A top Melee player is retiring because of Nintendo... 

>Looks at title >worried > 10 seconds in it's Leffen leaving > no longer worried Thanks Hbox very swag

Nintendo gives more support internationally to Mario Kart and Splatoon domestically than Ultimate 💀

Condolences to the guilty gear community

Damn. Sucks for the community... The Guilty Gear community.

Legit, my reaction to this was “Another top player is retiring?! And it’s Nintendo’s fault?!?!? N- oh it’s just Leffen?”

Leffen is like what if LTG got good

He just simply lost interest, he just can’t leave without complaining about something.

Finally nintendo is supporting the scene 🙏

Been waiting on this for 10 years.

Wow, peole REALLY don't like Leffen from what I'm seeing in this comment section.

With Leffens extensive history of embarrassing johns and lightning quick twitter fingers, this just seems like yet another emotion fueled stance/response to consistently getting non-1st places/underperforming compared to the other players above him. Dude still practiced IRL at tourneys, streams, bootcamps, shit ton of netplay, and consistently felt comfortable and primed enough to enter the tourneys he did. It’s less about Nintendo, or more about his own personality/ego. BESIDES, hes literally said the exact same shit about dropping Melee before (during a stretch of time while underperforming in Melee mind you) for other more FGC-centric games that he’s more confident he can win that doesn’t have Zain, Cody, Jmook or Hbox in it. Leffen has ONE first place finish in two years since dreamhack Rotterdam. Of course he’s gonna blame Nintendo. That’s the Leffen.

cant spell Leffen without a L

Huge W for Smash community, condolences to Guilty Gear community.

Lets be real. Leffen ain't retiring from shit. The second he gets tired of the new games he picked and misses melee he'll come back.

Nintendo might end up driving almost every top player away if they keep doing what they’re doing. What’s next? You have to buy a controller at the venue and can’t bring your own?

Somewhere, BobbyScar is incredibly happy.

this is a bad thing?

Hax somewhere in the world dancing right now

This video could be translated to: Leffen got bored of melee and realized he couldn’t play both guilty gear AND melee at a top level so he quit trying.

Good. My condolences to the strive community.

I feel so sorry for gg players, having to deal with Leffen even more.

And nothing of value was lost 😌

As much as this may be a sign of worse to come i breathed a sigh of relief that its simply the trash taking itself out.

To the GG community: It's you problem now...

Leffen throwing shade at Nintendo on the way out. Good shit.

And nothing of value was lost.. Anyways..I've started new medication, and I've had diarrhea for like 3-4 weeks now, and it's super annoying. But the second I workout or do something "serious" it at least stops. So that's good. Any ideas?

I was worried, but it's Leffen, he should've been banned years ago, if he's stepping away himself, well finally. No need to watch the rest, thanks Hbox

Thanks, Nintendo! Best update to Smash ever!

Isn't Leffen hated in the Smash community?

Let this not take away from the fact that Leffen lost to MattdotZeb

isnt this kinda of a good thing? removing toxicity from the community is a good thing in my eyes

Nintendo accidentally has a positive effect on the Smash community for once.

I think smash really is slowly dying. Not very many people enjoy playing a game competitively if the company that made the game doesn't support the players. That's the exact reason I stopped smash and moved on

HUGE W

A weight has been lifted

4:43 Hbox saying they based Ekko look off of fox, and not the Ekko inside of League of Legends is wild lol

This is great news

Leffen's leaving? Oh NO! Anyway

Insert ratattouile meme of getting worried only to not care at all about Leffen

And this exemplifies the biggest tragedy: you have what's arguably one of the greatest fighting games of all time being slowly strangled to a slow, ignominious death by its creators. And this is after 20 years of seeing rival publishers create a roadmap of profitable tourneys, community goodwill and excellent rollback code. At this point, I firmly believe that Melee will never die--but it can come dangerously close, and if that happens, it'll be because of Nintendo mismanaging everything that Melee could have been.

Ok I’m glad is wasn’t you

Leffen backing away is honestly a W, one less thing to see him yap in.

Leffen was a really great player, but he is just such an unpleasent douchebag. Its one less player I'll be rooting against, but his presence did make Melee more interesting, because he was a very good player. Melee's old guard unfortunately just keep on dropping the game. It definitely makes me a bit sad to see, even if I don't care much for Leffen as a person. Because, love him or hate him, he was a pretty big part of Melee and Melee won't be the same without him.

Used to pray for times like this

Huge W

Good. Fucking. Riddance.

Unironically a great thing for melee and the smash community as a whole

If nintendo would at least just say "we're not going to interfere with the tournament scene, just go away and don't bother us", it would be amazing for the tournament scene. Sponsors could operate without worrying about the potential nintendo boogeyman lurking in every corner all the time.

LARGEST SMASH COMMUNITY W IN A WHILE!

Well, this comments section is going to be civil.

Great news for BobbyScar

Say what you will, Leffen being at the level he was in melee from Europe for over a decade was both shockingly impressive and taxing. Meanwhile Riot which is where he’s setting his career trajectory to, has consistently poured in big money in European esports for that same timeframe now, and now tons of money in South and Central America as well with valorant. It’s such an obvious decision + Cody should’ve finished his law degree I’m sorry yall

Lot of hate for Leffen in the comments and, fair enough, he's not great but...This is still a bad omen for Melee given the fact that Cody can't even get a full time sponsor. Leffen has long been a multi-title player, but when it gets to a point that someone who still competes at the top level completely gives up on the game? Stuff isn't going well.

