HDRank 2023
Written by @getrektangles, @BigSoo22, @TopHatSTL, @AnchorNJ, @MrWasTaken, Mangachu
Rounding out the Top 25, the Greninja/Samus player AutoMagic would make waves early on in HDR’s life with a 2nd place at the first HDR major Undertow 2022. From there he would travel over to Frosty Faustings 2023, in an attempt to keep up the momentum and make a real effort towards sealing himself as one of the best to grace the sticks. He would go on to secure a solid 4th place finish amassing wins over Kicker, Tspeeds, S.N.E.S.s and Nibbs.
As the year progressed, AutoMagic would continue to expand his character roster as he entered more events, all while providing some of the craziest clips. Finishing off the latter half of 2023, AutoMagic would invade Waypoint Rumble 2, finishing 4th and then going to win Sunset in Sapulpa over Domlax, Tia and Ben L x2. Overall, he has proven to be a major bracket threat and someone who shouldn't be taken lightly if you find him in your path.
~ rektangles
JM1-3 follows up on his successful trial run of HDR at Undertow 2022 with a ripe #24 spot on the HDRankfor the year. Despite already committing to a game in Rivals Workshop, Jordan’s presence within the HDR community is certainly felt at every bracket he goes to. The Pennsylvania native found a strong balance between these two games and proved that despite not owning the game during Undertow 2022, he could still come in, learn, and compete with several of the top dogs coming in from other scenes.
Jordan started his year off hot, clinching a 2nd place finish at Gigaton Hammer going solo Plant, only sporting losses to an uncrowned queen in Frozen at the time while taking out Jut, Rex, and Hobbes2 all in losers. After the event that night, Jordan was playing friendlies with a few people, hovered over Isabelle, then out loud said “Why would anyone look at all these characters on the screen and pick Isabelle?”
In the most “f*** around and find out” way, Jordan then discovered his main character for the rest of the year. He’d use her for brackets like High Rez where we saw him take sets off of Arhungry and SolarBeam before bowing out to Kamex in losers, who he would end up getting his revenge on at Undertow 2023 on the way to clean 9th place at the event. His Isabelle’s run would turn sour when changes were made post-Undertow to weaken the character, which is when he then turned his face to Pokemon Trainer and has yet to look back ever since. We’ve already seen that his Trainer can get to a similar point of his Isabelle, even netting another win on Kamex at the November edition of Cream of the Crop. As he gets more acquainted with his new trio, we can only hope to see him show up more and bring in more heads from the Workshop scene. Who knows, maybe he’ll get a few HDR players to get into Workshop!
~ matt!
It's pretty safe to say that if there was any HDR event anywhere, Kamex was most likely there as well. Entering a whopping 17 qualifying events for the 2023 season, the Duck Hunt expert with his Jigglypuff secondary were able to secure their place at rank 23. At a handful of events early on and sprinkled throughout the season, he would place right outside of the top eight while still clinching wins on players such as Grunk, Anchor, Beast and Lardo. With all the experience gained from the sheer amount of tournaments Kamex went to, it was only a matter of time before some breakout performances occurred.
First it would come to fruition at Meteor 2, where he would place 5th earning wins on Mini, Mr.Watch&Learn, Max Ketchum and Mlarcin. This would be followed up immediately by a 4th place finish at High Rez where Kamex would defeat JM1-3 and Papaya as well as earning repeat wins on Beast and Max. It's safe to say that with the amount of travel and consistent performances, this won’t be the first time we see Kamex appear in the Top 50.
~ rektangles
Although his tweets might fool some people into thinking Jut is only a comedian, he’s shown to be a threat on the sticks for any opponent that lies in his bracket path. The Project M enthusiast, NASB2 play tester, and former NJ Ultimate PR player started the year with a 7th place finish at Gigaton Hammer, the first HDR major of the year. Traveling from the northeast to both Carolinas, Illinois, and Virginia during 2023, Jut has shown his skills across the country with consistent placings and quality wins on Arhungry, Anchor, Hobbes2, and JM1-3. Despite his home region being one of the strongest regions for HDR in Tristate, Jut finished in the top 12 of every event he entered this year.
