Super Smash Bros: Weekly Wrap-Up - Week 3

It’s Friday, and you know what that means: it’s time for our next Super Smash Bros. wrap-up! Tune in every week for a quick-and-dirty recap of all the news worth knowing in the competitive Smash scene.

It’s been a relatively quiet week for Smash, with most top players hunkering down for the year-end break. There aren’t any large events remaining in 2019, so the majority of this week’s news comes in the form of juicy Twitter drama.

Zain vs. Fiction: Twitter beef edition

Zain “Zain” Naghmi and Shephard “Fiction” Lima have played three entertaining sets this year, including a five-game thriller at GENESIS 6. But their most recent battle was a 3-0 in Zain’s favor, and Fiction has clearly been mulling over the loss. His ire came out in a tweet blaming the poor result on Zain’s ability to practice with multiple high-level Fox players.

Zain quickly fired back with a riposte of his own, setting off a series of increasingly salty Twitter exchanges.

Thanks to this newly-invigorated beef, the next set between Zain and Fiction is sure to be a spicy one.

GimR upends the Ultimate metagame… maybe

On December 10, Calvin “GimR” Lofton sent Smash Twitter into a frenzy by teasing his discovery of a purportedly game-breaking piece of Smash Ultimate tech.

Well, that video came out on Wednesday, and GimR’s prediction may have been correct. In a nutshell, the video instructs viewers about the many uses of buffered phantom footstool jumps, which can help players evade sharking opponents after they’ve burned their double jump—and sometimes set up unique edge-guard situations.

Still, not everyone was convinced. After the video specifically pointed out the usefulness of the tech in the Mario match-up, Mario mains came out of the woodwork to point out potential counterplay.

But other top players were quick to rebut these counterarguments, and the debate over the usefulness of GimR’s buffered double jump tech probably won’t be settled until we see it used in top-level tournament play.

ZeRo inadvertently accuses Leffen of criminal conduct

The latest controversy to hit the Smash community was sparked by a video published on Wednesday by Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios. The thumbnail of the video seemed to imply that Leffen had been involved in criminal activity in the past, although the video itself clarified that the headline in the thumbnail referred to Bronson “DaShizWiz” Layton.

After a brief attempt to defend the thumbnail, ZeRo caved to community pressure and changed the video’s thumbnail to one referring to an incident involving Tyler “Marss” Martins earlier this year.

Roster moves

There was only one roster change this week: Lukas “Lucky” Cichon (the German Smash Ultimate player, not to be confused with Californian Melee veteran Joey “Lucky” Aldama) signed with TKA E-Sports on Sunday.

Clips of the week

To round out this wrap-up, here are a few of the funniest and flashiest clips of the week for both Melee and Ultimate. Enjoy ‘em—and be sure to check in next week for the third edition of GGRecon’s weekly Smash breakdown!

Image via YouTube/GimR’s Lab