Salting the Roads for 2025 [Photo Galleries]
Something different was in the air as over 60 players from Upstate NY and invading regions from the North, West, and South at the first ever Salt the Roads on March 2.
A Nouns funding round to Swoggles and a last-minute change of venue to Syracuse’s ELITE Gaming Arena brought us back to the space for the first time since King of Upstate.
As first big regional of the year, it came only a day after the reveal of the first modern PR for Upstate Melee and just a month after Zanya, Agent, BING, and OG Kid were ranked in the SSBM Rank for the first time.
As such, we were given the most clear view of how, as Edwing Budding put it, Upstate NY “basically took over Melee overnight” – giving everyone something to prove.
Would it be Zanya, recently crowned #1 for 2024? BING, recently ranked the highest on SSBM Rank? Agent, coming back to Upstate to prove that his wins over aMSa and Aklo were not a fluke? OG Kid, coming back home with family cheering him on after a year of intensive travel to majors and becoming the youngest ranked player ever? Or the like of Boyd, Holiday, DarkGenex, or Maher trying to be the first invader in modern history to win an Upstate regional?
The bracket was brutal, with only a few down to the wire game 5 sets in top 16 where OG Kid triumphed over Agent in winners, and Agent clawed back through losers vs Pig and Maher.
For the first time outside of a grand finals reset situation, both Agent and BING took sets off of Zanya, meeting in grand finals where BING took it 3-0 after using four different characters in bracket.
Zanya finished 3rd, just below them, with OG Kid finishing 4th – finishing us out in SSBM Rank order.
Of course, by that time half the venue’s eyes had drifted from the main stream and were instead watching the intense game 10 finals of the massive 28 person redemption bracket between wcbq and Jboss.
Thanks to Nouns for giving us (yet another) great opportunity to see our players succeed!
Great job and thanks to all the work by Swoggles, NickleBackAir, and all of the Syracuse University students that helped bring the event to life!
Photo Galleries
Atheen (Send Tip$ Here)
Toastly! (Send Tip$ Here)
Syracuse University Students Malcolm Taylor & Charles Lavion
Results
Event highlights
- Agent’s plot armor victory against Maher in game 5
- OG Kid’s family coming to cheer and support him on his return to CNY
- BING pulling out Doc to beat Blooky, Falcon to beat Maher, and Falco to beat Zanya – bringing his character count to 4 for the event
- Pig returns to competition for the first time since QYF 5, beating rainy, Poseidon, and gialla
- Holiday and Boyd, traveling far after Fight Pitt 10, took doubles after right sets vs the strong teams of Avie/BING, OG Kid/Zanya and SwebBy/ayeGiohh
- Poseidon’s run, nearly beating Pig in game 5, taking down Tsunami, Birdie, and Alright beating before falling to DPD
- ICs ditto of Boyd and SwebBy
- Let me know if you have any more!
VODs
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