After Cody Schwab’s victory at the Eggdog Invitational, I had a good amount of time to sit on it and gather my thoughts. But naturally, with Riptide 2024 coming up, it doesn’t even really feel like it’s worth my time to recap all the different cool things about Eggdog because we have yet another major to talk about. In the future, I may do a more in-depth column recapping the biggest winners and losers from each event; for now though, we need to dive into the most interesting parts of Riptide.
🗣️First draft of pools are live. To submit bracket feedback:
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– click on "Request Bracket Changes" and select the type of issue you are reporting pic.twitter.com/p9DaXjcmfz— Riptide (@RiptideSSB) September 2, 2024
In most of my major previews, I typically point out 32 people to watch out for, summarize each of their years, and discuss their bracket paths at this event. However, I’m going to take a different approach here; I’ll be focusing my efforts on the four main contenders to win Riptide. There’s the three current contenders for number one – Zain, Cody, and Mang0 – and also the ultimate wild card in Plup, the defending Riptide champion.
Today’s column is all about those four players. I’ll review how each one has performed in recent times, whom they’ve beaten, who they have lost to, and how their bracket could influence their chances of winning this tournament. At the end of it, I’ll make my final pick for who will win this year’s Riptide.
NOTE: I wrote this preview on Monday; if the bracket significantly changes, some of my predictions may need to be adjusted.
Can Plup defend his Riptide title?
As I’ve unintentionally demonstrated throughout years of failed predictions, predicting events is very hard. It’s even tougher to evaluate a guy who has attended only two events all year. But over the last two years, we’ve seen seven majors and nationals from Plup (Supernova 2024, Tipped Off 15, The Big House 11, Riptide 2023, CEO 2023, Major Upset, and Genesis 9). That’s more than enough to say that he’s capable of defending his throne in Sandusky, Ohio.
The biggest recurring theme of Plup’s data is how badly he’s trounced the field. In these seven tournaments, his only loss outside Zain, Cody, Jmook, Mang0, aMSa, Wizzrobe, moky, and Hungrybox is to Spark, and that was with Samus, on a whim. Even within the top echelon, Plup has been stupendous. Against Jmook, aMSa, Mang0, Wizzrobe, Soonsay, Aklo, moky, and Hungrybox, Plup is a combined 15-3. When Plup plays a Top 10 player, and it’s not Zain or Cody, he’s probably going to win. Unsurprisingly, he’s the last person outside of Zain, Cody, and Mang0 to win a major.
With that in mind, Plup has immensely struggled with Cody, who has currently won 11 sets in a row, which dates all the way back to 2021. On one hand, it’s not impossible to break 11-set losing streaks. At the same time, we’ve seen enough to say that Plup will enter any future set as a huge underdog. The other potential issue is Plup’s penchant for choosing secondaries, even as they don’t necessarily bring him a competitive advantage. There always will be a slim chance that he randomly decides to go Samus or some other character when he could just play Sheik or Fox. This isn’t to say that his results with such characters don’t ‘count’; it’s more pointing to an extra factor that plays into predicting how Plup will perform on any given day. He might even DQ.
The good news, however, is that we have no reason, as of right now, to think Plup will DQ or play anyone other than his mains. Based on the projected seeding, he’ll have Blue (or Faust), Joshman (or Drephen), moky (or Spark), and Mang0 (or Jmook) to make it to winners finals – in all likelihood, a bunch of Fox players. This might sound scary for any prospective Sheik player, and yet Plup’s actually performed fairly dominantly vs. Fox players outside the top echelon, largely in due to his own prowess in both Sheik-Fox and the Fox ditto. Thankfully, none of them are Cody either, which should boost Plup’s chances.
Is Mang0 about to repeat 2022?
Although he didn’t win the Eggdog Invitational, Mang0 sure seemed like he was in a great spot to win a third straight major. All he had to do was beat Hungrybox, and the odds were that he would have to play Cody twice again. What ended up actually happening was that he then lost to Hungrybox and Zain for fifth place. It wasn’t the most concern-worthy series of losses, but it was definitely a return to Earth for someone who seemed on the verge of becoming number one again. Then again, that’s not out of the equation for this event.
Mang0’s dominance vs. Cody (6-1) played a large role in his hot streak. However, his consistency vs. the field has been really slept on. Looking at his 2024 head-to-heads vs. the Top 30 at majors and nationals (and not, say, weekday locals, or ‘vacation’ events) – his only loss is to Ossify at Full Bloom. Other than that, he’s dominantly won vs. Soonsay, Trif, Spark, Aklo, Junebug, Axe, Krudo, Magi, Panda, Zamu, Aura, and Lucky. That doesn’t even count his win over Morsecode762 either. Other than that, the last blemish he had was a loss to Sirmeris after having already beaten him.
Being healthy is so sick
Normally I would sulk and wanna quit and be a pussy
Now I'm like
I understand what went wrong and can't wait to work on it
I'll be seeing everyone
— 🐐 🐐 🐐 🐐 🐐 (@C9Mang0) September 2, 2024
With that said though, Mang0 has a few weaknesses to shore up. For all the talk about him improving vs. Sheik, he’s still only 1-2 vs. Jmook this year. He’s also yet to beat aMSa and moky either (though I think it’s hard to imagine him entering a rematch vs. the latter as anything less than a favorite given long-term trends), and we all know how bad it’s looked vs. Zain at majors this year. Like I said last week, Mang0 putting his name in the number one race and becoming a major contender is legitimate; it just wasn’t necessarily as mind-blowing as it may appear.
