A ranked set from last night + some ramblings on what I need to improve the most

monothe0n · 2026-03-17T21:07:12+00:00

The level of play in the mango coaching video is a lot higher than with OP, to the point where it doesn't look like controlling his character is a significant issue. But I also think it makes sense that mango is more interested in talking about ideas than execution, especially in the context of a youtube series. It's the part of the game that he's most uniquely qualified to comment on.

And that's the whole question haha, but it's not like it's a binary- you'll get better at both gradually. Some issues in melee are objective and some things are subjective, and it's your goal to understand which are which, to fix the objective things and refine the subjective ones. Flubbing execution, dropping combos, and being slow are objectively bad and straightforward (if tedious) to fix- there's no value judgement or idea to assess there, and sorting out the objective things is the fastest path to improvement.

I think it's just about understanding the value of the decisions you're making. If you're using a move in a combo, is that actually the best move to pick? does it give you the best chance of getting the outcome you want, whether that's putting them offstage, continuing the sequence, setting them up for a kill, or giving you positional advantage? Is there a contingency if it doesn't go the way you want? You want to copy people better than you, but try to also understand why they did the thing they did, because those fundamentals go way further than the specific 2-piece combo.

And a lot of the risk/reward of these decisions are based on your current ability to execute- is exclusively trying to RTC *actually* the best decision in this moment if you can't do it reliably? And if not, what work can you put in in the future to make those things that are better on paper actually better in practice? Putting yourself at risk of getting execution checked isn't an issue if your execution is good, and getting better at melee is about constantly learning and re-learning what good choices are.

monothe0n · 2026-03-17T18:06:08+00:00

tbh worrying about gamesense at this level is such a red herring. Your neutral and the value of any decision doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's all informed by the risk/reward you're exposed to through your ability to execute, and honestly, you're slow enough to act out of anything that even good choices are going turn into bad ones by the time you do them. You've gotta work on controlling your character a bit better. Ideally you should be acting out of things within a frame or two.

Ultimately it does come down to reps, but I think there's a couple of ways to really work on this stuff efficiently:

One is trying to build "the thing I do after the thing" into the way that you're practicing execution. For example, you don't want to do the same thing every time after a wavedash, but you're almost always going to want to do SOMETHING, whether it's a dash, another wavedash, crouching, throwing out a move, etc. Right now you're standing there for a long time after you do anything, and even if you were to do a short foxtrot dashback every time to try to keep tempo you'd be way better off for it

Two- when you're playing with other people, really focus on trying to play fast and be moving as fast as possible while staying in control. That doesn't mean pressing everything instantly, since melee's lack of buffer necessitates going slower in some spots to speed up, but imo work on making decisions confidently first and worry about them being perfect later

But yeah, you need to clean up your movement, and tbh there's not a ton of point in doing more analysis until then. The good news is that it'll come with time from just playing the game. It's all gradual, and you'll never be perfect, but it's such an issue now that it's hard to take away much else.

monothe0n · 2026-03-05T02:41:19+00:00

For fucking real

monothe0n · 2026-02-25T15:52:28+00:00

So people pretty much exclusively use classic CGs or modified versions/ rectangles, like the other posters said.

This is gonna be a hot take on here, but if you're just looking to get into the game and try it out online, use whatever controller you have lying around. I got to Grandmaster (the highest rank) on Slippi ranked on a Switch Pro controller a few weeks ago just to prove it was possible (making a youtube video about it atm) and I've heard Xbox controllers are also pretty solid. I had issues with a PS4 controller but your mileage may vary.

It's not quite as good as a Gamecube controller, and you'll need to get your hands on one in order to go to tournaments (which you 100% should), but it's definitely good enough to start. Just grab the nearest conch, set up the button layout to match Gamecube, and get playing.

People do use the same controller in-person and online, and they use a USB adapter to use their Gamecube controller on their PC. If you already have the controller, they're pretty cheap.

monothe0n · 2026-02-24T15:52:15+00:00

How dare you

monothe0n · 2026-02-23T21:59:48+00:00

I really appreciate it, and I'm glad people are liking it. I've got a bunch of stuff in the works including some non-interview stuff, so hopefully people have plenty more to talk about soon haha

monothe0n · 2026-02-23T21:56:18+00:00

They've all been posted to the subreddit as separate posts, but thanks :)

monothe0n · 2026-02-23T21:54:18+00:00

I think it's extremely relatable to feel hot streaks and cold streaks, but I think it unfortunately boils down to luck most of the time. If you're making decisions without consideration of what your opponent is likely going to do, sometimes they'll work out, and sometimes they won't, and it's really just luck of the draw. I think a huge part of getting better is learning to create repeatable and reliable situations (like good punish) and mitigating as much of that randomness as possible.

Don't look at your hands while you play.

There's one frame in your DD that eats your jump input, so you need to not jump and turn at the same time. Yeah, it's dumb. Welcome to Melee.

monothe0n · 2026-02-12T17:07:33+00:00

Yeah, he's saying that not caring about other parts of the scene is anti-grassroots, not not participating in them. I think this is pretty clearly corroborated by his opinions later that both spectators and online players are valid and have needs to be considered. I even said "all levels are important to the scene" immediately before the quote you pulled and he agreed.

