---
title: "Splatoon 3 North American League Event #1 (Preseason Week 1)"
date: 2025-09-23
author:
   - name: YELLOW
     link: https://sendou.ink/u/great-hero-yellow
---

Article originally posted at: [https://www.splatoonstronghold.com/news/splatoon-3-north-american-league-event-1-preseason-week-1](https://www.splatoonstronghold.com/news/splatoon-3-north-american-league-event-1-preseason-week-1)

# **Splatoon 3 North American League Event \#1 (Preseason Week 1\)**

Saturday, September 20, 2025 was a busy day for the Splatoon community, with two major tournaments in Nintendo’s first North American League Preseason event and IPL’s SuperJump 6\. Approximately 420 teams were registered by the first event; not too far off from the team total from LUTI Season 16\. Those excited for the Splatoon 3 North American League were treated to a sneak peek at what was to come with a 25 minute episode of the Splatoon 3 North American League Show the previous day. Being 25 minutes long, you might be wondering just what was showcased to fill that time. If you weren’t able to watch, we’ve got the rundown below\! 

## **The League Show Episode 1**

Before the League Show aired, a hot topic of discussion was what exactly Nintendo planned to put in their videos, particularly revolving around community events. Many believed that Nintendo wouldn’t allow topics about outside tournaments, but to everyone’s surprise, the first episode of the League Show opened with broad coverage of the most recent Riptide, the Ohio-based LAN that took place between September 5-7, 2025\. 

Following Riptide, the episode recapped the League timeline through the end of 2025, how the Preseason vs Regular Season looked, reminding viewers how the point system worked. 

Then the hosts took a turn for the silly, discussing what goes into making a Splashtag. We got to learn the lore behind Mellana, Nine, and Zach’s Splashtags, and a bit about each person as a player. If you were confused while watching the Top 8 bracket stream and asking yourself, “Why do they keep calling Mellana ‘Big-Money’?”, that inside joke stemmed from this segment\! Mellana’s Splashtag title combination of “Big-Money, Big Shot” and love for stopping by artist’s alley was a hit with the hosts. 

Soon after, the hosts would switch from silly to sentimental, next taking a look back on what started their individual journeys with Splatoon while the emotional end credits theme *Wave Goodbye* played in the background. Each host opened up about how the game’s first impression impacted them and what kept them around, such as playing with friends, or finding the right game balance to feel comfortable and fun. 

Teased between the Riptide and League timeline segments was an interview with one of the Splatoon community’s most well-known figures, Chara, which took place after the Splatoon journey talk. The interview, which was taken at Riptide, between Nine and Chara, went over topics such as game modes and Chara’s journey as a competitive player, content creator, and coach for Moonlight. The interview ended with the big question: “What does Splatoon mean to you?” 

After the interview ended, Mellana walked everyone through the process of signing up for the Splatoon 3 North American League. Steps were shown on screen how to register as a player and as a team on Battlefy, where to find the League rulebook, and how to find your Switch Support Number. 

The first episode of the Splatoon 3 North American League Show concluded with a recap of each event’s start time and dates and what to look forward to in the next episode, and sending everyone off with the Squid Sisters’ classic, “Stay Fresh\!” 

## **The Top 8 Bracket**
<img width="1200" height="560" alt="NALp1_ladder" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f13b43bd-6063-4974-a439-0d81ab7c82a7" />

With a large majority of top-level teams being preoccupied with SuperJump 6 this Preseason weekend, plenty of rising stars in the competitive community had their time in the spotlight on Nintendo’s official North American League Event \#1 stream. The Top 8 stream lasted close to four hours long. These were the teams who earned their place on Nintendo’s stream this week, ordered by ELO score, which determined Top 8 seeding: 

1. TZS (Triggerfish Zones Supremacy)  
2. Duck Motif  
3. BADVXLLAIN  
4. Laniakea  
5. Impulse  
6. Xiphias  
7. Mischievous Mog (Mischievous Moggers)  
8. What’s Quackin?

The YouTube and Twitch stream began before the tournament itself, with a countdown to the start time, and some ads for various Switch 2 titles and DLC expansions. Nothing new to report for the Splatoon series just yet, but with as much promotion as it is getting over the next few months, it’s hard to believe that at some point, Nintendo won’t sneak in something new. 

