Some of the craziest results at Melee majors happen away from the main stage. One such example is when BING, a previously unranked and relatively obscure Donkey Kong player from upstate New York, shocked the world and broke all the brains of our collective Melee Stats nerd community when he defeated the reigning world No. 1 Cody Schwab off-stream in the biggest upset of all-time. That, of course, happened at last year’s GOML, and it was only one highlight to say the least.
Amid turbulent times for the scene, I’m excited to see GOML return this weekend with GOML: Forever. It will be the last major before the SummerSSBMRank deadline, and it features just about everyone active who can win a major. You guys already know the drill; in this column, I’m going to preview this event. But instead of going down the player list in singles, I’ll be previewing what to watch for each day when it comes to doubles and singles alike.
Doubles on Friday
In line with a more recent trend I’ve started doing, I’ll begin with a section dedicated to doubles. This especially makes sense because that will be the first event that GOML gets out of the way on day one. On the surface, it may seem like a done deal because Cody/Jmook are here, and they tend to bulldoze everyone, as they’ve now done at five consecutive majors. Here’s who else has done this and more:
- Ken/Isai (16)
- Armada/Mew2King (9)
- Armada/Mew2King again (7)
- Hungrybox/Mew2King (7)
- Mang0/Lucky (7)
- Hungrybox/Plup (5)
- SFAT/PewPewU (5)
In fact, consecutive major victories may undersell their dominance. Next to those five majors, they’ve won Platfight 2024 and Altitude Sickness 2, and unlike many of their historical peers, Cody/Jmook haven’t dropped a set. Figuratively speaking, they have totally bitchslapped the field. However, I do want to mention the last time that they lost an event: Supernova 2024. There, they were eliminated by Panda/Krudo, but the team that sent them to the losers bracket in the first place was Zuppy/Mot$, this event’s second seed, whom they haven’t played since. Although Zuppy/Mot$ just finished in second place at Fight Pitt 10 to the French Sisters, it’s hardly a knock against them to lose a tournament to an arguable top five to ten team in the world right now. I still think this double Fox team is quite good and capable of ending the Cody/Jmook reign of simultaneous terror and community-wide indifference to it.
Beneath those two seeds come, in order, Hungrybox/Zamu and Soonsay/Preeminent. The former have teamed twice together, with a second place at Genesis X and fifth place at Supernova last year, where they only lost to the Mang0/Plup superteam and Krudo/Panda. The latter won LMMM 2024 over Krudo/Panda and had a strong third place finish earlier at Battle of BC 7. Although these two teams only emerged last year and have respectively entered only two majors together, their results are too good to place them any lower.
We then get into four teams to close out the top eight seeds: Aklo/Foxy Grandpa, Zain/Z0DD-01, Joshman/Aura, and Salt/n0ne. While these are all strong duos, the one I’m most interested in is Zain/Z0DD-01. Given Zain’s already immense skill floor and Z0DD-01’s long track record of doubles success, I honestly think this team is much closer, pound-for-pound, to making grand finals than they are to missing the top eight (assuming no DQs). If I had to pick one team to outperform their seed, it’s this one.
Beneath them, we get into an even more interesting group of teams seeded from ninth to 12th. Again, in order, they are the San Diego duo of Khalid/snake, Tristate’s very own Artan/TheAsianOne, a surprising top Sheik/Falco combination in Krudo/Chickenman400, and Germany’s Nicki/irfan. I could genuinely see any of these teams finishing in the top four. As a matter of fact. I’ll pick Nicki/irfan to upset Aklo/Foxy Grandpa in their projected winners bracket, and then Artan/TheAsianOne to upset Joshman/Aura. In the case of Nicki/irfan, I think their unusual character combination (Falco/Ice Climbers) could be really tough for Aklo/Foxy Grandpa to deal with; in the case of Artan/TheAsianOne, my explanation is as simple as “this team is cracked.”
Lastly, from the thirteenth to sixteenth seeds, we have Ossify/Negat!ve, salami/MOJOE, :3/rainy, and Nix/Matteo. These otherwise good teams have the problem of having to run into a buzzsaw of death (AKA a top four seed) in winners bracket. But if I had to choose one to successfully make it, I would go with salami/MOJOE to upset Hungrybox/Zamu. Salami is fresh off a scuffed, yet still great second place outing with Darkatma at Tipped Off 16, while MOJOE is just a really strong Fox player overall. As anticlimactic as it sounds, you really can’t sleep on any double Fox team on the right day.
Because I am boring, I am not going to go out of my way to predict someone to win this event other than Cody/Jmook. But to slightly overcompensate for being boring, I’ll say that Zuppy/Mot$ take a set from them in grand finals and become the first team to beat them in a set since last year’s Supernova.
