2:28 Can we just appreciate how Slug extended his fist for the fist bump and very quickly reacted to Zain going for a handshake to avoid the dreaded scenario where one player shakes the other player's fist resulting in them being put in a cringe compilation. Truly impeccable adaptation in and out of the game from Slug's end.
And falcon and peach aren't even there and there's only 2 foxes. If you told someone in 2014 this is what the top ten would look like in 2022 their head would explode
we could end up with a 10/10 top ten. Llod, Axe, SluG and multiple Falcons can make the top 10. Its not likely considering Plup and Leffen are top 10 mainstays, but its also not impossible Fox Marth Falco Sheik Puff Captain Falcon Ice Climbers Yoshi Pikachu
Ludwig Invitational was the biggest decider for Zain to be Number 1 : - Stack invitational where Zain lost early and was 3-2 on pools cuz of losing to Hbox and Mang0 - To make things worst , he gets pick by Axe because Axe saw Zain playing friendlies with Tyler Swift for 5 hours and was like "Yeah fk it , hype pick it is" - Zain goes nuts and reverse 3-0s his Bracket demon and goes into this beast mode into winning the tournament - To add more , Zain looked a bit "shaken" due to him losing Big House and Riptide previously. He was not even first seed coming to Ludiwg's
Yeah, I mean, with LSI and GENESIS he was literally the only person of the year to win two supermajors. And 3 of his 4 major wins had all of the top 5 in them, whereas only 1 each of mang0 and aMSa's wins had the same level of stacked-ness. There was literally no question Zain would be #1, not a single panelist voted him anything but #1. The only person I saw argue otherwise was a completely tuned-out mang0-obsessed lunatic on reddit.
@@codetaku Yeah Zain was #1 but by no means was it a dominant #1 though. His h2h in the top 10 wasn't actually very good with Mang0, Hbox, and Axe being the only players in the top 10 that he had a winning record against. Zain's biggest strength came from his best average placing with a score of 2.9 but Hbox should've been ranked as high as 2nd based on that metric. Overall, the ranking was fine but it was also inconsistent putting Zain at #1 but also Hbox at #5.
@@supernaturaltychoon3164 Cool seeing that Zain by basically any metric was #1, i swear it felt like he underperformed in 2022 but that’s probably a symptom of how high all of our (and his) standards are. I think the biggest issue for the top ~50 or so is how attendance is weighted. Like BBB probably entered more tournaments than anyone else in the top 100, but I get the sense that subjecting yourself to potential local upsets has an outsized impact on perception of skill. Furthermore, Cody was explicit about this problem during the live Fourside Fights episode. I don’t have a solution but maybe building the panelists some kind of clear (but optional) rubric assigning tournament “weight” might be necessary. I know that it’s not in the spirit of the standard ranking prompt, but giving more framing resources to the panelists may be helpful. Ninja edit: This is to Hboxs credit that he enters as many regionals that he does
can we take a moment to look at the variety this top 10 brings to the table? We have a fox and Sheik solo main in addition to two fox/ sheik dual mains sure, but we also have a falco, a marth, a Pikachu, an icies, a puff, and a Yoshi! For a game that still even now gets shit on for being "unbalanced" the top 10 certainly doesnt demonstrate that. Especially when you consider that Yoshi, Pikachu, and Icies are in there. Characters that are no where near the dominance of the top 6
Super cool to hear my (already outdated lol) Jmook blurb getting read out loud on this channel! Thanks for making this video and thanks to everyone else who contributed to the rankings this year!!!
It really is incredible that not only did aMSa win a major, he actually became a serious major contender. When Axe won Summit 8, I was hopeful that we'd see him win more, but Hbox and Mango are huge hurdles for him and he hasn't really been at that 2019 level until 2022. When aMSa won Big House, I was more confident that he could win again, but I figured it would be a while. Sometime in summer 2023 or something, when he'd get the right bracket again, with no Zain, Sheik, Leffen, or Cody. But then he won two more majors in the next two months and showed that the only guys who really threaten him are Plup and Cody. After 8 grueling years climbing the mountain, he didn't just get a moment of glory; he got the #2 world ranking and the recognition that he could just win any tournament, no matter how big, on any given day, and be in contention for #1. I'm trying to draw sports comparisons to this "late dynasty", where someone only becomes a dominant force late in their career. Is aMSa LeBron James, a player brimming with natural talent but held back until a move to Miami (BC, for aMSa) started bringing in the championships? Is he John Elway, victim of embarrassing Super Bowl defeats before winning two in a row to end his career? Is he the 90s Utah Jazz in a just world where they won in '97 and '98? Time will tell.
