How Extreme Is Ultimate’s 2024 Golden Week?
NOTE: A lot of the data was taken between the 13th and 16th of April. A lot of things (not limited but can include player drop outs, Lumirank points, and attendance numbers) may have changed since the publishing of the article.
PART I: Overview
For those who aren’t aware of what Golden Week is: Golden Week is a week-long period from late April to early May that spans four public holidays. Typically, this is when a lot of people take school and work off to celebrate or travel. This time period also sees some of the most tourism to Japan of the year.
For the Smash Ultimate scene, the last sentence has come to shape what Golden Week tournaments have become for the past two years: legendary. Golden Week has always been big for Smash, starting with Umebura Super Major in 2019, which was the biggest Japanese event of that year. And for the next four years, Umebura Super Major was the only one to attract multiple top level internationals (to name them, MkLeo and Cosmos). Generally, pre-quarantine international invasions to Japan paled in comparison to what Japan sent to NA/EU.
But starting in 2023, the international scene became keen on attending these events, for a mix of reasons: COVID finally settled down, they were hosting more events and majors than ever, and during mid-2022, Japan earned a reputation of winning international events at an unprecedentedly large scale.
And with this, it became clear that going to Japan could help a lot with your ranking if you ended up doing well (and obviously being a nice country to visit too). This led to the large list of top players who attended 2023 Golden Week events: Sparg0, Riddles, Dabuz, Muteace, Zomba, Cosmos, Lima, and many more (the ones listed were the ones in the top 51).
This trip was important for a lot of reasons. It was easily the biggest group of international players in Japan for Smash ever. It was the first time that they fought in Japan’s home field with the reputation of being the newly declared “best Smash region”. And most obvious, it made the already massive major events hosted during this week even bigger, ultimately becoming some of the most important for the entire season. Tons of big moments happened here: Miya and acola asserting their dominance for their high rankings, absurd upsets from both the internationals and Japan, the legitimization of Japan’s depth players, and Sparg0's legendary run at KAGARIBI #10 to become the first international player to win a Japanese major.
2024 is seemingly rounding up for a repeat, with an equally insane amount of Japanese and international talent. The big events of this Golden Week are bound to be the most important of the entire year. Why don’t we start with the obvious, returning from last year as the biggest Golden Week tournament while breaking many records in the process: KAGARIBI #12
PART II: Japan’s Biggest Bonfire in History
KAGARIBI #12 is being held as the finale to Golden Week, hosted on May 5–6, as well as being the largest event during Golden Week. This event is what you’d expect: almost every Japanese top player with almost every single international invader attending. To put into perspective how much of the in-country talent is attending: Genesis X had 33/50 of the NA top 50 and is ranked as a Premier tier event. KAGARIBI #12 has 43/50 of the Japan top 50. Obviously, a couple factors play into why KAGARIBI has more in-region talent (borders, lack of transit, the size of NA), but it still goes to show that this event is serious.
It goes without saying that yes, this event is tiered as a Premier. From Lumirank points, it has accumulated about 13080, about 1000 more than the next closest premier, Genesis X. Not only that, but it garnered 2029 competitors, reaching the registration cap and in the process, doing something special:
KAGARIBI#12 is not only the 8th largest smash event of all time, the 6th largest Ultimate event of all time, but it is also the largest Japanese event ever. It has a little more than 200 more entrants than EVO Japan 2020. And keep in mind that this event was hard capped with about 2024 competitors, who knows where an uncapped Golden Week KAGARIBI would have landed. This makes this KAGARIBI have incredible scale, similar to those you would expect from the likes of Super Smash Con and EVO.
So far, we know KAGARIBI #12 has a massive majority of Japan attending, a ton of internationals coming, has a ton of entrants, and is ranked a premier with a lot of points. But there are no names, who exactly is going?
Starting with the Japanese presence, as said previously, 43/50 of the top 50 in Japan are attending. The only ones who are not attending are Ron, Protobanham, Sigma, HIKARU, Jagaimo, Atelier, and showers. Largely everyone else you could think of is here, and it would be impossible to list without rambling. Instead, Lumirank made a pleasant listing of all the ones in the top 150 attending:
You already knew about Japan attending Golden Week, where it actually gets interesting is with the internationals. Starting with the top 20 level international players, we have Sparg0, Glutonny, MkLeo, Zomba, and Maister, all of which have some type of story going into this week (expanded on in Part V). However, not everything revolves around just the tippy top, as ranked players like MKBigBoss, Big D, Bassmage, Jahzz0, and Goblin are all coming! And rounding off for other internationals attending, we have Mazebeans, Kinaji, Susu, Artsnif, DD, and Sebpro101. This lineup is comparable to what was present in Golden Week 2023, and KAGARIBI has every single international attending.
