Smash Attack Levels Up

Some may remember that Team SMAK, the group behind Sentry Esports, first started running tournaments open to the public in 2018 at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. Prior to that, Team SMAK was just a small group of friends running tournaments out of our family houses. We first held public tournaments for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U just before Super Smash Bros. Ultimate came out in December that same year. This is where we first met so many incredible players from our Pittsburgh community, and where our team truly began to grow to where we are today!

Pitt-Greensburg is a beautiful campus located in Greensburg, PA. Our President, Seraph, attended school here for his Bachelor of Science, which allowed him to work with the university to upstart his own tournament series. This original series was called Smash Attack (stylized as Smaaaash Attack), as both a reference to the ‘Smash Attack’ move in the Super Smash Bros. series, but also as a reference to the Mother (or EarthBound) video game series.

We ran events in Village Hall, which was a great open space for multiple games! We had many side events for other games like Super Mario Strikers, Mario Kart, and Soul Caliber just to name a few. There was a coffee shop just across the hall for guests to enjoy. The original Smash Attack tournaments were held biweekly on Saturdays.

In 2020, we all know what happened. The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, and our events – just as with the greater community – had to adapt. Sadly, we were no longer running tournaments at Pitt-Greensburg, and began an online tournament series for Smash Ultimate known as SMAK-SD. We also supported the Pittsburgh community’s online tournament series, Smash the Bug. 

Emerging from the worst part of the pandemic, we returned to in-person events in a brand new venue for a new series called Hot Metal Smash. Over time, we shifted into taking over the weekly tournament series Three River Rumble, which we currently run every Friday at Carnegie Mellon University.

Throughout this journey, our team has always looked back fondly on the original Smash Attack series and our old Pitt-Greensburg stomping grounds. This is the place where many of our current team members and owners first met! Our stream truly started to take shape around this time, too, first under the direction of Vicious, and then later onto Acrophobic. We were so happy to be able to support the Pittsburgh Smash community, and to be a part of it.

This year, we are bringing Smash Attack back! And not only that, but we’re Leveling Up the series to a brand new monthly tournament series for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate! Every month, Smash Attack: Level Up will be run from the same place we all started: Pitt-Greensburg! We’re hoping to elevate the series even further than ever before. Our new venue is the Pitt-Greensburg Esports Arena, courtesy of the Pitt-Greensburg Esports Team. Thank you so much for allowing us to bring our tournaments back to Pitt! This new venue is custom tailored for everything esports, with dedicated gaming monitors, a desk fit for TOs and staff, and even a back room just for the streamers and commentators.

Smash Attack: Level Up arrives Saturday, 9/30 with it’s first ever entry! You can sign up at here, or tune-in for the livestream. We hope that you’ll join us for this incredible new tournament, and we look forward to bringing you more top level events!

Posted on September 30, 2023