National Melee Arcadians have an interesting history. The first one happened all the way back in 2018, with Michael taking home the gold after upsetting the top seed Bananas early and defeating Forrest in grand finals. A year later, when the tournament moved to California, Chickenman400 (then bobby big ballz) won with a huge losers bracket run in which he beat Schythed, Tirno, Khalid, ilovebagelz, Far!, Kurv, Fizzwiggle, and Krudo twice. They then disappeared for a bit before Luminosity tried bringing them back at both Let’s Make Moves Miami iterations in 2023 and 2024, curiously both times as a side event on Friday and with best-of-three featured as deep into the tournament as top eight. Regardless, JSalt won the earlier edition over Freezus, and JChu won the most recent event over Equilateral.
In hindsight, it’s wild that many of these players I previously mentioned went on to become mainstays of the scene. And this upcoming weekend, we could see a similarly transformative step forward for the top attendees of Unranked, which is happening in Illinois, the same state where the original National Arcadian happened. For today’s column, I’m going to talk about the 32 players you should be looking out for at Unranked. Disclaimer: these are not necessarily the 32 best players at the event; they’re merely the ones that I thought were most interesting. With that said, at the end of the column, I’ll make my pick for who will win Unranked.
Potential Top Seed Spoilers
I initially wanted to put the Donkey Kong prodigy *hugs* (formerly known as Arthiejust) higher because of his strong performance at the Genesis pre-local, where he beat cliché and Jah Ridin’. Though he’s yet to replicate that caliber of result since, it at least showcases the ability to punch well above his weight class.
Casual recently beat Ober at Combo Breaker; he’s a very good Samus player that’s been on the come up over the last couple of years. He also beat dz at Out of the Blue 4 and Cilan at Genesis. From what I can gather about his results, he does well vs. the field and has shown potential against top seeds here.
You might be familiar with Iggy for her previous work with FlyQuest; she’s also got a mean Fox. Earlier this year, she defeated Fro116 in a big upset at Genesis, and within SoCal, she’s in the higher tier of players that could potentially make deep runs at the regional Arcadian. This level of play, mind you, would make her PR-level in most Melee regions, if not the best player outright.
Within upstate New York, and after Zanya, BING, and Agent, comes ayeGiohh, a Falco player in the second tier of power ranked players over there. He attends everything under the sun and has experienced every high and low you could imagine for someone of his caliber, such as a performance he had at the pre-local of GOML 2023 where he beat Goosekhan and Z0DD-01 (Milkman). Or the pre-local of GOML 2024 where he beat Jah Ridin’. Maybe he’s just the god of pre-locals.
Known for his infamously degenerate Mewtwo, Fasthands (the “Chicagoat”) might play a surprisingly pivotal role in the final outcome of the tournament. He’s in a very funny spot for this event because, respectfully, he basically has no chance to win, yet he could play spoiler to a top seed’s bracket. Anyone who can beat Michael, Blue or Kuyashi is a powerful opponent, even if they could as easily suffer an upset.
Timebones has long been a power ranked Math within North Carolina, and he tends to do pretty well for himself consistently at bigger events, even beating Redd earlier this year. From what I know about his results, he’s experienced against floaties like Peach and Jigglypuff, which could aid him well in a region and event with a ton of those types of characters.
In 2023, I told DarkGenex that GI0GOAT was my pick for 2025 breakout player. What better time would there be to make good on that than here in their hometown of Chicago at a national Arcadian? This Fox player is in the upper echelon of locally ranked talent but hasn’t yet broken out on a national level, though it’s also largely because they don’t travel outside the Midwest too much.
After having been power ranked within Massachusetts (or at least the Boston scene) for a hot minute, regEx took his results to the next level by taking his first set over bonfire10 and even winning a local over her and Younger. Within his state, he’s the player that’s seen the most improvement in results, and at GOML, he defeated Blesse on the way to a surprising 65th place. Any Marth player that can beat a strong Pikachu has my respect.
Top 8 Sleeper Threats
Well before winning the Chicago Arcadian, Seal has earned himself a reputation among those who have met him as the biggest sweetheart in the community. His Sheik had highs as high as beating Unsure or making Top 64 at Genesis, and he’s only improved since, no matter how much he might disagree with this statement or act like he will lose to any Fox.