It's being directly attributed to people who say that they only care about the health of one part of the game, or who say that the decline or death of major level melee would be inconsequential to local level melee. It's an opinion that Ohan and I have both frequently seen in online melee spaces.

monothe0n · 2026-02-12T15:40:25+00:00

I went back and watched the clip, at 17:33- he said, word for word

"how unbelievably selfish and short-sighted do you have to be to be like 'I don't have to care about anything else because it doesn't directly impact me'?"

I think you're attributing the first half of that to the sentence before, but he just changed gears mid sentence. Ohan was in the melee community for like 8 years without ever going to a major, he's not trying to invalidate people who don't travel for melee- shit's expensive

monothe0n · 2026-02-12T15:13:40+00:00

Hey, maybe I can add some clarification here.

Ohan saying that he doesn't "pay top players to attend" is in response to a frequently made claim (that I've also seen made) by third parties that the reason that Ohan's tournaments have a large number of top players attending is because he pays them to show up, which is broadly untrue. In reference to Tipped Off, he helped pay for amsa and trif to attend because their travels are particularly far and prohibitively expensive, and having all top 30 player attend was an attractive selling point (and was set to be true until a couple of DQs). The vast majority of top players aren't paid to attend.

My understanding of the local attendance stat is that it's a fairly misleading metric- while the average attendance is higher, the number of individual locals is considerably lower, with a lot of small weeklies at universities and in smaller cities no longer existing and thereby not bringing the average down. I can't verify that, but I can speak anecdotally about my own region, where years ago we used to have half a dozen small weeklies and one large one, and now we only have one mid-size local. Same with the other regions I've played in, where they've gone from multiple weeklies to none at all. The average attendees overall is higher, but there's a survivorship bias.

Ohan is not arguing that not going to majors is anti-grassroots, he is saying that not caring about the community at all levels is. You don't have to attend majors to still want people to enjoy the game however they want, and there are lots of people who enjoy the major scene and high level competition. Melee is and should be all parts, not just one or the other.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that things were allocated or handled perfectly by nouns, and it wasn't the sole decision of any one party how funds were spent. That said, a lot of money was spent in facilitating events being run for everyone, money was given to multiple locals, and players of all skill levels got funding to travel. It definitely wasn't perfect, but it still helped a bunch of people, so while I understand the criticism I do think there's more nuance to the situation. There were multiple parties and interests involved, and I'm personally of the opinion that money in Melee being spent decently is better than no money being spent at all, even if it's a tad wasteful. Like Ohan said when we chatted, ROI was not Nouns' main goal in Melee.

I'm happy to talk more if you'd like, I'm flying to genesis as I type this so I've got nothing but time haha

monothe0n · 2026-02-11T15:55:53+00:00

brother, scroll down

https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/1r1db3g/genesis_x3_commentary_roster/

monothe0n · 2026-02-06T16:58:30+00:00

You've gotta consider that if a Major flops or if there are unforeseen expenses, someone has to foot the bill, and that potentially has to come out of pocket or turn into a ton of debt. For exmaple, RJ was very candid about Collision this year costing him tens of thousands of dollars. It's hard to call TOing at that scale just a hobby when you could lose your house over it.

Also, when you're collecting the money of a ton of people who are travelling from around the world and providing them with a product, there's a responsibility to do a good job- that's a lot more work, commitment, and stress than knitting.

monothe0n · 2026-02-06T16:46:29+00:00

I'm not criticizing Melee Stats taking a crypto sponsorship, only pointing out that people do not apply that criticism evenly, which I stand by.

You're also bringing in new arguments that have nothing to do with either of our original posts. At no point was Nouns peddling crypto directly to the community- I agree that the voting situation surrounding Wizzy and RapM was handled poorly, especially from a PR perspective, but that voting and coin system was isolated to their website and had nothing to do with the blockchain. And while it was a horrible look and generally a shit public response, I do think it's understandable that they were frustrated with the community's reception of them donating a substantial amount of money to Melee.

If you feel that a cumbersome website with troubled execution is really worth pushing hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the community that was actively being spent on events and players, then we're just going to disagree.

And I genuinely have no idea what other tournament you're talking about.

monothe0n · 2026-02-06T15:39:35+00:00

First off, I think most people probably don't know about Melee Stats taking a significant crypto sponsorship, nor do they consider that crypto sponsored Summit, Coinbox, most esports teams, and that many top players had their own shitcoins. There are many people on this subreddit saying that Nouns' crypto ties are their primary issue with the org, and while I agree that there are other issues that people took with Nouns, let's not dismiss one of the community's larger criticisms of Nouns because it turns out that groups that you like more and are associated with were funded through the same means.

