There is a single player on this list who attended both the first and last event of 2023– at the end of the day, Rex is inevitable. Traveling to 17 of the 61 HDRank events of 2023, a feat only outdone by his rival and fellow NYC competitor Frozen, Rex’s consistency and ability to adapt to any meta is one that must be spotlighted. Starting the year with a 4th place finish at Gigaton Hammer using Bowser, he quickly found his main for a majority of the season in Duck Hunt. With only a single placement outside of top three at the next 11 events, Rex had one of the most dominant streaks in HDR.
His most impressive win comes from Yoshi’s Island Arise, a regional where he defeated Papaya, Frozen, and double eliminated the hometown hero Mr. Mojo Risin’ without dropping a set to complete his invasion of Long Island. Although the latter half of the year saw Rex’s attendance and results drop with some trouble after the Duck Hunt nerfs, he took second place in the last event of the year over Mr. Watch&Learn, Anchor, and Kamex with his newly mastered Pokemon Trainer. If this is any indication of the Rex we see in 2024, it’d be no surprise to see him at the top ranks of HDR yet again, no doubt with some new characters in his back pocket.
~ Anchor
Before last year, Ozma was a tag that only a few people knew of because of his flash-in-the-pan upset against top-level Ultimate Bayonetta player “Deathspade”, and his local presence within Illinois. After entering a local for the game at the beginning of December 2022, he slowly fell in love with the game and eventually dropped Ultimate altogether by the end of the year. Running into 2023 with high hopes for a new metagame to explore, Ozma decided that he wanted to make his name known in more than just his social circle. Out of the nine brackets that he entered that were eligible for the ranking, he had to travel out of state for 4 of them, something he already wasn’t known for during his days of competing in Ultimate. Alongside the help of Kryu and Anchor vod-reviewing and theory-crafting with him throughout the year, Ozma proved that if you want to find success, you just need to take the time to learn from your mistakes and the effort to push yourself even further than you think.
Ozma kicked off his HDR career sprinting towards the gold with a 2nd place showing at the Frosty Faustings XV side event, nabbing nail biting set wins against S.N.E.S.s, AutoMagic, and Nibbs, all going down to set point. He’d go on to beat Kryu before dropping six straight games to a fired-up Ravenking in grands, but this proved to Ozma that he had what it took to leave his mark on the scene. We would see this sort of theme continue for a while, with a 2nd place at Honeypot 5 brandishing two losses to HDK in both winners and grand finals, a 2nd place at the Warp Zone 2 pre-local after getting jump scared by Lunchables in winners semis, and not being able to match his tempo yet again in grands, and a 3rd place at Warp Zone getting walled out by Ravenking yet again, making him unable to get a runback with Frozen in grands.
. In September all of his work would finally pay off when he decided to take a trip to the state of chaos for Undertow. He decided to lock in and only dropped a total of 2 games before making it to grands yet again, racking wins on Billy Schilly, Beast, and Mr. Mojo Risin’. Mojo would make it back to him in grands, but Ozma made it clear that he was tired of being #2 and locked in even further to win after a close set that ended up getting reset to game 9. With Ozma finally getting dues at the end of this year, we can only hope that we continue to see this goofy guy and his lovable attitude toward competing going into 2024.
~ matt!
No matter what smash title you frequent, if you’ve been around the general smash scene you’ve probably heard of Ravenking. The multi title expert put on one of the most impressive showings we have seen in HDR this past year finishing out at #3 in the overall rankings. Starting the season he would defend his home turf from invaders and his own comrades, winning Frosty Faustings 2023 with a stunning five set losers run over Gunther, Automagic, Kryu and Ozma x2, as well as Cardinal Clash 2 over S.N.E.S.s, Tyroy and Ozma x2 again.
In the latter half of 2023, Ravenking would continue his travels and mark himself as a consistent force to be reckoned with outside of his region as well placing 4th at both The Underground and Honeypot 6. He would go on to make another attempt at defending his home turf at Warp Zone 2, but would fall short to Frozen in the end for a 2nd place finish. Ravenking is truly one of a kind, he will look over to see your reaction after he takes a nasty stock while simultaneously being an absolute pleasure to be around. With a new focus on Joker, it would be no surprise to see him carry this momentum into the new year.
~ rektangles
Thomas “Mr. Mojo Risin’” Mortensen has come out of 2023 as HDR’s King of Consistency. With top two finishes at 12 out of 15 ballot events entered, including a 1st place at the 64 entrant Massachusetts major Shine Out of Shield, Mojo has had an incredible year in modded Smash. He even has a Tristate #1 PR rank under his belt, which is no small feat to accomplish in NA’s most stacked region during a time the scene was seeing some of its highest attendance numbers. Since his breakout performance at Warped #4 in April, winning the event on a seven set losers run over Kamex, Frozen, Face, Rex, and Marcus twice using a newly minted Cloud, Mojo continued to see success no matter where he traveled. While his Ganondorf can come out in a pinch such as his grand finals set with Beast at Shine Out of Shield, Mojo draws parallels to the Final Fantasy protagonist by looking like a protagonist himself, placing on the podium for some of HDR’s biggest events in 2023 like The Underground and Undertow.
Going into 2024, Mojo is looking like a force to be reckoned with. After a long rivalry with Frozen this season, he was able to secure his fifth set win over her during their final set of the year and end 2023 with a first place finish at New York’s Cream of the Crop in November. Although Cloud has faced some nerfs in recent times, Mojo will surely find a way to rise to the top of the competition in HDR, whether it’s with Cloud, Ganon, or the variety of characters he’s trained up at locals over the past few months. 2024 is looking bright for the Northeast in HDR, and Mr. Mojo Risin’ is at the forefront of their pool of talent.
~ 22james
What would happen if you took someone who possessed an illustrious Project M history and the knowledge and ability to pilot Ultimate at the top level? Now what would happen if we gave this person the game that combined those two (amongst a few extra herbs and spices) and let them run wild with it? Well, this very idea occurred this year and what we saw was nothing less than an iron fist ruling over the competition. Frozen entered the HDR scene with the keys to success already in her hands–finding a new flame in HDR’s take on Aegis with their new ability to hit-swap between the two, she would set a standard for the budding community that only few could rise up to challenge. With the power of the Aegis, Frozen wouldn’t see a placing below 3rd and would hold a streak of eight straight major event wins and reach a total of 13 tournament wins for ranking eligible events. Although some were able to make the clear goddess of HDR bleed, Frozen showed the scene what utter dominance looked like and was no one to shy away from reminding them all of this fact.
Frozen would first show her power at the inaugural event of the Tristate staple regional Meteor. Here she would tear through the likes of Arhungry, Face, Jut and Rex twice and establish her rightful place as queen of Tristate, taking home gold with minimal effort. However, ruling over this small part of the scene was not enough for her and so she set her sights on the greater HDR scene. Frozen would travel to the midwest for Warp Zone 2, the biggest event HDR would see this year and would take the event with ease.
It was here she would fell midwest defenders and fellow top ten inductees Ozma and Ravenking and she would not only take her sets over these two with no games dropped but would attain a perfect tournament run to close out the biggest event of the year. 2023 was a major boom for HDR and Frozen was standing right there in the spotlight for it. With a plethora of new eyes on the game and people wondering what the future held for it, Frozen showed everyone what the peak and ever rising skill ceiling looks like. With an even brighter 2024 on the horizon already showing worthy new adversaries for our newly crowned #1 to defend her title, we can be sure to see Frozen front and center silencing anyone who dares question her ability.
~ Mr.Watch&Learn