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Current logo of Smashboards.

Smashboards, also formerly known asSmash World Forums orSWF, is a forum devoted to theSuper Smash Bros. series, allowing users to discuss strategies, as well as find and hosttournaments. In addition to helping players organize tournaments for the games, Smashboards is notably where the most widely-acceptedtier lists are published.

First opened in 2000, the website has over 250,000 members, making it the most popularSuper Smash Bros. forum on the internet. Despite its age, Smashboards remains popular, though with the rise of other forms of media such asReddit,Twitter, andDiscord, it has had a steady drop in usage, with most remaining users being from outside of the competitive scene.

History[edit]

Prior to the formation of Smashboards,Gideon, a thirteen year old smasher, createdSmash World in 1999, a website devoted toSmash 64. One year later, he founded Smashboards.com as a companion site, hosted byUBB.threads. Initially referred to as the "Smash World Forums", Gideon founded the site as to help players ofSmash 64 talk to one another, as well as allow smashers to discuss the then-upcomingMelee and his upcoming site, Super Smash Bros. Melee World; Gideon also had one board dedicated to The Battle Arena, a side project of his involving Flash animations he created with his friends.

In addition to its standard boards, a Back Room was also created for certain users who had proved themselves; this Back Room would later go on to form the Back Rooms of later games, which would decide the tournamentrulesets of games, as well as thetier lists for the games.

After the release ofMelee, the first tournaments were organized on the SWForums, owing to its large playerbase and its ability for any player to potentially view topics about tournaments. Initially starting off as small, local affairs,Matt Deezie is generally credited with starting the national scene by using the forum to communicate with players outside of his native California, inviting users from as far away as Illinois to attend his tournaments. The site also allowed users to communicate with overseas players, creating an international scene for the game as players in North America, Europe, and Japan began to invite each other to their respective countries forMelee tournaments.

With the continued expansion ofMelee's tournament scene, the game was eventually picked up byMajor League Gaming in 2004, who helped promote the site and further assisted in making Smashboards the world's largest forum and community devoted toSmash. The site continued to rapidly expand followingMelee's inclusion in several MLG events, including the opening of Super Smash Blog, a website devoted toBrawl's development after its showcase atE3 2006, and openingSmashWiki in March 2007.

The MLG keptMelee in its circuits for many years, only dropping the game in 2007 due to declining interest in theNintendo GameCube and the development ofBrawl underway. In September 2008, withBrawl having been released worldwide and beginning to be analyzed as a tournament game, the MLG purchased the forums from Gideon in September 2008 for an undisclosed sum. While the move allowed Smashboards to gain servers that were less prone to crashing than before, a large number of threads and posts from before 2008 were also lost in the transfer. As a result, information about many tournaments held before 2008, and similar topics, have been lost. Furthermore, the forums's original namesake, Smash World, and all of its variants, were all shut down at this time.

In 2011, the forum was officially renamed Smashboards, after its domain name, though the term "SWF" is still sometimes used as a shorthand for the board. On November 27, 2012, Major League Gaming officially ended its involvement withSmash by selling the website toAlphaZealot's company Xyelot LLC.^[1]

With the upcoming release ofSmash 4 in 2014, Smashboards expanded to act as a news network forSmash in general, covering the release ofSmash 4, tournaments for the various games, and promoting videos of players onYouTube.

A sister site to Smashboards,Squidboards, was launched in 2015, serving as a Smashboards-style forum for theSplatoon community.

On June 1st, 2023, AlphaZealot stepped down as the owner of SmashBoards. His company Xyelot, LLC sold SmashBoards to Equistellar Media, Inc, a company owned byWarchamp7 which will serve as the business entity for SmashBoards and SquidBoards going forward.

Into the 2020s, SmashBoards would see a significant decline in users, posts, and moderator activity as a result of other social media alternatives increasing in usage by the smash community and by competitive players. Despite this, forums such as the Smasher's Hangout are still being used regularly such as "SmashBoards Creates", which is a game format in which users would submit content to a fake game based on a vague prompt and vote on it democratically.

Forums[edit]

As of 2023, the following boards are available on Smashboards. All of them can be immediately posted in, with exception of the Back Rooms.

• Smash World Network
  • News
  • Welcome Center / Meet & Greet

• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
  • General Discussion
  • Character Discussion
  • Competitive Discussion
  • Online Discussion
  • Videos, Livestreams and Other Media

• Platform Fighter Hub
  • Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
  • Multiversus
  • Platform Fighter General

• Community VIP
  • Community Discussion

• Super Smash Bros. for Wii U /3DS
  • General Discussion
  • Competitive Discussion
  • Character Discussion
  • Online Discussion
  • Videos, Livestreams, and Other Media

• Super Smash Bros. Melee
  • Melee Discussion
  • Melee Character Discussion
  • Melee Videos, Livestreams, and Other Media

• Project M
  • General Discussion
  • Character Discussion
  • Help and Support
  • Customized Content
  • Project M Videos, Livestreams, and Other Media

• Super Smash Bros. 64
  • Smash 64 Discussion
  • Character Discussion
  • Videos
  • Online Events

• Super Smash Bros. Brawl
  • Brawl General Discussion
  • Brawl Competitive Discussion
  • Brawl Character Discussion
  • Brawl Videos, Livestreams, and Other Media

• SmashTournaments
  • Tournament Discussion
  • Tournament Listings
  • Regional Zones
  • Online Tournament Listings
  • Rankings & Results

• Smash Workshop
  • Developer Studio
  • Melee Workshop
  • Brawl Workshop

• Smasher's Hangout
  • Light House
  • Pool Room
  • NintenZone
  • Forum Games
  • Decisive Games
  • Smashboards Creates
  • Arts and Entertainment
  • Debate Hall
  • Serious Discussion

• Archives
  • Public Archive

Smash Back Rooms[edit]

In addition to the above categories, a further category of forums are present on Smashboards, theSmash Back Rooms. The Back Rooms are only accessible to specific users who must apply to be able to view and post in these forums; a majority of users of the Back Rooms are generally highly-regardedtournament organisers or high-level professional smashers. The Back Rooms can be considered somewhat of a central governing body for competitiveSmash in North America and Europe, and the Back Rooms produce the most widely-acceptedtier lists and publish the official tournamentrulesets for the games. The Back Rooms also made the officialmatchup charts for the games, though the last matchup chart to be released wasBrawl's in 2013.