2022 was the first year since 2008 where the #1 player had neither won more majors/super majors than anyone else or had a better matchup spread vs the field than anyone else
Amsa no doubt deserves to be top 3 but I really don’t see how he had a more dominant year than mango - mango may have started off slow but he ended up winning more tournaments than amsa - edit: I didn’t realize amsa beat mango in the h2h this year but personally, I still feel that mango’s tournament wins are more impressive than amsa’s wins with the exception of TBH10.
This is definitely the most contentious and uniquely talented top ten in melee history. Melee is just a completely different landscape now. Every tournament is a complete toss up and I don’t think it would be surprising to see even a few of the top 20 players win a major this year.
Amsa being number 2 is definitely recency bias imo, mang0 won more tournaments so he should be number 2, not to take away from amsa's excellence but i think this is more grounded in reality.
It's funny that for the bottom 6-7 of this list all the highlights are wins over Zain and Mango. Makes it look like Zain and Mango just lose all the time. Obviously not the case. Just kinda funny.
While I don't agree with amsa over mang0, what you guys have done here is great! its a huge service for everyone in the community! palenists were great!
@@nickrulez809765 i feel like mang0 made it look more like a coinflip + recency bias because amsa and mang0 were literally top 2 at the end of the year. aMSa earned his rank largely to his better h2h and his better concistency just like jmook did over hbox last rankings.
@Dragonlope Yeah, thank you. Most of MangO's wins seemed to be tournaments Zain didn't attend, and remembering the "quality" of win is helpful to contextualize what was still a superb season MangO had.
aMSa has the better quality wins (big house and apex were more stacked than mainstage, lost tech city, and smash con) and aMSa had the better h2h with 7 winning records in the top 10 vs Mang0's 4. His avg placing was also better at 3.5 vs Mang0's 4.5. If you also consider the fact that aMSa attended as many events as Mang0 did last year, it made perfect sense that aMSa got the rank 2 over Mang0. Hell, iBDW could've been as high as 2 based on his h2h and avg placing.
Mango is #2* I fixed your biased list. I don’t care what AMSA’s set record is against the top players is, major wins hold more weight. I agree with the rest of the list
13:30 I couldn't help but laugh at the pronouns in the final ranking, imagining there were real people thinking : "Yeah, that seems right, that's going to help society."
the whole pronoun thing is silly and I can't wait for it to die. People just gotta ride the new wave every time. When it's not the cool thing to do anymore (idk why it even is), people will stop posting it.
2:28 Can we just appreciate how Slug extended his fist for the fist bump and very quickly reacted to Zain going for a handshake to avoid the dreaded scenario where one player shakes the other player's fist resulting in them being put in a cringe compilation. Truly impeccable adaptation in and out of the game from Slug's end.
Tbh one of the greatest reaction tech chase handshakes of all time
I think we’re looking at an option select. Pull back fist, watch opponents hand, match, contact.
“Sheik players across the globe wait patiently for the day of his inevitable major victory” yeah no more waiting required! Let’s go jmook!
Yeah I wrote that blurb for Jmook like a month and a half ago, I'm very glad it's already outdated ROFLLL
@@SSB_Seal would you have ranked him higher?
@@Wavedashnoir Yeah of course, but Genesis counts for this year's rank
@@SSB_Seal ah makes sense
8 unique characters in the top 10, love to see it.
And falcon and peach aren't even there and there's only 2 foxes. If you told someone in 2014 this is what the top ten would look like in 2022 their head would explode
"MeLeE hAs OnLy TwO vIaBlE cHaRaCtErS"
we could end up with a 10/10 top ten. Llod, Axe, SluG and multiple Falcons can make the top 10. Its not likely considering Plup and Leffen are top 10 mainstays, but its also not impossible
Fox
Marth
Falco
Sheik
Puff
Captain Falcon
Ice Climbers
Yoshi
Pikachu
By the way, GG Melee, you've been phenomenal for Smash Content and what you're doing for the scene. Thanks!
