LumiRank 2024.2 | 21 - 30
It’s that time of the year again. Welcome to LumiRank 2024.2, the definitive Super Smash Bros. Ultimate ranking for the second half of 2024. Join us in celebrating the 50 players who set themselves apart from the field as some of the strongest in the game right now.
For information on LumiRank 2024.1, check out the landing page here.
If 2023 was the breakout year for North America’s best Hero main BeastModePaul, 2024 saw him solidify his place among the world’s best. While the first half of the year only brought with it a modest ranking improvement, a sizzling second-half season of results helped the Floridian zoom his way into the top 50 for the first time.
BeastModePaul began his season with a bang by winning the C Tier Drip or Drown! 2: Chill Out over Wildz. He followed it up with a respectable 25th at Supernova, the biggest event of the season, where he (literally!) whacked Tea out of the bracket before bringing Miya to a nail-biting fifth game. He nearly notched the biggest tournament win of his career at ReWired Fest just a week later, slashing his way through Lima and zapping Light into losers bracket before ultimately losing the runback.
Despite that heartbreak, the most magical moment of BeastModePaul’s season was still to come. At Riptide, a psyched-up Paul took a hatchet to the winners bracket, reaching top 8 by defeating SHADIC, Candle, and Kola, finishing in 5th place. That result — alongside a Tweek win at Litvitational 3 — bounced him past a whole lot of competition, leading to his best ranking finish to date.
There’s no telling what 2025 will spell for BeastModePaul. Whatever you do, just don’t get caught snoozing: he might upset your favorite top player before you can say “Hocus Pocus”.
— Victor “AnonymousBadger” Mujat
In a game like Smash Ultimate where competition at the highest level is more frequent than ever, new players rising to the top is not an uncommon occasion. What happens less often is someone improving gradually over several years of hard work, slowly but surely making their way to that top echelon over time. And yet that is exactly what alice did.
After mostly sticking to grinding his locals in 2019, alice leveled up significantly over quarantine and reemerged as a Sumabato staple that ended up qualifying for the Smash World Tour in 2021, where he defeated none other than Sonix. Since then, he has been a household name at Japanese events, but his first top 50 ranking wasn’t until earlier this year. And now, in the second half of 2024, he has continued to improve once more and is finally knocking on the door of that top level.
alice started the season strong, with a win over a freshly crowned world #4 Hurt at Kagaribi x Kowloon. He immediately followed this performance up with a victory over Asimo at Umebura SP 11, performing admirably at the back to back Premiers. Throughout the season he continued to pick up wins left and right over many of his Kansai peers, but even more impressive was his lack of a single underperformance at anything bigger than a D tier. While he would lose his round 1 at DELTA #9, he immediately followed it up with a lengthy losers run to 13th place as the 12th seed, being the only time he didn’t meet his seed at a major.
2024 was a year of incredible growth for alice, as he seems to have truly reached a new level and only continues to improve. Knowing alice, this won’t be close to the last we see of him, so look forward to seeing him reach new heights in 2025 all over again!
— Alice “AliceLen” Len
On the 11th of December 2024, alongside his departure from KINOTROPE gaming, the Hero Akakikusu announced that he had made the decision to quit his job to become a full time professional gamer. He explained the reasoning for his brave choice in a single sentence: If you don't strive to achieve the things you really want to do in life, you live with regret.
Now, this is quite an uncharacteristically heavy statement for the standards of the light-hearted and charismatic man that Akakikusu usually is; one might perhaps refer to him as a bit of a silly Billy, even. However, his form over the past year or so in results show how dead serious he is; he produced a mostly consistent string of top 8 placements at most ranked events he entered, including most notably his top 8 finish at Umebura SP 11 including wins over Raru, TamaPDaifuku, and Carmelo, and a third place finish at Sumabato SP 51 which saw him beat acola at a ranked event for the first time. Consistency is the one element that Akakikusu has always seemed to slightly lack over the past years since he first blew up onto the scene with that Hatchet Man he hit on zackray all those years ago, but some solid losers runs and the development of some secondaries for bad matchups (G&W and Roy) has helped prevent the man from bowing out of tournaments too early as of late.
With an exceptional 4th place run at Smash Awesome to kick off the new year, being unemployed has never looked so cool.