A lot of the talk around Golden Week revolves around KAGARIBI #12. It’s to be expected, it is by far the biggest event of this week and potentially of the year! However, saying it is the only important one would be a lie, with one other event also having the potential to change things on a similar scale: DELTA #8
PART III: Premier within Sight
DELTA #8 is held on May 3rd, and despite what you would expect, is the ninth entry in the series. With there being just a day break between this event and KAGARIBI #12, you would think that people would skip this one as it would mean for a brutal couple days as a competitor. Instead, it seems that a majority of top players opted to double dip.
DELTA #8 has 34/50 of the Japan top 50, with the biggest absences between KAGARIBI and DELTA being Yoshidora and Kameme. But of the international players listed, only Big D, Jahzz0, DD, Susu, and Artsnif are absent between KAGARIBI and DELTA.
Despite having only 512 players, due to priority queue, the number of top players which were able to sign up was still absurd. This granted them 8936 Lumirank points which is barely not a premier. However, given hidden boss retiering, there is a good chance this gets bumped up to premier status by the end of the mid-year rank.
Get Ultimate Iceberg’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
As for accolades this event has, it doesn’t have any on the global listings like KAGARIBI, but DELTA#8 is a big accomplishment for the team behind it. Firstly, it has doubled the entrants of the next most entered DELTA (which had 256 players). It is also the first DELTA to ever reach S+ tier, and if it were to actually reach P tier, it would be the smallest one to do so based on entrants. If you were to win this event as a top player, you are likely to reach a quality of wins similar to that if you won KAGARIBI, which goes to show how dense this event is in terms of talent. Inevitably, DELTA#8 will be something to talk about months after the fact.
PART IV: Returning to Form
Maesuma’GRAND WARS is being held on April 27th and is the first of the Golden Week majors. Despite being of major status, it is a bit of an anomaly in comparison to the other Golden Week majors. It is the only one of them to not be hosted in Kanto, instead being hosted in Kansai. It is also the only one that doesn’t have a big international presence (though it still has some). And unlike the other Golden Week majors, this one seems like it could have happened at any other time of year due to its smaller size.
However, that isn’t to say it is a “small” event, obviously not as it is tiered as a major! Currently worth 3039 points, it is close to losing its major status from DQs, though it could also regain it from retiering if that were to happen. As for who is attending, 16/50 of the Japanese top 50 are in attendance, alongside international threats like Bassmage, Mazebeans, Kinaji, and Sebpro101. Two of the players attending are currently top 10: Miya and Hurt. And unlike the other Golden Week events, this one is not capped yet and will continue to grow until either registration ends or it reaches 512 players (currently at 289 players).
To those who haven’t been paying attention to the Maesuma series since last year or since the rebrand, this may seem like a sudden downgrade. However, if you have been following the changes the Maesuma series has been going through, this feels more like a return to form, if anything.
MaesumaTOP was Kansai’s biggest major series, averaging a major every two months last year. Maedakun was the one who ran every Maesuma event last year and prior, having a major, local, and online series. However, Maedakun stepped down from hosting the MaesumaTOP series in November of last year, with the local and online series following (though he is still involved). Some of those series, such as MaesumaHIT, have returned. But the MaesumaTOP series, as far as we know it, is not longer being run. They did run MaesumaU22 recently, being the first ranked event they hosted in awhile, but it fell short of major. However with Maesuma’GRAND WARS, the Maesuma series will have had its first major in about five months.
With Maesuma’GRAND WARS being the first event of Golden Week, alongside still having a plethora of talent, it will be a great introduction to Smash Ultimate’s most dense week.
PART V: What do Players have to Prove?
As for the players, many of which have stories and things to prove in Japan. Here is a collection of some of the most notable of them:
Sparg0 was the victor of last year’s Golden Week KAGARIBI, and is looking for a repeat. Not only attending KAGARIBI, but also DELTA, he could become the first to win multiple Japanese series. This is also his chance to redeem himself as NA’s best “Japan slayer”, recovering from a tough loss at the hand’s of Hurt at BOBC.
Glutonny is in a small slump currently, arguably starting with his trip to Japan earlier this year. Don’t get it twisted, he did great at Umebura and won UltCore Second as seeded, but he ended up underperforming at both Cafeteria Cup and KOWLOON x Sumabato. This is a good chance to get out of this slump and prove that he can repeat his best Japanese performances.
MkLeo’s last trip to Japan is arguably the turning point of his Ultimate career, not because he dominated, but because he got dominated himself. Umebura Super Major was the first time MkLeo ever used Joker in bracket, and with it, placed 33rd. This is still his worst placing at a offline Ultimate event ever. After that, he would become the best player in the world for the next four years. This is his first opportunity since then to prove that Umebura result wasn’t him at his full potential (I am aware he went Lucina in losers of that tournament, point still stands).
