Pound 2022 was a fantastic follow-up to Genesis 8 the week before. We saw a lot of surprising people in the top 32 that we haven’t seen before. A lot of storylines were advanced including runbacks for recent encounters and a long-time coming face-off between a rising prince and a long-established king.
Glutonny would follow up his second place at Genesis by taking Pound 2022 over MkLeo. The Wario expert would defeat Leo in the winner’s semi-finals 3-1. He went on to the winners’ finals where he faced Light who proved to give Glutonny some problems, but in a thrilling game 5, last stock last hit scenario, Glutonny hit a dash attack while Light was holding in and Light died without any kill spark. It was a razor-thin set but Glutonny pulled through, putting him in grand finals on the winner’s side. Leo fought his way through Sonix, the Sonic specialist from the Dominican Republic who force Leo onto his Corrin, Riddles, the Kazuya/Terry player, and finally Light to get all the way back to Glutonny in grand finals. Leo took the first set 3-1 but in the reset, Glutonny brought it to a game 5 and found a waft on Leo’s last stock to make an amazing comeback, winning him the tournament.
Gluttony’s win comes after a long month of competing and practicing in North America. He’s been grinding with some of the best North American talent including Cosmos, Chag and Leo. He showed his progress at Genesis 8 last week where he beat everyone in his path except for Leo, so it wasn’t a surprise when he had a similar level of dominance at Pound. After he got his win on Leo in winners and meet him again in the grand finals, it started to look like that singular set might have been a fluke and Leo would add another major tournament to his resume, but when Gluto clutched out the win in the second set, it was clear that Glutonny is becoming a strong contender for top 3 in the world.
Riddles made a huge statement this weekend with his Kazuya. There has been a lot of talk about Kazuya in the meta. He’s an extremely polarizing character. He’s one of the least mobile characters but he makes up for it by having an amazing combo game and kill power. Riddles used his character’s tools so well this weekend and showed how devastating the character can be. He only lost to Light’s insane pressure with Fox and Leo’s similar explosive kill power with Byleth. He ended his run at 4th, showing just how much of a threat he is.
Zomba has been killing it recently. The best ROB in the world’s lowest placement at a major has been 9th recently, and his placements usually average around 5th, which he got last weekend at Genesis and this weekend at Pound. He’s been crowned “the Prince of New York” for a while, and despite his consistent presence at majors, he’s not fought Dabuz (the King of New York) until this weekend. Their set was absolutely insane. Dabuz opened up strong, using Rosalina’s gravitational pull to take control of Zomba’s gyro and using nair to land on ROB and get combos started. As the set progressed, Zomba would find his way through Dabuz’s defense more often, and eventually, they appeared even. In-game 5, Zomba had a huge lead that Dabuz started to make up, but after an insane off-stage exchange, Dabuz was once again betrayed by his own team.
Similar to Glitch infinite when Dabuz’s Pikmin on two different occasions extended hitboxes to get him killed, his Luma got him killed here. Dabuz needs to watch out for these hitbox extensions because they’ve seriously cost him multiple sets this year alone. Zumba on the other hand proved that there might need to be a new King of New York soon.
I finally want to talk about Sean. I won’t lie, I have never heard of this dude before this weekend. This Captain Falcon is nuts. After beating Tilde 3-1, he lost to Atelier the Pokemon Trainer. He then went on one of the craziest loser runs ever. He got wins on Suarez, Takera, Bacon the Dr. Mario who had a great weekend himself, ApolloKage, and finally Cosmos. We’ve seen Falcons make it this far, but usually, they play patiently at this high level of competition. Sean didn’t. He played with aggression almost exclusively and he did it all the way to 7th place. It shows how far you can get with such a playstyle and is not what you expect to see so late in the game’s life cycle. Normally a game becomes more defensive as time goes on so a break-out player who’s showing a new level of offense is exciting to say the least. He eventually fell to Zomba, but after a run like that, he definitely left his mark on the bracket. Also, check out this Falcon punch.
Also, check out his double footstool on Cosmos to steal game 1.
Sean is insane.
Pound 2022 was nutty. A lot of breakout performances and upsets. We’ll all be watching Glutonny to see if he can keep up this level of performance. I’m also going to keep an eye out for Sean in the future.
Thanks for reading and if you haven’t checked out my weekly blog aimed at helping myself and others improve at Smash Ultimate, you should. Last week’s entry was about mindset and how to keep positive and determined in the game. https://bernardlamarrice.com/2022/04/20/mindset-and-smash-ultimate-4-13-22-4-19-22/
Bernard Lamar Rice 