Music choices on point. Guile theme for hbox popoffs and Mario Kart music for mango is just so well thought out.
And the crash bandicoot 2 ice level theme for slug
Touhou for leffen definitely caught me off guard
Pigstep for Plup is also a shoe-in, esp. given white girl wednesday music is probably all copyrighted
@@DuringDark Pigstep goes crazy
Ludwig Invitational was the biggest decider for Zain to be Number 1 :
- Stack invitational where Zain lost early and was 3-2 on pools cuz of losing to Hbox and Mang0
- To make things worst , he gets pick by Axe because Axe saw Zain playing friendlies with Tyler Swift for 5 hours and was like "Yeah fk it , hype pick it is"
- Zain goes nuts and reverse 3-0s his Bracket demon and goes into this beast mode into winning the tournament
- To add more , Zain looked a bit "shaken" due to him losing Big House and Riptide previously. He was not even first seed coming to Ludiwg's
Great points ty
Yeah, I mean, with LSI and GENESIS he was literally the only person of the year to win two supermajors. And 3 of his 4 major wins had all of the top 5 in them, whereas only 1 each of mang0 and aMSa's wins had the same level of stacked-ness. There was literally no question Zain would be #1, not a single panelist voted him anything but #1. The only person I saw argue otherwise was a completely tuned-out mang0-obsessed lunatic on reddit.
@@codetaku Yeah Zain was #1 but by no means was it a dominant #1 though. His h2h in the top 10 wasn't actually very good with Mang0, Hbox, and Axe being the only players in the top 10 that he had a winning record against. Zain's biggest strength came from his best average placing with a score of 2.9 but Hbox should've been ranked as high as 2nd based on that metric. Overall, the ranking was fine but it was also inconsistent putting Zain at #1 but also Hbox at #5.
@@supernaturaltychoon3164 Cool seeing that Zain by basically any metric was #1, i swear it felt like he underperformed in 2022 but that’s probably a symptom of how high all of our (and his) standards are.
I think the biggest issue for the top ~50 or so is how attendance is weighted. Like BBB probably entered more tournaments than anyone else in the top 100, but I get the sense that subjecting yourself to potential local upsets has an outsized impact on perception of skill. Furthermore, Cody was explicit about this problem during the live Fourside Fights episode.
I don’t have a solution but maybe building the panelists some kind of clear (but optional) rubric assigning tournament “weight” might be necessary. I know that it’s not in the spirit of the standard ranking prompt, but giving more framing resources to the panelists may be helpful.
Ninja edit: This is to Hboxs credit that he enters as many regionals that he does
can we take a moment to look at the variety this top 10 brings to the table? We have a fox and Sheik solo main in addition to two fox/ sheik dual mains sure, but we also have a falco, a marth, a Pikachu, an icies, a puff, and a Yoshi! For a game that still even now gets shit on for being "unbalanced" the top 10 certainly doesnt demonstrate that. Especially when you consider that Yoshi, Pikachu, and Icies are in there. Characters that are no where near the dominance of the top 6
8 different characters in the top 10 is pretty incredible for a game made in 20XX.
“An anthology of joker moments” is a great way to describe losing game 5s to the same person over and over lmao
"An entire anthology of joker moments" LOL RELAX
Man I love TDfW 😂
Super cool to hear my (already outdated lol) Jmook blurb getting read out loud on this channel! Thanks for making this video and thanks to everyone else who contributed to the rankings this year!!!
Never seen a H2H one sidedly decide a top 5 ranking before. You could easily say Jmook did better against the field than HBox.... but 10-1.... Damn.
HBox also won two majors. Winning majors was an important metric for panelists.
