Are crew battles a "thing"?

[Juapac87]

I recently watched the North America v.s. Japan crew battle Frostbite 2017, and I was just wondering. Are crew battles a common thing in competitive smash? I'm trying to get into competitive myself so I was a bit curious.

 

[Lola Luftnagle]

Crew battles are common side events but y'all can expect to see them more often in major tourneys.

 

[Juapac87]

That's pretty awesome. I think it's a really entertaining format.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Larger tournaments typically have them as side events. They might be common at some locals.

 

[Juapac87]

Is there a specific way that the crews are put together? Like the the top tournament fighters or just whoever volunteers? I think it would be pretty cool to see it featured more sort of like e-sport olympics on a national level.

 

[JagerCrush]

Crew battles are indeed a thing, but typically small tournaments such as single day locals don't have them, though you might see like college vs college. They are more likely the bigger the tournament and are mostly seen in large 3-day tournaments. The teams typically consist of the top ranked players and not volunteers. The parameters can vary as there things like character crew battles where a team consists of the top players for a particular character and everyone must play the same character on the same team (i.e. Fox's vs Sheik's). Most of the time it's region though. Continent vs continent, country vs country, state vs state, etc. It usually depends on the player base as a tournament in California can likely have a North CA and a South CA team as many players from that area would be in attendance. So you can see things like NorCal vs SoCal vs East Coast vs Japan. The region they choose is heavily dependent on quality and number of players from a given area in attendance at a given tournament. There isn't anything concrete about how teams are formed so it does vary a little, they can be seemingly random as you could have a Team Pepsi vs Team Coca-Cola crew battle based on which soda you prefer. But more times than not it's region.

As a friendly fyi crew battles are also most often played on a Friday of 3-day event, usually as a way to wrap up the day. It's something that kinda adds excitement to the first day of a tournament which is typically a less exciting day for viewers. Things like a tournament ending in a crew battle such as Civil War ZeRo vs Ally are rare.

 

[Juapac87]

That is very informative and clarifies a lot of it to me. Thank you. Does anyone know if there has ever been an attempt at a crew league? Something along the lines of a regular sports league like NFL or MLB, with teams contending with each other over a season to earn a spot into a playoff situation. I've been watching a lot of competitive smash lately and I love the way they do the singles and doubles tournaments, but I think it would be cool to have a crew league that features more of the teams these amazing players belong too. Also, is it difficult to start an esports team? Is there some sort of proper channels to go through?

 

[Pyrover]

Some regions have a collegiate league. Essentially it involves someone with a hand in tournament organization (Max Ketchum runs one, for example) setting up crew tournaments for teams from participating colleges. These are a fun time but you aren't likely to see top players in them. At present, there's not really a standard setup for high level players outside of certain tournaments.