Full Bloom 5: Marss Wins Back-to-Back Smash Ultimate Titles

Full Bloom 5 is behind us now, and this past weekend's festivities gave us some pretty exciting bouts. Victories by the likes of Zain and the continued quality performance of Ultimate on the mainstage has got the Super Smash Bros. world riled-up and ready for more tournaments as the 2019 year moves along. 

Taking place in Bloomington, Indiana, the Full Bloom event is held by organizers Smash at IUB, a collegiate program at Indiana University Bloomington. With over 500 entrants in four separate categories, the Full Bloom tournament is one that many in the Smash allegiance look forward to. They even have an organ lady!

The two-day event this year had Super Smash Bros. Melee with both Singles and Doubles, as well as the new Smash Bros. Ultimate also with Singles and Doubles. 

Smash Bros. Melee

It’s no surprise that only a few months after the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch it’s still the classic GameCube’s Melee that is headlining Smash events. We’ll get to Ultimate later. 

For now, Melee still rules the market, and this bracket for the Full Bloom 5 Melee Singles didn’t really provide many surprises. The finals came down to Zain, who made it all the way there through the winners bracket, and SFAT, who qualified via a harder road in the losers bracket. 

Even though Zain dropped the second map to SFAT, he quietly and swiftly stole the tournament taking both map 3, and map 4. With his Marth, Zain seemed to have SFAT’s number on Fox. You can watch the entire Smash Melee Singles final match (below) thanks to Beyond the Summit, and their VODs. 

Super Smash Bros. Melee Doubles - The Counter-Logic Gaming duo of SFAT and PewPewU defeated Rocky and iBDW to claim the Melee Doubles title. 

Smash Bros. Ultimate

As the world of Smash Bros. competitive continues to develop a taste and comfort with the newly released Ultimate, some trends are beginning to form. The most obvious of which is Marss’ dominance with his Zero Suit Samus. 

After fellow Panda Gaming team member Cosmos made his way through a very difficult losers bracket, the grand final was set. Playing one of the newest additions to the Smash roster, Cosmos seems poised to make a statement with Inkling at Full Bloom 5. Unfortunately, thanks to some absolutely stellar off-stage play from Zain, it wasn’t Cosmos’ time. 

Zain follows up his Collision 2019 1st place with his second tournament crown in a row. 

Smash Bros. Ultimate Doubles - Before getting rocked in the finals by his teammate, Zain and Cosmos working together had won the Ultimate Doubles over MVD and ESAM. 

The Ultimate Test

This weekend was all about Bloomington, but it’s important to remember that the community is keeping a very close eye on Ultimate as a whole. Earlier in the year, major fighting game tournament EVO announced their line-up and excluded the faithful Melee players. Only making it worse, EVO played an in-memoriam video for the beloved GameCube title. So, it seems it's up to Ultimate to eventually grab the reigns full-bore and take the Nintendo brawling franchise into the future. 

With all of this pressure on the newest edition of Super Smash Bros., tournaments like Full Bloom 5 are tasked with acting as a testing ground. According to multiple participants in the tournament, and organizers, the game performed very well throughout the weekend. 

It was another fantastic year and event by Smash At IUB, and we look forward to next spring in Indiana.  

Until next year, Bloomington will return to its quiet roots, and the Smash community looks forward to the SoCal Regionals in San Jose next weekend. 

[VOD videos and re-cap via Beyond the Summit]