An Ode to My Favorite Player and My Favorite Game

Melee. The Nintendo Gamecube’s greatest seller. I never thought that a game older than myself would end up becoming one of my favorite games of all time, even ahead of bangers like Xenoblade 2 or Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. From spectating the game to immersing myself in its unique storylines and players, the community surrounding the game has had a profound impact on my life.

I remember the cozy days after elementary and middle school where I would attempt to unlock the hidden characters after I mistakenly deleted the saves on my GC's memory card, which I’ve also done with Brawl. I think back to all of the time I invested into the Break the Targets, All-Star, Adventure, and Event modes. Smash has been ingrained in my blood for as long as I've held controllers. To me, the act of selecting a fictional character like Pikachu and beating the shit out of other Nintendo and 3rd Party superstars captivated me so much. And then to learn that there was a whole competitive scene behind it? I had watched TheRunawayGuys host their own little tournaments here and there, but I never knew the extent of the competitive scene. That is until October of 2014 when YouTube recommended a series that changed my life forever.

There's nothing else that instantly hooked me to any sort of competitive medium like the Smash Brothers, a 2013 documentary about the golden years of competitive SSBM. And holy shit! Names like Ken Hoang (Sephiroth Ken), Daniel Jung (KoreanDJ), Isai Alvarado (Isai), Jason Zimmerman (Mew2King), Christopher McMullen (Azen). all started to flood my mind. I know a lot of people have their own idols ranging from all sorts of places, and these guys became my idols with the way they expressed themselves in such a precise and extremely intricate game. Their mastery of Melee’s mechanics was remarkable, and I was awe-inspired by them. Look at the video below for some examples.

And then on top of these amazing game features, the history behind the game was incredibly rich. The different eras of the game, the levels of domination, and the individuals that made up these tournaments. It's quite similar to tennis in many respects honestly. You can't help but invest yourself in the rivalries and drama of the game. And the Smash Brothers focused on the early era, the Golden Era of Smash, and this was when MLG was a major benefactor of the scene. But as much as I would love to talk about this era, I need to give more attention to the one that followed. The Dark Ages and the Rise of the Five Gods of Melee is the era that I want to talk about.

From Left to Right: Joseph "Mango" Marquez, Adam "Armada" Lindgren, Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, Kevin "PPMD" Nanney, Juan "HungryBox" Debiedma

The Five Gods. Mango, Armada, Hungrybox, Mew2King, and PPMD (formerly Dr. Peepee). These five players had an absolute stranglehold over the Melee world from late 2007 to about mid-2015. For these eight years, no other player successfully challenged all five of these players. If at least three of them, especially Mango and Armada, were at an event, no one else but the Five would ever win. Yet, despite that, they all played in wildly distinguishable ways. I gravitated towards PPMD personally due to his extremely intimate understanding of the neutral game (the state of prodding and trying to initiate an engagement) and his cerebral play of Marth and Falco. In many ways, I modeled a lot of different things in his framework. Although I've never been a ranked player, his insights about Melee and its application to a lot of different things has always been fascinating for me to consider. Though, I definitely admire the other Gods in my own way too.

Armada has had the most dominant career in my opinion. The Swedish demon boasts winning records over all the other Gods and only one authentic losing record before his retirement in 2018, and he consistently placed in the top 4 of almost every event he entered. In order to win, you almost always needed to beat Armada. Mango is the face of Melee. There is no other player that inspires so much out of Melee fans that they have a whole nation dedicated to this man. So many hype moments have come from Mango's utter aggression, and it's not a surprise that his accolades basically rival that of Armada’s. Hungrybox is a bit different for me. I think that I've been relatively ambivalent towards the HGod for a long time. Hungrybox was considered to be the worst of the Gods from 2010 to 2015 and could not find it in himself to win tournaments against the other Gods and struggled a lot against Mango. Though, his performance as one of the top 2 players for the second half of the 2010s helps solidify his own legacy among the Gods, and I would consider him to be the 3rd best of all time at minimum. And his own story towards the best player in the world is an inspiring one. Mew2King is a bit of a black sheep among the Gods. He never won a truly important tournament after the other Gods came to fruition with the exception of Big House 3 until Smash Summit 6 because of his insurmountable odds against Armada's Peach. That being said, however, he still revolutionized a lot of the Marth and Sheik metagame and had an incredible work ethic for juggling most of the Smash games apart from Melee. I could gush all day about these five players, and I do think that these brief introductions are important for the major shift up ahead. Next, I want to talk about Leffen before I absolutely fanboy over my favorite player of all time.

Leffen (pictured above) is one of Melee's most fiery personalities. Banned for a period during 2013-2014 for being a douche and known as the controversial player, he is a player that has brought a lot to this game's rich history. Nowadays, if there's drama, chances are that Leffen has a hand in it or an opinion to give. Gameplay-wise, his defeat of all Five Gods in at least one tournament set is the crowning Leffen accomplishment. Following Mew2King's fall at Leffen's hands in Winner's Quarters of Apex 2015, Leffen became the God-slayer and the first player to defeat all Five, ascending to the level of the Gods. Then in the Summer of 2015, he won three straight major tournaments in a row. He cemented himself as an equal, and even though he had his inconsistent streaks, he broke the pantheon that had existed in this community for nearly eight years. However, Leffen wanted more than that, and by 2015's end, he was ranked 3rd in the world and could be the best player in the world. With the context now established, I finally want to introduce the main character of this post, being ranked just below these six players during the 2015 ranking period.

