UCLA Super Smash Bros. Teams Qualify for Collegiate Starleague Tournament
- Josh Limon
- Jan 18, 2018
- 2 min read
UCLA’s Super Smash Bros. Melee is entering the 2018 Collegiate Starleague season, and the star players include Suvir Mehrotra, Sammy “Goldfinger” Durbin, Tai “Tri” Nguyen, Albert “zbert” Zheng, and Chris “Zhura” Zhu.
In the CSL Melee series, a team of five representing each school participates in crew battles. A crew battle is a ruleset where each player begins with four stocks (lives) and battles with them. The victor gets to carry over any remaining stocks to play against remaining players on the losing team until there are no stocks left.
UCLA began the season in the SoCal local qualifier on Nov. 11 and sent Zbert, a Fox main, to play against UC Santa Barbara’s first player, Pensive, a Sheik main. Zbert won by finishing off Pensive with one stock remaining.
UCLA then went on to sweep UC Santa Barbara. Zhura, a Captain Falcon main, was UCLA’s MVP for this first match as he took seven stocks from UCSB and helped UCLA gain its first victory of the season.
After defeating UCSB, the Bruins had to face off against the best collegiate team in Southern Califonria, UC San Diego’s Tritons. Tri and Zhura took eight stocks from UCSD before they were eliminated. This put the teams at an even 12-12 stock count.
The Bruins then substituted in UCLA’s number one power ranked player, Goldfinger, to face UCSD’s team. Goldfinger eliminated eight of UCSD’s remaining stocks before losing to Mew2Queen.
Suvir and Zbert of UCLA only had eight stocks left to eliminate Mew2Queen’s remaining four.
After tense matches, Zbert finished off Mew2Queen with three stocks remaining, resulting in a major upset for the tournament.
However in the next match, UC Irvine beat UCLA with for stocks remaining. This forced UCLA to replay UCSD in the losers bracket. UCSD then defeated UCLA with seven stocks remaining.
UCLA finished the SoCal Local Qualifiers in third place and secured a spot in the CSL Regionals on February 10th at California Polytechnic - San Luis Obispo.
Be sure to stay tuned for more information on Melee in the weeks to come. Go Bruins!
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