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Best Ultimate SPRs Ever: Evo Division

By Jack "Jackie Peanuts" Moore | 03/17/21

Last month, we introduced a new statistic: Seed Performance Rating, a metric that looks at the difference in losers rounds between a player's projected seed and the player's actual placement. Today, to help add some context for this stat, we're presenting the greatest tournament runs in Smash Ultimate history according to the metric. These are the most impressive runs of all-time by the lowest seeds, featuring huge runs from players who, for one reason or another, found themselves seeded to crash and burn at some of Smash's biggest events.

In order to properly account for a) the fact that they're the biggest tournaments in the world and b) the fact that they're the most poorly seeded Smash majors in the world, we'll split this into two divisions: Evo and non-Evo. Today's post will focus on the best performances at Evo and Evo Japan; tomorrow, we'll be back with more on the rest of the tournament field.
Not only are Evo's seedings often suspect, they also tend to not seed terribly deep into bracket, with positions beyond the top 128 randomized. That can lead to some very, very good players getting stuck with four-digit seeds. Woe be upon any player unlucky enough to stand in their path.
The possible SPRs at giant tournaments like Evo are also higher than what you would see anywhere else by the nature of the statistic: as fully explained here, SPR counts the difference in losers rounds between where a player finished and where their seed projected them to finish. Evo and Evo Japan, by the nature of having so many losers rounds, are naturally going to produce the highest SPRs. With that in mind, let's take a look at the five players to go off the hardest at an Evo according to Seed Performance Rating:

1. Chag, Evo 2019: +13 (Seed: 3,515th, Placement: 33rd)

was a late signup for Evo and was stuck with one of the lowest seeds in the event. That said, while we now know that Chag more than deserves to be a seeded player, it's unlikely he would have been a top 64 seed at the time. Chag's only PGRU event of Season 1 was 2GG: Prime Saga, where he went 2-2 losing to
and
, local SoCal players who use Snake and Bowser Jr. respectively.
Chag's Evo 2019 run had a fairly standard start; after skating through his first three sets, Chag was smacked down to losers bracket by
, the Japanese Shulk who would go on to rank 25th on the PGRU v2. In losers, Chag would go on to win eight straights in losers, the last of which came over Canadian Greninja main
, the man currently ranked first on the Canadian Ultimate Power Rankings.
From seeded to get literally dead last, Chag went on to win three sets in winners and eight more in losers. The resulting +13 seed performance rating will likely never be matched. The requirements are absurd: first, the tournament needs to be the size of Evo; second, a top-100 level player needs to be seeded to go 0-2; and third and finally, they would need to pull at least one major upset and play flawlessly against players they would otherwise be only slightly to moderately favored against, such as
,
and
, players who all own win rates of 68 percent or better.
This was the catalyst for a strong Season 2 for Chag, who place no worse than 33rd at his five other PGRU events in Season 2, which included a 25th place at S-Tier Mainstage with a win over
and a victory at C-Tier Abierto Guadalajara Ultimo Reto.

2. Hinatoto, Evo Japan 2020: +12 (Seed: 2,272, Placement: 33)

was an all-but-unknown Greninja player heading into Evo Japan 2020; at least in our database, his only prior tournament was MaesumaTOP #1, at which he went 3-2 and finished 65th/265. Random seeding stuck him at the bottom end of Evo Japan's 2,988-player bracket, and like Chag across the pond, Hinatoto cruised through his first few matches before falling to his first major opponent,
, a top Wolf with wins over
,
, and
.
Hinatoto went on to win seven sets in losers, the final one over
, an Ice Climbers main who was ranked 99th on the most recent Japan Player Rankings. Hinatoto's attendance has remained sporadic since, but he entered the recent Sumabato 17, where he finished 33rd/128.

3. Seven, Evo 2019: +12 (Seed: 1,712, Placement: 25)

It's understandable that
flew under the radar at Evo 2019. His attendance at Japanese majors was spotty at best in 2019, and at the four events he entered (Sumabatos 3-5 and Umebura Japan Major) he placed no better than 33rd. At the GameWorks Pre-Evo event, a 128-player capped event featuring a number of the best players who traveled to Vegas for Evo, Seven went 1-2, falling to
and
for 65th.
Following the theme from before, Seven rolled through his bracket before falling to his first well-known opponent,
, in Winners Semifinals of his pool. Seven's losers bracket run got serious in a hurry, as he ran into Nebraskan Young Link player
in just his third losers match. He would win that set and defeat SoCal Wolf
in his next set. Then Seven dispatched another Wolf,
, who had upset 8BitMan and Ozone as part of his run.
was Seven's next opponent, and it seemed like this would be the wall. Seven had already fallen to Zenyou, and Prodigy was on fire of late, coming off a 13th/1164 finish at CEO just over a month prior, a tournament where he took down Fatality, Toast and Goblin. Undeterred, Seven took the set over Prodigy, and for good measure, picked up one more victory over SoCal Roy main
before falling to
for 25th place. Seven went down as the highest placing Falco at the event.
His performances since then have not lived up to the high bar set by that Evo run. In his only two major brackets since, Seven has finished 65th/320 at Sumabato 8 and 129th/2988 at Evo Japan 2020. There, he was given the 121st seed, resulting in a -1 SPR. His only other recorded brackets since are a pair of high-level round robin events from the second half of 2020, both of which saw him finish dead last.
But hey, Seven will always have Evo 2019, one of the fattest losers runs we've seen in Ultimate's short competitive history.

4. Hinawo, Evo Japan 2020: +11 (Seed: 2,985, Placement: 49)

was already a decently known entity heading into Evo Japan 2020, placing no better than 65th at three PGRU-rated tournaments from August 2019 through January 2020. An Inkling and Corrin main, Hinawo also had a bit of help, advancing twice in winners thanks to DQs. But he would go a solid 4-2 from that point, falling only to arguably the best Toon Link in Japan,
, and then the best Link, T.
Between those losses, though, Hinawo picked up one of the biggest seed upsets of all-time, taking down
, the event's 57th seed, a Joker/Cloud player who placed 65th/3535 at Evo 2019. Hinawo has since gotten a bit more respect from the seeders. He was seeded Top 64 for both of the offline tournaments he has entered since, Sumabato 12 and MaesumaTOP 2. He did the seeders proud, at least reaching his seed in both events.

5. sk, Evo Japan 2020: +11 (S: 2518, P: 49)

is by far the biggest mystery on this list. The only tournament listed on their PGstats.com profile is Evo Japan 2020 and they have no SmashWiki page. All we know is that they seem to play Fox, and they achieved 49th/2988 at Evo Japan 2020 with the help of three disqualifications. They fell to Rotsuku, one of Japan's top Yoshi players, and Keroguchi, one of the country's best Wii Fit Trainer players.
Despite the DQs, sk did pick up some solid wins, defeating two players with well-established win rates over 60 percent in
(Snake) and
(Villager). But they haven't been seen since, or if they have, it's been under a different tag. If you have any information about sk, please hit me up on Twitter.
We'll be back tomorrow with the greatest SPRs from non-Evo tournaments. To stay up on our latest, follow us on Twitter @PGstats.