If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I tweeted basically every moment of last weekend’s MLG Anaheim. That’s because I had the privilege of watching some of the absolute highest quality gameplay that I’ve seen in my Smash career. The matches that went down in Anaheim will truly go down in the history books (please God someone find all the VODs).
Some of the things last weekend said about Melee were subtle, and some loud and clear. But my main takeaway from last weekend is that our game is healthy. I think that’s kind of a weird word to use so let me explain what I mean by taking a look at a time when Melee was anything but – 2008.
The Dark Age
In most of 2007 but at its height in 2008, Melee suffered from a disease I like to call “Mew2King is way too good and no one can beat him-itis”. There was a period of more than a year (after the end of the MLG era) where Mew2King absolutely DOMINATED the game. I’m not only talking about “wins every tournament” – I’m talking wins every GAME. By A LOT.
M2K’s prime was a unique moment in the history of Smash (at least as long as I’ve played) where even Grand Finals would either be some triple 3 stock, or they wouldn’t be played at all because of some splits. M2K made Marth look broken.
What’s worse was that his dominance created a culture – hack the game (figure out its mechanics and abuse them) and you’ll win. M2K had perfected micro situations, and when watching his wins or playing against him, you couldn’t help but feel like the game had been figured out. This is the height of Melee. Become M2K or give up.
Maybe coincidentally or maybe in response to this, top players were dropping out left and right. We saw no more of Ken, and PC started his retirement. Azen stopped going to anything outside of MD/VA. KDJ stopped playing. Locals and regionals started disappearing. Attendance dropped everywhere. National tournament series shut down. This disease lasted a long time. Even after Pound 3, the entire East Coast was convinced that M2K was unbeatable.
For the better part of a year, Melee was the same. It was stale. As a veteran player, it was a drag to lose to the same person over and over. As a new player or an up-and-comer, the advice for getting better was basically the same. Hack the game. Understand the situations. Practice tech skill. It was basically “become M2K”. And as a viewer, there weren’t many sets to watch and all the ones that mattered were predetermined – M2K would stomp on someone. And there was a new game on the horizon. Isn’t that exactly what we needed? Something fresh. Something new.
Fast forward to 2014. The platinum age of Smash. Things truly couldn’t be more different.
The Platinum Age
The Players – who was going to win Anaheim?
Could anyone really predict the answer?
- PPMD was the clear favorite, not even losing a set in 2014 (right?)
- Armada was looking better than ever
- MaNg0 is just a monster and can always win a tournament
- M2K had beaten Armada a few weeks before and looked capable of beating everyone
Each of those 4 opinions were completely justifiable, and all of these players have long rivalries. There’s a ton of drama wrapped up in who will win this tournament, and it’s just the beginning of the Summer of Smash.
What makes things even more interesting is that our “gods” are no longer safe. Axe took sets off of M2K and Hungrybox, knocking the latter out of the tourney at 7th place. L3ff3n took his pools set with PPMD, and nearly beat him again in bracket. WestBallz destroyed MaNg0 in a quick 3-0 set. Forget the dynamic of the top players against each other – we have REALLY interesting sets going on between our S tier and our A tier players. The narrowing of that gap is a huge milestone for the game.
The Characters
And we said this for Evo 2013, but again, the character diversity of the top 8 is amazing. We saw 3 foxes in top 8 (1st, 5th, 7th), and then Peach, Sheik/Marth, Falco/Marth, Pika, and Puff. We also saw super high level play coming from other corners of the tier list, including aMSa’s Yoshi, HugS/Plup/Duck’s Samuses, and s2j’s Falcon. The vast majority of new players have champions for their characters, and no character feels unstoppable.
The Health of the Game
So, what I really mean by health is the health of the overall ecosystem of the game. And no matter what role you have in Melee, there are so many things to look forward to.
Our top players love putting time into the game for its own sake, and that’s one thing Melee has always had going for it. But now we’re starting to really get behind Twitter, and we have Twitch and other live video platforms. Top players can feel the magnitude of the community like it’s never felt before. What we’re doing is important to a lot of people! In my experience that feels SO much better than the prize money for 1st.
As up-and-coming players, we’ve got so many resources to improve, and so many players and playstyles to look up to as we get there. It feels so much easier in 2014 to embrace your own personal playstyle. There’s no pressure to become something you’re not.
And as a viewer or a fan, times have really never been better. Twitch has revolutionized the way we interact with the scene. And with all we’ve learned about how to get great quality content on stream, the quality of the VODs that show up on YouTube are that much better. Highlights of tournaments are popping up on Twitter and Reddit.
And the quality of the competition, the stories of the top players, the tumultuous past and the promise of high-stakes events in the future… these things have never quite mixed together like they are right now.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that the Platinum Age has just started, and I don’t think Melee is going anywhere any time soon.
-MIOM|Scar
Awesome write up Scar. I love where melee is right now. It’s such a toss up to who can win a tourney and players just under the top 5 are making leaps and bounds. And with pm getting a ton of support, comp smash is staying really healthy.
Hungrybox
Was M2K really seen as unbeatable on those days? Even despite the fact that he didn’t in fact win everything..? I mean he didn’t win Pound, Evo or 0C dropping sets to people like pc,kdj and mango.
Mew2King was really that unbeatable. He was also unbeatable for about a year in Brawl, too, not losing a set.
You’re mixing up your timeframes. Mew2King was losing to PC Chris, KDJ, etc before he got really good. Once he started beating them, he never lost to them again.
Mango beating him at Pound was the end of an era. It was his first major loss and broke his “invincibility”. It shocked everyone.
In between this time- in between the time he suddenly got good enough to beat PC Chris and KDJ, and the time Mango ended his range- there was about two years where no one could beat him, ever.
I suspect your knowledge is based on the Smash documentary, and IMO the biggest failing of the Smash documentary is not covering Mew2King well enough. He reigned both games for a long time.
I know my history pretty well. M2K’s range is widely regarded as 2007 to Pound 3. In 2007 he didn’t win Pound 2(won by Chu),0C3(won by PC Chris) or EVO(Ken) and lost to KDJ at regionals more than once. He won more than most other players but there was plenty of big, important tournaments he lost at. That’s not unbeatable to me.