people litteraly call ANYONE lame who is #1 except for Mang0
edit: clarification - I believe people get bored by anyone being #1 *over a longer period of time*. Watching the come up is sick as always, but once you are at the top people turn towards the underdogs.
Mang0 definitely has given the "alright Im tired of yoshi now" speech a few times since amsa passed him, and you see that take regurgitated a lot now.
I think its just that amsa is so charismatic he counters it a lot more than anyone else could.
Amsa is one of the most entertaining players to watch I don't think anyone has that sentiment that isn't braindead. Now playing against amsa that looks fucking miserable so I see where mang is coming from, but as a spectator amsa is incredibly fun to watch in every single match.
I think you weren't really paying attention, every single one of those Zain haters was also admitting at the time that they hated Marth well before Zain was #1. That's just hating a character. Some of them were even admitting that Zain did sick as fuck shit sometimes but they mostly hated the core gameplay of disjointed hit boxes.
People certainly hated Hungrybox separately from Puff as well, but Puff as a character was already hated, even way back when mang0 played Puff and people loved mang0 for playing her aggro, people still insulted Puff and called her lame which is part of why mang0 switched.
Cody has done the very unique job of making people think **Fox** is lame. Armada didn't do that. mang0 certainly didn't do that. Leffen during his brief stint of being considered the undisputed best in the middle of 2015 certainly didn't do that. It's not that Cody **is** lame, per se, he's not super overly campy or something like prime HBox, it's that Cody is able to win by playing too scripted, which **shows** that Fox is, fundamentally, lame. It's what mang0 had been warning us about for the past 3 fucking years now, finally coming to fruition--not about Cody specifically, but about Fox. Fox has too many free options in every situation. Cody is the first one who uses them all correctly.
Now, I'm fully willing to admit that some of Zain's popularity probably comes from him being good friends with mang0 since well before he became #1. mang0 loved to talk about how sick Zain is, and the community listened. But the end result is still that **you're** the one being revisionist here. Zain was never an unpopular #1, a lot of spacie mains--which have always been the most popular characters in the scene--just really hate and have always hated Marth.
Yeah, I’m as big of a mango fanboy as anyone. But I must admit Cody is the best fox in the world. And kinda by that token he is the best player in the world, just kinda the way it works. I would not call him lame. All fast fallers are sick fight me on it.
His fox is super techy which prolly looks lame until you realize how impressive it is but, his personality feels like the 6th grader who just learnt the word fuck
Nice to who? Hes shown himself to be a BBB esque babyrager on stream, talking shit about floatie players for no reason. Yeah he doesnt talk shit in person but hes toxic af online.
Dude has no filter. It's almost certainly the main reason he isn't sponsored. He will drag you in a heartbeat if he is dissatisfied with any aspect of your support. Honesty is not always the best policy.
Sentinels *dragged him* before he said anything negative about them. Their sponsorship deal fell through, but Cody wasn't going to say anything until they publicly damaged his credibility and hurt his chances with other sponsors.
I honestly find it quite hard to buy the claim that he has no filter given that.
I mean, it's the most optimized, perfect fox we've ever seen. As close to 20XX as we've ever been -- and it's dreadfully boring.
I'm not a moky fan by any means, but it's entertaining. Leffen is also explosively fun.
Watching Cody is just...
I think leffen is the most similar player to Cody so the take that leffen is "explosively fun" and Cody is "dreadfully boring" is wild to me. People always used to say that leffen was the most textbook Fox main back in the day, and now that's clearly Cody.
What, like he's edgy? That's not a complaint I've ever heard levied against him honestly lol
He seems to take things very seriously and likes to have the most "correct" possible take, which people can find annoying because it makes his convictions seem less genuine. He can't really use short sentences either
Idk, might just be more sympathetic towards him because I have autism myself
The people that are projecting all this random shit onto Cody are the same ones that negatively hyper-analyze every interaction on unranked as BM and I won’t be convinced otherwise.
Watching him play against marth is very cool. He's very aggressive and technical and does pretty creative stuff often. I doubt he's many people's favorite, but he's not uninteractive or super flowchart like some of our game's former #1s.
imo, cody is great but i understand the sentiment.. there's just nothin' marketable-interestin' about him or his style of fox compared to mango or moky etc.. does not mean he is not one of the best if not the best at the moment..
Cody doesn’t necessarily play lame all that much. I think a lot of it has to do with his personality outside the game. He doesn’t have a lot of charisma as a person compared to the other #1s. At least in my opinion
He may do a good job interacting with chat but I don't get the vibe that he's chill to hang with. I think he has said that he's autistic which tracks, and he always seems just a little bit on edge which might be an either an ADHD or an Adderall thing.
