Battle of BC 7 Smash Melee and Ultimate watch guide

Battle of BC 7 is bringing the FGC community to Vancouver, Canada to watch the top Super Smash Bros. Melee and Ultimate players fight to top the 2025 rankings.

From March 28th to March 30th, Battle of BC 7 will feature fighting game tourneys ranging from Street Fighter 6 to Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, but the main events are the Melee and Ultimate competitions, which will count as Premier events in the largely grassroots esports circuit.

The specific schedule has not been announced just yet, but it will be following a general tournament flow that starts with Pools on Friday, March 28th and ends with the Top 8 on March 30th. The exact times are still not available.

Pools will be running for Melee and Ultimate simultaneously, so fans will have to choose which to watch whether they attend in-person or are watching on Twitch. Pools will be double elimination with best-of-three fights—the winner will progress up the bracket while the loser will need to fight in Lower Bracket to stay in the battle.

Both games will eventually make it to a Top 8, both happening at different times on Sunday. Players on the Losers side will need to battle their way to the Winners side in an attempt to make it to the Grand Final. If the two finalists are both from the Winners side, it will be a best-of-five that determines the winner. If one finalist is from Losers, they will need to win two best-of-five matches to claim victory.

The winner of the first match will ban a stage. The loser of the first match will then pick the next stage to play on.

The winner of the first match will ban a stage. The loser of the first match will then pick the next stage to play on.

With the amount of big long-standing tournaments in the Smash scene dwindling, you can expect all of the biggest players from both Melee and Ultimate to show up to Battle of BC 7 to prove their worth.

On the Melee side, there are almost too many top players to mention: Hungrybox, Mang0, aMSa, Zain, Jmook, Cody Schwab, moky, Leffen and Wizzrobe, just to name a few. Juan ‘Hungrybox‘ DeBiedma is fresh off his victory at Genesis X2 after not winning a Major in years—he will most likely have the confidence and practice to dominate.

But Zain Naghmi and Cody Schwab have been grinding quite consistently up until now— and both are major threats to Hungrybox thanks to their skills, playstyle and character choice. In the past, Hungrybox has called Cody the best Fox player in the scene. Joseph ‘Mango’ Marquez is another contender, a long-time Hungrybox rival who will want to take him down at Battle of BC 7.

Ultimate is also stacked, featuring: Hurt, Miya, acola, Light, Sonix, Gluttony, Zomba, KEN, MkLeo, Sparg0, Shuton and Riddles. It honestly looks like it will be a battle against Japan and the rest of the world. Ever since top Japanese players started traveling to international tourneys, they’ve been dominating the scene—Genesis X2 saw a Top 8 almost entirely made up of players from Japan.

Hurt and Mashita ‘acola‘ Hayato will likely be dominant after their showing at Genesis X2, but the other Japanese players shouldn’t be counted out at all. Mexico’s Edgar ‘Sparg0‘ Valdez is another to watch after being ranked number one in 2024 for his consistently high placements in tournaments.

The official Twitch channels haven’t been announced just yet, but last year, Melee could be viewed here and Ultimate here.

Stay tuned for more information on the tournament’s packed schedule and where to watch each tourney as the action unfolds.