This weekend, a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament was taking place, known as Pound 2020. Situations involving COVID-19 is forcing tournament organizers to hold events online in order to hold tournaments.
For instance, this year, Pound 2020 (normally a local major in Maryland or Virginia), is being held online due to COVID-19. Initially, it was canceled due to the coronavirus, but was later reannounced as an online event.
That sounds great and all, given that the show can go on, but some games’ online play is not so great. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is one such case. Its online is kind of bad at times.
The Pound 2020 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament is the stage of a controversy involving the event. During the event, a player named Grayson was leading 2-0 in a Top 32 set against Cosmos. Sounds normal. right?
The Pound 2020 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Controversy
The incident started as a mostly normal set. Grayson hosted game 1 and won it. Then, a report came in that players were experiencing lag during the match. Cagt, one of the organizers, requested that both players provide information about their network environments.
Cosmos reported a ping of 2, a download speed of 93.53 Mbps, and an upload speed of 60.48 Mbps (shown below).
Meanwhile, Grayson had a ping of 26, a download speed of 34.76, and an upload speed of 10.82 Mbps (shown below).
To further this, Cagt hosted a separate lobby, where Grayson and Cosmos each performed a button check for lag. Both were deemed fine at the time, and Grayson and Cosmos played game 2. Grayson won again, and Cosmos reported lag again.
In a collection of various tweets, Cagt sums up the remainder of the scenario, shown below.
Grayson was unfortunately disqualified from both his winners’ bracket slot and a theoretical losers bracket position. For context, almost all fighting game tournaments run double elimination brackets (if you lose a match, you’re sent to the losers/lower bracket, and if you lose there, your tournament run is done).
However, Cagt, after the event, contacted Grayson, and they agreed that Cagt would give him a fully compensated trip to any event of Grayson’s choosing after the pandemic ends.
What did you think about the Pound 2020 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate situation? Do you agree with Grayson’s disqualification? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
If you like content about gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic, be sure to read our article on why Sweden thinks gaming is a safe haven here.