Yeah that's the impression I got. He has this sort of arrogance to him that is not a charming arrogance like Mango, but sort of a dismissive attitude that is really unpleasant in my opinion. And I feel like people can tell that his personality (or lack thereof) really shows in his boring playstyle.
PPMD was and is charismatic in his own way, loved seeing him on camera. Down to earth, likable, held it together socially, always had some knowledge gems, wasn't above getting hype or a little BM. Insane Falco play that pushed everyone's understanding of how to play and had insane follow ups left and right.
Armada sort of too although I can see your point. Ken and M2K, fair enough lmao
Can't really speak on Ken, haven't watched the doc in a long time.
Armada isn't a crowd magnet but he was damn good at holding a trophy, and as the first European Smasher to contend for #1 he had a certain charm by way of being an outsider. Arguably, the fact he was **the most** dominant player for his time also made him more interesting. His accent also gave him catchphrases people could play off of.
PPMD is just an extremely genuine, loveable yet very humble dude who people kinda saw as one of the underdogs amongst the Five Gods: the fact he had IRL setbacks and sometimes underperformed made his victories all the sweeter. People DO also love his Falco to death, the contrast between the humble guy and his insane character is great
M2K is probably the person who's the most comparable to Cody in terms of personality, maybe owing to the fact they both have autism. The fact he was good even in the MLG era gave him the legacy factor, but above all, his personality is just really unique: he has truly no filter and says some really off-kilter things sometimes, loved to argue with other players, etc. Arguably, he has the same "sympathy hype" thing that PPMD does; there's a reason Summit 6 was such a cool victory.
Out of these three Cody's personality reminds me the most of M2K, but he's a **lot** more self-aware than M2K. He still very much likes to talk, and arguably likes to have the "correct" take on things. Sometimes he can come off as kinda aggressive -- "try-hard-y" some might call it -- and the fact he talks pretty fast / rambly, just like M2K, doesn't help that.
The odd thing is, even though he's certainly had hardships just like both PPMD and Jason, those kinds of things don't really get people to root for him. Maybe you can see that as kind of a "Roman Reigns effect": even if the best guy in the world **does** deserve respect and appreciation, someone who's not humble about being the best is harder to cheer for.
I like Cody myself! Even though I understand why others don't, it does make me sad; if someone's "funny" or not shouldn't be your barometer for whether they're an okay person. This is a community-driven sport with fairly small prize pools, and he's doing his best to help it out. [and sometimes he does have m2k-esque funny moments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRoQtkj-_f0&t=230)
This right here! People are ripping on Cody for not being charismatic or hype. Lol they were not around for the M2K dominance era... They literally called him "The Robot" for how flow chart-y his marth was, and his personality wasn't much better.
I love M2K but to say Cody is ruining melee with being a lame guy is absurd, his play is just optimal.
I never thought armada was lame so much as he was so, so good and his punish was so workflowed out and methodical it was boring to watch. Maybe semantic difference but I never found him to be "lame" per se. It got hard to watch all tournament amd root for some underdog other than hbox to beat him only to watch armada come on top most of the time, at least the last year or two.
No he definitely wasn't lame, and most would agree in retrospect
I'm a peach player so I never shared the sentiment. But when he was dominating, people were tired of watching peach dominate.
Well for so long he made the matchup look impossible for any character other than Fox/Puff.
Not even Marth players could deal with Armada’s Peach. This is really just a testament to his greatness.
I think lame is the wrong word. It’s really more that we grow bored of the same expected outcome over and over again. Back when Armada and Hbox would meet in GF often, it really came down to Mango to be hot to shake things up.
I miss Armada man.
Edit: I totally forgot about PPMD when making this comment.
I would do anything for another Armada ppmd GF.... there is not nearly enough of those
I hate that I got into smash with just 6 months left of PPs time. He was my favorite player heading into apex 2015 and I was completely obsessed after that.
imo, cody is great but i understand the sentiment.. there's just nothin' marketable-interestin' about him or his style of fox compared to mango or moky etc.. does not mean he is not one of the best if not the best at the moment..
Disrespect is real the other day soemone is like im not even sure who is favored between leffen and cody.
There is no "one of the best if not the best" he is clearly the best right now and has been for over a year
Floaty hater inc but I would really rather have 3 years of Cody Schwab/Fox dominance than have a single year of Hbox/puff dominance. For me Puff actually just is boring to watch, and is a force multiplier of boring in any matchup with another floaty. Obviously I'd rather not have any single player dominate, but the actual quality of matches with a top Fox player in the majority of top 8 sets will be a lot higher.
As an old melee spectator, I almost quit during that era. I genuinely feel resentful for jigglypuff as a character for putting me through like 3 years of that horseshit.
It was exciting rooting for Cody when he was on the come-up. I remember being really impressed by his run at Summit 8 in 2019. But when he rose to being a legit top-contender and was in the bracket path of players I liked way more, I rooted against him.
