Tournament:Smash World Tour 2022

The Smash World Tour 2022 was a cancelled Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament circuit organized by the team behind. The circuit began on March 12th, 2022 and concluded on November 20th, 2022. The championships were going to be held on December 9th-11th, 2022, with a Last Chance Qualifier held at the event. There was a pot prize starting at $250,000 ($125,000 for each game).

According to the event organizers, due to interference from Nintendo the Smash World Tour 2022 was cancelled on November 29th, 2022, weeks before the finale was set to take place.

Format
Format and Point System Explained

Official Ruleset
Rulebook (Archive)

These rules were for the championships. Tournament organizers could run their own rules or stage lists.

Game settings

 * Stocks: 4
 * Timer: 8:00
 * Handicap: Off
 * Damage Ratio: x1.0
 * Items: Off
 * Pause: Off
 * Team Attack: On

Additional rules

 * Stage Clause: A player may not pick any stage they previously won on during the set.
 * Ledge Grab Limit: 60 per game, 15 in a 1-stock tiebreaker
 * Wobbling and the Freeze glitch are not permitted.

Game settings

 * Stocks: 3
 * Timer: 7:00
 * Team Attack: On
 * Launch Rate: x1.0
 * Items: Off and None
 * FS Meter: Off
 * Damage Handicap: Off
 * Custom Balance: Off
 * Spirits: Off
 * Pause: Off
 * Stage Selection: Loser's Pick
 * Stage Hazards: Off
 * Stage Morph: Off
 * Underdog Boost: Off
 * Score Display: Off
 * Show Damage: Yes

Options

 * Radar: Small
 * Echo Fighters: Separate
 * Custom Balance: Off
 * Mii Fighters are permitted with any combination of specials.
 * Language: To be specified by the TO based on the local region of the Tournament.

Stages
Ultimate's stage list is subject to change. * Ω form Battlefield may be substituted for Final Destination at the request of either player - unless one of the players is using in which case the only alternative that can be used for Final Destination (should one player not want to use default Final Destination) is Ω form Wuhu Island.

Behind-the-scenes and cancellation
On November 29th, 2022, Smash World Tour released a document detailing actions behind-the-scenes that eventually led to its cancellation.

Prior to the, members of , the SWT organizers, were invited to a meeting with Nintendo and its legal team. During the meeting, Nintendo discussed how they had no plans on shutting down the championship, but were in fact open to the possibility of having the Smash World Tour licensed by them in the future, noting that their partnership with was not exclusive. Discussions continued throughout the first few months of 2022, however during this time SWT organizers learned that many other organizers were hesitant on joining the circuit due to statements from Panda's CEO Alan Bunney, who had told the organizers that SWT was not coming back. Despite Nintendo reassuring them otherwise, Bunney continued to sow doubt on the circuit's longevity and went against Nintendo's words by both preventing other organizers from joining the SWT and pressuring tournaments on the SWT to drop out of the circuit, stating that tournaments that do will not be allowed to join the. As a result, several tournaments decided not to take part in the SWT circuit as, from what Bunney had told the organizers, they feared legal action from Nintendo. Eventually, due to the lack of events who wanted to participate in the Panda Cup as well as failure to secure broadcasting rights from, the Panda Cup lifted their exclusivity rule.

During this time, communications between Nintendo and SWT started to slow down. After SWT ran out of time to get an official license for the year's circuit, Nintendo recommended the group to apply for a license solely for the championship tournament at the end of the year, in hopes that it could lead to a full license for the 2023 iteration. However SWT saw little communication from Nintendo in the following months, which led SWT to push back the championship's announcement until August, after which Nintendo apologized to them for the slow communication. The following month, Nintendo told them that while nothing has been decided yet in regards to their license, Bunney's conduct and the behind-the-scenes drama with the Panda Cup were coming under evaluation. Despite SWT requesting for one, Nintendo declined to have its decision makers discuss the license with the SWT organizers.

SWT's last few discussions with Nintendo came in November, a month before the championship. Nintendo confirmed that they were still figuring out the license while noting that people they were discussing with have advocated for the SWT, community, and grassroots organizers; despite this, Nintendo still declined to have their decision makers discuss with the SWT organizers. The following and final conversation came with a verdict: Nintendo would not license both the championship and any tournament activity from the SWT in 2023, with Nintendo giving little reason as to why, and according to the SWT organizers Nintendo also refused to allow SWT to run the circuit without a license, effectively changing their view a year prior and forcing the team to cancel the championship.

The shutdown cost VGBootCamp hundreds of thousands of dollars and led VGBootCamp to release a statement on their uncertainty for the organization's future, as well as the cancellations of Glitch: Duel of Fates and Double Down 2023.

In response, Nintendo released a response on Kotaku, stating that although a partnership with the Smash World Tour did not come to fruition, they did not request the cancellation of the 2022 circuit nor the cancellation of the championship, as they knew that it would have negatively impacted those who had already qualified. Smash World Tour released a follow-up statement holding onto their claim that Nintendo sent to them in writing that they would not grant their license to run the Smash World Tour 2022 Championships or any SWT activity in 2023. This was without them applying for a 2023 license at all, and despite applying for the championships' license seven months prior in April, Nintendo wanted them to secure a license well in advance of any public announcement. When asked if they were able to operate without a license like past years, Nintendo stated that those "times are over."

