@@shady8045 He said top level not top player. Not to mention his career is insane when you think about the fact that he was competing at a high level at every other new Smash title coming out while staying top 5 in Melee, in fact if you don't count project M M2k is the only ever player to be the best at 2 Smash titles at the same.
great vid. after the 1st minute when armada appears deep in the shadows *cue Jaws theme* m2k and mango with over half the game's lifespan in the top 10 tho
Vil Lynch that would have been incredibly confusing but I did consider making his head bubble get bigger when he was near the top in reference to the Big Leff meme
For someone like Mango to be on the top 10 for over a decade, let alonr M2K for 13 years, is a landmark accomplishment for anyone in eSports. Most esports players experience burnout around the 5 year mark.
Has nothing to do with their skill and more with the player base being mostly the same old guys throughout the years. Also what burnout? You mean they stop being good enough and thats why they retire rather then end up in a bottom tier team.
@@xBox360BENUTZER melee gets new players every day and they can't touch these guys. 2018 gods would curbstomp 2013 gods, the meta has advanced so much.
Melee doesnt get alot of new players, it is a fighting game which already aren´t too popular and then it had multiple sequels so it is even less popular. If you threw the playerbase of Lol, Dota, CS, Starcraft or other big esports games at it, the smash "Kings" would be dethrowned in less then a year without making it into top 10.
Epholos It would almost certainly take more than a year due to the insane skill curve and knowledge base the pros have built up but other than that yeah, i’d imagine the top players would change but it would most likely be a slow process, not an overnight change like you’re suggesting.
@@xBox360BENUTZER lots of people play melee, they just give up or you just don't see them because it takes many many years of practice to get to the top
Having only started following melee after watching the doc, it’s really gratifying knowing that this video is somehow able to give you a sense of nostalgia :’)
You gotta admit tho, the level of play was really low. This was a meta with a lack of shield dropping, ledge cancelling, and I frames from ledgedashing. Truely a simpler time.
Darryll Railsback it was also more volatile, whoever learned any new tech jumped miles ahead of everyone. The fact that Ken held that spot just shows how good he was compared to everyone else
@@Nostalgia_Farm not to mention ken got 9th (or maybe it was 13th) at an evo in recent years. Just shows how good he really is even all these years later
@Xalpha23 yeah i understand how good he was, but simply saying it was irrelevant is a little ignorant. Ken was by far the best, and no one could really touch him. But if the era didnt matter then why was he surpassed? He couldnt keep up with the meta. Sure, he had hand problems, but who doesnt playing melee? Ive been a community member since 2012, and its always been this way, you dont learn new tech, you get passed up. In earlier years of the game, players like borp and tope did really well with a lack of advanced techniques. But where are those guys? Not even top 20 in there region. The era of melee we excist in now is a far different landscape than pre 20xx hack pack. You see players like zain who have only been competing for 4 years and are the best players in the world. Ginger hasnt been an active member for nearly as long as some people but hes really nasty at the game. Ken was great, but that era of compitition was actually silly. West coast east coast stylization differences were still a thing. Sure there are different play styles, but we see alot less regional play styles, and more optimizations. When i began playing the game, i remember practicing wall techs in training mode with motion sensor bombs. Training packs have made the game so much more accessible. Your statement is loaded. Its a fact that ken was the best and i never denied that. Was is the key word here. The compitition became less lazy, and that made for better players. Thus passing ken up, leaving him behind. He had a good evo run in 2014, but this was the last high placing tourney we will ever see from him.
@@MatMart Chudat's been here since the beginning and is still a Top 50 competitor and was just Top 10 the other year. But Mew2King has definitely sustained his higher level of skill in the Top 10 for a long time too. No doubt.
@@keanuvaughn1508 i know it doesn't mean much cuz it's PPMD but if you check his twitter he has an update mentioning that he should be streaming and competing again soon
Fitting that he was at the top when he faded out. And that he got to curbstomp Hbox their final set to lay to rest (😎) any doubt (though Hbox in fairness was definitely not at his best)
@@DrunkStudios M2K deserves so much more. Shame his mindset holds him back so much. He's always been the most consistent of the gods. Held Leffen back from godslayer for a while too.