The hosts opened up the Top 8 stream with an explanation of rules, reminding everyone that sets will be a Best of 5 (Bo5), who chooses the map and mode, which maps were in the rotation, and that the eligible modes were Turf War, Splat Zones, Clam Blitz, Tower Control, and Rainmaker. 

Throughout the event, the hosts were very accommodating to new and casual watchers, taking the time to explain the objective of each mode and how it worked. They talked common team strategies, how penalty points were applied, and when competitive jargon popped up, explained those terms as well. The commentary was very entry-level friendly, which hopefully made the stream accessible and informative for the audience of almost 3,000 across the YouTube and Twitch streams\! 

The bracket started with Winner’s Quarterfinals, where the sets looked like this: 

- TZS vs. What’s Quackin?  
- Laniakea vs. Impulse  
- Duck Motif vs. Mischievous Mog  
- BADVXLLAIN vs. Xiphias

The first streamed set of the first-ever Splatoon 3 North American League went to BADVXLLAIN and Xiphias\! Unfortunately, not every set was streamed; only one set per round was shown, and by the end of the Top 8 event, only five of the eight teams got to play on screen. 

One important thing to note that players are often used to in community-run tournaments, which was not mentioned anywhere on Battlefy or in the rulebook, is that Splattercolor Screen **is** allowed in NA League matches. If a player is sensitive to the effects of the special, it’s recommended that they either swap with a substitute player or bring it up in the Battlefy Match Chat to see if the opposing team is willing to accommodate. As a viewer, if you plan to rewatch the first Top 8 stream or watch future streams, please be aware that teams are using the Splattercolor Screen and the color effects are shown on-stream without warning. 

### **Winner’s Quarterfinals: BADVXLLAIN vs. Xiphias (3-0)**

As the set began between BADVXLLAIN and Xiphias, no one was surprised to see that the first mode was Splat Zones, on Barnacle & Dime. As each mode and map is only allowed to be played once, neither can be an option again in the Bo5 set. Barnacle & Dime would be a mainstay of the tournament, showing up in every streamed set except for Grand Finals, which no other map can say the same of; appearing in more sets than Splat Zones, even\! 

The first match of the NA League explosive and definitive, ending with a breath-holding six seconds where a neutral zone was fought over, tooth and nail; BADVXLLAIN with one point and no penalty points remaining, and Xiphias vying to make sure that their first match didn’t end in a knockout. Although Xiphias couldn’t prevent the knockout, the first game was still very close–they had only 18 points left on their objective. 

The next two matches would end up in overtime. Second was a Tower Control match on Mako Mart, where BADVXLLAIN would win 61-22, thanks to what appeared to be a Zipcaster zipping its way onto the tower to claim it just a handful of seconds into overtime. The third and final match of Winner’s Quarterfinals was a Rainmaker match on Humpback Pump Track. Xiphias made a strong final push in overtime, but their Rainmaker carrier got caught between a rock and a hard place–a Splash Wall and a Zipcaster–ending the run. 

### **Winner’s Semifinals: TZS vs. Laniakea (0-3)**

Onto the next round, it would be Triggerfish Zones Supremacy vs. Laniakea on stream, with Duck Motif vs. BADVXLLAIN on the other side of the Winner’s bracket. Impulse, What’s Quackin?, Xiphias, and Mischievous Moggers would be sent to the Loser’s Bracket, where the first two rounds would be played off-stream. 

The first match of TZS vs. Laniakea would be on Barnacle & Dime, again, but this time for Clam Blitz. By now, all four modes that we’re used to seeing in tournaments have been played out, and the question remaining would be which team was bold enough to counterpick Turf War (or force a match of Turf War in a game 5, where no other option was available). TZS took the lead first with an impressive 44 points remaining off of one push, but a crazy quad from Blob’s Inkjet opened up a path for Laniakea to drive their score from 100 down to 51 and nearly even the playing field. The match would go into overtime with Laniakea in the lead, and TZS wouldn’t be able to catch up, leaving the first match in Laniakea’s hands, 77-56. 

The second match, Splat Zones at Um’ami Ruins, would be much closer, but still end up in a victory for Laniakea, 97-81. The next match, Tower Control at Inkblot Art Academy, saw TZS take the lead first, but a wipeout on their team would snowball into Laniakea taking the lead up to the critical second checkpoint. The score would remain 56-73 in Laniakea’s favor for over a minute before they would make another push, driving their lead even further to 20-73 with two and a half minutes remaining. TZS would fight back and make incremental movement forward, but Pepé’s impressive stand for survival on the tower surrounded by Laniakea would eventually be shut down, ending in another victory, 80-63, for Laniakea. 

