Smash Ultimate is a game that is played around the world, but what regions are the strongest? With 2021 wrapped up and the Orion rankings for the year released, we can take the data collected by Barnard’s loop and determine which countries are the best.
Check out the Orion rankings on their website: https://intheloop837.wordpress.com/
The thoughts that lead me to want to make this list were sparked by Chag. Chag tweeted a poll that asked who would win in a 10 vs 10 crew battle, Japan or Mexico, and I got curious. What are the strongest regions and how would you rank them?
I approached this list by taking the top 10 players from each country and dividing their combined rankings by 10. Most countries don’t have 10 players on the list, and the United States and Japan populate a majority of the spots, so I did some math to make it so lack of representation on the list would be penalized.
#10 Germany
Germany just barely scraped two top 100 players into the top 100 Orion rankings, being Trarik the Greninja, and Dark Thunder the Bowser. I considered making a top 5 regions list because Europe is pretty interconnected and it made a lot of sense to combine all the countries, but there are some countries within Europe that can stand by themselves. Germany comes in at number 10, being one of the standout countries in Europe.
#9 England
England is the next strongest country in Europe. Their top 100 representatives are Peli the Sonic, coming in at 69th in the world, and Bloom4eva the Bayonetta who comes in at 91st in the world. Bloom4eva made waves last year by winning the online qualifier for the Smash World Tour in Europe and Peli has a win on Gluttony showing you can’t count out England.
#8 The Dominican Republic
34th in the world calls the Dominican Republic, home. Sonix is the Sonic player that has been tearing up the Latin American scene. He’s got wins on Chag and Maister, his fellow Latin Americans, and even a win on Tweek. Aside from Sonix, Capitancito the Mii Gunner also represents the Dominican Republic in the top 100 rankings. The Dominican Republic is overshadowed by Mexico, but they have some amazing hidden bosses themselves.
#7 The Netherlands
The Netherlands comes in at number 7 thanks to 3 representatives in the top 100. With Mr. R at 60th in the world and Space and iStudying at 80th and 89th respectively. MR. R has been a top player since Brawl, but this is easily his worst performance in a Smash game. He was consistently around the top 10 in Smash 4 but hasn’t found the same success in Ultimate. Same with his fellow countryman iStudying, but they’ve found enough success to help boost the Netherlands to 7th on the list.
#6 Spain
All I’ma say is, if you speak Spanish, your odds of being good at Smash are higher. Spain’s number 1 player is Sisqui, a Dark Samus player. Ranked 35th on the Orion rankings with wins on players like Riddles and Skittles, Sisqui is scary. Andresfn isn’t far behind Sisqui, being ranked 48th in the world. These are the only two representatives for Spain in the top 100 rankings, but both of them being in the top half is extremely impressive.
#5 Canada
Canada has more than poutine and maple syrup, they have Riddles. Riddles is the fighting game character specialist who’s currently ranked 27th in the world. He’s seen a lot of success this last year, featuring at Smash Summit 3 and getting second at the Smash World Tour North East finals. Along with Riddles, Ouch and Mistake have been making moves outside of Canada. Canada plays in the US plenty because of the ease of travel between the two countries, therefore they are ranked rather accurately because the US holds many of the cross-region tournaments. As you will see, the more your country interacts with the US, the more chance you have to get international wins, in turn, boosting that country’s rank.
#4 France
When Smash players think France, Gluttony is the first player to come to mind, but France has 8 other players in the Orion top 100 list. While none of the other players come close to Gluttony’s 9th placement, French players make up a large portion of the 50 through 100 part of the list. Leon the Lucina, is the next best French player at 55th in the world and has wins on a bunch of the other top European players. France is easily the strongest European country and it’s currently not even close.
#3 Mexico
I wanted to make this list because I was curious about how Mexico stacked up against the rest of the world. Mexico is home to the current 1st and 2nd in the world, in MkLeo and Sparg0 respectively, and even aside from those two, players like Maister and Chag have been dominating this last year. If I took the top 5 players from each country (based on the Orion top 100 list) Mexico would be number 1, but extending each countries representation to their top 10 players hurt Mexico a lot. They actually didn’t have 10 players on the list. They only had 6, but their worst one is Big Boss at 54th in the world. I know many would argue that the reason there aren’t more Mexican players on the top 100 list is that they don’t travel as much and I would agree, but we have to go off the information we do have. Mexico would win a top 5 crew battle against any other country in the world, but a top 10 crew battle is not something we can say they would win with the data we have.
#2 Japan
It’s not that much of a surprise, Japan is the second-best country in the world at Smash Ultimate. Japan dominates the Orion top 100, second to only number 1 on the list. Japan makes up 4 of the top 10 players in the world. Protobanham at 4th, Zackray at 5th, Tea at 6th, and Shuton at 8th. That’s an incredible accomplishment. This is probably the strongest internationally Japan has ever been at Smash Brothers, and in terms of a top 10 crew battle, Japan would probably win. “But if your whole point of the list was to see what country would theoretically win a top 10 crew battle, why wouldn’t Japan rank the highest on this list?” Well other me in my head that cripples my self-confidence, that was the goal, but the final data also shows which country is stronger as a whole. It’s been said for years by observers of the Smash scene that Japan’s skill curve isn’t that drastic, but compared to our number 1 spot, Japan is more top-heavy.
#1 The United States
Surprise, surprise! The US is the best country at Super Smash Brothers Ultimate according to the Orion top 100 rankings. Now with my methodology, the US does not seem as good as Japan at first glance, but it’s the story not highlighted by my interpretation of the data that pushes the US to number 1. If you look at the ranking of the Japanese players, they do generally rank higher until the bottom of their top 10. The 10th best player in the US, Marss, is ranked 21st and the 10th best Japanese player, Hero, is ranked 41st, and that doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but it’s the frequency of other US players in the top 100 list beyond Marss’ 21st ranking that pushes the rankings of the latter half of Japan’s top 10, down. That then leads to an overall stronger number for America but also way more US players on the top 100 list. The US makes up 2 of the players in the top 10 of the Orion rankings with Tweek at 3rd and Dabuz at 10th, but after the top 10, US players are nearly every other player on the list. The US makes up 6 of the 11th through 20th spots and they keep up that level of density throughout a majority of the list. The US is where the most international competition happens and it’s because the US is the strongest country at Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
Thanks to Barnard’s loop and the Orion’s rankings for such a great list. Go check them out if you haven’t.
Barnard loop’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/LoopBarnard
Their website: https://intheloop837.wordpress.com/
Bernard Lamar Rice 