For most of these years, Justin "Plup" McGrath has been my favorite player, both in-game and out-of-game. Ascending to the 7th best player in the world by 2015’s end, Plup was a particularly unique player to watch. Prior to 2015, Plup had mained Samus, a character that, by all accounts, is pretty mid tier with clear weaknesses. Sufficient enough to score wins on good players, but a character with too many flaws to consistently contest players on the level of the Five Gods. However, even though Plup played a character that lacked firepower, he captured my attention with his utter mastery of movement. In fact, his ability with Samus netted him two victories over Leffen in 2015. First at Paragon Orlando 2015, which was also the first major tournament Hungrybox had won since Apex 2010, and again at Evolution 2015, the year's most important major. This year marked an important shift for Plup because starting at Apex 2015, he switched to Sheik, an infinitely more competitive character that enabled Plup's speed to truly come to fruition. All throughout 2015, Plup had victories over Leffen (at EVO and Paragon), Mango (at EVO), Hungrybox (some local FL event), and PPMD (at Smash Summit 1). By the end of that year, Panda Global's Plup had honestly become one of my favorite players in the scene. His lightning-fast decision-making and his penchant for using the shield drop mechanic like none other blew my mind away. And soon enough, he became my favorite player.

After PPMD effectively retired from competitive play in early 2016 due to health reasons (chronic fatigue complications) following Battle of the Five Gods at SXSW, I needed to find another player to gravitate towards (Plup). I think one way I would personally describe Plup is that he's quite unapologetically himself. I remember back in about April 2016 when he would always just accept random links from chat for song requests, leading to so many troll requests from

the community's music pool while attempting to beat the difficult "I Wanna Be The Boshy". One of which being the infamous diss track that Chillindude made for Leffen before getting annihilated in a 5-0 salty suite set. Yet another example that sticks in my head is the time Plup, alongside his friends in Florida, entered an online tournament under the alias of "Fortnitefred42'' and upset a number of globally ranked players, such as Rishi (formerly SmashG0D). Or the numerous times he watches Hungrybox's stream and reacts to whatever crazy shenanigans the Clutchgod or HGOD is up to. Or his dancing to the Beyblade Burst Turbo opening theme as he descends into madness over watching two Sonics camp each other in Smash Ultimate. Plup streams are almost always guaranteed to make me laugh a whole hell of a lot, and I can't imagine myself ever not being a huge Plup fan. His recent sub-a-thons too have been great even though I have not been able to tune in quite as much.

I would say that it's quite accurate to describe Plup as the way I view Melee. A game so fluid and expressive that even though a lot of situations have "optimal" answers, the way that you select an option matters far more. At his peak, Plup's Sheik (and later his Fox) are some of the fastest characters on screen. Every hit and interaction comes so quickly and even other players known for their fast reaction times and raw technical ability consider Plup as one of, if not, the fastest players that they've ever played.

Moving through his ascension, 2016 was a semi-stagnant year for Plup. He was consistently better than the players ranked below him yet still below the Gods + Leffen. He did have plenty of close encounters with all of them though with the exception of Armada. Notably, he managed to score his first victory against Mew2King at the Battle of the Five Gods, making him one step closer to reaching Leffen's level of Godslayer. As 2016 pressed on, Plup continued to become my favorite active player. And I think this was assuredly the case after he easily top 8'd Shine 2016 using almost all solo-Fox, a character that he hadn't brought out on the national stage before. Going on an interview with Vish "Vish" Rajkumar, Plup's hilarity and confidence said it all. He said something along the lines of "Fox is just too easy", which was a profound statement considering his lack of prior major experience with the character. Yet, he did it, and he did it in style, taking Mango to game 5 and placing 7th overall. As the year went on, Plup continued to do Plup things, and that also meant taking long breaks from streaming. Though as fans of Twitch know from experience with Clint Stevens, somehow the anticipation and excitement grows more as a streamer steps back and fans eagerly await their return. I was definitely one of those fans.

Heading into 2017, Plup was at a crossroads of sorts. In the first half of the 2017 season, things kinda continued as they had been. He placed well and occasionally beat the Gods, but overall, he still had some issues closing out tournaments. One interesting event that happened during this time was CEO Dreamland 2017 where Plup actually managed to top 8 a modern major with Luigi, a mid-tier character with unfavorable matchups against the top tiers. Along the way, he beat highly rated players like Sami "Druggedfox" Muhanna and Michael "Nintendude" Brancato and had an alright match against Mew2King. The lesson taken here though is Plup's raw proficiency with the cast in Melee. Plup managed to accomplish something with Luigi that so many Luigi mains have failed to do, and he's demonstrated time and time again that he's just so fucking good at Melee. And I think it speaks volumes to his "cool" factor toward any Melee spectator. You never really know what to expect with Plup. He's spontaneous. He's exceptional. He's just Plup.