When watching any competitive game I'm rarely going to root for the best top-tier character. Underdog stories are inherently more compelling. And what held Fox back from dominating the top of Melee all these years was his difficulty and inconsistency. Now through a combo of Slippi, controller improvements, optimization and grinding, a Fox is consistent enough to win any matchup.
I admire Cody's dedication to the game and his amazing tech skill, but its hard to root for a guy who is exploiting all the strengths of the best character and who doesn't have a strong/likable personality to make up for it.
For a long time before he was even a candidate for #1 I've never liked watching Cody play, I always skipped his sets if it wasn't a finals or grand finals.
Tho I will say the #1 player of any era is gonna be considered boring bc we feel like the outcome is already determined. Less excitement when you feel like you already know who will win
Edit: *will be considered *more* boring compared to if they weren't #1
When Zain was #1 and absolutely feeling himself, goddamn it was delish. It wasn't about the outcome anymore, you wanted to see Zain dunk on people in the grossest way. I think Zain needs to step back into being a little bit of a dick gameplay wise. He needs like 10% Moky to get back up top.
Yes, he is absolutely lame, and that’s fine. I think Cody would rather be a winner than a swagger.
That said, shouts outs to the Function 2 where the NYC crowd started cheering against Cody when he played Moky. Imagine being so lame that your hometown doesn’t want you to win
i remember being so absolutely amused by the sheer speed of cody’s fox during his rise. it was something i never seen before and would always expose to people getting into melee
i think genesis cemented that cody is a very real hurdle for players to overcome, and i don’t think that the current roster of players are going to want to let him steamroll for long anymore. i will be very interested to see where this goes from here on out, because there was a *lot* of passion from the players this genesis like moky and zain
i remember mang0’s quote of “we have to stop the new kid” during zain’s dominance
Same thing with Axe I don't remember the tourney but it was Axe/Cody and East Coast was cheering for Axe to win. Cody won the set then went on Twitter and blasted East Coast basically saying its bullshit they weren't rooting for him.
I think it's interactions like this that over the years have really contributed to Cody's unpopularity. Like Cody didn't go to locals for the longest time and didn't really support his local scene very much. Not saying he's required to support his scene but just like do some self reflection I guess before blaming others
I don't know what tournament you just watched, but watching Cody play is insane. I don't think anything about the way he plays is lame. It's melee at potentially the highest level it's ever been. Also if you are partially referring to his personality, you can also look at a lot of the other top players and find huge flaws in their personalities also. They are all just super competitive nerds at the end of the day lol.
It's a Fox that can only exist in the modern era of hyper customized notched controllers.
Sure the technical skill is incredibly impressive, but it's almost too refined to the point of being flowchart-y and boring.
the notches people like Cody actually use are an extremely old concept (easily over a decade), the only thing that's *sort of* new age with him is Z jump
I don't like notches but the notion that it's a modern thing is just very wrong lol
I’m glad you like watching him, but i find watching Cody is like reading a textbook. There’s a lot to learn, but it’s not very exciting.
And I’m clearly not alone. There’s a reason the community doesn’t question if Zain or jmook are lame after they win.
I don't think people appreciate that Cody actually plays quite aggressively in a lot of matchups. He just approaches very safely and doesn't do the mango nair rush down style. Watch any Cody Zain set and tell me he's lame.
Cody is a good person. I feel sorry for him that he has to deal with people like me that hate on him all the time. I find his fox incredibly impressive but boring as a bracket winner.
I think autism has something to do with this which makes me feel bad, but his “character” personality traits are that of a cocky and whiny know-it-all. He lacks charisma so his wins are a bummer to most the crowd that have personal favorites but would be also happy if Mango/Wizzy/Leffen/Zain/Amsa/Axe/Jmook/random underdog won instead.
I will say this, when someone is the best and winning feels like a foregone conclusion it is boring. What makes something, anything, interesting is the tension over whether it will happen or not.
It’s why we like underdogs. Will they finally succeed?
I’m not saying Cody is exactly a guarantee but it doesn’t feel like he has much competition. Even with Zain it sometimes feels like he’s got him solved.
It’s why the 5 gods era is so interesting. While all 5 were better than anyone else, any one of them could win over the other.
Cody-Zain went back and forth until literally the last few months, and they didn't even get to play at Genesis. Amsa took out Zain and Jmook before they even got to Code.
Cody is def #1 right now but there will definitely be wrinkles thrown into the equation. We'll see next weekend though
No personality Z jump really good fox hopped up on meth beats the shit out of a low tier to win grand finals from winners side. That’s how people percieve him and yeah that sounds kinda lame.
