Hosts Marc and Remen can look back on another successful edition of the Avalon series in Zoetermeer, featuring European top players and a healthy dose of local newcomers. With the venue cap of 100 players easily reached, this weekend’s tournament had 80 players duke it out in Melee singles, 19 in Brawl singles and 25 in Smash 4 3DS singles. Though there were singles and teams events for both Melee and Brawl, an amateur bracket for Melee and a singles bracket for Smash 4, the tournament ran well on time, starting only 15 mins late and finishing around 9.30 PM.
As has already been covered in an overview released earlier this week, the Melee portion featured three strong international contenders in addition to most of the Dutch Melee pros. The notable ones missing from singles were Zgetto and Faab due to work and Marc, who only entered Melee teams. The international attendance resulted in some intense sets with a few, especially for the Dutch, exciting upsets. Alliance Armada however exceeded the already high expectations by winning the event in a very dominant fashion, showing he’s more than ready for the January events in Sweden and the US.
Ice was projected to be in grand finals, given his performance this past year, and when he sent Amsah to losers 3-0 and beat Over Triforce 3-2 it looked like this was going to be the case. Well-known for his comebacks, you can never count Amsah out as the Dutch Sheik veteran shattered LLL.Remen’s ambitions with a 3-0 victory, returning the favour for a grand finals loss two weeks prior. He then moved on to a series of intense Sheik dittos against Over Triforce, which ended up 3-1 in his favor. Amsah’s rematch with Ice in losers finals went down to the wire. Had Ice decided to hang on the ledge a little longer, the ambiance in the primarily Dutch crowd could have been very different, but they rejoiced and cheered loudly as their champion taunted and Ice plummeted to his doom after a fair trade knocked him away too far to recover.
The atmosphere changed considerably when Amsah faced the European champion in grand finals, the first time the two met in a grand finals since BEAST 1 in 2011. Amsah scrambled each game to not get 4 stocked as he tried to make something work with both Sheik and Fox. A tense crowd changed into one filled with jokes and laughter, with LLL.Remen even promising a prize to Armada if he managed to get the 4 stock on Amsah. A bitter pill to swallow for Ice, as his winners finals set against Armada, though a solid 0-3, wasn't nearly as one-sided.
Though the sets between Amsah, Over and Ice were likely the favorites of the day, LLL.Jeapie’s set vs OverTriforce was certainly another one to remember. With the set count at 2-2 Jeapie connected a stomp to knee on the final stock. Over recovered as Zelda and managed to push back. Jeapie tried for an edgehog with a flashy moonwalk to edgecanceled stomp but rolled too early. In the end Over managed to get the Falcon into a gimp position and clutch it out.
The amateur bracket for Melee, featuring those placing 49th and 65th in the regular bracket, was won by Tonie, generally more known for his prowess in Brawl.
Melee Teams featured a rather unusual configuration of players as Amsah and Adam both had to deal with their respective teammates Faab and Zgetto not being present, resulting in Amsah teaming with Ser and Adam teaming with Ice. LLL.Jeapie teamed with his rival Over, LLL.Remen ended up with Reaper from Germany and Marc begrudgingly settled for Alliance Armada. Though Adam & Ice and Amsah & Ser managed to take a game against Armada & Marc, none of the teams were capable of proving a serious threat to the Peach duo. They bested Jeapie and Over in winners finals with a solid 3-0, and took grand finals against Adam and Ice with a dominant 3-1 victory, though Ice had a clutch 1 vs 2 comeback in the first game. This added another teams victory to Armada’s impressive record.
Smash 4 made its first appearance at Avalon this weekend. Though the top contenders were primarily Dutch, Armada also entered. Though he hadn’t played the game much yet, his Diddy managed to get 2nd with solid victories against iStudying’s Greninja in both winners and losers. The big star of the event however was LLL.Mr.R, who dominantly won 3-1 in winners finals using Sheik, including a 3-stock after Armada took the first game, and turned up the flash for a 3-0 victory with Captain Falcon in grand finals. The majority of the tournament was played out on the 3DS, but as the console version hit Europe on Friday, the finals were played out on a Wii U.
Brawl likely made its last appearance at Avalon as a main event. LLL.Mr-R won once more, using Meta Knight, with iStudying and his veteran Diddy as runner-up. Tonie finished 3rd using Wolf and Snake. Mr-R and iStudying also took teams over Four Sword and Soreru.
Avalon VII will take place on January 31st, 2015. Registration and further details will go live next week. In the meantime you can enjoy all the matches over at SaltyPlayground who again provided a high quality stream for the Melee portion of the tournament. All Avalon VI media can be found here as is the case for Brawl and Smash 4 replays to the extent that we have them.
Many thanks go out to Ryuker and Remen for their contributions to this write-up.
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