Splat World Series - Finals

by YELLOW • August 08, 2025

Article Originally Posted At: https://www.splatoonstronghold.com/news/splat-world-series-finals

Splat World Series - Finals

On August 2, 2025, IPL and AREA CUP’s Competitive Splatoon 3 collaboration reached its climax: the Splat World Series Finals. Announced in late June 2025, the following weeks would be filled with qualifying tournaments and team announcements to ramp up hype to the most ambitious community-led tournament collab. The Splat World Series Finals lasted just over four and a half hours on IPL’s English stream, with AREA CUP’s Japanese stream ending just short of five hours, including an exclusive interview section at the end with one of the JP teams.

How popular was this event with viewers? After seeing an uptick in viewership from SuperJump 5, to Qualifier 1, and through Qualifier 2, the SWS Finals’ livestream exploded compared to Qualifier 2. Qualifier 2, reaching just over 500 viewers combined between IPL’s YouTube and Twitch streams, can’t compare to IPL having over 400 live viewers individually on YouTube and Twitch at the peak watching period (Grand Finals set). AREA CUP’s YouTube stream reached over 1,300 viewers. That’s a combined 2,000+ Splatoon fans across the globe watching one community event at the same time!

Full Splat World Series Roster

To recap of all the teams competing before breaking down the event’s results, here’s who each side of Splat World Series had competing for the title of best in the world:

The West:

PxG
Milky Way
Hypernova
FreeFlow
FTWin
Moonlight
Fruittella
New Meta

Japan:

DragonReX
Utopia
Takoyaki Party
False Dream
The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru
Samurai Cat
Final Weapon
Hornet

At 5 AM PT / 8 AM ET / 2 PM CET / 9 PM JT, the single-day, double-elimination, Splat Zones-only event began, with the bracket looking like this: sws-bracket-1

Winner’s Bracket Finals: The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru vs. Takoyaki Party

Winner’s Bracket Finals would see The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru, the most dominant team of the event, facing off against Takoyaki Party. By this point, both teams had only two match losses during their Best of Three sets; now that the bracket shifted to a Best of Five, it was time to see who would come out on top and advance to Grand Finals!

The first match took place on Hagglefish Market; The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru would not give Takoyaki Party a chance to take the zone. Thirteen seconds into the match and the Fleet secured their zone and set up their lockdown. With ten seconds remaining on the objective for The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru, Takoyaki Party made a push and managed to neutralize the zone for a brief period of time, but the match would end before a minute and a half passed, with a knockout victory to the Fleet.

The second match, on Takoyaki Party’s counterpick, Inkblot Art Academy, saw the counterpicking team make a huge push at the start of the match, with Todo going right into the enemy spawn and taking down half of the enemy team before the zone timer had even gone down ten seconds. Takoyaki Party held onto this push until finally giving up the zone with 44 seconds remaining for their objective, and The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru had their turn with the zone until 76 seconds remaining, and Takoyaki Party would regain control. Just 15 seconds left to win, and the Fleet would retake the zone and go from 76 to zero, securing their second knockout victory over Takoyaki Party.

Takoyaki Party would next take the Fleet to Um’ami Ruins, where the match would rage in the center of the map as the zone flipped back and forth. The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru, with 52 seconds left for their objective and in control of the zone, would wipeout Takoyaki Party and finally shift the battleground to Takoyaki Party’s side of the map. The Fleet’s lockout attempt would get cracked by Kontan, but ultimately end up with The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru winning their third knockout victory and advancing to Grand Finals 3-0 and sending Takoyaki Party to the Loser’s Bracket.

The set was in The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru’s hands from the beginning, but what made this set stand out against most was that none of the matches would take place on Urchin Underpass. Urchin Underpass was by far the most prevalent map of the Splat World Series Finals, being an incredibly popular counterpick especially from Japan’s teams. What made this map in such high demand was due to it forcing oppressive backline players to a different weapon, as Urchin Underpass’s map design favors mid- to short-range weapons much more than long-distance weapons.

Loser’s Bracket Finals: Takoyaki Party vs. Samurai Cat

The Loser’s Bracket Finals featured Takoyaki Party against Samurai Cat, two teams sent to Loser’s Bracket by The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru. This set wasn’t just about who would have their chance at winning the first-ever Splat World Series, but about getting a redemption shot. Takoyaki Party, seed #7, a team composed of some of Japan’s most decorated players, predicted to earn the runback in Grand Finals; Samurai Cat, seed #13, frequently called the “darling of the event” by the commentating team, an audience favorite, looking to show up and put their name out there as a fairly unknown team.

