If we didn’t already have Melee as a precedent, we’d say it’s pretty astounding that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is still pulling 1,000+ comeptitors for offline majors 5 years since the game first released.
Ultimate Fighting Arena 2023 gave us all another classic super major this weekend, and now that the action has concluded, we’ve gone back and put together the breakdown for the characters used.
After starting from 1,013 registered players, we’ve put together the character stats for the top 128 as well as the top 32 so you can see how the upper brackets shaped up and differend for this event.
If you had to guess any character to be Mr. Popular here among the best competitors from Europe and pretty much every corner of the globe, who would that be?
If you said Steve, then you’d be right, however, that doesn’t tell the full story.
Although there were 8 Steve mains in the top 128, only one of them made it to the top 24 and not to the top 8 at all.
In fact, we had 8 different fighters in top 8 plus even more from secondaries, so it was a pretty diverse affair overall.
In total, there were a whopping 57 unique mains in the top 128 and that number grows to 64 characters who saw play in the upper brackets when including those backup choices.
Things were looking pretty darn good when shrinking the pool down to the top 32 as well.
For that data, we ended up with 25 different mains in the top 32 and actually 33 when including the secondaries.
By our count, around 1/4th of the top 128 played at least two characters at 31 competitors, so the practice is becoming even more common than it was.
Smash was the largest title at UFA in terms of entrants with Street Fighter 6 being number two, which we previously did character stats for as well.
You can check out the full character breakdown for the top 128 and top 32 for Smash Ultimate at UFA 2023 below.
• Steve – 8
• Palutena – 6 (1)
• Roy – 5 (1)
• Snake – 5 (1)
• Sonic – 5 (1)
• Pikachu – 5
• Pyra/Mythra – 4 (4)
• Samus – 4
• Inkling – 3 (1)
• Min Min – 3 (1)
• Cloud – 3 (1)
• Pichu – 3
• Young Link – 3
• Rosalina & Luma – 3
• Yoshi – 3
• Link – 3
• Pokémon Trainer – 3
• King Dedede – 3
• Wario – 2 (1)
• Pac-Man – 2 (1)
• Greninja – 2 (1)
• Sora – 2 (1)
• Ken – 2 (1)
• Wolf – 2 (1)
• Fox – 2 (1)
• R.O.B. – 2
• Mario – 2
• Luigi – 2
• Ridley – 2
• Lucina – 2
• Terry – 2
• Bowser – 2
• Diddy Kong – 2
• Mega Man – 2
• Lucario – 2
• Joker – 1 (2)
• Kazuya – 1 (2)
• Mii Brawler – 1 (1)
• Byleth – 1 (1)
• Toon Link – 1 (1)
• Ganondorf – 1 (1)
• Ryu – 1 (1)
• Ness – 1 (1)
• Bayonetta – 1
• Jigglypuff – 1
• Lucas – 1
• Dr. Mario – 1
• Sheik – 1
• Zelda – 1
• Falco – 1
• Captain Falcon – 1
• Shulk – 1
• Kirby – 1
• Mii Gunner – 1
• Ice Climbers – 1
• Mr. Game & Watch – 1
• Marth – 1
• Chrom – 0 (2)
• Sephiroth – 0 (2)
• Dark Samus – 0 (1)
• Daisy – 0 (1)
• Ike – 0 (1)
• Donkey Kong – 0 (1)
• Robin – 0 (1)
• Roy – 3 (1)
• Samus – 3
• Palutena – 2
• Steve – 2
• Luigi – 2
• Wario – 1 (1)
• Joker – 1 (1)
• Pyra/Mythra – 1 (1)
• Kazuya – 1 (1)
• Pac-Man – 1 (1)
• Greninja – 1 (1)
• Sora – 1 1
• R.O.B. – 1
• Mario – 1
• Bayonetta – 1
• Pichu – 1
• Jigglypuff – 1
• Ridley – 1
• Lucina – 1
• Lucas – 1
• Young Link – 1
• Rosalina & Luma – 1
• Terry – 1
• Ryu – 1
• Sheik – 1
• Chrom – 0 (2)
• Dark Samus – 0 (1)
• Byleth – 0 (1)
• Toon Link – 0 (1)
• Inkling – 0 (1)
• Ganondorf – 0 (1)
• Snake – 0 (1)
• Ken – 0 (1)
Note: Numbers in parenthesis represent secondary or side character choices.