Readers of my column will take note of how often I’ve mentioned Electroman, the darling of New England Melee, here. It’s because he’s both good at the game and rules on an interpersonal level. Lately, Massachusetts’ top Fox has been a bit busy with out-of-game pursuits, so he hasn’t been very active outside of New England. To my knowledge, this is his first big tournament in quite some time.
Similar to Electroman, I talked about s-f last week. The long story short is that SoCal’s most beloved Marth (and my editor) is quite capable of punching above his current weight class in a four matchups: Marth, Sheik, Fox, and Falco. He has a history of taking occasional local or regional sets over Top 100 talent in them too. Depending on the bracket he has, I could see s-f doing as successfully as making top eight.
HOBORG had a quiet year until his sneaky good run to 49th at GOML (though he benefited from a Kurv DQ). Weirdly enough, he’s been the victim of tough brackets, where he’s either run into a Marth player early or has had to play a Top 100 player. With that said, he’s currently the top Luigi attending this event, and the best thing going for HOBORG is that there’s few top Marths. Based on results, he could do really well versus any Fox that isn’t Kevbot, any Peach, any Jigglypuff, and any Ice Climbers.
A strong Peach player, ADMJ is in the tier of Jacksonville talent right underneath Wevans, which includes sinbad, Sodabro, and Schmang. These guys are all the type of people who randomly tend to pop up each year at Atlantic South events and go berserk on a Top 100 player out of nowhere before seemingly disappearing into the ocean or back to Florida, where they transform into alligators or some shit. For example, ADMJ beat Holiday last year at Tipped Off – although in fairness to him, he also went to Supernova, so maybe he’s a little different.
Following years of being a hidden boss of sorts in South Florida, Stockholm Syndrome has a chance to take his results to the next level here. Based on what I can gather from looking at his activity, he’s one of those guys in the Atlantic South that typically stays in his region or maybe goes to a couple Southern majors a year. Within this field, his penchant for dismantling the mid/low-tiers could come in handy.
You might remember Snap for his heavy activity last year, as well as his surprise appearance at the Eggdog Invitational. He’s still around and still a solid all-around Fox. In the last NorCal PR, he finished at No. 11 alongside a group of Fox players in darkwizard123, Muscoman, and Iron. All three of them and Snap are very capable of getting Top 100 ballot-caliber results, and Snap is the most experienced of them.
Anyone else remember when Fluid beat Fiction without properly Wobbling? Good times. Despite not being too active, Fluid remains one of the better Chicago players attending this tournament. He beat Boyd and Joey Donuts at Out of the Blue, so clearly he has the ability to compete with upper regionally-ranked or borderline Top 100 talent.
Potential Winners With a Little Luck
Wisconsin has a sneaky good top four representation of Lowercase hero, DannyPhantom, Lord English, and Grab2Win, the last of whom is my focus for now. This year he’s continued to stay near the top of his region at a local level and I believe he took his first set ever over MOF a few months ago. In 2024, he beat Balloon Day and, most impressively, defeated Chango in an insane result given Chango’s history of dominance in this particular matchup.
Few Jigglypuffs have been as strong and as active as Lord English within the Midwest. For notable results, he beat Reeve this year at Full Bloom and took down lexor at last year’s Riptide. Looking through his tournament data, he honestly does quite well vs. the field, many of which are at this tournament.
To recap what I’ve previously said about Negat!ve, he had an amazing breakout at GOML X before then mostly going inactive on a national level. He recently beat DarkGenex at GOML 2025 too. I heard that he’s retiring soon for med school; assuming that holds up, it’s possible that this is the last time we’ll see him for a while. Then again, who knows the meaning of “retirement” any more?
My first impression of Ferrety as a player came when he won a local over Moe, then a sponsored Melee Stats player, and it was specifically the thought of “who the hell is Ferrety?” From around that time to now, he’s been quite strong on a regional basis; in fact, he recently won a weekend event over Negat!ve and Brazmonkey. Within Michigan, he’s basically at the top of the tier of people right underneath Ossify, which is to say that he’s at a level of play that’s not too far from Top 100-level play.
I want to say it was 2018 or 2019 when I first heard of Majersk, and that was back when he lived in Pittsburgh. He’s moved to the Midwest since, where he’s continued to be a strong and largely present force to be reckoned with at big regionals. Last year, he took a set over Zamu at BOPME, showcasing that he’s capable of beating Top 100 talent. If 2024 was the year of Blue and coffee both breaking out, 2025 could be the year where Majersk joins them.
