Smash community torn after tournament for banned players is announced

A tournament for banned Super Smash Bros. players is coming in September.

The Mana Summit is an invitational event on September 6th and 7th, featuring eight banned players from the Super Smash Bros. Melee scene. The event is in remembrance of Aziz ‘HAX$’ Al-Yami, a player who recently passed away after struggling with mental health due to being banned from tournaments after he threatened William ‘Leffen’ Hjelte.

The Mana Summit is being hosted by banned Melee player TheManaLord, who feels that many in the Smash community have been ‘wrongfully’ banned over the past few years. He called the community an ‘utter farce’ after it banned over 500 players due to ‘cancel culture,’ ‘false accusations’ and ‘discrimination.’

“Our new community has the only rightful claim to call itself a competitive Smash Bros Melee family — the usurpers and cowards that have been in control for the past several years have run nothing but an exclusionary social club — in which if you don’t fit in, they want you dead,” wrote TheManaLord.

“They’ve killed the spirit of Smash Bros. But we will stoke the flame again, we will make that climb, and the spirit of Smash will rise with us…”

The banned players that will be competing in The Mana Summit include:

TheManaLord was banned from locals in his area for sharing controversial views on people’s identities, including a lot of statements that people found to be transphobic. He was also seen as problematic for creating tournaments and other events for other players that were banned for sharing similar views, with Attack From All Sides’ tournament organiser stating: “There is no place in the Syracuse community for individuals who spread hate.”

The concept of creating Mana Summit has left the Smash community torn. Some have expressed concern over problematic individuals having a platform while others have applauded TheManaLord for giving these players an opportunity to be in the scene again. About $2,000 has been raised on GoFundMe towards the event.

“These players and others have suffered not only by being banned and receiving harassment, mistreatment, being threatened, doxxed etc — but also the loss of potential earnings, sponsorships and opportunities by being wrongfully banned,” The ManaLord stated.