Smasher:Dark Wizzy


 * Not to be confused with, the smasher Dark Wizzy derives his name from

Dark Wizzy is a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate player from from the city of Albany, New York. He was considered to be the best player during the early metagame and is currently one of the best Mario players in the United States. He is currently ranked 41st on the OrionRank 2022 North America, 78th on the UltRank 2022, and 77th on the OrionRank 2022. He has defeated players such as, , , , , , , and.

In, Dark Wizzy was also a player, considered to be one of the best Mario players in the United States alongside  and. Dark Wizzy is known for being a young yet extremely competent smasher, utterly dominating the Capital Region of New York, being undefeated by players within the area, and is one of the best players in all of upstate New York. He is additionally considered to be one of the best Mario players in the world. Dark Wizzy is also known for being especially potent in doubles play, where he can place highly in doubles events teaming with about any player, and has placed top 8 in majors with his preferred partner,. He has taken sets off of players such as, Cosmos, , Light, ESAM, WaDi, Marss, and.

Dark Wizzy is currently ranked 0 on the New York Capital Region PR and 95th on the Panda Global Rankings 100.

On January 24th, 2019, Dark Wizzy joined on his birthday. On January 21st, 2021, Dark Wizzy announced that he will not be re-signing with Most Valuable Gaming. On July 5th, 2022, Dark Wizzy signed with.

Playstyle
Dark Wizzy is mostly known for his extremely potent punish game and his "touch of death"; he has a mastery over Mario's combos, where he'll regularly lead each hit into a highly damaging combo that goes beyond the typical Mario fare, making getting grabbed by him an extremely threatening prospect. Since Mario typically finds ease to combo into KO moves, Dark Wizzy has a knack of finding various ways of leading his hits into a forward aerial or one of Mario's smash attacks for an early KO.

Smash 4 beginnings
For the most of his Smash 4 career, Dark Wizzy stayed close to his region and made sporadic appearances at majors. During from 2015 to 2017, Dark Wizzy was able to garner some national success with his occasional strong performance, including placing 25th at defeating  and, placing 9th at  defeating , and placing 13th at  defeating. However, due to his limited activity at a national level, Dark Wizzy remained absent from all the regular PGR lists.

2018 was when Dark Wizzy began making a stronger mark on the Smash 4 scene. He began the year by defeating at  to place 5th, his best placement at a PGR-level tournament up to that point. He then followed it up with a string of good performances at majors: although he saw alright placements at and, he also placed 7th at  and , defeating  in the former and  in the latter. His performances in the second half of 2018, as well as his strong list of wins, was enough for Dark Wizzy to be ranked on PGR's all-time ranking, and he was ranked 95th.

Ultimate's best Mario and rising the ranks
Having broken onto the scene at the tail end of Smash 4's competitive lifespan, Dark Wizzy was not only looking to make a bigger mark on the Ultimate scene, but also claim the title of the best Mario player in Ultimate. His first few majors, however, were rather shaky. Although he had a solid 17th-place run at with a win over, his runs at  and  were mediocre, as he placed outside of the top 32 at both tournaments, losing to  and  in the former and  and  in the latter. He also had competition for the title of best Mario, as both defeated and outplaced Dark Wizzy at GENESIS 6. Fortunately, he was able to pull away in the second half of the season thanks to strong runs at supermajors and  and claiming two wins over. Despite having two lackluster performances at and, his overall solid placements in the latter half of the season helped him rank higher than Prodigy, placing 31st on the Spring 2019 PGRU.

This spark of success was a hint at what was to come in the second season. Despite starting the season off with an underwhelming 65th at and a respectable yet empty 17th at, Dark Wizzy saw a streak of top 8 at majors which lasted until the next season. At these majors, he claimed several top 50 wins, including, , and three times. Outside of majors, Dark Wizzy saw his first PGR regional win at the. The highlight of his season, however, was at the Thunder Smash 2 Invitational, where Dark Wizzy defeated, , , and twice to place 2nd. With this streak, top player wins, and a decline in results from Prodigy, Dark Wizzy was unanimously considered the best Mario player, and many players including Dark Wizzy himself were expecting him to end up in the top 20 that season.

Unfortunately, while Dark Wizzy's highs were rather high, his lows were what ultimately brought him down. Despite garnering an incredible list of wins, his list of losses stood out like a sore thumb as he lost to several players who were ultimately ranked outside of the top 50, including, , and. He also had a poor set record against, a player who had inconsistent results that season, and ended the season with a 0-5 record against him. These lows hurt Dark Wizzy's overall standings, and he was ultimately ranked 22nd on the Fall 2019 PGRU.

To say Dark Wizzy was disappointed in his placement would be an understatement, and he sought to prove the rankings wrong at, his first major following the list's full release. This desire motivated Dark Wizzy to pull best run of his career, running through in a close 3-0, previous Glitch winner, and  to place 2nd, the highest a Mario had placed at a major up to that point. This motivation continued into, where despite falling to in bracket, he made a notable Loser's run defeating Dabuz and  in a close game 5 set to place 5th. Although he underperformed at, placing 17th after losing to Maister and MkLeo, his major and top 10 wins solidified himself in the top 20, with many players believing Dark Wizzy could potentially be a top 10 player.

