This morning, Zain accomplished one his greatest feats: finally making grand master with Bowser, concluding roughly four months of him trying to make Grand Master on Ranked with every single character in the game. To be honest, I’m not quite over this – even if some of the ending involved a few gracious “stream protectors/throwers” to counterbalance the previous onslaught of stream snipers. In the future, I might try to dive into the specifics out of Zain’s run.
But for now, he can’t celebrate for too long because this upcoming weekend is Nouns Bowl: an event that features not only Zain, but Cody Schwab, Mang0, Jmook, Aklo, Plup, Joshman, and perhaps most excitingly, Nicki, the Ice Climbers that changed the Smash world forever with one of the greatest underdog runs of all-time six months ago. And yet that’s not all that’s happening this weekend. Curiously, on the other side of the world in Denmark, we have Valhalla V: now one of Europe’s most celebrated big events of each year. Last year’s Valhalla featured Pricent taking the whole thing over Nicki, Frenzy, and Pipsqueak without dropping a set as the seven seed; this year’s Valhalla features Frenzy, Solobattle, and the invading ckyulmiqnudaetr.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Since publishing this article, I’ve learned that Trif has been added to the event. I’m not sure whether he will play Peach or not, but if he does, he’s probably going to be the top seed by a fair margin.
Where do I even begin with this column? Initially I wasn’t sure which event I wanted to write more words about, but then I realized that this weekend is going to feature nonstop Melee across different time zones. With that in mind, I decided to make a scuffed viewers guide for what to look out for, from Friday to Sunday. I’ll be making predictions for who will win at the end of the column, but for now, consider this your reference point for what to look for at any given point throughout the weekend. Because I am from the East Coast, this guide will be written with my time zone in mind, but feel free to tweak as necessary for yourself.
Friday:
Thankfully for me, I don’t have any classes on Friday, so I can wake up at 8:00AM and immediately begin watching round 1 pools at Valhalla. Today features basically nothing from Nouns Bowl, but I can immediately get to watching European Melee in bed. Most of you reading this, I’m assuming, have work though, so for those of you in my region who are commuting, getting to the office, or preparing for the workday, this is the point of the event where you’re probably just going to have it on the background. Sadly, the brackets aren’t public, so I can’t pick specific matches to look out for.
To my understanding, the first four hours of the event (at least the part of it we’re interested in as viewers) are going to be dedicated to the first few waves of pools. But after that, around 12:00PM in East Coast time (6:00PM their time), we get to something pretty interesting in the Battle of the Boroughs bracket (3v3 Melee crews). To the true Melee diehards in here, this section is going to feature everything you’ll love about European events: hype rivalries, regional pride, and players that aren’t Top 100 but could totally do it with enough opportunities and chances to grind Melee the way their North American counterparts can.
I checked out the top seed of this event, and it’s a fun trio of Stockholm-associated players. First, you have Ditzy, who rarely appears outside of Sweden but has basically shown me nothing to not think she’s the best Marth there, then there’s Sharp, an extremely talented Peach player who made the 2022 Top 100 ballot with wins over Khryke and Pipsqueak and is Top 15 in Europe (No. 1 in Stockholm), and lastly smushmarth, the city’s current No. 4 and its top Captain Falcon. They seem like pretty strong favorites to take this side bracket, but behind them as the second seed is a neat Dutch trio in Nuckels, a Marth who beat Skerzo at DPOTG, $TYN, a Fox whom I’ve talked about before, and hidden boss old-school Fox Jim Morrison. These three players who are probably not that far off from the Stockholm trio in pound-for-pound results, but they might have situational counterpick advantages in the crews format.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Apparently seeding isn’t totally finished for crews; take this section for whatever it’s worth.
There’s a lot of other fun crews the deeper you get here, with quite a bit of hidden, exciting mid-level players. To pick one, I think the crew of Steff$, Yogurt, and Leander could randomly go hard in the bracket, but so could their first round opponent in the Danish-heavy group of Moe, King Funk, and VooDoo. Either way, this is a pretty fun way to end Friday, and you’ll have enough time Friday night to go do anything not related to Melee. Enjoy it while it lasts, because you’re gonna be glued to your seat for the rest of the weekend. At least if you’re East Coast. I don’t know. For you West Coasters, you might miss early waves of pools in singles, but you’ll have a nice morning of watching crews.
