On September 10th, Riptide kicked off the return to major offline open events for Super Smash Bros. Hosted at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio, the event was the largest offline tournament since Genesis in January of 2020 marking this as the first major event in over a year and a half.
Of course, Panda came in full force with iBDW and Plup competing in Melee, while Marss and Wadi represented the team in Ultimate. Our two Melee champs ended up going head-to-head in grand finals of the Melee Singles tournament, with iBDW coming in first place. taking out SFAT and Hungrybox along the way. Plup also teamed-up with Hungrybox to take first place in the Doubles bracket; while Marss came in 2nd in Squad Strike losing only to Tweek.
Our merchandise team was also on site hosting our first Panda booth since March 2020, featuring our fresh branding and styles. The support from fans was phenomenal, and it was uplifting to see so many sporting our apparel in the crowd! On Sunday fans who stopped by the booth could face our players in some matches!
Riptide also presented the first opportunity for the community to get a feel for the upcoming Panda Controller through an invite-only viewing with top players and influencers. A few lucky booth customers received golden tickets granting them access to the special event. The overwhelming positive feedback has energized the Hardware team to tackle this final stretch before the Kickstarter launches later this year.
Panda is glad to be back on the ground with the community and we are looking forward to upcoming events!