Today we begin to reveal the long-awaited top ten on PMRank 2022!
Welcome one and all to the return of PMRank! PMRank is a panel-based Power Ranking of the Top 50 Project+ players worldwide. We're pleased to be doing another full, Top 50 list, covering Undertow 2021 through HELLBREAK. PMRank staff collected and organized data from 25 Project+ events from the ranking season, seeking out tournaments with significant inter-regional competition. Initially, 72 players were qualified to be ranked based on their placings and attendance at major Project+ events from late 2021 through 2022. Panelists were tasked with reviewing this data and ranking each player in order, from #1 to #72. For each player, the highest and lowest rankings on all panelists’ lists were removed when averaging votes to reduce variance. After an initial ballot, panelists were given time to discuss the aggregated results and move closer to consensus in the case of players with high standard deviations. Then, panelists submitted a second and final ballot to determine the placement of our PMRank Top 50.
This project would not have been possible without the dedicated volunteers who helped us engineer spreadsheets, track down tournament data, construct head-to-head charts, create and revise ranking ballots, write and edit player summaries, and gather photographs. A number of photographers have given us permission to use their high-quality photographs of Project M/+ players for the purposes of this project as well.
A PMRank staple and perpetual #12 in the world, Kycse finally breaks his curse and squeezes into the top 10 for the first time in his career. His iconic gray Charizard started off the season with a bang at Shipwrecked, taking down Arsenals, Tealz, Jonny Sosa, and Nogh twice to win the Texas shadow major without losing a set. After winning his first ever major, Kycse faltered a bit in SoCal, falling to hometown hero Nezergy and fellow New England player Mira for a 13th place finish. Kycse was invited to the Project M Theatre for his Shipwrecked performance, and he took both a great win in Stango and an upset loss to Melody, bowing out of the invitational at ninth place. These peaks and valleys carried over to his future events, firstly taking an early loss to Suvir at 5:00 PM Fights: Game Night for ninth place at the regional, only netting one legacy PMRank win in Gap Moe. “Big Business Bobby” brought the fire to Undertow 2022 one month later, though, burning Sabre, Ellipsis, and Comb en route to a fifth place finish and another Theatre invite. Honeypot 4 was another strong event for the Connecticut resident, defeating Jank, Chaloopy, and the other Connecticut player in attendance, Shadowhawke, to earn third place at the Iowa event. Kycse’s final event of the ranking period, Blacklisted 7, saw him run into a better-than-ever Envy and run afoul of SipMastah’s losers run for 13th at one of the most stacked events of 2022, though not before winning sets against LoyaL, guttey, and evening out his record versus Suvir. While top-level threats such as Rongunshu, techboy, and The Doctor were roadblocks for Connecticut’s best player this season, Kycse seems to be on an upwards trend. With an active local scene and consistent practice, it’s very possible that he’ll never settle for just #12 again.
Written By: Motobug
A man of many characters, NorCal’s own SipMastah has continued to evolve into a top player across 2021-22, displaying incredible prowess with his Meta Knight, Sonic, and Lucario both in and out of region. He started the season with his best ever national performance, placing third at Undertow after tearing through New England’s finest in Plagavis, Mira, and Silver, and taking down Florida titan Nogh, before falling in finals to The Doctor and Lunchables. At Jailbreak, SipMastah turned in another strong performance by repeating his win over Mira and taking down SoCal titans Narq and Nezergy on the way to a fifth place finish. In 2022, SipMastah dropped early sets to PwrUp! and grealy at You’re So Mad, but he clawed his way back to top 3 with wins over Tealz, Sabre, Av, and even won the runback against grealy before finally being eliminated by hometown hero Pikmon. As strong as his early season was, SipMastah continued to improve throughout 2022. At Exodus 2022, SipMastah took the gold at NorCal’s biggest event of the year without dropping a set, taking out Sabre and Darc before becoming one of only two players this season to double-eliminate The Doctor. He stood atop the podium again at Smash Camp: New Lands, defeating Motobug, Pikmon, and Ivayne, and reaffirming his place as one of the West Coast’s strongest players. SipMastah ended his season with another strong performance at Blacklisted 7. Despite an upset loss to Phresh in pools, he stormed through Wombat, Boiko, and Kycse before being eliminated at ninth place by the eventual tourney champion, The Doctor. With his versatile roster and upbeat mentality, SipMastah continues to exhibit remarkable improvement, and now joins the ranks of the most elite players of Project+.
