If you have no plans for the upcoming Valentine’s Day weekend, then here’s a powerful information guide for you — the legendary GENESIS X3 major is returning. From February 13 to February 15, Super Smash Bros. fans and other bruisers are occupying San Jose to make a real celebration of esports chaos, by the way.
It will be large—scale – the San Jose McEnery Convention Center will give more than 200,000 square feet to the needs of gamers. Everything will unfold there: from tough competition grids to the lamp Alley of artists, so you definitely won’t be bored. For those who do not travel to California in person, broadcasts are organized on Twitch — in fact, this is the best way to spend a holiday weekend with the FGC community.
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Disciplines and tournament formats on GENESIS X3
The central place in the schedule, of course, is occupied by the disciplines of Super Smash Bros. Melee and Ultimate. Considering how many sticks Nintendo has put in the wheels on the way to 2026, the organizers of GENESIS X3 made a huge effort to keep the “Smash” in the program — and this makes this event even more significant than all previous gatherings. The plans include battles in singles and doubles formats, both for the classics and for the current version.
Old-school fans get high too. Super Smash Bros. Tournaments 64 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl will allow you to be nostalgic with a gamepad in your hands.
Interestingly, the GENESIS X3 received Masters II status as part of the SNK World Championship 2026 world Tour. This means that rubilovo in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves promises to be as dense and high-status as possible. Plus, the Challenger stage will also be held here for the first season of the 2XKO competition series, a new discipline that everyone is watching right now.
Tournament officials say that such recognized grids confirm that it is necessary for professionals to go. After all, this is a real chance to book your place in the global qualifications and make yourself known to the whole world.
In addition to the main heavyweights, Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear -Drive- and Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising will light up on the site. Even for fans of rhythm games, a zone with DanceDanceRevolution and Pump It Up has been allocated. It’s powerful, isn’t it?
The co—founder of the project, Sheridan Zalewski, emphasized that their main feature is frenzied energy and cohesion. According to him, every year the team analyzes which chips the audience enters, and which ones should be sent to the dustbin of history for the sake of fresh ideas. This time, the organizers decided not just to update the program, but to make the most of the existing concepts so that everyone at the McEnery Convention Center could feel a level of immersion that, apparently, is difficult to find at other events.
Favorites and key participants of the Major Tournament in San Jose
At such a large—scale event as GENESIS X3, it’s easy to get lost in the stream of names, but there are disciplines that it’s a crime to pass by. We’re talking about Smash Bros. — in fact, this is the heart of the tournament. The nets are packed to capacity, as the best players on the planet flock to San Jose to prove their status, while other major venues are slowly disappearing from the radar.
The Melee discipline is now dominated by Zain Nagmi. This guy managed to climb to the top of the SSBMRank rating, making a leap from second place back in August 2025. His stability, to be honest, is amazing, so you can’t write him off. But he doesn’t have time to relax — Cody Schwab, breathing down his back from the second line, and the legendary Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma clearly came for gold. Who will eventually dominate the arena is an open question, but the level of intensity and skill there will be simply beyond the limit, this is a fact.
Do not forget about the “dark horses”. Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett, Kurtis “moky” Pratt, Jake “Jmook” DiRado and Joshua “Joshman” Liras are sure to cause real chaos in the Melee grid. By the way, Wizzy himself, having taken the ninth place in the top, bluntly stated that there is still a lot of work ahead and in 2026 he intends to conquer new peaks.
As for the Ultimate, all attention is focused on the Mexican landing. Leonardo “MkLeo” Lopez and Edgar “Sparg0” Valdez are the people whose meeting in the finals is worth betting money on. MkLeo, who used to be the king of the world in Ultimate, has now dropped back to 17th place in LumiRank, but after the break he clearly wants revenge.
North America will be defended by Paris “Light” Ramirez, Tyler “Mars” Martinez and Gavin “Tweek” Dempsey. By the way, Tweek’s return after a short absence is generally a separate intrigue, which is interesting to watch.
However, foreign guests will not let the locals relax. Japanese Shuto “Shuton” Moriya and Frenchman William “Gluttony” Belaid came to this Major solely for rating points. If you ask me, We personally blame Takuma ‘Tea’ Hirooka — his high IQ when playing for Pac-Man and Kazuya turns every match into a chess game, apparently.
Prospects and participants of the 2XKO League on GENESIS X3
It’s hot on the new 2XKO stage right now. Steve “Supernoon” Carbajal is eager to take revenge for the insulting defeat in the finale of Frosty Faustings by a sixteen-year-old genius named Bleed. Although the discipline is very fresh, “Supernoon” is already considered one of the most dangerous fighters. In 2026, the league will continue to gain momentum, so get ready for tons of surprises and sudden outsiders who will knock out the top.
Fatal Fury City of the Wolves Tournament and prize pool
Complete madness is expected in the Fatal Fury grid. It looks like we’re in for a huge clash of pros from a wide variety of fighting games, because SNK has rolled out very substantial prize money. The main contenders are Street Fighter 6 stars Victor “Punk” Woodley and Goichi “GO1” Kishida. By the way, GO1 has already won the first ever Evo Cup for this game and the Esports World Cup in 2025, so it’s the main target here.
Street Fighter 6: Challenge Accepted
It will be interesting to take a look at Michael “Riddles” Kim. Known for his success in Ultimate, he is now firmly entrenched behind Street Fighter 6. How he will perform against such mastodons as Nemoto “Nemo” Naoki, Punk or the same GO1 is the main mystery of the weekend, however.
How to avoid missing out on the best features in GENESIS X3?
To be honest, it’s still a pleasure to understand the timings of such giant fighting events. Everything is always piled up, schedules overlap, and you rush between streams, trying to grasp everything at once.
At the moment, the official GENESIS X3 schedule has not yet been rolled out, which is sad, but not critical. In principle, we can figure out the layout based on last year’s GENESIS X2 experience, although the appearance of 2XKO and the new Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves in the grid will clearly shuffle the cards for the organizers.
As soon as the information becomes official, we will immediately update the data, but for now, here is an approximate plan for Smash, apparently:
Melee Doubles
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Final Top 12: Friday, February 13th (timing: 17:30 – 21:00 PT).
Melee Singles
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Top 64 grid: Saturday, February 14th (time: 17:30 – 21:00 PT).
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Top 8 Grand Final: Sunday, February 15th (window: 13:00 – 17:30 PT).
Ultimate Doubles
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Decisive Top 12: Friday, February 13 (hours: 17:30 – 21:00 PT).
Ultimate Singles
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Hot Top 64: Saturday, February 14th (starting at 17:30 PT).
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The final battle of the Top 8: Sunday, February 15th (finish line: 17:30 – 22:00 PT).
Live broadcasts and official Twitch channels of the tournament
Since there will be a wagon and a small cart, the GENESIS X3 will occupy several channels on Twitch at once. It is clear that there is no confirmation for 2026 yet, but along the way, the guys will follow in the footsteps of last year’s marathon.
If the scheme does not change, then bookmark these directions:
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Super Smash Bros. Ultimate — for fans of actualochka.
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Super Smash Bros. Melee is for lovers of classics.
By the way, there will be separate broadcasts for Tekken 8, Street Fighter 6, as well as the latest 2XKO and Fatal Fury. Last time, the organizers managed to play six streams at the same time, which was really powerful.
Each broadcast will be carried by a pair of commentators. The line-ups of the presenters, by the way, will be constantly rotating throughout the weekend, so it won’t be boring. We are waiting for the official announcement — it will be hot, that’s a fact.
