Hbox deserves a lot of credit for rewriting the meta in order to fight him. The amount of highly ranked players who were forced to switch to Fox or have a pocket Fox just for his Puff match up is crazy.
Highly underrated point. The meta warped around him even before his ascension to #1. Nobody thought they could beat him on a level playing field or at a disadvantage, so they all resorted to a favorable character matchup. Even better is that this trend was eventually broken by players like Wizzy, Zain, and to a lesser degree Axe, who either kept their mains against him or just didn't use Fox. So Hbox had the #1 spot in two very different metas.
Another thing people gloss over is that he took the #1 spot while the previous #1 was basically in his prime. A lot of #1 ranked players filled a power vacuum after the previous guy started slipping, but Hbox just got so good that he took the spot while Armada had an iron grip on it.
@@B463L Hungrybox was the number 1 player for 2 years straight during the most difficult period melee has ever had. It's really sad how COVID basically destroyed his potential legacy
in addition, Hbox also has a case for his longevity, he's been playing for as long as mango has and has been top 5 in the world since. also you can argue that Hbox was more dominant in his prime than mango was in his, considering that Hbox was #1 in the world for 3 years straight. and, as you stated, had the entire meta shift around him. so much so that the best fox in the world, leffen, tried to convince people that puff was the best character in the game to try and explain Hbox's dominance (cause surely hbox can't just be a better player than everyone else in the world at the time, he must be carried.) no one tried to say that peach was the best character in the game when Armada was dominating. also i find the "he was the best in the world with 3 different characters" argument kinda strange, especially when mango switched to better characters. is it more impressive to switch to characters that give you better matchups overall, or to learn how to win even in losing matchups? can a player like zain never be the greatest player unless he starts winning with characters other than marth? also, tbh, now is a pretty bad time to decide who is the greatest melee player ever, considering that offline tournaments just came back and the top two players in the world didn't even compete in the other two offline majors held this year. so it's hard to even say if mango is definitively the best player in the world right now because of the small sample size. there is a lot of recency bias going on, mango won the biggest tournament of the year while hbox is slumping, and zain hasn't won big this year yet. there's still much more melee to be played
Calling armada the most dominant player but not the GOAT isn’t really that far fetched especially whenever you take the way people talk about other sports. Take basketball for example, most fans would agree that shaq was probably the single most dominant player to ever play. (There are other names but shaq would be the front runner) but almost no one would call shaq the GOAT of basketball
Swap Shaq with Bill Russell and I'm agreeing 100% but the difference with basketball hierarchy is that big men will never get GOAT status since they don't dominate ALL facets of the game most notable Dribbling / Facilitating. Kind of like winning majors without the tech skill (Ken) which is why I can't possibly view the older players in the same light. Mang0 is definitely the GOAT because he evolved with the Meta and was dominant across eras.
@@coyoteflavouring I think Ken and bill Russell are perfect comparisons, they both really only dominated because the game was new and not nearly as many people played back then as compared to today
@@blueapple6657 well that’s because you don’t know basketball lol like I said a fan of the game would agree that shaq was one of the most dominant players ever, but you’re correct Micheal Jordan is the consensus GOAT with lebron right behind him
@@coyoteflavouring Id say Wilt is more dominant than Shaq. The only person to ever average 50+ PPG in an entire season (Really the only one to average more than 40 PPG in a season), set records in rebounding (55 in a game) and points (Only one to score 100 in a game) etc. Bill Russell is the ultimate champion, but Wilt Chamberlain was the ultimate athlete and was unmatched. Comparing Wilt to Bill is like comparing Shaq to Duncan- sure, Duncan is better in the locker room, as a staple in a team and as a leader, but Shaq was more dominant. Same principle for the 60s era bigs and compared to their late 90s, early 2000s counterparts.
“I forgot mang0 had a rough 2018” The key takeway of this video. People don’t look at the stats before putting mang0 over armada. They do just out of following the main narrative
This exactly! I do understand why people think Mang0 has a case for being the Goat, but the fact that he didn’t win A SINGLE MAJOR in 2018 despite being ranked top 5 is in my opinion, absolutely unacceptable for someone who wants to be considered the Goat of any game. People are so unbelievably biased when it comes to the Goat discussion.
