LumiRank 2023 | 91-100

Welcome back to LumiRank 2023. Smash Ultimate has only seen its competition grow stronger week after week in one of its busiest years yet. LumiRank is thus proud to bring you the 150 strongest players in the world, based on the period from December 19th, 2022 to December 17th, 2023.

For information on the LumiRank 2023 schedule, check out the landing page here.

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After spending much of 2022 as an honorary Frenchman, 2023 marked a grand return to Tristate for Mr. E, the region’s premier Lucina player. That certainly didn’t mean he stayed in Tristate; he upheld his reputation as one of Smash Ultimate’s true world warriors by achieving strong results all over the world.

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In 2023, Mr. E’s constant grinding paid off at LVL UP EXPO in Las Vegas, where he outperformed expectations by defeating Chase and Zomba, ultimately finishing in 5th place. It wouldn’t be his last time on the west coast, as he went on to spend an extended period there, attending various California and Pacific Northwest tournaments throughout the spring months. The crown jewel of Mr. E’s stint there was a 25th place run at Battle of BC 5, where he dispatched Big D and moxi.

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The end of that residency didn’t mean Mr. E was done traveling, however. The summer and fall saw him go just about anywhere tournaments were being held. He entered regionals in places like France, Costa Rica, Alabama, Oregon, D.C., and Michigan, defeating players like Ouch!?, Supahsemmie, Lima, and ShinyMark along the way. Despite all that moving around, one of Mr. E’s greatest triumphs during this period happened close to home, when he won Defend The North 2023 in Brooklyn over Jakal and Tilde.

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Wherever there is Smash to be played, Mr. E will more than likely find a way to show up. It’s impossible to predict where he might take his travels in 2024, so be sure to look out for him!

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— Victor “AnonymousBadger” Mujat

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In the new era of Ultimate, young players are seemingly taking over. From the top of the rankings with acola and Sparg0, even to DDee, there is one that seems to be forgotten. Hailing from the French dimension, crêpe salée is the one of the youngest players to make this list. At only 15, he has one of the best resumes for a European player, using a mix of Steve and Wario. 

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crêpe got his start post-covid, but didn’t truly perform at such a high level until going into the new year in 2023. Starting off this year attending regionals, crêpe was able to consistently beat high level talents like Raarchyor, Gogesta, and Raflow, while also taking some names on more notable names like Leon and Oryon. 

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In September, he would make a break out performance at Tera getting his best wins of the season over Zomba and NaetorU. This is truly when people started to take notice. crêpe would finish at 13th place losing to Bloom4Eva and big chungus, who was also on one of the best runs of his career. From here, crêpe would attend even more large events, such as Ultimate Fighting Arena, where he would finish 9th over the likes of Luugi and Mezcaul. This was another impressive run for him, as even his losses seemed to be able to go his way with both going to game 4.

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Being as young as he is, crêpe salée is destined to improve as he matures. It’s actually quite surprising how good he is in a region with such strong veterans. This season, being his first ranked, will be a foundation to what may become another top threat from France.

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— Benjamin "BennyTheGreat" Schmid

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After zackray has shifted away from using R.O.B. more and more over the past few years, the character’s meta has been in a weird spot in Japan. While the robot took over the western world, dominating majors and regionals alike, Japan didn’t quite have an answer to the likes of Zomba, Anathema and MKBigBoss top 8ing majors consistently. All of that being said, a new wave of R.O.B.s has been picking up the slack in Japan recently, with players like Kuroponzu and tameigo dominating smashmate, and upsets like yoko# defeating Shuton becoming more common. At the forefront of this is one player that picked up the game after quarantine and has since quickly become one of Kansai’s most well established fixtures: sssr.

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As one of the highest attenders in Kansai, sssr is a frequent find in top 8 of Sumabato and MaesumaTOP events. The top robot competitor picked up a laundry list of wins over Japan’s best, such as Jagaimo, Umeki, Kaninabe, Doramigi, Masa, Kome, Eim, and Hero. This long list of high profile victories is held back only by a lack of consistency, as sssr is equally likely to make a deep run as he is to take a loss in pools.

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Despite having the occasional lows on his resume, sssr deservedly ranks on this list as one of the players that shows us just how brutal attending many tournaments can be. While his performances are not quite yet at the level that make him a major top 8 mainstay, sssr has only improved over the relatively short period he’s been competing for, and looks to continue his upwards trend into 2024 with high potential.

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— Alice “Alice” Len

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With representation on every major global ranking going back to the Brawl days, the Netherlands have long been one of the most formidable nations in European Smash. Helping to keep that streak alive is Supahsemmie, who captured the top spot on the Dutch Power Rankings back in 2022. The ever-improving Young Link player has found himself in the Top 100 for a second consecutive year.

