Photo Credit: Yuko
Welcome one and all to the return of PMRank! PMRank is a panel-based Power Ranking of the Top 50 Project+ players worldwide. We're pleased to be doing another full, Top 50 list, covering Undertow 2021 through HELLBREAK. PMRank staff collected and organized data from 25 Project+ events from the ranking season, seeking out tournaments with significant inter-regional competition. Initially, 72 players were qualified to be ranked based on their placings and attendance at major Project+ events from late 2021 through 2022. Panelists were tasked with reviewing this data and ranking each player in order, from #1 to #72. For each player, the highest and lowest rankings on all panelists’ lists were removed when averaging votes to reduce variance. After an initial ballot, panelists were given time to discuss the aggregated results and move closer to consensus in the case of players with high standard deviations. Then, panelists submitted a second and final ballot to determine the placement of our PMRank Top 50.
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.
Photo Credit: ExHale
Fearless, long time Texas bracket threat and a trailblazer of modern Lucario, returns to his fourth PMRank in a row after another strong year. Fearless only entered three major events this season, but left an impact in his limited time in the spotlight. At Shipwrecked, he defended his home state against Tealz and Comb, earning a fifth place finish at his first event of the season. Fearless showed up in impressive fashion at Jailbreak by defeating PotatoesAreYum, Jagz$, Sneez, and splitting sets with Cloudburst to finish fourth at the event. Fearless did not attend any majors for four months afterwards, but his performance at Jailbreak earned him a spot at the PM Theatre. At PM Theatre, he had several close sets with several top 20 players including a game five set with Malachi, but ultimately the rust slowed him down and he was unable to close out any of those sets. With a new year of Project+ on the horizon, the community waits with bated breath on a return to competition from Fearless.
Written By: Serb
Photo Credit: stacked
After making 50th on the last iteration of PMRank, Comb came into the season determined to take his ROB to new heights of competition. Kicking off the season with a strong showing at Undertow 2021, he toppled notables such as Kendrick and Akimi before being sent to losers by Twisty. It was there that he scored his biggest win of the tournament - clutching a game five set against techboy. The rest of 2021 saw similarly impressive results, notably winning sets against Phresh and Yung Quaff at Blacklisted 6. After an early upset by Kendrick at Joey's Birthday Bash, Comb would AGT his way to victory over Mr. Watch & Learn and ORLY before being eliminated by Motobug. But that wouldn't stop the ROB from netting a cool third place at Honeypot 3, where he only dropped two games on his way to Winners Finals while winning sets against Midwest heavy hitters Not Chris and Sothe before having his run ended by Envy and Dirtboy. Comb's claim to fame, however, came from his run at the biggest tournament of the season: Undertow 2022. In pools, he cleared the competition to make top 32 winners side before being defeated by Kycse. From there, he boosted through the losers bracket, defeating PMRank 2019's HM ~CP9~, top Florida Marth Jagz$, and dominating Ohio Luigi XYK 3-0 to make it to top 8, placing 7th out of 116 entrants. Comb ended the season with a 17th place finish at Blacklisted 7 after taking sets off of LPag and Thalia. Comb has had quite the meteoric rise this season, showing the competitive scene that a limit of three boosts won't stop his ascent to the top.
Written By: ilikepizza107
Photo Credit: TheZardDog
Through constantly changing crops of players in SoCal, rife with player retirements, returns to the game, and players moving in and out of region, Sneez has remained a consistent face atop the SoCal PR pantheon. He controls the tempo of a match like no other, as he is consistently able to slow a game down with careful defensive item play, only to shift into fifth gear and rush opponents down with boost aerials and top pressure. This ability to shift the pace and control the momentum of a match puts opponents on their heels, and then Sneez simply pushes them over the edge. Using his tried and true ROB with a little Diddy sprinkled in, Sneez placed in the top 8 of all but one event he attended this season. At Exodus, Sneez beat Sabre, reverse 3-0’d Darc, and took down Ivayne’s Falco for a third place finish. He beat metroid, Not Chris, Chaloopy, and Morsecode at Invincible VI for his second third place in a row, before taking down Kycse to make top 8 at 5:00 PM Fights: Game Night. With wins on grealy, Serb, Cloudburst, and PotatoesAreYum to boot, Sneez has affirmed his place at the top of the Project+ meta for another season. With a move to Arizona on the docket in the near future, Sneez and his unique style of ROB may be representing a new region on next year’s PMRank.
Written By: Serb
Photo Credit: Joey
In all of Project M’s storied history, no one has played Kirby quite like Cory. Kirby has long been one of the few characters to have never seen any representation on the yearly PMRank, but Cory has now rectified that absence and then some. Thanks to a few buffs in recent years, Cory was able to bring out combo trees and DI mixups never before seen, making his talents well known all across the East Coast. First gaining the attention of the PM scene by double-eliminating Twisty at 2021’s Hogoween, Cory was voted into the inaugural edition of the Project M Theatre and made the most of his opportunity by handing dvd a shocking reverse 3-0 in pools in one of the biggest upsets of the tournament. Rounding out the year, Cory achieved Kirby’s best placement ever at a major with a ninth place finish at Blacklisted 7, once again defeating Twisty as well as Yung Quaff and ~CP9~. If taking techboy to game five is any indication, this is only the start for our newly crowned King of Dreamland, and you’d do well not to underestimate Cory going into 2023, lest you find yourself on the wrong end of a game winning swallowcide.
