Without further ado, though, let's take a look at a few infographics to sum up 2021 in Smash Ultimate:
First, a look at the whole world, with a slight zoom in on Europe:
30 countries hosted at least one qualifying tournament this year in the periods during which we collected data. Unsurprisingly, the United States was by far the most active region, with France coming in second with 93 tournaments qualifying.
Now, a look at the United States on a state-by-state level:
California was by far the most active state in 2021, and unsurprisingly so as both NorCal and SoCal feature scenes of sizes to rival those of most other states by themselves. Texas, New York, Florida and Ohio round out the Top 5, with Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Utah and Massachusetts rounding out the Top 10.
Those states in particular have quite a few icons in there, so let's take a closer look at the metas in these Top 10 states:
This chart includes every character to win at least 2 locals in each of the Top 10 most active states in the US. Some metas are dominated by single characters -- there's Ness in Utah, powered by Scend's dominance, Bayonetta in Ohio thanks to Geist, and Peach in Texas thanks to the combination of Orex and MuteAce.
Others are little more balanced. California has stiff competition between Peach, Palutena, Mario and Wolf; New York has a bunch of characters contending for second place behind Falco (powered by Tilde); Illinois has seven different characters with between 5 and 10 wins, and Massachusetts has six characters between 4 and 6 wins.
Who took home the most first places this year?
It sure feels like somebody is missing though, doesn't it? Let's take a look at this through another lens. Let's see whose tournament wins came over the most cumulative entrants. That is, if you win a tournament with 500 entrants, for this analysis, it counts for 500 points. Who comes out on top in this metric?
The bottom left corner of that graph is a little bunched up, isn't it? Let's take a closer look at what I call The Zone Of Limited Relevancy: