In my first article, I gave a higher level overview of the lifetime stats of Mango and Mew2King. I wanted to break it down further by looking at only matches from 2012 and onward. Even then some of the older matches may be outdated as the two players have developed their gameplay over the years.
2012 – Now Stats
| Player | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | Total |
| Mango | 3 | 19 | 33 | 55 |
| Mew2King | 2 | 29 | 26 | 57 |
Table 1: Win totals by Game Count
As we can see here, Mew2King had a fairly dominant 2013 against Mango, winning 60.4% of the matches. During this year, Mango had a mini hiatus, taking care of personal life with his family. Regardless, Mew2King had very strong sets against Mango at Apex 2013 and other tournaments as well. In 2014, Mango regained form, but Mew2King still managed to give Mango trouble in many of their encounters.
2012 – Now, Breakdown by Character
Mango’s Fox vs Mew2King’s Sheik (10 Matches)
| Stage | Wins | Losses | Win % |
| Battlefield | 2 | 1 | 67% |
| Dreamland | 3 | 2 | 60% |
| Final Destination | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Fountain of Dreams | 1 | 0 | 100% |
| Pokemon Stadium | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Yoshi’s Story | 1 | 0 | 100% |
| Total | 7 | 3 | 70% |
Many people complained when Mew2King didn’t play Sheik against Mango’s Fox in grand finals of Big House 4. However, Mew2King’s Sheik has historically done poorly against Mango’s Fox. Furthermore, players such as Fiction, Colbol, Silent Wolf, PewPewU, and SFAT have taken several matches against Mew2King’s Sheik as Fox. Although Mew2King may have wanted to have “fun”, it makes sense why he wouldn’t want to go Sheik.
As a side note, Mew2King will never go Sheik on Final Destination and Pokemon Stadium against Mango.
Mango’s Fox vs Mew2King’s Marth (26 Matches)
| Stage | Wins | Losses | Win % |
| Battlefield | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Dreamland | 4 | 1 | 80% |
| Final Destination | 0 | 5 | 0% |
| Fountain of Dreams | 7 | 0 | 100% |
| Pokemon Stadium | 0 | 4 | 0% |
| Yoshi’s Story | 2 | 3 | 40% |
| Total | 13 | 13 | 50% |
A much more even match! Mew2King thrives on Final Destination and Pokemon Stadium against Mango’s Fox. I’ve mentioned in previous articles that Pokemon Stadium is a fantastic stage for Marth’s that have strong platform/grab games. The one question I had during Big House and Evo was Mew2King’s insistence on playing Fountain of Dreams. He’s 0-7 in his last 7 games as Marth against Mango’s Fox. Also to note, Mew2King never will play Marth on Battlefield against Fox.
Mango’s Falco vs Mew2King’s Marth (39 Matches)
| Stage | Wins | Losses | Win % |
| Battlefield | 1 | 1 | 50% |
| Dreamland | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Final Destination | 7 | 10 | 41% |
| Fountain of Dreams | 3 | 2 | 60% |
| Pokemon Stadium | 2 | 6 | 25% |
| Yoshi’s Story | 6 | 1 | 86% |
| Total | 19 | 20 | 49% |
By far, this is the most commonly played matchup between the two. Surprisingly, Mango has taken 7 games on Final Destination against Mew2King’s Marth, a counter-pick widely regarded in Mew2King’s favor. Similar to the vs. Fox matchup, Mew2King thrives on Pokemon Stadium against Mango’s Falco. Yoshi’s seems to favor Mango. The other maps don’t have large enough sample sizes to make any conclusions. In general, Mew2King doesn’t play Marth on Battlefield or Dreamland against Fox/Falco.
Mango’s Falco vs Mew2King’s Sheik (26 Matches)
| Stage | Wins | Losses | Win % |
| Battlefield | 4 | 3 | 57% |
| Dreamland | 1 | 5 | 17% |
| Final Destination | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Fountain of Dreams | 3 | 2 | 60% |
| Pokemon Stadium | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Yoshi’s Story | 7 | 1 | 88% |
| Total | 15 | 11 | 58% |
On Dreamland, Mew2King does really well against Mango’s Falco. This may be due to Sheik’s maneuverability on the stage along with the ability to run away from extensive pressure. On other stages such as Battlefield and Fountain of Dreams, Mango and Mew2King went even. On Yoshi’s, Mango does really well, which is probably due to Falco’s strong combo game on the stage along with the ability to control stage for long periods of time.