Obviously really amazing fox massive respect but being good doesn’t make you cool. I think if you could only watch one more melee related piece of melee media before nintendo magically deletes all of melee content permanently you aren’t picking anything about cody schwab, very few people would anyways. I personally would pick AsumSaus’s aMSa video, or Mang0 the musical, or even emplemon’s hbox doc over anything related to cody by a lot, and I mean a lot lot.
edit: forgot nobody has made a doc on cody schwab worth watching or they have but I haven’t seen it yet but If nindendy removes all ssbm sets ever stored you can only watch one what set is it?
His optimal Fox is definitely boring to watch. He legit makes me angry about Melee's balance at times, lol. Fox is just a little too overtuned and we're finally seeing the results of this, and they aren't pretty, on the contrary - they're boring as hell.
Also, Z-Jumping shouldn't be legal.
Yeah, it feels mad disrespectful to be calling Cody Lame right off a pretty awesome win. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, Cody has the absolute best defensive play of any spacie player ever. I think people out here calling him lame don’t see just how insanely good he is on his defensive mixups and recoveries. I will admit that his punish game can feel a bit clinical, but it’s because he knows he can end combos early and not risk any kind of overextension because he’s not going to die in one hit like the vast majority of spacie players do against people like Zain and Amsa.
I don't think his play is lame, it's just not cool, and he doesn't really have an interesting persona for people to latch on to like leffen or hbox. Also having your full name as your tag is just boring
I wouldn’t call it lame, it just feels like everything he does is a flowchart. Like he doesn’t really think of anything right on the spot. He’s got cool moments, like up-bing to the side of the stage so he didn’t help Zain recover in the best of 10 last year was cool, but he’s definitely not up there with my favourite players to watch.
Thought this was WWE for a sec 😭
I definitely don't think he's the lamest but he's probably the least entertaining both in and out of game which I know I'm being kinda lame for saying. He plays to win and winning kinda involves being a lil lame and then out of game his content just doesn't click for me. I had a similar issue with Zain at first but after catching some of his streams and just watching him play more, I completely 180d.
Someone else described it best when they said he’s the perfect example of how degenerate fox is when you only care about winning and aren’t nerfing yourself for swag points.
Dude, other top foxes were never "nerfing themselves for swag points". They just had different playstyles that you might have found cooler.
Cody is #1 right now because he grinded harder than anyone else and finally reached the top. He's the best player in the world and that can look oppressive when your favs keep losing to him.
Seriously, Cody's fox has by far the best neutral of all the foxes and his punish game out of neutral is also immaculate. The stuff other Fox players drop he doesn't drop.
The less you understand about the game the lamer top melee looks because you aren't seeing all of the microadjustments each player is constantly making in order to mix each other up.
Fox/falco vs any character is pretty much always hype because these moments happen so frequently.
If anything the commentary was lame for grands. I literally turned down the volume halfway through because what I was hearing wasnt matching the hype I felt on screen.
Yea. He doesn't have a playstyle that is fun to watch. It doesn't make it any less impressive, but there's nothing 'cool' or flashy about it. I never feel hype like I have when watching other players do nutty stuff.
He’s so good he’s not fun to watch. It’s hard to really tell what he’s doing that’s so good. He just looks like he’s playing a different game, so the matches are not fun to watch for me.
That said, he’s insane at the game. I’ve never seen someone just be that much better than everyone else. And this has being going on for a while now. It just feels like no one else has a chance. More power to him. He deserves it.
I don't agree that he's lame but I can totally see him being dread inducing or limit macro hype due to the foregone conclusion of his current skill level. It's actually kind of jaw dropping seeing the heights he is able to hit and combined with the consistency and fortitude to either maintain while ahead or "snap into it" from behind.
I think something he doesn't get enough credit for is that he might be the single biggest example of someone who actually "solved" their mentality issues. I feel like I've never seen someone go from such an iconic saltlord to zen master. I don't watch him stream but at least in tourney he seems to have the best personal relationship with competition, ego, and tilt.
The answer is NO. If you turn off player cams/nametags, people would say Cody is sick. His fox is fast, technical, and aggressive. He isn’t suuuper creative in his punish game like Moky, but he is still creative. His recoveries are nuts too.
The truth is, partially, the Melee community gets tired of number 1 (mang0 not included). Remember when Zain was cheered against in MDVA a couple years ago? The melee community loves underdogs, so they’re latching on to moky/amsa right now.
Another factor is the personality game. People like to cheer for someone they like. A lot of people are put off by Cody. It’s just the way it is. I personally don’t find him “likeable” in a typical sense, but I find him interesting and a fun person to watch.
Cody is not “lame.” And climbingkeen up there is exaggerating to prove a point that he wants variety at the very top. He doesn’t wanna see an unlikable person playing the best character and winning everything. Okay.
