Hello and welcome to Day 5 of PMRank! Today we start with the top 10 of PMRank2016. All of these players have proven time and time again with their placings that they belong here. Each has ended up in the top 8 of national tournaments multiple times and each has upset at least one of the top 6 during 2016. These players are all names to be feared, and could be ranked #1 in almost any region.
PMRank is a panel-based Power Ranking of the top 50 Project M players worldwide. Players, commentators, and tournament organizers within the community had the opportunity to apply to be panelists, and we ended up with about 20 panelists by the time of the project's conclusion. Initially, 85 players were qualified to be ranked based on their placings and attendance at major Project M events throughout 2016. Only 50 highly skilled players made the final list.
With that information in mind, the panelists were given the following prompt:
Given all of the results of 2016 in Project M, if everyone on this list entered 50 tournaments, who on average would place the best?
Panelists were also tasked with rating each player on their list from 1-10, with the lowest ranking player given a 1 and the highest a 10, scaling it appropriately. For each player, the highest and lowest rating on all panelists lists were removed when averaging votes to reduce variance.
This project would not have been possible without the dedicated volunteers who helped us engineer spreadsheets, track down tournament data, construct head-to-head charts, create and revise ranking ballots, write and edit player summaries, and gather photographs. A number of photographers have given us permission to use their high-quality photographs of Project M players for the purposes of this project as well.
All that said, let's start off this very talented top 10 with rank 10:
Rating: 8.634
Other Notable Results: 2nd at Gauntlet 5, 2nd at New Fish, 2nd at Lost in the Darc, 3rd at Gauntlet 6, 3rd at Shots Fired 2
Nick “Flipp” Filippides was perhaps one of the biggest surprises of 2016. He played Project M competitively for just a short 9 months before he began to visibly break into the upper echelon of play. Known for his sick Snake combo videos more than his tournament results at the time, he took 3rd place at Shots Fired 2 in March, defeating ESAM, Ripple and Mr Lz along the way. He was only stopped by Junebug (in a game 5 set) and Professor Pro, with whom he would repeatedly clash for the title of best Snake player in the world. Flipp soon proved that Shots Fired 2 was no accident, taking Supernova from winner’s side just a month later over the likes of Switch, Darc, Malachi, and Venom, whom he beat in both winner’s finals and grand finals. Beyond his tournament victory, Flipp attracted attention for his performance in the Supernova crew battle, where he demonstrated a newfound Down-Air lock on ThundeRzReiGN. A heavy use of Snake’s Down-Air would become a calling card of Flipp’s patient playstyle.
Going into the summer, the Connecticut native seemed poised to remain a national threat for the rest of the year, and indeed, his next performance at The Big Balc allowed him to once again showcase his complex combo setups and patient neutral. With a winner’s bracket run that included wins over Westballz, Phresh, and Lunchables, Flipp took 2nd at the West Coast national. During the latter half of the year, Flipp found himself too busy to enter events as consistently as he would have liked, and his relatively low Olympus placing may have been a symptom of this lack of practice. Still, he ended 2016 with an excellent 3rd place finish at Gauntlet 6 over some of New York’s finest. While it remains to be seen how Flipp will stack up in 2017, his competitive fire appears to be returning in full, and we’re sure to see plenty of explosive gameplay from him in 2017.
Written by: Sabre and FlashingFire
Rating: 8.742
Other Notable Results: 2nd at Legacy Special, 3rd at Salty Juans 3, 3rd at BroCal’s Gym: Leg Day, 5th at EVO 2016
At the beginning of 2016, there were several players contending for the title of “Best Ness,” such as Boiko, StereoKiDD, and Reslived. Jose “Jose V” Villasana wasn’t initially in the conversation, despite his modest 13th place finish at FinalBOSS. However, on his home turf during The Big Balc, Jose V defeated the likes of StereoKiDD and Reslived in the Ness round robin, and outplaced his Ness rivals with a spectacular 5th place finish. On his way there, Jose V took out ThundeRzReiGN in a clutch last hit scenario, as well as his SoCal brethren Venom and Sosa. The dash-dance heavy Ness with impeccable PK Thunder ledge sweetspots didn’t stop there; he followed up with another 5th place at EVO 2016.
Later in the year at Salty Juans 3, he tore through losers with wins on Blue and Aero to place 3rd. When he’s not travelling across the country and placing high in tournaments, he dominates SoCal with with his Riverside crewmate Sosa, cementing himself as #2 on their Power Rankings for most of the year. His Ness is creative and dynamic, a remarkable pair of traits to have while playing a character known for a flowchart punish game. He’s not afraid to resort to unorthodox options to extend combos or to simply end a string with Nair to maintain positional advantage. Jose V wrote himself an impressive resume throughout the year, and topped it all off with an emphatic 7th place finish at Olympus, beating Malachi before falling to Lunchables and being eliminated by Gallo in one of the most entertaining sets of the year. Following Olympus, Jose V had yet another strong showing at Rewired, taking out Strong Bad and Jason Waterfalls on the way to 4th place. He has not only proven himself as the undisputed best Ness of 2016, but also shown that when he is playing hot, there are few players on the planet who can hope to stop him.
