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Monday Morning Marth: September 9

Edwin Budding
Published September 9, 2024

What does it take to win a major? I know what you’re thinking: “being really good at the game.” But that’s not exactly what I’m articulating here. Instead, I’m trying to figure out if there are any specific signs or trends in player performances that could point to someone’s potential chances of winning a major. It can be as straightforward as a sudden burst in performances at major tournaments, or even as specific as a combination of players within the top echelon whom they have good chances of defeating.

The more I looked at it, the more convinced I became that it wasn’t as simple as bigger number equals better player. Many times throughout Melee history, we’ve seen people fall just short of winning majors. Meanwhile, a small group of players previously ranked beneath them have been the ones to finally do it. Are there any unique signs of someone breaking into major contention? What is the difference between someone being the next Cody Schwab and someone, respectfully speaking, being another SFAT? Obviously, there’s no shame in the latter, but in the context of this column, we’re interested in the former.

In today’s column, I want to examine the last nine years of Melee majors and who our first-time winners were within this respective time period. I’ll be briefly recapping their careers heading up to their first major wins, talking about what it took for each player to break through, and then pick one modern contemporary who comes close to fitting that particular mold of player, and could one day win a major. To make this conversation a little more interesting, I will also be imposing a restriction: I am not allowed to pick anyone who has ever finished Top 5 on a global ranking, if only because it’s too obvious. You can consider this the Moky Clause (not to be confused with moky wearing a red hat like Santa: a joke I’ve previously made in this column).

NOTE: I’ve chosen this stretch because it broadly has enough similarities to our current scene to be appropriate. In my opinion, the community was too different during the Five Gods Era and the MLG era. To put it broadly, the circumstances behind each of the first-time winners of those periods can be best described as lightning in a bottle. You’re not going to see someone win a major in two years of seriously competing ever again.

The next Jmook

Everyone knows the Jmook story. He came up in fairly short time at a regional level in upstate New York, starting in 2014, before then becoming a hidden boss for most of the late 2010s. In the next decade, he’d have an initial breakout over the pandemic and top that with an even more extraordinary performance at Genesis 8. A year later, Jmook took home the gold at Genesis 9, where he beat Zain, moky and home state rival Cody.

Obviously, it’s going to be hard to find anyone whose story could come even half as much in the same fashion as Jmook. However, because we’re trying to challenge ourselves here, we’ll have to think of a player who has recently entered a vaguely “Top 100-level” level of results. This will be someone who has been in the scene for the last nine years, isn’t too nationally active, and yet has achieved notable enough results to warrant public attention. All things considered, let’s go with the quiet killer of this decade in Krudo.

Is it a little cheap to pick a Sheik player for this category? Perhaps, but he comes close, having been power ranked in Central Florida for several years, and mostly improved during the pandemic. Krudo won’t have a ‘surprise’ breakout in the same way that Jmook did, but I think his matchup spread could look relatively similar to Jmook’s in a year and a half or so. Would it be too crazy to imagine a vastly improved version of Krudo being able to hang with some combination of Wizzrobe, Zain, Hungrybox, and a top ten spacie?

The next aMSa

For someone whose journey to the top came at the end of an agonizingly long grind, aMSa actually had one of the fastest rises to prominence ever. It’s easy to forget that he straight up took Mew2King to the limit at Evo, only to barely miss top eight at his next major and cement himself as a Top 25 player for the rest of the decade. As we all know, aMSa saved his best for 2022. with his Big House 10 win marking an unprecedented new high in his career. Hungrybox, Soonsay, and Mang0 twice was all it took for aMSa to finally succeed. Well, that and a Plup DQ.