I like how you can clearly see where the peak Five Gods era is due to the hug gap in the middle of the graph. Also I'd love to see an updated version of this in a few years to reflect the influx of newer top players
Zain's line is sick. I shudder to think what an updated version would look like. (Also, kinda surprised I didn't see KK ln here. He was always pretty consistent when playing out of region)
Can we just take a second to just be amazed at how friggin long M2K has stayed in the top 10? There are not many people that can claim to consistently be at the top 10 for 12 years straight in any sport.
There was a lot of controversy and unfound claims of him being a duplicate account for another top 10 player. Unfortunately for Scorp the melee community (or lack thereof) agreed to ban his tag. Really sad ending for a top 10 mario main... Maybe Salem is right about Melee T.T
I wish there were more games like this. Fun, accessible, but a very very high skill ceiling with so many possibilities. Players still learning new techniques and getting better almost 20 years later.
the Ken era, the Mango era, the Armada era, now begins the 4th age, the era of Hungrybox , Armada's relative dominance has honestly been just so impressive though
Awesome to know I've played both Sastopher and Isai. Both amazing strong players. Strange to not see Rori in there-his pillar game was top notch with Falco.
Loved this infographic, and I think the elo scores are probably pretty representative of how good the players are now relative to "ordinary competitive players", meaning that I'm not arguing that 2005 Ken would stand a chance against even 2018 M2K. *But:* I just want to say, that Ken and Mango, in 2005-2006 and 2009-2010, respectively, showed off a *relative* performance of dominance that no other player has come close to in any era. Look at how big those gaps are and how long those big gaps last for. Obviously they didn't win literally every single tournament they entered during those periods, but those were periods during which absolutely no one could argue that anyone else was the best melee player in the world. Meanwhile since mid-2014 you've had 6 different people fighting right up at the upper echelons and no real consensus on whether hungrybox or armada would win a best-of-100 against each other.
Watching Zain rise is simultaneously a ray of hope for newer players and the opposite. He grinded his ass off and it still took like 4 years to reach top 10.
Man I fucking loved Melee during the Ken era, so many great stories lost in time... The resident sleeper Isai, KDJ revolutionizing the meta for Sheik, and PC Chris and Bombsoldier basically giving birth to the modern Falco. All those guys and more, peaked just barely before the Golden age of smash. I fucking love Melee!
I love this game. I love the tournaments. My fav player is HBox but I'm not sure if I should consider him THE G.O.A.T... Armada and Mango are amazing as well, M2K will never be forgotten... I just don't know
Trophies and memories alike gather dust. What can be done for achievements left for dead by each passing day? The only thing that stays the same is the presence of change. My Name is 20XX, meta of metas. Look upon my works ye mighty, and despair.
yeah bro faurk, he was like this player from Sydney named Rob. No one could beat him bro Ken and Isai 2v1'd him and they both got triple 8 stocked. Rumour has it Rob is grinding on Gumtree trying to trade his Corolla for some demerit points. What a lad
I looked up mikael, he definitely was a very good player but wasn’t better than ken overall. He took games off of ken but no sets. His tournament placings were ok at best. No disrespect to him but I don’t think he’s comparable to ken.
The Viper217 yeah but armada arguably had the most qualitative peak in history, he went the entire 2009 not losing a single GAME, not set a GAME, to ANYONE who wasn’t either a god or named Swedish delight after causing a random upset one time. and while it was never that good he certainly didn’t ever fall out of favor
@@shady8045 Well yeah, i know that. I've been on the scene for quite awhile. Mango's definitely the GOAT though, because you even saw it with Armada and M2K. They started losing more than normal and dipped out.
i really feel bad for m2k now seeing how long he was in the top 10 and how much of that he was number 1 must suck. he has shown he can be the best but he rarely is now i get why he almost fainted after winning summit and got so shocked. it is cool to see how the 5 gods form and move but m2k was there before any of them and was always beneath them must suck
![1 Orc vs 7 Computers [4K]](/img/1.gif)
i died seeing scorpion master in top 10 LOL
Lmao me too, Mango was on there twice
Scorpion Master is underrated.
@@user-un8jx8yo7z i wonder what ever happened to that guy
Timestamp?
@@nonahedrix around 2:30
I like the change of portraits throughout the years, representing the players getting older.
