PMRank continues after a short hiatus with ranks 30-21! Today’s section of the ranking is filled with coastal rivalry with a few entries from the often underrated Midwest. Catch ranks 20-11 tomorrow here on SmashBoards!
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.
That said, let’s pick up where we left off Tuesday with Rank 30.
Rating: 6.109
Other Notable Results: 3rd at Shuffle VIII, 5th at Super Smash Con, 7th at Blacklisted 2, 2nd at Project M Showdown 5, 7th at Project Clash 14.
MD/VA veteran Raseen “BaconPancakes” Khan’s technical Fox and Diddy have consistently proven to be national-level threats throughout 2016, with strong placings across the country. BaconPancakes began the year by defeating Hyperflame on his way to a 3rd place finish at Shuffle VIII. Continuing to attend large events throughout 2016, BaconPancakes placed 9th at Low Tier City 4, 5th at Super Smash Con, and 17th place at Olympus. With wins over Frozen, Gallo, Envy, Dirtboy, and lloD in 2016, Bacon is looking for his breakout national performance as his career continues.
Written by: Sabre
Rating: 6.275
Other Notable Results: 4th at Shots Fired 2, 3rd at Kings of the North V, 3rd at Tussle Town
The classic 1992 Wesley Snipes movie was absolutely wrong — white men CAN jump. Blake “Ripple” Curry used his patented air-camping to take some of his biggest names ever in 2016, including Professor Pro, Ally, Dirtboy, StereoKiDD, and lloD. His Dedede took him to top 5 at Shots Fired 2, Kings of the North V, and plenty other top placings at regionals. Despite that, Ripple remained notoriously negative about his character’s matchups with Ivysaur, Diddy Kong and other characters, which led him to explore secondaries like Roy, ZSS and Samus throughout the year. Still, he is indisputably at the forefront of Dedede’s meta, drawing on an almost comically deep well of patience to wear down his opponents and convert edgeguards into KOs.
Written by: Apollo Ali
Photo Credit: Casey “CND” Ruiz
Rating: 6.425
Other Notable Results: 5th at Do or DI
Washington Heights native Brandon “StereoKiDD” Boom has split his time between Florida and NYC this year, but he’s kept his Ness hot at regionals and nationals, placing in top 16 at tournaments like FinalBOSS, The Big Balc, LTC4 and Olympus. In a field of accomplished mains, Stereo distinguishes himself as the charismatic Drunken Master of Ness — he keeps his opponents off guard with unpredictable DI mixups out of Down-Tilt, Fair, and PK Fire, often finishing his opponents with unusual moves like PK Flash or the bat-swinging F-Smash. This year, he added many names to his already impressive hit list, including Aion, Dirtboy, Jason Waterfalls, as well as a newly ascendant Switch.
Written by: Apollo Ali
Rating: 6.493
Other Notable Results: 5th at Salty Juans 3, 4th at Clutch City Clash, 1st at Smashed Bros 2
When he isn’t busy teaching the world the how to tie the perfect man-bun, Tom “Aero” Silva spends his time showing the world just how stylish Diddy Kong can be. Known for his item game, Aero revolutionized Diddy play this year by popularizing techniques like the aptly named “Aero nut”, and showing just how far Diddy’s projectile game can go. His unique and innovative style rewarded him in 2016 with impressive wins over the likes of BaconPancakes, Aki, ThundeRzReiGN, and EmuKiller.
Written by: Maddox
Photo Credit: Casey “CND” Ruiz
Rating: 6.661
Other Notable Results: 2nd at BOSS 3, 3rd at Soirée du Smash
One of the staples of SoCal’s Project M scene, Corey “Machiavelli” Fields took down some of the biggest names in the game and proved himself again and again in 2016. His results include strong top 16 placings at Final BOSS, Supernova and the Big Balc, but a stellar 5th place finish at Low Tier City 4 is the crown jewel of them all. Machiavelli’s patient neutral game and notorious dropzone Solar Beams helped him take home wins over the likes of Malachi and Jose V.