While his Wolf has had the spotlight at big events in 2023, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Jut continue making top 8s in 2024 with Wolf and even more characters. Tristate locals have seen the full force of Jut’s character roster, from Wario to Mega Man to whoever else catches his eye on the character select screen, all of them seemingly at a similar skill to his main. Whether Jut has more banger tweets or Wolf flash kills in bracket is a question that is currently unsolved, but regardless of the answer, he’ll go wherever an HDR setup is to show off his fast paced gameplay and the latest broken character in the nightly build.
~ Anchor
Landing at the #21 spot is New Jersey’s man of many mains, Lardo. With a playstyle as enigmatic and versatile as his character pool, Lardo has found success in and out of region with a multitude of characters which is quite the feat. In a game as young as HDR oftentimes characters have drastic changes to their kits and gameplay as betas come and go. However, Lardo shows this to be of little concern to him, piloting more characters in brackets than we can include on the graphic. Although you would think he mains the random button, when it’s time to get down to business you can expect to see him on his powerhouse King Dedede making quick work of those who look to challenge him and the self-proclaimed King of Dreamland.
Lardo would make his breakout onto the national scene with a trip up to the great white north for Randall’s Room. Here he would show that ice cold competition was nothing to him and pushed through the blizzard until ultimately falling to Canada’s King of Modded Smash, Rongunshu. From here he’d claw his way to a 3rd place finish falling to Ravenking in losers finals. Lardo would return home to Tristate a powerful threat, showing this 3rd place finish was no fluke. He would watch his resume grow more and more prestigious as he would pick up wins on many of Tristate's finest such as Rex, Beast, Papaya and JM1-3 to name a few. Armed with an ever growing arsenal of characters all with the common goal of infuriating their opponents at every interaction, we can only expect to see Lardo make a bigger and bolder name for himself in 2024.
~ Mr.Watch&Learn
There has yet to be a road that stingers hasn’t driven on in his smash career. He’s been on the Melee highway, traveled all along the Brawl interstate, took the Project M backroads to get to exit Smash 4, and even stopped at the 4XM rest stop before contemplating whether to stay on track towards the Ultimate freeway or to deviate and go back towards those familiar backroads he was at before where new openings have opened up. Judging by the whopping eight characters he used throughout last year, I think it’s safe to say that he’s enjoying his cruise through the roads of HDR. Despite having characters like Villager in the pocket for things like doubles, we saw stingers eventually land on the group of Aegis, Samus, and Robin when it came to the bigger brackets. How he’s able to juggle all of these characters at once is a mystery to everyone, but it certainly shows that this old driver still has what it takes to be up here with the newer and younger generation.
Despite only having five qualified brackets for the year, stingers made sure to make the most of the openings that were given to him. He instantly kicked off the year with a bracket win at Codename: Smash Next Door without dropping a single game against the likes of Jut, Ashtoric, and Hobbes2 before getting bullied out of The Doghouse by top Ultimate players Anathema and moxi. Lightning decided to strike twice at Patchwork where we would see him lose to the newly minted #14 on the SSBMRank, Salt, and also another top Ultimate player in Juanpi. After this, he decided to take his talents to Warp Zone 2 only to face an early bracket loss to the local Illinois dede-demon in evilest lesbian.
This early upset wouldn’t disturb stingers however, as he would break the game-invasion player curse early on by beating fair, 22james, and Terrion before getting his runback on evil lesbian in a game five barnburner. He’d end up losing to Ravenking in another game 5 ending his run at 5th, but he would take these losses into account and add Samus to his arsenal of characters. We would see him return for his first qualified bracket in 3 months at Kayla’s Spooky Smash 3, where we’d see a surge back to form to win the bracket over a revitalized Jut, Ben L, and two wins over the titan of the development team member Wish (f.k.a JFyst). With the game-invasion curse now lifted and now being a contributor to the mod, we can expect a lot more coming from this guy going into the new season whether it's in-game, or in-person.
~ matt!