Written By: Sabre
Malachi has been a PMRank staple since its inception in 2016. For years, he ravaged PM brackets with a combination of his grab-heavy Sheik and his rushdown Peach, but when P+ came along, he made some significant adjustments to his character lineup. He dropped his signature Sheik and Peach and picked up Zero Suit Samus, hoping to show the world what the character was capable of when played at a high level. The character switch wasn’t a seamless transition, however, and Malachi found himself beaten early in pools by AssTAStic at Undertow 2021. He went on to take out Yung Quaff and Cloudburst before the PNW Samus main, Chevy, stopped Malachi’s run at 13th place, disappointing for someone accustomed to standing on the top 8 podium at the end of events. Committed to his new character, Malachi continued practicing and pushing his Zero Suit Samus with determination to never be on the wrong side of top 8 ever again. He succeeded. At Blacklisted 6, Malachi defeated Narq, Bongo and Ivayne before being slated to play techboy in Winner’s Semis. Many wondered if he would play Peach, a matchup he felt comfortable in against Ice Climbers in the past, and one he has beaten techboy in multiple times in the past. Malachi chose to stick with Zero Suit Samus, but he did not prevail. In losers, he took out Stango’s Fox and DK, before dvd’s newly minted Sheik ended his return to top 8’s at fourth place. Malachi carried this momentum into PM Theatre, a tournament featuring matchups that made longtime PM fans smile, including pitting Malachi up against two long-time rival titans of PM. His optimized Zero Suit Samus brought a modern flair to his iconic rivalries against ThundeRzReiGN and Sosa, but was ultimately unable to take down either of his historic rivals at Theatre. Despite his losses to two fellow faces of the modern PM Mount Rushmore, Malachi’s Zero Suit Samus showed great potential in these nostalgic matchups, and Malachi underscored that potential with wins in dominant sets against Nogh, Kycse, and Flarp, as well as a tense five game set against Fearless to.finish at an impressive fifth place. Blacklisted 7 showcased Malachi’s continued upwards trajectory as he surged toward the new year. There, he defeated Twisty and became one of only four players to defeat The Doctor in bracket this season, before becoming another victim of a red-hot Stango. Blacklisted 7 also included a shocking new development in Malachi’s stable of characters ready for tournament: the emergence of Ganondorf. The Ganondorf ended the Cinderella run of Flarp and amazingly took The Doctor to game five with a series of safe pokes combined with surgical edgeguards. Malachi has taken the mantle of PM’s best Zero Suit Samus, passed down from Jason Waterfalls, to Aidan, then to Blank, and now to him, and in 2023 we may see just how high her ceiling is.
Written By: Serb
After years of representing Toon Link at the highest level, dvd’s mid-quarantine switch to Sheik paid immediate dividends for the legendary New Jersey resident. No longer held back by bad matchups against his Tristate peers, dvd put up one of the best major runs of his career at Blacklisted 6. He defeated Undertow breakouts Yono and Comb in dominant 3-0 fashion before taking down Rongunshu, Twisty, and Malachi to secure a third place finish with his new main. While dvd’s Sheik struggled to match the brutal punish game of The Doctor, who double-eliminated him from Blacklisted 6, dvd’s lightning-fast movement and precise edgeguards made clear that, coupled with the potential of his new main, he was set on a trajectory for greatness in 2021. At his next major, dvd defeated Blue in pools, but an upset loss to New England hidden boss Cory put him on a collision course with The Doctor once again in losers. Drawing upon his years of matchup experience against Gallo, dvd recalled his Toon Link back into play for the Mario matchup and delivered a clinical 3-1 victory over the tournament favorite, eliminating The Doctor at ninth place. Moving on to face Rongunshu, dvd found once again that his Sheik wasn’t quite cutting it against Canada’s best player, but another swap to Toon Link led him to complete a reverse 3-0 comeback against Rongunshu’s Marth, bringing him to a fifth place finish at Theatre after being eliminated by Stango. Now using both Sheik and Toon Link regularly, dvd finished out 2022 with a final great performance at Blacklisted 7, ending incredible winners bracket runs by Flarp and Envy to earn a place in Winners Finals before being eliminated by Stango and The Doctor for his second third place of the season. Despite his minimal attendance this season, dvd’s impressive showings at East Coast majors and wins over some of the best players in today’s meta make him a top contender for any event he enters in 2023.
Written By: Sabre
Other PMRank 2022 Articles
Last Year's Rankings
Credits
PMRank Staff:
Graphic Design and Character Renders:
Editors:
Welcome one and all to the return of PMRank! PMRank is a panel-based Power Ranking of the Top 50 Project+ players worldwide. We're pleased to be doing another full, Top 50 list, covering Undertow 2021 through HELLBREAK. PMRank staff collected and organized data from 25 Project+ events from the ranking season, seeking out tournaments with significant inter-regional competition. Initially, 72 players were qualified to be ranked based on their placings and attendance at major Project+ events from late 2021 through 2022. Panelists were tasked with reviewing this data and ranking each player in order, from #1 to #72. For each player, the highest and lowest rankings on all panelists’ lists were removed when averaging votes to reduce variance. After an initial ballot, panelists were given time to discuss the aggregated results and move closer to consensus in the case of players with high standard deviations. Then, panelists submitted a second and final ballot to determine the placement of our PMRank Top 50.
