Tyler Swift Makes Surprising Run at GMO: Summer Edition
Historically, Hungrybox struggles in netplay tournaments. Still, this weekend he won the Galint Melee Open: Summer Edition tournament anyways. However, before the Jigglypuff player could get to Grand Finals, he suffered a surprising upset from a player that many fans have never heard of before: Tyler Swift. Even more surprising about this upset is that the new face is a Pikachu main.
The pools and early brackets of the online tournament were divided between east coast and west coast. This was due to concerns with cross-country connections causing lag. Those who made it out of pools were put into a Top 32 bracket for their region. In each Top 32 bracket the players would fight for a spot in the Top 16 bracket, no longer divided by region.
After beating Bbatts to get out of his East Coast pool, Tyler Swift played Logan in East Coast Top 32. Logan, previously known under the tag LSD, was voted into Smash Summit 11 which happened the previous weekend. Despite the summit practice Tyler Swift was able to beat the Marth main handedly with a 3–1. Only one more match stood between Tyler Swift and making it into Top 16 on the winners side. In order to make it, he had to play against another Smash Summit 11 vote-in: Aklo. This set was closer, with Tyler Swift winning 3–2.
In the Top 16 bracket, Tyler Swift continued his gauntlet of first time Summit players as he squared off with KoDoRiN, another Marth player. This was Tyler Swift’s most dominant win outside of pools, sweeping a 3–0 against KoDoRiN in three close games. Next up was Tyler Swift’s first set of the day against Hungrybox. Similar to Falco players, Tyler Swift switched to Fox for this matchup. Hungrybox took the first game on Battlefield and both players won on their counterpicks, trading wins in three close games. In game five, the set count was tied with Hungrybox counter picking to Fountain of Dreams. Hungrybox hit an early rest, taking Tyler Swift’s first stock and the lead in game five. Not even 15 seconds had passed in this game yet. Hungrybox kept up the pressure and his stock lead as the game continued. The turning point for Tyler Swift came when both players were on their third stock. As Hungrybox approached with an aerial, Tyler Swift wave dashed towards him and landed an Up Smash, putting Hungrybox on his last stock. The Pikachu player was able to close out the game, winning a set against one of the best players in the world while also punching his ticket to Winners Finals.
In Winners Finals, Tyler Swift played Pikachu again against n0ne. The Captain Falcon main took the first game then switched to Mario, one of the mid tier characters he often plays on his stream. He would switch back to Falcon after Tyler Swift won the next game. When he won the game after that, it looked like Tyler Swift had secured a spot in Grand Finals, but he would lose the next two games. These last two were the most dominant games for n0ne, the first being a two stock and the second being a three stock. Sent to Losers Finals, Tyler Swift again faced Hungrybox where he played Fox the entire set. Coming off a loser’s run, Hungrybox started off with a 3 stock on Battlefield, setting a much stronger tone for the set. Tyler Swift would take the second game, before losing the next two and being eliminated from the Tournament at third place.
This tournament showed a good run by the Pikachu main. The entire bracket, he only played those who had been to Smash Summit 11. Summit attendees experience practice against top level players for an entire weekend. It’s like a training camp for up and coming players, yet Tyler Swift showed good results against them. He even had a close set with n0ne before losing. However, critics would say that since this is a Netplay tournament, his results don’t matter. It will be interesting to see if another Pikachu player rises to the Top 100 rankings as LAN tournaments come back.