Voting has begun for the next edition of Beyond the Summit’s premier Super Smash Bros. Melee invitational, Smash Summit 12. Joshua “Sora” Lyras, also known as “Joshman,” became the first of five Smash Summit 12 vote-ins on Sunday.
Sora is a Fox main hailing from Sydney, Australia. As the best active player in Australia, he received an automatic invitation to the 2021 Smash World Tour Championships after its organizers made the call to cancel the Oceania Regional Finals on Nov. 10. As a result, Sora was already slated to travel to Orlando, Florida to compete in the global finals from Dec. 17-19.
Now, Sora’s journey to the United States will begin a little bit sooner. From Dec. 9-12, Sora will compete at Smash Summit 12 in Los Angeles, California. He will become the second Oceanian player to compete at Smash Summit. The first was Te Tuhi “Spud” Kelly, who attended Smash Summit 8 in 2019.
We did it! pic.twitter.com/NndfFH9ydk
— Joshman (@LilTrickshot) November 28, 2021
More about Sora, the first Smash Summit 12 vote-in
Sora has been a threat at Australian Melee and Project M tournaments since 2016. He climbed to No. 2 on the region’s Melee power rankings in 2019. Then, Sora peaked at No. 1 in 2021, thanks in part to Spud’s recent inactivity. He has been a member of Australian esports organization Mindfreak since Sept. 10, 2021.
Sora has found moderate success in Melee tournaments on his previous trips to the United States. He placed in the top 64 of events like Smash ‘N’ Splash 3 in 2017 and Genesis 6 in 2019. In addition, he performed well at local tournaments in one of the most stacked regions in the world, Southern California, during the first two months of 2020. Sora will find himself back in SoCal for Smash Summit 12, his first American major since Genesis 7 in January of 2020.
Although Sora was voted into Smash Summit 12, Eduardo “Eddy Mexico” Lucatero Rincón and Miles “Soonsay” Foster were eliminated from the voting process. Two more players will earn spots at Summit and another three players will drop out at 3 p.m. ET on Nov. 30.
