The first wave of online finals for the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate North America Open 2019 tournament is happening this weekend in four regions across North America and you can watch the event live!

In a press release today, Nintendo announced that the livestream will start approximately between 9 a.m. PT and 12 p.m. PT on Saturday, Feb. 9, for all regions, on their Twitch and YouTube channels. Or right below:

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The tournament will have 16 players compete in the first online final event this Saturday. Fans of the Super Smash Bros. fighting scene might recognize such players as Narcissa, who was a runner-up at the Nintendo World Championships in 2015, competing in this weekend’s finals. Professional Super Smash Bros. player ESAM will also be a special guest on the livestream, joining VikkiKitty, Toph and Jordan Kent – commentators well known in the Super Smash Bros. community.

Afterwards, the winners of the Online Event 1 final will join the winners of the second and third online event finals on March 2 and March 16 to compete in the final event at the PAX East video game conference in Boston on March 30.

Another tournament happening this weekend is the online qualifiers for the Splatoon 2 North America Inkling Open 2019. Happening on Sunday, Feb. 10, at 9 a.m. PT, teams of four will also compete and out of more than 400 registered teams, only eight teams will advance to the online qualifier finals on March 2. From there, the top four teams will compete at PAX East in Boston.

More information on both events are available on Nintendo's official events page linked below.

Nintendo Events Page
SOURCE: GBAtemp Inbox

 

[Monado_III]

Wait, that's why I use time instead of stock. Having time means if you camp, you don't get anything and you have to get involved in the action to start getting KO's. Being on stock means you can camp at the side, wait for every one else to battle among themselves until there's only one person and then go after them. If you're bad at the game, it won't matter since they probably have 1 stock left after battling and you have all stock, so you'll eventually defeat them before they have a chance to defeat you.

this is a 1 vs 1.....

 

[Xzi]

I hate the idea that competitive play means banning fun.

Figuring out strategies and combos with characters' base kits is fun for competitive players. Items are flashy, but flashy does not equal fun for everybody.

And before you tell me, "that's not true", have you seen how many Melee stages are banned from competitive play? Can you explain why every single one is banned? Anything that's not a flat stage or a flat stage with a couple platforms in the air is automatically banned.

Walk-off stages and oddly-designed stages are banned for much the same reason items are: they allow skilled players to exploit them for fast KOs. Battlefield stages (tri-platform) equalize the playing field so that character recoveries matter. Balance hinges on recovery being a central mechanic.

 

[Monado_III]

I hate the idea that competitive play means banning fun. It shouldn't be that way and it's why I've grown to resent the Melee community.
And before you tell me, "that's not true", have you seen how many Melee stages are banned from competitive play? Can you explain why every single one is banned? Anything that's not a flat stage or a flat stage with a couple platforms in the air is automatically banned.

Yes, and I don't even play melee, and since there is money involved in these tournaments, people will play in the most boring unfun ways (circles camping, infinites etc) if it gives them an advantage, some people are there to win and having fun is secondary to them, so stage bans help prevent stupid stuff like that and force people to play the game.

Spoiler: long post

Battlefield - legal
Big Blue - banned because you should have to kill the other person, not let the track do it and the person who starts on the right is in a much better position then the person on the left
Brinstar - some characters become super broken once the acid rises and characters without great aerials absolutely dominate and some characters like puff and peach don't even need to worry about the acid
Brinstar Depths - caves of life, stalling opportunities, low blast ceiling making any character without a good vertical KO move screwed, too hard to recover to the ledge (because of the lack of ledges, so puff gets a free recovery while everyone else just dies) there's a lot wrong with this.
Corneria - Fox has an infinite, camping potential, and the arwings randomly swooping in
Final Destination - legal
Flat Zone - falling tools are random, hard too avoid, and can OHKO, and early kills due to the blast zone
Fountain of Dreams - legal
Fourside - camping, ness is straight up dead if he falls in the gap between the buildings, the UFO etc.
Great Bay - circle camping and potential for super early KOs
Green Greens - small horizontal blast zones, infinites from the blocks, the bombs dropping
Icicle Mountain - the point of this stage is to survive, characters with good jumps are at a huge advantage, not meteor or edge guarding potential, and early KO's
Jungle Japes - super high ceiling, projectiles are way too strong, and klaptrap is way to strong
Kongo Jungle - klaptraps and the rock on the right promotes camping
Mushroom Kingdom - caves of life, walk-offs and the complete non-uniformity of the stage
Mushroom Kingdom II - small, walk-offs, birdo
Mute City - lack of ledges (RIP falcon), and too small to play on <- this stage used to be legal
Onett - walls (infinites), hazards, walk offs, no lower blast zone
Poké Floats - seems legit, stalling and small vertical blast zone
Pokémon Stadium, - legal (but there is some talk of a ban because spacies have a big advantage)
Princess Peach's Castle - infinites, potential for camping band banzai bill is too disruptive
Rainbow Cruise - characters with good mobility are massively favoured, too much time is spent making sure the stage doesn't kill you rather then fighting
Temple - camping, wall infinites, caves of life, circle camping
Venom - infinites and camping
Yoshi's Island - walk offs and close blast zones, this looks fun right?
Yoshi's Story - legal
Kongo Jungle - legal in doubles, banned in singles primarily because of this 10/10 gameplay (this is circle camping)
Dream Land - legal
Yoshi's Island - clouds promote camping

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Figuring out strategies and combos with characters' base kits is fun for competitive players. Items are flashy, but flashy does not equal fun for everybody.


Walk-off stages and oddly-designed stages are banned for much the same reason items are: they allow skilled players to exploit them for fast KOs. Battlefield stages (tri-platform) equalize the playing field so that character recoveries matter. Balance hinges on recovery being a central mechanic.

I know that, and I know they have fun with those rules, but man... They should be able to find some middle ground, outright banning every stage that doesn't follow the same exact formula as Final Destination is a bit much.
Every player that wants to get into playing Melee competitively is forced into these rules, even the ones that are in it just to have fun and not to become the very best, which is a large percentage of them. I can understand why they're not allowed in pro tournaments with some of the world's best players, but even small tournaments that are mostly for fun follow the same rules, and for me that takes all the fun out of it.

 

[Jonna]

this is a 1 vs 1.....

Oh. Shit, you're right, then.