Weeks ago, Battle of BC 6 concluded. The event series, hosted in Vancouver, evolved from one of several Pacific Northwestern regionals that saw growth to a flashpoint major series.
When international travel took off after Quarantine ended, it was the starting step for Japan’s gradual climb to holding half of ranked positions globally. Last year, it saw the successful international debut of Yoshidora, and featured one of Japan’s best cross-continental performances in the competitive history of Smash – though Sparg0 would ultimately defend North America’s honor.
This time, things were more reserved. Despite initially looking like a Premier Tier event – the highest a supermajor can go – flight issues, Easter plans, illness, and other causes sapped the event to an A+ Tier. More stacked than the 2022 iteration that KEN won, but not quite the event one might’ve expected.
Most discussion on this has gone out the window, probably because it ended up being pretty historic and compelling. The capstone of this? Hurt’s solo Snake performance – one that is historic for a number of reasons, and represents the current peak of one of the fastest rising careers in Smash Bros.
A lot of prodigy careers in Ultimate have been near-instant. Acola and Miya both saw unprecedented success nearly immediately, but this is not true for Hurt, and I think that’s why he, and players like him, are so interesting.
As recently as late 2022 and early 2023, you would not assume Hurt would emerge as someone who would hold a winning set record over Sparg0. His first real breakout offline was probably Golden Week’s Kagaribi 10, where he shrugged off a loss to Yez and tore through losers to 13th, where Dabuz narrowly beat him.
From here, the trajectory went way, way, way up;
Comparing this to before Kagaribi 10, you get;
While not a bad player by any stretch, any idea that this would evolve into a near year long stint at placing top 12 minimum would simply be guesswork. Snake is a very heavily played character in Ultimate’s metagame, and the initial peak success seen in 2019 started to rapidly decline as players adapted.
For discussions of what Ultimate’s late game meta is – one that is swamped with the likes of Steve, Sonic, G&W, Kazuya, and so on – it is captivating that Hurt went from a depth player out of Kyushu into a likely top 10 contender through sheer commitment to a more “Traditional” high tier character like Snake. All the stumbling blocks you can imagine seemed to occur and he’s still managed a lot.
The culmination – his run at Battle of BC 6 – may simply be the beginning. There’s a lot of potential here, and it bucks against the usual trend we’ve seen; Japan will often tear up major brackets, even dominate them to an extent, but Sparg0 often silences the conversation on who is at the very top by the end of the bracket.
Sparg0 after winning Collision 2024. Credit/Source: Collision Gaming Series.
Sparg0 is Japan’s worst nightmare. This isn’t to say he’s invulnerable against them, but betting odds tend to be heavily in his favor. Lest you believe this is simply a product of him being a top 4 player, this extends to players like Acola and Miya. Both of those players held a relentless grip over North America and both stunningly won their first out-of-country majors, but Sparg0 holds a 3-0 record over Miya and a commanding 7-1 record over Acola.
Sonix, North America’s other top player, also has a solid record, but he is less battle tested against the country. Across most of Japan’s best, Sparg0 holds a staggering 35-7 record, with two of his losing records being players he has only fought once. You may notice the one glaring exception: Hurt.
Sparg0’s records.
Sonix’s records.
Even more surprising then that the only player who took Hurt to game five at Battle of BC 6 ended up being Toriguri, whose highly successful NA debut became another big story that weekend. This article is about Hurt and his progression to a global top ten, but it is worth noting that I could’ve easily been writing about, say, Doramigi instead – who also had a successful NA debut.
As one might expect, Japan’s flourishing Wifi scene may have helped a lot here, though Hurt put in the travel time to go to other regions within the country. As stated before, he resides in Kyushu;
Japan may be far smaller than America, but traveling from his home prefecture in Kagoshima to Osaka – where the Maesuma U-22 series is held – is several hours and hundreds of miles, and Kyushu itself has only recently become a fruit-bearing region outside of the early rising of Shuton & Kome’s careers. Notably, the country had just two major-capable regions (Kanto and Kansai) until the KOWLOON series in Kyushu (and later UltCore in Chubu) broke this drought.
KOWLOON is probably more significant for West Japan than UltCore is since it provides easier reach for Shikoku & Chugoku residents depending on the prefecture, and Hurt’s emergence as a global talent and the upcoming KOWLOON x Kagaribi may drive more of West Japan’s talents out.
For now, Hurt stands to gain a lot from Golden Week. Even if his consistency fell out from under him for an event or two, I don’t think it would be catastrophic for his season, but continuing to perform as consistently as he has the last several months could put him in contention for the top three, at least for the half year.
Alongside SHADIC and Doramigi, Hurt is one of the principle players to watch this year; all have had meteoric rises and main characters that haven’t quite been constantly controversial, denting the idea that you need to main them to win at all. The Four Horsemen – Sonix, Sparg0, Acola, and Miya – probably will have the hardest year of their careers to contend for that #1 spot when the talent pool seems to keep expanding.
Contrary to Trent Reznor’s song Hurt, I don’t think Hurt has let anybody down. Here’s hoping for more Snake success!
Brief Announcement – Firefly Fridays
It’s been a while since I’ve written an article, but I intend to begin to do weekly or biweekly columns here on this blog called Firefly Fridays. Most of these article subjects will be small things, like character meta updates, smaller player profiles, and maybe some event previews. Hoping to publish one discussing Ike tomorrow!
In The Loop 