Tournament:Apex 2012

Apex 2012 was a tournament held in New Jersey by and it was the third tournament in the Apex series. It featured pools for Brawl and Melee singles, brackets for Smash 64 singles and doubles, Pokémon Black & White singles and doubles, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat 9, and All Brawl, a free-for-all side event with items turned on. It was the largest Brawl tournament to ever take place, with 400 entrants, and one of the largest Melee tournaments of all time up to that point, being the second-largest Melee tournament at the time, with 318 entrants. Like many other Apex tournaments throughout the series, Apex 2012 drew its share of international competition. Of the over 1,000 attendees, about 81 of them were from countries other than the United States.

Ruleset
Procedures for stage-striking, life-stealing, and double blind picks were incorporated into all three rulesets.

Smash 64
Apex 2012 used the Smash 64 Backroom's recommended ruleset.

Format

 * Competition format is double elimination.
 * All sets with the exception of the below are best-of-3.
 * Winners' semifinals, losers' quarterfinals and losers' semifinals are best-of-5.
 * Winners' finals, losers' finals and grand finals are best-of-7.

Game settings

 * Mode: STOCK
 * Stocks: 5
 * Handicap: OFF
 * Team Attack: ON
 * Stage Select: ON
 * Damage: 100%
 * Item Switch: NONE
 * All characters are available
 * 's black palette swap (Right-C), 's dark palette swap (Down-C), and 's dark palette swap (Right-C) are discouraged if playing on Congo Jungle for visibility reasons. The opposing player may reset the match without penalty if they wish for a colour change. Taking or dealing any damage nullifies this right.

Stages
The first match of all sets is selected by a 3-stage striking system with the Starter Stage List. An impartial observer/tournament organiser flips a coin to decide who strikes first. Rock-paper-scissors is acceptable as well, but it’s technically a skill irrelevant to smash.

General rules

 * Game will be played on console
 * 8/10 minute time limit is put in place for all matches, especially Hyrule.
 * Draws are decided first by stock, then by percentage.
 * Disrupting your opponent physically or intending to disrupt their play will result in a warning. Repeated action will result in disqualification from the tournament. Observers who physically disrupt players are to be dealt with as the tournament organiser sees fit. Disqualification is recommended if possible.
 * Pausing is discouraged, and should only be done at the end of a stock, if at all. At other times, the pauser loses their current stock. If the pause causes the opponent to lose their stock, the pauser loses two stocks.
 * Extreme stalling is disallowed. Any reported case of such will result in a warning, followed by automatic forfeit of the match. If this is reported again, automatic forfeit is enforced without a warning. If there is no movement from either player, the player with fewer stocks, or if the stocks are equal, the higher percentage, is considered to be stalling.
 * Mages DQ is enforced. When a match is called, both players must promptly arrive. If a player is 2 minutes late, they receive a warning. At 4 minutes late, they lose the first game of the set and forfeit counterpick rights. At 6 minutes late, they forfeit the entire set.

Melee
The ruleset was based off of the Melee Backroom's recommended ruleset, with the only significant difference being that Jungle Japes was not a valid counterpick stage in doubles.

General rules

 * Items are set to off.
 * 4 stocks
 * 8 minute time limit
 * Wobbling is prohibited.
 * Matches that time out will be determined by the remaining number of stocks, then percentage of the current stock if stocks are tied. In the event of a percentage tie, the match should be replayed in full. Sudden Death is not to be played, and will not count.
 * If a player accidentally pauses while stealing a life in doubles, the opposing team may deem that stock forfeit. Pausing may be turned off to prevent this.

Stages
Singles stage list Doubles stage list
 * Dave's Stupid Rule: a player or team may not counterpick to the stage they last won on
 * This is not the proper definition of Dave's Stupid Rule.The definition given describes Dave's Modified Stupid Rule(commonly referred to as Mew2king's Stupid Rule) and further clarification is required as to which rule was used during the event.
 * Gentleman's Clause: Any stage may be played on if both players or teams agree to it. This takes priority over Dave's Stupid Rule.

