47 players packed the Accidental Theatre’s second-floor Rehearsal Room for the first Button Mash of 2026, and the biggest in terms of player count since the SF6 launch event in 2023. Once again, there were tournaments for four current games as well as a “throwback” game. Let’s check out how they went down:
2XKO#
Strawberry (Ahri/Ekko) romped home with a dominant performance, dropping games only to second-placed Owen (Ekko/Darius) as she won the winners’ final 3-2. That set up a rematch between Owen and Lie (Yasuo/Jinx), who had put together a lengthy losers’ bracket run after being defeated by Owen in the early stages of the winners’ bracket. Owen put paid to that run, however, with a 3-0 whitewash to advance to grand finals - where he would be on the receiving end of a 3-0 of his own, as Strawberry proved too strong.
Tekken 8#
Having applied boot directly to ass in the August event, OATS (Fahkumram) racked up another tournament win, but had to fend off some stiffer competition this time around, as outterest (Hwoarang) forced a bracket reset by beating him in the grand final. OATS managed to steady the ship with a 3-1 win in the reset to secure victory. Thid place went to Friezer (Dragunov).
Under Night In-Birth 2#
Redslasher made it look easy as he defended his UNI2 title from last May without dropping a game. In fact, across the winners’ final and grand final against Dr K (Ogre/Uzuki) he lost only two rounds against an opponent who himself had whitewashed SHIN-A (Nanase) in the losers’ final.
Guilty Gear Strive#
Jo (Testament) won his third consecutive GGST tournament, but was made to work a bit harder than in the December event, as he barely made it out of his initial winners’ bracket match against Brrrrk (Leo) intact. Despite that, his progress through the rest of the tounament was much smoother, beating Alumento (Baiken) 3-0 in the winners’ final and 3-1 in the grand final. Maka (Ky) took third place.
Soulcalibur III#
With SC3 getting a re-release via PS Classics last December, it was given the throwback game slot at Button Mash. A closely-matched bracket ensued, and in the end kaworuscott (Mitsurugi) who came out on top, defeating Skeletorr (Siegfried) in both the winners’ and grand finals, with Scavenger XIII (Sophitia) coming in third.
What next?#
Button Mash will return in April (exact date to be confirmed) with 2XKO, Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and two other games to be announced at a later date. In the meantime, the weekly sessions at QUB Dragonslayers continue every Saturday afternoon. As always, be sure to check the Button Mash socials for the latest info.