Cr1TiKaL to co-stream Ultimate Summit 3, Smash players question Beyond the Summit's Smash cred

 

Beyond the Summit's Ultimate Summit 3 is heating up as the tourney approaches next week. The six vote-ins have been announced, the prize pool is almost breaking BTS' previous record, and now Jesus himself, Charles "Moist Cr1TiKaL" White Jr., is co-streaming the action. 

 

Can you say WOOOOO YEAH BABYYYY THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT WOOOOO?

 

Beyond the Summit announced the Ultimate Summit 3 update on Twitter along with a very swole photo of Cr1TiKaL without his signature white shirt on. Instead, his muscles can be seen gleaming and pulsating as he curls an immense weight, sunglasses covering his eyes. But we can still see the effortless grin on his face for Cr1TiKaL can lift much, much more if he really wanted to. 

 

 

The response to Cr1TiKaL's involvement with Beyond the Summit was mostly met with applause from the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate community. Many compared Cr1TiKaL to the infamous photo of Chad, someone almost as swole as Cr1TiKaL.

 

The YouTuber has been part of the Smash community for a while, commentating certain events and starting up an esports organization with just one member: A Smash player, Kola. In fact, Kola was recently voted to compete in Ultimate Summit 3, making this a huge event for Moist Esports and Cr1TiKaL. 

 

But despite the excitement from the community, some Super Smash Bros. fans were skeptical of Cr1TiKaL's involvement. A few Smash players voiced that Cr1TiKaL wasn't really the best representative of the Smash community since he hasn't been involved in it as heavily as other streamers. But, they added, Beyond the Summit wasn't even run by real Smash players anyway. 

 

Ken Chen responds to Super Smash Bros. community who doubt Beyond the Summit

 

The announcement of Cr1TiKaL co-streaming the Ultime Summit brought up a popular controversy in the Smash community: Beyond the Summit isn't truly a part of it. 

 

BTS Creative Director Ken Chen decided to address this issue in a long Medium post, which he shared to Twitter. In it, Chen discussed his own history in Smash as well. 

 

Said Chen: "I want to do this because I take great personal offense at the suggestion that I’m not a part of this community, especially at the idea that I created an event simply to profit off a game I deeply care about."

 

 

According to Chen, BTS is full of seasoned Smash TOs and production line people that have been going to locals "for decades." Even Chen himself has a long history in Smash, which started when he first played Smash 64 with friends in college. 

 

When Melee released, Chen hosted large tournaments at New York University. He would buy gift certificates to give out as prizes. When he left college, he thought the Smash scene was behind him. He was ready to become a lawyer. But then he started working for Team Liquid, following his esports dream. 

 

"In 2013, the Smash Bros documentary was released on YouTube. I watched it so many times, and linked it to all my old smash friends. I told Victor (the CEO of TL) to watch the doc. He said he’d get to it. I sat him down and forced him to watch it. He did, and we decided to get some players. So TL picked up Ken and KDJ, even though I said they weren’t top players anymore. Hey, I was just happy we picked up anyone," Chen wrote. 

 

This was just the beginning of Chen's Smash journey. While he sucked at the game, he was passionate about the scene and its pros. Starting in 2015, Chen continuously asked ESL to host Smash events. But when ESL kept refusing, Chen decided to start a grassroots org despite being told "Smash doesn't make money." 

 

And ESL wasn't wrong in that assessment. Chen said that it took a very long time for BTS to make a profit from Smash events. 

 

Said Chen: "I’m in my thirties. I’m out here fighting for Smash every chance I get. I funnel sponsor money into as many smash events as I can (don’t tell our sales VP) and I pretend that taking trips to Genesis and Big House are business expenses. I organized a BTS internal tournament and forced all my old Starcraft friends to play melee. I have tens of thousands of games played on Slippi, and keep bugging Fizzi for friendlies even though I know he needs to work on ranked."

 

In response, many in the Smash community applauded Chen for standing up for himself and his company. Even pros came forward to confirm Chen's history with the game. 

 

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