Last week, I revealed the nominees for the Eggwins: a series of informal shoutouts I wanted to run for people in the scene outside of competition. While I have no interest in pretending like these ‘awards’ are anything more than one dude’s subjective opinion, I still think they’re a fun way to celebrate other people in the scene. In today’s piece, I’d like to announce the winners of the following awards, as well as offer an explanation for why I believe they are great:
- You’re Cool Award
- Commentator of the Year
- Content Creator of the Year
- Streamer of the Year
- Twitter of the Year
- Major of the Year
- Local of the Year
- Region of the Year
The You’re Cool Award
I will always have a soft spot for grassroots sponsors that fund travel expenses for Melee players. Although it is admittedly not the greatest way to earn money, supporting a variety of strong competitors does get people to pay attention to you and it is pretty cool, which is why I went with Eggdog Esports. It would have been easy for Eggdog to simply pay all this money to Cody Schwab and ignore everyone else. The fact that it has instead supported all kinds of Melee players (while still being able to support Zamu and Spark in more recurrent capacity) is very cool. This demonstrates a sincere desire to support Smash in all levels.
Moving forward, it seems like this group is taking a leap into running events as well. It makes sense, given that Smash tournaments by themselves are content, just like how you can make content from helping players get to events. I can’t wait to see how Eggdog Scramble evolves and how future Eggdog tournaments fit into the current tournament ecosystem.
Commentator of the Year
I have a feeling that some of you reading this may roll your eyes. I can understand the impulse to push back against rewarding someone who could realistically win this award every year off reputation. And yet, I really do believe Toph is the best commentator in the game. He’s genuinely taken a huge step forward in his own craft as well.
As I’ve written about in this column before, Toph is very particular with his words. But even when he goes completely out of pocket, like he did at Battle of BC with Vish, it wraps around back to being good. To be fair, I don’t know how much of this is the fact that it’s Toph. Would I react this way if it were another commentator yelling, “Zain mashing on the control-stick like a child?” Probably not. However, I don’t think it’s Toph’s reputation carrying him here – it’s his confidence. This quality, in my opinion, makes Toph the best storyteller out of any commentator.
Practically every match he commentates is one that he’ll convince you to care about. His wealth of knowledge about the players, their relationships, and the game itself has always been unparalleled, but his newfound confidence has enabled him to pick up a broader skill of clearly articulating why a viewer should care. In the past, I feel like Toph was able to extract this quality from his co-commentators – most notably, Scar – but over the last year, he’s mastered the art of doing it himself.
A masterclass of Toph’s commentary came at The Off-Season 2. At an event with clear crossover into other video game communities, there’s an obvious reason why Toph was picked to commentate. He’s the most fun, most informed, and best caster to listen to while watching a game of Melee, and I think he knows it.
Content Creator of the Year
Although there were so many creators I’d love to celebrate, there was no doubt in my mind that GG Melee was going to be my pick here. These guys had really provided a model for how a brand could truly ingrain itself in the Melee community, incorporate feedback from people within that community, and support that community in a variety of ways.
It’s really tragic that GG Melee isn’t around anymore. I feel like it actually laid a path forward that was relatively low-cost, surprisingly profitable, and of high quality. Their scheduled variety content on their YouTube channel was one thing, but they were able to connect it with a podcast, a Twitter (unfortunately now deleted) that consistently engaged the rest of the scene, their support of amazing personalities and top players through their sponsorships, and even running events. Thank you to everyone involved at GG Melee who made the scene better over the last few years.
Streamer of the Year
I will not mince words: there are far better tournaments to play in than Coinbox. It is not typically fun to play a Boston-Vancouver connection after having waited for 20 minutes. I do not like waiting for an hour in between R1 Pools and Top 96 when I could just play my match. But while it was objectively miserable, Coinbox was also insanely good content which captivated the entire scene on a semi-regular basis. It is the biggest reason why I’ve picked Hungrybox as the streamer of the year.
Forget the fact that his stream is a nonstop content machine. Everybody knows that, and this quality alone would put him in the running every year. But over the last year, he generated an entire content ecosystem around this tournament series. From Zamu yelling at Ganondorf in the middle of a set to the bounty Hungrybox put on Cody Schwab (and then hilariously won) to even having his event re-streamed by people like Mango, it just generated so much attention and even hype.
As much as we hated it, we loved it too. The collective suffering and simultaneous thrill this series inflicted upon everyone involved was the ultimate Melee experience. It would not have been possible without the man himself at the center of it all.
Twitter of the Year
The nominees for best Twitter of 2023 were a stacked group of worthy candidates. But at the end of the day, I could only pick one, so I went with bonfire10. Her brand of powerful posting took a strong step forward over the last year, and when it came to her sheer variety of viral posts, she undeniably stood out.
for your consideration https://t.co/rpxZq3H2vI pic.twitter.com/lJhG93Gp0y
— bonfire10🇵🇸 (@bonfireten) January 3, 2024
Take, for instance, her above post about doubles. This was already a strong tweet of the year contender, but then you also have her ‘missed shield drop’ tweet. Unlike many other Melee posters, she’s also just funny outside of the game too. After extensively reviewing each of the candidates for best Twitter, I actually cannot believe I even considered excluding bonfire. Had I done it, this decision would have been like when Children of Men was snubbed of a Best Picture nomination. Anyway, she’s got this award locked up. I look forward to seeing more of her Twitter, as well as her personality on Fourside Fights.
