Since it was first announced, new changes to Nintendo’s Smash tournament guidelines have had the Smash community on edge. Waiting to see just how badly events will be hit by the new rules. However, now we’ve gotten a decent look at the Smash tournament applications it seems things aren’t as dire as they seemed.

Nintendo is taking applications for Melee events and generally seem accepting of including one of the biggest fighting games of all time. However, there’s one other game they’ve inexplicably decided to ban.

Source: Nintendo

Smash Tournament Applications Ban One Game

Nintendo’s relationship with the competitive Smash community has always been bit, tense. Most recently they’ve set new Smash community tournament guidelines forcing organizers to get a licence from them to operate. While Melee has often been the target for Nintendo’s disapproval, many were surprised to see the new Smash tournament applications seemed a lot simpler. Melee was available for licences and it seems Nintendo is embracing the desire to play this game, but at an expense of another.

Nintendo has instead decided to ban a separate game, Smash 4. The Wii U (and to a lesser extent, 3DS port) title of Super Smash Bros is only the second most recent. It has quite a lot in common with Ultimate, even if the game has largely been replaced by its follow up. Nintendo has weirdly decided to not include Smash 4 on the tournament applications.

This essentially makes it difficult to run Smash 4 fighting game esports tournaments. How will impact the Smash community? At the moment, probably minimally. Smash 4 is extremely rarely seen as an event anymore. Even the unpopular Brawl gets more outings thanks to its bigger differences from the rest of the series. Smash 4 on the other hand feels like an early version of Ultimate. There is little demand to run events with this version of the game.

Blocking one of the Smashes from the tournament applications is a shame. However,Smash 4 is maybe the one title that organizers do the least with at the moment. Melee and Ultimate now have a pathway to more tournaments through these applications. We might see more events getting their continued presence confirmed soon.