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By: Callisto, SNC, and Gabe.

This is part of an article series highlighting the Australian Rivals of Aether community, focusing on the top 20 AU players. Get to know more about our newest RCS region as we release their write-ups over the next three days.

If you’re an AU player make sure you show the online scene your support by signing up for online monthlies on smash.gg. Get to know the community and play for points and prizes, including a travel voucher to our finals event in North America for the top ranked AU player.

Articles in the Series:

• #20 – 11
• #10 – 06 (You’re reading this right now.)
• #05 – 1

Rank	Results		Rivals
10	–	–
Summary

Known internationally for his record breaking story mode speedruns and discovery of the “Fel-Smash”, Fel also has competitive leanings. A strong player in his own right, he’s pocketed some unpredictable wins over the Australian scene. His fluid movement and readiness to learn took him far and after many months of pushing his fingers to their limits the New Zealand keyboard warrior swapped from Zetterburn to Kragg.

Through strong fundamentals and consistent but deadly combos Fel has maintained strong placings throughout all of our online brackets. Some may question how he’d fare locally, but for now Fel remains the illusive online champ that he is.

Rank	Results		Rivals
09	5th	5th
Summary

One of the best Forsburns in the business, D-money the durry-munching king has consistently offered an unconventional style of Forsburn. Even though he’s missed a few local events this year, his practice and understanding of the game appears to have paid off well for him. His confidence in his character and his ability to compete with the best has taken him to a respectable 5th place finish at BAM 9, losing to Splice in a tense yet confusing ditto set.

Rank	Results		Rivals
08	2nd	9th
Summary

Eigth place on this list and the most skilled Wrastor player in Australia, Jet has made clear improvements in 2017 that can only be attributed to many hours of practice. Jet thrives off his knowledge of players habits and ‘tricks’ and forces you to adapt or face his fast and punishing combos.

Placing second in his first two local brackets for the year, him and sparring partner SNC took their ambitions interstate to attend Expand Gong 2, where Jet placed a respectable 5th after losses to the NSW talent. His secondary Kragg has helped him circumvent some of the mental fatigue that he suffers in our more tough tournaments, but his Wrastor is still the character to fear.

Rank	Results		Rivals
07	1st	7th
Summary

The ACT’s ruscur (with a lowercase ‘r’) is still fresh to Rivals, only picking up the game back in April this year. That being said, it didn’t take him long to make a huge splash with his Absa. Through daily practice and a willingness to learn, he quickly made his mark as a top player. So far he’s taken sets off most of the top 10 in the space of a few weeks, including knocking Gabe out at a local event. It is unquestionable that ruscur’s rank will only continue to rise with more practice.

Rank	Results		Rivals
06	3rd	4th
Summary

In the beginning of Rivals of Aether’s early access journey, Splice was thought to be unbeatable. His natural ability and unparalleled understanding of Forsburn created a huge gap that took players many months to cross. Although largely inactive, Splice returns every now and then to prove his previous dominance in the scene was not unjustified, learning in the space of a few days what would take many players months of practice.

His impressive 4th place finish at BAM after 6 months of not competing is a true testament to his skill as a player and earns him the spot of 6th place on this list.

The Road to Shine was not a short or easy one for Rivals players hoping to earn a free plane ticket to the Boston major. Taking place over a period of 2 months and including more than 750 entrants, the event ended in a fiery grand finals last Saturday between Kisuno and LBO. In the end Kisuno was able to take home first place and earn that travel voucher for Shine – one of our biggest event stops for Rivals this year.

If you missed the action you can catch the vods on Big Blue Esports’ YouTube channel

What’s next for Rivals at Shine

Today at 3PM PDT marks the start of player nominations for Shine! If you missed MDZ’s post this means fans get to give their say on who they think should be in the Shine compendium for Rivals.

The player with the most votes on Friday will be added and people can support their travel needs with shop purchases. Once that player is funded, it moves on to the player with the next highest votes. If you’re a player that needs some help traveling to Shine make sure you opt in here.

