by Nago/Nago#0050 on Discord
Additional Bracket info and Stream
The 2022 Dutch PR came out last month! Which means it’s perfect time for the third Dutch arcadian! After Aaron won the first one in 2017 and Ladder won the second one in 2019, the Dutch scene is desperate to see who will be the best of the rest this year. We also hope it won’t be a foreigner again but beggars can’t be choosers. It’s also the perfect time for me to tell you about all the potential contenders attending this event his weekend! Starting with,
Rabbitalex – Samus – Utrecht
Rabbitalex has the distinction of being the only person participating in the Arcadian to have been an Honourable Mention on a Dutch Melee PR. He is a HM on the current PR, due to some strong online wins such as Ryzon, a win on Stylo at Dreamhack Rotterdam and a frankly ridiculous run at Endless Melee #2 where he beat Renzo, RestlessWhale and Mihi to place 5th. Since Endless Melee #2 was a weekday tournament and combined with some poor results against the rest of the field (including multiple players to be named later) this caused him to be left off the Dutch PR, but it of course does mean he will have a great chance to do well at this event.
Serket – Fox – Rotterdam
One of the unranked Dutch players to have beaten Rabbitalex during the last ranking period is Roffa Nation’s favourite converted Luigi main, serket. Serket has been around the sub-PR skill level for a while and has shown to be capable of getting wins over PRd Dutch players at least since 2019 with wins over ppl such as Risc and Happymealz. This longevity also means he has (in some cases quite old) wins over most of the ppl that I will be naming in this article.
Zeventien – Fox – Rotterdam
Including his roommate, Zeventien. This lovely Fox player, also from Rotterdam has also been experimenting with some characters in recent times until settling on the lovely Fox McCloud a while back. Despite being a musician and therefore often being busy doing things that are way cooler than holding a GameCube controller in your hands, he has managed to pick up some strong local results and wins over players such as TURBOFOX, ThommyN and the next person on this list.
LazyyySloth – Fox – Almere
Now for the sake of transparency, LazyyySloth is a bit of a “tweener” within this list, he doesn’t quite fit within any of the categories as the main reason people believe he has a good chance at this arcadian is predominantly based on vibes, friendlies and close 1-2/2-3 losses. I just wanted to mention our good friend from Almere here as opposed to putting him in with all the zoomers or weirdo PM players later. He did win Dreamhack Rotterdam 2022 Amateur bracket however, for what that’s worth.
Elec – Falco – Arnhem
Elec is basically somebody with no bad losses, but no break-out wins either. Elec is extremely consistent at not losing to sub-PR players but has yet to really get a breakout win that can get him a spot on a PR. Perhaps this is the perfect tournament for somebody like him to thrive, being basically even or winning against everybody attending this tournament (who they have played ofc).
Luckily we also have some people who have been on the come up recently who also have a good shot at doing well at this arcadian, most of these players are zoomers, all of them were not particularly in PR contention last year but have grown a lot over the course of the season and are ready to have their big breakout this weekend!
KoningBadaap – Fox – Best
King Bath Monkey is back once again, he continues to be a scary player to see in bracket, having recently beaten NVZ at DSEA Winter 2023 and picking up a win on Rabbitalex at the most recent TODO local. The only obstacle in his way is the #1 seed curse, it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to beat it.
TH0MA5 – Falco – Best
Here’s the brother of KoningBadaap, TH0MA5. TH0MA5 has gone a similar path as everybody’s favourite allegedly dutch player Kingu, having started on puff and then switching to a spacie. However, he had to put his own twist on it and had to start playing on rectangle at the same time. TH0MA5 is the champion of vechtpartij #1, a mini-arcadian style tournament held within the main Dutch Zoomer Melee Grinder server, beating multiple people who will be talked about later.
Djoek – Falco – Amsterdam
Djoek is perhaps, besides the foreigners, the person who will annoy people the most if they were to win the whole arcadian. Not because of his personality, but because he’s an ex-ultimate player. The Amsterdam Falco has quickly gone from netplay lord, straight to being a TO and now is going to attempt to make the leap into arcadian winner and future PR’d player in rapid pace. It’s very ambitious but who knows?
Sjor$ - Fox – Roermond
Sjor$, together with TH0MA5 is part of the zoomer rectangle spacie mains. Unfortunately for Sjor$ he’s the one with the less decorated record. He’s had great runs about both vechtpartij #1 and #2 picking up some great wins, but he has struggled to reproduce these results at IRL events (…yet). He is coming this weekend to represent the only region in this country to exhibit the phenomenom of HILLS.