Samuel Quick aka Mr. Quick is one of HewDraw Remix’s most prominent multi-game talents. Throughout 2023 alone, they entered brackets for Tekken 8, Granblue, Strive, Street Fighter 6, Smash Ultimate, Melee and of course, HDR. Their home state of Oklahoma has been one of the hotbeds for modded Smash top players over the last year, with Mr. Quick’s Falco bubbling to the very top.
Quick’s HDR career started in the later half of the ranking period, putting them on the lower side of qualifying events entered compared to the other players on this list. However, that didn’t stop him from having knock out performances in all of these qualifying brackets. This includes a 1st place out of 35 at Waypoint Rumble 2 and a silver medal at LA Super Nexus VII where they double eliminated LMMM winner Kryu. It’s clear that, both instate and abroad, Mr. Quick has the skills to compete with the best.
~ 22james
Everyone’s favorite Bear n’ Bird believer is back yet again to leave his mark on another modded smash title. This time, he sports the highest rank he has yet to have across any game, debuting at #19 on the HDRank. Mr.Watch&Learn is lovable no matter what he’s doing, whether it’s TOing Cream of the Crop, providing insightful commentary while spitting out hilarious quips, or up smashing us to send us crying into the blast zone at 80%. He’s also one of the most active players this season, with the help of him flying out to the midwest not just once, but twice to show his love for the game and the community. When asked about his thoughts on getting ranked in the top 20 this season, this is what he had to say: "How tf yall let a dude play the game for like 3 months and get top 20 level Ult heads BTFO LMAOOOOO."
He wouldn’t start his venture into HDR rocking the rare (limited) duo at first though, originally starting with Incineroar at Lake George Showdown before Banjo was given the new tools that he has today, but that was all he needed to start cooking. He stayed in the lab until June’s Cream of The Crop and let the bird fly to a 5th-place finish with wins over Billy Schilly and Rex. Having the duo in Tristate’s eyes wasn’t his only intention though, he wanted everyone to see the bear and bird on display with full force, so he decided to travel out to Warp Zone 2.
It was that weekend when Spencer proved to people that Banjo should be respected in the metagame as he acquired set wins on Star and Ravenking at the pre-local, while also netting an additional win on Jackson during the main bracket. We would see him translate that success into stronger bracket runs in-region with two 3rd place showings at Emergency Run That Back Again! and Blacklisted 8, but it would all come to fruition when he trespassed onto Iowa grounds at Honeypot 8 where he would make top 8 with wins over Nebraska’s HDK and 22james. Even though the bear and the bird have had some unfavorable changes as of late, we can be safe to assume that Spencer will find his footing and continue to beat up his friends no matter what the modded title is.
~ matt!
There’s something to be said about tournament organizers being good at mod games, and Face is a prime example of that statement. A longtime competitor dating back to the Brawl and PM days, he continues to show his prowess in HDR with Zelda leading the way to his success while also operating the AON venue in Long Island for most of the year. One of the most consistent competitors on this list, Face finished in the top eight of all but one event he entered this year while earning wins on Raventoli, Marcus, Papaya, and Arhungry.
Perhaps the most impressive feat is his performance at The Underground, the Smash Con shadow major that almost didn’t happen. With about a week before the event and no word on a venue able to host HDR, Face led the team that put together the event, purchasing chairs from the nearby Walmart and putting together ten setups in his hotel room (including the infamous bathroom setup) until 3 am. Between calling matches through Discord to players waiting in the hotel lobby and reporting sets, he defeated Max Ketchum and Arhungry en route to a 7th place finish. Whether Face is TOing, competing, or doing both at the same time, he’s an opponent any competitor would be scared to see in their bracket path.
~ Anchor
No matter what specific smash community you belong to in Tristate, you have surely been on the receiving end of the electrifying knee of rising Falcon multi-game one trick Anchor. An upstanding member of the community and triple threat in Melee, Project M, and HDR, this New Jersey native is constantly showing his growing efficiency and mastery of the F-Zero star across all iterations of the character. However, it is here in the growing landscape of HDR that Anchor has found a solid footing and, alongside his fellow pilot Ozma, has begun to mold and push the Falcon meta to heights not yet seen and show a new side to Douglas’ ever growing resume of flashy playstyles. Although met with some roadblocks along the way, Anchor piloted the Blue Falcon to a 16th place finish on this inaugural ranking.
