Battle Arena Melbourne 9 (BAM9) kicks off tomorrow and is set to be the largest fighting game tournament ever held in Australia. With BAM being a Premiere Event on the Capcom Pro Tour, we will invaded by an army of international invaders coming for the Street Fighter V crown such as Daigo Umehara, Razer Infiltration, Razer Xian, Echo Fox Momochi, Fuudo and many more. Who will defend the Victorian shores from these overseas insurgents as well as the armies from interstate and how has the metagame and player rankings changed since the last major?
Smash Brothers Melee
For Melee we have Darren “Dreadtech” Taing the head of Smash in Victoria, and one of the main Melee tournament organisers Cailan Kingsbury.
Muttons: Smash Brothers MeleeWho are the main challengers for Melee from Victoria?
Cailan: SD by default. He won the last Australian supermajor. But he hasn’t made it to a tournament this year – he started a new job he’s now a newscaster and TV personality!
SA Nick from SA has been winning every tournament, even coming across to Victoria for our local ranbats.
Darren: Dekar has got out of his slump so he’s back.
The next guy up who could possibly dethrone either of them would be Miles aka DonB. But he’s over in America and he’s been there for the last few months. Miles – Miles Warehouse (Independent Victorian Smash Major) Miles, he’ll come back a lot better.
Last BAM’s top 3 From left: S.D (3rd) SA Nick (1st) and SIN| Spud (2nd)
Muttons: So he’s a hidden dragon with that American training.
Darren: Pretty much.
Cailan: He’s been playing four tournaments a week over there!
What about the competition from interstate?
Darren: Spud who hails from Perth now but is from New Zealand originally is probably the number 1 seed now. Other threats would be SA Nick who won last year’s BAM. Spud came second that year but won OHN later in that year.
Muttons: So this BAM is the tiebreaker?
Cailan: Exactly. And also from NSW you also have Rainbow, MC, Sora and Zxv who are also threats.
Smash Brothers Melee
To cap things off we have Jack Gorman aka “Pudge” the head of Smash Wii U, to talk about the biggest game at BAM.
Muttons: Who are the main BAM challengers from Victoria Jack?
Jack: People that gonna do good from Victoria are the usual suspects like Duon, Ignis, Extra and Boozer. They always make top 8.
You’re probably gonna see them unless there’s a big upset. There’s Nakat coming from SoCal, America, who is gonna do well. He’s almost certainly gonna come first. (Note: Nakat is out of BAM with a contagious stomach flu, sending the seedings and pools into turmoil.)
ACT did really well last time, there’s Pazx, Sriks, and Waveguider. Also, MM and Luco from NSW will do well. They did really well last time, but VIC is by far the strongest. We’ve never not won a major.
Muttons: Stills from the just released Australian Smash Power rankings!
Cailan: What about Ghost?
Jack: Oh! And Ghost from SA too. Ghost would be the favourite normally (besides Nakat), but he hasn’t been playing the last two months.
The last three majors were won by Boozer from Victoria, Duon from Victoria, and Ghost from WA won DI Another Day. And Extra from VIC won OHN. So there hasn’t been a consistent person who wins majors, which I think is really exciting because it could be anyone.
I think most likely Ghost will be the highest placing Australian, but anyone in the top 10 could make it.
Thanks Jack!
For more information on the strongest Smash players in Australia check out the Australian Smash WiiU Power Rankings.
Battle Arena Melbourne 9 takes place on May 12-14 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. It will be a 3 day event with features such as: official afterparty, huge pot and prize bonuses, artist alley, cosplay competition,
BAM9 is a Global Premier Event on the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour and will feature international guests such as Daigo Umehara and Razer Infiltration and Xian for SFV and Nakat from the US for Smash. BAM9 will also feature a Tekken 7 pre-release tournament, a Tekken 7 New Challengers tournament, international players such as Saint and JDCR and the Tekken Pass: free entry to play on over 40 Tekken 7 machines all weekend.