Aiden “Calvin” McCaig shared details Tuesday about the upcoming edition of the Ludwig Ahgren Championship Series, LACS 4. The online tournament Super Smash Bros. Melee will be held from January 29th to 30th.
The tournament organizers behind Genesis 8 announced January 14th that they had postponed the Smash supermajor to April “due to COVID and operational concerns.” Shortly thereafter, Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren announced his intention to host his own online tournament on the weekend that Genesis was originally scheduled to take place.
One of the biggest smash tournaments in the world had to be postponed because COVID has gotten so bad…
I run my own tournament – online
$30,001 prize pool $1 entry
29-30 January
Until then— ludwig (@LudwigAhgren) January 15, 2022
LACS 4 will boast a prize pool of $30,001, making it the ninth largest All-time melee tournament by prize pool. It will beat both DreamHack Winter 2016 and GameTyrant Expo 2017 by $1. This follows the pattern of LACS 2 and 3, both of which had the top 10 prize pools by a small margin at the time.
Ludwig launched the LACS in December 2018 as a Netplay Invitational. The first issue contained a $1,000 prize pot, which Zachary “SFAT” Cordoni won. Ludwig reintroduced the series with much bigger prize payouts in 2020 after finding fame as a Twitch streamer. LACS 4 will be Ludwig’s first Smash Major since streaming exclusively on YouTube.
THE BIGGEST ONLINE SMASH EVENT IS BACK
Prize pool of $30,001
Jan 29-30
JOIN NOWhttps://t.co/qwlnbL7osr
— ludwig (@LudwigAhgren) January 18, 2022
More about Ludwig’s LACS 4
LACS 4 will be a fundraiser for the Genesis TOs who announced this “Costs incurred in the six-digit range” by postponing their tournament. This follows LACS 3 precedent, which saw the Smash community raise over $260,000 for Games For Love.
The North American exclusive event will feature separate pools for East and West Coast players, which will be combined into a single Top 64. Calvin confirmed that the East Coast will get more spots in the top 64 than the West Coast. Previous online majors, despite the East Coast pools, typically had an even split of East and West Coast players in the main round usually more stacked.
Ludwig and Anthony “Slime” Bruno will be commentating on the tournament on Ludwig’s YouTube channel. Additionally, Brandon “YungWaff” Collier will host a secondary stream on Twitch.
LACS 4 will not feature Super Smash Bros. Ultimate because of the bad netcode of the game. However, James “VoiD” Makekau-Tyson does has expressed interest Host his own online Ultimate tournament with a $10,000 prize pool.
