With a grand total of 743 entrants over three different Smash games, Low Tier City 4 has been one of the largest tournaments that Texas has ever seen! The weekend has come and gone, the competitors have clashed, and three champions have been crowned.

Project M

The competition for Project M was fierce. As one of the largest PM tournaments of the year, and with so much strong competition making it out, it was hard to say who was going to come out on top.

Even in pools, strong opponents went head to head. In the Winner's Finals of their pool, Texas local falcon player DMG squared off against New York's FS | Boiko, and DMG came out on top, winning the first seed of their pool. In another pool, Luck and Hyperflame faced off, and the Texan local again came home with the win, Luck winning a strong 2-0 victory. In bracket pool E2, Cuda pulled through with a victory over DFW's FX | Dakpo, although Cuda ended up losing out of the pool, defeated by Dizzy and Kingly, while Dakpo made it out of the pool through losers' side.

The battles continued into top 48. (Click here to see the top 48 bracket!)

Junebug, first place winner from Low Tier City 3, made a clean run into Winner's Semis, claiming victories over Filthy Casual, Odds, and Strong Bad on his way there. On the same side of Semis, ThunderzReign made a similar run, defeating Dizzy, LTC3 second placing DrinkingFood, and Blue. Now within top 8, Junebug and ThunderzReign faced off, Diddy Kong vs Donkey Kong, and through some very consistent combos, ThunderzReign pulled through with a 3-1 victory.

(Fun fact of the day; ThunderzReign and myself have played at a single tournament from back in my days of peak performance, at a San Francisco weekly tournament before BOSS2, almost exactly one year ago. He put me into loser's relatively early, and then our GFs set went down to the wire, last set, last game, last stock. His punish game has always been extremely terrifying!)

On the other side of Winner's Bracket, two more titans faced off. MrLz claimed one side of Winner's Semis, defeating Boiko, HyperFlame, and Luck, and in the other spot was FX's Lunchables, having defeated Mr. Brannandorf, Mr. Pickle, and Machiavelli. Lunchables and MrLz had recently played in the Grand Finals of Smash 'N Splash 2, both sets a close 3-2 in MrLz favor, and it looked like this set would go the same way, with MrLz taking the first two games...but through neck-and neck games and Roy's Our Boy chants, Lunchables brought it all the way back, reverse 3-0'ing the Smash 'N Splash 2 champion!

Winner's Finals was set; Lunchables vs ThunderzReign. The last time the two faced off at The Big Balc, Lunchables was the clear victor, winning a solid 3-0 set, but this time, Thunderz' patience and punish game came came out ahead, and he took the set, 3-1.

Meanwhile, the Loser's Bracket was still playing out. Bobby Frizz had an excellent run through it, defeating FX | Dakpo, winning over Lucky in the fox ditto, and beating LTC3's second place DrinkingFood, before finally being put out of the tournament by Luck. HyperFlame as well carved his way through Loser's, winning out over FX | Shokio, SteroKiDD, Blue, Strong Bad, and even Mr Lz, before finally losing in Loser's Semi-finals to Junebug.

Loser's Finals; Junebug vs Lunchables. Back and forth games, and an incredibly close set, last game last stock, and Lunchables seals the final game, once again putting himself into the Grand Finals of another national tournament!

LTC4 Loser's Finals; FX | Lunchables vs VGz | Junebug

In Grand Finals, ThunderzReign was in a bit of a pinch. At the end of a long weekend of draining Project M matches, his patience being tested by Lunchables' evasive Toon Link play, it seemed like he had began to buckle under the strain, and Lunchables took the first set 3-1, resetting the bracket. Thunderz seemed to come alive again, however, in the second set. He started finding more windows of opportunity for his oh-so-brutal punish game, and after another handful of close matches and last game set, ThunderzReign sealed his 1st place at LTC4 with one last DK cargo upthrow combo!

LTC4 Grand Finals; FX | Lunchables vs ThunderzReign!

For us players from Texas, it was a bitter sweet ending to the tournament. Its always wonderful seeing Lunchables perform well, but being just shy of his goal of taking home a national is heart wrenching.

On the other hand, ThunderzReign played incredibly well, and is a great player to watch. Its always nice to see a player succeed after putting so much hard work into the game. Congratulations to him!

And perhaps it is somewhat fitting, after all, that a Donkey Kong player is the one who takes home the 1st place trophy at Low Tier City 4.

ThunderzReign: the Low Tier City 4 Project M champion!

Photos courtesy of Chris Bahn of PVP Live.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Feel free to shoot the writer a message on his twitter; @S3thlon!