As the Smash community heads into October, it may seem a little early to talk about the current player landscape, particularly when it comes to rankings. But it also seems like quite a bit has changed since the end of Summer SSBMRank. Between tournaments like Smash Factor, Super Smash Con, Shine, Riptide, and even a couple regionals last weekend, we’ve seen the rise of players who didn’t even finish within the Top 50. Could some of them be higher right now?
Last night in Melee:
1. Ossify won BODIED, beating Ginger and Ben (MI)
2. Skerzo won Cream City Convergence, beating Slowking and DannyPhantom (WI)
3. Inngenn won BattleGateWay, beating rom and Sanne (Japan)
4. MOF won KAME HOUSE X SKYGUYS, beating SDeems and Panko (GA)
— Melee Stats (@MeleeStatsPod) October 1, 2023
In today’s column, I’m going to examine the 2023 resumes of a few notable players who I think clearly pass the “Top 50 vibe check,” but have had results which are somewhat difficult to decipher in relation to the rest of the field. I’ll be talking about their years as they’ve occurred so far and then coming up with rough comparison points within the Top 50.
Flash
I’ve talked about Flash many times within this column. Obviously, I have vested interest in seeing him do well and seeing people talk about him. In an unusual turn from the previous two years, he’s been quite a bit more active and shown glimpses of being a Top 50 player. I would go as far as to call him someone who outright has the potential to shock Top 10 players on the right day.
- 0-2 lloD
- 1-0 vs Salt
- 0-1 vs 2saint
- 2-1 vs KJH
- 1-0 vs Bbatts
- 1-0 vs Junebug
- 0-1 vs Ben
- 1-0 vs Drephen
- 0-1 vs billybopeep
- 0-1 vs TheSWOOPER
- 0-2 vs Sirmeris
- 0-2 vs Smash Papi
- 1-0 vs Free Palestine
- 1-0 vs Professor Pro
- 2-0 vs TheRealThing
- 1-0 vs Lowercase hero
- 1-0 vs Fizzwiggle
Sometimes when I evaluate players’ results, I like to imagine how I would view these results if I didn’t know who the player was. In the spirit of doing that, I’m going to look at the head-to-heads and pretend like I don’t know it’s Flash. What we have here is one win over a Top 25 player, a slew of strong performances against the bottom half of the Top 50 and quite a bit of volatility against other notable, ‘ballot-contending’ players. I am not sure that’s enough to guarantee him a spot on the Top 50 as of right now, but knowing that it’s Flash makes me believe that with another major where he takes home another set over a Top 50 player, he could end up somewhere around where Frenzy is right now in the mid 40s.
billybopeep
A long time ago, I said that watching billybopeep gave me the same feeling I once had while watching Crush. To an extent, I still truly believe that, even if the results haven’t quite been there to prove it. Like Flash, I’ve been willing to put my money on the line to bet on billybopeep being someone to look out for, and he’s shown us moments where he’s absolutely looked capable of stunning some of the world’s best players.
- 1-3 vs Salt
- 1-0 vs Polish
- 0-1 vs 2saint
- 0-1 vs SFOP
- 0-1 vs SDJ
- 0-1 vs Mekk
- 1-0 vs Shroomed
- 1-0 vs bobby big ballz
- 1-0 vs mvlvchi
- 1-0 vs Flash
- 0-2 vs Lucky
- 2-0 vs Squid
- 2-0 vs Kurv
- 0-2 vs KoopaTroopa895
- 0-1 vs Seven
He hasn’t really attended all that much, but even just looking at the entirety of the Top 50, he boasts a relatively high five sets over players within that group of people, with two of them being Top 25 players. Furthermore, when you examine his losses, save for the strange outlier vs. Seven, they’ve come to either someone in the major top eight-contending group of players or two guys (Lucky and Koopa) from SoCal who’ve had his number. My guess: billy is somewhere in the late 50s or early 60s right now. If he beats a third Top 25 player or has a big showing in Detroit, he could make his way up the list to around KJH’s spot.
Morsecode762
Morsecode initially made waves to most smashers when he made the Top 100 for the first time in 2018, and in 2019, he gained even more attention as the highest ranked Samus player in the world. It’s all but guaranteed that he’s going to end 2023 with that title yet again, with the chief reason being one particular achievement he has for the year – one which will become very obvious, if it isn’t already.
