The Ugly Sides of Competitive Melee 

Hey guys. It’s kinda hard not to notice how the ugly sides of Melee video has been reuploaded. This was done to more accurately cover the topic of SG vs Fortune, which was put together very well in my opinion. I wanna give a special thanks to Zain Naghmi, my buddy eric, and a couple of MDVA veterans for helping me clear up a story that is not very well documented I know it will be very hard to have this upload gain the same traction as the original, but I personally do not want a video of mine to blow up after not getting the facts straight the first time I recommend giving this video a watch again with the new edited portion. If you are only interested in watching the new section, that’s fine too. Below is the time stamp from beginning to end of new portion: 32:30-39:04 Hope you guys understand. And if you don’t, at least I do (:

Leffen pausing the game to tell scar to sd bc of pause clause is so funny to me its like “alright dude, you next” lol

Westballs is remarkably patient in that conversation

The fact that leffen brought up the air time limit, means that it should never be added to the game.

30:50 I have broken the pause rule exactly once and fought it. I used to play local competitive scene. I was the only girl in the local scene at the time, and people often tried to make stupid calls against me, when they had no rights. I’m very serious about the rules. I’ve gotten nosebleeds and kept playing, threw up in a bag and kept playing, etc. I don’t pause. Not for anything - except for one time. I got a call from a family member that never calls me. Someone picked it up for me (I asked them to), they went pale and told me to pause and insisted I had to talk to my family right now, as someone in my family had just died. So, I turned to the other players and we all kinda nodded and I took the phone and paused the game. I came back a few minutes later, and decided to finish the set before going home out of good sportsmanship/I wanted to still give the crowd a show. And you know what happened? My opponent hit me with pause clause. They told me to take my stock. And I obviously fought them on that because that’s stupid, we all agreed I had to pause and it was serious. Literally every other player in the room stood up and said I had every right to pause, and that if they forced the clause, they would walk. I still lost that set, but I’ll never forget how my little community banded for me.

hey yall, I'm the eric mentioned in the pinned comment. I'm an MDVA TO, a friend of Fortune's, and was someone who reached out about the previous version of the video. I was the one who asked for and worked on the revision. Some of you have mentioned feeling confused and looking for answers about this version of Fortune's story. I understand that feeling. That's on purpose, unfortunately. Fortune was private about his pain. I asked that specific details be removed. Honestly, I'm still uncomfortable with how much I've shared on Fortune's behalf but I think it's necessary to keep pushing against the narrative that haunted him. I promise you that Fortune and SG were friends. He and I were friends. I promise that the grime video is a misunderstanding. He struggled with the backlash to it. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to reveal more details about Fortune, so you'll have to take my word for it. If you don't believe me, please at least know that there are people out there still grieving him. Juiceman treated Fortune's memory with care. He didn't have to take down the previous video or revise the section, but he took it seriously and with urgency. I'm grateful to him and I ask for as much kindness as you can gather.

I miss my wife

I can't believe the TOs gave Moky the final say in that decision. What a stupid decision to put it all on the competitor. Imagine if this was the Olympics and you'd ask the competitor to make this kind of call against another competitor. You would insta-ruin your reputation by taking the W. Seriously suprised that such a terrible decision was taken.

If I were in Moky's position, I would look tell the TOs "Nope. You're the TO, not me. You have to make the call." There's no way he wouldn't have been vilified for taking the win. The TOs practically forced him to give up the win. It's speculation, but I don't see any reason to not make the decision as a TO other than not wanting to be the "bad guy" in the situation.

I love how Westballz tries to make some sense into M2K argument by telling that his strategy was way too good to not work because of his skills without insulting him for doing so, but by reinforcing his points ahaha

For those wondering, the cause of the reupload appears to be the Fortune segment at 32:40. Having seen both versions it looks like reuploading was the right choice, especially considering the context, so thanks for not just sweeping it under the rug. Great video!

Im suprised Ice Climbers hadnt caused actual irl violence.

56:45 yes, Moky did agree to restart the game, but the TOs decision to let him decide was wrong. They're the TOs, THEY have to decide. I felt bad for Moky, he decided to restart the game and lost mostly because of the audience taunting him.

Mew2king playing in the scummiest way possible barring wobbling and then proceeding to say "hey man you didn't even try" is infuriating.

