Several Bayonetta players made it into the Super Smash Brothers 4 finals at Evo 2018 this year, although surprisingly, last year’s Evo winner and Bayonetta player Saleem “Salem” Akiel Young wasn’t one of them.

Salem’s upset last year coincided with the longstanding debate over whether Bayonetta’s combo-linking abilities make her an unfair opponent, and after tonight’s results, that debate shows no signs of slowing down.

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it has gotten harder and harder for Smash tournaments and pro players to keep using the controller for which it was originally made.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.

Super Smash Brothers: Melee pro Adam "Armada" Lindgren has stepped down from his position as a panellist for the game's rules committee to open it up for more female representation. The committee, spearheaded by the community platform Melee It On Me, aims to standardise all Melee tournament guidelines.

Last Sunday, as two top League of Legends teams battled in Boston's TD Banknorth Garden in front of thousands of cheering fans, a stadium usher grumbled a complaint that a lot of first-time esports spectators mention. The pro players, whose facial expressions appeared in close-up on big screens all over the stadium, seemed way too chill.

Johnny "S2J" Kim started a chair-raising trend this past weekend at Shine 2017, a Super Smash Brothers major at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, MA. It all started during Saturday's Melee pools and lasted through the rest of the weekend.

On Sunday night, the Super Smash Brothers: Melee tournament at Shine 2017 forced a controversial rematch between William "Leffen" Hjelte and Daniel "ChuDat" Rodriguez, partway through the Top 8 finals. It all came down to a new rule about a Melee controller modification.

Some of the world's best Smash Bros. players say they are owed thousands of dollars for their performances in a tournament called BEAST 7 held in Sweden last February.

The Home Run Contest mode in Super Smash Brothers looks straightforward. You choose one of the game's fighters and face off against an inanimate sandbag. As a 10-second timer counts down, you try to inflict as much damage as possible on the bag. Depending on how much damage you dole out, the bag could end up flying several thousand metres. But if you want to beat the world record with any character in the Home Run Contest, then you're going to have to learn some unconventional strategies that have taken years for players to discover.

Super Smash Bros. is not a traditional fighting series. There are no health bars, no walled-in arenas, and no fatalities. But there are millions of fans. And while dozens of fighting franchises have a fanbase, there's none quite like the competitive Smash community.