### **Winner’s Finals: Laniakea vs. Duck Motif (0-3)**

Teams would take quite a while to prepare in between sets, and to fill in the time and give the commentators a break, Nintendo replayed some clips from the League Show. Meanwhile, in the Loser’s Quarterfinals, BADVXLLAIN would see What’s Quackin?, being the only team facing both duck-themed teams in the event. TZS would be against Xiphias, with Impulse and Mischievous Moggers leaving the Top 8 bracket. 

Splat Zones would once again be the first mode of the set, on Mako Mart. The match would be quite even for a while, with Laniakea creeping closer to taking the lead. Duck Motif’s Kera would get a triple of splats, ending Laniakea’s push, and would snowball into Duck Motif securing a knockout victory. 

Unfortunately for Laniakea, that would be the theme of this set: Duck Motif getting knockout after knockout, next on Tower Control at Hagglefish Market, and lastly in Clam Blitz at Barnacle & Dime. While Duck Motif certainly was a tough opponent throughout the tournament, what Laniakea’s 0-3 set score doesn’t show is how close each match was. They put up a fight every time, with every match lasting longer than two and a half minutes; in the final match’s case, even taking as long as the final 20 seconds of the game for Duck Motif to win. 

### **Loser’s Semifinals: BADVXLLAIN vs. TZS (0-3)**

Between the transition from the Winner’s Bracket to the Loser’s Bracket, there was a very long intermission lasting almost 30 minutes, in which the hosts took the time to thank the spectator camera operator, Czar, and play more clips from the first League Show. When the action picked back up, we did see a roster change on the side of Triggerfish Zones Supremacy, swapping out DRF for KrakenMare, who wasn’t in TZS’s first few matches. This player substitute would be a great topic for the commentator team, who put plenty of emphasis on how small changes can have a great impact on a match’s outcome, whether it could be a weapon change or a player change. 

That impact was front and center in this set. TZS would open the set with two knockout victories over BADVXLLAIN, on Clam Blitz at Um’ami Ruins and Rainmaker at Undertow Spillway. The Clam Blitz game was fairly close, down to less than a minute remaining before TZS won. The Rainmaker game, however, looked like it would be in BADVXLLAIN’s favor, but once TZS got the Rainmaker in their hands, they took their score from none to won in just 23 seconds\! 

The final match in the set would mark the first appearance of Turf War on-stream, on Barnacle & Dime\! As the winner of the previous match picks the mode, and the loser picks the match, this would also be the first of many times that TZS would be the sole team on stream who picked Turf War. As their team’s schtick is to “knowledge check” their opponents by picking uncommon weapons, maps, and modes that their opponents may not be as experienced with, this Turf War recurrence falls right in line with expectation. In a very close game, TZS would once again end up on top, winning the Turf War game 53.5% to 42.5%. 

### **Loser’s Finals: Laniakea vs. TZS (2-3)**

In Loser’s Finals we got to see the runback set between Laniakea and TZS, giving the refreshed and on-a-roll TZS the opportunity to pay back Laniakea for their earlier 0-3 loss in Winner’s Semifinals. 

TZS would start the set by picking Turf War again; Laniakea chose Urchin Underpass as the map. Urchin Underpass was a risky choice for Laniakea, as it is known to favor short-range weapons, which TZS was a team with mostly short-range weapons. But Laniakea understood the assignment and brought in a REEF-LUX 450 Deco to put its superior main weapon ink output and large Reefslider explosion to great use. The final score was very close, with a 49% to 44.7% score, with TZS as the Turf War victors. 

The next match would be Rainmaker at Crableg Capital. From the previous set, TZS has shown that Rainmaker is their mode, and their opening push from 100 to just 21 further proves it. Splat Bombs would continue to terrorize Laniakea on this map, being the Rainmaker carrier’s doom more than once. They would make one push to go from 100 to 70 points, but no further. TZS, meanwhile, would keep rolling forward. Laniakea was able to prevent a knockout, but still lost the match 30-96. 

Starting with Clam Blitz on Barnacle & Dime, then next in Splat Zones at Um’ami Ruins, Laniakea would knock out TZS twice in a row, looking for a reverse sweep in the set. The Clam Blitz game was fairly even despite its back-and-forth, but Laniakea would wipe out TZS enough times to fill their basket. The Splat Zones game, while starting fairly normally, fell into Laniakea’s favor at the 4-minute mark and remained that way until their victory was claimed. 