Zomba is best known for winning Genesis X this season, doing so in the most Zomba way possible. However, after the event was settled, he credited a lot of the improvement to his trip to Japan earlier that year. His performances were the definition of pretty good: he won Cafeteria Cup as seeded once Glutonny got eliminated, and got double 9th at the Umebura SP10 and KOWLOON x Sumabato. Obviously none of them compare to winning Genesis X directly afterwards, but this is seemingly a trend for him. Last year, Zomba got 9th at KAGARIBI #10 and a brutal 25th at DELTA #4, and then immediately followed it up with his infamous runs at BOBC #5 and his win at Crown the Third. Perhaps people don’t necessarily fear Zomba in Japan, instead, people fear what Zomba becomes after he comes back.
Maister goes into this event as the second best G&W player in the world. Over the past ranking seasons, the talk around G&W has been centered largely around Miya’s sudden rise and the number of wins he gets. Unfortunately for Maister, this makes him the center of a lot of comparison. That said, Maister has said in the past he could replicate Miya’s success in Japan, with this being the opportunity. And with Maister taking a couple wins which Miya failed to do so recently (Raflow and Peabnut), this could be a shift in momentum.
MKBigBoss is in an unusual spot in this listing, as his attendance alone is the accomplishment. If he goes through and attends either KAGARIBI or DELTA, this would be the 6th country he has attended a smash event in just this year alone. There have been years with players who travel across the entire globe: Chag, kept, Fatality, etc. However, MKBigBoss seems to be this year’s world warrior.
acola has currently only attended one major, Umebura SP10, and won. He has attended three nationals/regionals the rest of the season, also winning them. And it has to be mentioned that he won all of these without dropping a single set. Due to this “perfect” record, it makes him an early favorite to be #1 of the season. However, with him going to both Golden Week majors where a lot of internationals are going, this is going to be important for his results and h2hs and if he can retain his crown from last year.
Miya continues to be the only player to win more than one major this season, three of them actually (DELTA #7, KOWLOON x Sumabato, and Sumabato SP#46). Despite this, his results slowed down internationally, getting 17th at Genesis X and 7th at Cirque du CFL (although he did have a good performance at the Litvitational). Golden Week is an opportunity to get some more wins on internationals and potentially over his biggest rival, acola, which would aid his season tremendously.
Hurt, for a lot of people, came out of nowhere. For some, the place they realized his skill was BOBC #6, or perhaps it was his amazing run at DELTA#5. However, looking at his history, his first breakout performance was a KAGARIBI #10 during last Golden Week, getting 13th with nine set wins in losers. Alongside this series being meaningful to Hurt, it is also a surprise opportunity to do something legendary: overthrow a horseman out of top four. Despite the idea of the four horsemen storyline dying as soon as it was coined, people could still argue they are the four best players in the world: acola and Sonix have unmatched consistency (despite low attendance), Sparg0 is dominant across the field, and Miya still wins absurd amounts of majors/nationals. That said, if you have seen the rumblings recently, some people have been placing Hurt as high as #3/#4 recently, and it’s due to him being a combination of almost any great quality for a player. Major win? Check. Consistent? Check. Good head to heads? Check. Wins at regionals? Check. It may sound crazy, but Hurt’s current season is a combination of what makes a player the best in the world, and Golden Week is the ultimate test to prove it further.
Doramigi and Toriguri fall into the same camp as they are both players which people say NA/EU top players should “fear”. Each time one of them plays against an international, they are often favored despite either ranking or matchup gaps (ex: Toriguri beating MkLeo, Zomba, Muteace or Doramigi beating Zomba, Glutonny, Dabuz, Bassmage). The reasoning behind this is due to Banjo and Min Min being largely nonexistent in other regions of the world, giving them an edge due to both matchup unfamiliarity and players underestimating them. This is only aided by their trip to BOBC where they took down every international in their path to make top 8, only losing to Japanese players in the end. With a week so filled with international talent, can they continue this reputation?
PART VI: Conclusion and Wrap-up
With Golden Week starting in a little under 2 weeks, these tournaments have started to stabilize and people are further confirming their attendance. With this current list of players and tournaments, this Golden Week very much compares to the size of last year’s, along with doing many things bigger too. So to answer how extreme this year’s Golden Week is: very.
There are a couple other smaller events during Golden Week that were too small to have their own section, but are still worthy of being mentioned. They are listed below:
JINJI #3, B tier tournament on April 28th. Has players such as Umeki, TamaPDaifuku, Yamanaction, Akakikusu, Motsunabe, Eim, Paseriman, Eik, Mazebeans, and Sebpro101.
ITSUKUSHIMA #3.5, D tier tournament on April 29th. Has players like Ron, Moneyright, and DieGorou.
Ultimate Iceberg
Run by: Swidd
