Esam joins the battle!
This last weekend treated us to another big post-quarantine Smash Ultimate tournament, Glitch Konami Code. Being themed after the Konami code, VGBC flew out many top Belmont and Snake players. Sadly, none of them made top 8, unless you count Kola pulling out Snake game 5 against Esam. I’m still wondering why he did that.
This tournament was missing a few of the big hitters of recent months. The two most notable players missing were Tweek and Spargo. Tweek won Summit and got second at Riptide and Spargo got 3rd at both of those events. These two are easily shaping up to be top 5, if not top 3, but Glitch might have thrust a new player into the conversation.
Esam is no stranger to the upper tiers of Smash rankings. The Pikachu master has won his fair share of tournaments and beaten the game’s finest multiple times. Esam isn’t always performing amazingly, but he’s always a threat. This weekend was a perfect example of Esam at his best.
Leo and Esam were seeded to play in winner’s quarter-finals, the winner making winner’s side top 8. Esam was even with Leo in lifetime sets before quarantine, one of the few players to be able to claim that. Throughout quarantine, Esam was in the lab. Optimizing Pikachu combos. Coming up with “up air bridges” where Pikachu takes their opponent across the stage in a true combo only using up air. All of these optimizations and combos were impressive but if they’re not landing consistently in tournaments, what good are they? Lucky for Esam, they were landing. Esam forced Leo onto Joker game 3. Leo took a game but then lost the next losing 3-1 to Esam. Esam beat game 4 Leo. That’s one of the rarest things one can do in Smash Ultimate.
After Leo, Esam was seeded to play Light then Maister. Esam has had a problem against Maister, the Game and Watch player from Mexico who is shaping up to be a top 5 player himself. Esam went on to beat Light but Chag, another Mexican player, beat Maister earlier in the bracket. Quick side note, Chag played amazing this weekend. Palutena is still a threat and Chag proved that. Chag would then fall to Kola, and that set up Kola Esam Winners finals. Esam won it in a close 3-2 and moved on to grand finals.
Down in losers, Leo was doing what Leo does. Beating Maister and all. Fun fact, Maister has fought Leo in every post quarantine big tournament so far. It was probably his best performance against Leo so far, but he still lost. Leo also did a classic Leo come back on Kola after Kola went up 2-0 on Leo in losers finals. Kola is showing everyone how busted Roy is by the way. Who does Roy lose to? Pikachu, and it’s not that bad. Any other counter isn’t relevant enough or bad enough. Roy is ridiculous.
This set up another Leo grand finals but this time with Esam on the other side. Leo said on Twitter after losing:
Leo started with Joker, no Byleth even considered and Leo took game 1. This would usually be indicative of a classic, “You beat MkLeo once, can you do it again?” and Esam decided to say yes. Esam then went on to win the next 3 games in a row. He even SD’ed his first stock game 4 but then brought Leo to his last stock, started just throwing out back air’s. He hit one and converted it into a 0 to death. Esam beat game 4 Leo again and won Glitch Konami code.
Esam is right. Pikachu is busted and he’s showing it. Esam won the whole tournament by continually throwing out back air, eventually hitting one and getting a zero to death from not too far from the middle of the stage. Back air is extremely hard to punish, and can apparently lead to a zero to death. Could Leo maybe have SDI’ed out and avoided it? Maybe, but still what an insane option. This puts Esam into the conversation for best player in Ultimate. Obviously, this was only one tournament, but beating Leo twice, taking out other heavy hitters like Kola and Light on his path to winning Glitch shows he is capable of being at the top. It’ll be exciting to see if he can keep the momentum up going forward and if Leo can figure out another white guy piloting a small animal… Thanks for reading.
Bernard Lamar Rice 