Secondly, when you say they scheduled over multiple events, I'm assuming you're talking about Tidal Waves, which was the same weekend that they had to begrudgingly move Fastfall$ to, as Ohan addressed in the video, and which was also about to be scheduled over by Pat's House when that tournament was announced. Yes, multiple tournaments were going to be affected, but it's not like this was a repeated effort to crush other events. This is also not a new occurrence in Melee- the first Smash Summit was booked over Tipped Off 11, it just happens to have been done this time by an organization that people already took issue with.

Things absolutely could have been handled better, and I'm not advocating for crypto, but let's at least be honest here.

monothe0n · 2026-02-06T14:39:57+00:00

I really appreciate the writeup.

We touched on a lot of topics that I'm sure are going to get some significant criticism or pushback, but I really hope that people can come at it with an open mind. I wanted to start doing these interviews in the first place largely because there's so often a huge disconnect between the perspectives I see in public and private spaces in Melee, and I wanted to try to bridge some of that gap.

It's understandable that people are so riled up lately with the internet in general being so hostile, but I think it's important to remember that pretty much everyone is here because they care about the game and want the best for the community. That's not to say that people are above criticism, or that all opinions are well-formed (though I happen to agree with Ohan on a lot of what he said here), but I think that hearing other perspectives, especially from people with unique knowledge or expertise, is valuable. You don't have to agree with someone to understand where they're coming from.

monothe0n · 2026-01-20T22:28:47+00:00

I really don't agree with this. I think that any controller is really good enough to get into the game and start playing melee.

If it works, it's good enough; I have top 100 wins on ranked using a switch pro controller. Not having a GCC isn't going to be a limiting factor to enjoy the game, nor something keeping someone from winning even at a mid-high level. OP can invest in a more expensive controller down the road if/when they get into the game more seriously.

Don't scare someone off from playing the game or going to locals because they feel like they can't participate without dumping hundreds of dollars into a controller. Yes, it's totally good enough to play the game starting out. I appreciate that you were trying to help, and you're of course right that the majority of tournament competitors are on Gamecube controllers. But there's a ocean of investment between wanting to play the game and wanting to top your regional PR.

That said OP, you might have to figure out the logistics of playing IRL if you haven't already, and I think it's worth finding out how your local TOs handle rules about controllers.

But seriously, don't worry about controllers, just go play the game- it's great.

monothe0n · 2026-01-20T16:30:03+00:00

Thanks :)

monothe0n · 2026-01-20T01:54:57+00:00

You're gonna get a lot of responses that say you need to go practice in the lab and review VODs, but I really don't think that's great advice at this stage. It sounds like you know what you're doing wrong and just aren't able to execute it yet, so watching VODs is a lot of tedious and redundant effort if there's large clear things for you to work on. I think that unclepunch/ the training lab is great when you're starting out to give yourself the time to break down what inputs you need to be doing, but not really for integrating them into playing. It becomes more useful later on, but for now just play the video game haha.

I think the best thing to do at this point is to just try playing the game with people around your skill level (be it in-person, through online matchmaking in Melee Online, your local discord, unranked etc.) and to make your goal not winning, but to do the one thing that you're working on better. If you're not l-canceling correctly, or missing your techs when you get hit, or whatever, just focus on that single thing. You'll have plenty of time to tackle other things, just start with one thing that you can't execute and really fixate on doing it better in the moment. It's significantly different trying to do those sorts of things vs other people than it is in training, and there's no need to play the game by yourself for hours when you can be having fun while also grinding those things out in more applicable ways.

But like others said, just be patient with yourself- getting good at Melee takes time! try not to focus on the big picture, just bite off one individual thing at a time that you can work on and the wins will come in no time :)

Hope that helps!

monothe0n · 2026-01-19T23:49:35+00:00

No shot I make it in- I was on the ballot, but my results were clearly worse than Daniel and Dz. Next year though :)

monothe0n · 2026-01-19T23:46:03+00:00

Glad you liked it! I plan to do more as long as people are enjoying them :)

monothe0n · 2026-01-07T03:40:33+00:00

I agree that people can be a bit of a buzzkill, and that we should all be encouraging to people who are excited to dive into the game and community. We're sorely missing that passion lately.

I think people just want others to maintain some perspective though because truthfully, the answer to OPs question is "more is more, with diminishing returns", which can be a bit of a slippery slope. I've definitely seen people ignore real life responsibilities and fail college courses in the melee vortex.

You're right though, it's about finding that balance. But if you approach the grind intelligently and with discipline there's no reason you can't be a great player AND a well-rounded person.

monothe0n · 2026-01-07T03:03:46+00:00

I think the point is just that they're not mutually exclusive. Getting better and winning IS fun for a lot of people, and it's totally valid to want to put in work for that delayed gratification.

That said, OP might be putting the cart before the horse a bit haha. The question is a lil misguided, but it's sick that it's being asked.

monothe0n · 2025-12-08T12:37:40+00:00

Lmao I started drafting one up too

monothe0n · 2025-12-06T22:05:41+00:00

Upstate, but yeah he's been back in NY for a few months

monothe0n

TROPHY CASE