Mango sucked when he had a child tho lol. Like while he did lose, I don't think he'd say it was because the era was harder. I think it's because he was buying diapers instead of grinding
Armada retired for a bit in the middle of his career, so if he gets some time off I think it’s fair to give Mang0 some too. The difference is just that Mang0 still entered stuff during that time
@@tjtribble. An interesting argument someone once brought up was that in terms of statistics Hbox has won the most majors at 34, and looking at the list of tournaments with the largest prize pools, Hbox's name comes up very very often. People value the most recent era very highly, and Hbox's reign as 1st in the world was in 2017-2019 is very very recent. Yet there is 0 argument when people talk about the top 2 of all time
@@harpot678 Yeah that’s a good point. I think most people understand he’s not far from 1/2 and put him solidly at 3. IBDW even said something like “Hbox is the only person who can take the goat title from Mang0 for the rest of Melee’s history.” But people also don’t put him higher than that. I can’t speak for everyone when it comes to why this is. But for me it’s not even that Hbox isn’t goat material, it’s just that Armada and Mang0 are more. It’s hard to explain why in detail so I’ll just share a few stats to summarize. For Armada, according to PGstats he has a winning set count over EVERY player. Not only did he not lose to anyone outside of the top 6 but he beat the people within it as well. And Mang0 is just an omnipresent force in competitive Melee. He’s beaten every player who’s been considered #1 in the history of the game, has won tournaments for over a decade, and is both the youngest and oldest player to win a major. Also while Hbox won many of the highest paying tournaments, Mang0 did win the highest paying tournament. Hbox could get to the top spot and if he had kept his dominant era going into 2020, he probably would have. People just view the top 2 so highly that you need to do something truly special to pass them. Although tbh he’ll probably take Armada’s spot in a couple years if he keeps playing.
I can understand why m2k might be a little peeved. There should be a best smash players of all time list across all the games in which I have no doubt m2k would be number one. Mango might have won majors across three different decades, but m2k won tournaments across 4 different smash games, and he was simultaneously the best in both melee and brawl one year; which are the two most opposite smash games.
Ken is definitely not #4 but to not put him at 5 is just ridiculous. Goat list are never dominated by pure skill alone. Legacy and narratives are huge. Ken was the first BEST player in the world. Mfker has one of the most iconic combos named after him. You gotta give it up
I also feel like Cody arbitrarily defines "Ken's career" to be much longer than it realistically was when it suits him and only the correct amount of time when *that* suits him (the latter to say that Ken "lacks longevity"). Like 1:02 "especially because Ken had a very very lacklustre second half of his career". Second HALF? Like bitch what the fuck, are you pretending Ken casually entering tournaments in 2013 is "his career"? He entered only TWO majors in 2007 while m2k was on a tear, and one of them was Evo, which he won. Where is the second "half" of his supposedly lacklustre career, when he was the undisputed best player in the world from 2003 to 2006? Yeah, his performance at Super Champ Combo was bad. That and evo were the last two tournaments of his career as a pro gamer. To say it was the second "half" of his career that was bad is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Edit: I say all of this as someone who lived Ken's era. Any Armada fanboys who think Armada has to stay #1 *forever* just because no one was "more dominant" but then turn around and say that M2K should be higher than Ken have literally no idea how dominant Ken was in the original era of Melee. He was literally talked about in 2006 the exact same way people talked about Armada in 2015. Any time he lost back then was a huge achievement for the person who beat him. Even when M2K was the clear #1 in 2007, literally no one talked about him that way. It was only in the era of the five gods that commentators decided that only a fellow god could conceivably take down "the perfect robot". I think Cody's weightings are actually overall fair and I'm not trying to insist Ken should be #4 on everyone's list, but he for sure downplayed the fuck out of Ken because he simply didn't live that era. If dominance were the literal *only* thing that mattered, then Ken would actually be competing with hbox for #3. (he's not, to be clear... because dominance certainly ISN'T the only thing that matters. But Ken was way more dominant than doc kids realize, and people who value dominance the MOST, rather than putting a more even weighting on everything like Cody is doing, should actually have him at #4 instead of #5)
@@codetaku i feel like the argument could be made that M2K ranked higher if you take into account that he was juggling 2 games with completely different tech and mechanics at a time and still placing high on both ends. I understand its onlylooking at MELEE careers, but god damn that's impressive top be #1 in 2 different smash games for a bit.
