Smash Bros Ultimate this year has been dominated by two players, MKLeo and Sparg0.
The latter, is a 16-year-old who rose from winning his first few majors at the beginning of the year to being in constant competition for the top spot. There is a lot of pressure in competing at this tier though. This week, Sparg0 has announced he’ll be stepping away from Smash Bros Ultimate for a little way to prioritize his mental health.
© Beyond the Summit
Sparg0 needs a break
Sparg0 has taken to Twitter this week to explain that he’s taking an indefinite hiatus from Super Smash Bros. The player has had a fast rise this year. While hardly unknown, his recent results catapulted him to the top of a lot of majors.
Sparg0 career started on Smash Bros for WiiU, where he largely played Cloud. Once Ultimate got started though the player really moved forward. He began to dominate in tournaments during the COVID-19 pandemic. The player excelled in this period and broke out of his normal placements to hit the highest tier of rankings. From here, Sparg0 started to land in the top few places at Majors and work his way up. This culminated at Smash Ultimate Summit 4. Here he stomped the rest of the competition, winning the event and droping no sets. He performed amazingly, even against players like MKLeo and Light.
He went on to win Collision 2022 only a week later. This firmly established Sparg0 as one of the best players in the world. These recent results put him in direct competition with MKLeo, who also claimed his fair share of major wins this year.
Sparg0 even joined up with FaZe Clan in April 2022 as the orgs first ever fighting game representative. While this rise seemed all positive, it seems Sparg0 was pushing through some personal pressures behind the scenes of these wins.
Sparg0 Takes Hiatus from Smash Bros
Sparg0 is taking an indefinite hiatus from Smash Bros because of some mental health concerns. The player didn’t get too specific with what was happening with him, but made clear that he can’t compete right now.
Important information regarding future tournaments
Read: https://t.co/4BEWj2QdTu
— FaZe Sparg0 (@Sparg0ssb) June 21, 2022
Sparg0’s statement pre-empted the idea that it was a poor performance at the Gimvitational behind the hiatus too. Most in the Smash community have been supportive o of him taking a break. If a player can’t play at his best, there’s no shame in taking a bit of time off. Ultimate is unlikely to look too much different if he ever feels like returning! Although, the top rankings may change a bit in the meantime.
Who Will Step up to Take Sparg0’s place?
With Sparg0 stepping away for the remainder of the year, who are the competitors left at the top level of Ultimate? The obvious name would be MKLeo. The two were the main suspects for Majors all year. Sparg0 does leave the 2nd ranked player spot open though. This could give MKLeo a clear run, but there are always new challenger coming forward.
Gluttony and Light have both had strong performances this year. Gluttony has some big wins of his own already, including at Pound 2022. Light has just lost out to Sparg0 in Smash Summit, but is still a top tier competitor. These two players could take Sparg0 place as the main challenges and keep things interesting in Smash for the remainder of the year.
Sparg0’s quick rise to prominence in Super Smash Bros was one of the most impressive runs we’ve seen in Ultimate to date. It’s a shame that he will not be competing, at least for a while. However, he already has more accomplishments to be proud of in the game than most.
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