The argument for PPMD’s chances of winning MLG is a tired one—a boring one, even. Just in case the device with which you’re accessing MIOM’s page is the underside of a rock, though, here’s a newsflash for you: he won Apex 2014. He won SKTAR 3. He won TO9, too, for what that’s worth. He did it from winner’s side, every time, and he never dropped more than a game in a set—often, not even that. There were four-stocks and JV’s, and (perhaps more importantly) closer matches where he fought long wars of attrition and didn’t lose control for a second.

The argument against PPMD’s chances of victory is a more interesting one. It is, of necessity, an argument that has to do with consistency. No one, I hope, would argue that after four plus years of intense competition a month of practice is going to elevate anyone’s skill drastically enough to change the way they stack up (pun intended. Apologies.) against the Doctor on a fundamental level. But even if there are no dramatic changes in the fundamental skill of the competitors, any one of them could certainly play better or worse on any given weekend than on any other. After all, there were only about two months between The Big House 3 (where PP got 3rd behind M2K and Hbox) and TO9 (where the carnage started). And just after PP won ROM 3 and Pound 5 (inasmuch as anyone really “won” at Pound 5—Shoutouts to Plank) he started on the not-winning-everything streak that had some folks putting him at 5th going into Apex 2014.

I don’t know what happened in the December of 2013. PP himself would say that his mindset changed, and that seems like as good an explanation as any other, but whatever change did occur, it was not the product of the ordinary day-to-day fluctuations in skill that we see in top-level melee, the ones that made m2k and Mango trade sets back and forth from Apex to Fight Pitt to Fall Classic to ROM 7 to GOML to SKTAR. It was not a matter of PP waking up on a better side of the bed than the other four two Sundays in a row. Something changed, because PP went from losing for three years and change to dominating the same people who’ve beaten him in the past for nine sets straight. And that, in my mind, makes him a champion.

Back in the glory days of Smashboards arguments (rest in peace), when Armada won Apex 2012, people started talking about a new champion. A pretty common contention was that you have to take two in a row to be “champion.” Now, I don’t know if it’s one, two, or three, but I can say this: history shows that when smash champions are born, they tend to stick around for a little while. The one thing the Mango and Armada eras had in common was that they didn’t end until their champs did. I don’t see PPMD retiring to find his true passion anytime before MLG, and I don’t see him playing a hungover Mario in bracket. But if you feel differently, hit me up on Smashboards and ask me for my Paypal—I’m offering 1:1 on him against the smasher of your choice.

– Charlie “BattleCow” Bullock