The ΩRank top 100 continues with a slew of familiar faces who are only getting better with time. These are the ΩRank 70-61 best players in the world.
2022 was yet another solid year for North America’s most iconic Snake main, Jestice “MVD” Negron. Opening the year with a solid run to 3rd at B-tier LVL UP EXPO 2022 that included wins on Klaatu, Zenyou, frawg, and Larry Lurr, MVD would run with the momentum to achieve a slew of other solid runs throughout the first half of the year. Of particular note are a 17th at Genesis 8 with wins on Neeroz, varun, Mystery Sol, and BassMage; 9th at Battle of BC 4 with a win on Chag; 7th at CEO 2022 with wins on Apple, Juanpi, Sean, and Zomba; and his best run of the year, 17th at Double Down 2022 with wins on Neeroz, Tarik, and Zomba.
Bad luck meant that his second half of the year got off to a bad start, as covid caused him to miss out on attending events in August and September, and his first three tournaments back all went much weaker than expected, being upset six times between the three of them, including an 0-2 to Andrik and ven at the Ludwig Smash Invitational LCQ. Nonetheless, he’d return to form for his final three events of the season, beating Gackt and Zomba at Port Priority 7; Kobe, omega, and Jahzz0 at Dreamhack Atlanta 2022; and AC and Quinn at Mainstage 2022, while only losing to top 20 players.
While there might be a new and rising contingent of snake players all over the world, MVD is still an ever-present threat, and one that cannot be counted out to reclaim his throne of best Snake main in the world in 2023.
Amidst what was a banner year for Samus players across the world, Willow “IcyMist” Barto had the best performance of her competitive career in 2022, scoring a bevy of upsets against top 50 players time and time again to land at a nice #69 on the ranking. At her first event of the year, Let’s Make Big Moves 3-2, she secured a game 5 win on Onin before losing another game 5 set to quiK in the ditto to fall to losers, where she 3-0’d Jdizzle and Gen to make top 12, ultimately falling in another game 5 to Goblin. At bae100, she was upset 1-2 by MPg in winners, but Beast, PkChris, and Jakal in losers before falling to Zomba 1-3. At Pound 2022, she defeated Quandale Dinglelingleton and Jordan while losing to Riddles and Atelier. At notable Michigan event EMUSC Summer of Love, she defeated RaymondNoodles 3-2 and then 3-0’d Onin in Winners Finals. In Grands, Onin won the first set in a narrow game 5 but she answered back with a 3-1 in the reset. Although Onin won their last encounter of the season at COST 2022 a week later, she still ended the season with a 3-2 record on the Steve prodigy, the single strongest point about her year.
Although her runs from July through September were quieter than earlier in the year, she still took down names like ATATA, Mr. E, Yoda Cage, Sonido, ShinyMark, and Chase during this time. At the Big House 10, she took an early loss to PsyKoD, but won six sets in losers over players like Burst, Aaron and WaDi. She showed no signs of slowing down, closing the year out with a 2nd place finish at Ohio regional Chain Grab over players like Toast, Nhan, and AnthonyIsntCool. She enters 2023 in a strong position to take her momentum from 2022 and build on it to place even higher in the new season.
After his arguably top 15 2021, Towa “Liquid | Atelier” Kuriyama’s 2022 might be underwhelming, but although he couldn’t match the heights of his 2021 he nonetheless delivered a series of solid performances, albeit inconsistently. His opening to the season at Kagaribi 6 turned out to be an omen of things to come, as he lost 0-3 to up and coming Kyushu Dr. Mario player Shissho in winners. In losers, he defeated Kurumisu, Toriguri, Jagaimo, and Lunamado before being eliminated by Tsubotsubo 2-3 at 33rd. After a mixed bag of performances at three consecutive Sumabatos, he headed to the states in April. At Genesis 8, he defeated jaredisking1 in winners and upset MuteAce in losers, but was upset by skittles 1-2 in winners and BassMage 1-3 in losers. A week later, he had his best performance of the year, placing 9th at Pound 2022 by defeating Sean, IcyMist, and KEN while losing only to MkLeo and Gackt.
