped Off? I don’t know of anyone who did, and crazy pop off antics aside he readily proved his superiority to the field here. As for Cody, what more can be said? #1 for the summer locked up, frontrunner in the two horse race for year end #1, and the greatest Fox to ever do it.
That isn’t to say the very end of the bracket held all of the interesting bits. A number of players more quietly had very strong showings, most notably a few players I think people have recently forgotten about. First in this group is Llod, who made a killer run to 5th, losing only to Zain and amsa. I think this is a run that probably surprised a lot of more casual watchers, but to what I will affectionately call my fellow ball-knowers (nerds), there was little else to expect. Llod has always been a juggernaut of a competitor, hampered more by his professional schedule/attendance than his skill or practice discipline, and he showed it once again here, taking wins over Junebug, Axe, Soonsay, and Trif. An absolute murderer’s row, and apart from Soonsay I daresay he made it look easy. Kodorin also had an immensely undersung showing, taking out two historical Zain-slayers in Slug and Junebug, while also picking up wins on Fiction and Chem. With more events like this, we could even see a return to top 10 form for him, something I think that has been absent since the loss of his Flyquest sponsorship. Magi did what she did best, beat the brakes off of ever Fox not named Cody and then lose to amsa or Hbox before having an absolutely thrilling set with Mango that she probably should have taken. Soonsay had an insane run to 9th after losing super early to Jchu and nearly falling to Panos (insanely underrated player), taking out Beezy, None, Jmook Moky, and Ossify before finally falling to the aforementioned Llod.
In terms of underperformances, there were always going to be several in a bracket as stacked as this, but none so notable as the pair of Hbox and Jmook. I’m not sure what happened with Hbox: Maelstrom is a very good, IMHO an underrated player, but beating Hbox is admittedly a shock. Nicki too is surprising, given how readily SDJ seems to dispatch him (and every other ice climbers). As for Jmook, his bracket tells a more familiar tale: struggling with Fox. I have not analyzed the sets enough to say whether Jmook has fallen off vs Fox since his breakout, or if the Fox players have figured something out, but the difference in results is more than noticeable. He also just had a nightmare bracket in this instance playing visibly terribly into a Sheik terminator named Panda and having to play a borderline top 10 caliber Fox for 25th. In spite of this, I have faith in very few players like I have faith in Jmook, and believe 100% in his ability to bounce back stronger than ever.
Personal
I did…okay at Tipped Off. I didn’t lose to anyone but top 30 players, but I have a lot of angst about how I played, and the way my set with MOF ended. Still, it was the first event since Genesis I felt reasonably prepared for and I don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake that it’s also the only one in the intervening window I got a decent placing at.
My first two sets were against players I did not know called Rhyme Mime and Ctec. Rhyme Mime was simply too new of a player to pose a serious threat to me, but Ctec was largely fairly solid. They were limited much more by their ability to execute their ideas than the ideas themselves, and I think also understood their plan/options a lot better than they understood mine. Still, a pretty impressive round two opponent, even if they did get 3-0’d.
Next I played Typhoon, in what is an immediate contender for closest set of my entire life. To a significant degree this set was defined by two things, one of which would be a continuing theme later on in my set with Epoodle: getting outdone by newer, more “modern” Marth players by the ledge. The other was my inability to DI f throw, for which I have no excuse. Typhoon demonstrated more than adequate juggling capabilities in this set, but he rarely had to use them because I kept giving him free combos off throw, which really equalized a lot of punish stuff I felt like I would have otherwise had the edge in. As for the ledge/corner stuff, I really need to update my game, and to understand when I’m being outplayed and what my potential pool of adaptations is. S-f pointed out in discord that I’ve had three Marth dittos in the past 2 weeks go game 5 vs unranked players, and while I won all of them, I’d rather not keep doing that. I think polishing up my corner/ledge gameplay is the clearest route to not doing that anymore, and I’ll endeavor to clean that up in the future. I will also note that Typhoon SD’d last stock game 5 going for the koopa edgeguard, and while it would not have hit me had he not messed it up, he would have been in better position than me in a very precarious situation (both Marth’s >100 on FD). An unfortunate happening, but I do commend the courage to go for such a frame tight, death-risking technique in the clutch.
My next set was against MOF, and was a pretty frustrating one for me. I had been pinging ice climbers in MO and DMs for over a week before the event, and had succeeded in getting exactly 0 to play with me. I did manage to warm up with Boyd for just a bit before bracket, but other than that the sum total of my practice vs high level ICs since my last set with MOF (in 2022!) was probably running into Frostbyte and Zion a handful of times on unranked, the latter of which I don’t terribly want to play for obvious reasons. This is certainly a john, but I feel as though I put in the effort to prepare for this set and just…couldn’t. I think the solidity of my gameplan and knowledge did shine through, as I was working my way towards a reverse 3-0 before I got clutched on last stock by Sopo. That one hurt especially bad because I deliberately got hit by the upsmash that ultimately killed me, thinking I would keep my composure, take the hit, and reset to neutral for the (hopeful) win. I’ve never been so wrong about kill percents in such a crucial situation, and I just have to hold that for the rest of my life.
Next I played Supersponge, SC’s best player. Out of respect for him and the SC scene, I’m not going to write a lot here, but suffice it to say this was a very quick set. I know he’s good; I’ve seen him piece up some of my friends from TN many times. However, everything just kind of worked for me in this set and it was easily the most lopsided I’ve ever won something this deep in a major bracket.
Lastly, I played Junebug. I’m not going to write too much here because there is absolutely no way my honest feelings won’t be memed on as sour grapes if enough people read this (doubtful). I’ve never left a set where I got 3-0’d and felt disgusted by my opponent afterwards, but there’s a first time for everything. I felt like I wanted to ask June: “Why are you here?” I don’t understand the point of playing the game the way he does, sitting there mashing reversals, hoping the other guy is too nervous or too employed to execute precisely enough. Occasionally running across the stage and full sending grab does not interacting in neutral make. I know he’s a good guy, an excellent commentator, and an objectively great player, but fuck Junebug man. I think people that play like that never set out to win the tournament, never set out to be all that they can be, just try to show off how far they can come despite a handicap and ruin someone else’s day.