After four grueling qualifying tournaments and successful crowdfunding campaigns, the biggest Smash Ultimate Invitational tournament of the year is here. Here’s everything you need to know about Watch The Throne.
While Smash Summit may be no more, its legacy will live on in the form of Watch The Throne, a Summit-style event featuring many of the top players in the world.
Invitees, Acola, Sparg0, Miya, MkLeo, Tweek, Light, Bloom4Eva and Glutonny will enter the Guildhouse on December 8 and by December 10, one man will emerge victorious.
The qualifiers began earlier this year at Super Smash Con where Dabuz and Miya joined the group of 7 already-invited players.
From there, Sonix, the new top player from North America, joined the fray with his second-place finish at Luminosity Makes Moves Miami.
Ken, another Sonic main, joined Japanese stars Acola and Miya after his massive run at Port Priority 8 and Snake player ApolloKage took the last-chance qualifier at Genesis Black.
The rest of the competitors made their way in through a crowdfunding campaign in the form of Lui$, Kurama, WebbJP and Tarik.
Watch The Throne streams
You can catch all the action on VGBootCamp with side events such as the Tweek Talks and Lights Out podcasts airing on Guildhouse.
We’ve embedded the stream below for your convenience. You’re welcome.
Watch The Throne groups and schedule
As revealed on Tweek Talks, Watch The Throne has players placed into four groups where each combatant will go against each other to make it to Top 16 on winner’s side.
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Group A is Acola, Tweek, Kurama and Bloom4Eva. Group B is Sonix, Ken, MkLeo and Lui$. Group C is Miya, Glutonny, Dabuz and WebbJP. Group D is Sparg0, Light, ApoloKage and Tarik.
The action begins Friday at 12 pm PST with the first half of all the groups and then the finale of the group stage begins on Saturday at 10 am.
Next up is the gauntlet stage where the players who didn’t come first in their groups battle it out to decide who will be on the winners and losers side when the final bracket commences.
Championship Sunday kicks off at 10 am with Top 16 and top 8 a bit later on at 5 pm.
For many, this will be the final tournament of the season and the stakes are very high. Acola will be trying to hold onto his spot as the best player in the world, but will need to overcome bracket demons Sparg0 and Sonix to do it.
Meanwhile, Miya, who many believe is currently ranked second overall, will be pushing to overcome Acola, someone he has beaten before, but has his work cut out for him.
While it may be too late for some competitors to make a major push, rivals Sonix and Sparg0 are neck-and-neck when it comes to determining who the best in NA is and this could settle things between them.
Watch The Throne is one of the best ways to celebrate five years of Smash Ultimate, so be sure to check it out and keep it locked to Dexerto for more coverage as Nintendo promises new content coming to the game in 2024.