The thing I’m most interested about in Mang0’s current Riptide path is less who his opponent is and more how that shapes his choice of character. Mang0 typically prefers brackets where he can prioritize one spacie (usually Falco), while keeping his other one (usually Fox) warm enough for one specific opponent or player. That’s how he won Tipped Off and Supernova; in hindsight, it’s not rocket science that switching between Fox and Falco every other set led to subpar play vs. Hungrybox and Zain last weekend. However, to bring this back to Riptide, his projected path to winners finals from Top 32 onwards is Slowking (or bonfire10), Polish (or SDJ), Jmook (or Aklo), and Plup (or moky). My guess is that he defaults to Fox before top eight, and only brings out Falco if he has to play Aklo or moky. It’s possible that he just rides Falco the entire time too; however, the presence of SDJ – someone whom I think his Falco wouldn’t be the best bet against – is enough to make me believe Mang0 prioritizes the Fox.
Can Cody take the lead for No. 1?
Fresh off his Eggdog win, Cody is now tied with Zain for three major victories for the year. Funnily enough, the two of them also have a national win each, with Zain having a Full Bloom title and Cody boasting a Warehouse War 4 victory. Here’s to hoping that we don’t get a nearly dead-tie for number one by the end of October. That would be a totally crazy outcome, wouldn’t it?
Cody’s unbelievable thirteenth place low from GOML X has hidden how reliable he’s been vs. the top echelon. Outside of that clear outlier, he’s finished top three at every other event he’s attended, consistently beating each of Jmook (3-1), Hungrybox (3-2), moky (2-1), Wizzrobe (2-0), Plup (1-0), Leffen (2-0), and notoriously aMSa (7-0) whenever he’s faced them. And as we’ve seen multiple times, an early loss is far from a guarantee that Cody is out of the running for winning a major.
The one obvious weakness has been Mang0 (1-6), who has practically saved the world from an uncontested Cody reign of terror. Now, it’s worth noting the ridiculousness of how often Cody “not winning” correlates with Cody “losing to Mang0;” at each of Supernova, Tipped Off, and Pat’s House, he suffered a double elimination at Mang0’s hands. The only other times Cody has been knocked out of a bracket in 2024 have been Collision (where Hungrybox double eliminated Cody) and the aforementioned GOML, where BING and Morsecode762 beat him. Although it’s not the most extreme example of a player’s winning potential being boosted by the absence of another player, it’s sure up there.
However, Cody has a pretty hard Riptide path. As of right now, and from Top 32 onward, he has Bbatts (or JSalt), Soonsay (or Morsecode762), Wizzrobe (or Axe), and then, believe it or not, Zain (or Hungrybox), into winners finals. Speaking of which, can we now admit that the narrative of Cody and Zain playing too many friendlies was the worst hot take ever? Since The Match, they’ve played a whopping once, when Cody 3-0’d him at BOBC. So much for their friendlies making their sets boring. God, please don’t lose to Soonsay or Morsecode. I just want to see another Zain/Cody set.
Who can stop Zain?
It’s been a minute since a Zain major win, hasn’t it? Ever since Zain’s monstrous loser’s run to take home the gold at GOML X, he’s shown signs of being mortal again. By the way, I don’t mean that in his two recent tournament performances; I mean that he’s straight up had a life outside of competing in Melee events, whether it be in his travel or newfound streaming efforts. Honestly, good for him, because he’s still entering the very stacked fall season as the lead contender for the number one race.
Poisoning is done @Sora_Sakurai fix your game it is so bad
melee forever pic.twitter.com/1GoYJxmy5G
— Zain (@ZainNaghmi) August 1, 2024
Only two players boast positive records over Zain all year: Cody, who has only played Zain once, and a secret ‘surprise’ player we’ll examine the importance of later. Against everyone else at majors and nationals, Zain has looked impervious, having collectively devoured Mang0 (5-1), Hungrybox (4-0), Jmook (4-2), Plup (1-0), moky (3-0), Leffen (2-0), and Wizzrobe (2-0). Versus everyone outside this group of players (and Cody/aMSa), Zain is a combined 23-0 against every SSBMRank player he’s faced off against at majors and nationals this year. As a matter of fact, when it comes to his results at such events, he’s yet to lose to someone outside last year’s Top 9 (or Leffen) since Apex 2022, when Axe beat him.
We all know Zain’s biggest bracket weakness is aMSa. However, it’s worth noting how aMSa’s mere presence at an event heavily correlates with Zain’s success. It goes way beyond a mere 0-6 record. The last time Zain lost a tournament – as in not finishing in first place – where he didn’t play aMSa was LACS 5, when Leffen double eliminated him. In fact, he’s won an insane six consecutive majors and nationals where he hasn’t had to play aMSa. Meanwhile, when Zain had to play aMSa, he won Fete 3, which came last year. Weighting for recency, it seems safe to say that if aMSa isn’t in Zain’s path, Zain’s chances of winning a tournament might actually improve by six times.
| Majors and Nationals Where He Plays aMSa | Majors and Nationals Where He Doesn’t Play aMSa |
| 4th at Eggdog Invitational | 1st at GOML X |
| 5th at Tipped Off 15 | 1st at Pat’s House 4 |
| 3rd at Battle of BC 6 | 1st at Collision 2024 |
| 3rd at Genesis X | 1st at Full Bloom 2024 |
| 4th at The Big House 11 | 1st at Super Smash Con 2023 |
| 2nd at Shine 2023 | 1st at GOML 2023 |
| 1st at Fete 3 | 2nd at LACS 5 |
How does that bode for Zain’s chances here at Riptide 2024? Well, aMSa’s not attending. I think all of you know where I’m going with this. Zain in 4 (figuratively speaking).