In regards to the RU Fortune segment; I have a pretty unique perspective because I live in the DMV (known to the smash community as MD/VA) and actually knew Fortune through a close friend of his. Fortune was known as a decent guy with a bit of misguided humor, but struggled with personal battles. When this clip blew up in the smash community a lot of us were on the mindset of “did Fortune really do that?” It seemed a bit out of character but also believable. I’m not here to tarnish his reputation since he’s no longer with us, but the whole truth is that he “admitted” to joking about it only after the game had finished, and the common sentiment was a clear divide of “sure you did bud” and “ok well that was a bad joke.” Most of us at the time all had the same line of thought, “If it was a joke in poor taste, why string it along til after the set?” Truth be told he never had one clear answer, and as the weeks turned into months the main counter story you heard was that it was supposed to be a joke, but his actions and demeanor contradicted this. In the end, he wasn’t a BAD guy and was forgiven by the community here, but the whole truth isn’t so black and white, he tried to get away with it, and then covered up, apologized, and moved on after the fact. People make mistakes, and in competition all’s fair, but Fortune’s situation has truth on both sides. I hope people learn to recognize it was a bad moment in his legacy and move past it, but I also believe some of the criticism was earned; he pushed the “joke” too far and only admitted so after everybody’s reactions and the game playing out. He apologized for the poor moment and was forgiven. Anything other than that is twisting the story for a subjective opinion. I hope Fortune rests in peace, and people can stop coming in to the situation with charged opinions. He wasn’t a saint who was misunderstood, but he also wasn’t the devil incarnate, he was somebody who tried to take advantage, realize he messed up, covered it as a joke, apologized, and moved on.

why would you allow such a clearly broken move like wobbling and then try to ban the response to wobble? lol

this is a really good doc, i love the style of weaving through a bunch of different sets with all these common through lines to really tell a story and build a case for why things are the way they are

Fantastic video. I love your narrative empathetic style. Great stuff and thank you for reuploading the Fortune SG portion to add more much needed context.

Thank you for the upload. I definitely remember seeing that Fortune SG moment so long ago and always thinking in my head “wow that Fortune guy is scummy”. But seeing this now, can’t help but feel bad for all the misinformation spread about a silly moment.

I love the irony of players switching to Phob controllers in order to prevent small malfunctions from wear and tear; only to cause HUGE malfunctions with maybe one year of use.

With the disconnect rule as written, if someone has at least a one stock lead when they disconnect and they take long enough to get a spare controller connected, they can win due to time out. The other player can't pause the timer. To combat this, it needs to be that they start a new game with whatever the current stocks were (minus one for the disconnecter). Either that or just an automatic game forfeit.

"i will show you something that will guarantee to make you smile" the "woah, didnt mean to bring the vibe down" immediately after the genuine heartfelt discussion of mental health and how important "the bigger picture" can be in the grand scheme of things already made me laugh

Didn't even realize this was a reupload tbh, I've seen this in my recommended for a bit and decided to check it out. Really high quality stuff.

Regarding Hbox vs Chudat. If you want to play lame, don't get mad when your opponent responds by playing lame. I occasionally do Ultimate locals. Some new guy showed up playing Toon Link. He would run away and spam projectiles. Naturally my response was to get a % lead, and just stand at the opposite end of the stage, easily dodging all of the projectiles. He eventually got frustrated and started running at me, and the match ended pretty quickly after that. There's no fundamental difference. Chudat was playing lame the entire tournament, and Hbox's response to play lame for 1 round, and people still try to vilify him for that. And yes. It's not the same thing as M2K. M2K had no reason to think he'd lose without playing that way. M2K was playing that way on his own. He wasn't playing lame in response to someone playing lame. He was just playing lame. And I doubt anyone would have cared as much as they did if he wasn't such a shit about how Puff needs a ledge grab limit but no one else. He is literally the reason there is a ledge grab limit implemented now. It is fundamentally different.

RIP Fortune and thank you for spreading his story

mad respect for reuploading to clarify the fortune thing, i remember on my first watch it felt a little underexplored.

All I learned from this video is Melee players have no honor in gaming.

You know what sucks about typing really long youtube comments. Is when you type it up and the video is then removed, re-edited, and reuploaded lol. I gotta stop writing essay length youtube comments. Thats on me. Anyways time to mute the video and leave it running to give this channel my view again.