Don’t forget to visit the nominations page to vote starting at 3PM PDT!

We’ve got a ton of exciting stuff planned for Shine this year. Local events are some of the best gaming experiences you can have so make sure you don’t miss this one. If you haven’t signed up yet you can join Kisuno and everyone else coming along by registering for Shine on smash.gg.

Shine takes place at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston from August 25th – 27th. Make sure you sign up before July 23rd, since after that the late registration fee will start to kick in.

By: Callisto, SNC, and Gabe.

This is part of an article series highlighting the Australian Rivals of Aether community, focusing on the top 20 AU players. Get to know more about our newest RCS region as we release their write-ups over the next three days.

If you’re an AU player make sure you show the online scene your support by signing up for online monthlies on smash.gg. Get to know the community and play for points and prizes, including a travel voucher to our finals event in North America for the top ranked AU player.

Articles in the Series:

• #20 – 11 (You’re reading this right now.)
• #10 – 06
• #05 – 1

Rank	Results		Rivals
20	#5th	–
Summary

To start our list we have young Saraxxus, fresh to the competitive Rivals scene and swiftly proving that he’s no pushover. It’s evident that he is still learning his place in the game, discovering strategies and bouncing between a few characters on the roster. That said, there’s no doubt that his two top 5 placings at Sydney local events weren’t a fluke. His online placings in both our amateur and pro brackets alike suggest that he may be a player to watch.

Rank	Results		Rivals
19	2nd	–
Summary

A consistent face in the NSW rivals scene, William (aka ‘BoyLips’) has achieved solid results at local Sydney tournaments. While William is a melee player at heart, he flawlessly transitions his melee fundamentals to Rivals of Aether, using his patient and grounded Zetterburn to keep Sydney’s newer players in check.

Rank	Results		Rivals
18	5th	9th
Summary

A relatively new player to the scene, MAST began entering local tournaments at the start of 2017 before appearing in our online brackets. Although he was unable to match up to our regulars it was clear he was eager to learn. Through persistence his placings have slowly risen and his Zetterburn is becoming a real threat to our mid-level players. Peaking with a very solid 7th place finish in May’s RCS bracket, it’s clear that MAST is not done climbing the ranks just yet.

Rank	Results		Rivals
17	3rd	9th
Summary

The bear from Australia’s capital, Glacier has been showing the rest of Australia that the ACT has talent. Coming from a Smash 4 background, Glacier has placed high consistently in his local scene while also getting good results when traveling out of his territory with limited practice. Having recently taken a set off Dave at a local Sydney event, it’s already evident that the fresh ACT team will promptly make their mark on the competition.

Rank	Results		Rivals
16	9th	9th
Summary

The only player from Queensland to make this list, Chats has come very close to taking sets off a number of the players above him, and even clutched out a few along the way. With his signature pink skin, he has been a top contender in every amateur bracket and slowly rising through our pro brackets. His Zetterburn has become more disciplined since a rough 9th place finish at Expand Gong 2, something he attributes to a far too aggressive playstyle. Hopefully with some practice Chats can start consistently winning more of those close last game sets.

Rank	Results		Rivals
15	5th	5th
Summary

One of the most well-practiced players from Sydney, Karito has developed his Orcane over the past eighteen months into a formidable foe. He’s performed well against many of the top players in the community, using his hasty and volatile approach to catch competitors off guard. The young gun has always had his eyes on the top position, but has fallen a little short on the podium finish in a handful of online and local events this year.

Rank	Results		Rivals
14	3rd	–
Summary

OSU is always the first player to provide gameplay tips when asked, mentoring many of the players rising through our amateur ranks. Originally a dedicated Maypul main, OSU has been bringing secondaries into each bracket he plays lately, counterpicking and switching characters as he feels necessary.

After taking a short break from the scene late last year OSU has returned and made himself a player to be respected. By working on his punish game and matchup knowledge he’s been able to push his local results to greater heights. With sights on taking those results even further in the RCS series, he is definitely a player to watch out for.