Anchor sports a hefty resume for this year and saw a powerful tour across the east coasts with stops in Virginia for The Underground and Massachusetts for Shine out of Shield, boasting top six finishes at both with collective wins over Face, Papaya, Average Alex and Mlarcin. At The Scarlet Classic 2023 we would see Anchor first show that spark of greatness with a 2nd place finish with a grand finals reset over Marcus. He would also see victory over GuyGuy, Rivers, and Papaya on this run. From there Anchor would build quite a powerful resume throughout the rest of the year seeing victory over the likes of Average Alex, Mlarcin, Face and Mr. Mojo Risin’. With a burning desire to improve his Falcon in every way and game, we can only expect to see this Falcon ace pilot the Blue Falcon to even stronger 2024.
~ Mr.Watch&Learn
Gatekeeping the top 15 of the inaugural HDRank and wearing the modern day crown as King of New Jersey is Arhungry. Being one of the more established dual mains in the scene wielding an elusive Sheik and lethal Meta Knight, Arhungry found a strong balance between the two and established himself as not just a local threat but a powerhouse of a competitor on the national scale. Although he would see a slippery start to the year, Arhungry would find his stride and continue at an amazing pace to the upper echelons of brackets, even seeing gold medals on his way up to the top.
Arhungry would first make his mark at High Rez with a 5th place finish securing wins over fellow New Jersey threat Anchor and Long Island Plant Main Blackbird. Not satisfied with his finish at High Rize, Arhungry would travel up north to Randall’s Room, HDRs shadow major for GOML. It would be here that Arhungry would establish himself as a threat on the national scale, cutting down the Canadian guard that stood before him flawlessly as well as securing a perfect winners final victory on Ravenking.
Although dropping set one in grands Arhungry would stand strong and take the Canada major over his fellow US invader in the second set. Finishing out the year in powerful fashion, we have already seen Arhungry carry this momentum into 2024 and further continue his reign over his home state and anyone who dares invade it. With a heart shaped locket with Meta Knight inside and the Triforce of Wisdom in hand, we can absolutely expect to see Arhungry at the head of the pack continuing into 2024.
~ Mr.Watch&Learn
Bryan “HDK” Sandoval, the Snake with many names, had an incredible first year of competing at a national level in HewDraw Remix. The Nebraska resident has an impressive and diverse resume over his decade of competing in Smash 4, Ultimate, and Project+. He’s a staple top three finisher in any and all side events locally, making him a TOs worst nightmare. The history books will have hotdogknight409 penned as not only one of the best Smashers to come from the midwest, but also one of the most committed to competition.
Peter Weber’s statistical highlight of the year is by far his first place at Honeypot 5. Not dropping a set and taking home the gold at one of the biggest events of the year is not something many other competitors in the top 50 can boast about. On top of that, HP5 was a major contribution to his astonishing 4-0 set count against fellow midwest talent Ozma. This event will forever be remembered by Nebraskans for a completely different reason though, as Rusty Shackleford tore his ACL while popping off for YGL during top 8. Leaving the venue with a trophy and wheelchair is definitely something no one else on the ballot list can touch.
~ 22james
In the somewhat isolated lands of upstate New York’s capital region, Average Alex has made a name for himself as both the best Ultimate and HDR in his region. Starting his HDR journey in February, his season began as best as it possibly could by winning Lake George Showdown in his home region after beating Grunk, Raventoly, and Frozen without dropping a set. This marks Alex as one of four players who have won a tournament over Frozen in 2023, and he sought more competition against Tristate’s best players after this victory.
Traveling to both Impact and Meteor 1, Alex placed 5th and 3rd, respectively at the stacked Tristate events, collecting wins on Face, Jut, Blackbird, and SolarBeam to cement his spot as a top player against the field. However, we wouldn’t see him compete in HDR again until August, where Alex competed in the back to back east coast majors Smash Con and Shine. With wins on Raventoly and Kamex for a 5th place finish at Shine, Alex added another top six finish at a major to round out an impressive year in HDR. If there’s a chance to see him compete again in 2024, his crew of sword characters will surely slice through some of the best HDR has to offer.
