The Big House is an annual ''

Super Smash Bros. ''Super Smash Bros.'' is a Crossover (fiction), crossover fighting game series published by Nintendo. The series was created by Masahiro Sakurai, who has directed every game in the series. The series is known for its unique gameplay objectiv ...

'' tournament series held in

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

since 2011. It is considered one of the largest and most prestigious ''Smash Bros.'' tournament series alongside

GENESIS Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...

Evolution Championship Series The Evolution Championship Series, commonly known as Evo, is an annual esports event that focuses exclusively on fighting games. The tournaments are completely open and use the double elimination format. As with Super Battle Opera, contestants ...

(EVO) and

Super Smash Con The Super Smash Con is an annual '' Super Smash Bros.'' convention held at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The event is held in early August that praises the video game series published by Nintendo along with other video games, ...

History

2011–2014

The first Big House tournament was held on October 22, 2011, on the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

campus in

Ann Arbor Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), ...

. 115 entrants participated in ''

Super Smash Bros. Melee ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' is a 2001 Fictional crossover, crossover fighting game, fighting video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is the second installment in the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series. I ...

'' singles and the event was won by Oscar "Lovage" Nilsson. It was an

Apex 2012 Apex was an annual esports tournament held in New Jersey that was focused on ''Super Smash Bros.'' The event's first incarnation was in 2009 with Jesus "Jman" Fernandez as the champion of ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' and Elliot "Ally" Carroza-Oya ...

qualifier. The second tournament was held on October 6–7, 2012 on the campus of the University of Michigan. The ''Melee'' event was won by

Joseph "Mango" Marquez Joseph Manuel Marquez, known by his gamertag Mango (stylized MaNg0 or Mang0), is an American professional '' Super Smash Bros. Melee'' player and streamer from Norwalk, California. Known for his aggressive, high-risk playstyle, he is widely co ...

. ''

Project M ''Project M'' is a mod of the 2008 fighting game ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' for the Wii, created by the community group known as the Project M Development Team (PMDT; previously known as the Project M Back Room). It is designed to retool ''Br ...

'' was won by Brian "metroid1117" Lin. The Big House 3 was held from October 12–13, 2013 in

. It was won by

Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman Jason Sheldon Zimmerman (born February 5, 1989), known by his gamertag Mew2King, commonly shortened to M2K, is an American professional '' Super Smash Bros.'' player from Cinnaminson, New Jersey. He has won more than 70 tournaments during his ...

. The Big House 4 was held from October 4–5, 2014 in

Romulus Romulus () was the legendary foundation of Rome, founder and King of Rome, first king of Ancient Rome, Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus ...

. It was won by

2015–2019

The fifth edition of The Big House was held from October 2–4, 2015 in Dearborn. Prior to the tournament, top Swedish player

Leffen William Peter Hjelte, better known by his gamer tag Leffen, is a Swedish professional fighting game player and streamer. Although mostly known as a ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' player, he has also competed in ''Dragon Ball FighterZ'', '' Guilt ...

was denied entry into the United States at customs because of lack of a proper work visa due to his affiliation with an American company,

Team SoloMid Team SoloMid (TSM) is a professional esports organization based in the United States. It was founded in September 2009 by Andy "Reginald" Dinh. TSM currently fields players in ''League of Legends'', ''Dota 2'', ''Apex Legends'', ''Valorant'', ' ...

. It was won by

Adam "Armada" Lindgren Adam Lindgren (born 28 March 1993), known by his handle Armada, is a Swedish professional '' Super Smash Bros.'' player from Gothenburg. He is widely considered one of the greatest '' Super Smash Bros. Melee'' players of all time and the greate ...

over

Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma Juan Manuel DeBiedma (; born June 21, 1993), better known by his alias Hungrybox, is an Argentine-American professional '' Super Smash Bros.'' player and streamer. Recognized as one of the best and most successful ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' play ...

in the grand finals. ''

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and (colloquially and collectively referred to as ''Super Smash Bros. 4'' or ''Smash 4'') is a group of two 2014 crossover fighting video games developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS ...

'' was featured for the first time, and was won by

Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usuall ...