This project would not have been possible without the dedicated volunteers who helped us engineer spreadsheets, track down tournament data, construct head-to-head charts, create and revise ranking ballots, write and edit player summaries, and gather photographs. A number of photographers have given us permission to use their high-quality photographs of Project M/+ players for the purposes of this project as well.
A PMRank staple and perpetual #12 in the world, Kycse finally breaks his curse and squeezes into the top 10 for the first time in his career. His iconic gray Charizard started off the season with a bang at Shipwrecked, taking down Arsenals, Tealz, Jonny Sosa, and Nogh twice to win the Texas shadow major without losing a set. After winning his first ever major, Kycse faltered a bit in SoCal, falling to hometown hero Nezergy and fellow New England player Mira for a 13th place finish. Kycse was invited to the Project M Theatre for his Shipwrecked performance, and he took both a great win in Stango and an upset loss to Melody, bowing out of the invitational at ninth place. These peaks and valleys carried over to his future events, firstly taking an early loss to Suvir at 5:00 PM Fights: Game Night for ninth place at the regional, only netting one legacy PMRank win in Gap Moe. “Big Business Bobby” brought the fire to Undertow 2022 one month later, though, burning Sabre, Ellipsis, and Comb en route to a fifth place finish and another Theatre invite. Honeypot 4 was another strong event for the Connecticut resident, defeating Jank, Chaloopy, and the other Connecticut player in attendance, Shadowhawke, to earn third place at the Iowa event. Kycse’s final event of the ranking period, Blacklisted 7, saw him run into a better-than-ever Envy and run afoul of SipMastah’s losers run for 13th at one of the most stacked events of 2022, though not before winning sets against LoyaL, guttey, and evening out his record versus Suvir. While top-level threats such as Rongunshu, techboy, and The Doctor were roadblocks for Connecticut’s best player this season, Kycse seems to be on an upwards trend. With an active local scene and consistent practice, it’s very possible that he’ll never settle for just #12 again.
Written By: Motobug
A man of many characters, NorCal’s own SipMastah has continued to evolve into a top player across 2021-22, displaying incredible prowess with his Meta Knight, Sonic, and Lucario both in and out of region. He started the season with his best ever national performance, placing third at Undertow after tearing through New England’s finest in Plagavis, Mira, and Silver, and taking down Florida titan Nogh, before falling in finals to The Doctor and Lunchables. At Jailbreak, SipMastah turned in another strong performance by repeating his win over Mira and taking down SoCal titans Narq and Nezergy on the way to a fifth place finish. In 2022, SipMastah dropped early sets to PwrUp! and grealy at You’re So Mad, but he clawed his way back to top 3 with wins over Tealz, Sabre, Av, and even won the runback against grealy before finally being eliminated by hometown hero Pikmon. As strong as his early season was, SipMastah continued to improve throughout 2022. At Exodus 2022, SipMastah took the gold at NorCal’s biggest event of the year without dropping a set, taking out Sabre and Darc before becoming one of only two players this season to double-eliminate The Doctor. He stood atop the podium again at Smash Camp: New Lands, defeating Motobug, Pikmon, and Ivayne, and reaffirming his place as one of the West Coast’s strongest players. SipMastah ended his season with another strong performance at Blacklisted 7. Despite an upset loss to Phresh in pools, he stormed through Wombat, Boiko, and Kycse before being eliminated at ninth place by the eventual tourney champion, The Doctor. With his versatile roster and upbeat mentality, SipMastah continues to exhibit remarkable improvement, and now joins the ranks of the most elite players of Project+.
