A mid-tier character has won a Super Major event for Super Smash Bros. Melee for the second time in a row.
At Smash ‘N’ Splash 5, Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett recorded the first Super Major win using Captain Falcon in over a decade. And now, Jeffrey “Axe” Williamson has become the first player to use Pikachu and win a Major.
Smash Melee was released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2001, and as the competitive scene has grown over the years, no player had won a Super Major event using Pikachu. Super Majors are events that have large prize pools and feature the best players from all over the world.
That doesn’t even begin to explain what Summit is. Summit, and in this case Smash Summit 8, brings together the top talent in a game’s competitive scene for a weekend of various events culminating in a condensed super tournament.
To start his run at this event, Axe had to defeat the seventh-ranked Zain Naghmi and fifth-ranked Joseph “Mang0” Marquez.
Over the course of the weekend, Axe had been on fire during the side events. He did well in most of the other tournaments and even won the Reverse Main, where each player has to only use the character their opponent is most well-known for.
Axe didn’t even drop a game during that side tournament, which was a great warmup for playing such a wide variety of opponents.
He made it through the singles pools with only one loss, a 3-0 to a top three player, William “Leffen” Hjelte. That gave him a bye in the first round of the main bracket.
Zain was a tough first pull for Axe, with Marth having a great zone game that can lead to early deaths for Pikachu players who get too aggressive. It all ended up coming down to game five, last stock where Axe was spamming Thunder Jolts across the stage to try and tack on some damage.
A clash in the center of the stage nearly got Axe killed, but a hit sent Zain flying, which he followed up by simply running across the stage and up-smashing him.
Mang0 took him to another game five with his Falco, but Axe has a lot of practice against him since the pair stream together almost every Wednesday. After one mistimed jump, Mang0 ended up getting gimped off stage, giving Axe all of the momentum. Another hit offstage took stock three and the fourth stock fell as Mang0 overcommitted to an offstage punish and couldn’t recover.
That win paired Axe against Wizzrobe for the first time, leading to a rather one-sided win for Axe as he took the 3-1 victory, only losing the first match. Axe just outspaced Wizzy in the end, not giving any room for Captain Falcon to maneuver.
Axe had to go five games again in a rematch against Leffen in the winners finals. Leffen’s Fox just looked amazing at chasing down the little electric rat as the series went on. The two players tend to have close sets whenever they face off, and this was no exception as they traded blows.
A missed jab-to-up-smash combo led to Axe taking Leffen down to his final stock in game five. Immediately following that, it looked like Axe was going to seal the deal after tossing Leffen offstage again, but a well-timed recovery and completely raw up-smash kept the Swedish Fox alive.
Axe spawned and immediately started going for grabs, just trying to seal the deal with one last combo. He eventually found what he needed, advancing to his first Summit grand finals to play against Wizzy again. Wizzrobe, coming from the losers bracket, would need to win two best-of-five series against Axe to claim the title.
It was back and forth through the first three games, with Wizzy taking game one and three to go up 2-1 heading into Axe’s second counterpick. At the Fountain of Dreams, Axe and Wizzy traded blows down to their final stock, which came down to who could grab the other first to set up one last combo.
Wizzy managed to double grab into a knee that reset the bracket and put a lot more pressure on Axe.
By game four of the reset, Axe was up 2-1 with a chance to make history. Heading into his counterpick on Final Destination, he had all the advantage he needed to best the top Falcon in the world.
When it got down to two stocks, Wizzy played an outstanding game. Captain Falcon is at such a disadvantage on FD, but he lived until nearly 200 percent to give Axe one last run for the title.
After a last frame hit on an up-smash followed by a chaingrab combo to set up a ledge guard, Axe took the win and popped off. For nearly four minutes, the camera showed Axe sitting in his chair, silently crying as the commentators and other top players cheered him on and talked about everything he went through to reach this point.
Axe had an unexpected response to winning his first Super Major and the first in history with Pikachu, however.
“I need some pizza,” Axe said.
He then wiped away his tears and thanked his sponsor, Tempo Storm, and Wizzy for a great match.
This is a remarkable accomplishment for Axe, who made history after 10 years of competing and constantly getting better with his character. The top 10 rankings just got a lot tighter for this season.
