Tournament:Pound 2019

Pound 2019
Dates	April 19th-21st, 2019
Venue	Laurel Park
Address/City	198 Laurel Race Track Rd Laurel, Maryland
Attendance	1,745
Entry fees	Early Bird (Up to February 5th): $40 Tier 1 (February 6th-March 11th): $50 Tier 2 (March 12th-April 1st): $60 Tier 3 (April 2nd-April 8th): $75
Results
winners	Hungrybox 1v1  Plup &  Mew2King 2v2
winners	Ally 1v1  Marss &  Light 2v2
Staff
Organizer(s)	VGBootCamp, Tantalus, Nintendude

Pound 2019 was a Super Smash Bros. Melee major and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate supermajor tournament held at Xanadu from April 19th-21st, 2019. This was the first official Pound tournament since Pound 2016 nearly 3 years earlier, and the first Pound tournament for Ultimate.

Tournament summary

Super Smash Bros. Melee

In doubles, Plup2King double-eliminated PewFat to win the event, marking the first Melee doubles event since EGLX 2018 that PewFat did not win. In singles, Mang0 defeated Hungrybox 3-2 in Winners Semi-Final, his first win over Hungrybox since Smash Summit 6, and made Grand Finals on the Winner's side, marking the first major in which he was in this position since his victory at Super Smash Con 2017. However, Hungrybox tore through the Loser's bracket, defeating S2J, Zain, and Plup 3-1 to meet Mang0 in Grand Finals; he defeated Mang0 twice 3-1 and 3-0 to win the tournament.

Hungrybox Crab incident

During Grand Finals, commentator EE sold an unknown spectator a dead crab in the venue. At the end of Grand Finals, the crab was thrown at Hungrybox as he was fistbumping Mang0, with the incident being captured on-stream and by other spectators. The spectator was later identified and banned from attending future tournaments, including Smash 'N' Splash 5.

The incident caused a massive backlash on Twitter, with many people showing their disgust towards the spectator. It has since become a running joke in Hungrybox's fanbase, and Hungrybox himself would eat a crab on-stream in "revenge".

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

According to tournament guidelines, the Ultimate event was to use the latest version of Ultimate that was available on April 16th. As patch 3.0.0, the patch that added Joker, was released a day later, Joker was not allowed at the event.

The first seed MkLeo was upset early in Winner's Quarter-Final in Phase 2 by #64 seed Jw 1-2 in an upset factor of 10, his first non-PGR loss of the season. Leo then made a notable 6-set Loser's run, including defeating Nairo 3-1 for 9th, before losing to Salem 1-3 to place 7th, his second non-Grand Finals finish at a major alongside 2GG: Prime Saga, which took place a week prior. This event was notably the last tournament where MkLeo used Wolf and Lucina as his primary characters, as he began playing Joker in tournaments starting with Umebura Japan Major 2019.

On the other hand, this marked a surprising performance from #18 seed Ally, which followed up his strong performance at Prime Saga a week prior, and marked an end to his competitive slump. Benefitting from #47 seed Daybreak's upset over #2 seed Light (upset factor 8), who Ally was supposed to fight in Winners Quarter-Final of Top 48, Ally cruised into Top 8 defeating Pelca 3-1, playing the Snake ditto before winning the set using Mario in the last game. He then fought a series of game 5 events, defeating Dabuz and Myran twice, to win the event, continuing his top 3 streak at Pound events. Pound 2019 marked Ally's first major victory at a Smash event since 2GGC: Greninja Saga in 2017 and cemented him as the best Snake player in the early metagame. In addition, Ultimate became the fourth Smash game (when including Project M) in which Ally won a major, and he remains the only player to have reached this milestone. Finally, Pound 2019 remained the only Snake victory at a major until Hurt's victory at Battle of BC 6 almost five years later.

Other notable runs include #37 seed Dark Wizzy's run, where he defeated #21 seed Mr.R and elminiated Light (upset factor 8) to place 13th, his best tournament run of the Spring 2019 PGRU season; and #10 seed ESAM's run, who was double-eliminated by Peach players MuteAce and Ling for 25th. ESAM's further losses to Samsora in Squad Strike and their money match cemented Peach as one of ESAM's worst characters to fight against.

Results

Super Smash Bros. Melee singles

(451 entrants)
Top 48 Bracket
Top 12 Bracket

Place	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	Hungrybox		$2,706.00
2nd	Mango		$1,623.60
3rd	Plup		$811.80
4th	Zain		$541.20
5th	SFAT		$270.60
5th	S2J		$270.60
7th	Axe		$135.30
7th	ChuDat		$135.30
9th	Slox		$67.65
9th	Swedish Delight		$67.65
9th	Gahtzu		$67.65
9th	Cool Lime		$67.65
13th	PewPewU
13th	Ginger
13th	Jerry
13th	Kaeon
17th	MikeHaze
17th	KJH
17th	iBDW
17th	2saint
17th	Amida
17th	La Luna
17th	bobby big ballz
17th	Joyboy
25th	Drephen
25th	HTwa
25th	Kalvar
25th	Qerb
25th	BIGKID
25th	Arkouda
25th	Tiramisu
25th	Kevin Maples
33rd	Lucky
33rd	SypherPhoenix
33rd	Bones
33rd	lintgod
33rd	Mr. F
33rd	42nd
33rd	JFlex
33rd	Juicebox
33rd	Boyd
33rd	Zealous5000
33rd	TheSWOOPER
33rd	Peanutphobia
33rd	lloD
33rd	Fable
33rd	Icy
33rd	Nagy

Super Smash Bros. Melee doubles

(93 teams)
Top 12 Bracket

Place	Name	Character(s)	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	Plup		Mew2King		$744.00 ($372.00 each)
2nd	PewPewU		SFAT		$372.00 ($186.00 each)
3rd	Hungrybox		ChuDat		$279.00 ($139.50 each)
4th	Zain		Chillin		$186.00 ($93.00 each)
5th	Lintgod		Slox		$93.00 ($46.50 each)
5th	Drephen		Boyd		$93.00 ($46.50 each)
7th	Juicebox		MOM!		$46.50 ($23.25 each)
7th	Atomsk		Turtle		$46.50 ($23.25 each)
9th*	iBDW		2saint
9th	HiFi		Jwilli
9th	TheSWOOPER		BIGKID
9th	Spare_Parts		Young

• This team was DQ'd in losers.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate singles

(802 entrants)
Top 48 Bracket
Top 12 Bracket

Place	Name	Character(s)	Earnings
1st	Ally		$4,812
2nd	Myran		$2,887.20
3rd	Marss		$1,443.60
4th	Samsora		$962.40
5th	Dabuz		$481.20
5th	Salem		$481.20
7th	MVD		$240.60
7th	MkLeo		$240.60
9th	Nairo		$120.30
9th