Written by: Darth Shard and Strong Bad
Rating: 9.026
Other Notable Results: 1st at Super Smash Con 2016, 1st at Shuffle VIII, 1st at Kings of the North V, 2nd at Push More Buttons, 4th at EVO 2016, 4th at ARLO 3, 5th at Blacklisted 2
Netplay warrior Alex “Hyperflame” Mireles took his high-APM Lucas to the big stage in 2016, proving himself a consistent threat to every player who faced him in bracket. Despite a disappointing start to the year at Shots Fired 2, Hyperflame proceeded to take 1st at Shuffle VIII over BaconPancakes, Anther, and ThundeRzReiGN, and didn’t slow down from there. With his tricky PSI Magnet pressure, tight movement, and prolonged combos, Hyperflame fought his way through Envy, Machiavelli, Darc, iPunchKidsz, and Zhime to 4th place at Supernova. In the summer at Smash n Splash 2, Mireles upset fellow MD/VA competitor Junebug to secure a top 8 placing. Next week at Low Tier City 4, he was sent to loser’s bracket early by Mr Lz, but earned a runback set by defeating Shokio, StereoKiDD, Blue, and Strong Bad. Hyperflame was then able to clutch it out against Lz in the rematch, finishing 4th at the second largest PM tournament of the year. These tournaments catapulted him into the national spotlight, and every set he played served to further solidify his standing as both a national threat and a crowd-pleasing competitor.
During 2016, Hyperflame placed top 8 at no less than 7 different PMCC events, tying with Junebug for the most top 8 finishes in the circuit. He remains one of just four players to maintain a positive set record against Olympus champion ThundeRzReiGN in 2016. In addition to excellent results throughout the PMCC, Hyperflame took home the gold at Super Smash Con 2016 and Kings of the North V, triumphing over the likes of Frozen, Hungrybox, Marshall, Ripple, and Dirtboy. Hyperflame’s spectacular combos have become part of some of the most memorable sets of the year, and this fan-favorite ended 2016 looking ready to take his first supermajor in the coming year.
Written by: Sabre and FlashingFire
Rating: 9.108
Other Notable Results: 2nd at Do or DI, 3rd at Blacklisted 2, 3rd at Project M Showdown 5
Brooklyn native Anthony “Gallo” Gallo is a well-respected veteran who has been around in the scene for many years, but something clearly clicked in 2016. As he began to refine his pressure and punishes on floaties (often a weak point among Mario players) and stepped down from local TO duties, he became a consistent finisher in top 3 of some of the most competitive majors of the year. At Do or DI, he beat a veritable pantheon of NY/NJ demigods to place 2nd after an uncharacteristic loss to Shiny Zubat. He also placed 3rd at We Tech Those 2, recovering from an early loss in winner’s bracket by beating Hyperflame, BaconPancakes, Phresh, Shiny Zubat, SonED, and Junebug, before finally going down to Envy in a hard-fought game 5 set.
Gallo’s gameplan features a footsie-heavy neutral with a healthy dose of hard reads. Rather than playing overly safe with fireball camping, Gallo is stubbornly old-school, using well-refined and stylish punishes to make the most of every neutral game win. Within his own incredibly talented region, he's had solid records versus many other top players at locals, closing out the year as #2 on the super-stacked NY/NJ Power Rankings above the likes of EmuKiller, Switch, Frozen, and a myriad of other players that landed themselves on this year’s PMRank.
The real highlight of Gallo’s 2016 is undoubtedly his ascent through the ridiculously competitive Olympus bracket. Sosa took Gallo out of winner’s bracket, but he could not snuff out the Mario player’s fire. Gallo eliminated EmuKiller, battled with Jose V in a hair-raising game 5 set, defeated Junebug, and then got his revenge on Sosa. Gallo finally fell to Texas titan Lunchables for an incredible 3rd place. Gallo's love for the game shined brightly this year, building hype and enriching the community for viewers and competitors as he came more in the limelight. If you ask him, he’ll tell you that he doesn’t care how well he places, but perhaps that’s the very secret to his success. It seems like Gallo will be with Project M for as long as it's around.
Written by: Apollo Ali and FlashingFire
Rest of the List
Credits
PMRank Staff: Adam “Strong Bad” Oliver, Cody “Yata!” Anderson, Brennan “FlashingFire” Connolly, Devin “reslived” Gajewski, Nick “Boiko” Boiko.
Graphic Design: Eric “FingerStripes” Bohorquez, Desiree “TinyKasama” Macasieb
Editing: Adam “Strong Bad” Oliver, Ahmed “Apollo Ali” Akbar, Cody “Yata!” Anderson, Brennan “FlashingFire” Connolly, et al.