NOTE: I guess you also have the pre-local for Nouns Bowl to watch on Friday night, if you’re into this sort of thing. Wait, who am I kidding? If you’re reading this, you totally are. Cancel your plans. The tournament probably won’t feature everyone, but you’ll get to see fun matches that feel semi-legitimate.
Saturday:
Whatever you did Friday night on the East Coast, try your best to wake up by 4:00AM. Just kidding, I’m definitely not doing that. But I probably will be awake by 7:30AM anyway to take my dog out for his walk, give him his breakfast, and get my morning fix of coffee. That should just about put me near the end of the singles waves for Valhalla. Once again, the brackets aren’t public now so I don’t have any specific matches picked out. At the same time though, I’m not too worried. In fact, I’m going to assume most of you will be fast asleep until about 9:30AM or 10:00AM. That should give you enough time to get right in the middle of doubles bracket, which should take up the whole morning.
Who will win doubles? Honestly, it’s pretty up in the air. I initially thought that Pricent and Pipsqueak would team together – the same duo that won an European event over the French Sisters about a year and a half ago – but it turns out that Valhalla features a bunch of top talent teaming with friends or mid-level players. For what it’s worth though, I do think there’s an extremely funny duo that could semi-feasibly win this event in Moe and ckyulmiqnudaetr: a double-Melee Stats Donkey Kong duo that previously teamed at GOML 2023 and got 17th place there. They probably aren’t the favorites however; the safe pick for winning probably goes to $TYN and Nuckels, who finished in second place to Nicki/Pipsqueak at last year’s Valhalla and are the best active Dutch team. If it’s not them, it’s probably irfan and astar; two German spacies that got top eight together at Arcamelee #4. But who knows? Maybe Pricent and BigM go hamburgers together. That, or Pipsqueak finds a partner and the two go crazy. Apparently doubles registration is still open.
This column has been all about Valhalla so far. But it’s here where we turn our sights to the glorious location of Canton, Ohio, where we’re going to be treated to a wonderful surprise in more doubles sets. For you double-haters, I’m sorry; hang in there. From noon to 3PM, we should be seeing some fairly high level doubles matches, as this event features a pretty stacked top-line of duos, none bigger than Cody Schwab and Jmook: a duo that hasn’t dropped a tournament since Supernova 2024 and have since won Riptide 2024, DPOTG 2024, Platfight 2024, Genesis X2, Altitude Sickness 2, and Battle of BC 7 in a row. The clear doubles storyline here is if anyone can stop them.
Ever hear the saying “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun?” What if the best way to stop a Fox/Sheik team is another Fox/Sheik team? The second seed at Nouns Bowl for doubles is Krudo/Panda; the last team to eliminate Cody/Jmook from a tournament, and a team that has seemingly been cursed to runners-up for years now. Following them comes the star Fox duo of Soonsay/Preeminent (who won LMMM 2024 six months ago) and one team I’ve wanted to see become consistent partners for a while: the Shopify Rebellion guys in Zain and moky. In fact, it’s honestly kind of wild that these two haven’t teamed very much; from what I was able to find from bigger events, their only major entered together was Tipped Off 14 two years ago, when they got 3-0’d by Cody/Jmook and then DQ’d for fourth place.
All that is without going into the real wild card of doubles here, which is, of course, the French Sisters (i4/Fecfec) as this event’s fifth seed. As I’ve written about before, I think these two are extremely legit and a definitive Top 10 team in the world. After them, you have a potentially dangerous sixth seed in the double Fox team of Zuppy/Artan, both doubles aficionados, an unexpected seven seed of Plup and Mr. Rit (the third French sister), and then the eighth seed of Aklo/Maher. Beneath that, I think each of Holiday/Sirmeris, mgmg/LXIX, MOF/max, BY15/Balloon Day, and Faust/BING make for potentially spicy teams. My guess here is that Cody/Jmook win, but they drop a set to one of the top four seeds.