Reactions
The announcement led to an outcry from the community, particularly those who had qualified for the tournament. Many players once again accused Nintendo for hurting Smash's grassroots scene and criticized the company for continuing their out-of-touch behaviors with the community. Esports organizations such as and Paragon released statements urging Nintendo to reverse their decision.

Many others also criticized Panda, more specifically Bunney, for using the Panda Cup's partnership with Nintendo to undermine and shut down the Smash World Tour in order to promote the Panda Cup and intimidate other tournaments to exclusively join the Panda Cup. This has led to calls to boycott Panda and the finale, and many players in the or the Last Chance Qualifier have since dropped out.

In response to the championship's cancellation, Beyond the Summit reopened registration for a day and gave free entry to SWT participants who had yet to register for Mainstage. All entry fees paid during this time were donated directly to SWT.

Scoring
Scores were calculated based off of placements, with higher tiered events offering more points for a wider range of placements. The following factored into the final score:
 * Top 3 Platinum results
 * Top 3 Gold results
 * Best Super Silver result
 * Top 6 Silver results

The top 30 players were to move on to the championships, with a Last Chance Qualifier for the last 2 slots. Of the 30, the 1 player from each region with the highest amount of points auto-qualified for the finale: North America, Central America, Europe, Japan, Oceania, South America, and a Wild Card Region comprising of every region not included in any of the other regions. The 23 highest players on the leaderboard who did not auto-qualify made up the rest of the 30 who were to move on to the championships.

The point system remained mostly the same from the 2020 iteration, however an additional Silver category, titled "Super Silver," was added. To qualify for a Silver category, a tournament needs a certain amount of entrants:

If two or more players on the leaderboard had the same number of points, the tie in rank would be resolved by applying the following tiebreakers in order:


 * 1) Total number of points earned from their best 3 Platinum tournaments
 * 2) Total number of points earned from their best 3 Gold tournaments
 * 3) Average points earned per Platinum tournament attended
 * 4) Average points earned per Gold tournament attended
 * 5) Number of Super Silver and Silver tournaments attended
 * 6) Total number of set wins in matches between tied players across all events in the league
 * 7) Coin flip

Super Smash Bros. Melee standings
Standings * Highest amount of points in their respective regions.

Though he moved to Canada in September 2022, represented Japan in the Smash World Tour 2022. However, this was a moot point as the next highest player from Japan,, was qualified in 11th place.

broke the 22nd place tie with for having a higher total number of points earned from his best 3 Platinum tournaments (925 vs. 540).

was in a 70th place tie with and ; caioicy had the most total Platinum points, and Sala and Mew2King's tiebreaker came down to a coin flip, which never happened.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate standings
Standings * Highest amount of points in their respective regions.

Though he lived in the United Kingdom for part of the year, represented Saudi Arabia in the Wild Card Region in the Smash World Tour 2022. This was because he had been living in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the summer and had earned points in the Wild Card region since March 2022.

broke the 13th place tie with for having a higher total number of points earned from his best 3 Platinum tournaments (920 vs. 335).

broke the 18th place tie with for having a higher total number of points earned from his best 3 Platinum tournaments (975 vs. 470).

broke the 22nd place tie with for having a higher total number of points earned from his best 3 Platinum tournaments (925 vs. 820).

"World War kept"
On November 20th, the last day of the Smash World Tour, replaced  as the last player qualified through points by a margin of just 5 points, due to the former's performance at. Following this replacement, a past tournament was discovered (Shinosuma #133.5), which if opted in, would raise kept's Silver points enough to pass Jakal and qualify. This led others to look for tournaments Jakal attended (such as ) that could raise his points as a counter-measure against kept's tournaments. Due to the rulebook not stating an exact end time for the league period or any time limit for a tournament to opt into the circuit, it was up in the air for how much time people had to opt in tournaments. The event, which has since been dubbed "World War kept", ended when players pointed out a clause in the rulebook which required tournaments to be run on start.gg in order to be eligible for the SWT, making Shinosuma #133.5 ineligible to opt in as it was held on Challonge. In addition, the bracket would have to be meticulously recreated on start.gg if it were to be implemented into the circuit's leaderboards. No major changes or new qualified players ended up happening, with the exception of Collision 2022 opting in, which only raised Jakal's points by 5 and swapped over  on the leaderboards.

Leaderboard points controversy
In the SWT rulebook, Section 1.2 stated that entrant counts for tournaments must account for disqualifications when tiering. Following the end of the circuit, controversy arose when it was revealed that a few Silver tournaments did not account for disqualifications. This affected the borderline qualifiers, as with disqualifications accounted, (at 1,165 points) and  (at 1,140 points) would have more points than  (at 1,130 points) and  (at 1,125 points), the two players who were ultimately invited to the finale.

This controversy was further exacerbated when it was revealed that, following on November 22nd, 2022, a new line was added to the aforementioned section which stated that whether a Silver tournament's status changes was only decided by the tour producer. In addition, both kept and Sekai Doggo have made attempts to contact SWT on the issue.