The Smash World Tour Championships are reaching a conclusion today, with the top eight competing in Orlando in the late afternoon. But the top eight is not the usual suspects. 

While MKLeo and Sparg0 are the favorites of the top eight — and the most familiar faces — the invitational tournament also has Cosmos, Kola, sisqui, ProtoBanham, MuteAce, and Shuton joining them for the last leg of the high-profile tournament. 

Yesterday saw a lot of surprising upsets that shook the Ultimate scene. The world's best Mr. Game & Watch, Maister, was defeated 3-0 by Sonix, who also defeated Tweek. Sonix is considered the Dominican Republic's best Smash player but was definitely the underdog against these two top competitors.

Many people had been calling Sonix a "WiFi warrior" up until this point, one of the Sonics dominating the scene when online tournaments were the only way to play in 2020. But Sonix has taken to Twitter to defend his overall talent, stating that players needed to qualify in both an online and offline event to make it to the Smash World Tour Championships. 

An Olimar main, Shuton, booted fan-favorite Gluttony from the tournament. With over 62,000 followers on Twitter, Gluttony has made a name for himself by competing all over the world as Wario. But he was taken down by Shuton, the fourth-best player in Japan. 

Shuton isn't a no-name competitor that suddenly burst onto the scene at the Smash World Tour. He won EVO Japan last year and is currently 13th in the world. He beat Marss and then Gluttony to qualify for the top eight today. But the Smash scene is still shocked to see some of their favorite names getting rocked by a player they don't see competing outside Japan too often in recent times. 

Japan, however, is one of the best regions in the world. But a lot of Japan's top players are not listed on the PGRU due to a lack of international appearances. It's frankly hard to calculate how they'd do against some of the other top competitors from other regions without any concrete moments to take into consideration. But Shuton, and the rest of the Japanese players at Smash World Tour, are proving Japan's dominance. 

While Shuton is undeniably talented, the Smash community isn't thrilled to see an Olimar in top eight. Or a Sonic. The top eight will also have a Dark Samus, which is quite the shock. That's because sisqui beat another popular player, Riddles. 

Riddles was shooting up to the top of Smash World Tour using explosive characters like Kazuya. He was most definitely a crowd favorite, with his satisfying smashes getting frenzied reactions from the audience each match. 

But Riddles was stopped in his tracks by sisqui, a relatively unknown player in comparison. This is certainly not a player that many were banking on at the start of the Smash World Tour Championships. But sisqui was quick to take advantage of people's unfamiliarity with Dark Samus. 

While a lot of the most popular players are eliminated, the Smash World Tour Championship's top 8 is still going to be a wild ride full of unexpected characters as lesser-known players make a name for themselves on one of the biggest stages of the year.