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Super Smash Bros. for Wii U now has online Tourneys. Ever since the feature was announced during the '50 things' Nintendo Direct prior to the game's release, it's had some fans dreaming of competitive online battles. Now that the feature is here we can see whether it delivers on that promise; as with so many things, it's a mixed bag - overall it seems like a lot of fun, but some omissions have frustrated more serious players.

So, below are details on how to use and get the most out of Tourneys in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

Keeping it simple to start with, where do you find Tourneys? It's easy-peasy, head to the Online section, Select Online Events and then Tourney. Job done.

Now, there are multiple options and tournament types, so let's break it down.

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Regular

These are the only tournaments that incorporate the knockout formula shown when Tourneys were first revealed; they're setup and run by Nintendo. Some key details are below.

  • At the time of writing there are four tournaments every five minutes, with sign-ups filling up rapidly.
  • Nintendo has plenty of freedom, clearly, as tournaments come with various rules and numbers of participants, from 16 up to 64. There are 'For Fun' variants, others that are 1v1 For Glory with no items, and various others.
  • If you find an open tournament to enter, you have to get in prior to its start, so select the line of your choice, check the details and jump in with the Start button.

A common complaint with the current setup is that when you sign up you need to wait in the holding warm-up area, beating up on the sandbag until it kicks off. This makes sense in terms of ensuring participants are present when the matches kick off, but with For Glory (no items) rooms often filling up a few slots ahead of time you may be in the holding area waiting to play for 15 minutes+. You can quit out of the Tourney before it kicks off if you change your mind, but quitting within one minute of the start will earn you a temp ban.

  • Once in a tournament it's a straight knockout based on the rules of that particular Tourney.
  • Only the full winner progresses to the next round, with the 'final' always being 1v1, even in For Fun tournaments with four player rounds.
  • If you get knocked out you can exit right away (with no punishment) or hang around to watch replays of other matches in the Tourney.
  • Even if you progress to the Final, these regular Tourneys don't need much time as you'll only need to compete in a handful of matches, with 1v1 64 player tournaments being the longest.
  • Quitting during a Tourney match will earn you a ban.
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Create Tourneys

Each user is allowed to run two custom Tourneys at any one time. Unlike the official 'Regular' events, these resemble the equivalent options in Mario Kart 8, for example, so it's more of a league contest as opposed to a knockout event.

First of all, below are the categories you can customise and their options:

  • Tourney Name
  • Start Date - Adjustable in months, days and ten minute intervals
  • End Date - Adjustable in months, days and ten minute intervals
  • Restrictions - None, Same Country, Friends Only, Password
  • Participants - from 2 to 100
  • Tourney Format - Winners chosen by Number of Points or Number of Wins
  • End Condition - Optional, set a number of points or wins that declares a winner once reached
  • Match Restrictions - None, Daily or Total limit on number of matches allowed per player
  • Max Matches - None, from 1-50 per day or a big number for a total across the whole Tourney
  • Time Limit - Matches from 1 minute to 10 minutes
  • Match Rules - Time, Stock or Coin
  • Stock - Can be set from 1 to 10 with Stock or Coin match rules
  • Sudden Death - A 300% face-off for a tie, can be turned on or off
  • Launch Rate - Set from 0.5x to 2.0x
  • Stage Choice - Choose (all players pick), Random or Random Ω
  • SD Penalty - Set the cost for a suicide or accidental fall to -1 or -2
  • Stage Switch - This allows you to select which stages are available in the Random cycle, from as little as just one stage.
  • Item Switch - This allows you to select which items will appear and how frequently, including the option to turn off all items (see FAQ at the end for more detail on turning items off).
  • Special Smash: Stamina - Off, start all players at 300% or select Stamina matches.
  • Mii Fighters - On or off
  • Customisations - On of off

There are plenty of options, though some players are rather frustrated - rightly - that 1v1 isn't supported. If a Tourney is claiming to be 1v1 in its name don't be fooled, such an option simply does not exist unless you limit a tournament to 2 players; that's pointless when you can just play For Glory instead. Some are reporting items appearing when they shouldn't, too, but we haven't seen this yet.

Overall, there's plenty of freedom for this points accumulation format, even if the knockout structure enjoyed in the Regular tournaments would have been welcome.

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Joining User Created Tournaments

The game auto-generates Recommended Tourneys on the right, while you can join and compete in up to 4 at a time. Unlike Regular knockout tourneys you can naturally jump in and out within the set time period for the contest.

If you change your mind about a Tourney you're in you can select it and withdraw with the Y button. If you jump out before it starts you can rejoin later, though quitting a Tourney after it's started will stop you from rejoining.

The Search option gives you various options for finding events, too.

  • Search - Here you can look at the 'Recommended' list, 'Free Rules' (no limitations) or 'Glorious Rules' (no items, Ω stages). In addition you can filter search results with the Y button (based on Rule types, Duration or Match limits). You can select a Tourney from the list and join from this area.
  • Tourney ID - Manually enter a Tourney ID to find it
  • Tourney Community - This is a neat option. When in a Tourney information page (either between rounds or just checking it out) there's an option to promote it with a post on Miiverse. This search option brings up those Miiverse posts, with the option to leave a Yeah and to enter the Tourney itself.
  • Friend List - Check Tourney participation of those on your friend list.
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FAQs

We'll update this with any user questions:

Can I set up local Tourneys?

Nope, unfortunately not. This would have been meaningless (arguably) without the knockout tree structure in the custom Tourneys, in any case, but you'll have to stick with a pen and paper (along with friends in the same room, of course).

Wait, how can I get rid of items, they were in my Tourney when they shouldn't have been?

As mentioned above, some have complained of items appearing when they shouldn't, but this is probably due to the wrong option being selected. When creating a Tourney leaving the 'Item Switch' category 'Off' WILL bring items into the game. You need to choose Edit and then select 'All OFF' in the grid. If you want to be double sure set the frequency at the top to 'None'.

So there you have it, that's the breakdown of Tourneys in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. If you have any questions fire them at us in the comments and we'll add an FAQ section soon; in addition we'll be running Nintendo Life Tourneys this weekend, so keep your eyes peeled.