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Supahsemmie made most of his notable appearances in France this year, traveling to Smash Ultimate’s European hub on several occasions and beating many of the best players there. He opened his year with a pair of Top 8 appearances at French regionals — DOSE2SUCRE and Shonen War 2 — and claimed victories over local warriors Leon, crêpe salée, and Nitox, as well as the German phenom Tarik.

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Supahsemmie’s biggest event of the year was Tera, the French supermajor at which he defeated the Japanese invader Jogibu and placed an impressive 17th. It was a solid peak in an excellent year, and he followed it up with another respectable 17th at Ultimate Fighting Arena with a victory over Ikan, but it still felt like he needed one more big result to clinch him a spot in the Top 100. Supahsemmie found that result at Sunrise 2023 (yet another French regional). He scored his most impressive win at that event, clutching out a five-game victory over MkLeo himself.

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With Supahsemmie establishing himself as one of Europe’s premier players, the Netherlands’ future seems bright in the world of Smash. Let’s see what he can achieve in 2024!

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— Victor “AnonymousBadger” Mujat

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I need to issue a formal apology to showers. A year and a half ago, showers upset ProtoBanham at MaesumaTOP#7 and I immediately used this singular set to hop on Banham's case. After all, the narrative literally wrote itself — he might have been running NA with an iron (and Ramram-shaped) fist, but when he came back to Japan, bro was, quite literally, getting washed by a rando Inkling. 

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Well, it's been a long time since then, and showers has since become a top level player in his own right. His singular trip to Tokyo during the year, Kagaribi #11, ended in a mostly uneventful 49th place, but back home in Kansai, showers has established himself as another budding talent in-region finding larger-scale consistency. As Kansai has come into its own this year as a region, hosting larger and larger events as it begins to assert itself as the epicenter of top level Smash within Japan, so too has showers found a bevy of great wins throughout the year at MaesumaTOPs and Sumabatos, taking sets off the country’s top level talent like DIO, Kaninabe, Ryuoh, and Lv.1. His breakout run, however, was at September’s MaesumaTOP #14, where after an early loss to another Pokémon-themed tag in Tsubotsubo, he beat Asimo, Hero, YamaD, Ryuoh, Nao, mzk, and alice en route to 3rd.

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Kansai’s greatest Eeveelution enthusiast has had a great year, and in fact, his greatest win this year was unranked (a 3-2 over acola’s Aegis at an unranked invitational). When invaders from both near and far come to Kansai challenging the throne, they’re first gonna have to learn something that Banham learned the hard way years ago: never sleep on a man dedicated to his craft.

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— Hugh-Jay “trade war” Yu

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2019 Japan was notable for an unusual amount of Wario secondaries among its top players. Huto, however, was not following the trend, busy bouncing between the likes of Mario, Shulk, and Banjo. But better late than never, as they say, and Huto has now established himself as the best Wario in his country and one of the strongest worldwide, while still sporting an eclectic group of secondaries including Ryu, King K. Rool, and Captain Falcon.

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As one of Japan’s most steadily solid players since Smash 4, Huto is no stranger to coming out on top amidst the chaotic Kanto landscape. Of particular note are his 9th place at major WAVE #4, where he took out Abadango and Shirayuki, and his run at Jingi #2, gathering wins on Umeki and Eim en route to a bronze medal. But his most important victory came at Kagaribi #9.

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I still remember coming across a Twitter handcam of the set: Huto up against Shuton, known as one of the Wario GOAT Glutonny’s biggest roadblocks. But Huto stayed resilient, trading games with the titan to bring the set to a last game scenario, and though the stream quality was barely breaching 144p, I could still make out the kill screen when Wario’s dash attack connected on a whiffed back air. Shuton had just fallen to losers, and it was none other than Huto who had sent him there.

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— Kenny “kenniky” Wang

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No one exemplifies how easily online can translate to offline than Japan’s new best Bayonetta TamaPDaifuku. Known for his combos that are up there with the best, if this Bayonetta lands a single hit, you might feel like you’re playing a different Smash game entirely. With his incredible advantage state and strong combo game, TamaPDaifuku took the Japanese scene by storm this year, dominating the Smashmate online rating ladder. He placed top 10 on the ladder nine times in a row, culminating in a 1st place in the last season of the 2023 Wi-Fi ranking.

