Welcome everyone to another year of PMRank! PMRank is a panel-based Power Ranking of the Top 50 Project+ players in North America. We're excited to put together another list of the best performers throughout the 30+ eligible events this year, covering Game 5 in the D #1 through Condo of Blood 2. Initially, 78 players were qualified to be ranked based on their placings and attendance at major Project+ events throughout 2023. Panelists were tasked with reviewing this data and ranking each player in order, from #1 to #78. 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.
Players both new and accustomed to the top echelon of competition make their 2024 debuts today.
While he’s been absent from PMRank’s Top 50 since 2019, Josh “Morsecode762” Morse’s results have barely flagged from that #6 rank. He started his year off strong, finding vast benefit in the return of consistent Michigan tournaments — at his first Game 5 in the D, he went uncontested, deftly beating Star and, rather fittingly, taking two game five sets against techboy. He continued this streak into Get Out of My Venue, where, despite dropping a set to Blitz in Winners Semis, he went on to win the tournament, defeating Erg, Switch, Blitz in the runback, and Rongunshu twice over. Blitz remains the only non-Michigander (Michiganian? Michigoon? Whatever you people call yourselves) to have taken a set from Morse, with Ellipsis, Dirtboy, and techboy being the only others to manage it.
It just goes to show how far an iron grip on solid fundamentals can take you. Where others run, Morse walks. Where some might jump, he stands still. The immovable object of P+’s meta, the rock in the river, remains steadfast in his style. His focus may have been split with Melee this year, where his unorthodox play serves to confound even their best, taking sets off the likes of Cody Schwab and Jmook, but Morse always swung back into multiple shadow majors, two liter of Mountain Dew perpetually in hand, to remind us that he’s still the best P+ Samus the world has ever seen.
Written By: Studebacher Hoch
It’s always a bit crazy seeing Sneez at a venue - with nine years of competitive activity under his belt, it’s somewhat wild that this year was one of his best. What’s crazier still, is that he only showed up to events until April, scraping the requisite event count out early in the season before settling back into a quiet life. At Exodus 2024, he made it to Winners Side of Grands over SipMastah, upsetting Suvir and Darc to do so, though he ended up in second. At Metal Tavern, he had his lowest placement of the season at fourth, with losses to Cloudburst and Av, but at The Bigger Mile High Club, he went on an insane tear. Sneez defeated Anday, Erg (fresh off a Ryzuul win), Imogen Heat, Jodeci Joestar (FKA WouldSmokeCraq, FKA AssTAStic, often known as Hakeem), and Shiny Zubat to once again find himself in Winners side of Grands – only to once again fall to SipMastah’s well-hydrated menagerie of characters. You can’t deny that Sneez is without a doubt one of the best to ever do it, and while we only got a brief flash of that greatness in 2024, he says his tryhard days are behind him. You can find him working on music and Fizzy Brax, a new site he launched to organize fantasy drafts for gaming tournaments using startgg or Challonge brackets.
Peep this nasty combo video too
Written By: Studebacher Hoch
The living, breathing definition of a low tier hero, the mainstay Luigi main Flarp skyrockets his way up the rankings to a jaw-dropping #4. While he may have had a bit of a rocky start at SG 10th Anniversary as a victim to Prince Fluff’s breakout run and a notably hard matchup versus Comb, he only went up from there - and to greater heights than Luigi has ever seen.
If you told me before the event that Flarp’s run at The Bigger Mile High Club would have the wins it did, I wouldn’t have believed you. The slippery plumber took out Ellipsis, Dirtboy, and SipMastah all in one tournament - three wins within PMRank 2024’s top 10 - before losing to Suvir and Pikmon to finish at seventh place. If I was skeptical before, you’d have completely lost me at Flarp getting his revenge over Pikmon just months later - twice - at Carnival Clash 2, in another notoriously difficult matchup. Flarp earned another double-up of wins on a top ten player at Infrared 2024, defending his home turf against Switch after an initial loss in Winners Finals.
That doesn’t mean Flarp was kind to his supportive home turf, though - with three regional wins under his belt, he held an iron grip on New England throughout the entire season. Years of experience dealing with his in-region problem matchups culminated in victories over Imogen Heat, sfy bees, Motobug, Shadowhawke, Twisty, and Serb, only dropping one set each to Imogen Heat and Motobug throughout the myriad of New England regionals.
It’s incredible to see such a consistent résumé of tournament performances, with a whopping eight events to back it up, come out of a solo Luigi in a time where the metagame has evolved so much. Despite not being at the #1 spot of the list, this may be one of the best PMRank performances ever, achieving a rank of top four in the world with a character commonly considered within the bottom three. Flarp has truly earned his spot within the top echelon of Project+ players in the modern era.
Written By: Motobug
Other PMRank 2024 Articles
1/27/2025 - PMRank 2024: The Edge of Glory
1/28/2025 - PMRank 2024: 50-41
1/29/2025 - PMRank 2024: 40-31
1/30/2025 - PMRank 2024: 30-21
1/31/2025 - PMRank 2024: 20-11
2/3/2025 - PMRank 2024: 10-7
2/4/2025 - PMRank 2024: 6-4
2/5/2025 - PMRank 2024: 3-1
2/6/2025 - PMRank 2024: Recap
1/28/2025 - PMRank 2024: 50-41
1/29/2025 - PMRank 2024: 40-31
1/30/2025 - PMRank 2024: 30-21
1/31/2025 - PMRank 2024: 20-11
2/3/2025 - PMRank 2024: 10-7
2/4/2025 - PMRank 2024: 6-4
2/5/2025 - PMRank 2024: 3-1
2/6/2025 - PMRank 2024: Recap
Last Year's Rankings
1/29/2024 - PMRank 2023: The Edge of Glory
1/29/2024 - PMRank 2023: In The Margins
1/30/2024 - PMRank 2023: 50-41
1/31/2024 - PMRank 2023: 40-31
2/1/2024 - PMRank 2023: 30-21
2/2/2024 - PMRank 2023: 20-11
2/5/2024 - PMRank 2023: 10-7
2/6/2024 - PMRank 2023: 6-4
2/7/2024 - PMRank 2023: 3-1
1/29/2024 - PMRank 2023: In The Margins
1/30/2024 - PMRank 2023: 50-41
1/31/2024 - PMRank 2023: 40-31
2/1/2024 - PMRank 2023: 30-21
2/2/2024 - PMRank 2023: 20-11
2/5/2024 - PMRank 2023: 10-7
2/6/2024 - PMRank 2023: 6-4
2/7/2024 - PMRank 2023: 3-1
Credits
PMRank Staff:
- Che “Che” Woodson
- Brennan “FlashingFire” Connolly
- Paul “Motobug” Canavan
- Peter “Pikmon” Woodworth
Graphic Design and Character Renders:
- Paul "Motobug" Canavan
- Cosmetic Standardization Project (CSProject) & the Project+ Development Team
Editors:
- “CND”
- Paul "Motobug" Canavan
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