When I was a kid, one of the games my siblings and I would play for hours was Super Smash Brothers Melee. We loved it so much that we would play 99-stock matches and play well into the early hours of the morning.

After checking out a few matches from Smash Con on Twitch from yesterday, any dream I had about joining a tournament is totally crushed. Smash Con is the Super Smash Brothers tournament that’s happening in conjunction with Salt Lake Comic Con, put on by our local Streetpass group, Utah 3DS Streetpass. These guys have a sweet set-up for their participants, and the tournament covers three later versions of the game—Super Smash Brothers Melee, Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Project M.

I know a lot of casual SSB fans are wondering what the hell Project M is—it’s a mod for Brawl to make it more like Melee in some of the technical aspects. It’s unique enough to get its own tournament slot—it’s not a clone of either game. The whole tournament consisted of about 125 participants, and was whittled down to 12 for the finals on Saturday.

Most of the contestants were local, but there are a few that are from out of state. A few have come from Clash Tournaments to compete, which gives our little tournament a bit more of a draw from the national crowd.

The finals will be on the front page of Twitch tomorrow, so even if you can’t make it to the con, you can check it out. The skilled 12 will get into Comic Con on Saturday to compete on the big stage that resides in the game room, room 155. The tournaments will be all day, starting with Brawl at 11:00, Project M at 2:00 and Melee will close it out at 4:00.

Check out the rest of our Salt Lake City Comic Con 2014 coverage!

Matt Brunk’s Photo Gallery

Megan Kennedy’s Photo Gallery