Written By: Flarp
Photo Credit: Joey
A mainstay of both the New England and national scenes, Flarp has once again shown the world that Luigi has what it takes to compete at the top levels of play. While his Blacklisted 6 was tame compared to the heights of his Blacklisted 5 run in 2019, only defeating the Lucas duo of Narq and Av on his way to 25th, the world’s best Luigi only got better results from there. After being voted into the Project M Theatre, Flarp defeated Fearless in the group stage and Cory in the final bracket for ninth place at the stacked invitational. His season highlight came at Blacklisted 7, tearing through both metroid and Phresh, hot off a SipMastah win, to face dvd. While he lost an absolute nail-biter against the New Jersey resident’s legendary Toon Link, Flarp continued to terrorize in the losers bracket, defeating Bongo to make top 8. Once in top 8, his matchup experience versus fellow Ice Climbers player, Serb, helped Flarp dismantle the terrifying duo controlled by the one and only techboy, taking their set 3-1. Think what you will about Luigi; if you’re up against Flarp and not prepared, he’ll be ready to show you just how much the plumber can do.
Written By: Motobug
Photo Credit: Everfresh
It’s hard to imagine someone who dominates their region harder than Pikmon, the longtime overlord of Washington. As a fully-fledged Ike main at the start of the ranking period, Pikmon earned top 8 finishes at Undertow and Jailbreak, displaying his experience and adaptiveness with multiple reverse 3-0’s as he waded through Blue, Bongo, Mira, Silver, and Wombat along the way. He started 2022 off with a bang in his home region, as he fended off SipMastah, Tealz, grealy, and PwrUp! to secure a second place finish at You’re So Mad, only dropping sets to a red-hot Ivayne the entire day. The only real blemish in Pikmon’s season came at Smash Camp, where he was upset by Arizona rising star Anday, but he quickly bounced back stronger than ever. Over the summer, Pikmon added both Mewtwo and his old main, Mr. Game & Watch, to his arsenal alongside his Ike, and the added flexibility of an expanded roster would immediately bear fruit. At Invincible VI, Pikmon took down NyxTheShield, Chaloopy, and Sneez on his way to an emphatic second place finish, utilizing all three characters across his bracket run. To top it off, Pikmon ended his season with another strong showing in-region at Smash Camp: New Lands, where he defeated grealy with Ike before he brought out his Mewtwo against Ivayne in a 3-1 victory to avenge his losses from You’re So Mad. While his character choices have varied across 2021 and 2022, one thing remains the same as ever: for the fifth PMRank season in a row, Pikmon remains one of the community’s finest players.
Written By: Sabre
Photo Credit: Everfresh
A PMRank mainstay since 2017, Twisty had his best season yet, earning him a spot in the top 15 this time around. He started the season strong by defeating Ellipsis, Comb, Chevy, and Dirtboy at Undertow 2021 to earn a stellar fifth place at the largest event of the season, only falling to Nogh and eventual tournament champion The Doctor. While he missed out on another top 8 at Shipwrecked, falling to Blue and Tealz for ninth, Twisty received a hometown powerup back in Massachusetts for Blacklisted 6. After an early upset to Bongo, the iconic Wario powered through Phresh, guttey, Yono, Boiko, Blue, and Ivayne in one of the most impressive losers runs of the season, losing out to dvd for another national fifth place. Twisty shifted priorities to both real life endeavors and Melee after 2021, but he still made sure to give us another strong performance at Blacklisted 7 with victories over Mar and Comb while only losing to a stronger than ever Malachi and Cory in two tense game five sets. Twisty was once again the peak of Massachusetts nationally during this ranking period, earning top 8 at two of the hardest tournaments of the year. If he chooses to compete nationally in 2023, expect nothing but great things from the Twister Nation.
Written By: Motobug
Photo Credit: TheZardDog
It’s no exaggeration that Ivayne’s Falco has shown more promise than any bird in PM history since the days of Mang0 in versions past. After switching from his trusty Wolf to Falco during quarantine, Ivayne has consistently displayed incredible potential with his new main at majors this season. After exiting Undertow 2021 at 25th place due to an early encounter with techboy in losers, Ivayne made top 8 at every major he attended for the rest of the ranking period. At Blacklisted 6, he took down a New York gauntlet of Envy, Boiko, and Gallo to place seventh, his best placing with Falco at that time. He soon topped his placement at Blacklisted 6 by taking first place in a dominant victory at Washington regional You’re So Mad with wins over Pikmon, grealy, Suvir, Av, and Qtip. While he continued to dominate the rest of the Top 50 at California events, Ivayne’s remaining highlight of the season came in the Pacific Northwest at Smash Camp: New Lands, where he took down Kendrick, Motobug, and Qtip, and traded sets with both SipMastah and Pikmon for a second place finish. He closed out the year with another strong bracket run at HELLBREAK, tearing through TRai, Nezergy, and Narq before bringing out his classic Wolf to take down Sneez and secure his spot in top 4 at the last major of the year. With his Falco looking cleaner than ever, and Wolf once again in his arsenal for potential counterpicks, Ivayne seems poised to continue his meteoric rise to the top in 2023.
