Monday Morning Marth: April 14

One of my favorite annual series I’ve done here is my “sleeper pick breakout” series. Has it always been successful? Not exactly, though in fairness, it’s mostly because of the extremely strict stipulations I put on myself for predicting rising stars. Though it’s slightly shifted over the years, the best way I can describe them is that my picks can’t be former Top 100 players, can’t be banned players, can’t have received some type of community recognition (like appearing on a hidden boss list or within the Top 100 ballot), and can’t have been previously chosen as breakout players in previous years.

Some players, like Agent, turned out to be massive breakouts, not just making the Top 100, but achieving historic caliber upsets. Others, such as Blue, ended up having a bit of a delayed breakout, achieving massive regional success before then finally becoming nationally active and making Top 100 later. Honestly, I think all the players I chose are still great, even if they didn’t have the ‘breakouts’ I anticipated. But with that said, I’d like to return to the first two players I picked as my respective No. 2 and No. 1 breakout picks for 2023: Inngenn and Kingu.

Despite being thousands of miles apart, living in completely different nations, and never meeting a single time, the two share quite a bit in common. They are relatively young, each of them came to prominence over the pandemic era, and they were, respectively, in the Top 2 of my first breakout players series. While neither of them have made Top 100 yet, if you hang out enough with the hardcore Melee fandom, you’ve probably heard their names before and know that they are “good.” You might even have a strong opinion on them.

What have they been up to lately? How good are Kingu and Inngenn? In today’s column, I’m going to dive into their recent results.

Who Is Inngenn?

Inngenn first became well-known during the pandemic. He is the prototypical “Slippi kid,” a player around the age of Melee itself who simply grinded the hell out of online matches and Netplay brackets. Within the span of a year, Inngenn quickly rose to the top of the active Japanese scene. His success was a testament to how an entirely new generation of players could, with enough effort, claw their way to the top of their region. But is he Top 100 level?

For a long time, we didn’t know the answer. By the time in-person events came back, Inngenn didn’t quite have bad results; it was just very unclear. When he went to the Smash World Tour Championships, he took players like Magi and Zamu close, yet ultimately lost. A year later, when Inngenn came to Scuffed World Tour, he took the first game off Mang0 in a set and was promptly bulldozed for the next six games of his tournament life, by Mang0 and KoDoRiN. In 2023, Inngenn finally attended his first open major at Battle of BC 5, where he proceeded to lose to two long-time regional hidden bosses in Beezy and Elliot. While he remained dominant within Japan—at least to players that weren’t aMSa—the hype train around Inngenn was finally slowing down.

Inngenn’s results abroad wouldn’t see a significant improvement in 2024; his sole showing was a ho-hum 33rd at Supernova 2024 where he beat Redd and lost to Chem and CPU0. However, his at-home dominance would take on a whole new meaning with the arrival of Skerzo – an annual Top 50 to 60 player of this decade so far – as his new nemesis. After an initial period of time in which the two went back-and-forth with each other, Inngenn started dominating him. As a matter of fact, he’s currently on a six set win-streak against Skerzo.

For this next section, I’d like to examine Inngenn’s head-to-heads over the last twelve months. While none of it has necessarily occurred on the big stage, I think they offer quite a bit of promise.

Inngenn Winning Notable H2Hs	Inngenn Losing Notable H2Hs
26-7 vs Skerzo 4-1 vs Massun 2-1 vs muro 2-1 vs Sanne 1-0 vs Jah Ridin’ 1-0 vs Zeo 1-0 vs Redd 1-0 vs Aerius 1-0 vs astar 4-0 vs Shunsuke 2-0 vs Kounotori 6-0 vs Falpan	1-7 vs aMSa 0-2 vs Quang 0-2 vs Pricent 0-1 vs Chem 0-1 vs CPU0

Last weekend, Inngenn took his first ever set over aMSa, in a dominant 3-0 at Battle Gateway 49. At the same tournament, he defeated Jah Ridin’, adding his name to a list of top non-Japanese names he’s taken over the previous twelve months (Zeo, Redd, Aerius, and astar standing out). I don’t think we’ve seen enough from Inngenn to place him as high as Top 50, but his results roughly put him somewhere between a player like Kalvar and someone solidly within the Top 100 like Fro116. I’m not necessarily sold that his head-to-head vs. Skerzo neatly translates into dominance against other Top 100 players, but with the right bracket, Inngenn can succeed at a major and score a big win or two.

Keeping that in mind though, I think he needs more reps against people around his level and outside of Japan. As of right now, I’m not convinced he would skill-gap hidden bosses or power ranked players in strong regions. For example, if he were to suddenly gain employment in New Hampshire and start attending locals, I could see players like Ember and glock in my toyota being quite difficult—and that’s New Hampshire, let alone a region like SoCal or New York City. At the same time, however, within that scenario I just described, I think he would probably do quite well vs. Kalvar and bulldoze a lot of Northeast fast-fallers in contention for Top 100.