Hand issues prevented Atelier from competing again until August. After a rough KOWLOON 2 where he lost to depth players Budoshu and Gintama, he had a very strong top 8 performance at Maesuma TOP 9, defeating Karaage, alice, Nao, and Gackt in losers after taking an early loss to Omuatsu, before being eliminated 1-3 by KEN in a reversal of his Pound performance. Unfortunately, this was followed by his worst showing of the year at WAVE 2, where he placed 49th losing to CAPURICO and Rimori. Still, he had plenty of fight left in him, and through the rest of the year he’d defeat players like Toura, Shirayuki, alice, Jogibu, HIKARU, Shissho, Injelly, and Tsubotsubo. Though his 2023 season has been a mixed bag to say the least thus far, his recent 7th place at Umebura SP 9 is his best performance since Kagaribi 5 in late 2021, and could well portend a more permanent return to the heights of that year.
Twitter | Twitch | YouTube | Metafy
The best Incineroar player in the world, Juan “Skyjay” Pablo continued his solid breakout performances of 2021 into 2022 as well, scoring upset after upset in and out of Mexico. Opening the year with a win at SoCal notable event Festival of Fights 2022 over Monte, Chag, and T3 DOM, he’d nonetheless mostly have quiet performances for the rest of the first half of the year, although he would place 4th at large Mexican invitational Delfino Maza RETA 2022 with wins on Rox, Waka, Andrik, Cloudy, and Chag, and would also get an MVD win at Genesis 8. He also won notable Mexican event Wizard’s Fest with a win on Leaf and two wins on AlanDiss.
Skyjay once again opened the 2nd half of the year strong with a 9th place finish at Smash Factor 9 and wins of Mr.R and Chag. Unlike the first half, he’d keep the momentum going strong, following it up with his strongest performance of the year. At Super Smash Con 2022, he defeated Mistake 2-1, Tavares 3-1, and Kola 3-1 to make top 24, where he lost 2-3 to Riddles and 0-3 to Aaron. He subsequently traveled to Europe, where he defeated Bloom4Eva game 5 at Ultimate Wanted 4. At BOSS BATTLES: Phase 1, he lost his 2nd round to RMH Henryk, but won 11 sets in losers to make grands, obliviating players like Luugi, Sandro, Lancelot, Sriks, and Peli who stood in his way, ultimately losing 2-3 to Sisqui for 2nd. At Lost Tech City, he lost to Atomic and Niko but defeated Zie, Chronos, and BassMage.
He closed out the year with a 2nd place finish at Mexico invitational Wizard’s Lair Vol II. After losing to Chag in round robin pools and Maister in winners, he defeated Nair^ 3-0, then ran it back 3-0 over Chag in Losers Finals and Maister in Grand Finals set 1 before losing the reset 0-3. With another win over Maister to open the new season, Skyjay’s 2023 looks bright.
One of the youngest and fastest rising players in the United States, SHADIC was quietly building a solid resume of wins in 2021 over players like MuteAce and Scend, but few could have expected his breakout 2022. At Collision 2022, SHADIC acquired game 5 wins over Syrup and Cosmos before losing 0-3 to Quidd and 1-3 to Jakal. He followed this up with wins over Skyjay, Lima, and Aaron at Low Tide City 2022, and a second Cosmos win at MomoCon 2022. His first half ended with a disappointing 49th at Double Down to BassMage and Jahzz0, but he wasn’t stopping there.
After another disappointing 33rd at SSC to Maister and ChunkyKong, SHADIC acquired a Chag win at Rise ‘N Grind, though an unfortunate bracket left him losing to Zomba and Onin for 13th. Lost Tech City 2022 was another disappointment, as Dark Wizzy sent him to losers 0-3 and Chronos eliminated him 2-3. A week later however, he achieved his best result of the year and his first major top 8 ever, defeating Luma, Zomba, Lima, and PsyKoD to place 7th at the Big House 10. An Onin win at Let’s Make Big Moves 2023 to open the new year portends the potential for SHADIC to rank much higher in the next season; he just needs to take his already-present highs at majors and transfer them to supermajors.