Let’s put the pieces together. We have to imagine a rapidly ascendant mid tier hero; someone who could rise to the top of the metagame and win a major off the back of decimating multiple top players, bracket luck, and sealing the deal over a top spacie twice to win the event. Considering the fact that we just saw that come close to happening a month ago, everyone reading this will know what the best comparison point is; it’s clearly Junebug. If you had asked me before the Eggdog Invitational if it was possible for Junebug to win a major in the next two years, I probably would have said “no,” even after Supernova. However, that just seems incorrect now. When you look at how consistently he’s defeated Top 25 players, the fact that he even has a win over Trif, another player rising into major contention, really shows there isn’t anyone Junebug simply cannot defeat.

While it’s hard to say for sure without seeing them play a set against each other, I’d be willing to bet that Junebug isn’t an auto-loss vs.  Zain, which already is one of the most valuable assets you could possibly have at the top level. And although his last three sets with Cody and Mang0 were fairly ugly, Junebug does boast a win over moky, and a worse version of himself in 2023 did take Hungrybox fairly close. As a matter of fact, Quang was a mere stock away from having a 2-1 lead vs. Hungrybox. Given Junebug’s clear prowess in floaty matchups, I actually think he’s a scary draw for Hungrybox and aMSa given the glimmers of promise we’ve seen from him vs. each of them, along with everyone underneath that level of play. The only hesitation I have with Junebug’s long-term matchup spread is whether or not it’s worth considering a secondary for Sheik. Zanya and Inky did upset him earlier in the year, and I imagine this is a character he struggles with not due to any inadequacy on his part; the matchup could just be that bad.

The next Cody Schwab

It took Cody Schwab six years to win his first major. After climbing to the top of of Tristate over a few years, he eventually grew to be Top 10 in even less time before effectively becoming the No. 3 player during the pandemic. Shortly after that period, in which Cody notably struggled to both compete with the top two and convincingly pull himself away from the pack, he finally won Riptide 2021 over his closest peers (Hungrybox and Plup), then going on to win Smash Summit 12 later that year and cement himself as both a major contender and one of the two greatest players of the current generation.

To find out who the new Cody Schwab could be, we need to look for a rising star who might have started not too long ago. This needs to be someone who has risen to the highest group of a very strong region, but has effectively made the jump from regional PR to Top 100 to Top 20 in the span of about three years (2021 to 2024). In my opinion, Salt is a very good pick for new Cody Schwab. In similar fashion to how Cody came from upstate New York and went on to be a top dog of New York City, Salt ruled Houston, came to dominate the greater DFW scene and has become an icon of Texas Melee. The comparison’s particularly fitting given the fact that Salt frequently cites Cody as one of her favorite players and personal inspirations.

The one thing she doesn’t have, however, is a legitimate win over a member of the top echelon. That’s the last step for her to enter the Top 10 and proceed from there. As of right now, I don’t think it’s in the cards, but it also gives Salt some room to work with in regards to making that final leap into major contention territory. If I were to guess what her best path in the future looks like, it probably involves cleaning up her matchups against both spacies and marginally improving vs. each of Sheik and Marth. We’ve seen Wizzrobe be competitive with Jmook and scare Zain (though falling short) – a better version of Salt could do these things while also upgrading her anti-spacies game to take sets from the Cody Schwabs and mokys of the world. Also, while it came under vastly less legitimate circumstances, she did technically defeat Hungrybox at The Off-Season 2.

The next Wizzrobe

A long time ago, I wrote a column about the greatest “prospects” in Melee history. Like I wrote back then, Wizzrobe absolutely fits the bill for this topic. Starting off as a Project M prodigy, he eventually picked up Melee in 2013, debuting not just in the Top 100 but the Top 50 in his first appearance in 2014. He’d gradually go from Top 50 to Top 30 to Top 10 to Top 5 and finally winning his first major in 2019.

To find something close to Wizzrobe, we’ll need to think of a similar Smash prodigy. Perhaps it’s someone who has only started playing in the last few years and has a chance to break into the Top 100 at an insanely high spot by the end of the year. At the risk of sounding like I’m smoking crack, I’m going to point out JChu. He’s basically become a legend of sorts among those who have been unfortunate enough to run into him on Slippi, and in relatively few tournaments, he’s already taken Hungrybox to Game 5. And yes, I fully understand that I am actually smoking crack with this comparison, but he does have online sets over Cody Schwab and Aklo. No; it doesn’t mean the same thing as having an offline win, but bear with me for a second.

