Smasher:Onin

Onin, also known as Pocket, is a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate player from Michigan. He is considered the second best Steve player in the world after, as well as the best player in the Midwest region. He is currently ranked 1st on the Michigan Ultimate Power Rankings, and 30th on the LumiRank Mid-Year 2023.

Online beginnings
For the first few years of his career, Onin was a Wi-Fi Warrior who attended several online events per month and played a mix of several characters, most notably and, as well as  starting in 2021. He established himself as a Wi-Fi Warrior during this time, placing highly at several events such as 2nd at the 256-entrants event DDee's Dreamland Brawl, where he defeated several Wi-Fi Warriors such as, , and ; and 1st at the 294-entrants event FLAT COMBATS #3, where he took the tournament over players such as and. However, most of his tournament appearances during this time were either at online weeklies or at events that were not tiered highly on the Wi-Fi Warrior Rank, and as such he did not appear on a single Wi-Fi Warrior Rank iteration.

Picking up Steve
As offline began returning in 2021, Onin began shifting his attention to offline events. However, instead of sticking to any of his online characters, Onin began using, which became his main by the end of Summer 2021. During the summer, Onin saw success at tournaments and placed top 8 at several weeklies, allowing him to debut at 14th on the Michigan Ultimate Power Rankings's Summer 2021 ranking.

Despite this success, Onin was still a relatively unknown name when he attended, his first offline supermajor, where he wasn't seeded to make it out of pools at #862. Onin not only outplaced this seed by a lot -- ultimately placing 49th -- but he defeated several players who was seeded above him, including #99 seed 2-1 and #94 seed  2-0. Although he did not go far in the main bracket, Onin established himself as a player capable of competing at a national level. This was reflected in Onin's next two major events in the following year, in January and  in February, where he placed in the top 64 at both.

The meteoric rise
Despite high placements at majors and in-region, Onin still lacked any globally-ranked wins. This began to change following Glitch - Infinite, as Onin began to win almost every event he attended. These strings of wins included the superregionals and, where Onin not only won without dropping a set, but saw him defeat several notable names including , , and  in the former and , , and  in the latter. His dominance at a regional level, including wins over several top 50 players, helped Onin debut at 65th on the OrionRank Mid-Year 2022.

This victory streak culminated in Onin's performances in the summer, specifically at the major and the supermajor. In the former tournament, he defeated top players, , and twice to win the event, making him one of the youngest players to win an Ultimate major at just 16 years old, as well as the first North American Steve player to win a major. In the latter tournament, he notoriously dominated 3-0, which included a three-stock in the final game, and tore through the rest of the bracket, including Riddles,, and  twice to win the event. These two victories established Onin as not just the best player from the Midwest region, but one of the best players from the United States as a whole. In addition, some players believed that, at the pace he was going, Onin could potentially become one of the best players in the world by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, Onin would ultimately fail to win another major for the rest of the year. His best major wins during this time still saw him reach the top 3: he cruised through his bracket at but was reverse 3-0d by Riddles before ultimately losing to  to place 3rd. He saw another chance at winning a major event after making it to Grand Finals on Winner's side at. However, he was seamlessly dispatched by fellow player  6-0, which also notably saw Onin play other characters for three of the games. On the other hand, Onin also saw some lows, most notably at the supermajor, where he lost to Maister and to place 9th; and at the invitational major , where he went 2-2 after falling to  and Light. The lows, as well as his weak start of the season, held him back from coming close to the #1 position. However, he was ultimately still ranked top 10, ranking 6th at the half-year ranking UltRank 2022 and 10th on the OrionRank 2022.

Decline
After an explosive year, the following year saw Onin's results slowly begin to mellow out. Although he continued to dominate the Midwest region, his major results suffered a noticeable drop overall as he failed to place top 16 at most of them. This included, where he was upset by and  to place 25th; and , where he lost his runback to  and was eliminated by  at 17th. He did see a strong performance at the supermajor, where he defeated players such as , , and but was double-eliminated by  to place 4th. However, this single strong event wasn't enough to save the rest of Onin's first half of the year, and he saw a noticeable drop to 30th on the LumiRank Mid-Year 2023.

Following continued harassment and death threats due to his choice of character, which previously had led to Onin deactivating his Twitter account, Onin decided to take a step back from competition, which saw him appear at less events. As it stands, Onin remains as the best player in the Midwest due to his dominance at the Midwest events he attended, which included a victory at the superregional. However, his resume on a global scale remained rather lukewarm, most notably with his mediocre 33rd at the supermajor losing to  and.