Our first and only game 5 on stream went to Tower Control at Inkblot Art Academy. Laniakea was forced to accept Tower Control as the last mode yet to be played, with TZS picking the map, but one couldn’t call this a disadvantage, as Laniakea won their previous set against TZS on this same map/mode combination. With all the confidence to repeat that victory, the match began, and after a little over a minute, the victor would already be decided, with a sound knockout from… TZS\! Nothing changed between the two teams’ compositions, but the mentality break proved to be crucial to TZS’s win and entrance into Grand Finals. 

### **Grand Finals: Duck Motif vs. TZS (3-1)**

And here it is… Time to decide the first champion of the Splatoon 3 North American League\! Although it was only the Preseason and none of the scores counted towards the Playoffs, the teams playing knew that it truly was now or never for them in the spotlight. Next event, and especially once the Preseason ended, the League would be seeing tougher competition pile in, and a harsher grind to get to the Top 8\. 

TZS chose to start Grand Finals with Turf War; if they wanted to win the event, they would first need to win Grand Finals, and then win again in a bracket reset. Duck Motif chose Museum d’Alfonsino as the map. This match would treat viewers to the first of many clashes against two players considered among the best North American Brush users: Redshell on the Octobrush, and KrakenMare on the Inkbrush. 

Once the final map was shown off, painted to a total of 95.3%, the score was 51.9% to 43.4%; TZS was taking the win, having done so on every Turf War match (which they picked) on stream. 

Next, we would see Crableg Capital return, for Clam Blitz. Unfortunately, TZS wouldn’t get a single chance to add any points to their name. Duck Motif would keep breaking the basket and dropping in clams, and a wipeout over TZS sealed the game, with a knockout victory for Duck Motif. The next game would be Tower Control on Urchin Underpass; the scores would remain close, with the lead being traded over and over. TZS had a good lead going into the final minute of the game, but in the last 20 seconds, Duck Motif just barely snuck ahead. The game would go into overtime, but TZS would not get any more points before Duck Motif retook the tower, winning 75-62. 

TSZ would pull out one more player substitution before the end of Grand Finals, this time replacing Smork and bringing back DRF for a Rainmaker match on Humpback Pump Track. TZS would take the first checkpoint after 30 seconds had passed. Another 30 seconds later, and Duck Motif also dunked the Rainmaker onto their first checkpoint, leading to a 61-60 score with TZS just barely in the lead. Duck Motif would drive the Rainmaker to 27 points remaining, and get a wipeout over TZS\! However, TZS was able to recover and stop them with 10 points remaining. TZS would see plenty of wipeouts on their team in the duration of this match, but still make sure that Duck Motif got no further towards the last checkpoint. 

TZS finally started to put more points towards their objective with one minute left on the clock, but after losing the Rainmaker in Duck Motif’s base, Duck Motif was able to grab it and move to an inopportune location on the map. In overtime now, TZS took the Rainmaker and carried it along the lesser-traveled left path of Humpback Pump Track; three members of TZS went down and left the Rainmaker carrier to retreat to the middle of the map. A flank from Duck Motif ended the overtime, and concluded the Grand Finals set with a 90-62 victory. 

<img width="1200" height="675" alt="NALp1_bracket" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ba1963dc-f9af-433a-9e23-3e9ec621fe5b" />

With Grand Finals over, after nearly four hours of Splatoon and commentary, the Splatoon 3 North American League Top 8 stream gave viewers another reminder of the NA League schedule for all events. The commentators shared their sentiments about the stream (and a cheeky “Off the Hook” reference), with a short highlight reel showing some of the stream highlights, capping off with a Switch 2 ad before the stream closed. 

Did you play during the North American League on Saturday, September 20 and capture an awesome clip? If you’re in Nintendo’s official Splatoon 3 Discord for the event (the invite to this Discord group, here: [https://discord.com/invite/splatoon2-nao](https://discord.com/invite/splatoon2-nao)), you can go to the “Replay Codes” channel and submit the match’s replay code number, the timestamp of the clip, with a brief description of the action. There’s a chance that your clip may be featured in a later episode of the League Show or Top 8 stream\!

Original Posting Date: September 23, 2025   
Written and formatted for publication by [YELLOW](https://bsky.app/profile/great-hero-yellow.bsky.social).
