TSM | Leffen Captures European Glory At Heir 5
The third event of August’s “Summer of Smash,” Heir 5 was Europe’s biggest Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament of 2018, featuring top-level players such as William “Leffen” Hjelte, Weston “Westballz” Dennis, and Johnny “S2J” Kim alongside many of Europe’s finest local talent. Though Adam “Armada” Lindgren opted to sit out of competition at this year’s edition of the Heir series, citing a struggle with exhaustion, the event’s 752 entrants lent it quite a bit of prestige—and quite an impressive prize pool.
At the tournament’s conclusion, it was—somewhat predictably—William “Leffen” Hjelte who took home the gold. Though he was slow to warm up to the idea of competing at Heir, taking to Twitter to complain about his own issues with burnout, the Swedish star looked to be in good form by the end of Sunday, promising to use his Heir 5 winnings to fund a long-awaited vacation to Japan for himself and his girlfriend.
However, Leffen’s path to Heir 5 victory was no cakewalk. Though the Fox main had little trouble making it to winner’s finals, easily dispatching second seed S2J 3-0, he had to reach deep into his bag of tricks to overcome Westballz, who brought Leffen all the way to the last stock of game five in the first—and only—set of grand finals. Despite the fact that FalcoWestballz’s character of choice, is nerfed between the North American and European versions of Melee, the Californian player always seems to put a show at European events, and he will surely be satisfied with his second-place finish.
After Leffen, Heir’s next-highest-placing European was Mustafa “Ice” Akcakaya, Germany’s best player. This has been a relatively slow year for Ice, who announced a Red Bull sponsorship amid travel issues and a struggle with an injury. Though he was unable to overcome S2J in either of their meetings at Heir—losing to him 3-2 in winner’s quarterfinals and 3-1 in loser’s semifinals—Ice’s successes at Heir place him firmly in the third spot of the European Melee rankings.
In fifth place at the event, top Spanish Peach Álvaro García Moral was joined by Stockholm No. 2 Jacob “Daydee” Stenberg. Daydee benefited from Armada’s last-minute disqualification, but the Samus main is a top-100-level player who upset top UK player Aaron “Professor Pro” Thomas to make it into Top 8 winner’s side, and will likely rise the ranks even further, possibly even to become the third Swede in Melee’s official Top 100. Professor Pro was able to make his way into loser’s side of Top 8, where he finished at 7th alongside German Fox main Nicki.