While he took a hiatus from the game following EVO 2016, Fields returned with a vengeance in November when he took 2nd place at BOSS 3 in Norcal, taking sets from Pikmon, Boringman and ThundeRz to re-establish himself as a top-tier threat in the evolving Project M tournament scene.
Written by: Sabre
Rating: 6.824
Other Notable Results: 1st at Soirée du Smash, 5th at BroCal’s Gym: Leg Day
Jake “Venom” Hefner burst onto the national scene this year with his outstanding breakout performance at Supernova — he not only upset his in-region rival Sosa, but also took down some of the biggest east coast threats like Malachi and Zhime. He then finished the year strong with an impressive performance at Olympus, taking out StereoKiDD and Switch. Much like Venom himself, his Falcon is brash and aggressive, and with a new Fox cub in training, Venom is aiming to show off more than ever before in 2017.
Written by: Maddox
Rating: 6.860
Other Notable Results: 1st at Battlegrounds 3, 3rd at The Big House 6, 1st at Project MSU 3
Antoine “Anther” Sledge is an old-school Pikachu player long renowned as the second best Melee Pika behind Axe, but he has truly found his place in Project M. Anther started the year strong with a 2nd place showing at Shuffle VIII with a win over BaconPancakes. Over the year, Anther has retained his dominance over the Midwest; he was ranked first in Michigan for the entirety of 2016, and placed 3rd at Big House 6 over Midwest brethren Dirtboy and XYK, defeating Frozen along the way. While Anther hasn’t been as nationally active as many players on this ranking, his dominance within the Midwest and his wins over the likes of Dirtboy, Aion, Ally and XYK have catapulted him to his well-deserved place on the 2016 PMRank.
Written by: Sabre
Rating: 7.003
Other Notable Results: 7th at Do or DI
As the king of Project M Ice Climbers, Messiah “Phresh” Williams made his breakthrough at the national level in 2016. With ICs widely considered a low-tier character, Phresh pioneered a touch-of-death punish game and defined the Ice Climbers for months to come. His big breakout occurred at The Big Balc, where he defeated Sosa, Oracle and Junebug to finish at 3rd place. Phresh consistently converted grabs into KOs at the ledge against these and more players throughout 2016. If he continues to improve the ICs meta, look out for 2017 to be the longest bag season ever.
Written by: reslived
Rating: 7.106
Other Notable Results: 3rd at BOSS 3, 9th at BroCal’s Gym: Leg Day
Parker “Boringman” Boring returned from a long hiatus in March and quickly established himself once again as one of the best players in Norcal. While Boringman had taken sets from ThundeRzReiGN at Norcal locals already, he first gained notoriety on a larger stage for taking Central California regional Button Check 7 over both ThundeRz and Jose V with his Mario and Meta Knight. Ranked #2 in Norcal, he moved to Socal for the remainder of 2016 for school and earned #2 on their Power Rankings as well, above the likes of Jose V, Aero, Venom, and Machiavelli. While Boringman has yet to attend many nationals, he made his out of state debut at Rewired 2016, where he took 5th place, and is poised to become a national threat in 2017.
Written by: Sabre
Rating: 7.185
Other Notable Results: 2nd at Frozen Phoenix, 1st at Summit 2016, 4th at The Big House 6, 1st at Nexus
As many players made waves in 2016, Jacob “Dirtboy” Smith found himself comfortably riding atop his own to attend more events than any other player in 2016. Dirtboy’s year started out with a resounding win against Junebug in Winner’s Semis of Frozen Phoenix in March. Following this was Dirtboy’s continual presence at the top of the Midwest with a 1st place finish at PMCC event Nexus, as well as 2nd at Kings of the North V, 4th at The Big House 6, and a respectable 9th place showing at Smash ‘n’ Splash 2. Dirtboy finished his year off strong by returning to Canada to win Summit 2016 in a nail-biting game 10 grand finals set against Professor Pro.
Whether Dirtboy can make as big of a splash on the East or West Coast remains to be seen, but with wins over Boiko, Jaden, Strong Bad, and Zhime in 2016 and his mastery of Squirtle’s slick movement, Dirtboy is set to shift the tides of Project M in 2017.
Written by: Sundark and Yata!
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.
