Glitch Infinite! The Capcom/Fighting game-themed event hosted by VGBC was held this weekend in Maryland. It featured some of the most notable mains of the fighting game characters and Megaman to complement the tournament’s aesthetic. The Venue looked beautiful from what I could see from the stream, and there were some flashy animated shorts to bridge blocks of the stream. Great production, but it’s not surprising after the last Glitch. VGBC seems to have hit a good stride with the production of these tournaments.
It’s been a while since the last Smash major. “Let’s Make Big Moves” was the last one and the only major in 2022. There we saw the up-and-coming Quidd take the win while losing only 4 games the entire tournament, 3 of which were to Kola, the number 1 seed, for a bracket reset in grand finals. Many heavy hitters were missing from the event, but it was nonetheless an amazing accomplishment.
Glitch was also missing many heavy hitters, but the competition was still impressive. The big story of the event was Zomba! Zomba had a great ending to 2021, getting 5th at CEO and 4th at the Smash World Tour Championships. Well, he kept up the momentum getting 2nd to Cosmos this weekend. Cosmos also ended 2021 strong with 2nd at Smash World Tour and rode that momentum into 1st place at Glitch Infinite.
Zomba went on a tear, beating Jake the Steve, Gackt (the Japanese Ness), and Cosmos 3-0. He also beat Gluttony, the best player in Europe, 3-2. In Grandfinals, he was looking solid at first in the runback against Cosmos, but Cosmos adapted after their set in winners and started avoiding a lot of the setups that Zomba used against him before. This seemed to tilt Zomba and led to Cosmos winning 3-1 in the first set of grand finals and 3-0 in the reset. It’s easy to forget, but Zomba was an unknown player before the pandemic, and he’s extremely young, so he has a lot to learn about his mentality. Once he conquers that, the skies are the limit for the Prince of New York.
On the flip side, Cosmos seemed to figure out something key about his mentality recently, because he not only went on to take 2 sets from Zomba after losing to him in a dominating 3-0, but he also had an amazing reverse 3-0 comeback on Jake in loser’s finals. It seems like since the World Tour Championships, Cosmos figured something out and it’s working. This is his first Major tournament win, and if he keeps up this level of play, it won’t be his last.
Another topic to surely be on the minds of everyone after Glitch Inifinite is Steve. Jake got 3rd, and he wasn’t the only notable Steve at the tournament. Jake went on a tear in the top 32, beating Kola and Gackt in a dominating 3-0 each. He also beat T3 Dom and Dabuz, 3-1 and 3-2 respectively. Those wins are super impressive but many people are already discrediting him because he did it with Steve. Some people are already (the night the event ended) calling for a ban on the character. Obviously, this is reactionary. This is Steve’s first top 8 at a major, so it’s not like he’s overtaking the meta yet. If I had to give my opinion though, I think Steve will be a top 5 character. He’s a character who will only get better with time, and once he’s optimized, he will be the single scariest character to get hit by in the game. This might make the character very strong, but I don’t think we’ll ever see a ban. There will be counterplay to him. It will be hard, but it won’t be impossible.
Congrats to Cosmos and everyone else who got top 8. Also congratulations to the VGBC team for hosting a fire event. Let’s hope offline smash can continue uninterrupted so we can keep seeing these amazing competitors compete at their best.
Here’s the bracket for Smash Ultimate Singles: https://smash.gg/tournament/glitch-infinite-2/events/ultimate-singles-starts-saturday/overview
VGBC’s Youtube channel for all the VODs: https://www.youtube.com/c/Vgbootcamp
Bernard Lamar Rice 