Tyler ‘Ninja‘ Blevins expands on a cryptic 2018 tweet in which he stated he had something big planned for the competitive Super Smash Bros. community.
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins is best known for his time playing Fortnite, but he also appears to enjoy the competitive Super Smash Bros. scene. The popular Twitch streamer was added to Super Smash Bros. in 2020. While Ninja didn’t commission the Solid Snake reskin himself, he did praise the creator on Twitter. However, Ninja’s public history with Super Smash Bros. dates back to 2018, when the streamer announced plans for a competitive community event for the game.
Ninja stated on Twitter at the time that he had something big planned for the Smash Bros. community, but gave no further details. Ninja has now revealed the reason for his cryptic tweet, revealing that he had intended to donate $500,000 to the Super Smash Bros. prize pool at this year’s Evolution Championship Series, or EVO. EVO is the most well-known fighting game tournament, combining multiple popular games and allowing the best players to compete for thousands of dollars in prize money.
Both Super Smash Bros. games were released in 2018. The competition included Melee and Super Smash Bros. 4. The prize pools for the games were around $13,000 each, so Ninja’s proposed gift of $500,000 would have significantly increased the amount of money available to the winners. The larger prize pool may have helped to improve the atmosphere of the 2018 Super Smash Bros. 4 finals, which were marred by enraged fans and amateur players. Ninja, on the other hand, was unable to deliver his gift due to Nintendo-related issues.
Ninja claims that the developer of Super Smash Bros. “ghosted” him at 5:45:35 in the YouTube video above. Ninja told another popular streamer Ludwig, who has a close relationship with the Super Smash Bros. community, that he literally wanted to juice Evo by $500k, and Nintendo just ghosted them.
Over the last few years, Nintendo has had a rocky relationship with EVO. Following the aforementioned controversy at the 2018 tournament, Super Smash Bros. relegated Melee to a side event for the 2019 tournament and the canceled 2020 series.
After EVO was purchased by Sony, Super Smash Bros. was removed from the main lineup by 2021. The popular fighting game was once again left off the main lineup for the tournament in 2022, despite Sony’s claims that its acquisition would not prevent non-PlayStation games from being played. Nintendo now appears to have little interest in the tournament.