I’m not even apart of the melee community and I’m still happy about this lmao

All jokes about Leffen's behavior aside, he's got a point about Nintendo here.

I started following Leffen on twitch after he won an evo or whatever in strive as happy chaos. now that i've watched several of his streams, he definitely comes across as someone who is most interested in winning while he's still professionally able so it makes sense to me that he wouldn't want to stretch himself across multiple esports, especially with smash being on the lower end of the FGC financial winnings spectrum. If he was just a retired pro streaming for fun it would be different i'm sure.

NO MORE LEFFEN LETS GO!!!!! 🗣️🗣️🗣️

LOL suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, it's because of "nintendo" I'll take "DOUBT" for 500, Alex!

Leffen literally says this every three months. He'll be back.

NO! Take him back! The GG community does not want this.

As much as I hate Leffen I am kinda sad to see him go, any top player that leaves the scene due to Nintendo being Nintendo will always sadden me

wait LEFFENS LEAVING????? THIS IS GREAT I DONT SEE A DOWNSIDE TO THIS AT ALL

Gonna keep it a stack bro, the smash scene's BIGGEST detriment ain't even nintendo in my eyes, it's the fact that the several different sub communities do eachother so damn dirty. Melee throwing PM under the bus and ultimate doing the same to melee, it's a mess. I went to a pokemon VGC regional with my brother and legit saw EVERYTHING pokemon related in the venue. From the tcg, to the games, to even spinoffs and I thought to myself "man, smash would NEVER do this kinda thing. They're always at odds with eachother." And that's when I realized why smash is so niche and not worth it in the eyes of many in the long run.

I love how everyone's reaction to Leffen leaving is basically "Oh no! Anyway..."

Oh, it's just Leffen- Jesus Hungrybox, don't scare me like that.

gonna miss big leff competing but i dont blame him at all for making this decision

Dude never seemed to enjoy smash. But I don't care to figure how much of that was him leaning into being a villain. I won't miss a spacey leaving or specifically his attitude. He's talented enough to just go where he's happy and I support that.

Oh nooo… The player who does nothing but complain and make communities toxic is leaving… How tragic… 🙄

As much as I would like to say huge W he will probably be back. He craves attention positive or negative and after a while he'll come back like its a big deal.

Thank god, finally.

Nvm I love nintendos decisions in melee comp

>Leffen leaving Melee Hey, don't let the door hit yer ass on the way out. And why don't you leave the entire FGC Building entirely while you're at it, God-forbid you make someone else happy.

This would be sad if it wasn't Leffen

To be fair he has been killing it in GG, recently making it to end of groups on finals day before losing at Arc World Tour.

Speaking out to all Guilty gear players We aren’t accepting any refunds

So now it's: "The smash gods and not Leffen".

You too blame Nintendo

Man this comment section is so wack. Losing a top player like Leff is a big loss for melee. Regardless of how much you like him, his fox and sheik made for great sets.

Love him or hate him, Leffen has moved the smash scene forward a huge amount. Even though I don’t agree with his every action since he was a legitimate child, I do personally have a huge amount of respect for how his game has changed Melee for the better, and I 100% respect doing other things, especially with the year he had in GG. I hope it goes well for him. I hope some other year down the line he’ll be a top player again, not just an honorable mention

Leffen goes nuts on Strive I watched him on Frosty Faustings and it's awesome. Sorry that he's leaving melee though.

This is a sad day. I really like leffen he was like the villian of the competitive scene and it was good for the drama of the sport and made for some amazing moments over the years.

Wow don't scare me like that Hbox...

Looks at title: "Oh God. Ninendo, whatt now" It's Leften: "Thank God. Nintendo, getting a W for once.

There is so much more money in these other fighting games it’s so sad Nintendo just doesn’t care. Every other mainstream fighting game has been getting bigger and bigger. The only chance I see Nintendo bringing smash up there is if the next game they make is supported competitively

sad. will miss seeing leffen play smash. despite everything leffen did in the past, smash does and will feel different without him. another hole in smash.

Leffen leaving the melee community is such a big win, I'm so happy for y'alI and really hope things start going even better from now on!

I feel sorry for the Guilty Gear community

Leffen will "unretire" when hax gets "unbanned"

Oh my gosh I prayed for days like this

To play 2XKO Leffen will have to find a teammate that can deal with his shit first.

I know nothing about the competitive smash community but I'm surprised a 23 year old game is getting noticed at all

From looking at this comment section, people seem to mostly dislike Leffen. Could someone give me more context?

can leffen just step away from -fighting- games as a whole, please?

WOOO ITS JUST LEFFEN

Uh, is this actually a bad thing? Seems the opposite.

Guilty Gear loss, Smash win (for once, because you guys were just eating L's recently).

Honestly, props to leffen. There's better stuff for him outside of smash. I just hope he doesn't get much hate for things he did in the past.

Regardless of what you think of him he was a great player, and did a lot for the community, he will be missed and I hope all the success in the world for him!

Man just said Ekko is designed to look like Fox. Lol, Riot does not need to crib Nintendo characters designs, they have a ton of league/valoant characters to pick from. I would love Riot to make a platform fighter but I doubt it. They shutdown the spin off game department recently.

Great news for the Red Adidas pants wearing community!