Didn't even notice that. Thanks for pointing it out!
and Mang0 getting fatter LUL
@@FrankTheTank1007 same with hbox and armada (and ppmd). m2k is the fit god
Mango ages 5 years by the time 2016 hits
This is ridiculously interesting, very impressive how long M2K has stayed top level. Great vid!
Geoff - Smash Music really? He was barely ever on top, even in his peak in 2007 Korean DJ gobbled up most of the year, I kinda expected better tbh
@@shady8045 He said top level not top player. Not to mention his career is insane when you think about the fact that he was competing at a high level at every other new Smash title coming out while staying top 5 in Melee, in fact if you don't count project M M2k is the only ever player to be the best at 2 Smash titles at the same.
Its not that hard for him. If he still put time in melee today he'd still be a top 10 player EASILY.
He was #1 in brawl at pretty much the same time too
M2K was only the best player in perception never in reality. He won FC diamond yay
great vid. after the 1st minute when armada appears deep in the shadows *cue Jaws theme*
m2k and mango with over half the game's lifespan in the top 10 tho
Yeah you really have to respect m2k for still being around (maybe not recently) and still being a top top competitor after all these years.
and mango being number 1 for the second longest amount of time after armada (i think)
AwesomeJimJam I’m pretty sure Ken was #1 longer than both of then
@@jumnyum you can literally just watch the video. Ken was around 2.5 years, Mango was around 3.5 years, Armada was around 4
@@somsnosa. video starts at 2003 so add 2 years for ken basically
I like how Leffen is the most evil looking shade of red
They could've shifted his color through his redemption arc
Vil Lynch that would have been incredibly confusing but I did consider making his head bubble get bigger when he was near the top in reference to the Big Leff meme
@@RussellWang1 that would have been halarious
The godslayer
Watching PP’s icon fade out at 4:16 made me so sad.... I miss watching him and cheering him on.
Hes supposes to be comong back in the next few months
@@kylarjonez4256 our savior coming back to save melee from the evil clutches of hbox
@@2FadeMusic our Lord and savior floaty slayer Kevin Nanney said he'd return this year from March to May
I miss him too. Watching him play is the reason I got into a more competitive melee (I still suck though)
Darryll Railsback people have been saying this since he left
For someone like Mango to be on the top 10 for over a decade, let alonr M2K for 13 years, is a landmark accomplishment for anyone in eSports. Most esports players experience burnout around the 5 year mark.
Has nothing to do with their skill and more with the player base being mostly the same old guys throughout the years. Also what burnout? You mean they stop being good enough and thats why they retire rather then end up in a bottom tier team.
@@xBox360BENUTZER melee gets new players every day and they can't touch these guys. 2018 gods would curbstomp 2013 gods, the meta has advanced so much.
Melee doesnt get alot of new players, it is a fighting game which already aren´t too popular and then it had multiple sequels so it is even less popular. If you threw the playerbase of Lol, Dota, CS, Starcraft or other big esports games at it, the smash "Kings" would be dethrowned in less then a year without making it into top 10.
Epholos It would almost certainly take more than a year due to the insane skill curve and knowledge base the pros have built up but other than that yeah, i’d imagine the top players would change but it would most likely be a slow process, not an overnight change like you’re suggesting.
@@xBox360BENUTZER lots of people play melee, they just give up or you just don't see them because it takes many many years of practice to get to the top
Watching this is so nostalgic. The old pictures, the old names, miss all of them.
Having only started following melee after watching the doc, it’s really gratifying knowing that this video is somehow able to give you a sense of nostalgia :’)
@@RussellWang1 Oh man ,you have no idea :'0 The nostalgia hurts lol!
Can you do one for Brawl (2008) to Smash 4's end? (2018) ?
Ken truly ahead of his time. In 2005 he had a higher elo than anyone else had by late 2008.
You gotta admit tho, the level of play was really low. This was a meta with a lack of shield dropping, ledge cancelling, and I frames from ledgedashing. Truely a simpler time.