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With TamaP’s incredible online results, there were high expectations for him when he started competing offline — and he delivered. After just a handful of tournaments offline, he took wins on Senra, Akakikusu, Doramigi, takera, Huto, Noi, Futari no Kiwami Ah~!, Ly, and Mr.R, and then defeated Tea at Kagaribi 10, all with solo Bayonetta, living up to the hype of his online dominance. At major seibugeki #15, he beat Leaf, Noi, Rizeasu, and ElleGo for 9th. At UltCore, he took Miya to the precipice, pushing the Game & Watch to game 5 before ultimately falling to losers.

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TamaP is only improving more and more, and he’s sure to climb the ladder of Japanese offline play as he has the online one. Despite his failure to find a major or supermajor top 8 this season, he’s already reached a peak in the 2024 season that truly might eclipse his prior results to take TamaPDaifuku into the highest echelon of the Smash world.

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— Rose “Rosebloom” Kermode

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Compared to most others on this list, Jahzz0 is one of the newest competitors. Getting his start only after the pandemic, it's quite surprising how quickly he has risen while maining such a technically challenging fighter. This year was such a strong year for the now best shoto main in the south, and he’s shown nothing but improvement since. 

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Jahzz0’s year was overall solid, but filled with some crazy high peaks, the first of which would be his run to 13th at the Japanese supermajor Kagaribi 9. He would garner some wins over high level regional players, but would eventually take an insane 3-0 win over Shuton, getting his first top 15 win of the season. Over the next few months, Jahzz0 would mostly attend regionals, then take another trip to Japan to take more names overseas. He would be able to manage his 2nd top 100 win over Toon Link Lv.1. 

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Coming back to the US, Jahzz0 continued to perform well at tournaments, making top 64 at majors and top 8s at regionals. This would continue until Rise ‘N Grind, where people started to take notice of Jahzz0. Not only would he get 9th, his best major placement to date, but he would get his best win of the season, 3-0 over Riddles.

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While Jahzz0 made it to the top 100, it’s clear that he is not done. When he’s not at a major, he’s grinding locals or matches on his stream so he can do even better at the next. There is no doubt he will continue to take names and score higher than before.

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— Benjamin "BennyTheGreat" Schmid

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As Japan’s best rep of one of the most explosive and volatile characters in the game, it’d be reasonable to assume Akakikusu made top 100 off of a few explosive and volatile major runs, where he’d beaten numerous elite players en route to a top 8 finish. After all, it was one such run — his legendary 3rd place finish at Kagaribi 3 in 2021 — that largely introduced Akakikusu and his brand of aggressive, buff-heavy Hero play to the world. But Akakikusu’s results this year are less a trail guide of peaks and valleys and more a steady, deliberate hike toward his final destination.

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Akakikusu didn’t make a major top 8 this year, but he also only missed top 64 at 2 out of his 15 attended majors, consistently reaching high placements and gradually picking up wins on players like Gackt, Kaninabe, MASA, and Hero. When he was on, he turned in performances like 9th at Sumabato SP Ultimate, with wins on Ron and Kome, or his 17th place finish at Kagaribi 11, where he defeated Neo and Jagaimo. And when he faltered, like at Kagaribis #9 and #10, he still took generally good losses to players like TamaPDaifuku or Japanese depth threats Metara and Riteshia. Overall, Akakikusu’s year is a defiance of expectations and a demonstration of his ability to find consistency with an inherently inconsistent character — but the potential still remains for the stars to align for another breakout performance going into the new year.

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— Vincent “SelfDestructGambit” Chow

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Senra, the prodigious promoter of the pink puffball, propelled the legendary low-tier to new heights in 2023. This was the year Senra made a 7 set losers run at Kagaribi 9, made another 5 set run at Kagaribi #11 for good measure, and achieved his first major top 8 at UltCore with wins on M0tsunabE, Kaninabe, and Snow. But where Senra’s season really shone was at regional events.

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Senra made it to Grand Finals at no less than 3 huge regionals, each time being stopped just short. He floated above the upset-heavy waters of KOWLOON #4, beating HIKARU and takera and taking Miya to game 5. He navigated the depths of Karisuma SP 15, beating DIO, Masha, Tsubaki, and Toura, and once again going game 5 with his Grand Finals opponent, acola. And he cruised through his bracket at Grand Slum 16, taking additional sets over Tsubaki and Masha and beating Gorioka, only losing to the event’s winner Jogibu — after once again taking him to game 5 in Winners Finals.

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That Senra was just a game away from potentially being the first player to win a B-tier with Jigglypuff in Ult is heartbreaking — but it’s also the strongest proof I’ve seen that not only can Puff be viable in Ultimate, but that Senra can succeed in the strongest superregion in the world. All we can do now is wait, and Senra will take care of the rest.

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— Vincent “SelfDestructGambit” Chow

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