Brawl

 * 3 stocks
 * 8 minute time limit
 * Items are set to “Off” and “None”
 * All infinites and chain grabs are legal.
 * ’s Infinite Dimensional Cape glitch is banned.
 * There is a ledge grab limit of 35 for Meta Knight and 50 for all other characters. If a game goes to time and one player goes over the ledge grab limit for their character, they will automatically lose the game. If both players exceed their ledge grab limit, then this rule is ignored.
 * The act of stalling is banned.
 * If time runs out, the winner of the match will be the one called out by the game. If it goes to Sudden Death, then it is determined by percentage. If the percentage and/or both players die at the same time as a result of a suicide move, a one stock 3 minute tie break match is held. Ledge grab limits are reduced to 13 for Meta Knight and 18 for all other characters.
 * The only other exception to this is the game ending from a Bowser or Ganondorf suicide tactic, where the initiator of the move wins.

Conduct

 * In the event pause is left on accidentally and is pressed, immediately call over the tournament organizer. Based upon their judgment, the situation will be resolved. If the situation is neutral (players are not in combat), the match will be resumed as if the pause had not occurred. If the situation is advantageous to one individual and the player in the disadvantageous situation paused, the disadvantaged player will be either placed in a grab or onto the ledge of the stage. If a player is in a death situation (chain grabs, grab releases, jab-locks to a KO move, etc) and pauses while such situation, the current stock is forfeited immediately. If a player unpause before the tournament organizer reaches the station, the player that unpaused loses a stock.
 * Users of the Wii Remote must take out the Wiimote's batteries. If problems persist due to the Wiimote, the owner of the Wiimote may be disqualified.
 * Players are responsible for their own controller and name tag. Any malfunctions or errors that occur are the player's responsibility (including battery issues with a Wii Remote), so participants are advised to bring an extra controller(s) and make sure they are using the correct settings BEFORE a match is played. Both parties need to agree if a match is to be paused or restarted because of these problems.
 * The tournament organizer has the right to save/record any tournament match if possible and has the right to upload said match.
 * Any hacks, including (but not limited to) textures, music, and model changes are not allowed.
 * Hacks to allow replays to exceed 3 minutes in length and to allow player tags to display correctly in said replays were allowed.

All Brawl
Apex 2012 featured a single-elimination Brawl side event. The cap was 64 entrants.
 * 4 players per set
 * All stages on with stage choice set to random
 * All characters are set to random
 * Top 2 players advance
 * All items are on and set to medium
 * First player to win 2 matches advances
 * 2nd person to advance is decided in the order of: match wins, lives left in last match, most kills in last match

Road to Apex
Beginning in July of 2011 and continuing until December, select tournaments for Brawl and Melee were listed as Apex qualifiers in the United States and internationally. Each "Road to Apex" qualifier tournament would award the highest placing players a certain number of points, which would then be used to help with seeding the Apex bracket. The points are broken down from 1st place to 7th place below.


 * 1st place – 64pts
 * 2nd place – 32pts
 * 3rd place – 16pts
 * 4th place – 8pts
 * Both 5th place finishers – 4pts each
 * Both 7th place finishers – 2pts each

Additionally, the top placing regional player of each singles event will be awarded a $100 stipend upon arrival at the Apex venue to help cover travel costs.

Here is the list of Apex qualifying events.

Melee
 * B.E.A.S.T II (August 11-14, Gothenburg, Sweden)
 * Smash t'ill U Crash 2 (August 20, Montreal, Canada)
 * Ticket to APEX Tournament (September 17, Monterrey, Mexico)
 * TourneyPlay SoCal (September 24-25, San Diego, CA)
 * The Big House (October 22, Ann Arbor, MI)
 * Revival of Melee 4 (November 19-20, Nanuet, NY)
 * Tipped Off 7 (December 3-4, Duluth, GA)

Brawl
 * Showdown II (July 23rd, Santiago, Chile)
 * Brawl in Berlin 2 (July 29, Berlin, Germany)
 * KTAR 6 (August 13, South River, NJ)
 * Smash t'ill U Crash 2 (August 20, Montreal, Canada)
 * HOBO 33 (September 10, Houston, TX)
 * TourneyPlay SoCal (September 24-25, San Diego, CA)
 * School Is In Session 6 (September 24-25, Cincinnati, OH)

In addition to the events, vVv Gaming gave out stipends to the top three of the 2011 AllisBrawl fall ladder playoffs, in order to help cover the costs of attending Apex 2012.