Written By: Sabre
Malachi has been a PMRank staple since its inception in 2016. For years, he ravaged PM brackets with a combination of his grab-heavy Sheik and his rushdown Peach, but when P+ came along, he made some significant adjustments to his character lineup. He dropped his signature Sheik and Peach and picked up Zero Suit Samus, hoping to show the world what the character was capable of when played at a high level. The character switch wasn’t a seamless transition, however, and Malachi found himself beaten early in pools by AssTAStic at Undertow 2021. He went on to take out Yung Quaff and Cloudburst before the PNW Samus main, Chevy, stopped Malachi’s run at 13th place, disappointing for someone accustomed to standing on the top 8 podium at the end of events. Committed to his new character, Malachi continued practicing and pushing his Zero Suit Samus with determination to never be on the wrong side of top 8 ever again. He succeeded. At Blacklisted 6, Malachi defeated Narq, Bongo and Ivayne before being slated to play techboy in Winner’s Semis. Many wondered if he would play Peach, a matchup he felt comfortable in against Ice Climbers in the past, and one he has beaten techboy in multiple times in the past. Malachi chose to stick with Zero Suit Samus, but he did not prevail. In losers, he took out Stango’s Fox and DK, before dvd’s newly minted Sheik ended his return to top 8’s at fourth place. Malachi carried this momentum into PM Theatre, a tournament featuring matchups that made longtime PM fans smile, including pitting Malachi up against two long-time rival titans of PM. His optimized Zero Suit Samus brought a modern flair to his iconic rivalries against ThundeRzReiGN and Sosa, but was ultimately unable to take down either of his historic rivals at Theatre. Despite his losses to two fellow faces of the modern PM Mount Rushmore, Malachi’s Zero Suit Samus showed great potential in these nostalgic matchups, and Malachi underscored that potential with wins in dominant sets against Nogh, Kycse, and Flarp, as well as a tense five game set against Fearless to.finish at an impressive fifth place. Blacklisted 7 showcased Malachi’s continued upwards trajectory as he surged toward the new year. There, he defeated Twisty and became one of only four players to defeat The Doctor in bracket this season, before becoming another victim of a red-hot Stango. Blacklisted 7 also included a shocking new development in Malachi’s stable of characters ready for tournament: the emergence of Ganondorf. The Ganondorf ended the Cinderella run of Flarp and amazingly took The Doctor to game five with a series of safe pokes combined with surgical edgeguards. Malachi has taken the mantle of PM’s best Zero Suit Samus, passed down from Jason Waterfalls, to Aidan, then to Blank, and now to him, and in 2023 we may see just how high her ceiling is.
Written By: Serb
After years of representing Toon Link at the highest level, dvd’s mid-quarantine switch to Sheik paid immediate dividends for the legendary New Jersey resident. No longer held back by bad matchups against his Tristate peers, dvd put up one of the best major runs of his career at Blacklisted 6. He defeated Undertow breakouts Yono and Comb in dominant 3-0 fashion before taking down Rongunshu, Twisty, and Malachi to secure a third place finish with his new main. While dvd’s Sheik struggled to match the brutal punish game of The Doctor, who double-eliminated him from Blacklisted 6, dvd’s lightning-fast movement and precise edgeguards made clear that, coupled with the potential of his new main, he was set on a trajectory for greatness in 2021. At his next major, dvd defeated Blue in pools, but an upset loss to New England hidden boss Cory put him on a collision course with The Doctor once again in losers. Drawing upon his years of matchup experience against Gallo, dvd recalled his Toon Link back into play for the Mario matchup and delivered a clinical 3-1 victory over the tournament favorite, eliminating The Doctor at ninth place. Moving on to face Rongunshu, dvd found once again that his Sheik wasn’t quite cutting it against Canada’s best player, but another swap to Toon Link led him to complete a reverse 3-0 comeback against Rongunshu’s Marth, bringing him to a fifth place finish at Theatre after being eliminated by Stango. Now using both Sheik and Toon Link regularly, dvd finished out 2022 with a final great performance at Blacklisted 7, ending incredible winners bracket runs by Flarp and Envy to earn a place in Winners Finals before being eliminated by Stango and The Doctor for his second third place of the season. Despite his minimal attendance this season, dvd’s impressive showings at East Coast majors and wins over some of the best players in today’s meta make him a top contender for any event he enters in 2023.
Written By: Sabre
Other PMRank 2022 Articles
1/23/2023 - PMRank 2022: The Edge of Glory
1/24/2023 - PMRank 2022: 50-41
1/25/2023 - PMRank 2022: 40-31
1/26/2023 - PMRank 2022: 30-21
1/27/2023 - PMRank 2022: 20-11
1/30/2023 - PMRank 2022: 10-7
1/31/2023 - PMRank 2022: 6-4
2/1/2023 - PMRank 2022: 3-1
1/24/2023 - PMRank 2022: 50-41
1/25/2023 - PMRank 2022: 40-31
1/26/2023 - PMRank 2022: 30-21
1/27/2023 - PMRank 2022: 20-11
1/30/2023 - PMRank 2022: 10-7
1/31/2023 - PMRank 2022: 6-4
2/1/2023 - PMRank 2022: 3-1
Last Year's Rankings
Credits
PMRank Staff:
- Brennan “FlashingFire” Connolly
- Paul “Motobug” Canavan
- Peter “Pikmon” Woodworth
- Ryan “Sabre” Weinberg
Graphic Design and Character Renders:
- Paul "Motobug" Canavan
- Cosmetic Standardization Project (CSProject) & the Project+ Development Team
Editors:
- “CND”
- Timothy “ilikepizza107” W.
- Ryan "Sabre" Weinberg
Last edited:
