Team:Panda

Panda
Location	United States
Owners	Alan Bunney (SamuraiPanda) David Wu (Mashumaro)
Sponsors/Partners	GEICO Vertagear Twitch Meta Threads Toshiba Funimation
Other games	Dragon Ball FighterZ Guilty Gear Xrd Hearthstone: Heroes of WarCraft Heroes of the Storm Marvel Vs. Capcom Mortal Kombat Splatoon Street Fighter TEKKEN

Panda, formerly Panda Global (PG), was a professional eSports organization based in the United States. It was co-founded by Alan Bunney (SamuraiPanda) and David Wu (Mashumaro) in June 2015 as a player-centric organization looking to help their players' careers, facilitate their goals, and promote the growth of the players' esports scene.

Panda entered the Smash scene on June 24th, 2015 after sponsoring top Smash 4 players ESAM and MVD, as well as SS. Since then, the company signed a multitude of other players for Smash 4, Melee, Smash 64, and Ultimate, as well as commentators, content creators, video editors, and statisticians, becoming one of the most prominent Smash organizations.

Aside from their competitive team, Panda had a division, known as PGStats, that handled tournament data, including running global power rankings for Smash 4 (PGR), Melee (MPGR), and Ultimate (PGRU). The PGStats team also ran a website, PGStats.com, which acted as a player database and hub for Smash news.

On November 18th, 2021, Panda announced a partnership with Nintendo to create the first officially-licensed North American competitive circuit. This circuit was officially announced as the Panda Cup on May 26th, 2022, and was meant to take place from June 24th to December 18th, 2022. However, due to Alan Bunney's role in the Smash World Tour 2022 cancellation controversy, the Panda Cup was boycotted, leading to its eventual cancellation. In the aftermath of the controversy, Panda was disbanded, releasing its last player, Marss, on January 16th, 2023.

Current smashers

•  Spike (PGstats designer)
•  Dom  (PGstats writer, joined May 7th, 2016)
•  fyazko (content creator, joined June 2nd, 2016)
•  Keith (lead graphics artist, project manager)
•  PSI  (graphics artist)
•  Kantrip  (Influencer)
•  Juggleguy 
•  BOAT  (Merchandise coordinator)

Former smashers

Pro smashers

	ID	Name	Game	Main(s)	Join Date	Leave Date
	SS	Shane Bruce	Super Smash Bros. for Wii U		2015-06-24	2017-01-02
	Trela	Alberto Miliziano	Super Smash Bros. Brawl Super Smash Bros. for Wii U		2016-06-22	2017-01-02
	Rich Brown	Rich Brown	Super Smash Bros. Brawl Super Smash Bros. for Wii U		2017-01-17	2017-10-17
	MVD	Jestise Negron	Super Smash Bros. Brawl Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Super Smash Bros. Ultimate		2015-06-24	2019-01-04
	Wobbles	Robert Wright	Super Smash Bros. Melee		2015-11-02	2019-01-04
	Zain	Zain Naghmi	Super Smash Bros. Melee		2018-04-12	2019-08-11
	Cosmos	Brian Kalu	Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Super Smash Bros. Ultimate		2018-07-26	2019-08-11
	SuPeRbOoMfAn	Daniel Hoyt	Super Smash Bros.		2017-01-17	2020-07-08
	Prince	Unknown name	Super Smash Bros.		2019-07-19	2021-07-16
	Plup	Justin McGrath	Super Smash Bros. Melee Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Super Smash Bros. Ultimate		2015-06-30	2022-12-02
	iBDW	Cody Schwab	Super Smash Bros. Melee		2020-05-05	2022-12-02
	WaDi	Chris Boston	Super Smash Bros. Ultimate		2021-04-02	2022-12-02
	ESAM	Eric Lew	Super Smash Bros. Melee Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Super Smash Bros. Ultimate		2015-06-24	2023-01-15
	Marss	Tyler Martins	Super Smash Bros. Ultimate		2019-03-22	2023-01-16

Other smashers

•  Alpharad  (content director, joined June 30th, 2016)
•  Bear  (Team manager, tournament director, FGC manager)
•  suar  (PG Stats director, joined May 7th, 2016)
•  Zan  (PG Stats analyst, joined May 7th, 2016)
•  Tetra  (PG Stats, joined June 2nd, 2016)
•  juddy (PG Stats statistician, joined June 2nd, 2016)
•  Stimpy  (Actor Asa Butterfield, content creator)
•  FullStream  (Rivals of Aether player)
•  Chia  (Joined May 5th, 2020)
•  Simply  (Mario 64 speedrunner, content creator)
•  Tantalus (PG Tournament Organizer)
•  turndownforwalt  (Content creator)
•  BobbyWasabi  (Video editor)
•  VikkiKitty  (Commentator, content creator)
•  TKbreezy  (Commentator, content creator)
•  Coney  (Creative Lead, commentator)
•  PracticalTAS (PGstats mathematician)
•  Daramgaria  (Commentator, content creator)
•  Jackie Peanuts  (PGstats director)
•  Brentos  (PGstats Melee Content Writer)
•  Jut  (Social media manager)
•  Jaaahsh  (Community organizer, player manager)
•  Little Z  (Content creator)
•  KingKirb64  (PG Hardware Engineer)

Other famous players

• Justin Wong (JWong) FGC
• Kyohei Lehr (MarlinPie) GGXrd
• Alexandre Dub-Bilodeau (Hayatei) MK11
• Bryant Benzing (Kitana Prime) MK11
• Jachin Harte (SKD) BBCF, BBTag
• Stephen Stafford (Speedkicks) Tekken 7
• Evan Towne (Rocketek) Splatoon
• Derek Bruscas (Nakkiel) Dragon Ball FighterZ
• Victor Woodley (Punk) SF5
• Keenan Kizzie (Kizzie Kay) GGXrd, SamSho19
• Faye Mata Voice Actor
• Anna Cramling Chess
• Wolfe Glick (WolfeyVGC) Pokémon

PG Key

PG Key was an online tournament series organized by PG and directed by Bear. Each entry was a qualifier dedicated to a major offline tournament, with the winner being flown out as an honorary player temporarily sponsored by the organization.

Tournament	Date	Entrants	Winner	Runner-up
Key to The PG House	September 8th-18th, 2016	1994	Wrath NA  Mr.R EU	Raffi-X NA  Badr EU
PG Key to GENESIS 4	January 1st-5th, 2017	986	Cosmos*	Wrath*
PG Key to Frostbite 2017	February 12th-17th, 2017	740	Cosmos*	Zage
PG Key to 2GGC: Civil War	March 5th-8th, 2017	620	Sonido	CaptainZack
PG Key to Midwest Mayhem 8	March 18th-30th, 2017	450	Sonix*	lapis lazuli*

• Cosmos and Wrath were both unable to attend, so the key was passed down to the 3rd place finisher, Koolaid.
• Cosmos was unable to attend, so the key was passed down to the runner-up, Zage.
• Sonix and lapis lazuli both declined their keys, so it was passed down to the 3rd place finisher, Locus.

Gallery

• 

  Panda's former logo.

External links

• Official website
• PGstats website
• Twitter account
• PGstats.com Twitter account
• YouTube channel
• Twitch channel
• Panda entry at the Smash Liquipedia section