Samuel Robert Buzby (born August 7, 1993), also known as Dabuz, is an American

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and ski ...

Super Smash Bros. ''Super Smash Bros.'' is a Crossover (fiction), crossover fighting game series published by Nintendo. The series was created by Masahiro Sakurai, who has directed every game in the series. The series is known for its unique gameplay objectiv ...

'' player. In '' Super Smash Bros. for Wii U'', he won several major tournaments and was ranked between 3rd and 6th best player in the world throughout the game's competitive history. In '' Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'', he was ranked 7th and 9th best for the first and second halves of 2019, respectively. Dabuz primarily used Olimar in '' Super Smash Bros. Brawl''. In ''Super Smash Bros. for Wii U'', he switched to Rosalina and Luma as his primary character, with Olimar as his secondary. In ''Ultimate'', he used both Olimar and Rosalina as primaries, and Min Min as a secondary.

Career

''Super Smash Bros. Brawl''

Dabuz began competing in ''Smash'' with '' Super Smash Bros. Brawl''. His parents were initially reluctant to let him leave Long Island to compete, and Dabuz would occasionally lie to them about where he would be in order to attend tournaments. However, after winning $3,000 at an event held by

Major League Gaming Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) is a professional esports organization. MLG is headquartered in New York City, New York and was founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso. MLG has held official video game tournaments throughout the ...

in 2009, he was able to convince his family that competing in ''Smash'' was a valid pursuit. Despite this, his ability to travel for competitions was severely limited. In January 2012 he finished tied for 13th at

Apex 2012 Apex was an annual esports tournament held in New Jersey that was focused on ''Super Smash Bros.'' The event's first incarnation was in 2009 with Jesus "Jman" Fernandez as the champion of ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' and Elliot "Ally" Carroza-Oya ...

, a major tournament held at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and wa ...

in New Jersey. He tied for 7th at Apex the following year. In June 2012 he traveled to Canada and won Impulse 2012. Dabuz used Olimar as his primary character in ''Brawl''.

''Super Smash Bros. for Wii U''

'' Super Smash Bros. for Wii U'' was released in November 2014, and Dabuz immediately began having strong showings in tournaments. He took second at APEX 2015 in February, third in Community Effort Orlando 2015 in June, and 5th at Evo 2015 in July. In August he signed with esports organization Vanquish Gaming, as their first ''Smash'' player. He would go on to take 2nd at Paragon Los Angeles 2015 in September, then 3rd at The Big House 5 in October. He continued placing highly in 2016, taking 2nd at

Genesis 3 Genesis, stylized as GENESIS, is a series of annual ''Super Smash Bros.'' tournaments occurring in the San Francisco Bay Area of the US state of California. The first Genesis tournament took place in 2009 in Antioch at the Contra Costa County Fa ...

in January, and tying for 9th at Pound 2016 in April. In the inaugural Panda Global Rankings, which ranked players based on their tournament results from ''Smash for Wii U''s inception through May 2016, Dabuz was ranked 3rd, behind only Gonzalo "

ZeRo 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usu ...

" Barrios and Nairoby "

Nairo Nairo is a given name. Nairo may refer to: * Nairo Quintana (born 1990), Colombian cyclist * Nairo (gamer), the gamertag of American gamer Nairoby Quezada {{Short pages monitor In August he tied for 9th at EVO 2018 and Shine 2018, but also finished tied for 33rd at Super Smash Con 2018. He finished 2nd at DreamHack Atlanta 2018 in November, the last ''Smash for Wii U'' tournament he contested in 2018. Dabuz rose back to 3rd in the final Panda Global Rankings for ''Smash for Wii U'', which covered much of 2018, behind Leonardo " MkLeo" López Pérez and Gavin "

Tweek Tweek may refer to: * Tweek (gamer), the handle of esports player Gavin Dempsey * Tweek Tweak, a fictional student at South Park Elementary See also * Tweak (disambiguation) Tweak or tweaker may refer to: *''Tweak'', a slang name for methampheta ...

" Dempsey. In a separate ranking, the Panda Global Rankings 100, which listed the Top 100 ''Wii U'' players from the game's release through the release of ''Ultimate'', Dabuz was ranked the 4th best player of all time behind ZeRo, Nairo, and MkLeo. In August 2019, well after the release of ''Smash Ultimate'', Dabuz won the ''Smash for Wii U'' tournament at Super Smash Con 2019. Throughout ''Super Smash Bros. for Wii U'', Dabuz used Rosalina and Luma as his primary character. As early as the first Panda Global Ranking in mid-2016, he was already considered the uncontested best player in the world with that character. By the end of 2016, Dabuz had begun using his main character from ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'', Olimar, as a frequent secondary. He would continue to utilize this duo throughout ''Smash for Wii U''s competitive run. In a 2017 interview, Dabuz stated that the primary reason that he began using Olimar again was that the character fared well against Diddy Kong – considered one of the strongest characters early in the game's history – while it was an extremely difficult matchup for Rosalina.

