In the 16 years since Super Smash Brothers: Melee came out, it has gotten harder and harder for Smash tournaments and pro players to keep using the controller for which it was originally made. GameCube controllers are getting old. The best ones are are hard to find and expensive to maintain. And some players complain that they cause hand pain.

Call it a curse. Call it a jinx. Something is currently afflicting a series of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U tournaments. The Saga events are run by a group called 2GGaming in Southern California and are typically named after a player or players who have been flown in to compete. The problem is that, over the course of 13 separate tournaments, none of these individuals have been able to win the competitions bearing their names.

Last weekend's Super Smash Bros. 4 tournament, one of the most anticipated yet, was a wrestling-style rivalry match between two crews led by two Smash titans. Drawing over 50,000 viewers, Civil War was a DIY event from the ground up. It's the kind of event that could only exist around a gaming community left to its own devices, with essentially no meddling from developers or publishers.