For the Leffen pause thing I get being "competitive" but moves like that are not competitive, you do them because you feel like you can't outplay your opponent and need petty outside help like that

This video was great, it needs to get the recognition it deserves

Had no idea about Fortune. I hope his loved ones are doing well. Thanks for shedding more light on the situation bc he truly never deserved all the harassment, including from me, regarding his moment with SG. Thanks for this video. Great watch highlighting some infamous moments that always stuck out to me

still a great watch the 2nd time around , awesome work !!

it's funny how there's probably a lot of grand finals + reset that go on longer than this video literally called "The Ugly Sides of Competitive Melee"

best melee video ive seen in a long time. well done

Yo Juiceman! RUSH from Nebs here! Great vid man, hope to see more in the future! I fully agree with the disconnect rule, it's completely necessary and I think your wording for it is perfect

2 minutes in and i can already tell he's cooking. Awesome video how often do you hook people this hard before 5 min good shit my boyi!!!!! Instant sub and like yall get with the program.

respect for reuploading it to correct something. commenting for the algorithm

Trying to shift the blame to h-box is funny.

Very well made video watched it all the way through 💯

Glad to see the reupload have my sub

One interesting thing about the chu vs hbox facade was that ICs-Puff is actually WAY more doable for ICs if the puff ACTUALLY doesn't play campy like from what I've been told it's actually only truly a terrible MU for ICs if the puff plays campy but if she doesn't then it's actually way more managable for ICs

Maybe I missed something, but when Leffen made Scar give up the stock for pausing in the doubles match, didn’t you also say that the rules say that pause is supposed to be off? Since it wasn’t off couldn’t it be argued that the whole match was invalid and should be replayed?

Leffon is a sad person

I find it very strange that the edited bit heavily implies that Fortune committed suicide because of the harassment without outright stating it. Is this even the case? If so, then say so. If not, what a weird section to include.

Amazing video, congratulations

Great video my man

The end of this video seems to assume (unless I missed something) that every uncontrolled controller disconnect (not just a physical cord disconnect) is due to the fob or however it's spelled. Is this the case? Could it not be due to the wii/gamecube setup, or can it not occur with original gamecube controllers?

im from a different sport called Sporting Clays but ive seen similar situations to the controller issues happen. Melee absolutely needs a rule regarding controller malfunction and DC. In our sport its really simple, you have a set amount of time to either fix your gun or get a spare or you're game is over. Melee can possibly benefit from a similarly written rule to avoid such a situation as Moky and JMook from happening again regardless of how rare the situation is. If a malfunction disconnect or a disconnect determined by TO's to be accidental occurs, the DC'd player has a set amount of time to fix or replace the controller and play will resume as normal, if a stock is lost in the incident and it is determined to be caused by the disconnect, the game will be reset to the conditions of just before the DC, players will reset to neutral positions, and play will resume

I didn't know I was going to get a Reflection Eternal soundtrack. Love it

The kirby crystal shards music made me so nostalgic

Poor fortune man, watching it from a new POV is genuinely so funny bruh.

Hearing what happened to fortune is very upsetting.

Why would you judge people for implementing winningstrategys jsut because it might not be interesting for spectators? if there is so many unfair strategys then maybe the game is jsut dogshit, have you ever concidered that??

25:32 Now, policing what games someone plays outside of Smash and shunning them when a banned character came from said game, THAT'S very in-spirit.

This is an excellent video, it's crazy to see you with 1.5k subs and creating something of this quality, you definitely have a sub from me. I'll be watching the Falcon video next and then eagerly awaiting your next video. With that said, the Smash Bros community is the absolute worst. The leaders are clowns and the fans are worse. The whole Fortune thing is a great microcosm of that, a socially awkward guy making a poor joke and gets completely obliterated online while you have people like GimR and the VGBC people blame an esports org for their lack of competence in running a tournament and costing people their livelihood because they need a scapegoat for their ineptitude loved. Then you have the assaulters that people overlook because they're liked in the community. People take the children's party game far too seriously while ignoring the real life terrible things that have come from it. I wish the people involved weren't such awful people and it'd go back to how it was in its early years. There's definitely cool people especially at the top of melee, awesome moments, and it's a beautiful game at a high level, but the community and especially the community "leaders" is possibly the worst in general in all of competitive gaming.

The titel implies, that there's a side in "competitive" melee, that isn't ugly. Angry, no grass touching fans ensue.

Awesome video!

Noiiiice. Good redo on ze Fortune part haha. Sick context!

