HDRank 2023: 15-6
Written by @getrektangles, @BigSoo22, @TopHatSTL, @AnchorNJ, @MrWasTaken, Mangachu
Gatekeeping the top 15 of the inaugural HDRank and wearing the modern day crown as King of New Jersey is Arhungry. Being one of the more established dual mains in the scene wielding an elusive Sheik and lethal Meta Knight, Arhungry found a strong balance between the two and established himself as not just a local threat but a powerhouse of a competitor on the national scale. Although he would see a slippery start to the year, Arhungry would find his stride and continue at an amazing pace to the upper echelons of brackets, even seeing gold medals on his way up to the top.
Arhungry would first make his mark at High Rez with a 5th place finish securing wins over fellow New Jersey threat Anchor and Long Island Plant Main Blackbird. Not satisfied with his finish at High Rize, Arhungry would travel up north to Randall’s Room, HDRs shadow major for GOML. It would be here that Arhungry would establish himself as a threat on the national scale, cutting down the Canadian guard that stood before him flawlessly as well as securing a perfect winners final victory on Ravenking.
Although dropping set one in grands Arhungry would stand strong and take the Canada major over his fellow US invader in the second set. Finishing out the year in powerful fashion, we have already seen Arhungry carry this momentum into 2024 and further continue his reign over his home state and anyone who dares invade it. With a heart shaped locket with Meta Knight inside and the Triforce of Wisdom in hand, we can absolutely expect to see Arhungry at the head of the pack continuing into 2024.
~ Mr.Watch&Learn
Bryan “HDK” Sandoval, the Snake with many names, had an incredible first year of competing at a national level in HewDraw Remix. The Nebraska resident has an impressive and diverse resume over his decade of competing in Smash 4, Ultimate, and Project+. He’s a staple top three finisher in any and all side events locally, making him a TOs worst nightmare. The history books will have hotdogknight409 penned as not only one of the best Smashers to come from the midwest, but also one of the most committed to competition.
Peter Weber’s statistical highlight of the year is by far his first place at Honeypot 5. Not dropping a set and taking home the gold at one of the biggest events of the year is not something many other competitors in the top 50 can boast about. On top of that, HP5 was a major contribution to his astonishing 4-0 set count against fellow midwest talent Ozma. This event will forever be remembered by Nebraskans for a completely different reason though, as Rusty Shackleford tore his ACL while popping off for YGL during top 8. Leaving the venue with a trophy and wheelchair is definitely something no one else on the ballot list can touch.
~ 22james
In the somewhat isolated lands of upstate New York’s capital region, Average Alex has made a name for himself as both the best Ultimate and HDR in his region. Starting his HDR journey in February, his season began as best as it possibly could by winning Lake George Showdown in his home region after beating Grunk, Raventoly, and Frozen without dropping a set. This marks Alex as one of four players who have won a tournament over Frozen in 2023, and he sought more competition against Tristate’s best players after this victory.
Traveling to both Impact and Meteor 1, Alex placed 5th and 3rd, respectively at the stacked Tristate events, collecting wins on Face, Jut, Blackbird, and SolarBeam to cement his spot as a top player against the field. However, we wouldn’t see him compete in HDR again until August, where Alex competed in the back to back east coast majors Smash Con and Shine. With wins on Raventoly and Kamex for a 5th place finish at Shine, Alex added another top six finish at a major to round out an impressive year in HDR. If there’s a chance to see him compete again in 2024, his crew of sword characters will surely slice through some of the best HDR has to offer.
~ Anchor
Perhaps the most mysterious appearance on this ranking has to go to Marcus, but that’s not because of his results. A longtime NJ PR player in Smash 4 and globally 43rd rank on the Spring 2019 PGR for Ultimate, Marcus has proven himself across multiple titles as a strong competitor. HDR was no different for Gonz, sweeping a handful of Tristate locals and placing in the top six of all four HDRank events he entered with his infamous Samus after picking up the game in early 2023. However, disappointed with the state of the game after the recovery sweep patch, Marcus disappeared from the HDR scene, making a return to Ultimate to, well, sweep more Tristate locals.