- 1-0 vs Jmook
- 0-1 vs Mang0
- 1-2 vs Zuppy
- 0-1 vs Axe
- 1-2 vs Zamu
- 0-1 vs Ben
- 1-2 vs Ossify
- 0-1 vs Ginger
- 0-1 vs Khalid
- 1-0 vs Kalvar
- 2-0 vs JI
- 1-0 vs Reeve
He wasn’t active enough to qualify for the Summer Top 50, but if the list had to be made today, there’s no question that he would make the list somewhere around or slightly higher than where MOF ended up. The sets he has over Zamu and Zuppy neatly complement the whole “defeat a No. 1 contender” thing he has going for him, but what especially helps him is the fact that he also just doesn’t lose to anyone outside the Top 50. Well, that’s technically not true, but we’ll get into that later. I would not be surprised to see Morsecode finish somewhere in the early 30s by the end of the higher – maybe even higher with another big performance.
Ossify
Joining Flash and Chef Rach as the latest member of the Melee “late bloomer” brigade, Ossify currently had his best tournament victory last weekend. I basically have to mention him in this column; previously known as a Smashladder fiend during the late 2010s, Ossify then swapped to Marth and has made a living off absolutely terrorizing anyone that comes to Michigan. In fact, it’s very likely that he will end the current ranking period with the top spot on the state PR, which is crazy to say considering this state has basically always been run by Duck, KJH or Ginger when they’ve been active.
- 1-0 vs Zuppy
- 0-1 vs Aklo
- 0-1 vs Spark
- 6-1 vs Ginger
- 14-14 vs KJH
- 0-1 vs Khalid
- 1-0 vs Panda
- 1-3 vs Ben
- 1-0 vs Matteo
- 2-1 vs Morsecode762
- 0-1 vs n0ne
- 1-0 vs Ober
- 1-0 vs Sirmeris
- 5-0 vs Kuyashi
- 1-0 vs Michael
- 2-1 vs Q?
- 7-1 vs Brazmonkey
- 10-1 vs JCubez
- 0-1 vs Papa
This resume is absolutely bonkers. In fact, it hides an even crazier story within the KJH head-to-head. Though it is technically even on the surface, it hides the fact that Ossify went from losing more often than not in the first half of the year to now boasting a six-set win streak over him. With positive records against the 26 to 50 caliber players, reliability over the field, and a set over a Top 25 player, Ossify would easily make the Top 50 today. It may be premature for me to say this, but I would put him around where 2saint is right now (No. 22). Who goes 6-1 vs. Ginger? His worst head-to-heads this year are a stray set to Papa, one loss in a dominant head-to-head vs. JCubez, and a loss to n0ne – someone who could totally make his way back to Top 50 and whose win over Ossify has now aged quite well.
Colbol
In an ideal world where we just evaluate players by skill at the game, there would be no more than about 29 players in the world better than Colbol. He is an all-time legend of the game; someone with basically nothing more to prove on a national level and someone who’s been content to farm the absolute shit out of a strong region in Georgia. Here’s some context to keep in mind when you look at Colbol’s resume below: last weekend was the first time he left Georgia for a tournament all year.
- 2-0 vs Joshman
- 0-1 vs Polish
- 0-1 vs Salt
- 1-0 vs Krudo
- 2-0 vs MOF
- 2-0 vs Mekk
- 2-1 vs Panda
- 1-0 vs Akir
- 15-3 vs Panko
- 9-1 vs CAUP
- 3-1 vs Dusk
What did he do last weekend, you ask? Merely win a Florida regional over Krudo and Panda. The worst performance Colbol had all year, at any big tournament, was dropping a single tournament to Panko in an otherwise completely lopsided head-to-head. Other than that, you have to look at his Tipped Off, in which he lost to two Top 25 players. Speaking of which, it may be easy to discount one of the two sets he has over Joshman as a local one where Joshman played Marth; at the same time, Joshman just won an event over Soonsay last weekend while playing Marth. Take into account Colbol’s continued excellence against clean Top 50 players, and the picture becomes far clearer. I would place him somewhere around SFOP’s level right now.