A few years ago, cliché had a great run to 33rd place at Genesis 8. Since then, he’s continued to be one of the stronger players within SoCal, though he’s not always necessarily the most active. He tends to have these bursts of doing really well because his best matchups (Fox, Falco, Sheik) are quite present, but every now and then he under-performs due to a matchup he isn’t as strong in (like Captain Falcon or Peach). He could make a deep run with the right bracket or potentially fall in 33rd place; I feel like there’s very little in-between.
Cilan had a big performance in the Midwest earlier this year at Full Bloom, where he beat Grab and Smash Papi. In terms of where he stands in the state of Texas, it’s tough to say. Off the top of my head, my guess he’s borderline within the active top ten right now. His stock is rising though; his Full Bloom was really quite strong.
We now get into dz, Ambisinister’s swing-and-miss breakout pick of 2023. Two years later though, maybe Ambi was more too early than he was entirely wrong. dz recently eliminated RapMonster from Full Bloom, and he’s top five in Chicago as well. Likely by virtue of playing Yoshi, he’s a bit up-and-down in his results, but with the right bracket, he’s capable of a big run.
The Big Dogs
2025 is the year of Jigglypuff, and while his results have obviously not reached the same national caliber of SDJ or Hungrybox, DayDream has become a menace within Colorado. He’s one of the only people to ever take a set from Zealot in their shared region, and he also had a great showing at Altitude Sickness 2, where he beat Nickemwit, Reesch, salami, and Slowking: arguably four Top 100 ballot-level talent in one event.
If you watch a major or big regional in the Midwest, chances are that Blesse is going to be there and slide into a 25th or 33rd place slot. Last year, he beat Kalvar at Tipped Off, and this year, he beat Seven at Full Bloom. On the whole, Blesse is very active and the exact type of player that could punch well above his perceived weight class when you least expect it.
Despite occasional stretches of inactivity, Pleeba is quite cracked at the game, having made the Top 100 ballot before. For standout wins, he has a set over Michael from earlier this year. Otherwise, he’s typically consistent, albeit without a real breakout performance at any larger event. With that said, he’s been due for a while, so maybe it happens here.
Anyone who can take a set from SFAT in 2025 is clearly the truth, although I have to be honest: NOOT‘s performance against a trained fighter in Washington’s Smashboxing event also convinced me of that. In all seriousness though, this guy is super good. At majors, NOOT beat the likes of Graves, nut, and Jah Ridin’ in 2024. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win in similar fashion to Chickenman400 via an ungodly losers bracket run, even if he were to be upset early.
It’s absolutely wild that years after defeating the literal GOAT – one of the biggest upsets in Melee history – Fizzwiggle remains nationally unranked. If you were to make a list of the most successful players to never be ranked, Fizzwiggle would definitely be near the top. Earlier this year, he beat Kevbot at Genesis, and within Colorado he won a local over the invading Maelstrom.
Sometimes the best answer is the simplest: Ober winning another tournament in Chicago would certainly be a very fitting end to Unranked. Along with being the No. 1 in his region this year, he had two nice wins over Smash Papi and Zamu at Out of the Blue 4. As a fellow member of the “married and enjoying reality TV with his partner” gag, I’d be thrilled to see Ober take one home for Chicago.
When you think of top Minnesota players, the first two that come to mind are Ben and Preeminent. A cool storyline of Minnesota in 2025, however, has been lexor slowly closing the gap between him and those two players. Along with multiple sets taken over them this year, he outright won a monthly over both, which is a huge step forward for him. He further saw success out of region at Altitude Sickness 2, where he beat Blue and Dawson.
Kevbot is fresh off a tournament where he just beat a Top 10 player from last year. That alone would make him a contender to win this tournament, but he’s also had one of the most quiet stretches of regional dominance within Philadelphia. Since Faith’s dropoff in activity, Kevbot has taken the mantle as Philadelphia’s top dog locally. He boasts dominant head-to-heads against the rest of his scene and typically wins the majority of tournaments he enters. Today, Kevbot is practically guaranteed a spot on the Top 50, the top seed of this tournament, and my safe pick to wear the crown of Unranked.