A return to LAN play has been successful for the Smash Bros. competitive scene in recent weeks with the successful Smash Summit and Riptide majors, but weekly events just received a setback on the Ultimate side of things. Mega Smash Mondays, the most prestigious weekly Smash Bros. tournament based in Southern California announced on Tuesday that they will not be holding events for the foreseeable future.
MSM has been the premier Smash Bros. weekly tournament in the SoCal region since 2015. The first weekly featured 38 players but eventually grew to average more than 100 players. But due to COVID-19, the series moved online after 232 in-person events. Yet, even there, the series boomed.
After being online for more than a year, the organizers regularly saw attendance in the 600-700 entry range due to the ease of access for players nationwide. Then, after 61 weeks of MSM Online, on July 5, MSM returned to LAN play with MSM 233. The anticipated event drew 224 entrants.
Since then, MSM had been doing well, consistently hitting the 200 player mark. The 240th instalment of MSM specifically was even used as a last chance qualifier for Smash Ultimate Summit 3, which saw many players across North America travel to play in the weekly, one-day event. That tournament managed to draw over 300 players.
https://twitter.com/Javileyvas/status/1437845057629949952
This announcement also comes just days after an unexpected cancellation of MSM 243. While organizers gave no specifics as to why the events were indefinitely put on hiatus, Javi Leyvas, the event director for 2ggaming (which puts on the MSM series) said on social media that the hiatus announcement is not due to COVID. Leyvas did not say whether or not MSM will be returning to online events in the meantime.
