Tournament:The Throne II

The Throne II
Dates	November 8th-10th, 2024
Venue	Guildhouse
Address/City	420 First Street; San Jose, California
Attendance	16
Results
winners	Sparg0

The Throne II, also known as The Throne 2 or The Throne 2024, was a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate major invitational held in San Jose, California from November 8th-10th, 2024. It was the second event in "The Throne" series after Watch The Throne.

Players invited[edit]

The following ten players were invited:

Players voted in[edit]

Rimu & Tilde (October 4th)
Candle & ChunkyKong (October 7th)
Marss & drybie (October 9th)

Players eliminated[edit]

These players were eliminated in the voting phase:

crêpe salée, M0tsunabE, NauBody, Peabnut (October 2nd)
Gorioka, Mezcaul, Mr. E (October 4th)
KID, Pharaoh Yone_pi, (October 7th)
Ikan, Lui$, Ryuoh, Umeki (October 9th)

These players were eliminated in the nomination phase:

Aness	Apple Reviewer	BeastModePaul	Dany2theny	Donut	Esvee	G-XTREME	Geist
Guilheww	Izaiah	Kirb0	Lucky	Longo	M.Pop0	MazeBeans	MKBigBoss
Monte	Ojwaddler	Poww	Saltlord	SOLO	Spickles	Susu	Vongola

Tournament summary[edit]

When the list of invited players were announced, many players were confused as to why the LumiRank 2024.1's top 3 players -- acola, Miya, and Sonix -- were not invited, why there were no European players invited to the event, and why there were no qualifiers for the event. In a later discussion, the organizers stated that they were experimenting with running an invitational where the invited players were those that audiences would deem "entertaining" rather than just the best players in order to separate themselves from Smash Summit, hence the absence of acola, Miya, and Sonix, as well as the lack of qualifiers.^[1]

During pools, the most notable performance was #16 seed drybie's win over #9 seed Marss 3-1, marking the first time ever a vote-in Pichu player was able to win a set at a major invitational. Marss ultimately went 0-3 in his round robin, the fourth non-regional invitational in a row where he failed to win a single set in his round robin. In addition, #4 seed SHADIC also underperformed by going 0-3 in round robin despite being his round robin's first seed, losing to #13 seed ChunkyKong 2-3 (upset factor 4), #12 seed Riddles 0-3 (UF 3) and #5 seed Hurt 0-3. Both players ultimately went the entire event without winning a set, with Marss losing to #10 seed MuteAce 0-3 in gauntlet and #14 seed Rimu 1-3 in the final bracket and SHADIC losing to drybie 2-3 (UF 4) in the gauntlet and #6 seed Kola 1-3 in the final bracket. Other notable upsets include #8 seed Zackray's 3-1 victory over #1 seed Sparg0 (UF 5, the biggest of the tournament) (the first time Zackray has ever defeated Sparg0) and Rimu's 3-2 victory over Kola (UF 3), where Kola notably SD'd twice in the final game.

In top 8 of the final bracket, Rimu and Candle replaced SHADIC and Kola. After defeating Marss, Rimu also defeated Riddles’s Terry 3-1, which include a reverse 3-stock on the last game, before losing in loser’s eighths to #11 seed Candle, his first major top 8. The former also started the final bracket in loser’s, going 1-3 in his pool, but managed to defeat Drybie, MuteAce and Rimu before losing to Sparg0 for 5th place, one of the best post-pandemic solo Olimar results in North America, and also Candle’s first major top 8.

In winner side, Sparg0, who was defending his title from last year’s Throne, won a close game 5 set with #5 seed Tweek in winner’s quarters, reaching winner’s semi-finals against #7 MkLeo. In their 31st offline set since the start of Ultimate, MkLeo ultimately won the set 3-1 (UF 5, tied for the biggest of the tournament). The start of the 4th game became famous for Leo’s usage of Rebel’s Guard, maintaining the “game 4 Leo” myth. Now in loser’s, Sparg0 eliminated from the tournament Candle 3-1, Hurt in a reverse 3-0 and MkLeo in the runback 3-2 to reach grand finals loser’s side against Light, who hadn’t lost any sets since the start of the tournament. Sparg0 reset the grand finals 3-1, and swept Light in the reset 3-0 to win the tournament, maintaining his crown and his top 1 spot for the 2024.2 season. MkLeo’s run to 3rd, along with his 4th place at Luminosity Makes Moves Miami 2024 and his 5th place at Umebura SP 11 confirms his definitive return to form after a shaky first half of 2024.