That leaves us on Saturday afternoon with more Nouns Bowl to watch – and this time, it’s the part of the event we care way more about (singles). And while these proposed matches still have five days or so to change, I do want to still note some “projected sets to watch out for,” if only because I think they’re fun to talk about, even if they don’t happen. As an additional stipulation, I excluded matches that determined whether or not someone would make it out to Top 16 in winners bracket, if only because they were so obvious.
| Pool Number | Seeding Favorite | Seeding Underdog | Projected Part of Bracket |
| 1 | Lowercase hero | Maher | Winners |
| 1 | Junebug | Mooshies | Winners |
| 1 | Sirmeris | Maher | Losers |
| 1 | Lowercase hero | M1sf1re | Losers |
| 2 | Balloon Day | Beezy | Winners |
| 2 | Balloon Day | Jada | Losers |
| 3 | Kalvar | Jude | Winners |
| 3 | Kalvar | Mono | Losers |
| 4 | Grab2Win | Panos | Losers |
| 5 | Artran | Just | Losers |
| 6 | Axe | Ampp | Winners |
| 6 | i4 | Jeandolla | Winners |
| 6 | Faust | Sarlo | Winners |
| 6 | Chickenman400 | DarkGenex | Winners |
| 7 | Joshman | Ble$$e | Winners |
| 7 | SluG | Stockholm Syndrome | Winners |
| 7 | Jink | erik… | Losers |
| 8 | TheRealThing | Boyd | Losers |
Some of these are long shots; many of them, however features players quite close in seed that I think are functional tossups. Ones that you might scoff at for having any perceived upset potential I merely picked because they had some level of novelty to them (such as Junebug vs. Mooshies; high-level Mr. Game & Watch vs. Donkey Kong you won’t find very much). Below, however, you’ll find the most exciting projected matches to make it out to Top 32 in winners bracket; these will all be happening until 9PM.
| Pool Number | Seeding Favorite | Seeding Underdog |
| 1 | Junebug | Sirmeris |
| 2 | Zuppy | Panda |
| 3 | BING | Preeminent |
| 4 | Soonsay | Drephen |
| 5 | Magi | MOF |
| 6 | Axe | Faust |
| 7 | Joshman | SluG |
| 8 | Nicki | JoJo |
Out of these picks, the ones I’m most interested in are the second half, from Pool 5 to Pool 8. This features a good combinations of tossups (Magi vs. MOF and Joshman vs. SluG) and matchups with clear favorites against punchy underdogs that are a bit scarier draws for them than their seeds indicate. In JoJo’s case, I think he’s an especially standout rising regional talent that is quite good vs. the Ice Climbers and even gets pre-Nicki warmup of sorts in Boyd, while in Faust’s case, he’s a Jigglypuff player who does really well vs. Fox and has good character knowledge to combat the Pikachu or anything else if Axe pulls it out.
Sunday
You spend most of Friday watching Melee in the early part before then enjoying your free evening (or checking the prelocal to Nouns Bowl). Then on Saturday, you were a couch potato. Guess what you’re going be for the last day of the weekend: a couch potato. Thankfully, however, Melee singles doesn’t start until 7:00AM (Eastern time, of course), which is roughly before I start taking my dog out in the morning. Because I love Melee that much, and will probably be listening to Valhalla while outside, this will give me time to start my day off right. Luckily enough, anyone in a similar position to me will be able to take it easy from the morning to about 3:00PM, roughly when Nouns Bowl starts Top 32 of singles and right when Valhalla V should be over.
