A momentous 2016 for Team Liquid's Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma cemented him as the second best player in Super Smash Bros Melee, but going into this weekend's Genesis 4 in San Jose, California, he will be losing his second seed.
Tournament organizers, after consulting with top players, have agreed to seed Hungrybox fifth instead of second, due to a finger injury he sustained earlier this month playing dodgeball. Hungrybox was consulted about the decision and ultimately agreed to the change.
At this point, he can still compete and has the ability to beat most players, but it's hard to know what his peak is with this injury. This has forced the seeding team at Genesis 4 to rethink based on how Hungrybox would perform with a handicap. This means that his "bracket up to winner's quarter's will be roughly the same difficulty, but because we have a distinct top-five in Melee, the 4/5 seeds basically have to beat one more 'god' (as opposed to a Plup/Westballz/SFAT level player) in order to win the tournament," said Genesis 4 Tournament Organizer and Melee it on Me's Sheridan "Dr. Z" Zalewski.
Now that Hungrybox is the fifth seed in the tournament, he faces a more difficult bracket, and the dynamics of the tournament have changed too.
Tournaments try and distribute players evenly throughout the bracket. This is to ensure that low level players aren't matched with top level talent, or that two top level players don't have to battle it out early in tournament. The idea is to have an even spread, to ensure that certain parts of the bracket aren't top loaded. This also means that the top seeds are worth more clout, and must therefore be balanced with lesser competition; this is the inherent advantage to being seeded first as opposed to fifth.
It also means now that Alliance's Adam "Armada" Lindgren, Cloud9's Joseph "Mang0" Marquez, and Hungrybox, currently the top three in Melee, are on the same side of the bracket.
"I just hope that, in the case that I misperform at this tournament due to the seeding, that I don't get badly seeded for future events. That would hurt very much considering the work I put in 2016 to get my consecutive #2 SSBMRank," said Hungrybox
"By basing seeding on something perceived rather than concrete, even if the perception is logical, [tournament organizers] are opening the gates for players to feel the need to hide numerous aspects of their lives," said Keith LaLonde, formerly of Smash United, and the man who ran last year's Clutch City Clash in Houston, Texas. "Does this open the gate for a TO to say 'Oh Mew2King is extra moody this week, I don't think he will perform well' and seed him lower regardless of past performance? While that seems absolutely absurd to think about or say, this is realistically the sort of precedent that it could set."
Other tournament organizers, such as Splyce's Michael "Nintendude" Brancato, agreed with Genesis 4's seeding team. "For physical injuries it's probably okay. In this case there is empirical evidence that his injury affects his ability to play and they did their due diligence in talking to the affected people," he said.
But many online have been calling into question what a decision like this could mean for injuries sustained in the future by top players.
"If we're a community of friends, then awesome, fifth seed for-the-win, but if this is a professional sport, we can't be improvising," said Chris "Wife" Fabiszak, one of the main organizers behind Super Smash Con. "Who is to say? No one, really, because this injury is entirely unique and one week old. I wouldn't advocate on seeding anything that was entirely unique and one week old."