Tournament:2GGC: Civil War

2GGC: Civil War was an international tournament held in Santa Ana, California, from March 24th to 26th, 2017 and organized by 2GGaming. Most top-level players attended, including, , , , , , , , , , and.

Following ZeRo's unprecedented tournament losses to Ally at Get On My Level 2016 and Smash 'N' Splash 2, a strong rivalry arose between the two players, leading to many instances of trash talk and the creation of the Twitter hashtags #TeamZeRo and #TeamAlly, which were used at large by the Smash community to represent which of the two players they supported. To capitalize on said rivalry, Larry Lurr proposed the idea of a 2GGT tournament centered around that theme, and it was greenlit by the 2GG staff as Larry's tweet was met with very strong support.

On December 18th, 2016, with the announcement of the 2GG Championship Series, Civil War was revealed to be one of its season finale events. It featured a combined prize pot bonus of $30,000 for all events. $15,000 went towards singles, $5,000 to doubles and the remaining $10,000 made up the prize pool for the 10 vs 10 crew battle between Team ZeRo and Team Ally.

Side events featured a cosplay contest with a $1,000 prize, online/in-person s, a round robin to determine the featured character of April Saga, and a Salty Suite.

Teams
The main theme of 2GGC: Civil War was the rivalry between and  and how they "recruited" some of the best smashers in the world to compete in their name. The captains did not pick the players; instead 18 of the best smashers in the world were interviewed by in order to determine which of them they favored, forming 2 core teams of 10 players each. They participated in the crew battle on Sunday, which was the tournament's main event.

All players who registered for the tournament were required to pick one of the two teams. The list below is limited to the players ranked on the Panda Global Rankings v2:
 * Team ZeRo:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
 * Team Ally:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Anyone who participated in ladders could contribute points to either Team ZeRo or Ally as a supplement to the crew battle outcome.

Tournament summary
This tournament was the 2nd S-tier event of the Panda Global Rankings v3 season. With 47 out of 50 players on the Panda Global Rankings v2 in attendance (the only absentees being #19, #22 , and #49 ), Civil War is widely considered to be one of the most important and hardest Smash 4 events of all time.

In a similar vein to, the tournament was infamous for having a massive number of upsets. Day 1 of Smash 4 singles notably saw two players, #79 seed  and #75 seed, make Top 96 on winner’s side, getting wins over #15 seed  (upset factor 5) and #11 seed  (upset factor 6) respectively. The first day also saw the unexpected double-elimination of the top 2 seeds, and. #1 seed ZeRo lost to #65 seed (upset factor 12) and #101 seed  (upset factor 13), placing 49th, marking the worst placement of his Smash 4 career, along with his first loss to  since losing to  at  nearly two years prior; #2 seed MkLeo, whose underperformance may have been attributed to potential sickness, lost to #639 seed  (upset factor 17) and #55 seed  (upset factor 10), also getting his worst placement in Smash 4 at 65th. Before the end of the day, #4 seed was sent into loser’s side by #36 seed  (upset factor 7), while #7 seed  was also eliminated, losing to  main and #39 seed  (upset factor 5) in winner’s after attempting to counterpick with, and ANTi in loser’s, ending his run at 33rd.

Day 2 continued to see several more upsets, with the remaining top 8 seeds, aside from #5 seed, all getting eliminated before Top 8. #3 seed Nairo was eliminated by #22 seed (upset factor 6) and Locus (upset factor 8), placing 9th; #4 seed Ally placed 25th, getting eliminated in loser’s by #20 seed  (upset factor 5), who lost the first game of the set counterpicking as, but won the next three with ; #6 seed  was also eliminated by Fatality (upset factor 4) and #9 seed , placing 17th; #8 seed  was eliminated by #17 seed  and HIKARU (upset factor 5), also placing 9th.

main and #66 seed continued his unprecedented run on winner’s side, making it all the way to Winner’s Finals after defeating #18 seed  3-1 (upset factor 4), #10 seed  3-2 (upset factor 6), and Fatality 3-1 (upset factor 4), closing out the set after pulling off an unconventional recovery using Link’s. T’s winning streak would ultimately come to end after a swift 0-3 from Dabuz.

Fatality made his way to Grand Finals through loser’s side, beating 3-2, CaptainZack 3-0, and T with a 3-0 runback in Loser’s Finals. In Grand Finals, Fatality took the first game off Dabuz’s, but Dabuz won the next three games, and the tournament, after switching back to. This win gave Dabuz his first supermajor/major victory of not just Smash 4, but his overall career, ending a long winless streak.

The tournament also marked Fatality’s and T’s highest placements at a Smash 4 supermajor or major, along with the highest placements of their respective mains and Link. In addition, T's performance at the event, as well as subsequent ranking on the PGR v3, contributed to Link's huge rise on the fourth tier list.

Team ZeRo vs Team Ally crew battle
All members of Team ZeRo earned $1,000 for winning the crew battle.

singles
(753 entrants) Top 96 Bracket Top 32 Bracket

doubles
(133 teams) Top 12 Bracket

Civil War
Even though Team ZeRo won the crew battle, Team Ally was the overall winner of the Civil War, as they won more events.

April Saga Round Robin
(6 entrants) Results This round robin's objective was to determine the character who will be the main theme of the 2GGC tournament taking place in April, which will be the one the winner used. The players participating in it were first nominated, then the characters used by them were chosen through a vote. won with, confirming 2GGC: Greninja Saga (which was eventually delayed to May due to other circumstances).

Trivia

 * Outdoor block parties followed brackets each night with musical performances.
 * In line with every past 2GG Saga tournament, the "Curse" continues as neither ZeRo nor were able to get into Top 16, let alone win the tournament.
 * Ironically, ZeRo and Ally both lost to players representing their own teams: and  were both Team ZeRo, while  and  were both Team Ally.
 * notably made a guest appearance at the event, but did not participate.