Rank	Results		Rivals
13	2nd	9th
Summary

Fiskit (known previously by many as Palirock) has been a prominent yet polarizing player in the Australian community since late 2015. He has developed his playstyle to adapt to the opponent he’s facing off with, exercising no restraint in playing almost every character on the roster to get an advantage in battle.

Although a strong competitor for much of 2016, Fiskit has since recorded the most varied placements in Australia. His play swings wildly from winning online tournaments undefeated to being knocked out of a competition in first round loser’s bracket. Time will tell this year how he steps up to further cement his diverse and malleable playstyle.

Rank	Results		Rivals
12	2nd	7th
Summary

A veteran of the Aus smash scene, Jamwa has relatively little playtime in Rivals. Despite this, it cannot be argued that the impact he makes in the rare event he attends is extremely noteworthy. His deliberate and highly adaptive style of Absa makes up for his limited matchup knowledge, and his cloud use is without equal. Surprising everyone by coming back from a round 1 loss at CoM 8 to place second and a week later upsetting Palirock to make top 8 at BAM, Jamwa is worthy of a placing of 12th on this list.

Rank	Results		Rivals
11	3rd	–
Summary

Stutter has had a very steady rise in the scene over the past year, making clear efforts to minimize the weaknesses of his neutral whilst also enhancing his own style of Forsburn. He now stands as one of the more adaptable players in the scene with his reactive neutral proving deadly to some of our more careless players and his stylish cape combos constantly surprising the competition.

Though he unfortunately wasn’t able to attend BAM 9, the May RCS event soon after provided him with his the opportunity to demonstrate how far he’s come. He ended up placing 7th after losing only to Dave’s Kragg and SNC early in losers side of bracket, two very worthy opponents. His improvement so far has been substantial and looks to only continue as the year progresses.

Today marks the start of season 2 ranked ladder play. To kick off this season, we’re announcing a special event using the brand new profile icons that were added this patch.

Show your team pride

Along with the standard profile icons introduced yesterday, you might have noticed six select team icons in the game.

These icons are more than just cosmetic. For the next three weeks, each win on the ranked ladder while wearing a team’s icon will count as a point for that team. At the end of the event, the team with the most points will get a skin themed around their team added to the game. You can keep track of how your favorite team is doing right here:

Current Score

Burrito Esports

·

Fable Esports

·

Edax Pro

·

Panda Global

·

Tempo Storm

·

VexX Gaming

·

• We were incorrectly counting some matches happening outside of ranked mode in our initial graph. We’ve applied a new filter to correct this which is why even though the same teams are still in the lead, the proportions and total number of games are now smaller.
• To prevent manipulation of scores we’ve put in some measures to weed out “fake games”, i.e. win-trading and other nefarious practices. This has also reduced the total number of games albeit by a much smaller amount than the above ranked vs non-ranked change.

There’s still 2 weeks left so make sure you get out there and rep your favorite team!

We’ve got a small patch planned tonight to move us over from season one to season two for online ranked play. If you’ve been curious about the end of season rewards, then the wait is over! Read on for the unveiling of a brand new feature – Profile Icons.

Profile icons are a fun addition that give players the chance to show off their own style. Usable in any online mode, you can choose an icon to highlight your favorite character, exclusive promo goodies you have, or even signal which stage or character you want to pick to your opponent.

In addition to the standard set of icons we’ll also be giving some out as rewards. The ranked ones are an example of these and with this patch we’re giving out bronze, silver, and gold icons for players who’ve reached those tiers.

Don’t worry though if ranked isn’t your jam. There’s plenty of other ways to unlock icons ranging from completing achievements, reaching certain waves in Abyss, and more.

Everyone will be getting plenty of icons to play with tomorrow, but if you want a chance to get the ranked season 1 icons you’ve still got time. We won’t be rolling the season over until around 12AM PDT tonight. We wish you luck on your journey for bronze, silver, or gold if those have caught your eye!