VirtualTiger – Fox – Amsterdam
Ahh, VirtualTiger, our quintessential zoomer Fox main. So last time we spoke, I was talking about how he was this big up-and-comer, now since then he had a perfectly adequate if not super exciting showing at DSEA Winter, and then he decided to switch to playing on this disgusting faulty cardboard DIY box that he got from Sjor$ (disclaimer: apparently his friend did the soldering so it’s his fault) . So he’s had a little under a month to adjust to his new input device and it is now very difficult to see how good he’ll do. He will probably do very well though because he has grinded a lot with it, though he will also be playing on a different rectangle from Floranski at the event which I hope he will adjust quickly to and not slowly.
Danubi – Sheik - Groningen
The only representative from Groningen (though she is originally from Limburg) is gonna make the whole adventure all the way down to Breda this Sunday to show that living in the middle of nowhere (affectionate) does not mean that you can’t also be really good at the game.
The most contentious category of them all, the foreigners who are here to ruin our day. Last arcadian was won by Ladder from Belgium and ever since then the dutch scene has been warning future generations about allowing foreigners and yet we did not learn from their mistakes.
Umbr – Sheik – Lyon
Despite living in Lyon in the south of France, Umbr signed up for this arcadian almost frame one, saving this tournament from being a bit too spacie heavy. Funnily enough, this will be her second out-of-country arcadian she is attending after she attended the German arcadian in November last year. Perhaps her arcadian experience will carry her through this spacie-filled landscape, which differs greatly from her local region which is very, very floatie dominated.
Lilypad – Fox/Falco – Flanders
Lilypad funnily enough fits between both this category and the previous category, having gotten 2nd at Vechtpartij #2, but also is technically a foreigner, hailing from Flanders in Belgium just across the border. They play a lot of online melee, having amassed almost a thousand sets on their [REDACTED]stats. Together with the rest of the Belgians, they are desperate for offline melee as Belgium is going through a bit of a TO/venue drought. They have yet to have gotten a big breakout as they placed to their seed at DSEA Winter 2023 losing only to PR’d Dutch players and King, so this may be the spacie player’s chance to show the Netherlands that the best Dutch speaking sub-PR player might be from Belgium!
Grolex – Fox – Belgium
This man beat Lunary’s fox once, besides that he has been playing within the small Belgian scene and has been attending the Lille locals just across the Belgian border in France. He has done admirably at these events, mostly beating the local talent and losing to the odd Belgian top player like Ladder and Lunary and the local top player Psylo. He attended Dreamhack Rotterdam where beat ECS, which would be a more interesting win if this arcadian had a top seed falcon which it sadly does not. Big wildcard due to his relative lack of results against players outside of his region, but he did almost beat Lunary’s marth at a local once which is kinda wild.
Melone – Falco – Brussels
Melone is a preview for the next section about relatively inactive players, so strap in for some old shit. So funnily enough, Melone attended the first Dutch arcadian in 2017 where he did terribly. He then did a bunch of stuff, attended the last Sector Z before the pandemic and beat Rabbitalex, Karhu and Freekleef to place 17th. Since then he has played in some online stuff, beat Grolex a bunch at local stuff and besides that we don’t have a whole lot. He has some really good online wins including two separate online wins on Glaikit which is perhaps one of the more impressive wins anybody attending this arcadian has gotten, but he also has some weird losses so who knows how well he will do.
The classic at every arcadian, this arcadian will also feature a large group of people who were once good and then decided to stop playing for a multitude of reasons, but have decided to come back to snipe the arcadian and perhaps be able to capture some glory that they missed out on in the past.
Halzyn – Falco – Nijmegen
Our good friend randy rarely attends stuff but is a welcome presence within the Dutch Melee scene and has successfully been roped into attending our arcadian. He has recently attended Dreamhack Rotterdam where he managed to beat Magik and flippy_o, some notable mid-PR players from their respective countries. Halzyn is a bit of a dark horse as he hasn’t exactly NOT been playing melee, but the limits of his abilities are unknown.