The second half was where things truly started getting wild as a Plup fan.

Starting with Dreamhack Atlanta 2017, Plup stocks were on the rise. Ryan Ford, gone. Tempo’s Axe, defeated in a nailbiter. Plup goes into championship Sunday with a chance, albeit slim chance, of winning the event. Going into his Winner’s Semis match against Mew2King, Plup loses the Sheik ditto in game 1, but he proceeds to narrowly one-stock M2K in the next three games that follow, leading to a match against Hungrybox in Winner’s Finals. Now, Hungrybox has notoriously had a very disproportionate record against Plup for years. Plup can beat Hungrybox, but HBox has won so many of their major encounters that it’s really unfortunate. In Winner’s Finals, Plup tears through HBox with a 3 stock and 2 stock in the first two games. Hungrybox pulls it back with two games of his own, and Plup wins the set in a close game 5. HBox comes back into Grands with a vengeance and 3-0s Plup quite quickly, but then Plup 3-0s him straight back. And for the first time, Plup won a major event over two Gods. AND THEN, in Plup fashion, he proceeds to drop his first trophy later in the day because he high fived a fan, breaking the DHATL trophy.

The rest of the year goes swimmingly for Plup. With wins over Leffen and the Gods, Plup made huge strides in his career. Though, the most important set of his year was to come at The Big House 7. Meeting Armada in Winner’s Semis, Plup takes the first 2 games off Armada’s Peach with Sheik, and then Armada switches to Fox. Armada pretty convincingly wins game 3, but Plup manages to beat the Fox on Fountain of Dreams, defeating Armada for the first time in his career. And at this point, he did it! Plup became the 2nd Godslayer and the first Sheik to beat Armada in about 7 years (since Amsah at Pound 4). He went on to beat Leffen at this event and lost twice to Hungrybox to get 2nd. Ending 2017 at 5th, Plup was now ahead of Leffen and 2018 looked so promising.

GENESIS is the most important event in Melee. If you want to be remembered for any tournament win, chances are that you would pick GENESIS. GENESIS 5 was the first major event of the 2018 season, and it was an incredible event. All active Gods, Leffen, and Plup were in attendance. Heading into Top 8, Plup defeated Ginger 3-1 and Hugs 3-0 and faced Mang0 for a spot on Winner’s side. Narrowly defeating Mang0 3-2, Plup moves onto championship Sunday on Winner’s, set to face Armada, the man who had won the previous 3 GENESIS events. When the match came around, Plup won the first two games off Armada’s Fox, and Armada resorted to using his Peach again. Winning game 3, Armada was counterpicked to Dreamland by Plup, and in a spectacular last stock situation, he used Zelda’s lightning kick to defeat Armada 3-1. In WFs, Plup once again faced his Floridian rival in HBox and beat him 3-1. Plup faced HBox again in Grand Finals, and HBox quickly dispatched Plup during the first set 3-0. Once the second set came around, HBox won the first game. Plup replied with his own game victory. Hbox wins game 3. And then remarkably, Plup wins the last two games of the set.

“PLUP WINS GENESIS 5 OH MY GOD THE CROWD IS GOING WILD”. Those words will ring in my head forever as I watched at 2 AM and seeing my favorite player winning his first supermajor trophy. The Plup Club won that day, and he was the best player in the world at that moment in time. I still can’t believe that was over 4.5 years ago now.

As for the rest of 2018, Plup would regularly meet with HBox but falter to him in grands. Plup was 2nd on the Summer rankings and 4th for the year overall. It was a pretty good year, but considering the start, it could have been better towards the end, especially since that was Armada’s last year of competition.

In 2019, things turned kinda sour for Plup and Melee. He started off the year well with a 3rd at GENESIS 6. However, the split focus between Melee and Ultimate meant that Plup’s results were shaky. Plup ended the year at 8th best in the world, a far cry from the previous years.

In 2020, Plup bombed out of GENESIS 7, but he got 2nd at Smash Summit 9 with his Fox shining in all ways possible. He was starting to look Plup-like again. But then COVID happened. At the start of the pandemic, I think Plup’s shift towards streaming and content creation really helped me through those early days. The Mario Maker streams and Ultimate online nonsense was really entertaining, and when I think of Plup, I think of those days the most. However, Plup would also take his breaks during this time for a while, and in competition, he strayed away for the most part.

As 2021 went along and tournaments reopened, Plup went to Summit and later won the Smash World Tour, ushering in a new age of PlupYUMYUM and returning to top 5 status. And this is more or less where his career is now.

In all of this, I can truly say that Plup is Melee for me. I can go on all day about this guy and the game that I have loved. I love watching Plup play. I love watching Plup stream. And I am proud to be a Plup fan and a Melee fan. All these years later and I’m still thrilled anytime I’m able to watch my favorite players go at it in one of Nintendo’s greatest masterpieces. So thank you Melee and thank you Plup for all these years of enjoyment.