The Long County Blue Tide Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team booted up their fourth official season on Wednesday, September 27. The team, which is coming off back to back quarterfinals appearances, took on East Jackson High School and won in an exciting five-game match.

The rules for Super Smash Bros. changed going into the Fall 2023 season, switching from a best-of-three series to a best-of-five. This was an adjustment for the team, but not one that affected the Tide too much.

Third-year starters Patrick McClennon and Ben Stokes were the first two up, with the former taking his match 2-1 in a close game. He used the Pokemon Trainer character, which uses the Pokemon Charizard, Ivysaur and Squirtle as its main fighters.

Stokes switched up his main during the offseason, now using Captain Falcon from the F-Zero franchise. He took on a Cloud, a Final Fantasy character, main and dropped his set 2-0.

Newcomer Kody Heredia was up for the third set and used Fox from the Star Fox franchise. He faced off against Byleth from Fire Emblem in game one, which Heredia won.

His opponent switched to Pyra/Mythra from the Xenoblade Chronicles for the final two games, which Heredia lost to drop the set 2-1 and give the Eagles a 2-1 match lead.

In the past, that would have been the game, but the new format worked in favor of Splash Smash. Stokes took the sticks for the fourth set, taking on McClennon’s opponent from the first set.

He had a much better matchup against Cloud, taking the set 2-0. McClennon took on Stokes’ opponent in the definitive set, once again coming through and winning the final two games in the set to give his team the 3-2 match victory.

The Blue Tide’s JV teams, Tsunami Tsmash and newly-formed Wave Warriors, took on Gilmer High School and Central-Macon respectively. They both lost their matches 3-0 to fall to 0-1 on the season.

The teams will be back in action on Wednesday, Oct 4.