The set began on Um’ami Ruins. Both teams would keep fighting and flipping the zone, with neither ever advancing far beyond their opponent’s score before the zone changed hands. The fighting would remain mostly condensed in the center of the map and around the zones. The match would draw on and test every player’s patience, hammering on their nerves as the match went into overtime and stayed in overtime for about 30 seconds as Samurai Cat held onto the objective and their penalty points ticked away, until finally their zone clock would tick past Takoyaki Party’s and earn them a 78-77 victory.
Takoyaki Party would counterpick to Urchin Underpass–a result that Samurai Cat was no stranger to, as SAMURAI KASATO, their E-liter player, was such a threat on the field that teams needed to force them to a different weapon to avoid being picked off one by one. Again, the teams playing were so evenly-matched that the clock would reach 0:00 for the second time, and the zone was neutral, with Takoyaki Party at 12 seconds on their scoreboard and Samurai Cat at 17 seconds. All Takoyaki Party needed to do was regain control from neutral and the match would be theirs; Samurai Cat, however, would sweep victory from under their feet by grabbing control and holding it long enough to out-score their opponent.

The next counterpick would be to Humpback Pump Track. The teams would play in a very circular motion, going around and around the zone trying to break the stalemate. Plenty of displacement specials on Samurai Cat’s side, while Takoyaki Party seemed to favor more aggressive options. For the third time in a row in the set, the match would go all the way to the end. With just fifteen seconds remaining, Takoyaki Party burned through their remaining penalty points and would steal the lead from Samurai Cat. Samurai Cat would end up flipping the zone in their favor with a barrage of Inkstrikes–just a hair too late! Takoyaki Party won the match 84-58, showing their opponent that they wouldn’t be making it to Grand Finals that easily.

By this point in the tournament, as familiar as everyone was with teams counterpicking Samurai Cat to Urchin Underpass to escape their Charger, they were evenly familiar with Samurai Cat’s response to losing a match: counterpicking to Eeltail Alley, a map heavily favoring long-distance weapons. Takoyaki Party took Samurai Cat to the wire on Eeltail Alley, taking the objective from 100 down to 6 in a single swoop before the zone flipped and penalty points were applied. However, Samurai Cat, with their objective sitting at 38 seconds with only 44 ticks of penalty points, held the zone and pushed back at Takoyaki Party, ending the Loser’s Bracket Finals with a knockout victory, a set score of 3-1, and advancing to the Grand Finals.

Grand Finals: The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru vs. Samurai Cat

The matchup of The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru vs. Samurai Cat in Grand Finals had a gravity that wasn’t felt in Winner’s Finals. It was the set to determine which team earned the right to call themselves “the best in the world”. This was a set between competitive Splatoon veterans, with members of The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru not only being some of the most skilled, recognizable players globally since Splatoon 2–against a relatively unknown team, with not many searchable results older than one year ago.

How did this momentous set run?

Ten seconds into the first match on Mako Mart, and The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru had already taken down three members of Samurai Cat. The Fleet would lock out Samurai Cat for just over half of the objective’s timer; Samurai Cat would take the zone after managing a wipeout over their opponent. They would hold this position until they were six seconds from surpassing the Fleet’s score, but a Reefslider from Garandou set the zone back into the Fleet’s hands just long enough to give Samurai Cat penalty points before the zone left their possession. This back-and-forth of the Fleet retaking the zone just to penalize Samurai Cat before losing control would repeat itself again and again. Ultimately, The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru, despite their aggressive opening, was not able to hold the zone long enough to outpace Samurai Cat, who would end the match in a knockout victory, no Tacticooler needed.

Predictably, The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru would counterpick Urchin Underpass and force SAMURAI KASATO to switch from E-liter to N-ZAP ‘85. Samurai Cat got an early wipeout against The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru, within the first 30 seconds of the match. They moved up to try locking the Fleet out of the zone, but they were forced to back up and would shortly lose the zone as the Fleet pressed forward. The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru’s push after their wipeout was a tidal wave, crashing into Samurai Cat and giving them no chance to retake. The match ended before two and a half minutes passed in a knockout victory for the Fleet.

Unpredictably, instead of counterpicking Eeltail Alley, Samurai Cat instead chose Bluefin Depot. Distance and aim were key to winning this match, and as Samurai Cat had displayed, SAMURAI KASATO had that down lock and key. However, it was Naegora on the Mini Splatling RTL-R, constantly farming Trizookas with deadly aim, that would be the real key to The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru’s victory on Bluefin Depot. The zone flipped colors a few times, but ultimately Samurai Cat couldn’t keep up with their opponent’s offense, giving the Fleet another knockout victory, just before the match reached the three minute mark.