~ Anchor
Perhaps the most mysterious appearance on this ranking has to go to Marcus, but that’s not because of his results. A longtime NJ PR player in Smash 4 and globally 43rd rank on the Spring 2019 PGR for Ultimate, Marcus has proven himself across multiple titles as a strong competitor. HDR was no different for Gonz, sweeping a handful of Tristate locals and placing in the top six of all four HDRank events he entered with his infamous Samus after picking up the game in early 2023. However, disappointed with the state of the game after the recovery sweep patch, Marcus disappeared from the HDR scene, making a return to Ultimate to, well, sweep more Tristate locals.
However, in his short time competing in HDR he still made waves with wins on Frozen, Rex, and Papaya. An early loss at Impact couldn’t stop him from going on a six set losers run to 5th place, a placement he shared at perhaps the most stacked regional of all time in Meteor 1. His resume also includes a tournament win at Scarlet Classic, defeating Papaya for the second time in 2023 as well as Jut and Anchor. Although it’s a pipedream we’ll see Marcus compete and elbow bump after his HDR sets again, his spot on the HDRank is well deserved, as any competitor he’s faced can probably tell you the legends of his Samus.
~ Anchor
The Dragon of Pennsylvania, Beast, makes a debut as explosive as his flare blitzes on this inaugural HDRank, gate keeping the top ten with his tried and true starter Charizard and showing that his one trick…lizard?–can not only hold its own but excel in a new realm that is HDR. Already an established Zard in the world of base Ultimate, Beast looked for new challenges to conquer, and after discovering HDR and seeing no one making waves with Pokemons Poster Boy Starter, he knew what he must do. Familiarizing himself with his old friend in this new region, Beast set out on his quest to become HDR Master and conquer the many rivals waiting for him.
With entering a new game we are sure to see growing pains and time to adjust and Beast took his time to find his temp, and once he did, he conducted brackets and sets with ease. We would see Beast first establish his presence at The Underground, Super Smash Con’s shadow major. We would see Beast go on a monster run taking sets over major bracket threats in Face, Asashi, Ravenking, and Mr. Mojo Risin’.
He would only be bested by Frozen in both winners and grand finals and would go home with a shiny silver medal placing. Beast would continue with this momentum and push onto Shine’s shadow event Shine Out of Shield. Here he would take down the likes of fellow Tristate invaders in New Jersey’s Arhungry and Anchor, only to be silenced by Mr. Mojo Risin’ who was seeking revenge from their last meeting at The Underground. Although he stands just outside the peak of the mountain, Beast has shown he can very easily go toe to toe with those above him and even emerge victorious when on his game. In 2024 we could very easily see him break out into the very best of the best.
~ Mr.Watch&Learn
Papaya might be an unknown player to anyone outside of the region of Tristate, but everyone in Tristate knows how much of a demon Papaya is when it comes to picking up new games, and HDR was certainly not an exception. People may say the realm of HDR is a hard one to acquaint yourself with, but Papaya dispelled those rumors if anything by facing several of the characters that people would deem as “matchup checks” head first with his duo of Falco and Greninja throughout the year. It’s not like he’s limited to just these characters either, as his niche Wolf pick came out to take a game vs Frozen, so who knows what else he has hidden in his back pocket for the upcoming new year. That is, if he isn’t flaking of course.
Papaya’s resume this year is heavy despite not traveling out of his region. He entered 14 brackets and only missed out on the top 8 at 2 of these events, those of which were lost in the qualifier to get there. His first event was the first entry of the Meteor series, but even then we could tell that Jacob was destined to make a mark on this game, losing to already established names at the time JM1-3 and Marcus, but he would prove to be consistent until Emergency Run That Back Again!