What dominance is spamming crouch cancel down smash with Peach? Armada was only the best in the world for 2 years and he has loss to hbox mango leffen. Sure Armada is consistent but I dont value consistency especially when his playstyle is so lame.
Personally I'd put Chu even higher, but I'm just happy to see him in top 10 at least, people underestimate how good he was in the early era and on top of that he has always been at least top 50, which multiple resurgences, even in the modern era. He had so many second place finishes, losing only to Ken. Personally I think there is an argument for Chu over Ken, at least as a competitor, just because of Chu's longevity. Sometimes a top player can make others seem less good or less consistent than they truly are. I do understand that Ken (and in a similar vain Azen and PP for example) were more meta defining of course. There are always a lot of factors that go into these things, personally for me I probably go longevity>uncontestedness>metadefining, but of course all weigh heavily. (To be clear that does not mean I would put Armada below M2K for example, even though M2K was around for longer)
the thing to me is that Ken's legacy is tainted because we know that both Isai and Chu felt they weren't allowed to beat him. That's such a massive advantage, it really makes it hard to look at Kens (very real) achievements as comparable to M2K or Hbox who were hated and feared and colluded against.
my favorite thing about ken is that he said everyone back then would say "marth is trash" when he told people he played marth, because no one understand how to use marth and develop any combos or kill potential, and ken just made him the top of the tier list. discovered the ken combo, chain grabbing. one of my favorite smash players of all time tbh. the king
Let's face it: Armada quit because of Hbox XD He hated fighting Hbox. And he was always fighting Hbox. There was no enjoyment in him for that. Hbox is the GOAT slayer.
"Slayer" He got sick of wasting his time beating hbox's boring character and left to do something more interesting. I guess if you get beat up by someone for so long they get bored of beating your ass you "slayed" them. Lmao get real
No lol. He retired cause he was done. Armada was always the one who had the most issues with motivation and competing in melee. He simply though that it was time to hang up the controller. He beat Hbox 5-1 in 2018 when he retired bruh so if anyone leffen made him retire.
I mean, the only truly annoying people in this situation are the ones that say "he could time travel from 2018 (or worse, come back from a 3-year hiatus) and literally immediately be top 3". We actually do know, for fucking sure, that our top 6 are better than that now lol. But if he had kept practicing since 2018? Yeah we have no idea, it seems pretty likely that he'd have been using the tools like slippi and unclepunch to stay ahead of the curve, he'd be having great practice sessions with Leffen during covid. He could've even reached rank 1 again, we literally can't know
15:30 "I don't care about [Axe] doing it with Pikachu at all" 2:00 "[Mango] was number one with three different characters which is absolutely wild." lmfao nice consistency bro. "I don't care about what character someone played oh btw Mango playing with three different characters is so amazing" what a joke.
The argument is that mang0 wasn’t carried by any single character and had what it took to be the best with all three and I’m not saying axe isn’t great at the game but he hasn’t been the best with one even if it is pikachu
@@panchoponce1622 literally no player is carried by a character and ibdw would agree with that. what a stupid argument. ibdw is just inconsistent in his criteria and fanboying mango.
9:55 I like how we're talking about how leffen got fucked when PPMD literally has been physically unable to compete for like 6 years now LOL. Don't get me wrong, travel and visa issues are a bitch but I think PPMD would take that any day over what he has to deal with
Considering everyone who plays in Ken's era fell off a cliff he's lucky to make top 10 in my eyes. His primary competition that didn't quit before he did was Chudat Hugs and Chillin. We all know what ranks they fell into once the 5 melee gods came around. Ken was also lucky to barely make top 50 himself. Not only that but Armadas and HBox's reigns as number 1 were not only far longer but far more dominant in an era where people actually knew how to play the fucking game. 2018 Hbox could go back in time and 4-0 ken 6 games in a row and not break a sweat.