— Sean from somewhere
Japan’s premier Diddy Kong player Ryuoh is not to be overlooked, and he proved that fact with his very first performance of the season. After getting knocked into the losers bracket before top 32 at the P tier Kowloon x Kagaribi, Ryuoh assembled a five-set losers run, defeating KEN, Raru, Toriguri, Snow, and Akakikusu en route to a 7th place finish. It was a great reminder of what we already knew: on a good day, Ryuoh is a significant bracket threat.
That Kowloon run turned out to be Ryuoh’s best performance in the second half of 2024, but it certainly wasn’t his only good run. He placed 7th and 9th at consecutive Sumabato majors, beating alice, Gorioka, and picking up another win on Raru across the two events. His highest major placement and one of his best single wins of the season both came at the same event: UltCore 4 in November. There, he 3-0’d Doramigi into the losers bracket, then continued his run all the way to 5th place.
Ryuoh unfortunately didn’t get a chance to leave his home country this season, and I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing him compete elsewhere again. Whatever nation he ends up traveling to next, its top players better be prepared; if not, they’ll quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a banana kill confirm. Here’s to hoping we get to see Ryuoh travel more in 2025!
— Victor “AnonymousBadger” Mujat
During one of his Twitch streams about half a year ago, KEN ended up reacting to an old announcement YouTube video he had made on his channel a couple years further back about how he was planning to start co-maining Sephiroth with Sonic; a video which he spent the whole time watching with a sentimental grin on his face, laughing more and more hysterically every time he sees his past self refer to Sephiroth being a good character in any way (he said Sephiroth was top 10).
Although the Seph still makes the occasional appearance in times of need, 2024 saw KEN home in on his Sonic a lot more — with mixed results. A very unusual start to the season consisting of high highs in a solid performance at Smash Con and second places at DELTA #8.5 and SIRIUS only losing to Shuton, mixed with some uncharacteristic underperformances at some of the S tiers he attended had KEN in a very awkward position in this year’s rankings at one point. However, a 4th place finish at Don’t Park on the Grass with wins on Raru, Snow and Rarikkusu and victory at B tier Kyokkan #8 over Snow once more proved to be a neat wrap up to his season, and a gentle but stern reminder of KEN’s rock solid presence in the current landscape of Smash Ultimate — fueled by his seemingly everlasting determination to keep up with the new generation of top players.
— Sean from somewhere
Tea has always been one of the most consistent players of all time. Before this season, his lowest ever placement at a major was 17th, something that only one or two players with his amount of experience could say about themselves.
So when he got 33rd at Kowloon x Kagaribi, it was easily written off as a one off thing. But when he got 33rd at his very next event, Supernova, some doubts started to creep in. “Was his Kazuya not polished enough?” “Is the Pac-Man finally being figured out?”
His next tournament didn’t give much to go off one way or the other, as Tea had a relatively quiet run to 13th. But when his next travel destination got announced, the expectations for his season dropped like a rock. Many a Japanese player's season had faltered in the heart of Orlando, Florida, with Cirque and its accompanying invitational being the biggest perpetrators.
But Tea not only defied expectations, he completely smashed them. Winwise, he had what was possibly his best tournament in all of Ultimate’s history, beating Peabnut, Tweek, Hurt and Sparg0 en route to a 3rd place finish at Litvitational. Not only that, he also managed to beat Sparg0 that same weekend at Cirque 4, a player he had previously not even won a game against.
Now it seems that Tea is back, and might be better than ever. If he manages to combine his newfound peaks with his old consistency, the brawns of his Kazuya with the brains of his Pacman, Tea might be able to reach heights he has never reached before in the coming seasons.
— Jonas “Fortuna” Stritzinger
Central America’s titan strikes gold again. Despite some scattered attendance, consistency in his home region of Guatemala and solid few stateside appearances keeps up ShinyMark’s reputation as the best Pikachu in the world.
After an unusual loss to Cybil threatened to derail the start of his season, he’d go on to place third at Warehouse War 4, taking wins on Jahzz0, Omega, Mugen, and MuteAce in an 8 set losers extravaganza. His next stateside appearance at Luminosity Invitational 2 proved especially fruitful, with a win over Sonix that repeated one of his major early year achievements — as well as a win on Tweek to boot!