It was here where he would suffer his worst loss against GuyGuy, but that actually didn’t matter because he decided to prove his consistency even further by going on a 7 set losers run to make it back to grand finals. This is all while taking names like Unknown, JM1-3, Chrismus, ConCon, Jut, Face, and Mr.Watch&Learn all in a row. He then decided that maybe that run wasn’t good enough to cap the year on. So Papaya decided to go to Meteor 3 the following month to clinch bronze with repeat wins over Anchor and Beast while getting his runback on Lardo from Meteor 2, only losing to the King and Queen of Tristate. The question going into next year is going to be whether he can keep up his consistency in a region that is only getting stronger by the minute, or if he can convert this consistency to out-of-region success.
~ matt!
Hailing from the panhandle of Florida and having been active with HDR since early 2022, the master Robin player Kryu makes a statement this season bursting in at #9 for 2023. With most if not all of his time being spent on Robin, Kryu had a lot to prove as his character would go through many many adjustments as the year went on. Despite any life or in-game obstacles that approached him, he made it certain that he would attend at least a handful of major events and by any means necessary.
Kryu would start super early in 2023 with Frosty Faustings 2023, securing himself a 3rd place finish at the event with wins over Jut, HDK and Ravenking. It wouldn't be until the latter half of the year that we would see Kryu truly show up and show out. He locked down 4th at both Undertow 2023 and LA Super Nexus VII, but his dedication and hardwork two years in the making would finally pay off at The ‘Moves’ In Question where he would topple Jacksonville hidden bosses in Sinbad and Ant to earn his first ever major victory. We expect Kryu to be around in 2024 letting us know how god awful his character is all while making waves wherever he plays.
~ rektangles
Former high level Ultimate player and a frequenter of many fighting and platform titles like SF6 and NASB2, Frosty stormed into the latter half of the 2023 season with some impressive showings. Before entering the grand scheme, he would wreak havoc upon his home scene of Chicago with the Random button of all things before settling into comfort in his former Ultimate main, the Belmonts. Entering Tripoint Smash 200, he would walk in and walk out like nothing happened, going undefeated against the likes of S.N.E.S.s, Tyroy, evil lesbian and Ravenking x2.
Despite not traveling outside of his region frequently, the one time he would leave the comfort of home would be for Honeypot 6 over in Iowa. Taking an early loss to Gunther over on the winners side, Frosty would maul through losers winning sets over HDK, S.N.E.S.s, Mr.Watch&Learn and Ravenking before falling to Rongunshu in a four game set. With a 2023 rank of #8 overall, Frosty has proved that he is indeed a main man, not an actor like Robert De Niro. We are looking forward to seeing him carry the momentum into 2024.
~ rektangles
Forming a giant, sword-shaped shadow over all of Canada, Brad "Rongunshu" Sanderson has established himself as a potential top player despite only attending one out-of-region tournament. With years of experience at the highest level of Project+, he entered GOML 2023 to try out the new game, HDR, and placed a respectable 5th with his comfort pick, Ike. Leaving with a strong first impression, he continued to grind and explore the game's character roster.
He quickly fell in love with Cloud and mained him for the next few months, while also expanding his repertoire beyond the Project+ characters. After racking up local wins with Cloud, Joker, Little Mac, Roy, Lucina, and discovering a newfound love for Chrom, he decided to co-main Cloud and Chrom heading into Honeypot 6. There, he displayed his impressive adaptability throughout the bracket, defeating several higher-ranked players before falling to Frozen in Grand Finals after winning the first set.
Given his dedication to learning Smash, the only direction Rongunshu's ranking is likely to go is up, as long as he continues competing. Be prepared for the "master swordsmith" to leave his mark on any tournament he enters, and if you're fortunate enough to watch him live, you'll likely leave saying, "Brad is so rad!"
~ Mangachu
A master pilot of the bird across multiple smash games, including a top 50 debut on the 2019 PMRank, Raventoli routed a path to the peak of HDR’s metagame in 2023. After giving HDR a test run at some tournaments in February, it wouldn’t be until August that we saw Raventoli return with a vengeance at Shine out of Shield, securing a top eight placement with wins over Mooch and Papaya. With each passing tournament in the latter half of the year, he carved a path through Tristate’s best to put him on the map, culminating in wins over Frozen, Arhungry, and Face during his seven set losers run to 2nd at Cream of the Crop in November.
