Hello everyone, Sabre here! PMRank 2019 has been released in full, and I’d like to take a moment to review some of the most notable facts or patterns of this year’s rankings.
Project+
For the first time in the history of PMRank, not every tournament considered for this year’s annual rankings was played on Project M 3.6. For those out of the loop, a new community-driven mod known as Project Plus released in April of 2019. Since then, Project Plus has been the standard build for many regions around the world. With any new patch comes balance changes, and that means, for the first time, that our panelists had to consider not only a year’s worth of results, but results across different iterations of the game. Ultimately, it was up to each panelist to determine how to evaluate results from different versions, but we believe that our final ranking fairly represents results from a variety of regions, on both 3.6 and Project Plus.
Character Representation
As always, with a new top 50 comes a change in the characters that have been represented by Project M’s best players over the last year. This year, there are quite a few characters who have notably received increased representation on PMRank 2019.
Lucario
Always a popular character in Project M, Lucario rose to claim the top spot on PMRank 2019 with no less than five different players representing him within the top 50. This year, Poilu and Altan debut on PMRank to add to the Lucario ranks and join longtime mains, Fearless and Rongunshu, and Boringman’s secondary Lucario which saw even more screen time this year than in 2018.
Fox
Playing Fox can be a much harder life in Project M than in Melee, but make no mistake: Fox can still hold his own against the more versatile Project M cast. This year, longtime Fox player Silver is joined by Arsenals, Godtouch, and Anthony, all strong regional threats who have been on the verge of their big breakout for quite some time. After such a rapid increase in Fox representation, perhaps the year 20XX is fast approaching after all.
Dedede
By far the biggest increase this year comes for the king of Dreamland. Dedede jumps from 0 representatives to 3 on this year’s PMRank Top 50, thanks to Ripple, Dumshiny, and Captain Birdman. With the help of buffs in Project Plus, Dedede continues to menace fast-faller characters at every major while utilizing his great stage-control and edgeguarding to out-last everyone else.
Bowser
For the first time in PMRank history, Bowser makes an appearance in the top 50, with no less than 3 representatives! In addition to American Bowser, a longtime Bowser main who has put up strong results for years, Nogh has developed a strong Bowser secondary after the character received buffs in Project Plus. In addition, while he only played Bowser for one tournament, Malachi’s Bowser absolutely dominated the competition at Blacklisted 5, showing what the newly buffed Koopa King is capable of.
Historic Absences
Unfortunately, it isn’t all good news when it comes to character representation. For the first time, PMRank 2019 features no representatives of Toon Link, Zero Suit Samus, or the once-omnipresent Ness, as a result of players including dvd, Blank, Aki, and Jose V not qualifying as active on this year’s ballot. Others players are continuing to push the meta for these characters forward, as with the other characters not represented on this year’s PMRank Top 50, but the lack of these three characters is a historic first in our game’s meta.
Regional Representation
Over the last year, there have been significant shifts in the landscape of Project M. Regions have risen to prominence, begun to host new series, and experienced massive growth at the top level. We would like to take a moment to discuss some of the areas that experienced the most significant changes relative to PMRank 2018.
Illinois
For a state to improve so quickly that it can no longer be included with the rest of the Midwest is certainly a first for PMRank, but it’s well-earned by the 5-player Illinois delegation on this year’s rankings. In addition to Drugfreechu continuing his rise up the rankings, he is joined by no less than three players making their PMRank debut: ORLY, Wyld, and Comb, in addition to Ripple, returning to the top 50 for the first time since 2016. As one of the most active local scenes in the world, Illinois is absolutely the place to watch right now for a glimpse of what Project M’s future could look like.
Midwest
Even without including Illinois within the Midwest, the surrounding states still put up an impressive increase of players from last year, adding two new top 50 representatives, including a top 20 player in Minnesota’s own Connor. With a whopping five players in the top 20, and Altan already proving capable of taking out top 25 players on a good day, perhaps the days of coastal dominance over the Project M scene may be coming to an end.