Results

 * See also: Results thread on SmashBoards

Brawl singles
(400 entrants) [[Media:Apex2012Brawl1v1.gif|Bracket]]

Entrants were assigned into 80 pools of 5. Each entrant played a round-robin against every other player in their pool. The 2 players with the best record in their pools advanced to a second round of pools. There were 32 pools of 5 in round 2. The top 2 players in their second round pool advanced to the 64-man bracket.

Brawl doubles
(128 teams) [[Media:Apex2012Brawl2v2.png|Bracket]]

All teams were directly placed into a 128-man bracket.

Melee singles
(318 entrants) [[Media:Apex2012Melee1v1.gif|Bracket]]

Entrants were assigned into 64 pools of 5. Each entrant played a round-robin against every other player in their pool. The 2 players with the best record in their pools advanced to a second round of pools. There were 32 pools of 4 in round 2. The top 2 players in their second round pool advanced to the 64-man bracket.

Melee doubles
(98 teams) [[Media:Apex2012Melee2v2.png|Bracket]]

Smash 64 singles
(64 entrants) [[Media:Apex2012SSB641v1.jpg|Bracket]]

Smash 64 doubles
(8 teams) [[Media:Apex2012SSB642v2.png|Bracket]]

All Brawl
(64 entrants)

Melee USA vs. the World Crew Battle
Like in past international smash events, a crew battle was held pitting some of the best players from the United States those eight from abroad. There were originally supposed to be eight players for each crew, but this was modified after Mew2King defeated Leffen with 3 stocks remaining, giving USA an 11-4 stock advantage. The USA crew allowed Captain Jack to join the World crew in addition to Amsah, who otherwise would have been the last member of the World crew.

Players are shown in the order that they played from top to bottom, characters played are shown in chronological order from left to right.

Brawl USA vs. the World Crew Battle
This crew battle was canceled due to lack of time, however, had it occurred, it would have matched eight of the best American players against eight of the best international players. was the captain of the USA crew, and was the captain of the World crew. Below is the roster for the World crew; the USA crew did not decide on their roster before the tournament.

Alternates:, / Leon and Otori were supposed to play each other, with the winner earning the spot on the roster and the loser becoming an alternate along with Orion.

Ganon Gauntlet
Ganondorf main held an event which pitted the challenger against seven  players in seven consecutive one-stock, 3 minute matches. Winning the gauntlet required the player to defeat all seven Ganondorfs. Timeouts and Ganoncides counted as a win for the Ganondorf. The challenger could choose any character for any match. Challengers were restricted to 10 ledge grabs; Ganondorfs had no ledge grab limit. Stages are chosen by each Ganondorf player from the tournament stagelist.

Players may bet $5, $10, or $20, for payouts of $10, $25, and $50, respectively.

Ganondorf roster:
 * Vermanubis (Verm)
 * Gunblade (GNBLD)
 * Bloodynite (Blood)
 * DLA (D L A)
 * Inui (KAI)
 * Tearbear (TUPAY)
 * Vex Kasrani (COMBO)


 * Substitute: Izumi (Izumi)

Of the 21 players who entered, only, who played as , survived.

Controversies
Apex 2012 has garnered criticism for various issues related to how the event was managed. A lack of setups caused Brawl to run over schedule, delaying pools matches and necessitating the cancellation of the USA vs. the World crew battle. Many viewers were also irked by the presence of non-Smash Bros. games on the livestream, as well as the lack of moderators in livestream chat where viewers criticized Smash Bros. as not a real fighting game in comparison to traditional fighters, such as Marvel vs. Capcom. The performance of a specific Brawl commentator, Pierce7d, drew fire for being overly disrespectful of the players. Another issue was the fact that the Japanese players had to travel to and from the tournament in the back of a U-Haul truck that was carrying many CRT TVs along with their luggage.

Trivia

 * Apex 2012 was the second Apex tournament to have a Japanese Olimar player finish 2nd.

Gallery
A full set of photos from the weekend can be viewed here.