More than 20 years after the very first Melee supermajor came yet another series of groundbreaking firsts, none bigger than moky’s stunning run to first place at Don’t Park on the Grass 2024. Amid a year of soaring highs, demoralizing lows, and, bizarrely, several hours on Slippi Unranked, moky defeated Trif, Cody Schwab, Hungrybox, and Aklo twice to take home the gold, at one point winning three consecutive game fives in his journey to become the 22nd person in Melee history to win a major.
Far from the only storyline at the event, moky’s victory came under totally unprecedented circumstances, none more unbelievable than a top four of players who had never won a major. Falling just short of the peak itself, Aklo had a well earned second place, as he won a Fox ditto runback with Joshman, conquered his longtime demon Zain yet again, and snuffed out the lights on Nicki’s historic third place performance – yet another premier story from this event. Coming all the way from Germany, Nicki vanquished Dawson, Aura, Swedish Delight, Axe, Joshman, Jmook, Cody Schwab, and even Zain in a heavily anticipated losers bracket rematch from Collision.
As I make my back home from the tournament, as well as write this post on my phone, I keep thinking of something I wrote last week. It was reference to the wackier potential outcomes my major prediction model had generated for DPOTG: “When you simulate a tournament 1000 times, sometimes your model spits out random shit.” Thinking about it a little bit deeper, that’s just another way of stating that things often change in Melee. It’s not all the time but enough to where the previously unthinkable can one day happen. It doesn’t take a genius to tell you, “Zain will win.” That’s not why people watch events – we do it because we love the game. Despite how much you may think you know about Melee, it has a way of leaving you breathless when you least expect it.
With that said though, I am a nerd, guilty as charged. And far from mourning the end of my successful prediction streak, I am quite thrilled to dive into the single most shocking supermajor I’ve seen in my time of following Melee. At the risk of potentially compromising the beauty and sanctity of the post-major vibes, I’m going to make this column all about numbers. Consider this not my way of bragging, but my way of trying to figure jump into the numbers of my model, and see what the most shocking outcomes from this tournament are.
How Rare Was This Top 4?
I’ll begin by stating what should be fairly obvious: none of my 1000 simulations had the specific top four of this tournament, let alone the wild top eight itself. However, there were two simulations that each had top fours filled with people who hadn’t won majors before. I think this does come somewhat close to the first major in well over 200 instances to achieve an entirely champion-less top four. Another way to put it is that this specific “type” of top four had approximately a one-in-five-hundred chance of happening.
The first of my simulations, Simulation 528, I described with the words, “nothing crazier has ever happened in the history of Melee.” This was in reference to the “Frenzy Wins” timeline, where our favorite UK Falco defeats Soonsay in grand finals. At the same event, Aklo finishes not too far away than ours in third place. Meanwhile, n0ne, of all people, dials the clock back to 2022 and has a monster run to fourth place. Crazier yet, Zain and Cody Schwab are both out of top eight there (17th place), with the rest of the top eight having Hungrybox, aMSa, moky, and Plup. Does it sound crazy? Consider it an evolution of Jmook’s Genesis 8 breakout, in terms of a hidden player seemingly making the jump from “very good” to “major contention” overnight. Meanwhile, in Simulation 615, something eerily similar to Simulation 0 (real life) occurs: a moky major victory. Except, in this universe, he beats lloD in grand finals, with Aklo and Salt respectively closing out the top four in order. Cody flames out at seventh place; Zain gets thirteenth place.
Calculating the specific permutation of matches that led to our top four is beyond the scope of what I want to explore. However, what we can do is examine each of these placements on an individual level and combine them together to make an educated guess. Of the placements in the top four, Aklo’s second place (5.6 percent) was the most common (read: still in the threshold of surprise). After him, was moky’s win (4.5 percent), Joshman’s fourth place (3.7 percent), and then, to no one’s surprise, Nicki’s bronze medal performance was the most rare outcome by far (1.6 percent). Together, our top four had a 0.000149 percent chance of happening. If you don’t like seeing that many zeros, I’ll put it this way: we just saw a one-in-6,711 result.
Joshman and SDJ
On a more individual note, I want to shout out two performances that might have otherwise gone under the radar at this event. First comes Joshman’s fourth-place performance. This would have been the main story of the event practically anywhere else. His specific journey to fourth place came under some pretty wild circumstances too. Though he didn’t have to play Plup, Josh had to survive a game five scare from Fox ditto specialist Zamu and hold off lloD. Once that happened, I thought Josh would safely defeat Aklo yet again, only for it to not happen. If you had to envision a Josh top four showing, it probably wasn’t with this outcome in mind. It was, however, accounting for a big win somewhere, which came in the form of a huge reverse 3-0 over rival Jmook, a solid ending of SDJ’s own top eight run, and Josh’s first win on Hungrybox.
The next player to mention here is SDJ, who quietly had perhaps the most insane seventh-place performance (4.0 percent) ever. In it, they spoiled Nicki’s winners bracket – a result that only looks wilder given what we now know about Nicki – and casually defeated each of aMSa and Wizzrobe with seemingly little fanfare. Losing only to Joshman and Zain, SDJ now will exit the year with about four Top 15 wins. They have unambiguously proven themself to be in the echelon of players right under the outskirts of major contention. When you really consider it, they have had one of the most quiet and surprising storylines of the year as well as taken their legacy to an entirely new level.
How Rare is a Top 4 without Cody and Zain?
