On March 9, 2008, two major things happened in the world of gaming. You can guess the first: Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released to the public on the stroke of midnight. The second, you might have missed if you were living under a rock. At midnight on that fateful day began GameStop’s nationwide Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament, which culminated in the Grand Championships in San Jose, California last Saturday. Thirteen finalists came from all over the country to battle it out in a final brawl after some 79,000 other contestants were beat out in competitions across America.

The 13 finalists were:
David Campondonico, Fairview, NJ
Zachary Citron, Boca Raton, FL
Timothy Cody, Manasquan, NJ
Austin Cornelius, Dallas, TX
Trevon Daniels, Goochland, VA
Sheldon Dukes, West Chicago, IL
Derick Janssen, Plant City, FL
Tim Joyce, Glendale, AZ
Lee Martin, Houma, LA
Daniel Rodriguez, Falls Church, VA
Gabe Soto, Saginaw, MI
Daniel Taylor, Blacksburg, VA
Nghia Trong Tran, Torrance, CA

GamesRadar made the scene and we’re happy to share the triumph and tribulations that were the Super Smash Bros. Brawl Grand Championship in this week’s SmashRadar.

The Ground Rules: GameStop frontman and tournament proctor Jay Hilpen told us, “We wanted to keep things as fair as possible and we agreed [with Nintendo] on rules that we thought were the most fair.” The tournament was set for Wii Remotes only (too keep Melee fighters from having an edge), no items, tournament mode instead of free-for-all and starting characters only (sorry, Ness). Matches were set at five minutes, victory going to whoever took best two out of three. Officials picked the stage at the start of a tournament phase and only then were contestants allowed to choose their characters (keeping that character for the rest of that tournament phase).