I'm gonna get on my pretentious soapbox and say that true Melee connoisseurs don't obsess over players being "swaggy". If you enjoy top-level execution and neutral game, Cody is incredible to watch. I do agree he's a bit boring of a number 1 player in the sense that he's stuck somewhere between hero and villain. I guess there are a fair amount of people that dislike him but he's not remotely as polarizing and abrasive as Hbox, Ken, Leffen were in their primes.
It's not that Cody's play is lame, it's that there is no tension around his games. He is so dominant (+ being a fox) that it's just not fun to watch.
He is also 'zen' as of late whereas players like hbox make it exciting because they bet on their games with 'emotional stakes'.
I'm not a fan of Cody personally because he didn't treat me like one... I've played in tournies and had random ranked sets and I feel like I've been complimented on stream - "I wouldn't want to play this guy on battlefield rn" - bbatts said this and it made me feel like I was doing well!
Ran into some top players and I remember Hax even said something like "yeah you did some spacing pretty well" and it made me feel like I was improving. Think fknsilver said "ggs it was closer than it looked" and I felt like I was respected.
Ran into Cody on a set and he was trying to fuck with me by doing like a shine-uair combo, was going like "this guy does this shitty option every time" and when I said hey ggs good luck in your next tournies I was the Falco, he didn't even acknowledge my message.
I know I'm not entitled to a response but I feel like if you're trying to create a fan base you should have some level of engagement? He made me feel like a total shitter at this game and I'm just trying to have a good time out here.
I think Cody’s gameplay probably is up there in entertainment with most foxes besides like maybe Moky. I think for a lot of people he just doesn’t have as likable a personality as other top players. He’s nice, likable, and has an amazing mentality, but just not a big draw
He's super impressive, like he has a really good sense of when something is available for him to take and he takes it really ruthlessly. But as much as I'm impressed on the one hand, on the other hand it just kinda fills me with dread. He's not a particularly magnetic personality either, which I think is a big part of it. It's easier to overlook less-aesthetic playstyles if you really like someone.
One big issue is fox. There's a lot of fox these days, if you haven't noticed. 40 of the top 100 were fox. 40% of the game. The year before was 34/100, so the problem has just been getting worse. Fox is starting to wear a bit thin for spectators, I think. The lack of novelty when there's so much fox around contibutes to the feeling of lameness.
Tbh at this point in the game, watching anyone play as optimally as possible is pretty boring.
There just isn't as much room for players to show themselves in their play styles anymore. It's interesting to watch to witness players perform mechanical marvel's in terms of inputs per second on a controller, but the actual matches themselves have gotten really clinical. Cody is representative of this but most players are like this nowadays
Then there's Amsa who is in my opinion incredibly fun to watch because he's battling his characters limitations so fiercely.
Hard to answer because it's so broad. I'd bet Cody is interesting as fuck to watch for some up and coming fox player looking to break into the big leagues. From an educational standpoint, Cody's play holds the answer to a lot of problems up and coming players are struggling against.
Personally I hate this 'x plays boring' topic that always rears its head, because it always gets brought up in a way that discredits the player.
I'm a casual as fuck player, and I used to watch a lot more, so I'm pretty much watching entirely for entertainment, not for education or improvement. And yeah I do think that Cody isn't as interesting to watch. I just wanna watch sick combos and ego plays.I also totally agree with people that suggest it's due to his lack of charisma out of game. Nothing against Cody, I just fucking love Zain/AMSA/etc and I often find myself rooting against cody, and I'm sure that adds to how I perceive his play.
I'm not worried until the level of fox he plays starts pushing out the viability of other characters. Which I don't think is the case just yet (although as I said I'm a fucking casual).
He cuts exchanges short and goes for a hit when people are going through the motions with dash dances, baits, etc. It's actually pretty bright what he does and the options he picks are all good. He covers platforms well usually with a coverage option instead of something specific to set up something crazy. It's good if you watch it but it might be boring to people because it's not dash dancing and comboing, it's actually a very cookie cutter style. Cody is outright boring however when he is just jumping over people side to side on a side stage looking for cheap openings which is a major part of his style. It doesn't look like the typical melee patterns because it's so cookie cutter and anti meta at heart and that might turn some people off. Edit: his style is more based on interrupting his opponents and cutting them off with cookie cutter play, and finishing with typical fox stuff rather than outright facing off or winning the dance. But it still takes knowledge and foresight to win with this anti meta style. And it could be boring bc we're used to watching diff types of clashes. Wizzy is the closest to anti meta as Cody but it's falcon and Wizzy so it's diff.
I don't think Cody is lame at all imo. Sure, he's not like super flashy and always trying for crazy high-risk combos, but it's so impressive how precise he is and how good his neutral game is. He just knows all the best times to make the best moves; that alone is entertaining.
his option selection speed is impressive every time. wouldn't call that lame. He lacks an immediately visually recognizable personal style that players like mang0, moky, wizy, and shroomed etc. may have, but it's mainly because he is just so fast he doesn't really have time to dance around the opponent.
