Tournament:Apex 2015

Apex 2015 was the sixth edition of the tournament series, a fighting game tournament held annually in New Jersey, which took place on January 30th-February 1st, 2015, at the Garden State Convention Center. Like previous tournaments of the series, Apex 2015 hosted a variety of fighting games, including singles and doubles events for Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and. It currently stands as one of the largest Smash Bros. tournaments to date, with 1,037 entrants for Melee and 837 for Smash 4, previously holding the record for both until EVO 2015.

Apex 2015 was officially sponsored by Nintendo of America. Among the results of this sponsorship were a lounge where attendees could play a demo version of ; additionally, Nintendo and provided a second livestream for the last day of the tournament designed to be clearer for newcomers to competitive Smash. An apparent side effect of the partnership was the absence of Project M from the tournament's lineup of games after its debut at Apex 2014.

Tournament summary
Despite being nearly cancelled entirely at the last minute, Apex 2015 has become well known for its multitude of storylines, particularly in Melee, where it is viewed as one of the most important tournaments in the game's history. This was also the first major tournament to hold a bracket for.

In Melee,, despite being relatively inactive in the Melee tournament scene over the previous months, was able to defeat in winners' finals and  in grand finals to take the Melee tournament for the second year in a row. Leffen also became the first player to defeat all of the Five Gods after beating 2-1 in winners' quarters. managed to place 5th in the tournament using Yoshi, defeating, , , , and , before being eliminated by in losers' quarters in a 2-3 set. was notably disqualified from Melee singles after not showing at the venue due to a combination of hand pain and insomnia.

The tournament is also known for its Salty Suite, widely regarded as one of the most entertaining side events in competitive Smash history. During the Salty Suite, Leffen defeated Chillin 5-0 (with the loser being prohibited from using Fox's default color costume in tournament matches), the set was the source many popular Internet memes, including "My B." Afterwards, Mang0 challenged Leffen to a $1,000 match if they faced each other in bracket; the two eventually fought in winners' semis, which Leffen won 3-1.

Relocation of the venue
While the Apex series already had a reputation of hosting subpar tournaments, this year was particularly disastrous. Chaos surrounding the event began in late January 2015, as head TO became surrounded in controversy following numerous allegations of abuse and harassment   , and evidence of extremely unprofessional behavior in business with CLASH Tournaments and other members of Team Apex. Alex Strife stepped down as the TO of Apex, which proceeded without him.

When the setup crew first entered the original venue, the Clarion Hotel Empire Meadowlands Hotel, they immediately noticed the entire ballroom and hotel was run down to a hazardous degree. Said hazards include dilapidated floors and walls, whole sections draped off with debris around the area, and an intense aroma of mold and mildew. Many on the site were already anticipating that the tournament would be canceled.

The day before the tournament was set to start, the nearby parking garage collapsed. Now without a dedicated place to park, attendees were forced to spread out all across the city for a place to park. This caused complaints by locals of the attendees disrupting daily affairs and parking in illegal spots out of necessity.

On the first day of the tournament at 8:50 a.m, the fire alarm was triggered. Witnesses have claimed a person in the hotel supposedly hung a towel on their sprinkler system and caused the sprinklers to go off, which was later backed up by the discovery of the room where the incident occurred being flooded. When the local fire martial arrived, he declared the premises unsafe and ordered everyone to vacate immediately. Now without a venue and a potential cancellation on the horizon, every organizer and staff member spent the next several hours trying to come up with a solution. They managed to get into contact with the Garden State Convention Center, a venue roughly forty miles south-west of the original venue that was willing to take them on such short notice. Twitch would also help this transition by paying the convention center a majority of their bill. Attendees and bystanding volunteers all helped carry the equipment to the new venue, and the tournament officially began the next day with no major issues.

Game settings

 * Mode: STOCK
 * Stocks: 5
 * Team Attack: ON
 * Stage Select: ON

2014-2015 Apex World Circuit
The 2014-2015 Apex World Circuit was a series of fourteen qualifiers for the Melee singles tournament at Apex 2015. Each qualifier featured a $1,000 prize bonus and complimentary flight and hotel for each of the winners, provided by sponsorship from Twitch.

The Apex World Circuit's qualifiers are as follows:
 * - September 20th-21st, 2014 in Doraville, Georgia
 * - October 11th, 2014 in Scarsdale, New York
 * - November 15th-16th, 2014 in Oakland, California
 * - November 22nd, 2014 in Somerset, New Jersey
 * - November 22nd, 2014 in Boston, Massachusetts
 * - December 6th-7th, 2014 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
 * - December 7th, 2014 in Walnut, California
 * - December 13th-14th, 2014 in Tokyo, Japan
 * - December 20th-21st, 2014 in Des Moines, Washington
 * - December 20th-21st, 2014 in Austin, Texas
 * - December 21st, 2014 in Walnut, California
 * - January 3rd-4th, 2015 in Ann Arbor, Michigan
 * - January 9th-11th, 2015 in Gothenburg, Sweden
 * - January 17th-18th, 2015 in Orlando, Florida

The following players qualified for the final Top 48 Melee bracket by earning enough qualifier points through strong placings in the qualifying tournaments.

Results
Note that all of the first round winners matches listed in the final brackets for every event are placeholders.

Super Smash Bros. singles
(188 entrants*) Top 16 Bracket Grand Finals
 * [with 68 DQs, so 120 person bracket]

Super Smash Bros. doubles
(41 teams) Top 16 Bracket Grand Finals

Super Smash Bros. Melee singles
(1,037 entrants*) Top 48 Bracket Grand Finals (part 1) Grand Finals (part 2)
 * While 1,037 players had registered for the tournament, as many as 200 players were estimated to have not shown up at their matches due to the sudden venue and schedule change the Apex staff were forced to make due to condemnation of the previous venue.

Super Smash Bros. Melee doubles
(264 teams) Top 16 Bracket Grand Finals

Super Smash Bros. Brawl singles
(176 entrants) Top 16 Bracket

Grand Finals

Super Smash Bros. Brawl doubles
(41 teams) Top 16 Bracket

singles
(837 entrants*) Top 16 Bracket Grand Finals
 * [with 103 DQs, so 734 person bracket]

doubles
(179 teams) Top 32 Bracket Grand Finals

Salty Suite
The Salty Suite was run by VGBootCamp during the after hours of Saturday, and featured various money matches and other exhibition sets.


 * Eikelmann was a replacement for, who had become very ill prior to the tournament.