If you were to ask them though, Raventoli cares much more about the community than their placings. A prideful representative of both New England and Tristate, their goal more than anything is to create an active local scene for HDR and encourage crossover between other platform fighting game communities both in and out of the game. From the mafia games and food runs at majors to the overnight friendlies sessions, it’s hard to miss Raventoli and their positive vibes while they’re at the heart of the scene.
~ Anchor
There is a single player on this list who attended both the first and last event of 2023– at the end of the day, Rex is inevitable. Traveling to 17 of the 61 HDRank events of 2023, a feat only outdone by his rival and fellow NYC competitor Frozen, Rex’s consistency and ability to adapt to any meta is one that must be spotlighted. Starting the year with a 4th place finish at Gigaton Hammer using Bowser, he quickly found his main for a majority of the season in Duck Hunt. With only a single placement outside of top three at the next 11 events, Rex had one of the most dominant streaks in HDR.
His most impressive win comes from Yoshi’s Island Arise, a regional where he defeated Papaya, Frozen, and double eliminated the hometown hero Mr. Mojo Risin’ without dropping a set to complete his invasion of Long Island. Although the latter half of the year saw Rex’s attendance and results drop with some trouble after the Duck Hunt nerfs, he took second place in the last event of the year over Mr. Watch&Learn, Anchor, and Kamex with his newly mastered Pokemon Trainer. If this is any indication of the Rex we see in 2024, it’d be no surprise to see him at the top ranks of HDR yet again, no doubt with some new characters in his back pocket.
~ Anchor
Before last year, Ozma was a tag that only a few people knew of because of his flash-in-the-pan upset against top-level Ultimate Bayonetta player “Deathspade”, and his local presence within Illinois. After entering a local for the game at the beginning of December 2022, he slowly fell in love with the game and eventually dropped Ultimate altogether by the end of the year. Running into 2023 with high hopes for a new metagame to explore, Ozma decided that he wanted to make his name known in more than just his social circle. Out of the nine brackets that he entered that were eligible for the ranking, he had to travel out of state for 4 of them, something he already wasn’t known for during his days of competing in Ultimate. Alongside the help of Kryu and Anchor vod-reviewing and theory-crafting with him throughout the year, Ozma proved that if you want to find success, you just need to take the time to learn from your mistakes and the effort to push yourself even further than you think.
Ozma kicked off his HDR career sprinting towards the gold with a 2nd place showing at the Frosty Faustings XV side event, nabbing nail biting set wins against S.N.E.S.s, AutoMagic, and Nibbs, all going down to set point. He’d go on to beat Kryu before dropping six straight games to a fired-up Ravenking in grands, but this proved to Ozma that he had what it took to leave his mark on the scene. We would see this sort of theme continue for a while, with a 2nd place at Honeypot 5 brandishing two losses to HDK in both winners and grand finals, a 2nd place at the Warp Zone 2 pre-local after getting jump scared by Lunchables in winners semis, and not being able to match his tempo yet again in grands, and a 3rd place at Warp Zone getting walled out by Ravenking yet again, making him unable to get a runback with Frozen in grands.
. In September all of his work would finally pay off when he decided to take a trip to the state of chaos for Undertow. He decided to lock in and only dropped a total of 2 games before making it to grands yet again, racking wins on Billy Schilly, Beast, and Mr. Mojo Risin’. Mojo would make it back to him in grands, but Ozma made it clear that he was tired of being #2 and locked in even further to win after a close set that ended up getting reset to game 9. With Ozma finally getting dues at the end of this year, we can only hope that we continue to see this goofy guy and his lovable attitude toward competing going into 2024.
~ matt!
No matter what smash title you frequent, if you’ve been around the general smash scene you’ve probably heard of Ravenking. The multi title expert put on one of the most impressive showings we have seen in HDR this past year finishing out at #3 in the overall rankings. Starting the season he would defend his home turf from invaders and his own comrades, winning Frosty Faustings 2023 with a stunning five set losers run over Gunther, Automagic, Kryu and Ozma x2, as well as Cardinal Clash 2 over S.N.E.S.s, Tyroy and Ozma x2 again.