It sucks that PP isn't Top 5 on All Time, because of circumstances (health issues) that were not in his control. He didn't choose to retire because he wasn't feeling it anymore, he retired because it would've been a detriment to his health to play at a top level. PPMD was like probably the most consistent God aside from Armada and Hbox, Mango and Mew2King are always prone to being upset and getting like 9th, or 13th. Meanwhile PPMD's only bad placement after he became a God and before Battle of the Five Gods (where he played like absolute shit, he even lost to MacD in Marth-Peach even though he can beat fuckin Armada in that matchup) where he got 10th, was Genesis 2, where he placed 7th, losing to Taj, Tope, and Fly Amanita in pools, and then Armada and Shroomed, and this was all just because PP was sick that whole tournament, so the bad placement is excused there too, but he did still make Top 8
@@nihatnihat8264 lol someone in a Twitch chat mentioned if PPMD didn't retire he would be an amazing competitor, bro if ppmd didn't retire he would be literally dead
I know it’s hard but if you look at the stats, I mean facts, I mean history, I mean what actually happened during the highest concentration of competitive talent of Melee, it is undeniable that Armada is above everybody. But I realize a huge fan bias plays into this and takes mango from being level with HBox to somehow being above Armada. Facts are hard.
If you want to have your mind blown, look at mango's results from 2017 to 2019. filled with absolutely trash placements. armada was tiers above mango at this point in time. you're really giving mango the longevity argument for not winning a single tournament in 2018 and for being good in 2008 and 2010 when he attended one major in both years (pound 3 and pound 4) . that's so damn dumb honestly. more tournaments being dominant > chronological time being top 5. attending 3 majors in 3 weekends and winning them all in a row like leffen did in 2015 is more impressive than mango being the best for a year but only attending a single major. again, less tournaments = less impressive. mango's 2008 and 2010? not impressive. that's just facts. edit: another thing to prove my point, what is more impressive, leffen's 3 major wins in 3 weekends or ppmd winning apex 2015 and not attending anything notable until evo. were those 6 months of pp staying on that apex 2015 win really more impressive than leffen winning 3 majors in 3 weekends? Keep in mind he got 5th at evo right after and right before he got 9th at press start. like i said before, it's very simple: more major tournament wins is more impressive than chronological time being good at the game. leffen's 3 majors > mango's 2008 with one major AND ppmd's first half of 2015 with one major.
Mango wasn't trying. What happened to Armada at royal flush in 2019 when Mango actually tries? Yes more tournament wins = more dominance but some tournaments are more important than others. Like Genesis 1 which Mango won
@@chuifongtam4703 what happened at the end of armada's career was that he wasn't trying. He won super smash con 2018 not even trying, mango got 65th. Hahahha. Armada was one foot in retirement and still better than mango.
Great list! However, I think that if you look at who actually was better. Armada has the winning record over all of the other 5 gods, and a way better record than Mang0 against everyone else. Mang0 being around 3-5th place for a few more years doesn't make him the goat in my opinion.
@@daxmoney5011 Armada started in Feb 2005. Mango started in late 2005-early 2006. By 2007, Armada was already top 5 in Europe, and Mango was ranked 10th in the US. By 2008, Mango was top 2 in the US and Armada was top 3 in Europe. By 2009 they were both miles ahead of everyone else in their respective regions, then met at Genesis.
Why would playing other games impact his ranking for this game? Like yeah it makes him more impressive as a human being but it doesn't magically make him better at melee.... Like if you were ranking "greatest smash player of all time" then it might even make him take the rank 1 spot since he's the GOAT of brawl in addition to being one of the greatest of Melee and a solid sm4sh and ultimate player. But none of that makes him a greater melee player....
How can Mango be the Goat for hanging in there the longest? Like it feels like Armada gets retroactively punished for retiring and moving on with his life. Yall really think Armada wouldn't have taken some number 1 spots from Hbox if he hung in there? Yall think Armada wouldn't still be in the top 5 today? People act like Mango is still playing with arthritis in his hands and wrist and going blind and still hanging. Mang0s whole career no offense has been "That guy who is kinda just as good as the top guy but never wins" Greatest means (Not to be surpassed) How Mango the Greatest when getting surpassed is his career.
