The best laid plans of mice and men, as the saying goes, often go awry, and for one man last night was very much an experience they would not want to repeat. For a week or so, Calvin "GIMR" Lofton, head of VGBootCamp and one of Smash’s veterans, has been hyping up a game-changing tech for Smash Ultimate. Last night was the moment he was due to unleash it on the world, with the Smash Ultimate community on tenterhooks.

Except… nothing happened. The 5 p.m. deadline came and went, but GIMR never went live, leaving the community to wonder what had gone on. Had they been trolled? Was there really any game-changing tech at all? And if not, was this just the end of the line for Ultimate, and time to accept the meta was completely dominated by Steve, despite the character never having actually won a supermajor?

Things fall apart

As it turns out GIMR had technical issues while putting the finishing touches to his presentation, which eventually led to a situation where he couldn’t go live and present his findings. This was obviously very embarrassing for the man himself, and led to much good-humoured mockery on Twitter as fans and players realised the video wasn’t on the way.

Most of the jokes were fairly predictable, but there were a few gems, like the one below referencing the time GIMR "killed" Project M, a community mod known more commonly as PM, by refusing to stream it on VGBC. Others, like James “GSMVoid” Makekau-Tyson went down the copypasta route, and it’s fair to say much fun was had with the topic.

This isn’t the end for the tech though, with GIMR still firmly committed to unleashing it on the world. He made that clear in his apology message, where he wrote, “I promise you this tech is awesome. If you're someone I showed the tech to I ask that you please still keep it to yourself and give me time.”

While Ultimate is less tech-heavy than Melee, there remains the potential for game changing discoveries with the game still being so new, at least in Smash terms, and having so many characters. That same variety also means the potential for undiscovered tech is way higher, so we’d recommend that, if you enjoy the competitive side of the game, you do tune in and find out what GIMR’s huge discovery is when he gets his tech wrinkles ironed out.