It seems like not a single fighting game tournament goes by without someone complaining about seeding. Now, with DreamHack Atlanta fast approaching the Smash Bros Ultimate complaint metagame has shifted to parents moaning on behalf of their kids.
Fighting game tournaments have seeds to keep things fair for all players. Lower-ranked players have to fight favorites early on because otherwise, the event would have pros knocking each other out incredibly early.
Having a higher rank means you face off against supposedly weaker opponents early on, resulting in a better chance to go far in the tournament and perhaps leave with a profit. While players usually are the ones complaining about their seeds, as DreamHack Fighting Game Director Alex Jebailey found out, parents are stepping up to the plate.
On November 13, two days before the start of the event, DreamHack director posted a screengrab of a message he got, supposedly from a parent concerned with their son’s seeding placement.
Holy Shit. The game has changed completely.
Smashers are now having their parents complain about seeding for them.
This can’t be real. Please tell me this isn’t real. pic.twitter.com/M3DBA5RpNb
— Alex Jebailey (@Jebailey) November 14, 2019
“Just wanted to see if the seeding had been completed?” the parent asked. “I would have thought that my son [redacted] would be better than he is?”
Jebailey couldn’t believe the message but noted that the whole seeding metagame has evolved with Smashers now complaining about seeding for them.
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For his part, however, DreamHack did accommodate the enraged parent by changing the lad’s seeding, but only from 16th to 15th in his pool. “That should get the parent off my back!” he sarcastically noted.
We switched the kid from 16th seed to 15th seed of his pool. That should get the parent off my back!
— Alex Jebailey (@Jebailey) November 14, 2019
This wasn’t the only complaint the tournament organizer had to deal with, however. In a follow-up tweet, he stressed that his “favorite part of being a TO” is getting messages from people who forgot to register for an event within 10 minutes of the registration window closing.
DreamHack Atlanta runs from November 15 to 17 with multiple fighting games, including Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Super Smash Bros Melee, Mortal Kombat 11, Tekken 7, and Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition.
Smash, in particular, is stacked with an all-star field consisting of Samsora, Tweek, Marss, Esam, and Light. Additionally, the game’s newest fighter, Terry Bogard, will be tournament legal. It will be fun to see if any competitor utilizes the new character who is already considered to be at least A-tier so early on into his optimization.
