Beyond the Summit announced Thursday that Smash Ultimate Summit 4 champion Edgar “Sparg0” Valdez will be the final invitee to Smash Ultimate Summit 5. It will mark Sparg0’s first tournament appearance since The Gimvitational in June.
Last but certainly not least… 😌@Sparg0ssb is our 16th and FINAL player coming to compete at #UltimateSummit 5 Presented by @coinbase 🎉 pic.twitter.com/imdt74leTU
— Beyond the Smash (@BTSsmash) September 1, 2022
A little more than two months ago, Sparg0 announced that he would take a break from competitive Super Smash Bros. for mental health reasons. However, Sparg0 began attending locals again in August and teased that he would return to major competition soon.
After the initial invitations, the voting process and the qualifier tournaments, only 15 spots for the upcoming invitational were filled. As a result, some fans suspected that Beyond the Summit had reserved a spot at Smash Ultimate Summit 5 for the reigning champion, Sparg0. Sparg0 confirmed that accepting the invitation was a “hard decision,” but that it was ultimately “worth giving it a try.”
Was a hard decision, but it’s worth giving it a try ~ https://t.co/erV8F9Etfe
— FaZe Sparg0 (@Sparg0ssb) September 1, 2022
More about Sparg0 at Smash Ultimate Summit 5
Though he was widely-regarded as the second-best player in the world throughout 2021, Sparg0 failed to secure a major victory all throughout that year. However, the 16-year-old Mexican prodigy ended up securing his first major win at Smash Ultimate Summit 4. There, he overcame Paris “Light” Ramirez, Leonardo “MkLeo” López Pérez, Santiago “Chag” Pérez Checchi and Takuma “Tea” Hirooka en route to first place.
With additional victories at the G4 Smash Ultimate Invitational and Collision 2022, Sparg0 finished as No. 2 in North America on the PGRU v3, only behind MkLeo. However, given his inactivity over the past couple of months, it’ll be hard to predict how Sparg0 will fare at Smash Ultimate Summit 5.
With Sparg0’s addition, the final line-up for the upcoming invitational has been set. The following players will compete at Summit from September 15-18:
- MkLeo
- acola
- Sparg0
- Light
- Naoto “ProtoBanham” Tsuji
- William “Glutonny” Belaid
- Gavin “Tweek” Dempsey
- Samuel “Dabuz” Buzby
- Michael “Riddles” Kim
- Kolawole “Kola” Aideyan
- Brian “Cosmos” Kalu
- Steven “Anathema” Acosta
- Robert “Myran” Herrin
- Jayjay “Ouch!?” Basilian
- Dominic “T3 DOM” Carone
- Christian “Jahzz0” Ramsay