, who also won all nationals he attended up to that point, including the super majors

Apex 2015 Apex was an annual esports tournament held in New Jersey that was focused on '' Super Smash Bros.'' The event's first incarnation was in 2009 with Jesus "Jman" Fernandez as the champion of '' Super Smash Bros. Melee'' and Elliot "Ally" Carroza- ...

and EVO 2015. There were 1,317 singles entrants for ''Melee'' and 512 for ''Wii U''. This iteration of the tournament dropped ''Project M'' as an official event. Mango and smash players - Connor Smith - TBH

Mango and smash players - Connor Smith - TBH

The sixth Big House was held on October 7–9, 2016. It was the first American tournament that

William "Leffen" Hjelte William Peter Hjelte, better known by his gamer tag Leffen, is a Swedish professional fighting game player and streamer. Although mostly known as a '' Super Smash Bros. Melee'' player, he has also competed in ''Dragon Ball FighterZ'', ''Guilty G ...

attended since HTC Throwdown 2015. ''Melee'' was won by

, marking it as his third win at The Big House. ''Wii U'' was won by

and was his third consecutive title at The Big House. The seventh Big House was held on October 6–8, 2017 at the

Cobo Center Huntington Place (formerly known as Cobo Hall, Cobo Center, and briefly as TCF Center) is a convention center in Downtown Detroit, owned by the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority (DRCFA) and operated by ASM Global. Located at 1 Was ...

in Detroit. ''Melee'' was won by

over

Justin "Plup" McGrath Justin McGrath, better known as Plup, is an American professional ''Super Smash Bros.'' player from Orlando, Florida. McGrath is considered to be one of the best ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' players in the world, having been ranked as one of ...

. ''Wii U'' was won by Samuel "Dabuz" Buzby over Tyler "Marss" Martins. The Big House 8 was held on October 5–7, 2018, and it was once again held at the Cobo Center in Detroit. ''Melee'' was won by

over

. ''Wii U'' was won by Brian "Cosmos" Kalu over Eric "ESAM" Lew. The original ''

'' was won by Daniel "SuPeRbOoMfAn" Hoyt over Josh Brody. The Big House 9 was held on October 4–6, 2019 at the

in Detroit. ''Melee'' was won by

over Zain Naghmi. ''

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate ''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'' is a 2018 crossover fighting video game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the fifth installment in the '' Super Smash Bros.'' series, succeed ...

'' was featured for the first time, and was won by Sota " Zackray" Okada over Samuel "Dabuz" Buzby. ''Smash 64'' was won by Josh Brody over Prince. There were also smaller ''

Super Smash Bros. Brawl ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' is a 2008 List of crossovers in video games, crossover fighting game, fighting video game developed by Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Wii. The third installment in the Super Smash Bros., ''Super Smash ...

'' and ''Wii U'' side events, respectively won by Hunter "Player-1" Rogers over Will "Lain" Vetter and Brenden "ShyDude" King over "AFMbot".

2020 cancellation

The Big House cancelled its 2020 tournament in July due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Tournament organizers later announced an online tournament for December 2020. The tournament was again cancelled after they received a

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...

letter from ''Super Smash Bros.'' publisher

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

. Nintendo took concern with the tournament's plans to use an

emulator In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run so ...

that enables

netplay A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

and

matchmaking Matchmaking is the process of matching two or more people together, usually for the purpose of marriage, in which case the matchmaker is also known as a marriage broker. The word is also used in the context of sporting events such as boxing, in ...

for ''Melee'' but requires use of a ripped copy of the game, citing piracy concerns.

2022–present

The Big House returned to an offline format for its tenth iteration, held on October 7th-9th, 2022 at the

Huntington Place Huntington Place (formerly known as Cobo Hall, Cobo Center, and briefly as TCF Center) is a convention center in Downtown Detroit, owned by the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority (DRCFA) and operated by ASM Global. Located at 1 Was ...

in Detroit as part of the Nintendo-sponsored Panda Cup. ''Melee'' was won by Masaya "aMSa" Chikamoto over

, marking the first time "aMSa" and a Yoshi player won a major tournament in the game's competitive lifespan; Cody "iBDW" Schwab, Zain Naghmi and Miles "Soonsay" Foster qualified for the ''Melee'' bracket of the Panda Cup Finale. ''Ultimate'' was won by Michael "Riddles" Kim over Paris "Light" Ramirez; Ramirez, Gavin "Tweek" Dempsey and Antony "MuteAce" Hoo qualified for the ''Ultimate'' bracket of the Panda Cup Finale. ''Smash 64'' was won by Josh Brody over Keanu "OJ" Betancourt.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Big House Events in Michigan Recurring events established in 2011 Super Smash Bros. tournaments University of Michigan 2011 establishments in Michigan