Who is Kingu?

We now turn our attention to the United Kingdom, where I will regale you with the story of Kingu. From his days of playing Jigglypuff and grinding the hell out of Netplay events to nowadays when he’s the best active Fox in the United Kingdom, Kingu’s gained quite a bit of a reputation for himself. To keep it short, just trust me when I say that he has a penchant for being a bit of a troll. Nonetheless, he’s one of Europe’s rising stars and recently finished No. 14 on EURank.

Since his rise to continental fame during the pandemic, Kingu’s more or less remained a consistent presence within the UK’s top five. From 2021 to 2024 or so, the country was mostly ruled by Professor Pro, with Frenzy always nipping away at his heels, and then typically three people right underneath. Those three were max, Fat Tino, and Kingu, usually in that order, but with very slim margins. Wait a minute. A Melee community largely dominated by five players for a few years? That sounds crazy!

Obviously, much has changed since. Professor Pro retired. Frenzy promptly supplanted him right before he retired. Fat Tino had a brief period where he looked like he might suddenly take over the throne. Meanwhile, max has now suddenly become a bit of a travel fiend and has achieved a strong level of results within the United States. But Kingu’s remained in the United Kingdom, quietly achieving better results than he’s previously had.

At the risk of this not being a fair comparison to 12 months of activity for Inngenn in a much less active region, I’ve examined Kingu’s results over the last six months, due to what I believe has been a notable level up in his performances. Although it’s not entirely cumulative, and I did my best to exclude secondary sets where I’ve found proof of secondary usage, this is what I’ve found for Kingu against notable players.

Kingu Winning Notable H2Hs	Kingu Even Notable H2Hs	Kingu Losing Notable H2Hs
2-1 vs max 2-1 vs Fat Tino 1-0 vs Sharp 1-0 vs Rikzz 3-0 vs Pi 5-2 vs Ivy 3-0 vs GG	1-1 vs Jamie 1-1 vs MagiMagi 1-1 vs Korbzy	0-1 vs Trif 4-6 vs Frenzy 0-1 vs Tony Bomboni

NOTE: Jamie is another great pick for a potential breakout player, but I’m less certain about his interest in traveling abroad. He is a slightly less known commodity outside of Europe, but he’s fairly similar to Solobattle in terms of his potential. Because he’s been less active than the big five of the UK, I don’t count him as one of them, though he’s roughly as good.

Although these head-to-heads are mostly strong—and, in my opinion, put Kingu in the “skill range” of Top 100 ballot players—they don’t fully account for his recent level up. While he recently finished No. 4 on the UK PR (underneath Frenzy, Fat Tino, and Jamie), over the last two months he’s won individual tournaments over his closest long-time peers: Fat Tino, max, and, most recently, Frenzy. Purely based on recency, you could argue that Kingu could be the top seed of the next big UK regional, even with Frenzy or max in attendance.

However, to dial back the hype train for a bit, there’s a big problem here: Kingu doesn’t leave the United Kingdom. This problem exists for Inngenn within Japan, too, but at least Inngenn has had a semblance of practice against traveling Top 100 talent from North America and Europe. Kingu has literally no head-to-heads against anyone from North America. In a way, I think he has the reverse problem of Inngenn; he plays quite a bit against peers and does well versus them, but I’d like to see Kingu take on more top dogs, of which there really aren’t that many chances of playing high stakes matches against within Europe.

At the same time though, given the success of max this year, as well as Frenzy’s long-term results, maybe there have been and I just haven’t interpreted them as such. Either way, I would really love to see Kingu travel more and gain opportunities against top North American talent.

Where Do They Go From Here?

Obviously, it’s very difficult to project how two rising stars of largely isolated (read: non-North American) regions will perform in the long run. While each of these two have achieved new highs at a regional level, both of them remain right on the cusp of greater recognition. Clearly they aren’t mere hidden bosses, but they each have also been hyped up by everyone around them for a very long time without necessarily reaching the ceiling of what’s possible.

Instead of feeling underwhelming, each player continues to occupy a very distinct space in the scene. To me,  it’s players like Inngenn and Kingu who stand out to me as the most special—the people caught in a strange in-between zone where they are too good to be underestimated, yet still on the cusp of greater recognition. Such players always try their best to make the most out of limited opportunities, and yet they always feel one breakout away. On a bigger level, there are so many stories like these two in the entire Melee community, and yet each of Kingu and Inngenn feel so distinct.

Does it matter in the long run? Will it stop mattering once either of them make Top 100 or make a major top eight? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But for now, I think it’s very cool, and that’s enough for me to write about them.