Panda Cup is the first licensed Smash Bros event from Nintendo. It’s a pretty big deal, slowly brewing in the background of some big Majors, with the Best Smash Players slowly earning their spot for the conclusion. The roster is stacked enough to justify its hype too, with the Panda Cup Finale full roster now being revealed, we have the full list of players who have qualified.

Panda Cup Finale – Smash Ultimate Players

Smash Ultimate has been through a lot in the Panda Cup qualifiers. Steve players have risen in prominence, yet for the most part the elite players remain the same. MKLeo is still the guy to beat. He has been on fire this year. Both the Smash World Tour and Panda Global Final for Ultimate are going to be the final test for him.

It’s now just MKLeo though. Plenty of the players that qualified this year in upsets stand a good shot at winning things. Sonix was the first player to qualify with a dramatic finish playing Sonic, a character not really associated with esports wins. Onin qualified from Get on My Level 2022, and he’s the biggest of the Steve players to watch out for. These two and Acola have both made the Finales early by playing unconventional characters, their performance is going to be one to watch at the event.

These are all of the players that will be at the Panda Cup Finale for Ultimate:

Panda Cup Finale – Smash Melee Players

Melee in 2022 has been a bit more unpredictable than Ultimate this season. Zain might have been killing things at half the tournaments, but there have been big upsets too. aSMa won his first Major, while Mew2king, iBDW Jmook, and Wizzrobe are all pretty well-established names that stand a decent chance of walking away with 1^st.

This side of things is much harder to call the biggest competitors out with than Ultimate. Outbursts aside, Hungrybox can never really be written off. Plup has had great performances at CEO too. Strangely though, Melee is the more open game heading into the Panda Cup Finale. While it’s an older game with a pretty well-developed esports scene, this year has opened things up for the game in a big way. There are more top-level competitors active right now than there have been in a while.

These are all of the Melee players who will be at the Panda Cup Finale:

Panda Global Finale

The Panda Global Final is going to start on December 16^th. This tournament is one of the most stacked for Smash Bros ever, both for Melee and Ultimate. Pretty much every major player is showing up, so there are going to be quite a few matchups with stories behind them to watch out for.

For Ultimate, MKLeo is coming in as pretty much the best player of the year. This is a last at taking him down for the year, but the question really is if any player is capable of it. For Melee, it’s a bit harder to call with so many strong players attending.

For both tournaments, this event has opened up new ways for players to compete. That means there’s plenty of newer and younger talent attending. While the old names have hype behind them, it’s possible this event crowns a new player as top of the pack for the game.

Alongside these invites, the last handful of slots is going to be decided by the Last Chance Qualifier. This will be a short event just before the Finale itself starts up. Those that didn’t make the invite process might be able to squeak in under the wire here.