If you asked anyone before this event how likely it was that both Cody and Zain would relatively flame out, they would have scoffed at the notion. But in the wake of Cody finishing in seventh place, as well as Zain being taken out to the woodshed by each of Aklo’s Link and Nicki’s Ice Climbers, it deserves a closer look. Cody, my pick for DPOTG winner, had a very strange day. After beating Preeminent through a wall, he then barely survived a scare from Salt before missing a last-stock ledge dash against moky. While Cody put it together vs. Krudo to still make top eight, Nicki was the one to take him down in what I’d describe as the greatest Fox vs. Ice Climbers play from a Fox who got 3-1’d. Does that sound nonsensical? Well, it was. Cody simultaneously made the matchup look 8-2 in Fox’s favor while also being hit by every tech chase and downsmash. I don’t know what to tell you.
Regardless, Cody finished in seventh place for 7.2 percent of his simulations – an unexpected outcome, but not necessarily eyebrow-raising. You could say something similar for Zain, who got spanked even worse by Nicki and Aklo. Funnily enough, while the final placement feels inexplicable in the moment, it wasn’t that crazy by the numbers. Zain’s fifth place happened in 12.3 percent of simulations. Obviously, the crazy thing is both Zain and Cody exiting the event in fairly wild fashion. Using the same method we did before, we can guess that this roughly had a 0.89 percent chance of happening; around one in 112 or so.
What happened to other major champions (that didn’t DQ)?
There was a point in time where I thought Press Start would forever hold the title for most unexpected events ever. After all, how can you get any wilder than a tournament around the time of the Five Gods where none of the attending namesake players were initially in the winners side of the top eight? It turns out that this event was even crazier for our top seeds, and it goes beyond what I’ve already brought up.
I’ll begin with the third seed of the event, aMSa, whose ninth place turned out to be (19 percent of simulations) his most frequent simulated outcome. Granted, I don’t think anyone had SDJ defeating him as an expected result, but without Zain on his side of the bracket, aMSa had a tough road ahead of him, especially with one of moky or Cody or Trif contending for the winners semifinals spot in top eight. Worse yet for him, aMSa ended up finally losing to Axe for the first time in a few years. It created a long road for himself, although to his credit, he also ended Leffen’s tournament at 13th place. Remember that for later.
Much like aMSa, Jmook, “underperformed” his eighth seed, but it wasn’t a real surprise given his bracket. He finished ninth in 16.7 percent of simulations, the second most of any placement he had (17th at 18.2 percent). Such is life when you’re seeded to play Nicki in round one of Top 48 and then have to play your biggest in-region-rival for ninth place. This was always going to be a very tough event for Jmook; if anything, he has two nice moral victories in having successful revenge against each of Wizzrobe and Trif. Meanwhile, Hungrybox placed exactly to his sixth seed (remember: two people finish in fifth place). It also happened to be his second most likely showing (15.7 percent of outcomes) from this event. The only really surprising set he had was his loss to Joshman, and even that was not too crazy; I felt similarly about Hungrybox’s win over Leffen, whom he has struggled quite a bit against this decade.
The real surprise for me was seeing Wizzrobe fall to SDJ and Jmook in fairly quick fashion for 25th place. Although the results of each individual set are not too world-ending crazy, together, it is fairly wild; it happened only 5.9 percent of the time. Not too far away in terms of being fairly unexpected by the numbers was Leffen, whose thirteenth place happened in 9.6 percent of simulations. Then again, his expected performance is frankly always going to be difficult to predict given how rare it is to see him at all.
Stray Thoughts
I do not think there’s a single person – maybe not even OkayP himself – who would have actively predicted his performance here. Coming into the event as a 96 seed, OkayP had a great showing, beating each of Raz, n0ne, and Zuppy on the way to 25th place. It’s the best performance of his career and would probably get him into Top 100 consideration if he weren’t nationally inactive.
For other notable outliers, excluding players who DQ’d, Grab (97th), Shroomed (97th) and Raz (97th) stand out as the biggest underpeformers. With respect to these three as amazing competitors and lovely people (at least two of them I can personally attest to in the Marth players; I do not know Shroomed nearly as well), we should not lie to ourselves about these being relatively bed-shitting results. It happens. I have no doubt these three will do greatly at their next respective events.
As a both a Melee player and a human being, Swedish Delight is someone whom I respect immensely and am quite fond of. His thirteenth place performance at DPOTG, which came through wins over S2J, Zuppy, and Junebug, is both totally unsurprising and a massive testament to how timelessly amazing he is as a competitor. But I have to confess something here that has multiple eye-witnesses: when Swedish Delight picked Mr. Game & Watch against Nicki after already winning game one, and proceeded to get utterly discombobulated out of existence by Nicki’s Fox, I genuinely laughed harder and longer than I ever have at a Melee tournament.
This Mr. Game & Watch, by the way, ended up playing a role in what would eventually turn out to be a 3-2 victory for Nicki, who then went on to have his legendary run to third place. I cannot claim to understand Swedish Delight’s thought process here – and to be clear, I am not a top player – but it may simultaneously be the biggest crack smoking and yet consequential character counter pick of all-time.
Parting Words
While I was thrilled to attend DPOTG, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. This has been a fairly quiet year from me in terms of event attendance – I have scaled back my involvement in Melee to a significant degree. I still love writing about Melee and playing with my friends, but I’ve taken a ton of time to prioritize non-Melee obligations in my life. Heading into this event, I told myself it was purely a social occasion, that I wouldn’t care about competing, and that I’d go to bed early during top eight and watch it before my flight. At one point, I told a friend, “what’s the point in watching a major top eight, you know? I’ve seen it all.”
I was basically wrong on every count. I did socialize, but I ended up playing more Melee at this event than anything else, catching up with several friends I hadn’t seen in over a year, getting mad about losing to Captain Falcon in the tournament, and watching the most upset-packed supermajor ever. By all means, it was a really fun event and one that reminded me of why Melee, as well as the friends I’ve made through the game, remains special to me after all these years. Here’s to a wonderful weekend and hopefully many more to come.