However, in his short time competing in HDR he still made waves with wins on Frozen, Rex, and Papaya. An early loss at Impact couldn’t stop him from going on a six set losers run to 5th place, a placement he shared at perhaps the most stacked regional of all time in Meteor 1. His resume also includes a tournament win at Scarlet Classic, defeating Papaya for the second time in 2023 as well as Jut and Anchor. Although it’s a pipedream we’ll see Marcus compete and elbow bump after his HDR sets again, his spot on the HDRank is well deserved, as any competitor he’s faced can probably tell you the legends of his Samus.
~ Anchor
The Dragon of Pennsylvania, Beast, makes a debut as explosive as his flare blitzes on this inaugural HDRank, gate keeping the top ten with his tried and true starter Charizard and showing that his one trick…lizard?–can not only hold its own but excel in a new realm that is HDR. Already an established Zard in the world of base Ultimate, Beast looked for new challenges to conquer, and after discovering HDR and seeing no one making waves with Pokemons Poster Boy Starter, he knew what he must do. Familiarizing himself with his old friend in this new region, Beast set out on his quest to become HDR Master and conquer the many rivals waiting for him.
With entering a new game we are sure to see growing pains and time to adjust and Beast took his time to find his temp, and once he did, he conducted brackets and sets with ease. We would see Beast first establish his presence at The Underground, Super Smash Con’s shadow major. We would see Beast go on a monster run taking sets over major bracket threats in Face, Asashi, Ravenking, and Mr. Mojo Risin’.
He would only be bested by Frozen in both winners and grand finals and would go home with a shiny silver medal placing. Beast would continue with this momentum and push onto Shine’s shadow event Shine Out of Shield. Here he would take down the likes of fellow Tristate invaders in New Jersey’s Arhungry and Anchor, only to be silenced by Mr. Mojo Risin’ who was seeking revenge from their last meeting at The Underground. Although he stands just outside the peak of the mountain, Beast has shown he can very easily go toe to toe with those above him and even emerge victorious when on his game. In 2024 we could very easily see him break out into the very best of the best.
~ Mr.Watch&Learn
Papaya might be an unknown player to anyone outside of the region of Tristate, but everyone in Tristate knows how much of a demon Papaya is when it comes to picking up new games, and HDR was certainly not an exception. People may say the realm of HDR is a hard one to acquaint yourself with, but Papaya dispelled those rumors if anything by facing several of the characters that people would deem as “matchup checks” head first with his duo of Falco and Greninja throughout the year. It’s not like he’s limited to just these characters either, as his niche Wolf pick came out to take a game vs Frozen, so who knows what else he has hidden in his back pocket for the upcoming new year. That is, if he isn’t flaking of course.
Papaya’s resume this year is heavy despite not traveling out of his region. He entered 14 brackets and only missed out on the top 8 at 2 of these events, those of which were lost in the qualifier to get there. His first event was the first entry of the Meteor series, but even then we could tell that Jacob was destined to make a mark on this game, losing to already established names at the time JM1-3 and Marcus, but he would prove to be consistent until Emergency Run That Back Again!
It was here where he would suffer his worst loss against GuyGuy, but that actually didn’t matter because he decided to prove his consistency even further by going on a 7 set losers run to make it back to grand finals. This is all while taking names like Unknown, JM1-3, Chrismus, ConCon, Jut, Face, and Mr.Watch&Learn all in a row. He then decided that maybe that run wasn’t good enough to cap the year on. So Papaya decided to go to Meteor 3 the following month to clinch bronze with repeat wins over Anchor and Beast while getting his runback on Lardo from Meteor 2, only losing to the King and Queen of Tristate. The question going into next year is going to be whether he can keep up his consistency in a region that is only getting stronger by the minute, or if he can convert this consistency to out-of-region success.
~ matt!