Darryll Railsback it was also more volatile, whoever learned any new tech jumped miles ahead of everyone. The fact that Ken held that spot just shows how good he was compared to everyone else
@@Nostalgia_Farm not to mention ken got 9th (or maybe it was 13th) at an evo in recent years. Just shows how good he really is even all these years later
@Xalpha23 yeah i understand how good he was, but simply saying it was irrelevant is a little ignorant. Ken was by far the best, and no one could really touch him. But if the era didnt matter then why was he surpassed? He couldnt keep up with the meta. Sure, he had hand problems, but who doesnt playing melee? Ive been a community member since 2012, and its always been this way, you dont learn new tech, you get passed up. In earlier years of the game, players like borp and tope did really well with a lack of advanced techniques. But where are those guys? Not even top 20 in there region. The era of melee we excist in now is a far different landscape than pre 20xx hack pack. You see players like zain who have only been competing for 4 years and are the best players in the world. Ginger hasnt been an active member for nearly as long as some people but hes really nasty at the game. Ken was great, but that era of compitition was actually silly. West coast east coast stylization differences were still a thing. Sure there are different play styles, but we see alot less regional play styles, and more optimizations. When i began playing the game, i remember practicing wall techs in training mode with motion sensor bombs. Training packs have made the game so much more accessible. Your statement is loaded. Its a fact that ken was the best and i never denied that. Was is the key word here. The compitition became less lazy, and that made for better players. Thus passing ken up, leaving him behind. He had a good evo run in 2014, but this was the last high placing tourney we will ever see from him.
ELO can't really be compared in this way, but yeah, Ken was legendary
Shoutouts to Chudat. Doesn't get recognised enough. The most longevity out of any Smash Bros player.
Definitely one of the top 10 greatest of all time
I’d say mew2king gets the title of most longevity.
@@MatMart Chudat's been here since the beginning and is still a Top 50 competitor and was just Top 10 the other year.
But Mew2King has definitely sustained his higher level of skill in the Top 10 for a long time too. No doubt.
@@AdzNecromancer he plays Ice climbers though
Mo G His SoPo is ridiculous though and you have to respect that
Holy crap the era of the 5 gods were insane. It lasted for from 2009 to 2013 and the graph visibly showed the divide in skill during this era.
From 2:15 till 3:35 ish, the five gods reigned supreme. It's amazing to see, even among top players, the top five being so much higher on the graph.
Beautiful way of displaying this.
3:31 the beak at it's peak
bruce i fucking miss PP
The saddest moment in the video is when PPMD’s name disappears:(
@@keanuvaughn1508 i know it doesn't mean much cuz it's PPMD but if you check his twitter he has an update mentioning that he should be streaming and competing again soon
@@Lampaluile dEADASS! Me too! :'0 Glad to see him in his streams and great to see him at Genesis 7. Hope to see him play soon.
AMSa has one of the steepest rises to prominence. Here’s hoping the future remains bright for our favorite red yoshi.
well, he helped Nintendo balance Smash Ultimate pre-release and is in the credits, so I'd say his future has been just fine :P
@@theSato protip: when it already happened it's called the past
Protip: I'm aware of that @@AlexRoseGames however it is relevant to his future
This aged well.
M2K was in the top TEN since before many new Ultimate players were born.
Even crazier during 2014-2017 M2K is also a top 5 brawl player. Dude is a god
So sad to see Armada fade out near the end. G.O.A.T. Without a doubt. Looks like we'll be stuck with Hbox v Leffen bets now.
Leffen vs Plup vs Zain vs Hbox
I like Hbox and he has been my favorite melee player for a while, I think armada is better lowkey.
Fitting that he was at the top when he faded out. And that he got to curbstomp Hbox their final set to lay to rest (😎) any doubt (though Hbox in fairness was definitely not at his best)
When you're quietly hoping for M2K Mango grand finals to be a thing again....
@@DrunkStudios M2K deserves so much more. Shame his mindset holds him back so much. He's always been the most consistent of the gods. Held Leffen back from godslayer for a while too.
Great video man, great to see how much the Melee scene has changed over the years.
Thank you, this was beyond beautiful on many levels. From the profile icons, to scorp.
I like how you can clearly see where the peak Five Gods era is due to the hug gap in the middle of the graph.
Also I'd love to see an updated version of this in a few years to reflect the influx of newer top players
Thanks. Concise infographic for a decade and a half of history.
