Smash World Tour Marred By 'Underdog Boost,' Pyra And Mythra

The Smash World Tour tournament was held in Orlando, Florida over the weekend, and while the event was supposed to be a celebration of the global Super Smash Brothers community, the tournament ended marred by controversy and general player and spectator dissatisfaction. Granted, most in the Smash community will tell you that no one hates Smash like pro Smash players, but the gripes from last weekend are well-founded.

For a major portion of the Smash Ultimate tournament last weekend, Underdog Boost, a little-known mechanic that can be toggled in the ruleset menu, was active on the mainstage Switch, meaning a significant chunk of matches played on stream had the mechanic turned on. Underdog Boost aids a losing player by giving their moves more damage and knockback when they are down in stocks and lessening the damage and knockback they receive.

For anyone who doesn't know what underdog boost specifically does, I found this chart on ssbwiki that appears to match the observed changes

Keep in mind that the knockback of an attack increases with damage dealt, so this affects combos and KO power too pic.twitter.com/5slDmPh2U9

— Andrew Nestico 🐼🌎📊 (@PracticalTAS) December 20, 2021

The issue was first noticed by Twitter user @ekzLeon, who highlighted when Sonix Sonic, down a stock, was able to kill Protobanham's Min Min with a dash attack at 139 percent.

There were some wild knockbacks earlier (samus dashattack almost killing at 95, rosa backthrow at 140)

Also this and i legit cannot get it to kill at 140 with the same rage even with ass dihttps://t.co/CyzyjGOwtn

— ekzLeon (@ekzLeon) December 20, 2021

The tournament had the largest prize pool in Smash history at $150,000, and with players flying in from Europe, Japan, Mexico and Hong Kong to compete, many in the Smash community (including many professional players and attendees) erupted with cries of foul play and injustice.

Can’t help but feel like I wasted my time this weekend cause of the Underdog Boost shit. I basically played a different game during that day and many interactions could’ve been different for both

Regardless, I gotta move on from it, it just hurts for now. 2022 will be different

— SSG Maister (@Maister_SSB) December 20, 2021

SWT better address the situation about underdog boost and have the sets replayed, shit's not fair that everyone got robbed

— 16-Bit | LingLing (@LingLing_21s) December 20, 2021

Nahhh replay the whole tournament bruh cuz wtf 💀 mute and I got robbed

Who knows how long underdog boost has been on

— Bandits | Sonix (@UltimateSonix) December 20, 2021

How the mechanic was turned on was unclear. Tournament organizers posted a Twitter thread saying they believe it happened accidentally while checking the ruleset and five sets between Saturday and Sunday's matches were affected.

We believe as of now it was done accidentally while checking the rules. The setting has been corrected, but unfortunately five sets in-total were affected before the error was caught.

We will be making contact with the affected players.

(2/3)

— Smash World Tour Championships #SWTC (@SmashWorldTour) December 20, 2021

A similar scare nearly happened in the Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament, as a match started with the ruleset changed to .9 Knockback. This was quickly felt by the players, however, and the match was reset.

Kinda crazy to me that people might have played more than an entire day of tournament matches with underdog boost turned on and no one noticed

Melee was on 0.9 for 15 seconds before someone noticed. I guess it's harder when you have more matchups to think about in tournament

— (Captain) Nicki (@leffenfanboy) December 20, 2021

Throughout Sunday's bracket, many spectators and players expressed their frustration at the character representation in the top 12. Smash World Tour had online qualifiers, which was a sticking point for many in the community who argue that certain characters get a boost when played online. Sunday's bracket featured multiple Sonics, Olimars and Pyras and Mythras represented. Many don't consider characters like Sonic and Olimar fun to watch due to their being less inclined to interact with opponents, which can result in long matches with hardly any interaction between the fighters. A Dark Samus, a R.O.B. and a Rosalina and Luma player were also in the top 12 to the dismay of viewers.

Man like 70% of the sets this tournament have been boring as all fuck LMAO every match is a sonic olimar or rob

— Panda | WaDi (@WaDiRob) December 19, 2021

the liberal elite is inventing something called"underdog boost" to brainwash you into watching 2 more hours of Sonic/Samus and Rob/olimar. be wary, know your rights, and dont let your guard down.

— Chris DelCastles (@38_down) December 20, 2021

This commentator reaction to a 25 minute Sonic set is so profound pic.twitter.com/mT9lgU9eJw

— Parappa (@Parappa_GANG) December 18, 2021

Finally, as the tournament stretched past midnight, the final three sets all featured Aegis (Pyra/Myrthra) dittos, as Sparg0, MkLeo and Cosmos duked it out for the title (which ultimately went to MkLeo). One of the positive aspects of Smash Ultimate compared to other Smash games was the diversity of characters represented at top-level play, and many were dismayed that the Smash World Tour ended with a 20XX moment.

I'm not tryna watch 3 sets of aegis dittos

— VGBC Pink Fresh (@PinkFreshhh) December 20, 2021

Grand finals aegis ditto for smash world tour pic.twitter.com/WCUtN7w7yX

— Bravo! (@Bravo_irl) December 20, 2021

yeahhhhh leo won woooooo go byleth go aegis wooooooo pic.twitter.com/opKF3XKgBd

— TE | vic 🦋 (@mariposaTTV) December 20, 2021

When all was said and done, it seems many were dissatisfied with the supposed biggest tournament in Smash history. At the very least, it looks like checking rulesets will become a mandatory part of pre-match competitive play. Unfortunately for players, it seems like there's nothing to be done about Aegis supremacy.