Round 1 pools and Top 128/Round 2 pools
Starting with pools, I will quickly mention a few names outside the Top 64 whom I think could end up being pretty scary. Because seeding will likely change over the week with regards to bracket requests, I’m not going to dive into specific matchups or bracket paths (save for a few note-worthy cases), but I will pick one three to six seed from each round one pool that I think could make an upset or go on a deep run.
- cliché: a SoCal Falco that’s made the Top 100 ballot before.
- FM: a U.K. Jigglypuff that recently beat MOF at Patchwork 2025.
- Seal: Indiana Sheik player who commentates regional top eights but also is regionally quite strong in the Midwest.
- Matteo: Ontario Captain Falcon formerly ranked in the Top 100 before going inactive on a national level.
- HOBORG: Philadelphia Luigi whom I picked as a breakout player for this year.
- R0M: My honorable mention for breakout pick of Ontario for 2025.
- Ober: Chicago’s No. 1 and a Falco player that’s made the ballot for Top 100.
- fitzy: My honorable mention for breakout pick from New York City and likely candidate for end of the year Top 100 ballot.
- MOJOE: Top NorCal Fox who’s No. 4 in the most recent local PR.
- Ryan Ford: All-time Top 100 player; longtime top Ontario Fox.
- Freezus: Longtime Tristate Fox, top 5 in NYC and recently beat Chem, Foxy Grandpa, and Epoodle at Creed.
- regEx: Rising Marth star of Massachusetts and New England.
- Squid: Falco formerly ranked in the Top 100 multiple times.
- Fasthands: Chicago Mewtwo with a recent win over Blue
- rainy: NorCal Fox who’s recently power ranked Top 10 within the region.
- TheAsianOne: Tristate Falco/Fox/ICs; notoriously beat Colbol at Royal Flush.
- Polo: Longtime regionally ranked British Columbia Captain Falcon that once beat Fiction
- Juicebox: MDVA top Sheik and Top 100 player from last year who also made summer rank Top 50 in the same year.
- Artan: Tristate Fox who shocked ChuDat and KJH last year at Supernova
- Ble$$e: Ohio Pikachu who beat Kalvar last year.
- M1sf1re: Ohio Luigi who beat SluG earlier this year
- Greenstach: Boston Luigi with wins over most of New England PR and was recently ranked there.
- Boyd: The Ohio ICs who formerly made Top 100 when Wobbling was legal and is active again.
- Liquid: An Ontario Marth player who is a bit of a hidden boss.
- Kalvar: New England No. 1 and top NH Marth player.
- Ferrety: Michigan Sheik; once won an event over Moe and has been improving lately in results.
- Ampp: Top Luigi player from Ontario who I remember beating Zanya once.
- Snake: A San Diego Falco who teams with Khalid a lot and has done well regionally.
- Frostbyte: Longtime ranked MD/VA Ice Climbers player who’s hovered around Top 100-level, but has never been super active on a national level.
- Adwan: A top Fox player from New Jersey; has been on the come up over the last couple of years.
- eve: An MD/VA Jigglypuff player who’s been regionally strong for a while and recently beat Dawson.
- Tranimal: A longtime regionally ranked and respected Montreal/NYC Sheik player.
Heading from that into Top 128 (round two of pools), we get into a series of interesting projected matches. Without going into each and every one of them, due to the fact that they are likely to change, I want to call out two winners bracket matchups in each group of round two pools that, as of right now,seem pretty interesting to me.
I will begin with two relatively tame picks in Khalid vs. MOF and Morsecode762 vs. Nicki. Admittedly, I haven’t seen Khalid that much in the Ice Climbers matchup this year, but he beat SluG last year at DPOTG for relevant sets, and MOF, though she wins more often than not in it, tends to drop sets here and there. I have no clue about Morsecode vs. Nicki though. It’s the projected match to make Top 32 from the winners side, and it’s also the matchup I have the least confidence in predicting a winner.
In the next group, we have a couple other interesting matchups, beginning with Dawson vs. BING. I could only find one time in which these two played, where BING won 3-2, but it was at an online tournament; this seems like a tossup on paper. One set later, if the projected bracket turns out as planned, comes Zamu vs. aMSa. aMSa hasn’t had the best year and seems to be vulnerable to upsets, but he also is coming off a nice bounce-back performance at Tipped Off, while Zamu beat Wizzrobe earlier this year and feels like she’s always one major away from a deeper breakout.
For our third group, I am especially intrigued to see Ginger vs. Joshman. Joshman is currently trending toward top five in the world and is around a few months removed from nearly winning a major, but this tournament marks Ginger’s return to competing, and any time you have a former Tp 15 to 20 player in the mix, they’re always going to be worth watching. Arguably an even more compelling Top 64 matchup is my pick for becoming the upset of the tournament: Lunar Dusk vs. Jmook. In addition to the characters at play here (Ice Climbers and Zelda) and the fact that Lunar Dusk is a sneaky good ex-Top 50 player, Jmook has really tanked more often than not over his last five events. And honestly, if it happens, it would hardly be the worst loss that Jmook’s taken this year.