Obviously, to consider where JChu could possibly trend toward having a major “victory” path, we will need a lot more time to have any amount of reasonable, non-crack-smoking certainty. But if I were to imagine another player who came “close” to boasting anything close to a potential path for winning a major, I’d immediately think of Swift, who once literally made a major top eight off the back of destroying multiple top spacies. I am engaging in some egregious speculation here, but I don’t think it would be the most unprecedented outcome of all-time if JChu not only became the “new Swift,” but continued to remain active and push the Pikachu metagame in amazing fashion. Just recently, JChu finished second to Wevans at a Florida event where he took a set from Wevans while also beating Panda, Walmart Shoes, and Akir. At his previous tournament, Supernova 2024, he defeated JJM. Keep in mind that JChu has fewer real tournaments attended than the typical human being has fingers on their hands.

The next Axe

Axe’s career was once nicely summarized by dear friend turndownforwalt. He basically had a huge breakout win at his first major, Genesis, where he defeated Jman, and then he eventually rose to being a Top 10 to 25 player for the next decade. Following years of never winning the big one, Axe finally achieved it in a magical performance at Smash Summit 8, where he defeated practically every top fast faller, dodged his hardest opponent, and got his most favorable top echelon matchup in Zain. It took some time after an initial rise to prominence, but he did it.

You might be wondering why I didn’t have JChu here, and that’s because I wanted to go in a different direction for this pick: I’m choosing Trif. This year in particular has been a fantastic showing for Melee’s newest member of the Top 10. As Peach’s premier representative on the big stage (though Wally certainly deserves mention here after his first major top eight), Trif has been lights out, with victories over each of Wizzrobe, moky, Jmook, and aMSa. This isn’t to say that he’s necessarily favored over these opponents for the long run, but each of these wins came in a different matchup: Captain Falcon, Fox, Sheik, and Yoshi. That’s a pretty useful skill to have when it comes to preparing for a major bracket, as is Trif’s consistency, historically speaking.

Trif and Axe also share a weakness in common that I believe makes this rough comparison even better: they both do not want to run into Jigglypuff. In the 2016-2018 period, this would have been a death knell for Trif’s chances of winning a major. Today, however, when Hungrybox is trending negatively against his peers and hard-stuck against the best player in the world, it’s not the worst weakness to have. Granted, it’s possible that Trif could be as similarly hard-stuck vs. Zain, but Trif, as of right now, hasn’t reached that status yet. More pertinently, Trif would also be a huge beneficiary of aMSa, Zain’s hardest opponent, being in any potential future bracket. My guess for the dream run is that an improved version of Trif breezes to winners round of 16 where he beats Soonsay before then defeating Jmook, moky, and aMSa (twice) to bring home the hold. This, by the way, is just for a supermajor; at a smaller event, he’ll need to only beat three of these people to win.

The next Zain

Without a doubt, Zain is the model player of the “documentary” generation of Melee. Each year was practically a new step forward: starting playing in 2014, winning his regional Arcadian the next year, making Top 100 and his local PR in 2016, and then going from Top 30 to Top 10 over the next two years. The turning point, of course, was winning Shine 2018 over Mang0 and Hungrybox. If you don’t count that though, and you’re looking purely at the most prestigious tournaments in the world, you can consider the turning point to be Genesis 7, where he…beat Mang0 and Hungrybox.

To pick the “new Zain,” we’ll need to find someone who is a recent newcomer to the big stage. Although it won’t be someone who started playing and rose to winning a major in six years, it will be someone who took, more or less, six years to reach Top 25 contention, and someone for whom a few of those years are practically null and void because of temporary disinterest. It’s actually hilarious to consider this person a new “Zain,” because if anything he is the anti-Zain in terms of career trajectory: Wally. Yes, you read that correctly; Wally is secretly one of the fastest risers in the history of Melee when you consider the full context of his time in Smash.