Miscellaneous Matches (9 Matches)
| Mango | M2K | Mango Win | M2K Win |
| Captain Falcon | Sheik | 1 | 6 |
| Marth | Sheik | 0 | 1 |
| Jigglypuff | Fox | 0 | 1 |
As expected, Mango’s other characters didn’t fare too well against Mew2King’s characters.
Conclusions
Even if you take out Mango’s 8 games as Falcon and Marth, he holds a meager 54-50 lead in game counts against Mew2King. Even during Mew2King’s downswings, he’s always given Mango some difficulty. It’s strange looking back that these two have played each other for 8 years (2007-2014). Moreover, this is double the length that Azen and Ken played each other at their peaks (~2002 – 2006/7). When we look at the history books of Melee, this could possibly be the main rivalry that people talk about to their kids.
” Interestingly enough, Mew2King will never go Sheik on Final Destination and Pokemon Stadium.” you mention this right after talking about his sheik sets with other players such as sfat and fiction which makes it sound like you are saying that he never goes sheik on either of those stages, period, not just against mango. I know this isn’t what you were trying to say so just giving you a heads up it sounds a tad misleading.
Thanks for the headsup. I’ll fix this in a bit.
Sorry to nitpick the part you edited again tafo but I’m pretty sure “As a side note, Mew2King will never go Sheik on Final Destination and Pokemon Stadium against Mango.” isn’t grammatically correct, I don’t think the “and” should be there, I could be wrong tho. It seems like you are saying he will never go sheik on the combination of final destination and pokemon stadium not that he will never go sheik on either of those stages which is probably what you were intending to say. Again I could be wrong tho.
Good article. We need more of these types of articles. Good read.
“It’s strange looking back that these two have played each other for 8 years (2007-2014).”
Mango only played Puff vs M2K once during this period?
In the beginning, the article specifies that I’m looking specifically at 2012-on
Another amazing article Tafo. A ton of time must go into compiling all the stats for these, and I really appreciate all your effort. Articles like this are helping to take the community to another level. This one got me thinking… it could be really interesting for live streams to start keeping track of more in-game stats à la basketball games. Just to throw some ideas out there, possible categories could include: successful spikes, missed spike opportunities, successful edgeguards, successful recoveries, # of high-knockback punishes, missed punish opportunities, # of successful tech-chases, etc. This kind of already happens depending on the commentators style, but it could be cool to implement a database where all the info is kept track of. I wonder who the all time leader in dumpstering is…
“As expected, Mango’s other characters didn’t fair too well against Mew2King’s characters.”
Hoping this is a typo and not a weird pun… should be “fare.” 😛
Saying this is a more badass rivalery than Azen and Ken is fucking ridiculous and just further proves Tafo is an idiot.
Azen and Ken did not play more games against each other because they did not dedicate their lives to melee and the scene was a whole lot smaller than what it is nowadays. They haven’t had that many opportunities.
It’s not like Mango and M2K having fought more often makes the rivalery better or worse. Jesus christ.
The nostalgia/documentary goggles are definitely real with this one. The Azen-Ken matches were only hype because they lived on different coasts and because it was the first “real” rivalry. Reality is that they rarely played for a decent amount of Ken’s peak because Azen retired. Aside from the one MLG comeback by Azen, the Azen-Ken matches were heavily one sided, favoring Ken. With smaller player pools, it only makes sense that they should have faced each other more often in tournaments, no?
M2k/Mang0 as a rivalry also is so great because of what their own separate styles represent. Mang0 has always been an advocate for nonstop aggression while M2k has generally maintained a defensive style along with several gimp heavy setups. When M2k and Mang0 play each other at their best, the very essence of melee comes out in a way that no other players can showcase.
Ken and Azen also failed to meet at some key tournaments, such as TG6, and nationals were rarer then than they are now.
The mango/M2K rivalry is interesting because m2k represents a logical/defensive style, while mango represents unbridled aggression and unpredictability.
I love how Mango still has a legitimate rivalry with all the other members of the top 5. When he and Armada met up in grand finals of MLG after they got 3rd and 4th at Skatar (Armada did win Super Sweet) I was like, oh I guess this is still a legitimate rivalry, since I thought PPMD was gonna take it. When Mango and Hungrybox met up in GF of Evo, I thought, oh I guess this is still a legitimate rivalry, who would have thought that the GOML finals would repeat themselves at Evo. At BH4 when Mango and M2K met up in GF I thought, oh I guess this is still a legitimate rivalry. The story continues. The only one he hasn’t met in GF in a looong time is PPMD.