Lastly, we come to my other picks for potential upsets in SluG vs. Ossify and Preeminent vs. RapMonster. SluG has been a bit rusty for a lot of this year, and even lost his five-year-plus winning streak against Marth thanks to KoDoriN, but he recently won Creed and seems to be on an upswing. I could see him beating Ossify, who’s gone back and forth with MOF in the couple sets they’ve played. Preeminent and RapMonster have actually played a decent number of times, with RapMonster being up 4-2; it’s just all been online. This is their first time meeting in person.
Top 32
In this section, I’m once again going to pick projected winners bracket matches to look out for; this time only in Top 32. Now, unlike the previous section, in which I picked sets by who would be there, I’m going to try to make four calls based on my personal projects and not just the seeding. Notice the wording there: calls, and not necessarily sets.
My first call for Top 32 is that the player that makes it out of the first ‘quadrant’ of Top 8, winners side, isn’t anyone there. In a projected field of Cody, Aura, Nicki, and Soonsay, it will be Morsecode762 who reaches winners semifinals. While I wouldn’t go as far as to call it the expected outcome, I do think he has a relatively good bracket to make it that far. As it stands, his path from his final round one pools match to top eight is NSFrog (a regionally ranked Captain Falcon from Nova Scotia), Beezy, Nicki, Soonsay, and Cody. Also, it’s just a fun pick; in addition to being his first major top eight, it would be the first time that a Samus main made a top eight since HugS at Genesis 5 seven years ago.
NOTE: Wevans accomplished something nearly on caliber with this at CEO, where he finished in fourth place, but CEO is a national and not a major. No shade to Wevans here when it comes to achievements for Samus; this is just a criteria that hasn’t been met since HugS.
Will another unexpected player make it out of the second spot? My gut tells me that somehow SDJ upsets each of Krudo and Hungrybox to make it, but I’m going to temper my fun here: I think Hungrybox cleans up everyone to make it to top eight. You can’t exactly call Hungrybox a lock because he did just lose to Maelstrom and come off a major where he finished in 33rd place, but as it stands, his bracket to get to Top 32 is pretty favorable (Nav, Inky, and Bbatts), and I think Hungrybox should probably still beat Ossify or SluG in the Top 32 spot more often than not. If he happened to play Krudo, we saw how lopsided that was at Full House, and though SDJ could be scary, my guess is that Hungrybox puts it together for a clean showing that brings him into top eight.
In similar expected fashion, Zain will sleepwalk his way to top eight. In a post-BING over Cody world, you can never really sleep on the chances of an extraordinary upset, and it is possible that maybe BING beats Dawson and Zain in a row, but I am going to pump the brakes on this. In fact, I think what will really help Zain here is the fact that aMSa will have to play Salt, who beat him the last time the two played, and as a result, Zain will have a manageable path of Aklo into Salt for top eight.
For our last quadrant of the winners bracket, I will once again dip my toes into having a bit more fun. Instead of moky, Wizzrobe, Joshman, and Jmook being here, it will be moky, Wally (who will upset Chem and Wizzrobe), Joshman, and Ben (who will beat Lunar Dusk). But because I still am a square at the end of the day, I think moky barely survives a pair of game fives to make it out. Wally would be a pretty terrifying draw, and mayb came close to defeating moky at Genesis, but moky’s done fairly well against top Peach players in recent memory, and I think the other possible opponents he could have here are good draws.
Now, the losers side is much harder to predict because of all the possible outcomes. But in quick order, I think Cody will probably make it out because time is a flat circle, and he will just always inevitably have a monstrous losers bracket run. Along with him, I think that SDJ is going to make it out, likely in Krudo’s projected spot. On the other side of the losers bracket, my guess is Salt makes it out too, and then lastly, I’ll go with Joshman to escape as well.
Who will win GOML?
If all goes as I’m saying, here is what the bracket would roughly look like: Morsecode vs. Hungrybox and Zain vs. moky in the winners side, and SDJ vs. Cody and Joshman vs. Salt on the losers side. With this combination of players in mind, I’ve seen enough. I think Zain is going to win this tournament.
Although he’s technically a lower seed than Cody, there’s way fewer obstacles in his path on a matchup by matchup basis, and while he doesn’t seem like a guaranteed favorite against moky any more, I do think he still has to be considered holding a strong advantage, and if the other side of winners ends up having Cody sent to losers bracket early, it just creates a much better environment for Zain to do what he does best in the summer apparently: win GOML. In the process, he’d become the first player to win three GOMLs in a row and he’d tie Hungrybox for most number of GOML victories.