So, who do we look out for here? I previously mentioned ckyulmiqnudaetr and obviously Pricent, the defending champion. However, I don’t think they’re necessarily clear-cut guarantees to win. You have the two highest ranked non-Nicki European players (Solobattle and Frenzy, No. 2 and 3 in the continent respectively) and Pipsqueak. He’s been playing more Marth lately than his standard Fox, but I imagine for this tournament it’s possible enough that he might play Fox; it’s hard to say, since it’s basically the difference between him potentially winning the event or performing well enough to get Top 16 or so. Regardless, after these three, you have more well-known names like Jamie, $TYN, Jadde (one of the biggest secret bosses of Europe), irfan, Sharp, and Moe, among many others.
There’s just so many possible sets that I’d love to see here. I’m particularly curious to see if there’s anyone in ckyulmiqnudaetr’s path that can upset him; he’s obviously very good, but as a Donkey Kong player attending a continent with a surprisingly high number of strong Donkey Kong representatives, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility for someone to upset him before winners finals or even before top eight in general. I’m also interested to see if this could be either Frenzy or Pipsqueak’s return to notoriety on a bigger continental stage; it’s been a bit of a quiet year for both of them. My guess though is that Pricent takes home the gold and defends their Valhalla title. Fun fact: since winning Valhalla IV over Nicki, Pricent hasn’t dropped a tournament while playing Fox – only one set to V0ffe. Granted, they haven’t entered much, but they also won two tourneys over Pipsqueak and Inngenn.
EDITOR’S NOTE: As mentioned before, since publishing this article, I’ve learned that Trif has been added to the event – this is a pretty big deal and would probably make him the definitive favorite to win. With that said though, Trif’s history at larger EU events isn’t always the most steady; based on how the tourney could shape out, if he runs into Solobattle, he could be in trouble. In fact, I think that’s exactly what will happen; my guess is that Trif dominates everyone before top eight, where he runs into Solobattle and loses before having to play him again in loser’s finals. Who ends up winning then? Probably Pricent based on how the bracket turns out.
And now we get to spend our Sunday afternoon and evening watching a real ass major in Nouns Bowl. I mentioned some of the Top 10 talent present here beforehand, and right underneath that are quite a few heavy hitters in our Top 16 seeds. Krudo won the “non Top 10 players” major of sorts in Full Bloom 2025, and he could be due for an even bigger breakout. Each of Soonsay, Magi, Junebug, BING, and Zuppy have multiple wins over top seeds at this very tournament over the last couple of years. While I’m not sure about their specific chances of winning, I genuinely think there are paths to top four for these players too. I might even give a few of them significantly non zero chances to be in grands, if Trif’s breakout at Genesis X2 is any indication for what previously comparable players have achieved.
Any combination of these players in a singles set is going to be compelling, but in my mind, I really hope we get to see the eight seed vs. nine seed showdown in Plup vs. Nicki to make winners quarters. I just have no idea how this set will go; we haven’t seen Plup’s Samus really challenged by an Ice Climbers player in the post-Wobbling age, and we haven’t seen Nicki take on a top Samus main since he’s suddenly become the messiah for Ice Climbers. He did drop a set to TheSWOOPER early last year, but it feels wrong to compare that version of Nicki to the current one. Beyond that, I’m interested to see a projected moky vs. Magi rematch from Supernova 2024, a potential Mang0 vs. moky rematch, another installment of Axe vs. Krudo, and a potential first-time showing of Zain’s Marth vs. Junebug’s Donkey Kong in a major tournament.
But I’ll be honest: I was unsatisfied with Zain vs. Cody Schwab from Battle of BC 7. It was, in a sense, what I wanted in a top-level dominant Marth victory over a top-level Fox. However, I just don’t believe that it’s always going to be like this. I think that these two – particularly Cody – are capable of gifting us some of the greatest sets ever, and I absolutely do not buy that the near-future of this matchup is just going to be Zain thwacking him as he’s done the last four sets. I think this is a good tournament for Cody to beat Zain at too; his bracket is really strong (basically all Fox players into Jmook or Axe before winners finals), and Zain’s is a bit trickier (Junebug into Plup or Nicki into Mang0 or moky). My guess is Cody beats him in two sets and the No. 1 race begins with a tie between these two (and Hungrybox, I guess) before Full House and Tipped Off (maybe even GOML) settle it for summer rank.