by Nago/Nago#0050 on Discord
Additional bracket info and Stream
Tomorrow the next big Dutch tournament is gonna be held since DSEA Winter 2023 and the Sector Z arcadian. There will be about 80ish entrants for melee, and there will be a PM and Tetris side bracket but those are not important for the purposes of this article. Anyway, I’m now going to throw some 2.5K words at you about all the people participating in the Melee bracket!
Skullbro – Noord-Brabant – Dr. Mario
The man known as “gayjesus” is here to protect hometurf from the foreign invaders. Skullbro has shown to have the best results against foreign competition of any Dutch player with recent wins over players such as recently minted top 100 player Abbe, Astar and Madness. After a strong 4th place at DSEA Winter 2023, the Doc player from Etten-Leur is looking to have a good showing in his last Dutch tournament before departing to North America for Collision later this month.
Aaron – Noord-Brabant – Sheik
Another person looking to defend hometurf is Very Poorly Hidden Boss Aaron. Aaron has impressively managed to attend two events in relatively quick succession which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Netherlands, who now have to consistently deal with this very strong Sheik player who despite a lack of attendance has not lost a step since peaking on the Dutch PR as 6th in late 2019. He was the only Dutch player to outplace Skullbro at DSEA Winter 2023 where he placed 2nd, picking up wins on Skullbro, LunarySSF2 and max. Maybe he’ll make attendance requirements for the PR this year?????
Happymealz – Zuid-Holland – Fox
One of the biggest risers of the 2022 Dutch PR, Happymealz will be attending Somnio. Happymealz had a very strong 2022 placing 17th at Fete 2, Dreamhack Rotterdam and HFLAN. Outside of losses to Pixel and Risc, Happymealz has continued to showcase good form and is looking to build off of a good showing at FOXXON Boulevard #4 where he placed 2nd over the aforementioned DK player Risc, Raiden, $TYN, Nuckels and more.
$TYN – Zuid-Holland – Fox
$TYN is also a Rotterdam Fox main, while he did lose his most recent set against Happymealz, he had previously defeated him at DSEA Winter 2023 to place 7th. He hasn’t had that much attendance in recent times, with his only EU major being Dreamhack Rotterdam 2022 where he placed 25th losing to Rikzz, winning against Aaron and ultimately getting eliminated from the tournament by, you guessed it, Happymealz. Hopefully he won’t have to play Fox players from Rotterdam in losers bracket this time, that would be nice.
Jim Morrison – Zuid-Holland – Fox, maybe Puff?
The legendary Bbatts slayer has been in a bit of a funk recently, messing around with secondaries, losing to ThommyN, time will tell if he will be able to regain his form or if he will even be playing Fox at this tournament. It’s important to remember that besides the ThommyN loss, his other losses are Raiden, King and $TYN, so his skill hasn’t cratered.
RestlessWhale – Noord-Holland – Falco
Speaking of people who have lost to ThommyN, this Amsterdam TO, commentator and Falco main has also lost to ThommyN at the very end of last year. He also 3-0’d him last week, also beating epikfaal for the 2nd time this year Besides that he has had some decent, if spotty results at his own local and a solid showing at DSEA Winter 2023. He seems to be doing better at these non-locals when his mental stack isn’t including making sure the tournament doesn’t run over schedule.
noon – Zuid-Holland – Mario, Dr. Mario
The other big riser of the 2022 Dutch PR and frequent attendee of RestlessWhale’s local, has done Some Of The Things Of All Time this year. A lot of it has been playing secondaries such as Falco and also randomly beating Renzo at a local with Sheik. He also has wins over Nuki and KasparV while juggling a bunch of characters at locals and varying levels of motivation. Who knows what he’ll be playing at this event.
Friso – Utrecht – Fox
Friso hasn’t attended much since the last PR period, he has only attended DSEA Winter 2023 where he got wins over Serket, Nuki and Def while losing to $TYN, Aaron and NekoKaze to place 13th. He has been grinding ranked though and made it onto the top 50 for whatever that’s worth.
Mezzy – Noord-Brabant – Marth
Mezzy has attended even less, he also peaked on the top 50 in EU ranked but besides that he attended a local where he beat Noxxa and got double eliminated by NVZ in January, he hasn’t gone to anything since.
Risc – Noord-Holland – DK
DK Stock is on the rise and so is Risc Stonks. Risc recently upset Happymealz in winners side of FOXXON Boulevard 4 to end up placing 4th. He has also been beating RestlessWhale and Noxxa, showing that Moe isn’t the only good DK in Europe. I don’t know what happened during the 2023 Melee Balance update but apparently DK is like, good now.