Zain's line is sick. I shudder to think what an updated version would look like. (Also, kinda surprised I didn't see KK ln here. He was always pretty consistent when playing out of region)
and 2 years later... I hope you got your vindication with that #1 SSBMRank
What a legendary game, almost 20 years onwards
And its dying. Thank god. So tired of melee players
@Thomas C. Nope
Yeah
LETSGO SCORP
chillin top 5 2019
Can we just take a second to just be amazed at how friggin long M2K has stayed in the top 10?
There are not many people that can claim to consistently be at the top 10 for 12 years straight in any sport.
Great video. I'm slowly getting addicted to these.
Zain just walked into the family function. "What y'all doing up here?"
And now he’s at the head of the table
Omg! I’m amazed that there was a Mario player named Scorpion master that was top 10 for a while. I wonder what happened to him?
ya i wonder🤔🤔🤔 (mang0)
There was a lot of controversy and unfound claims of him being a duplicate account for another top 10 player. Unfortunately for Scorp the melee community (or lack thereof) agreed to ban his tag. Really sad ending for a top 10 mario main... Maybe Salem is right about Melee T.T
@David Tector whoooosh
Ur kiddin right bud?
Wheatsolo damn that’s tragic. I would’ve loved to see ScorpaDorp go for more scorpion stings in modern melee
The consistency these guys have had tru all these years is something unique man..just amazing
I wish there were more games like this. Fun, accessible, but a very very high skill ceiling with so many possibilities. Players still learning new techniques and getting better almost 20 years later.
can we take a moment to recognize how STEEP that curve on zain is?
real beast
He's insane. I bet he will be number 1 before the end of 2020.
@@DaneH91 Good bet :)
@@Azel954 haha thanks
the Ken era, the Mango era, the Armada era, now begins the 4th age, the era of Hungrybox , Armada's relative dominance has honestly been just so impressive though
Awesome to know I've played both Sastopher and Isai. Both amazing strong players. Strange to not see Rori in there-his pillar game was top notch with Falco.
super cool seeing character picks like Chudat G&W or Ken's Ganondorf lol the meta was wild
Love how Chu is just Chillin in the background doing his own thing
Yo that Scorpion Master guy was pretty good
This video is so well made, i love it!!
Loved this infographic, and I think the elo scores are probably pretty representative of how good the players are now relative to "ordinary competitive players", meaning that I'm not arguing that 2005 Ken would stand a chance against even 2018 M2K. *But:*
I just want to say, that Ken and Mango, in 2005-2006 and 2009-2010, respectively, showed off a *relative* performance of dominance that no other player has come close to in any era. Look at how big those gaps are and how long those big gaps last for. Obviously they didn't win literally every single tournament they entered during those periods, but those were periods during which absolutely no one could argue that anyone else was the best melee player in the world.
Meanwhile since mid-2014 you've had 6 different people fighting right up at the upper echelons and no real consensus on whether hungrybox or armada would win a best-of-100 against each other.
Watching Zain rise is simultaneously a ray of hope for newer players and the opposite. He grinded his ass off and it still took like 4 years to reach top 10.
Loved seeing names like chu shiz and kage around 2010
really great video! Nice work calculating all the elo ratings
Been waiting for what feels like 20 years for this
Rajan R frankly this took wayyy longer than I initially thought and even burned out halfway through before I resumed this project again recently.
I like how after mango dropped puff, he stopped being number 1 and then he became number 1 again
I like how Mango played Puff for so long and used it to reach #1 and now all he does is complain about puff since hbox owns him with her lul
Sato if it wasn’t for puff nobody would even know hbox
just seeing how long the 5 gods were reigning over melee for SO LONG... and now 2 are retired, m2k is switching to ultimate FeelsBadMan
scorp killing it
mang0 being featured twice in this shows how ridiculously strong he is
I love how the images of the players change over time
Fuckload of work put into this one, good shit man.
Rest In Peace for the two retired gods of Melee, PPMD and Armada. And good job to Ken for being the best when it all went down
EL OMEGALUL
Still really cool to see some of the players 10+ years ago that most new players would have never known about
Never forget shroomed doc
I like how Hungrybox just teleports in like Todd Rogers and achieves lift-off
Zain’s curve is impressive
Man I fucking loved Melee during the Ken era, so many great stories lost in time...
The resident sleeper Isai, KDJ revolutionizing the meta for Sheik, and PC Chris and Bombsoldier basically giving birth to the modern Falco. All those guys and more, peaked just barely before the Golden age of smash. I fucking love Melee!
