The Big House 6 came to a close this past Sunday with Joseph “Mango” Marquez taking home the trophy with a win over Adam “Armada” Lindgren. Most viewers saw the top eight, from Mango coming down from 0-2 to beat Armada, to Mustafa “Ice” Akcakaya shocking everyone by beating down Zac “SFAT” Cordoni in a dominant 3-0 sweep. What most viewers didn’t see was the exciting matches before top eight ever even happened.
I’ll answer everyone’s questions, “how did Ice get into top 8 in winners side?””Who sent Hungrybox to losers bracket?””where was Leffen?” I’ll answer all these questions and more.
Silentwolf Upsets Mew2King 3-2
The match that turned the entire winners side of the bracket upside down. Otto “Silentwolf” Bisno pulled off the upset of the day, by sending Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman to losers in winners round 2 of top 24. The upset eventually led to Ice making it to top top 8 winner side after beating Silentwolf 3-2 in the next round.
Silentwolf’s play can’t be overlooked here, despite not finishing the day on as high of a note (ended up losing 3-1 to Kevin “PewPewU” Toy before top 8). Silentwolf is a smart, defensive-minded Fox, and we saw that on game one, Battlefield. He never approached and put M2K in bad situations. He ended the game with a two stock.
In classic M2K fashion, he switched off Sheik and went to Marth while counter-picking Final Destination. It was a quick three-stock, but the game one counter-pick advantage loomed large in this set. Silentwolf took M2K to Pokémon Stadium and kept putting him in the corner. The 2-1 score gave Silentwolf the increasingly important game five counter pick.
M2K had no trouble on Fountain of Dreams, taking a +6 stock advantage on his counter-picks into game 5. Luckily for Silentwolf, Dreamland was still available and with M2K not feeling as confident in his Sheik-play, stuck it out with Marth on a disadvantaged stage.
M2K had a self destruct on his first stock and played with a deficit the remainder of the match. Silentwolf looked content in slowly build his lead by staying away and lasering. He avoided platforms and any bad positions he could put himself in. His defensive play gave him the edge and Silentwolf went on to pull the huge upset, 3-2. 2-0 on his counter-picks is the key stat to look at in this instance.
Infinite Numbers Beats Westballz 2-1 before top 64
Jason “Infinite Numbers” Gauthier, an Ice Climbers main from New England, who’s also a rising star, was able to take out Weston “Westballz” Dennis in round two pools. The match being so early in pools means no video but from what I’ve been told, Numbers was having no trouble landing grabs.
Infinite Numbers won his first match on Fountain of Dreams, which gave him the counter-pick advantage (FoD good for both Ice Climber and Falco). He lost on Westballz’s Pokémon Stadium counter-pick, but had final destination in his back pocket to win the set 2-1.
From that point on, Infinite Numbers struggled and lost his next two games to Daniel “ChuDat” Rodriguez in the Ice Climbers mirror match and Justin “Syrox” Burroughs, the top ranked player from Colorado. Westballz went on to go 4-1 on Sunday, only losing to Mew2King in top 16 losers.
SFAT Sweeps Hungrybox
SFAT is starting to figure out and implement certain strategies that beat Jigglypuff. He’s now on a two game winning streak against Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma and that’s not good news for Hbox. SFAT looks like Leffen circa. 2014, where he started to slowly figure out Hungrybox and his Jigglypuff.
Game one was on Battlefield, and SFAT never left the stage. He never once gave into Hungrybox’s aerial shenanigans and efficiently got vertical kills by getting grabs and calling out whenever Hungrybox was coming down with a back-air by up-smashing and taking the trade. You can almost tell where Hungrybox is at mentally depending on if he’s successfully getting consistent Smash-DI on Fox’s up-throw into up-smash. He didn’t have that today.
Hungrybox went to Dreamland game two and made things harder for himself. The large stage allowed for SFAT to play more patient and laser more proficiently. In both games one and two, SFAT gets down a stock early, but by the time Hungrybox is on his last stock he’s a full-stock ahead. SFAT showed awareness and made adjustments after every stock he lost.
He even got Hungrybox to stand up AND sit down. Game three went back to Dreamland but it was more of the same from Hungrybox. He couldn’t find an opening on SFAT’s defensive Fox play, specifically with the run-away game.
Granted, Hbox didn’t look his normal self at TBH6, but still a huge win for SFAT regardless.
Shroomed Pulls it off Against Plup’s Fox 3-2
It was an up-and-down tournament for Justin “Plup” McGrath. He fell in round two pools to one of the TBH6 crew battle heroes in Zain “Zain” Naghmi. This set up a massive losers bracket run from Plup. He beat (in order): Professor Pro 2-0, S2J 2-0, and Wobbles 2-0, before losing in game five to Shroomed.
DeJuan “Shroomed” McDaniel, one of the best players in NorCal, survived against Plup’s new Fox. The usual Sheik ditto we see from these two (saw it at TBH5, Plup won 3-0) changed with the Fox switch. It was a struggle, but Shroomed was able to win the match sending Plup home in 25th.
Other notable results:
R2DLiu Upsets Axe – Jeff “Axe” Williamson had never heard of R2DLiu before the Big House, but you can bet he’ll never forget him now. R2DLiu sent Axe to losers bracket in phase two pools by a count of 2-1. The Massachusetts native Fox main finished 33rd, his highest placing in his career. He also finished 65th at Shine.
Zhu Finishes off Axe – Julianne “Zhu” Zhu followed the lead set by R2DLiu and sent Axe home packing with a 2-1 victory. It was only the third time in Axe’s career he finished outside the top-25. It was the worst placing in his professional career, thanks to Zhu, who finished 33rd.
Swedish Delight Cleans Up against Shroomed – its been quite the year for James “Swedish Delight” Liu, who quietly has another solid ninth place finish at TBH6. He also managed to 3-0 Shroomed in a Sheik ditto. He ended up sending William “Leffen” Hjelte home 3-0 and narrowly lost to Hungrybox in game 5.