The fact that Fortune is gone is insane to me. Genuinely tragic…

The ugly side of melee is the players. And the pdf file shit of course

Poor westballs, he's the victim of planking and wobbling 😢 He just has that luck, poor guy

I don’t care about your stats on HB. Wobbling was legal, that makes any matchup with ice climbers unfair.

u know it’s bad when even i (someone who isn’t really a smash player) can look at something and know it should be banned immediately

TOs should never allow the players to decide whether or not they want to take a game/enforce a pause rule. If the game is paused for any reason, the TOs must make the decision. That decision should usually be to force the player to lose the stock/round, but under a circumstance like Scar's, where pause was enabled when it shouldn't have been, there is some nuance. That nuance should always be handled by the TOs, not forced onto the players. Edit: realized you cover this basically word for word later in the vid lol

Allowing a gentleman’s agreement puts the onus back on the player and invalidates the rule. “What an asshole for not gentleman-ing” is what we would hear

I'm about to look up 2013 smash Bros tournament to watch that Mango comeback, I'd watch a recap if you made one.

i feel the change to the Fortune section makes it seem like the grime clip was related to his death, is that the case?

Nice pick on the track at the end

The Hall Effect Joysticks were also used on the Dreamcast.

I completely forgot about that Chudat renaissance. What a legendary player

serving doc

Mewtwo king genuinely pisses me off. He’s one of the least chill pro players i’ve ever seen.

dam rip fortune. great video too

wobbling not being banned in NA for so long was an indictment of the scene. It was dumb to watch and people who ran tournaments and allowed it simply suck ass.

That’s my boy, Kirby is my main!

Good edit

idk if youre gonna read this but i wanted to chime in a little bit on your argument for an airtime limit. the main problem is that an airtime limit really only affects one characters matchups, and its ICs. Peach can also abuse being able to stay in the air against ICs, even moreso than Puff, but *only* against ICs. in any other matchup they arent camping in the air, theyre just using their air mobility as one of their biggest strengths. implementing an airtime limit because it stops ICs from having matchups that are 20/80 is not only unfair to the floaties, but isnt in line with the other bans discussed in the vid, where the technique can be done against anyone.

Ayo there’s some hip hop bangers in this video that’s crazy

A very important correction and reupload. It says a lot. about your character to do this after the original did so well. Letting this run once again for that watchtime and the algorithm.

What was the edit?

I like the video!!! I just had trouble hearing your voice throughout

It's hard to feel bad when a the opponent is an ice climber, theres so many broken and crazy options

Leffen is a genuine loser for calling the pause clause there

20:37 "Why is that bald dude camping" 😭

I'm really confused why controller disconnects would ever be a contentious issue. In my opinion, it should be the responsibility of the competitor (especially if they are professional) to maintain the controller to their best ability. I'm also surprised that the current rules around pauses and other "disruptive" instances creates a some-what precedent for how disconnects would be treated. I feel really bad for moky being put in that lose-lose situation.

How well did the original upload do? lol Now I'm curious...

10/10 video

"he was beating everyone's favorite top players" *shows leffen lmao*

a racecar driver whos car doesn't work get disqualified

Nah, M2K is playing like a rat. HBox camping against a broken mechanic is fairplay.

SUPER MONKEY BALL MUSIC AMAZING VIDEO ALREADY AND MOS DEF????

13:20 we gave a top 40 player an infinite and he performs great all of a sudden. Crazy.

you mean all six sides of this stinky, sweaty cube

I never saw the original but am glad to have read why it was reuploaded and Erics comment as well. I hope Fortune is resting in peace and am sad he was haunted by a decision the public crucified him for when at the end of the day, everyone makes mistakes or takes things too far sometimes. This video seems very thoughtfully done and am glad you are the kind of respectable person to fix the section when those close to Fortune asked you too. I may be a stranger online, but I do appreciate the revision and it will keep me browsing your past videos and looking forward to new ones as well as raising my respect in you as a person and creator. Thank you.

The no knee thing isnt real

the james bond video game trap remix at 34:00 is ace

I have an interesting question involving melee Jigglypuff pound stalling. Let's say you want to recover at a "Perfect" time with jigglypuff... like every time you get hit and you're trying to recover back onto the stage, a player can just pound their way back towards the stage without having to put yourself in a vulnerable position or use any jumps, but also run the clock for a potential time out. If for example, let's say jigglypuff has a maximum limit of "5 pounds without landing" before it becomes "stalling"; once a rule like that goes into effect, players will abuse this and pound 5 times any safe chance they get and say it wasn't "fully stalling because you did it under the 5 pounds before landing rule". Since there's no limit, at what point is pound considered stalling and who decides it?

IC having a borderline instakill means HB didn't play uninteractive he played defensive in the only way you can defend against an instant kill.

thats my juicer

M2K should have a 30 ledge grab limit no matter the character he plays.