APEX 2015 – Recap

Liam Collins ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

More than 100,000 fans of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. series gathered earlier this week to watch giants within the professional Smash scene engage in both team and single combat as Apex 2015 concluded. Names like PPMD and aMSa trended worldwide as major upsets and decisive victories occurred throughout one of the largest fighting video game tournaments of the year.
This year’s Apex tournament was the sixth of its series: directed by Team Apex and brought to viewers in part by sponsors like Nintendo, Twitch, Amazon, VGBootCamp, Smash Boards, and Team Spooky. The tournament was held from January 30th to February 1st, 2015 at the Garden State Convention Center in Somerset, New Jersey.
Continuing the tradition set by previous tournaments of the series, Apex 2015 hosted a variety of fighting game titles including the Super Smash Bros. titles, Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign-, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Killer Instinct, and more. Even though each game had its own shining moments, Smash was the star of tournament.
With a record breaking 1024 entrants for Melee, and 800 for Smash 4, Apex 2015 has shaped up to be the largest Smash Bros. competitive tournament to date. Twitch, the world’s leading online video streaming platform for videogames, broadcasted high level Smash play to the world. Though the popular Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod Project M was excluded from this year’s Apex, 2015 proved to bring the Smash audience another successful year for the beloved series competitive community.

Source: Hold Back to Block

Screams erupted more than once as many members of the online and in-person crowd were mystified by the amazing displays of technical skill and fortitude that took place throughout the final day. Some could hardly believe it as crowd favorites and big names within the competitive Smash community fell, one after the next. When two time Evolution champion Mang0 lost his $2,000 match against European Fox player Leffen, many could hardly believe it.
Watch the Mango vs. Leffen match here
Source: Encode `

Long time Smash commentators GimR and D1 gave shout outs to the entire Smash community for bringing both great hype and great love as the tournament closed out on February 2nd with Evil Genius’ own PPMD defeated Alliance’s Armada in the second set of the Melee tournaments grand finals. A grand final that will certainly be talked about and reflected upon as the Smash competitive scene continues to grow.

Watch the Armada vs. PPMD Grand Finals here
Source: Encode `

Though Smash was the big star of Apex 2015, the event saw the crowning of several champions. PPMD was not the only one to stand at the top:

• ZeRo, a Chilean smasher who had first gained a reputation in the competitive scene of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, defeated Paradise Lost’s Dabuz, taking the title as Apex’s 1st place winner for Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U.
• Well-known Canadian Smash player Ally utilized his skill as characters Snake and Metaknight to take the Brawl tournament.
• Tuesday Evening Gamers’ SuPeRbOoMfAn swept the Smash 64 grand finals with his Captain Falcon for a strong 3 to 0 victory against Tacos.
• Team Liquid’s NuckleDu took his place as the champion of Capcom’s Utra Street Fighter IV after defeating crowd favorite Snake Eyez.
• CTRL’s RayRay surmounted SteamCo’s IFC Yipes in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.
  And the Apex championship of Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- was taken by Elven Shadow  while Evo 2014 Killer Instinct Grand Champion, Steam Co.’s own CDJr, topped the competition in Killer Instinct.