First thing I thought of was he was shook after *essentially* SDing at 5:20 - went for a cheeky shine and would have gotten away with it against any other character. Last stock he flashed back to it and had a moment of doubt and got in his own head.
looks like he tried to shine turnaround backair which looked like it would have netted a kill but mistimed it and got side-b instead, fuckin wild that he didnt just double eliminate his old demon of cody, but he won 3/4 games of fd against fox which is insane, glad to see the return of clutchbox
Especially when it's against zain or a fox like Cody or moky who have gotten really good at the mu. It's insanely impressive to see how he adapts and manages to beat them in match ups that look horrendous for puff in the current meta
If this is what happens immediately after Hbox gets M2K coaching, then I want to see a year with Hbox #1. Nothing else would bring Mang0 back to his peak faster than the return of HJuan.
@@NicolasMuñoz-p8g I mean I get your opinion, but you gotta remember that like almost no one could beat cody last year, and even early this year, but it's ironic how the only two people who could give him a run for his money are the 2 remaining tournament gods of melee lol
I think it's just fun for the community having one of the two remaining active Gods be able to play and keep up with the modern players. Mang0 is always hype but very inconsistent, which leaves Hbox as the other representative as that vanguard of the old age of Melee that made its mark in the game's history.
Cody comes off as not chill, that reverse pop off he did against hbox that one time was the epitome cringe, people who are well liked don’t act that way, sometimes one outburst is kinda telling
It was sick seeing Hbox overcome one of his bracket demons (twice), but I hope he also figures out Zain. 2023 at least had the "Zain vs Cody" narrative, I *really* hope 2024 doesn't end up being the Zain show. Melee is way more entertaining when it's unclear who will win each tournament / who is #1.
Hbox figuring Cody out will open up a lot of brackets. Cody is untouchable as of today, it shows as today’s losses were his first set losses of the year. Zain, Amsa, Jmook, Moky, Hbox and even Mang0 can beat anyone any given day except for Cody, so if any of them can consistently take Cody out of brackets, we will see a lot more winners. Ah and Jmook has to start getting his shit together also.
I understand but I don’t agree. I personally like when the tournaments feel like a bunch of fighters making their way up a mountain to a final boss. I was an Armada fan during his run, and it was great to see who would make it to GF against him. He was undoubtedly the best, but we knew he could bleed. That was such a great time for melee imo. I also think it always gave people something to fight towards, like they had to fight harder for the opportunity to dethrone Armada. Sure Mango, you like winning Genesis, but you gotta get through Hbox to have the chance for the rematch against Armada. We also just don’t have a top-level Peach anymore. :(
Hbox did mention that he's been training with M2k, and that none of the tech he practiced for hit in the match but he was still doing very well. He says if he properly hits the techs he was practicing then he thinks he might be able to take a set off Zain.
I mean, he was definitely able to take a set off of Zain yesterday. If he really has all that tech figured out, it seems likely that he will beat him - unless Zain takes this as a wake-up call to get back to the grind himsel.@@XC11301991
So exciting to see Hbox back in form. I wonder if him doing friendlies vs cody + zain made the difference? Seems like he has a lot of new answers for both of them.
Mew2King coached Hbox and gave him a fresh perspective and new tech. We are seeing the fruits of how coaching molds Hbox into the player he is meant to be.
@@TachEditsi feel like every so often i hear new 5 gods member coaching hbox. It was mango a bit ago, will we see armada coming back just to coach hbox?
That was a good return to form after the genesis sets. I know people don't like the defensive ledgebox, but Jiggypuff is not suppose to be an aggro character and I feel like that has been the big thing that has been holding him back as of late. Hbox was being too aggressive and careless with the character. I never hated the Hbox #1 saga. I thought it was a great change of pace and the other competitors were just whining and too lazy to figure out a new match up. If anyone believes this is too "easy" to do, just watch every ranked Jigglypuff that's not Hbox. They don't play anything close to this and mostly rely on simple rest setups to get through bracket.
Used to always root against Hbox and not even watch all his sets, but man now I always enjoy his sets. Watching him have to learn new tech to take down the best 2 players in the world, who also kind of play lame is so much fun. His anti-fox laser camping strategy of crouching and powershielding was Gangster AF, and had me laughing. Not to mention the fact that he can at any moment become clutch-box in a game that looks impossible to win, always keeps me on my toes. GG's.
Cody played on an oem today that he had Emily put in his shell. He was going to try to win today to prove a point about z jump but idk if he will even mention it now lol
Even if that is true he still got 3rd and lost due to a cracked Hbox. I did notice he had a few more tech flubs then usual but I’d say this is still proof he would be more or less the same without z jump.
Yeah if its true hes adjusting to a diff controller he needs a few more runs to truly adjust. Kinda sucks that he has to jeopardize #1 to make a point tho@MrGunner121
@@ellachino4799 yea it does suck, but I don’t think he has to do it or anything. It would definitely shut up everyone if he did change controllers and kept winning
Feels so good to watch Hbox! Seems like he’s the only old god keeping up to chase the #1 spot after all these years. Feels bad for Mango, but he’s had a good run and it’s time to cheer for Hbox! Might be the real goat of this game some day. :)
@@BlueGrovylep Performamce-wise, probably. HBox has an awful record vs Cody but in this game he picked up momentum and ran with it hard. Cody's a tough nut to crack so seeing him fall apart in the last game felt very old-school HBox which isnt something that's happened in years. You could tell Cody was chill about the loss too. Probably is happy with losing due to such obvious sloppy play. If he had still won the set playing like that and took on Zain it probably wouldn't have gone well.
I remember when Hbox first double eliminated Mango at Pax Arena in 2016, getting similar vibes here. Whether or not it leads to a resurgence remains to be seen, but Zain is much more doable (not from a skill perspective, even post Covid Hbox has had much better success with Zain than Cody)
@@AL-lh2htMarth cannot punish Puff as hard as Fox can but Puff also cannot punish Marth the way it can with Fox. The matchup is arguably not better at all now that Marth gameplay is so optimized.
Idt his mentality crumbled, he was playing off throughout all top 8 (had a total of 8-9 sds I think, which is insane for him). Also Hbox said during a breakdown of the set that one of the things M2K helped him with was using sdi to minimize rest punishes in certain situations.
hbox gonna be back as the god of melee. everyone though he would just lose as always, but somehow he won. He's gonna be back to what he was in 2017 youll see
If he won Grands it would've been huge for his legacy, coming back to double-eliminate the two best players/his two biggest demons. I hope that his success here galvanized him to grind harder
@@ragames7320 Complaining about a broken character is bad now? When you're trying to run tournaments that should be as exciting as possible for spectators? Lol
@@shinji136 Lol I'm lowkey a steve hater but if he cared about "excitement for spectators" he would also ban Sonic, since his viewerbase has been going down with the frequent Sonic ditto grand finals in every single tournament. People who say steve is broken haven't watched S4 Bayo or Brawl MK.
@@ragames7320 He literally started conversations about a Sonic ban, lol. It's just that the backlash resulting from that made it clear it's not as easy of a matter as Steve, and Sonic is still not as much of a polarizing issue as Steve. Bayo and MK being more broken than Steve doesn't change the fact they were broken, and both those games had shorter competitive lifespans than Ultimate.
@@Brando550 it was never about culture we are just a few who are considerate people who don't want to get others sick because we have a brain and know how germs and viruses work, u probably believe its some government propaganda or some bs claim about the impact of covid u urself can't backup. brandon use your brain to go eat a burger 😂