Consistent strong runs throughout the year and a seeming inability to have a bad event land Tarik Tarik “GG | Tarik” Fayazi the 65th position on the ranking. Tarik might not have the highs of nearly every player above him, but he also avoided their lows. Tarik opened the year with a run to 2nd at Spanish superregional Glory 2.0, taking down TriM, Raflow, quiK, PeW, and Leon while losing to AndresFn. At his worst event of the year, Swiss invitational e-Caribana, he defeated NaetorU before losing to Oryon and Samuuu. At COLOSSEL 2022, he took down Flow in winners before losing 0-3 to MkLeo, then defeated Vidad and LeoN in losers prior to losing 2-3 to Chag to place 9th. At his sole event outside of Europe, Double Down 2022, he lost 2-3 to both MVD and Shogun, but defeated Stroder Ame and enhancedpv. This was followed by his best event of the year, a 2nd place finish at UK superregional Regen 2022, where he defeated Shaneak, Darkstalker, and double eliminated Bloom4Eva, being eliminated only by Luugi.
His 2nd half of the year wasn’t quite as consistent as the first half, but while he had some negative events, none were especially damaging, and after Regen 2022 he collected additional wins over quiK, DarkThunder, Gogesta, Sintro, SBF, Azrael, Lancelot, PeW, Leon, Destany, and AndresFn. A deep major run has eluded him for now, but it seems almost inevitable that it’ll happen by the end of 2023, potentially elevating him into the top 50.
Twitter | Twitch | YouTube | Metafy
Germany’s best player, Marcel “HIVE | quiK” Romagnuolo had an extremely strong start to the year that carried him to a solidly top 70 ranking, though a rough end to the year ruled out a top 50 ranking. An extremely promising start to the year at Let’s Make Big Moves 2022, where he defeated Colorondo8, Jdizzle, WaDi, and IcyMist, was just the beginning. At Glory 2.0, he placed 7th, defeating Oryon and Neeroz while losing to Tarik and Mr.R. At Rise of PPT, he was double eliminated by DarkThunder, but scored a win on him as well as on visiting American Larry Lurr. His strongest event win of the year came at Smash Contest: DoKomi 2022, where he defeated DarkThunder and went 2-1 in sets against Tarik. His strongest run of the year, however, was at the e-Caribana invitational, where he defeated TriM, Raflow, Peli, Chag, and Sisqui while losing only to MkLeo—who he even managed to force off of Corrin and onto Byleth. He closed out the first half of the year with a solid run to 9th at COLOSSEL 2022, defeating Eko, iStudying, and Mezcaul while losing game 5 sets against Sisqui and Bloom4Eva.
The rest of his year was rough, ravaging the solidly top 50 level first half and reducing it to merely top 70. Although his larger events were at least acceptable, with only top 100 losses and wins on Ogey, NaetorU, and Peli between VCA 2022 and Tech Republic VI, he’d underperform dramatically at regional level events, going 0-4 at Tru4’s Spotlight 4 and 3-2 at Unismash #8. Yoda Cage and Dark Wizzy wins at Let’s Make Big Moves 2023 are a promising start to the new year, but with Tarik also on the rise, quiK will need to step it up to retain his title of best player in Germany in the new year. Considering the closeness of his game 5 losses to Kola, MkLeo, Sisqui, and Bloom4Eva, however, this seems more than doable.
One of tristate’s rising stars, MBS | Syrup put up a series of strong runs throughout 2022 that only seemed to get stronger as the year went on. His 13th place finish at Let’s Make Big Moves 2022, with two wins on Mugen, would have already qualified as his best performance of his career at the time—so it’s telling that it wasn’t even in the top half of his performances in 2022 by the year’s end. Runs to 33rd at Glitch – Infinite and 17th at Collision 2022 came with decent losses but no good wins, and the 97th at Genesis 8 that followed came with Nao and Shoe losses.
After that though? It was basically smooth sailing. Though Syrup never made any especially strong runs at true majors, he did achieve a trio of top 6 performances at submajors throughout the year, the first at Get On My Level 2022, where he defeated Nhan, Gogeta, Ouch!?, and Cosmos prior to losing 0-3 to Riddles and Big D. At SSC 2022, he had one of the better 33rds of the year, defeating Jake while losing to Cosmos and Ned. At Shine 2022, he took down PkChris, Marss, Beast, and Jakal for yet another submajor 5th. At Glitch – Regen, he defeated NoTag, Pink Fresh, BeastModePaul, and Peanut. An uncharacteristic underperformance at Let’s Make Moves Miami for 25th still came with a Jahzz0 win, and three weeks later, he had his best event of the year. At Apex 2022, Syrup sent Mr. E and Suarez to 3-2, then shockingly sent Dabuz to losers 3-0, prior to losing 0-3 to MPg and 1-3 to Jakal.