Noxxa – Noord-Brabant – ICs/Peach
Noxxa’s performance at FOXXON Boulevard 4 was also quite solid, despite losing to Risc twice, they beat Xin and RestlessWhale to end up placing 5th, besides that there have been some performances at locals and online tournaments that show that this dualmain, maybe soon-to-be trimain For Some Fucking Reason, has still got it.
NVZ – Noord-Brabant – Yoshi
NVZ has had an interesting start to his year, at DSEA Winter 2023 he got upset in bracket by both Pixel and Koningbadaap to place 33rd. He seemed to be having phob troubles at the event which is an annoying excuse but I will be mentioning it here. He then went to a local and after losing early to Mihi, went all the way through losers, beating Mihi, noon, Koningbadaap, Noxxa and Mezzy to win it all. So perhaps a mixed bag, but if his controller actually works who knows what will happen?
ThommyN – Zuid-Holland – Puff
ThommyN narrowly snuck onto the 2022 PR barely making attendance requirements, he then entered 2023 making a huge upset on King in pools at DSEA Winter 2023 and eventually placed 17th. He also got another Jim Morrison win at FOXXON Boulevard 4, placing a respectable 9th. He appears to be more busy with real life stuff than actually playing the game, but he’s still out here attending so I can’t tell you what’s going on there.
Mihi – Noord-Brabant - Fox/Sheik
This man has attended little to nothing since Dreamhack Rotterdam, he went to the local that NVZ won where he beat him early in bracket, he unfortunately then went on to lose to Mezzy and Koningbadaap. I can not estimate this man.
Epikfaal – Noord-Holland – Fox
From a Fox player who plays Sheik too, we now go to a Sheik player who plays Fox now. Epikfaal has switched to Fox from Sheik over the winter. With his new main he acquired a DestiKnee and a RestlessWhale win, the former at DSEA Winter 2023 and the latter at a local. While he hasn’t yet reached the peaks of his Sheik, the Fox is quite strong and already has some experience in doubles from days past.
DestiKnee – Noord-Holland – Falcon
One of the other Amsterdam Bunker Smash TO’s entered last year’s PR on its fringes. He has since had a mediocre showing at DSEA Winter 2023 where he didn’t get any particularly interesting results, but has picked up wins on Risc and Epikfaal at the local he TO’s. Besides he attended FOXXON Boulevard #4 where he successfully managed to not lose to any of the solid up and coming foxes and Karhu, while not picking up any PR wins there either.
Rabbitalex – Zuid-Holland – Samus
Rabbitalex went into the arcadian last month as one of the top seeds. After sweeping his pool, he got upset by Sheik player Abelatty, then beat VirtualTiger and Freekleef and lost to Djoek to just barely not make top 16. He is looking to recover from this underwhelming showing at Somnio to show people that his wins from 2022 were not a one-off.
Max – Brighton – Sheik
He’s back folks. He came in January and beat everybody, since then he attended Saints & Smashers where his secondaries lost to 10QuidShoes and he then went all the way through losers to win the event over Kingu, Fat Tino and Question. He also attended SCR: Sorry for Party Rocking! where he placed 2nd only losing to Frenzy. He’s once again the favourite to win the event, I just hope he isn’t gonna go fox in grands again.
Guacamolio – Flanders – Falco
Guacamolio is the first of many Belgian players I will be covering in this preview. Guacamolio is perhaps most known in the Dutch scene for being the man who beat Aaron at the very first Dutch arcadian in 2017, sending him into losers and starting off his very, very long losers run to end up winning the whole thing. Since then he has peaked at 4th place on the most recent 2019 Belgian Melee PR. He has beaten old man Razor Ramon at multiple Belgian tournaments but has mostly stayed in region so there’s a bit of a lack of information to cross-reference his modern skill-level with.
Grolex – Wallonia – Fox
Now this fucking guy does have some recent results, he won the arcadian from last month after all. Winning the whole thing from winners side, beating serket, Nidyz and Elec. His other recent results at locals in Lille have been fine if not eye-popping, but I’m not underestimating the man who beat the entirety of the Dutch sub-PR.
Ladder – Flanders - Marth
Hey look it’s the other Belgian who won a Dutch arcadian. He won the 2019 arcadian over a bunch of now-PR’d Dutch players. He also has a Feradit win, recently 3-0’d Avigdor and just generally has shown good consistency against anybody who would be perceived as worse than him. He hasn’t attended a big tournament outside of Belgium since the arcadian so this will be the first time we get to properly get a view of his development as a player since 2019.
Spirits – Flanders – Fox
Spirits has had a successful start to their out-of-country Melee career. They placed a solid 13th at the arcadian and 3rd at Vechtpartij #3. They have wins on most of the zoomer grinders in the country and some decent wins outside of that too, but they are definitely a tier under a lot of the players mentioned so far, but HEY the Netherlands is due for a proper zoomer breakout and this might be the tournament to do it.
