Everything to know about Pound 2022
The longest-running Super Smash Bros. major tournament series is returning this weekend in Laurel, Maryland. Headed up by the VGBootCamp team, Pound 2022 will be the first offline iteration of the series since April of 2019.
In addition, Pound 2022 will be the United States’ first platinum event of the 2022 Smash World Tour for both Ultimate and Melee — the latter of which will be played on good, old-fashioned CRT televisions. Here’s everything viewers need to know about Pound before the tournament begins.
The Original Super Major is BACK! #Pound2022
📆 April 22nd-24th
🏫 Laurel, MD
🎨 Melee & Ultimate
🎉 24 hour venue + dedicated friendlies setups
🔒 Capped at 1250 competitorsRegistration opens on Thursday (2/11) at 8 PM EST!
Follow @pound_series for all updates! pic.twitter.com/5nST6wEXDH
— VGBC (@VGBootCamp) February 9, 2022
Players to watch
Zain “Zain” Naghmi and Cody “iBDW” Schwab will be the favorites to win Melee Singles at Pound 2022. Zain won both the online Ludwig Ahgren Championship Series 4 and the offline Genesis 8, the only Melee majors so far this year. He will look to continue his streak of dominance at Pound.
Conversely, iBDW has recently underperformed, missing grand finals at both events and racking up losses against Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma, Justin “Plup” McGrath and Jake “Jmook” DiRado in the process. At Pound, iBDW will aim to prove he can conquer Zain and win another major, like he did at the end of 2021 during Smash Summit 12.
Additionally, Pound will mark the beginning of Linus “Pipsqueak” Nordin’s four-week stint in the United States, courtesy of Melee Stats. While he finished in the top eight of the Smash World Tour Championships in December, Pipsqueak will now look to prove he can replicate that success at an open-bracket major.
Introducing the first member of the Melee Stats Free Agent Showcase!@Pipsqueak_TV shows the best of what Europe has to offer at four NA events starting this month at Pound 2022
Tell us who you want to see next!
📸 @RellFGC pic.twitter.com/DYSIojtFSl
— Melee Stats (@MeleeStatsPod) April 1, 2022
For Ultimate, Leonardo “MkLeo” López Pérez is the clear favorite to win. After a few mild slips toward the end of last year, MkLeo bounced back with first-place finishes at RETA 2022 and Genesis 8. In addition, his biggest rival, FaZe Clan’s Edgar “Sparg0” Valdez, will not be at Pound.
Another potential contender viewers should keep an eye on is France’s William “Glutonny” Belaid. Glutonny recently placed in the top three of both RETA 2022 and Genesis 8. However, inconsistent results have plagued him in the post-quarantine era, raising doubts as to whether he can still be a contender in top-level Smash Ultimate.
How to watch Pound 2022
Pound 2022 will feature four main brackets: Melee Singles, Melee Doubles, Ultimate Singles and Ultimate Squad Strike. Round one pools for all four events will begin at noon ET on Friday. Ultimate Squad Strike top 64 will kick off at 4 p.m. that same day and should end around 10 p.m. Meanwhile, the final portion of the Melee Doubles bracket is scheduled to run from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Singles pools for both games will resume at noon on Saturday, with round two pools starting at 2 p.m. Top 32 for Ultimate and top 16 for Melee will both begin at 6 p.m. Finally, championship Sunday will feature Ultimate top 16 at noon, Melee top eight at 2 p.m. and Ultimate top eight at 6 p.m.
VGBootCamp will host the main Ultimate stream on Twitch, with VGBootCamp3 as the Ultimate side stream. Meanwhile, VGBootCamp2 will stream both Melee brackets. In addition, Pound 2022 will have multiple foreign language side streams. Viewers can catch the action in Spanish on SmashFactorGaming, in French on Solary or in Japanese on eastgeeksmash.