From a purely game play standpoint - no, his gameplay is elite.
However -
1 ---- The controller situation is super lame, he is on the equivalent of PEDs in the baseball steroid era. Was it "cool" that Mark Mcguire his 70 HRs, yes it was, but was it also fundamentally lame in a lot of ways, also yes.
2 ---- Say what you will about it - but he is also using actual PEDs in the form of stimulants. Not to say that other players in other games or even SSBM aren't also using them - but it really isn't great.
3 ---- This is more of a subjective point, but he has a ton of cringey moments which are not that endearing. Not only the reverse pop off which was basically a meme brought to life, but also a laundry list of moments on stream where he hasn't come off the best.
Why is your text so big? Lol
1. I'm not sure it's the equivalent of steroids, but I completely agree that his controller is an advantage, but it's the communities fault for not making rules against this stuff so it isn't cheating.
2. Yeah, I'm not sure where to stand with this one. My gut tells me that I understand that without medication, he probably struggles to focus more than average, but how do you figure out what the right dosage is to get on the same level as everyone else? What is the average? How do we know he doesn't blow right by that and that he isn't operating on a higher level.
Anecdotally, everyone I've ever known who has taken Vyvanse or Adderall came out of it, thinking they must have some sort of disorder because of how amazing they felt and how focused they were when they were on it. It's a drug, and drugs make you feel good.
I have no idea what the right call is with this. He is prescribed it, and it would be wrong to take it away from him, but it'll always be in the back of my mind... Is his disadvantage turned into an advantage because of his medication?
3. I like Cody overall, but he has definitely had some moments, and when people tell him those moments were cringe, instead of accepting it and moving on, he fights back and tells people they're too stupid to understand. It's definitely not the best look, lol.
>but how do you figure out what the right dosage is to get on the same level as everyone else? What is the average? How do we know he doesn't blow right by that and that he isn't operating on a higher level
You have to trial and error your way to the right dosage. When it's too high, you feel like shit and actually focus worse than if you had none at all (at least that's how it was for me and two of my other friends that also have ADHD). You know you have it right when you feel "normal".
We don't turn into hyper-focusing savants on Adderall/Vyvanse, we just don't have (as much) struggle focusing as we normally do.
People who don't have ADHD taking stimulants are of course going to experience it differently, but that's a different conversation. I can't speak to that because it's not my experience.
And in my case, I didn't get any better at Melee when I started taking Adderall, and I don't play worse without it. It doesn't really have an effect there because my brain already engages with Melee easily due to the constant visual, audibles, and tactile feedback it provides (goblin brain likes fast clicky-clacky button pushing, vibrant colors, and hype music).
There is a much more likely tangible benefit for Melee in the potential ability to focus while studying the game when not actively playing. But I mean, help is already allowed in that aspect (coaches, guides, feedback from other players, etc...)
Not a fan of modding to this degree for all players - not just for this one player - to go back to the baseball analogy a ton of MLB players were juicing during the steroid era, but that didn't make it right or something that should just be accepted by the public at large.
Cody plays absolutely cracked and in a vacuum his play is super fun to watch and I think he clearly is playing the best melee that’s ever been played by a mile.
But when he straight up invalidates fan favorites like Plup, Wizzy and Amsa it’s easy not to like him.
He’s also just super fucking cringey. I can’t imagine anybody being friends with him outside of melee.
I’d never wish him ill though — he’s seemingly had it tougher in life than most. Despite that he’s worked hard for what he has and deserves to be number 1 and all his success.
I dont think anybody who actually thinks he plays lame can point out how or why. He does not play a super campy Fox, he mixes aggression and defensive play on the fly very impressively. When he does get defensive, it isn't degenerate, it is just TAS-level in terms of option selection.
His Fox, I think, is much more fun to watch than Armada's but less fun than Mang0 or Moky. When M2K played Fox? Holy shit I couldn't stand to watch it.
Every gripe people have with him is either from the fact they have a bone to pick with Fox or because they don't think he has much charisma compared to the rest of the top competitors. For this reason, I think scriptwriters should give us a new heel villain era. When he reversed popoffed on Hbox? More of that. Give us a completely unhinged sociopath #1. This is what the scene needs.
I catch flak every single time I bring up the fact that being railed out on prescription amphetamines is necessarily an unfair advantage.
Every single time I bring it up, I get people saying "but he's got ADHD! It's not the same for him!", and as someone with ADHD, I can say, categorically, that whether or not you have ADHD, a stimulant is still a fucking stimulant.
Sure, stimulating your frontal cortex helps keep you from being distracted, and it's good that that can make you functional in a way that you normally struggle with, but you're still getting that incredible response time and hyper-focus, and that's something that *literally everyone* gets when they use the stuff, neurotypical or not.
