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Photo credits: Bekah / Genesis Smash
Genesis X2 took place on the weekend of February 14th to 16th, with over 3,000 entrants across nine different fighting game titles.
Super Smash Brothers Melee, Ultimate and Rivals of Aether 2 were the biggest tournaments of the event.
A small amount of players from the UK travelled to the event but one stood out amongst them: Luugi – the first UK Ultimate player to get Top 8 at a North American Super Major.
In the later half of 2024, Luugi had many high placements across Europe and North America – 25th at Supernova 2024, previously Super Smash Con, 9th at Regen 2024 and 4th at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2024.
At the start of 2025, Luminosity Gaming released their yearly Global and EU rankings, with Luugi making 6th place on the EU rankings, and not breaking the Top 150 on the Global Rankings due to not meeting attendance requirements.
Genesis X2 became Luugi’s first major event of the year and second time competing in a North American event, and he would go on a tear in bracket, taking down multiple players from the Lumirank 2024 Global Power Ranking. This started with #84 Japanese player Kaninabe to reach the Top 64 phase of the bracket.
Luugi deafeated #10 in the world, Light, and #81, BassMage – both from the USA.
At this point, Luugi had matched the highest placement of UK players at other events – MagiMagi‘s 9th place at Super Smash Con 2018 in Smash 4, Professor Pro‘s 9th place at Pound 2016 in Melee and Frenzy‘s 9th place at Super Smash Con 2018 for Melee.
Glutonny would be Luugi’s next opponent – #13 in the World and #1 in Europe. They had last played against each other at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2024 in France, with Glutonny taking the set 3-1 on home soil.
However, Genesis X2 was a completely different story, with Luugi defeating him 3-0, being the first UK player to ever achieve Top 8 at the Genesis series and only remaining EU player.
Unfortunately, Luugi would go on to lose to #1 in the world Japanese Steve player Acola and #14 US Rob player Zomba to reach an historic 5th place finish.
Previous UK results at the Genesis series include Professor Pro getting 25th at both Genesis 4 and Genesis 7 in Melee, and Bulby also reaching 25th at Genesis 7 in Ultimate.
More articles: Esports News UK’s Smash Bros archive
Wade ‘AggresiveDuck’ White is a tournament and event organiser for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate in London and Essex, with events reaching as many as 250+ attendees.
Wade originally started in esports by entering in amateur Dota 2 leagues before moving into the FGC scene with Smash Ultimate in 2018, competing in offline events in the UK and Europe.
