A Brief Introduction

Hello everyone, I’m Grady (or Graddy) and this site is a hub for all of the events I run, regardless of game as well as a place for you to learn how to run your own events. Information on upcoming and past events including times, brackets, and VOD’s when applicable will all be uploaded here. Ideally, I can get proper challonge.com, smash.gg, and YouTube integration but I am a novice at WordPress so no promises right now. I also plan on starting a few series of articles here most of which will be focus on planning and running small local events. Whether it be basic things on how brackets and seeding are done, how Swiss pools are ran, how to convince a small business owner to let you use their space, or how to advertise to your local scene through social media. In the future I will be covering some more complicated subjects such as how to circumvent your schools anti gaming (read gambling) rules to allow cash prizes at your tournaments.

So for those who do not know me personally, I’m Grady Henick, the Vice President of Rutgers Melee as well as the current torchbearer for house tournaments in New Jersey, and a member of the Rutgers Esports board. I have personally ran and organized tournaments for a multitude of games such as Super Smash Brothers Melee, Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone, Team Fortress 2, League of Legends, and Heroes of the Storm and has assisted with many more such as Fifa, Mario Party, and cult classic Windjammers. As for my experience as a competitor, I played in ESEA open and UGC steel for Team Fortress 2 (back when steel mattered I might add) getting fourth in steel twice. I was also a big time Magic the Gathering grinder and lost several win and in’s at SCG invitational qualifiers. I have played melee for about four years now and was power ranked here at Rutgers for a year before I switched characters. 

If you have any questions or recommendations for future articles, put them in the comments or tweet me @gradyhenick (please drop a follow even if you don’t have a questions I need to farm clout)