Hailing from the panhandle of Florida and having been active with HDR since early 2022, the master Robin player Kryu makes a statement this season bursting in at #9 for 2023. With most if not all of his time being spent on Robin, Kryu had a lot to prove as his character would go through many many adjustments as the year went on. Despite any life or in-game obstacles that approached him, he made it certain that he would attend at least a handful of major events and by any means necessary.
Kryu would start super early in 2023 with Frosty Faustings 2023, securing himself a 3rd place finish at the event with wins over Jut, HDK and Ravenking. It wouldn't be until the latter half of the year that we would see Kryu truly show up and show out. He locked down 4th at both Undertow 2023 and LA Super Nexus VII, but his dedication and hardwork two years in the making would finally pay off at The ‘Moves’ In Question where he would topple Jacksonville hidden bosses in Sinbad and Ant to earn his first ever major victory. We expect Kryu to be around in 2024 letting us know how god awful his character is all while making waves wherever he plays.
~ rektangles
Former high level Ultimate player and a frequenter of many fighting and platform titles like SF6 and NASB2, Frosty stormed into the latter half of the 2023 season with some impressive showings. Before entering the grand scheme, he would wreak havoc upon his home scene of Chicago with the Random button of all things before settling into comfort in his former Ultimate main, the Belmonts. Entering Tripoint Smash 200, he would walk in and walk out like nothing happened, going undefeated against the likes of S.N.E.S.s, Tyroy, evil lesbian and Ravenking x2.
Despite not traveling outside of his region frequently, the one time he would leave the comfort of home would be for Honeypot 6 over in Iowa. Taking an early loss to Gunther over on the winners side, Frosty would maul through losers winning sets over HDK, S.N.E.S.s, Mr.Watch&Learn and Ravenking before falling to Rongunshu in a four game set. With a 2023 rank of #8 overall, Frosty has proved that he is indeed a main man, not an actor like Robert De Niro. We are looking forward to seeing him carry the momentum into 2024.
~ rektangles
Forming a giant, sword-shaped shadow over all of Canada, Brad "Rongunshu" Sanderson has established himself as a potential top player despite only attending one out-of-region tournament. With years of experience at the highest level of Project+, he entered GOML 2023 to try out the new game, HDR, and placed a respectable 5th with his comfort pick, Ike. Leaving with a strong first impression, he continued to grind and explore the game's character roster.
He quickly fell in love with Cloud and mained him for the next few months, while also expanding his repertoire beyond the Project+ characters. After racking up local wins with Cloud, Joker, Little Mac, Roy, Lucina, and discovering a newfound love for Chrom, he decided to co-main Cloud and Chrom heading into Honeypot 6. There, he displayed his impressive adaptability throughout the bracket, defeating several higher-ranked players before falling to Frozen in Grand Finals after winning the first set.
Given his dedication to learning Smash, the only direction Rongunshu's ranking is likely to go is up, as long as he continues competing. Be prepared for the "master swordsmith" to leave his mark on any tournament he enters, and if you're fortunate enough to watch him live, you'll likely leave saying, "Brad is so rad!"
~ Mangachu
A master pilot of the bird across multiple smash games, including a top 50 debut on the 2019 PMRank, Raventoli routed a path to the peak of HDR’s metagame in 2023. After giving HDR a test run at some tournaments in February, it wouldn’t be until August that we saw Raventoli return with a vengeance at Shine out of Shield, securing a top eight placement with wins over Mooch and Papaya. With each passing tournament in the latter half of the year, he carved a path through Tristate’s best to put him on the map, culminating in wins over Frozen, Arhungry, and Face during his seven set losers run to 2nd at Cream of the Crop in November.
If you were to ask them though, Raventoli cares much more about the community than their placings. A prideful representative of both New England and Tristate, their goal more than anything is to create an active local scene for HDR and encourage crossover between other platform fighting game communities both in and out of the game. From the mafia games and food runs at majors to the overnight friendlies sessions, it’s hard to miss Raventoli and their positive vibes while they’re at the heart of the scene.
~ Anchor
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