M2K>Ken.Ken’s #1 run and legacy looks less and less impressive as time goes on. He has no argument ever to be compared to the top 3. You literally can’t compares him to anyone on the list aside from M2K
Ken was #1 in an era where people were learning how to DI. If they brought Armada down a spot for being inactive for a few years, there is no world where Ken is in the top 10
@@justsomeguy7042 I mean, being solidly no.1 for 3 years is the equivalent of a generational talent in something like basketball. Would you say Isaac Newton was horrible scientist because in his era didn't have formulas like 'F = ma', and Steven Hawking who built on the discoveries of Newton is so much further ahead?
I feel like a lot of the older players should be labeled more as 'Legends'. It's kinda hard to rank them when the meta for Melee is constantly changing over time, and players are always breaking barriers.
when did a tournament suddenly change to be worth more to win since its happening now? i think looking purely at results as ibdw did was great. Ken Azen and PC won multiple majors each, all they could do was compete at what was going on at the time, and they dominated. respect them they are players too, people dont talk about MJ as a legend and not a player because his era was different and is in the past. none of these players are higher than where they should be, ibdw backed up with evidence and reason
So silly to put azen above zain. Literally no one but the 5 gods leffen zain and ken can claim being the best in the world at any given time. Zain is clearly 8th and will be higher in a year or two.
How is mango consistent when he didn't win a tournament for over a year starting in 2017? Yeah he was consistently bad, but i don't think that's the consistency that you mean is it? Yeah being 5th in 2018 is super impressive. wow incredible. 0 tournaments wins that year holy crap what an accomplishment... great longevity... lmfao. what a joke.
Mango played at the top for 15 years with 3 different characters. Armada spams down smash with peach. I would've quit melee if Armada was around for longer. His playstyle is just lame and boring to watch.
Hyping up people like Ken and definitely Azen is like trying to hype up the NBA in the 1950’s. It just doesn’t matter. Take them at their best and they get smoked by all the top players of the 2010’s. It’s non sense. Chu would 3-0’s ken ten sets in a row bc he surpassed him. Ken and azen would great in a trash era… congrats???
really tired of seeing the Ken slander. put some fucking respect to his name. he forged the scene that mango, m2k, pp grew up on. he was so integral to the making of smash as a competitive game. fucking hate hearing these post doc kids say that he deserves lower
Hbox should be number 2 and it's not even close. Dont forget that armada just bitched out on melee as soon as soon as he lost to swedish and plup. Hbox was freakin untouchable for years
im saying its 1: mango 2: armada 3: ken 4: hbox 5: m2k 6: pp 7: leffen 8: azen 9: isai 10: plup 11/12: pc/zain 13: hax 14: axe 15: chu edit: honestly zain can be anywhere on this list between like 6th and 12th as of rn he just hasn't been around long enough to judge for sure
Legacy bias is absurd. Ken's top dogs when he was number 1 were.... chudat hugs and chillindude. We all know how those 3 and Ken faired once the 5 gods rolled around. They were completely garbage compared to the likes of Armada HBox and Mang0. It's almost as if no one realizes how ridiculously poor the competition was back then because no one was actually watching or playing melee back then. Not only was the competition complete garbage, but HBox was number 1 for longer during a harder period and was MORE DOMINANT than Ken during his 6 month unstoppable reign winning basically everything.
this is why i unsubbed from his twitch bro the five gods are top 8, with zain, plup, and leffen with them. anything else is categorically wrong because of stats and dominance. im willing to bet current top 100 players would absolutely slap the shit out of prime ken, even without wavedashing and other tech. he simply is not as good as kodorin, and by proxy, is not as good as zain or m2k
He’s treating all era of Melee equally. For example, people still respect older players from soccer or basketball and put them as the top of all time despite playing in a older and less developed era. You gotta respect them.
In all competitive arenas, newer people learn and build off of the experience of older players. Newer players might be better on average, but that's largely because they have more total knowledge and resources at their fingertips due to the work of older generations. Greats achieve greater peaks by standing on the shoulders of giants. This is true for virtually every sport ever.
@@luis37342 Kind of? Lets us take Olympic athletes as an example, early athletes in time before their sport became super competitive are never put on the same level as athletes in more modern times because it wasn't anywhere near as competitive. Melee before the more modern meta shouldn't be valued near as much as more modern meta dominance.