ShinyMark has been known to use powerful secondaries, with Marth and Ganondorf making up this season’s background characters at home for two Guatemalan C-Tier events: Ultimate Fight Fiestas 6 and 8.
Closing his season out, ShinyMark attended B+ invitational The Coinbox IRL, where he repeated a Jahzz0 win and collected additional hits on Syrup, Lima, and Onin to close his season out with a strong loss and win profile that aided his in-region consistency as Central America grows ever more powerful.
— Joshua “Barnard’s Loop” Craig
Marss had a fascinating season across the 6 events he entered: 3 invitationals, 3 open brackets. The divide served to provide a tale of two formats to Marss’ season: one in which he struggled to shine in the invitational setting, picking up just a lone win over SHADIC at the Luminosity Invitational 2, and one in which he found momentous victories in open brackets against top competition. In this regard, Marss started off his season in thunderous fashion, with a run to 9th out of over 2000 at Supernova. There he beat TM7_ZAP, Sisqui, and Miya before taking down Onin in a thrilling game 5 set. Though he’d fall from the event to acola, he did so in another game 5 set that pushed the audience to their limits.
Marss found another fantastic run at his home-state B+ tier Wavelength 2024, where he found wins over Amaryllis, Ling, BeastModePaul, Syrup, and Zomba in the runback, before pushing Light to the verge of a reset for a 2nd place finish. These two runs showcased that, when given the stage, Marss can still hang with the best in the world.
The creativity of Marss truly shined through in the open bracket this season, and put one of the game’s most exciting players back in the limelight. Looking forward to 2025, we’re excited to see what Marss can do across continued competition. It's clear the spark of competition still burns deep inside Marss, and when he chooses to let it loose, the entire world best be on notice.
— Ritual
While their attendance may have been low this season, Onin made sure to make their name known, making the most out of North America's two P tiers by placing 9th and 17th at Supernova 2024 and Riptide 2024 respectively. There aren’t many players in the world that could show that level of performance and consistency given just two major tournament opportunities against that level of talent. Two big regional wins and a 4th at “technically-not-a-major-but-looks-like-one” The Coinbox IRL would round out the year for the best player in the Midwest.
While a ranking this high has become pretty standard for Onin at this point, their second half of the year had some unusual highlights. Their first event of the season, B-Tier superregional Saturday Stadium 4 Golden featured a win on sleeping giant DDee… with R.O.B.? A “Pocket” character not many people knew about.
Also notable is that Onin took wins on the 3 best Sonic players in the world, in Sonix, KEN, and Wrath. Widely agreed to be one of Steve's worst matchups, one of Steve's ONLY LOSING MATCHUPS, Onin's success versus the character has led to heated discussion as to whether Steve truly loses the matchup. Now I'm no expert on either character, but it's clear Onin rises above the rest as the best player of that matchup in the world as a result of extensive studying and collaboration. Whether the matchup is truly not as bad as it once seemed or not, it can’t be stressed enough how much work and dedication Onin puts into everything they do.
— Nathaniel
It continues to be business as usual for New York’s heir crown prince, who has continued to remain one of his region’s most active top players. Entering a whopping 16 ranked events this LumiRank season, 9 events were in either Tristate or New England. Zomba found himself near dominant across these events, placing no lower than third and only losing to only Light, Marss, Tweek, Syrup, and Bruho at a ranked event across both regions. He also won two thirds of his in region events, and was a combined +4 against in-region players with a set on him this season.
At the other 7 ranked events he entered, Zomba showcased that as good as he is in region, he doesn’t really care what region you’re from, he’ll just beat you anyway, whether you’re a top player or a hidden boss. He found wins against Goblin, Muteace, and ShinyMark at Warehouse War 4; Nathaniel, AnthonyIsntCool, IcyMist, Chase, and Peabnut at Supernova; against Tweek, GuyGuy, ATATA, Jahzz0, and Leviathan at Riptide for 7th; on Sparg0, MkLeo 2x, TM7_ZAP, and Light at Luminosity Invitational 2, for 4th. Zomba’s play and his season reflects what he knows and what you should too: he’s one of the best. If you don’t like it, beat him if you can. Zomba isn’t going anywhere but up anytime soon.
— Ritual