''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate''

''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'' released at the end of 2018, and while Dabuz remained an elite competitor in the new game, he failed to reach the same heights in ''Ultimate'' as he did in ''Smash for Wii U''. In the first half of 2019, the highest finish he achieved in a major tournament was 4th, at both Genesis 6 in February and CEO 2019 in June. He took 5th in two other major events, Smash N' Splash 5 and Pound 2019, and tied for 9th in MomoCon 2019, 2GG: Prime Saga, and Get On My Level 2019. His lowest showing at a major tournament was tied for 17th at Frostbite 2019, held in February. He also won a minor tournament, Thunder Smash, in May, winning $20,000. The first half of the year also saw him change sponsors. He announced his departure from Gravity at the end of February, and joined

Team Liquid Team Liquid is a multi-regional professional esports organization based in the Netherlands that was founded in 2000. With the release of '' StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty'', Team Liquid signed their first professional players. In 2012, Team Li ...

in early March. In the inaugural Panda Global Rankings Ultimate, Dabuz was ranked 7th, lower than his ranking at any point in ''Smash for Wii U'' competition. July 2019 proved Dabuz's best month in ''Ultimate'' to date. He finished 2nd at Albion 4, held in London, then finished 2nd at Low Tier City 7, held in Texas a week later. He rounded out the month with 3rd-place finishes at Defend the North 2019 and Thunder Smash 2. In the six largest tournaments held during the second half of 2019, Dabuz took 2nd at The Big House 9, 5th at Shine 2019, tied for 9th in three other tournaments including Evo 2019, and tied for 49th at Super Smash Con 2019. He fell to 9th place in the Panda Global Rankings Ultimate for the latter half of the year. Dabuz started 2020 by taking 2nd at Lets Make Big Moves, held in New York in early January. He tied for 5th at Glitch 8, then 9th at Genesis 7, both held later that month. In late February he took 5th at Frostbite 2020. Frostbite was Dabuz's last event before Panda Global Rankings suspended the 2020 competitive season due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. Due to the pandemic, most of the tournaments scheduled for the first half of 2020 were cancelled or moved online. At the end of April, Dabuz took 2nd at Pound Online. Weeks later, he took 3rd out of 8,192 participants at the

Hungrybox Juan Manuel DeBiedma (; born June 21, 1993), better known by his alias Hungrybox, is an Argentine- American professional ''Super Smash Bros.'' player and streamer. Recognized as one of the best and most successful ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' pla ...

-organized The Box tournament. In June, he won the East Coast competition at Fights for Rights, a pair of tournaments held to raise funds for charities involved in the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internat ...

. Owing to changes to Rosalina that made her less effective in ''Ultimate'' than she was in ''Smash for Wii U'', Dabuz initially returned to using Captain Olimar as his primary character, with Rosalina and

Palutena ''Kid Icarus'' is a media franchise of fantasy video games by Nintendo. The games are set in a fantasy world based on classical antiquity and Greek mythology, called "Angel Land". The gameplay consists of a mixture of action, adventure and platfor ...

as secondary characters. However, patch 3.1, released at the end of May 2019, singled out Olimar and Pichu, two of the smallest characters in the game, making them easier to hit. It also reduced the power of some of Olimar's attacks. Dabuz responded on Twitter that while one of Olimar's moves "got destroyed for no good reason" and the character was no longer elite, he knew the adjustments he needed to make and that he felt the character was still competitive. By the end of 2019, Dabuz was using both Rosalina and Olimar as co-main characters. After Min Min's release as a DLC fighter and part of Challenger Pack 6 on June 29, 2020, Dabuz started using her as a secondary character in addition to Olimar and Rosalina.

Playstyle

Dabuz utilizes a defensive playstyle; Min Min, Rosalina, and Olimar – the three characters he uses most – have mechanics that allow Dabuz to pressure his opponent from a safe distance, then quickly move in and attack when that pressure leads his opponent to make a mistake. Writing for the Panda Global Rankings in 2017, Adam Braham called his style "one of the most aggressively defensive play styles of any ''Smash Wii U'' player". Dabuz calls his style "passive aggressive". He is also known for his extensive research and note-taking. He studies both character matchups and player matchups and consults his notes during tournaments. At CEO 2016, he asked for and was granted a pause in the match so he could review his notes using a laptop he brought on stage.

Personal life

Dabuz graduated from

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York syste ...

in 2017. He is of Jewish heritage.

References

External links

* * * {{Competitive Super Smash Bros. 1993 births American esports players Living people Stony Brook University alumni Super Smash Bros. Brawl players Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players Super Smash Bros. for Wii U players