Major of the Year
My second New England-related award of this column goes to Shine. As a New Englander, I will not pretend like I’m anywhere close to an objective source on this, but these are ultimately my picks, and I think the final Shine was the most magical one of all. I’ve previously written about Shine being the ultimate player experience before; how this series regularly always seems to have endless setups for friendlies and make best-of-five for Top 128 look smooth. But I think this is actually part of something much larger: how an event feels.
To many moments and even more memories.
We hope you enjoyed that little video before Grand Finals…it's been one hell of a ride. ✨ pic.twitter.com/3MFYAOsdap
— Shine Series (@Shine_Series) August 28, 2023
When you attend Genesis, it feels like this larger than life event, and until about last year, you even had to go to a theater to watch top eight. Battle of BC and GOML feel like you’re at a big party. Collision brought its players a very strangely compelling experience within a castle in the middle of nowhere. Shine, on the other hand, feels like an event run by the players for the players. It was both simultaneously integrated into the rest of the scene, yet never really felt like it was above the players or trying to be anything other than a Melee tournament.
Even when it made the move from Boston to Worcester, it was still fun to go to (even if miserable for travel). The venue was surrounded by multiple nice restaurants and hotels within walking distance. This might sound crazy, but the fact that the later installments happened in a mediocre city isn’t actually that bad. While there’s basically no nightlife in Worcester comparable to, say, Toronto, you still get the basic amenities of being in a city while also having the quiet comfort of a smaller location and being able to chill with your friends. Maybe this is just my inner introvert speaking here.
I love Shine. I will always love Shine. It was my first major ever attended; the one that convinced me that Melee was worth keeping around in my life for the last eight years. As much as I love other tournament series and believe them to be great, there was no chance in hell I would give any other major this award. Thank you to this series for sincerely changing my life.
Local of the Year
SoCal’s had several eras: the Elite Four Era of the mid aughts, the Super Smash Sunday Era of the early-mid 2010s, the Nimbus and Power 9 era right a bit before the pandemic, and, nowadays, the Verdugo Era. Although there are many locals I enjoy following in the scene, few have captured my heart quite like this ragtag group of new-school SoCal.
You may find locals with more attendance than Verdugo. You will find locals with more top-level challenges and uncertainty over who will win than Verdugo. In fact, if you’ve talked to attendees of Verdugo, you’ll know that you will probably find locals with more competitively stable environments than Verdugo. But the culture that this local embodies is absolutely lovable. The host of personalities across all levels of play, and how they come to the forefront of their local scene, is really astounding.
There’s obviously Fiction himself, whose reign over the rest of the scene is worthy of its own documentary. You have Kürv, who totally leans into being a strong threat against everyone else while also being a bit of a villain. Then you have people like deez, s-f (“Melee Stats Danny”), and Kevon who are all fun people in the scene and enjoyable to watch on a weekly basis, and that’s not to get into the variety of strong mid-level talent that SoCal boasts. This is the one local that over the last year has made me want to attend it more than any other one in the world.
Region of the Year
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: I can understand why it may seem very obnoxious of me to come up with this award. I don’t have the utmost personal insight into the workings of every Smash scene, and it’s not wrong for anyone to read my words here and feel like I’m being an unfair, if not uninformed judge. I just want to say: I’m not trying to pull anyone down here. Practically every region has something special. The existence of this “award” is not to demean the efforts of volunteers that make their communities special. Rather, it’s to celebrate unique contributions of an entire region.
While every local scene has something unique to it, Michigan Melee took an especially big step forward in 2023. It isn’t just the fact that it’s the spot of The Big House. This state’s primary Melee scene (among its surprising number of sub-regional scenes) has further cemented itself as the definitive leader of the Midwest, which is incredible given how many amazing communities exist within it.
At the local level, the Recovery series features the battles of KJH/Ossify, a rivalry which, in my opinion, has the best Fox-Marth/Marth-Fox gameplay you’ll find short of Cody/Zain. Obviously, the presence of these two isn’t the only factor that goes into celebrating a local, but they are absolutely a highlight. Similar praise could be given to the BODIED series, which typically features out-of-region stars, like Matteo, Zuppy, Ben, Skerzo, and TheSWOOPER. But beyond the highlighted stars, what I actually love about the BODIED series is its excellent tournament structure. It’s honestly comparable to European events in terms of giving a great bracket experience packed to the brim with potential matches for everyone. The stream production on BODIED is amazing too, making it a great experience to spectate.
I mentioned KJH and Ossify before, but those two are hardly the only stars. You cannot talk about Michigan in 2023 without bringing up the sudden rise of the enigmatic Morsecode762, nor can you ignore Ginger being there either. Amazingly, it feels like Quang, someone who will undeniably finish in the Top 100 as a Donkey Kong player, slides under the radar here too. Oh, and I did mention that Cody Schwab, the literal best player in the world, just moved to Michigan? Even when there isn’t a Michigan tournament, the state somehow seems perpetually in the spotlight.
When you imagine what a good local community looks like, there are so many great examples, but very rarely will you find a region as undeniably cohesive as Michigan. Its exceptional cadre of local, regional, and major TOs have facilitated and maintained something special.