In the latter half of 2023, Ravenking would continue his travels and mark himself as a consistent force to be reckoned with outside of his region as well placing 4th at both The Underground and Honeypot 6. He would go on to make another attempt at defending his home turf at Warp Zone 2, but would fall short to Frozen in the end for a 2nd place finish. Ravenking is truly one of a kind, he will look over to see your reaction after he takes a nasty stock while simultaneously being an absolute pleasure to be around. With a new focus on Joker, it would be no surprise to see him carry this momentum into the new year.
~ rektangles
Thomas “Mr. Mojo Risin’” Mortensen has come out of 2023 as HDR’s King of Consistency. With top two finishes at 12 out of 15 ballot events entered, including a 1st place at the 64 entrant Massachusetts major Shine Out of Shield, Mojo has had an incredible year in modded Smash. He even has a Tristate #1 PR rank under his belt, which is no small feat to accomplish in NA’s most stacked region during a time the scene was seeing some of its highest attendance numbers. Since his breakout performance at Warped #4 in April, winning the event on a seven set losers run over Kamex, Frozen, Face, Rex, and Marcus twice using a newly minted Cloud, Mojo continued to see success no matter where he traveled. While his Ganondorf can come out in a pinch such as his grand finals set with Beast at Shine Out of Shield, Mojo draws parallels to the Final Fantasy protagonist by looking like a protagonist himself, placing on the podium for some of HDR’s biggest events in 2023 like The Underground and Undertow.
Going into 2024, Mojo is looking like a force to be reckoned with. After a long rivalry with Frozen this season, he was able to secure his fifth set win over her during their final set of the year and end 2023 with a first place finish at New York’s Cream of the Crop in November. Although Cloud has faced some nerfs in recent times, Mojo will surely find a way to rise to the top of the competition in HDR, whether it’s with Cloud, Ganon, or the variety of characters he’s trained up at locals over the past few months. 2024 is looking bright for the Northeast in HDR, and Mr. Mojo Risin’ is at the forefront of their pool of talent.
~ 22james
What would happen if you took someone who possessed an illustrious Project M history and the knowledge and ability to pilot Ultimate at the top level? Now what would happen if we gave this person the game that combined those two (amongst a few extra herbs and spices) and let them run wild with it? Well, this very idea occurred this year and what we saw was nothing less than an iron fist ruling over the competition. Frozen entered the HDR scene with the keys to success already in her hands–finding a new flame in HDR’s take on Aegis with their new ability to hit-swap between the two, she would set a standard for the budding community that only few could rise up to challenge. With the power of the Aegis, Frozen wouldn’t see a placing below 3rd and would hold a streak of eight straight major event wins and reach a total of 13 tournament wins for ranking eligible events. Although some were able to make the clear goddess of HDR bleed, Frozen showed the scene what utter dominance looked like and was no one to shy away from reminding them all of this fact.
Frozen would first show her power at the inaugural event of the Tristate staple regional Meteor. Here she would tear through the likes of Arhungry, Face, Jut and Rex twice and establish her rightful place as queen of Tristate, taking home gold with minimal effort. However, ruling over this small part of the scene was not enough for her and so she set her sights on the greater HDR scene. Frozen would travel to the midwest for Warp Zone 2, the biggest event HDR would see this year and would take the event with ease.
It was here she would fell midwest defenders and fellow top ten inductees Ozma and Ravenking and she would not only take her sets over these two with no games dropped but would attain a perfect tournament run to close out the biggest event of the year. 2023 was a major boom for HDR and Frozen was standing right there in the spotlight for it. With a plethora of new eyes on the game and people wondering what the future held for it, Frozen showed everyone what the peak and ever rising skill ceiling looks like. With an even brighter 2024 on the horizon already showing worthy new adversaries for our newly crowned #1 to defend her title, we can be sure to see Frozen front and center silencing anyone who dares question her ability.
~ Mr.Watch&Learn
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