Think its refreshing how there is a yoshi, pika, and icees in top 10 at the end.
Mango was ahead of his time. Everyone caught up with him over the years.
Wow, Chu was top 10 for over 7 years. I never knew
i see why they were called the 5 gods
2:16 Start of the 5 gods era dang, the diffrence in elo is insane to the rest of "top 10"
Even tho we are in kinda of a dark era for Melee I'm still glad it's alive & kicking.
Dark Era? There was a over 1 thousand entrants at Genesis.
I think that pic of axe was his Walgreens drake pic xD
I like how you can see the exact moment hax’s hands explode
so brilliantly made
Crazy how you see the 5 gods go off and do their own thing
i love that mango was in the top 10 as scorp while also being number 1 lol
You did a good job with this video , cool
I like stuff like this :) thanks for making it
We still don’t know how good isai coulda got
Mango longest streak being the top player: 3 years in a row!
truly the GOAT
Solid video, keep them coming !!!
I love this game. I love the tournaments. My fav player is HBox but I'm not sure if I should consider him THE G.O.A.T... Armada and Mango are amazing as well, M2K will never be forgotten... I just don't know
Watching Zain appear is so ominous now
Trophies and memories alike gather dust. What can be done for achievements left for dead by each passing day? The only thing that stays the same is the presence of change. My Name is 20XX, meta of metas. Look upon my works ye mighty, and despair.
4:15 I don't feel so good
Too bad there was no data of Mikael the #1 peach player from japan before 2007 that even ken couldn't beat.
Can you tell more? Im interested
I’m also interested to hear about this guy
Wait what yea explain never heard of this guy
yeah bro faurk, he was like this player from Sydney named Rob. No one could beat him bro Ken and Isai 2v1'd him and they both got triple 8 stocked. Rumour has it Rob is grinding on Gumtree trying to trade his Corolla for some demerit points. What a lad
I looked up mikael, he definitely was a very good player but wasn’t better than ken overall. He took games off of ken but no sets. His tournament placings were ok at best. No disrespect to him but I don’t think he’s comparable to ken.
This needs an update after the next rankings cone out later this year
5:08 "and when the world needed him most. He vanished"
Ken is the GOAT. All hail the King of Smash!
@2:17 the era of the 5 gods truly begins, around Summer 2010
It's hilarious watching Zain abruptly *explode* upwards at the end there. I think he had the steepest rise of any top player.
Yo this is a fucking awesome video. :O
just missing a final table with top players by #1 position time and by Top10 rankinig time, but nice!
look at chudat man, so inspirational
okay, we need to seriously start researching wtf zain started doing in 2015.
What I pulled from this is that Mang0 has had the longest running streak at being No. 1. Three years man, geez
The Viper217 yeah but armada arguably had the most qualitative peak in history, he went the entire 2009 not losing a single GAME, not set a GAME, to ANYONE who wasn’t either a god or named Swedish delight after causing a random upset one time. and while it was never that good he certainly didn’t ever fall out of favor
@@shady8045 Well yeah, i know that. I've been on the scene for quite awhile. Mango's definitely the GOAT though, because you even saw it with Armada and M2K. They started losing more than normal and dipped out.
If it wasn’t for the Smash Brothers documentary, all this would have been meaningless to me. Shout to East Point Pictures.
Super interesting video, great job!
If only you could do this for today
Great Video!
this game has been going since i was born lol
the scorp needs to return baby!
2:50 shows just how much better the gods were than everyone else
i dont even like melee but this was really interesting to watch
Ken slowly disappeared in the history of melee...
i really feel bad for m2k now seeing how long he was in the top 10 and how much of that he was number 1 must suck. he has shown he can be the best but he rarely is now i get why he almost fainted after winning summit and got so shocked. it is cool to see how the 5 gods form and move but m2k was there before any of them and was always beneath them must suck
M2K in top 10 for 12.6 years!
1, 2 Oatmeal ! Kirby is a pi-ink guy !
Kein Minecraft Lets Player 1, 2 Oatmeal ! because Kirby's very cuuuute
Reading the comments, I'm like the only person who has never heard of these names (except the jigglypuff guy) or watched the competitive scene.