After delays due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the regional final is finally set to occur offline this weekend. While the exact structure of the event isn’t known, we know Saturday will feature a group stage, and Sunday will feature a final bracket.
The top six will go on to compete in the December Championship Bracket of 32 players, giving Mexico, the Caribbean, & Central America a share of 18.8% of the final bracket.
The Caribbean, a wider area consisting of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, is one of Smash Ultimate’s less understood areas. While many small scenes exist throughout the oceanic superregion, very few attended the Online Qualifier or were eligible.
The primary two in contention for spots were the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
Likely to attain a high seed due to winning the main bracket, Capitancito could be a major wildcard going into the final bracket.
A Snake main, 0mart is fairly well traveled among players from the Caribbean, with five North American majors under his belt. While his wins are largely regional, the bulk of his bracket-ending losses are of high quality. Despite this, he has a back and forth record against Sonix in-region. As things stand, it is 9-6 offline in 0mart’s favor, demonstrating his strength as a player; however, Sonix has won 5 of the past 7 times they have fought, and the pair hasn't faced off in person since 2019.
0mart vs. Sonix head-to-head. Click to expand.
His main calling, however, has been as an extremely strong Wifi player. Recently ranked 16th on the WWRv7, he is known for using a variety of characters in the bracket and a long list of wins, including wins over most of the best Wifi players. While this event is offline, his dominance in Guatemala combined with his consistent presence since 2018 as a dedicated top wifi player suggests he is another major wildcard.
Long considered a player with immense potential from the late Smash Wii U period, Yei will have a good opportunity to nab offline sets during Saturday and Sunday. Walking into the event, he notably boasts a 538-81 game record offline, a 86.91% win rate of games. While Costa Rica’s overall skill level is unknown - where many of these games are from - most indicators seem to suggest he will be one of the top players to watch at the event.
Mtkat lacks enough offline data to make hard calls on. Wolfen is a bonafide depth player offering interesting matchup dynamics as the best Banjo & Kazooie player in Central America, as well as the potential to bring out Kazuya or Sephiroth.
Lacking a visa during the Pre-Qurantine Era, Nair^’s opportunities for interactions with USA players remained limited. However, with the expanded skill pool in Mexico, he has been able to better demonstrate his potential as a top player.
WaKa, as mentioned prior, qualified alongside 0mart through the absence of two players. Despite this, WaKa’s run was among the most grueling in all of the online qualifiers, with him winning eleven sets in bracket across the main event and last chance qualifier. Tijuana’s best Luigi among many, he is also a formidable Duck Hunt player.
In Smash Ultimate, he was an early Inkling main that kept the character’s results afloat. After enough time, however, he opted to go full time into Palutena, and he is likely the best Palutena main at the event and a contender for best active Palutena worldwide.
As of August 2021, he defeated Maister in bracket at Warlock in the Multiverse of Hex, though he retains a negative record against Sparg0 in the Post-Quarantine period, winning two out of five sets. Despite this, his contention as a top level player in Mexico and his near-top ten position on the WWRv7 makes him a major threat and likely top six candidate at this event.
Maister, the world’s premier Mr. G&W player, doesn’t require much introduction. While not overtly dominant, his most recent major outing was a second placing at Frostbite 2020 and near universally good performances within Mexico, consistently taking sets off of top five-ten players within the country.
With a shutout run at the offline MUERTE AL ONLINE invitational and solid performances at the following Warlock invitational, Maister is a favorite to make the December Finals barring multiple major upsets. He is a top ten player and likely the second or third most formidable foe at the event.
Sparg0, the king of the wifi era, has become an active travelling offline player. While hardly shy of attending events before the pandemic, he has went to six events since April, winning all but one, Abierto Puerto Vallarta, where he dropped two sets to Chag.
While some questions have been posed as to how useless Wifi is as a predictor of offline skill, Sparg0 has already managed two accrue two set wins over Maister at Cherry’s Glasmine 001, a Central Mexican regional event. In addition, he avenged his losses at Vallarta by defeating Chag twice.
Collectively, his pile up of consistent events and set wins frame him as dramatically improved from the Pre-Quarantine period, and a player that could potentially become top twenty or better offline. While his reputation stems largely from online events, his recent offline outings leave little doubt that he will succeed at the qualifiers.
MKLeo is the final player to discuss. After eventual success in the online realm, MKLeo is poised to return to his offline throne, having last performed one of the greatest losers bracket runs in modern Smash history at Frostbite 2020. It is presumed that MkLeo will still primarily use Joker offline, but we'll have to see if the Byleth or Pyra/Mythra he used so often in online runs make any appearances in bracket.
His competition is stiff and full of unknowns with the emergence of Central America and the Caribbean, but he’s still heavily favored to win, and almost certain to qualify for the December finals. A win at this event would be a statement of minimal rust in an era where players are shaking off inactivity or wifi adaptation, and would signal his era as #1 never truly ended.
While interactions between these areas is normal, this is by far the most stacked invitational Latin America has seen, dwarfing prior regionals. The stakes are incredibly high for two fundamentally underrated regions that have grown substantially in the last few years, and this tournament will set some things straight and give us an outline for how future events might look.
Saturday will likely feature numerous rare matchups between Mexican and Central American players, giving opportunity for spectators to view sets we aren’t likely to see again soon, meaning this event is worth watching from the outset. At the end of the line, six players will be moving on, and this piece has outlined some of the most likely people to manage it.