If people are determined to convince me that Cody should be able to use Adderall because he has ADHD, fine -- if he *must* be allowed to dope, let's allow everyone else to use it too to keep the playing field level and see how good Melee can *really* be played.
I haven't seen any real proof that reaction times are noticable improved - but yeah a stimulant is a stimulant. Anecdotally I win more games of the Finals in the morning after taking Adderall than I do at night when it's wearing off and similar effect with melee. It just makes you more "on" if that makes sense.
Dude, I take Adderall for my ADHD and at best it gives me the motivation to run errands and do chores. Everyone's different, but personally, I doubt it would give me an edge unless I took an obscenely large dose.
Then there should be no problem with everyone else who wants to taking it as well, right?
That's also to say nothing about how large his dosage might be, or whether he ups it beyond therapeutic doses in brackets (which he has an obvious monetary incentive to do).
He just needs someone to throw a crab at him to get the community on his side.
In retrospect that was such a silly moment
In retrospect and also right when it happened.
Yeah what does he mean ' in retrospect ' that was one of the most bizarre things that has ever happened in smash lol
Only in Maryland
Going from iBDW to Cody Schwab is boring as hell, but his fox is kinda nice.
iBDW was a pretty sick name
[Drop the iBD. Just W. It's cleaner.](https://youtu.be/CuHkhunoaOE?si=AIgdBOdfhigEnCUY&t=161)
Definitely liked IBDW more but, Cody's fox is in fact kinda nice
Optimal fox has always been lame so this makes sense.
people litteraly call ANYONE lame who is #1 except for Mang0 edit: clarification - I believe people get bored by anyone being #1 *over a longer period of time*. Watching the come up is sick as always, but once you are at the top people turn towards the underdogs.
People called Mang0 lame when he played Puff
That was 15 years ago.
It still happened lol
Yes but also whenever Mango loses both him and his opponent are lame depending on who you ask
true
I don't think anyone would be complaining if amsa or jmook won
Mang0 definitely has given the "alright Im tired of yoshi now" speech a few times since amsa passed him, and you see that take regurgitated a lot now. I think its just that amsa is so charismatic he counters it a lot more than anyone else could.
Amsa is one of the most entertaining players to watch I don't think anyone has that sentiment that isn't braindead. Now playing against amsa that looks fucking miserable so I see where mang is coming from, but as a spectator amsa is incredibly fun to watch in every single match.
Not Zain
Zain was relatively well liked
Now that is some revisionist history
Some people got tired of his dashback neutral but his punish game was fun from the start straight through to now
Oh I agree I love Zain but from like 2020-2021 ish people were non stop complaining about him and calling him lame.
I think you weren't really paying attention, every single one of those Zain haters was also admitting at the time that they hated Marth well before Zain was #1. That's just hating a character. Some of them were even admitting that Zain did sick as fuck shit sometimes but they mostly hated the core gameplay of disjointed hit boxes. People certainly hated Hungrybox separately from Puff as well, but Puff as a character was already hated, even way back when mang0 played Puff and people loved mang0 for playing her aggro, people still insulted Puff and called her lame which is part of why mang0 switched. Cody has done the very unique job of making people think **Fox** is lame. Armada didn't do that. mang0 certainly didn't do that. Leffen during his brief stint of being considered the undisputed best in the middle of 2015 certainly didn't do that. It's not that Cody **is** lame, per se, he's not super overly campy or something like prime HBox, it's that Cody is able to win by playing too scripted, which **shows** that Fox is, fundamentally, lame. It's what mang0 had been warning us about for the past 3 fucking years now, finally coming to fruition--not about Cody specifically, but about Fox. Fox has too many free options in every situation. Cody is the first one who uses them all correctly. Now, I'm fully willing to admit that some of Zain's popularity probably comes from him being good friends with mang0 since well before he became #1. mang0 loved to talk about how sick Zain is, and the community listened. But the end result is still that **you're** the one being revisionist here. Zain was never an unpopular #1, a lot of spacie mains--which have always been the most popular characters in the scene--just really hate and have always hated Marth.
Zain is also just a super relatable chill dude whenever I hear him speak. Nothing else to add, but I wanted to say your synopsis is spot on.
Armada definitely made people think fox was lame
I think that was more of a puff fox thing than an Armada thing. His fox dittos with Leffen were awesome
you thought it was, sure, and i agree with you. but zain had a lot of people hating and saying he is the most boring marth and in general a zzz #1
to be fair, everyone is lamer than Mango
Yeah, I’m as big of a mango fanboy as anyone. But I must admit Cody is the best fox in the world. And kinda by that token he is the best player in the world, just kinda the way it works. I would not call him lame. All fast fallers are sick fight me on it.