Nidyz – Fox – Den Bosch
One half of Bossche Boys comes out of “retirement” after destroying his hands playing fox. He’s now here playing fox on a rectangle, utilizing new and improved ways to destroy one’s hands. He was quite good (having gotten multiple PR wins in 2019) prior to becoming inactive and playing ITG instead, truly an iconoclast who paved the way for nebbii’s retirement to play rhythm games and tetris.
Seel – Fox – Amsterdam
Going through Seel’s [REDACTED]stats is quite funny, he has a bunch pre-pandemic wins over a bunch of people who would go on to make PR later on. Unfortunately for him this does not guarantee that he currently is a PR-caliber player, but having lifetime wins over risc, noxxa, nuckels, thommyn and many more is definitely a good sign.
Peridot – Yoshi – Helmond
“The other Dutch yoshi” prior to NVZ’s switch to Yoshi used to be a staple at the Arrakis locals back before the pandemic but has since only appeared at TSEA Offline Smash where he placed 25th beating seo. It remains to be seen how good Peridot is nowadays, as Yoshi is often seen as a quite high-maintenance character. We will see but sometimes all it takes is holding down and pressing A twice.
Dopamine – Puff – Nijmegen
Han Dopamine is contributing to breaking the trend of endless spacie mains at this tournament, unfortunately this also means they have to deal with a bunch of foxes in bracket which may not work out well for them. On the other hand, they have some good pre-pandemic wins over spacies such a nidyz and JMYL. They did attend TSEA Offline Smash in 2021 where they went 2-2 in bracket losing to Nicki and FezWa, but hey, these are arcadian level spacies who probably hate playing floaties with a passion.
Bureaucraat – Sheik – Gelderland
Nice another non-spacie. This guy chain-grabbed me in amateurs at my very first tournament and I hate him for it. I think I have been told that he has not played at all in the last 2 years but who knows if that’s mental sandbagging or not. He almost beat Melone at the last Sector Z which means something.
Joppiedje – Falco – Brabant
This old Brabant player beat Grolex at the very first arcadian in 2017, he also won Dynasmash amateur bracket over other half of Bossche boys Baerendt, he also barely lost to Halzyn and Reddanger at Sector Z #7.0 in 2020 which sounds like it could be a result from this weekend. I’ve been told he’s good but I think most his results are buried in old Brabant local challonge brackets that I will not bother to sift through sorry.
Reddanger – Ganon – Rotterdam
The elusive Ganon main from Zuid Holland is a bit of cult hero within the Zuid Holland scene. Going into relative inactivity since the beginning of 2020, he has sparingly attended only two events, DSEA Spring 2022, where he defeated KasparV and DSEA Winter 2023, where he got upset in pools by Dirty Dave, a local falcon main, but ended up winning Amateur bracket in the end over CAOTIC.
And now we arrive to the final category, the wildcard section featuring a couple ppl that are extremely difficult to rank due to their unique backgrounds coming into this event.
Karhu – Marth – Amsterdam/Scotland
Karhu forgot to sign up for singles and then suddenly found out and got quickly put into the bracket the day before seeding got finalized. Karhu has many things going for them going into this arcadian, they play marth at an arcadian where most top seeds are spacie players. They also recently beat RestlessWhale 2-1 at an Amsterdam local. Lastly, the last arcadian in 2019 was won by Ladder, also a Marth main that benefitted from playing predominantly spacies in his bracket. Also Karhu is cool and I’m teaming with them in doubles and we’re gonna EASILY win that.
Freekleef – Fox – Wageningen
Freekleef is a PM fox player from the city that features one of Europe’s most active PM scenes, Wageningen. Freekleef has the funny distinction together with the next player of being the only nationally ranked players at this arcadian, but as you can probably figure out, they are both ranked on the 2022 Dutch Project M PR. Freekleef has some nice things going for them going into this event, he plays arguably the PM version of arguably the best character in Melee and allegedly practices more Melee than he does PM, despite having more PM attendance than Melee.
Skoala – Pikachu – Leiden
As was just mentioned, Skoala is a fellow member of 2022 Dutch Project M PR. Skoala does not benefit from the same tierlist buffs that Freekleef enjoys, but nevertheless has a decent chance to do quite well. A decent base in PM can definitely carry one quite far, especially when one mains a character also present in Melee and therefore doesn’t have to re-learn basic fundamentals switching between the two games. Not having to deal with looking for Snake mines on a really fuzzy CRT may even present one with a buff as their mental stack gets lightened, who knows, it’s a theory.