A yoshi player being top 2 is so funny and impressive
its crazy how Amsa being at #2 is underrating him 💯💯💯💯
It really is incredible that not only did aMSa win a major, he actually became a serious major contender. When Axe won Summit 8, I was hopeful that we'd see him win more, but Hbox and Mango are huge hurdles for him and he hasn't really been at that 2019 level until 2022. When aMSa won Big House, I was more confident that he could win again, but I figured it would be a while. Sometime in summer 2023 or something, when he'd get the right bracket again, with no Zain, Sheik, Leffen, or Cody. But then he won two more majors in the next two months and showed that the only guys who really threaten him are Plup and Cody. After 8 grueling years climbing the mountain, he didn't just get a moment of glory; he got the #2 world ranking and the recognition that he could just win any tournament, no matter how big, on any given day, and be in contention for #1.
I'm trying to draw sports comparisons to this "late dynasty", where someone only becomes a dominant force late in their career. Is aMSa LeBron James, a player brimming with natural talent but held back until a move to Miami (BC, for aMSa) started bringing in the championships? Is he John Elway, victim of embarrassing Super Bowl defeats before winning two in a row to end his career? Is he the 90s Utah Jazz in a just world where they won in '97 and '98? Time will tell.
Utah Jazz didn’t deserve anything 😂
2022 was the first year since 2008 where the #1 player had neither won more majors/super majors than anyone else or had a better matchup spread vs the field than anyone else
Great list, why am I so emotional right now
It was a fantastic year of melee
Fantastic job writing this script and highlighting stories!
Of course gg hosted this video with Zain as #1
Lemme get a "good job Zain" in the comments I'll start good job Zain
good job zain
Ain't no way Walt out here having his epic scripts syned to PigStep... ain't no way
Ngl, in terms of character diversity, it’s a beautiful top 10
Melee is Sick !
I hope this year Plup makes a strong push for the #1 spot. It seems like he was jus a lil off all 2022.
Amsa no doubt deserves to be top 3 but I really don’t see how he had a more dominant year than mango - mango may have started off slow but he ended up winning more tournaments than amsa - edit: I didn’t realize amsa beat mango in the h2h this year but personally, I still feel that mango’s tournament wins are more impressive than amsa’s wins with the exception of TBH10.
Was looking for this comment. I don’t get it.
@@bradylavy9592 yuh definitely feels like pandering
Mango has also more and worse bad results
Beating him in the h2h? huh? Their record is 4-1 in favor of aMSa.
@@bradylavy9592 Better h2h and better avg placing but then you could make an argument for Cody Schwab > Mang0 as well
Tfw you realize Cody and Plup are the only two people in the world not terrified of a yoshi main
When number 9 came up- who else thought Walt was the one hitting us with that sick bass line?
This is definitely the most contentious and uniquely talented top ten in melee history. Melee is just a completely different landscape now. Every tournament is a complete toss up and I don’t think it would be surprising to see even a few of the top 20 players win a major this year.
I get big house and apex but scuffed and off season weighed in over LTC and mainstage?
so happy for zain best player ever my absolute favorite king to watch
The channel I didn’t know I needed to be subbed to
Phenomenal music choices. Touhou music for Leff? Rizz
One of the balance changes I dream of is for all projectiles to hit fox out of his up b like Shiek's needles.
Love this so much. Thank you
"Handing jmook an entire anthology of joker moments" lmfao
i love the legend of zelda OST that begins at 5:27 for our triforce and tristate hero jmook 😀
Awesome video as always, even if I’m quite late 😞
So many different character in the top 10. Its beautiful and people say ''Smash Bros Melee is only fox and falco lmao''
What a great year for Melee, and we're off to another good one after this Genesis !
Congrats to Zain! That’s my goat!
Great writing what a dope video
10 more years
this top 4 was wild
i really hope slug shows up at summit. seeing icys in top 10 makes me so happy
The disrespect putting Guile’s Theme on hbox when it should have gone to the BUSTER
Great video! Pretty sure SluG is 1-0 on Zain in 2022 though, not 1-1 2:42 sorry for nitpick, great content. SluG is beast
Pokemon music fits everything bro stg
This top ten has 8 unique characters represented
So what was Armada seeded for Genesis 1?
8 different characters in the top 10 is cool
u didnt even mention axe is workin on a fox secondary to help close the gap
Hell yeah Slug in top 10, soon to be top 5!!