Smash 64,Melee,Brawl, andSmash 4 all have their own dedicated Back Rooms, as doesProject M. TheBrawl Back Room also formerly featured its own offshoot, theUnity Ruleset Committee, which attempted to create a universal ruleset forBrawl tournaments. Initially accepted, the URC'sdecision to ban Meta Knight fromBrawl tournaments later led to fractures in theBrawl competitive community, and the URC later disbanded in April 2012, owing to its failure to create or foster a truly universal ruleset forBrawl.

Ultimate does not have a dedicated back room, only having the standard publicly available forums. No official statement has been given on its lack of creation, though the decision was likely influenced by a combination of a general decline in usership and those that would otherwise be in a backroom electing to do business elsewhere.

April Fools' Day gags[edit]

In 2015, Smashboards became Shaqboards, which made everyone's profile picture into images ofShaquille O'Neal while character mains became emoticons of Shaq. Tier Lists for the gameShaq Fu were posted as well as a guaranteedLuigimisfire tech being discovered.^[2]

In 2016, Smashboards would become Emblemboards as an inside joke to the huge amount ofFire Emblem characters present in theSuper Smash Bros. series. It made everyone's picture into images of characters from theFire Emblem franchise as well as turning character mains into emoticons of characters from said franchise. Users notably tieredwaifus andhusbandos during this day.^[3]

In 2017, Smashboards became Knucklesboards as an inside joke toKnuckles the Echidna, who was intended for inclusion inProject M before development of the mod ceased in 2015. Each user had their picture changed into artwork of Knuckles from variousSonic the Hedgehog games, while character mains became an emoticon of Knuckles. Tier lists were notably based on Knuckles' appearances inSonic the Fighters andSonic Battle.^[4]

In 2018, Smashboards became Ridleyboards, as a reference to the continued popularity and inside jokes surrounding the Metroid characterRidley. On April Fools, each user had their avatars replaced with images of the beast, which were oversized to the point where only portions of the actual character could be seen, as a reference to the recurring "Ridley is too big" comments when discussing his potential as a playable character. On top of this, the forum's text became purple and was enlarged, once again to reference the inside joke.^[5] Ridley would be revealed as a playable character forSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate two months afterwards.

In 2019, Smashboards became Reggieboards, dedicated to the then-Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé. The site's banner, background, and users' avatars were replaced with images of Reggie.^[6] (Note: only the banner and title are archived.) A facetious article was also written, saying that he had signed ontoTeam Liquid.^[7]

In 2020, Smashboards became Crashboards, in reference to a common criticism of the site's fragile servers. Playing on this, the site became themed around theCrash Bandicoot franchise, and all user icons were changed to various images of the series' titular protagonist.^[8]

In 2021, Smashboards became FighterZboards, themed afterDragon Ball FighterZ. Users' avatars were changed into variousDragon Ball characters.^[9] A facetious article was written saying thatMario had died on March 31st (referencing the discontinuation of variousMario products as theSuper Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary celebration ended) and thatLuigi had used the Dragon Balls to summonShenron to wish Mario back to life.^[10]

In 2022, Smashboards became Nickboards, with a theme fromNickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Users' avatars were changed into various Nicktoons characters featured in the game at that point.^[11] A joke article was written in the "Setting the Stage" series of hypothetical stage design articles theorizing the concept of a stage fromDora the Explorer, a cartoon that has a controversial status inAll-Star Brawl speculation due to its non-violent nature and a debunked theory from the game's pre-launch relating to Dora potentially appearing on a silhouetted box art.^[12]

In 2023, Smashboards became Prattboards, themed afterChris Pratt for his controversial starring role as Mario inThe Super Mario Bros. Movie. Users' avatars were replaced with photos of the actor. While a Chris Pratt-themed article was not written, an article in the "Smash Speculation Corner" series was written aboutShrek, the titular protagonist of the CGI film series, referencing both his longstanding meme status inSmash speculation, and a SmashBoards in-joke relating to series side character Puss in Boots' name being automatically censored as "**** in Boots".^[13][14]

In 2024 and 2025, Smashboards did not feature an April Fool's theme which, to many, was a signal that the long-running website was in decline. There were some who thought the April Fool's joke was there was no joke. Regardless, a lack of an April Fool's theme plus decline in membership, activity from staff, and amount of posts per day has, for many, been a signal that the site was in decline. In 2024, common posts during that year revolved around waiting for an April Fool's joke, people make their one jokes, and people celebrating the holiday elsewhere.One thread was made by userSonicMetaphor though the thread did not record any comments the whole day during which it was open.

Trivia[edit]

• Players first discovered and discussedwavedashing on Smashboards, with it first being discussed in thisthread.
• During December 2005, Grimer icons started to appear on people's avatars and signatures.
• To turn his website into a business, the owner of the forums,Gideon, started to sell "Premium Memberships", in which members would pay to get special avatars and custom titles. The highest price (Diamond Membership) even got members into the Back Room at one time.

Gallery[edit]

References[edit]

• Websites