With it now being game four and the Fleet looking for an early set win, Samurai Cat broke out the foreseen Eeltail Alley counterpick. The match began with sweeping pushes from both teams; Samurai Cat’s opening drove their objective from 100 to 58 without interruption. Once the Fleet took control, they went further, driving their objective from 100 to 36, only stopping to a delayed wipeout caused by the E-liter. Both teams would meet in the middle for a head-to-head clash over a neutral zone–for 25 seconds the zone remained neutral during the ink fight, and it would be Samurai Cat who put out enough paint to claim the zone and take the lead once again.

With 10 seconds left to Samurai Cat’s objective, The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru grabbed the zone and tried to lock their opponent onto their side of the map, covering it in paint and making sure the final 40 seconds of the game would be a mountain for Samurai Cat to overcome.

Down to the final 15 seconds of the game and having just lost the lead, Samurai Cat broke through The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru’s wall and started to hurl Triple Inkstrikes at the zone. Slosher vs. Slosher, each trying to outpaint the other as clocks and teammates ticked closer and closer…

At 12 seconds left in the match, the ink stopped flying and the game ended in a knockout victory–and a Splat World Series win–for The Invincible Fleet Rei Maru! Congratulations to the members of the Fleet who have earned the title of the best in the world:

lobster!
Garandou
naegora
reimaru

Regardless of the outcome of the Splat World Series Finals, Samurai Cat will no longer be a hidden gem of a team, having forged their way to the Grand Finals, and shaking up the scene with their spectacular E-liter gameplay. Samurai Cat is also walking out of Splat World Series as the only team to take two matches from the Fleet, winning one in Winner’s Finals and a second in Grand Finals, whereas the only other team to win against the Fleet, DragonReX, only won once in Round 2.

Every team who competed at Splat World Series earned their place on the biggest stage the community has ever assembled, proving on their journey to qualification that they have the mettle of champions. Some journeys started ten years ago with the introduction of Splatoon, and others as recent as partway through Splatoon 3’s lifecycle, and the hard work that brought each team to Splat World Series is just another stepping stone as everyone continues to strive for more. SWS_WB SWS_LB

Sendou.ink’s full Winner and Loser’s Brackets showing the results of Splat World Series.

How Did The Scene React?

The performance of the Western teams at the Splat World Series Finals has sparked discussion about the state of the West’s competitive scene and the “skill gap” between Japan and the rest of the world. The discussions have centered around ideas about what the West’s teams should be doing to close the gap between regions.
A major focus of future tournaments that feature teams from both Japan and the West will be if Western teams can progress towards closing the gap. With so many top-level players who competed in the Splat World Series Finals saying that there is a tough climb ahead filled with necessary changes, if the West is to reach the level of competition showcased by Japan, we will have quite a fired-up scene to watch strive for greater heights!

Grey (PxG):

A Bluesky post dated August 2, 2025, from Grey, a player from PxG on the Western roster.

Grey’s sentiment is echoed by several of the West’s players from SWS–they are disappointed in the results, but all understand from their firsthand experience what the reality of the situation is. Sheer optimism is not going to close the gap between Japan and the West.

ProChara (Moonlight):

A Bluesky thread dated August 2, 2025, from ProChara, the coach for Moonlight on the Western roster.

The retrospective about the Competitive Splatoon 2 era from ProChara points out that in times when competition with other scenes was more common, the West was able to win against Japan. It comes with its own set of out-of-game challenges, but having more experience can make a major difference between winning and losing a close match.

Burstie (FTWin):

A Bluesky thread dated August 2, 2025, from Burstie, a player from FTWin on the Western roster.

Building off of the idea of having the West play more games against JP teams, Burstie adds that there isn’t one magic fix that will put the West on the same level as Japan. The West’s top-level players are already very skilled and outstanding at what they do, and still put in substantial work to constantly improve. Closing the gap as much as possible is not going to be easy and will require major effort beyond just player and team level efforts.

Splat World Series - Full Matches

If there were matches that you weren’t able to see during the tournament livestream since IPL and AREA CUP could only stream one match at a time, don’t fret! IPL has been releasing not just replay codes, but also full match videos with commentary on every single game. The full off-stream match videos will be available on IPL’s YouTube channel.

If you weren’t able to spectate every match you wanted at Splat World Series, check their channel out! IPL isn’t done with this major event just yet!

Original Posting Date: August 8, 2025

Written and formatted for publication by YELLOW.