Where's jmook episode? 😤
bro I was wondering what happened with the rankings it seems like the year jus ended and we moved on (Im likely jus out of the loop lol)
Yeah if you’re relatively active on Twitter you probably would’ve seen the rankings come out a little while ago.
I think they came out right before genesis weekend
wasn't Armada seeded outside the top 20 at Genesis 1?
Top level ssbm gets better every year
This just released and it's already out of date. Cody doesn't go by iBDW anymore and Jmook already won a major
Wow it’s almost like it takes time to make a video like this 🤯
we love GG melee
I thought i was the only one who pronounced Florida like that lol its the NYC accent
i know someone here remembers the song for ibdw. its on the tip of my tongue
SluG is the best player in the world
I’M STILL SO MAD SLUG IS RETIRING
Melee is sick 🔥
Thanks Walt
Amsa being number 2 is definitely recency bias imo, mang0 won more tournaments so he should be number 2, not to take away from amsa's excellence but i think this is more grounded in reality.
Canada on the board this year
my dream jmook or amsa first the fight for the crown
IBDW’s mang0 pop off at GOML was kind of swag
Melee is a great game
Zain train all aboard
good vid
It's funny that for the bottom 6-7 of this list all the highlights are wins over Zain and Mango. Makes it look like Zain and Mango just lose all the time. Obviously not the case. Just kinda funny.
They couldn’t just make Mango and Amsa tied for 2nd huh
8 different characters in the top 10, crazy how balanced the meta is for such an old and janky game
Welp time to invert Jmook's & Mang0's ranks
Slug is so nonchalant abt crazy dubs
I’m happy we, as a community, stopped with the “Xan” bullshit
While I don't agree with amsa over mang0, what you guys have done here is great! its a huge service for everyone in the community! palenists were great!
I wish this video had more discussion of how those two were placed, as #2 was the highly contested spot.
Tbh, it seemed like a coinflip to me.
@@nickrulez809765 i feel like mang0 made it look more like a coinflip + recency bias because amsa and mang0 were literally top 2 at the end of the year.
aMSa earned his rank largely to his better h2h and his better concistency just like jmook did over hbox last rankings.
@Dragonlope Yeah, thank you. Most of MangO's wins seemed to be tournaments Zain didn't attend, and remembering the "quality" of win is helpful to contextualize what was still a superb season MangO had.
aMSa has the better quality wins (big house and apex were more stacked than mainstage, lost tech city, and smash con) and aMSa had the better h2h with 7 winning records in the top 10 vs Mang0's 4. His avg placing was also better at 3.5 vs Mang0's 4.5. If you also consider the fact that aMSa attended as many events as Mang0 did last year, it made perfect sense that aMSa got the rank 2 over Mang0. Hell, iBDW could've been as high as 2 based on his h2h and avg placing.
Mang0 still the goat
Algorithm comment BTW MANGO WAS ROBBED BOTH 2022 AND 2023 TOP 2 RANKINGS
Walt PogU
Leffen's ranked way higher than deserved, imo.
Mango is #2*
I fixed your biased list. I don’t care what AMSA’s set record is against the top players is, major wins hold more weight.
I agree with the rest of the list
Mang0 will be so happy you defended his honor against this biased list lol 🫡
Also by your logic aMSa should still be #2 bc he won objectively larger tourneys than Mang (Apex and Big House)
Here comes another braindead fan from the so called "GOAT"
13:30 I couldn't help but laugh at the pronouns in the final ranking, imagining there were real people thinking : "Yeah, that seems right, that's going to help society."
the whole pronoun thing is silly and I can't wait for it to die. People just gotta ride the new wave every time. When it's not the cool thing to do anymore (idk why it even is), people will stop posting it.
couldn't help but comment too!
Firstly, secondly!
lfg amsa
I love mango don’t get me wrong but I’m sorry even if you’re a mango fan in what world is he ranked number 3 and jmook 6? Smh
Mango had multiple major/supermajor wins and jmook had none it’s pretty simple
Yeah, Mang0 being top three and Jmook being sixth are pretty uncontroversial.
@@kalenross3208 okay but also multiple placements outside the top 8 sooooo what do you value peaks or consistency?
lmao the pronouns.....
Love Plup gettin' the Pigstep BGM. plupYUMYUM