Smashmate
Smashmate (スマメイト) is a Japanese community website launched in 2014 by Occho for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and later Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The website is primarily designed for online play, featuring a season-based Elo ladder, as well as an online tournament scene for players with particularly high ratings, such as the Tamisuma and Maesuma. Additionally, players have the option of filling out Player Diaries to track their progress, and opponents have the option of posting their thoughts on the match on the player's profile. Players that remain high on the ladder will earn achievements on their profiles as well. A Twitter account is required to register, as well as verify if the user has a LAN adapter to display on their profile. The website briefly became inaccessible outside of Japan in 2014 as a countermeasure against cyberattacks, but it has reopened for international audiences.
Many Japanese Smash players first came to prominence on Smashmate events, including KEN, Yoshidora, and Ron. The website's popularity exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the rise of many of the post-pandemic's best players, including acola, Miya, Doramigi, and Hurt. As such, Smashmate has become well-regarded across the global Smash scene as a training ground for top players, and several international players have since played on Smashmate's ladder system during their Japan visit, including ApolloKage, Cosmos, and Glutonny.
The website is set to shut down on October 25th, 2026, as a result of growing concerns regarding cybersecurity due to artificial intelligence, as well as Occho's personal life that gives little time to maintain the website, especially in the case of a cybersecurity incident similar to the PHP vulnerability discovered days before.[1]
Ruleset[edit]
Smashmate uses its own ruleset for rated games on their ladder, which are often adopted by tournaments as well. It's a "Best of 3" set that uses 3 stocks, a time limit of 7 minutes, and Stage Hazards are set to off. Characters can be changed freely. In the event of Sudden Death, the player with the lowest percentage wins. If their percentage is the same, then Sudden Death is played out.
Stagelist[edit]
For the first game, players will agree on a stage to play on. For games 2 and 3, the loser picks the stage. Dave's Stupid Rule used to apply until the 11th rated season, where it was abolished.
For rated battles exclusively, players can set up to 2 stages to ban on their Smashmate profiles for the Starter and Counterpick stages, which neither the player nor the opponent can select for the duration of their set. Thus, up to 4 stages can be set. Banned stages are shown to both players alongside a generated list of stages to choose from. During matchmaking, the banned stages cannot be changed.
| Starter Stages | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Final Destination |
 Battlefield |
 Pokémon Stadium 2 |
 Town and City |
 Small Battlefield |
 Hollow Bastion | ||||||
| Counterpick Stages | |||||||||||
 Smashville | |||||||||||
Trivia[edit]
- The Smashmate website was referenced in the anime Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki as a similar-looking website. Several ranked players could be seen as references to top Smashmate ladder players such as "いcider" referencing acola and "RYU" referencing KEN. [2]