Southwest
Longtime PMRank player ilovebagelz is joined on this year’s top 50 by three more players from his home state of Arizona, Cloudburst, Wfycat and Ca$ino Wolf, in addition to Oklahoma’s FlashingFire. Arizona’s consistently healthy scene became a hub for Project M in the Western United States this year, hosting four sizeable regionals that drew entrants from around North America. With a growing number of top players in a scene with plenty of drive and multiple big events per year, we can expect to see plenty more of Southwestern PM in 2020, and potentially a few more breakouts from the region.
New England
New England stands out on this year’s map as one of the only regions to not only retain all of their ranked players from 2018 but add a few more as well, leaving them with a whopping 8 players on this year’s PMRank Top 50. While the traditional heavy hitters like Flarp, Kycse, Twisty, and Yung Quaff put up great years, Motobug and Anthony both made their PMRank debuts this year, representing Massachusetts and Connecticut respectively. With regular monthlies and a tight-knit scene, New England stands poised to continue their growth into 2020.
SoCal
While SoCal’s number of representatives on PMRank 2019 remains at 5, the same as last year, only one familiar face appears on both rankings. Of last year’s players, Sosa, Blank, Jose V, and $wift have all since retired, leaving only Nezergy as an active top 50 player in the region. However, three of SoCal’s old guard showed up in a big way this year, as Sneez, Tealz, and Dumshiny all put up great wins at nationals to secure their places on the top 50. In addition, SoCal’s rising stars proved that an old-school region can still produce new threats, with Sabre making his debut at 40 on this year’s rankings, and Link main El Shroomo posting a breakout 13th place performance at The Encore with wins over FlashingFire and Cloudburst. With the addition of Yung Quaff to SoCal’s roster at the end of 2019, this historic region’s prospects are as bright as ever in 2020.
New York/New Jersey
Speaking of old-school regions, this year marks the first in PMRank history that NY/NJ does not boast the most players in this year’s top 50. With the retirement of heavy hitters like dvd and Envy, and declining results from formerly-ranked players like Boiko and Aidan, the strongest region in PM took a big hit in terms of representation this year. However, as in SoCal, a new group of players stepped up to represent the region. Bubbles, Mr. Watch & Learn, and Narq all travelled extensively throughout the year, putting up great results across the United States and showing that New York’s new school players have got what it takes to uphold their region’s pride.
Looking Forward
With a full 22 of this year’s PMRank Top 50 making their first appearance on the annual rankings, and five of this year’s top 10 breaking into that elite group for the first time in their careers, it’s safe to say that the Project M metagame is still rapidly evolving. New regions are becoming threatening, new players are stepping up to represent established regions, and the game’s character diversity is as strong as ever. Year after year, this scene surprises me with its vitality and passion, and next year will be no different. 2020 is shaping up to be another exciting year, full of new storylines and more historic events, and we hope that you will all be there to enjoy it with us. Thank you for supporting the Project M scene throughout 2019, and for enjoying PMRank 2019.
Without further ado, I am happy to end this article by presenting the PMRank 2019 Combo Video.
Other PMRank 2019 Articles
Last Year's Rankings
Credits
PMRank Staff:
- Brennan “FlashingFire” Connolly
- Paul “Motobug” Canavan
- Kyle “Pegthaniel” Guo
- Peter “Pikmon” Woodworth
- Ryan “Sabre” Weinberg
- Paul "Motobug" Canavan
- Samoe "Samoe" Fuchs
- Cosmetic Standardization Project (CSProject)
- Brennan “FlashingFire” Connolly
- “CND”
- Connor “Connor” Remington
- Paul "Motobug" Canavan
- Nick "Nick" Hluska
- Kyle “Pegthaniel” Guo
- Ryan "Sabre" Weinberg
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