Written By: Sabre
Photo Credit: Joey
If there’s one thing you need to know about Blue, it’s that he is an avid learner who is always working to improve. In fact, after many years of collecting local winnings in Arizona to help pay for his tuition, Blue took a hiatus from the national scene to focus on his higher education. During the pandemic, Blue graduated and moved to DFW, where he was finally ready to return to the national P+ scene and bring Link to the forefront of the competitive landscape. Blue made his electrifying return to the national scene at Undertow 2021, upsetting techboy and Akimi along the way to a solid 13th place finish after falling to Yono and Pikmon. This proved to be his lowest placing of the ranking season as Blue went on to earn top 3 finishes at Jailbreak, Smash Camp 2022, 5:00 PM Fights Game Night, and HELLBREAK, taking down top players such as SipMastah and Blank along the way. One particularly notable run was at Smash Camp 2022, where Blue took a surprising loss to Kendrick early on, but then went on a seven-set win streak through the losers bracket to take first place. Along the way, Blue not only beat Kendrick 3-0 in the runback, but he finally got revenge against Yono in their first rematch since Undertow with a brutal 6-0 victory in Grand Finals. Link has not been represented on PMRank since its first iteration in 2016 when Blue, alongside Hero of Time, last made the ranks, and neither pierced the top 40 at that time. However, with Blue’s striking return to national competition, it seems that Link stock will continue to rise in 2023, and we can expect to continue to see Link in the upper echelons of P+ competition.
Written By: FingerStripes
Photo Credit: tori
There have been many times that we’ve seen Lunchables step back from the game, but every time, PM’s wunderkind returned to surprise us. While his cast of characters is ever-expanding, his primary results came from a trio of Marth, Toon Link, and Roy, with Meta Knight and Donkey Kong making appearances late in the season. Known for his incredible character control and squeezing the pixels out of every dash dance interaction, Lunchman opened the ranking period with an incredible return to form at Undertow 2021, beating Cloudburst before falling to Nogh in Winners Quarters. This was no deterrent on the way to a second place finish, where Lunch defeated Bongo, Pikmon, and then proceeded to win consecutive game five sets against Yono, Nogh in the runback, and SipMastah before falling at last to The Doctor in Grand Finals. Lunchables held off from competition until Shipwrecked 2: Shipfaced, where he swept over Southern local players like Captain Birdman and tia, alongside special NorCal guest Sabre. A fourth place finish at Super TPS II: Combo Breaker Edition saw the former top three player bleed, netting wins over Ripple and Comb but falling to Midwest defenders and hidden bosses metroid and Chaloopy. Returning to the Undertow series, Lunchables picked up wins over both techboy and Dirtboy, resulting in a strong third place finish with losses to Nogh and eventual event winner Rongunshu. Lunch’s season ended a bit early at Honeypot 4: Lost in the Woods with an uncharacteristic ninth place finish, with losses to ORLY and Stango. Since then, however, a relocation to Wisconsin has afforded Lunchables the ability to attend far more locals, where he has brought his rotating cast of characters to the top of almost every bracket he’s attended - and we know our eyes will be on this PM Titan in 2023.
Written By: Stude
Other PMRank 2022 Articles
1/23/2023 - PMRank 2022: The Edge of Glory
1/24/2023 - PMRank 2022: 50-41
1/25/2023 - PMRank 2022: 40-31
1/26/2023 - PMRank 2022: 30-21
1/27/2023 - PMRank 2022: 20-11
1/30/2023 - PMRank 2022: 10-7
1/31/2023 - PMRank 2022: 6-4
2/1/2023 - PMRank 2022: 3-1
1/24/2023 - PMRank 2022: 50-41
1/25/2023 - PMRank 2022: 40-31
1/26/2023 - PMRank 2022: 30-21
1/27/2023 - PMRank 2022: 20-11
1/30/2023 - PMRank 2022: 10-7
1/31/2023 - PMRank 2022: 6-4
2/1/2023 - PMRank 2022: 3-1
Last Year's Rankings
Credits
PMRank Staff:
- Brennan “FlashingFire” Connolly
- Paul “Motobug” Canavan
- Peter “Pikmon” Woodworth
- Ryan “Sabre” Weinberg
Graphic Design and Character Renders:
- Paul "Motobug" Canavan
- Cosmetic Standardization Project (CSProject) & the Project+ Development Team
Editors:
- “CND”
- Timothy “ilikepizza107” W.
- Ryan "Sabre" Weinberg
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