The first result I could find for Wally in the Melee Stats server was a victory he had over Kacey in 2018, roughly around when he started entering larger tournaments and shortly before he became power ranked in New Jersey. He basically became a notable player in no time at all, took a long break from competing during the pandemic, and then made Top 100 in his second year of major activity (the first one being 2019, literally a year after his first recorded events on Liquipedia) in 2022, even defeating the point of comparison I just made with him. The next year was one where he was mostly checked out of competing, routinely DQing from majors, and prioritizing hanging out with friends at events, and yet in 2024, he’s “returned” with a vengeance, destroying Top 25 players across a variety of matchups. In other words, Wally’s six years or so of playing Melee at tournaments has really just been around a few serious ones where he gave the game his all. I would genuinely not be shocked if Wally took sets from any of Mang0, Cody Schwab, moky, or Zain in the next year. People with Wally’s rate of improvement don’t tend to stagnate; they quickly start to enter Top 20 status; maybe even major contention with enough time.

The next Plup

Ever heard of the best Samus main Smashboards thread? I strongly recommend it; these particular series of messages embody the best and worst of Melee culture in the early 2010s. Anyhow, Plup’s Samus is the catalyst behind this thread, and it was only a few years or so later when Hungrybox’s once obnoxious call became reality. Shortly afterward, it took Plup about three and a half years to win his first major, DreamHack Atlanta 2017, doing so over a field of Top 25 competitors and Mew2King and Hungrybox. And before you ask, yes; that counts as his first major.

In short, to find the new Plup of sorts, we have to find a regional talent who quickly became infamous for playing an uncommon character. This player has to have an absolutely disgustingly good Fox, must be from a strong region, and must have debuted on the Top 100 at an unusually high spot after years of hyped up regional results. I am of course talking about Aklo, who instantly became the talk of Long Island around 2019, basically skyrocketed to Top 50 level during the pandemic, and then has been around Top 10 among active players since.

Truth be told, it’s not so crazy to imagine Aklo winning a major as of right now. Maybe instead of defeating Hungrybox and Mew2King, Aklo completes something similar to the Warehouse War 4 dream run, where he beats Jmook and Hungrybox before holding off moky twice in grand finals (or beating Wizzrobe). Hopefully we get to see more of Aklo moving forward; he’s currently very hot and trending upward. It helps that he finally took Zain to last-stock in a game five with Link; by finally achieving this, Aklo’s shown more promise vs. the best player in the world that he ever previously did.

The next Leffen

Lastly, we get to Leffen. More or less, it took him three years to get good enough to reach supermajor top 32 level. After that, he needed another few years to get to top 10. From there, came Leffen finally won his first major at BEAST V, in year six of competing. Here, he beat most of Europe, Mango, and Armada twice to win the tournament. This one is the hardest to emulate, and it certainly stretches the boundaries of believable to come up with a “new Leffen.” You’d have to find someone who, within three years of playing, was good enough to make a supermajor Top 32. After that, they’d need to basically become Top 10 in the world three years later and then immediately win a major. Bonus points, by the way, if they are outside of North America and a bit of a villain.

Let’s think: regionally hidden top player who could be considered in contention for Top 100 in their third year of playing, could trend toward Top 50 next year with renewed improvement, and then have a huge jump forward to a first major win by 2028. This player could even develop a special secondary for Marth. You know what? Let’s go with Joshman.

He basically started competing around 2017, barely missed Top 100 in 2019, trended toward it in 2020 before going inactive, and then 2021 onward has basically gone from Top 50 talent to Top 25 to just outside Top 10. It’s a bit tricky because the pandemic essentially robbed us of a whole year, but in terms of Melee “age,” (AKA regular ranking periods), Joshman is basically in Year 6. By next year, I think he enters major contention. Maybe he wins Phantom 2025 or a rough equivalent of that over some combination of Jmook, Cody, and moky.

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