Unfortunately, this hot streak was snuffed out due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down offline competitive play for an entire year. Although many players chose to participate in the online metagame, Dark Wizzy decided not to due to his distaste for online, instead focusing on building a Twitch audience. Nevertheless, his performance at the start of 2020 was recognized with his 9th-place ranking on OrionRank's pre-pandemic rankings.

Playing catchup in a new metagame
With offline slowly returning in 2021, Dark Wizzy marked his return to the scene at in August 2021, having qualified by winning. Unfortunately, Dark Wizzy prove himself out of practice, as he ended the tournament at 13th, being the only competitor who did not win a single set. Thus, Dark Wizzy spent most of 2021 attempting to catch up and adapt to a new metagame. Dark Wizzy saw disappointing results at and, where despite making top 32 he failed to garner any notable wins. Although there were hopes for a return to form following his 7th place run at and his win over, Dark Wizzy stopped attending tournaments for the rest of the year. With his limited appearances and rough tournament runs, Dark Wizzy did not appear on the PGRUContenders list and fell out of the top 50 on the OrionRank Ultimate: Eclipse, placing 62nd.

When Dark Wizzy made his return in March 2022, it seemed like not much has changed as he continued to see mediocre performances, placing outside of the top 16 at most of his events that season and ending the season having to forfeit at 25th due to chest pains and body tremors. The lone exception to his rough season was a solid 9th-place finish at, where he defeated and  along the way. However, with such a small sample size of tournaments and inconsistent placings all around, Dark Wizzy was ranked 47th on the PGRU v3 North America, a controversial placement due to the ranking's time span and methodology, and slid further down to 94th on the OrionRank Mid-Year 2022.

The second half of the year initially seemed like it was going to be the repeat of the first half, with Dark Wizzy seeing a decent performance at followed by a series of mediocre performances at other majors and superregionals. However, October stood out as a highlight of this dark period. Dark Wizzy began the month by placing 9th at the superregional, defeating and  along the way. He followed it up with his best performance of the year: placing 5th at, losing only to the winner and runner-up of the tournament, and Light, respectively. Not only did it mark his first top 8 at a major since, but it also marked his first ever victory over , whom he had lost to seven times in a row prior; additionally, Dark Wizzy took home a win over , his best win of his year. Finally, Dark Wizzy ended the month placing 3rd at, his first top 3 finish at a tiered event since a year prior. With these three performances, Dark Wizzy prove he was still a formidable foe in the new metagame, and despite a return to normalcy for the rest of the season, as well as losing his "best Mario" title to Prodigy (who now went by ), his performances in October, particularly his run at The Big House 10, allowed him to rise from the mid-year rankings, ranking 78th on the UltRank 2022 for the second half of 2022. However, due to having an overall rough year, Dark Wizzy slipped even further on the OrionRank, placing 77th on the OrionRank 2019.

Trivia

 * Being comparable to as a smasher that quickly achieved a very high skill level at a young age shortly after entering competitive Smash, Dark Wizzy chose his tag at the suggestion of, being said to be the "black version" of Wizzrobe.
 * Dark Wizzy significantly prefers playing doubles over singles, and at tournaments will usually opt to play doubles friendlies over offers for 1v1s.
 * Dark Wizzy has a deep hatred for Sonic, and has the opinion that nobody should ever try to play the Sonic matchup as Mario.
 * Dark Wizzy considers fellow Most Valuable Gaming player to be his bracket demon, having a very poor record against him.
 * In addition, Dark Wizzy struggles against, although Dark Wizzy would finally beat him at.
 * While Dark Wizzy is generally considered one of the best players in Ultimate, his record in the mirror match is noticeably worse:
 * At, he went against and lost in a close 3-2 set, placing 17th.
 * Later at, he lost to Kurama 3-2 again and placed 17th as well.
 * At, he lost 2-0 against , placing 65th and is currently tied with as his worst placement in a tournament outside of DQs.
 * At, he lost 3-0 against , placing 7th, outplaced by both Kurama and umanz.
 * A consistent joke in Dark Wizzy's fanbase is calling him a furry, which he repeatedly denies, despite him previously trying on a fursuit belonging to prominent furry YouTuber Majira Strawberry.
 * Dark Wizzy is known for being very vocal about supporting trans rights, often times playing Mario's pink and blue alternate costume as a representation of this support. At he would wear a Transgender Pride flag as a cape on the main stage.
 * Dark Wizzy has been joked about SDing a lot, which he tends to do in majors. This has led to a joke of a curse, where people playing Mario SD.
 * Dark Wizzy is known about his love for Mario and the series overall, with this being expressed by tweets where he just states "Mario" gaining traction quickly.
 * This is also expressed by his Twitch layout being Mario themed, and his subs being claimed as "Mini-Marios".
 * Dark Wizzy considers Mario's green costume to be his worst alternate costume, having a strong and vocal dislike toward the alt.