Though his career isn’t without some growing pains, as evidenced by a rough 65th at Let’s Make Big Moves 2023, that does little to move his clear and unequivocal upward trajectory. If he can replicate his highs of 2022 at genuine majors, he seems like a shoe-in for top 50 in the future.
Despite a strong legacy from Smash 4, Aaron “Moist | Aaron” Wilhite had a mostly unremarkable time in Ultimate pre-quarantine. That’s clearly shifted in the post-lockdown era, as while his consistency has left something to be desired, strong peaks put him in contention for top 50 both in 2021 and again in 2022. A rough start to the year holds him back, as a 49th at Let’s Make Big Moves and 65ths at both Glitch – Infinite and Collision 2022 saddled him with 5 non-top 100 losses, at majors no less. Genesis 8 looked to be off to a similar start as he took an early loss to varun, but he won 8 sets in losers over MoDzai, Sonido, Goblin, Big D, Monte, and Chag before finally being eliminated by Marss. After a respectable 13th at Low Tide City 2022, MomoCon was another underperformance, with Aaron finishing 49th to Suarez and KidFromPopeyes. Fortunately, MomoCon was his final sub-top 24 performance on the year.
CEO 2022 gave Aaron his best win of the season, a game 5 win over Zomba, and he also notably defeated Fatality 3-0 while losing 1-3 to Toast and Marss. At submajor GOML 2022, he defeated Tilde 3-2 and Ouch!? 3-0 while taking losses to Kola and Big D. Though he placed 17th at Double Down 2022, it came with a fine Shoe win and respectable Shuton and Jakal losses. The trend of strong supermajor performances continued at Super Smash Con 2022, as Aaron defeated MFA and MKBigBoss in winners before losing game 5 to Dabuz, then defeated MFA, Tilde, and SkyJay in losers before being eliminated 1-3 by MkLeo of all players. It was at PNW regional PAX Arena at PAX west, however, that he unexpectedly had his best performance of the year, getting game 5 wins over WaDi, Light, and Kola in winners, then defeating Kola 3-1 in grands. Fresh off a successful stint competing in Japan to start off his 2023, Aaron enters the new season poised to return to the top 50 for the first time since Smash 4.
Twitter | Twitch | YouTube | Metafy
In many ways, Robert “Paragon | Myran” Herron’s 2022 success seems like an accident; after riding a DQ bracket to 5th at Genesis 8 with a best win of Marss, one thing just led to another: questionable panelist methodology resulted in a top 15 ranking on the PGRUv3, which led to a successful vote in campaign for Smash Ultimate Summit 5 and an invite to the Ludwig Smash Invitational. This narrative, however, is an oversimplification that both ignores the nuances of each of those events, as well as the many successes he found outside of them. While Myran did have a substantially easier ride to 5th at Genesis than projected thanks to DQs and upsets like AC over Tweek and Ikan over Cosmos and ESAM, wins on Ikan, AC, and Teaser are still nothing to scoff at and when all ways said and done, Marss wasn’t even clearly Myran’s best win at the event thanks to an Anathema win in round 2 pools aging phenomenally. A Ned win en route to 13th at Pound 2022 also aged well, thanks to Ned’s own wins on Onin going up tremendously in value. Likewise with Myran’s win over ApolloKage at MomoCon 2022.
Much of the narrative around Myran from earlier in the year seems less about his win quality being poor and more to do with wins on great players who weren’t having a great start to the year—but imminently would turn things around later on. This continued into the latter half of the year too, as Myran double eliminated Peabnut to win Florida invitational Secret Wars a month before Peabnut placed Silver at Riptide 2022. A 65th place finish at Super Smash Con 2022 and 17th at Rise ‘N Grind each came with only respectable losses. Meanwhile, the Summit he was voted in to was more to his detriment than his benefit, as he won no sets and took, incredibly, his fourth Jahzz0 loss of the year, although the MuteAce win he obtained at the Ludwig Smash Invitational was more straightforwardly helpful. Although he took 8 losses to players outside the top 100, between the 4 Jahzz0 losses and additional losses to MPg and Ling only two of the losses (Z minus and BobbyWasabi) were particularly harmful.
Whatever you think of Myran’s 2022 season, there’s more to it than meets the eye, and only a fool would count him out of top 50 contention in 2023.
ΩRank: The Ultimate Algorithmic Ranking 