Cosmos rediscovers Smash form at right time to defeat Light at Shine 2022, earn Summit 5 invite

Shine 2022, while not as stacked as the previous tournaments before it, is still filled with top-level players like Tweek, Light, and Zomba, all of whom could’ve taken the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate trophy. However, Cosmos was the one who now stands at the top after winning the whole tournament.

Cosmos has been having a bit of a Smash slump recently. 

He failed to enter top 8 in most of the majors he entered after winning Glitch Infinite back in February. However, he seems to have found his groove again and won Shine 2022—all without dropping a single set.

Even though he didn’t lose a single set, his road to the Grand Finals wasn’t pretty. He faced the second seed, Tweek, in winner’s semis and pulled off a reverse 3-0 to send Tweek down on the loser’s side of the bracket where he then got 3-0’d by Light, which sent him packing at fourth.

Cosmos also fought Zomba, a ROB prodigy, in winner’s finals, where he managed to cling on by pulling off another reverse 3-0. Zomba was then sent to the loser’s finals, only to fall against Light in loser’s finals.

Light himself had been punted down into the loser’s side earlier in top 12, after losing to Zomba in winner’s semi-finals. The drop didn’t dent his run, however, and he proceeded to sweep all his opponents, including a run back at Zomba to meet Cosmos at the grand finals. 

Their second meeting Cosmos sealed the deal though, with the victor not even allowing a bracket reset and winning the tournament over Light’s Fox, 3-1.

Winning Shine 2022 has not only filled Cosmos’ pockets with prize money, he was also sent an invitation to Smash Ultimate Summit 5 to join the ranks of other top players. He earned that invite as the highest-placing non-invited player in the tournament.

This tournament has seen very big improvements in Cosmos’ play using Aegis, opting to be a little more patient and composed even when presented with a potential trip to the loser’s side of the tournament. At the post-tournament interview, he attributed this adjustment to MkLeo’s inspirational Aegis at Rise ‘N’ Grind. 

Now that Cosmos is invited to Smash Ultimate Summit 5, it’s exciting to see what kind of Cosmos he’s going to show up as. 

Will he show up as Shine Cosmos, staging back-to-back reverse 3-0s, or will he be the Cosmos who loses sets even after having huge leads, a.k.a. the Green Goblin?