Psylo – Lille- Falco
Psylo hasn’t done much since his DSEA Winter 2023 run, where he placed 25th losing to KasparV, Xin and King who got upset super early in bracket. Besides that he went to a Lille local where he lost to NekoKaze and attended another where he beat NekoKaze. The #4 in France is looking to have a slightly more normal run where weird upsets don’t end his run early.
NekoKaze – Paris – Sheik
NekoKaze has done a bit more than Psylo since his 9th place finish at DSEA Winter 2023, he got a Friso and Risc win at that event. Since then he went the aforementioned Lille locals and also some Paris locals, one of which he lost in an upset to 13th in France Khalas. He did double-elim Ladder at the most recent Lille local so he can still take care of business.
Adam – Noord-Brabant – Fox/Falco/idk some other shit sometimes
Older players in the scene may be familiar with the old-school multi-main Adam. He spent the better part of 10 years being a part of the top of the Dutch and European scene. His peak on the Dutch PR at least was when he placed 3rd in the middle of 2017, but he has been playing since long before that. He was part of the Dutch congregation to Pound 4 back in 2010 and has top 8’ed at European majors such as Epita Smash Arena 2 before some members of the scene were even born. Despite never making the top 100 he has multiple top 100 wins and according to Nuckels is still very good at the game. We will see how he will do at this first singles bracket since late 2017.
Xin – Gelderland – Pikachu
Xin’s return to Melee has been quite successful thus far, he picked up two strong upsets over noon and Psylo at DSEA Winter 2023. His run at FOXXON Boulevard 4 was less notable as he beat Nuki and lost to Noxxa in ICs-Fox which is a less than ideal draw for him and Happymealz. His switch to boxx has shown us a more technical Pikachu than before and it remains to be seen how much more he has to show to us at Somnio.
Elec – Gelderland – Falco
The 2nd place finisher at the arcadian is coming to this tournament to show the Dutch PR what’s really good. He has only attended a local since the arcadian where he picked up a bo3 victory of RestlessWhale, so he already got his first PR win of the year, now he needs to get one on a bigger stage
Koningbadaap – Noord-Brabant – Fox
The #1 seed at the arcadian suffered the curse that befalls any #1 seed at an arcadian and underperformed losing to LSK and Melone. He hasn’t attended anything since, but there was a reason why he got seeded so high and he will try to show that to us all this Saturday.
Jules – Gelderland – ICs
Jules was somewhat of a rarity in the Dutch scene prior to pandemic. An active Ice Climbers player in the Netherlands. He peaked at 13th on the Dutch 2017 Winter Melee PR and recently was given a B+ (top 9) on the Dutch PM PR too. I have no clue if he has been playing Melee recently but people have not forgotten his surprise 4th place at Djoekenborg #8 in 2019 where he beat Skullbro, FezWa and Happymealz. He has been attending PM events since Sector Z #6.0 in 2019, but one grab is all it takes, even if wobbling is now banned.
Ace – Gelderland – Falcon
The #1 PM player in the country is coming predominantly for the PM side-bracket but he will be making a rare appearance in Melee too. Back in Winter 2017 he was 17th on the Dutch Melee PR playing Falcon, since then he has continued to be one of the best PM players in all of Europe. He beats the likes of Fout NL and Skullbro in PM, perhaps he can get some decent wins with his rusty Falcon?
Dopamine – Gelderland – Puff
Han Dopamine placed 7th at the arcadian, losing only to Elec and Serket, they then attended FOXXON Boulevard 4 and beat Nuki. Besides that they have attended a bunch of online bracket and have gone from relative inactivity to quite active, I would love to see our good double bespectacled friend do well at Somnio now that they are back in the groove of things.
Serket – Zuid-Holland - Fox
One third of Roffa nation vanquished Melone, Dopamine and Lazyyysloth to place 4th at the arcadian. He has attended literally nothing since so I don’t have anything else to add, sorry.
Karhu – Noord-Holland – Marth
I bet my money on Karhu winning the arcadian, that did not come to fruition which was unfortunate, but I still believe in them. I still believe in the case of a Marth player in the sea of sub-PR spacie players. They placed 9th at the arcadian which was a decent run considering the fact they played exactly one spacie in bracket, which they got upset by in winners side so uhhhhhh idk.
Nidyz – Noord-Brabant – Dr. Mario
He got third at the arcadian playing fox, but because he doesn’t want to annihilate his hands he’s gonna play Doc at this tournament. I don’t know how well he’s gonna do but I’m pretty sure his doc is good and I’m including him at the very end cause he is also my friend and I like him.