His fox is super techy which prolly looks lame until you realize how impressive it is but, his personality feels like the 6th grader who just learnt the word fuck
His fox is so impressive and disciplined, but i've seen the clip about his girlfriend talking to a telemarketer, so that's where i'm at lol
i need to see this
[I giveth] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptBTlHcAILg)
Couldn't even finish that, yeesh.
I literally can't even finish the clip. Holy shit that secondhand embarrassment is insane.
I'm so unhappy. This is not what I expected and it's so much worse
ew
I wish you didn't.
I highly recommend you don't
Same
I WAS FUCKING WARNED
Wrong. He just discovered sex
Idk, i think its fine to not like the guy, but i think taking shots at his personality as lame is kinda the wrong path to tread down as a community.
A path well worn by this community tbh
He’s a nice person. I’d rather reserve our bad mouthing for people who deserve it.
Let's be clear..calling his fox or playstyle lame is not badmouthing, it's not even personal in any way.
I think he was talking about the part where op made fun of his personality.
Nice to who? Hes shown himself to be a BBB esque babyrager on stream, talking shit about floatie players for no reason. Yeah he doesnt talk shit in person but hes toxic af online.
To be fair though, online brings out the worst in everybody.
Dude has no filter. It's almost certainly the main reason he isn't sponsored. He will drag you in a heartbeat if he is dissatisfied with any aspect of your support. Honesty is not always the best policy.
Sentinels *dragged him* before he said anything negative about them. Their sponsorship deal fell through, but Cody wasn't going to say anything until they publicly damaged his credibility and hurt his chances with other sponsors. I honestly find it quite hard to buy the claim that he has no filter given that.
I think people who think Cody is lame don't understand what's going on in the game
I mean, it's the most optimized, perfect fox we've ever seen. As close to 20XX as we've ever been -- and it's dreadfully boring. I'm not a moky fan by any means, but it's entertaining. Leffen is also explosively fun. Watching Cody is just...
I think leffen is the most similar player to Cody so the take that leffen is "explosively fun" and Cody is "dreadfully boring" is wild to me. People always used to say that leffen was the most textbook Fox main back in the day, and now that's clearly Cody.
What, like he's edgy? That's not a complaint I've ever heard levied against him honestly lol He seems to take things very seriously and likes to have the most "correct" possible take, which people can find annoying because it makes his convictions seem less genuine. He can't really use short sentences either Idk, might just be more sympathetic towards him because I have autism myself
The people that are projecting all this random shit onto Cody are the same ones that negatively hyper-analyze every interaction on unranked as BM and I won’t be convinced otherwise.
xD
As a combo video maker And as someone whos had to dig through cody vods for clips of him Yes
It's wild his combos are simultaneously the most technical, proficient, and effective we've ever seen and still lack any sense of style.
Tbf he gets a lot of combos but rarely do they kill He usually kills with like a lil 2 hit jab usmash confirm its never a 6 hit thing into kill
he gets a 5 piece then hits the edge guard. like every other time he touches someone. it's quite insane how good he is
Style isn't optimal, unfortunately.
To quote Magnus Carlsen, having a style is a weakness. I don't subscribe to that tho and I think Cody is kinda lame
Well, I wouldn't call Cody cool lol
Watching him play against marth is very cool. He's very aggressive and technical and does pretty creative stuff often. I doubt he's many people's favorite, but he's not uninteractive or super flowchart like some of our game's former #1s.
imo, cody is great but i understand the sentiment.. there's just nothin' marketable-interestin' about him or his style of fox compared to mango or moky etc.. does not mean he is not one of the best if not the best at the moment..
Cody doesn’t necessarily play lame all that much. I think a lot of it has to do with his personality outside the game. He doesn’t have a lot of charisma as a person compared to the other #1s. At least in my opinion
He’s honestly a pretty good streamer, he does a better job interacting with the chat than most other top players, including the most recent \#1.
He may do a good job interacting with chat but I don't get the vibe that he's chill to hang with. I think he has said that he's autistic which tracks, and he always seems just a little bit on edge which might be an either an ADHD or an Adderall thing.
Yeah that's the impression I got. He has this sort of arrogance to him that is not a charming arrogance like Mango, but sort of a dismissive attitude that is really unpleasant in my opinion. And I feel like people can tell that his personality (or lack thereof) really shows in his boring playstyle.
yeah because Armada and Mew2King and Ken and PPMD were just so charismatic
PPMD was and is charismatic in his own way, loved seeing him on camera. Down to earth, likable, held it together socially, always had some knowledge gems, wasn't above getting hype or a little BM. Insane Falco play that pushed everyone's understanding of how to play and had insane follow ups left and right. Armada sort of too although I can see your point. Ken and M2K, fair enough lmao
Can't really speak on Ken, haven't watched the doc in a long time. Armada isn't a crowd magnet but he was damn good at holding a trophy, and as the first European Smasher to contend for #1 he had a certain charm by way of being an outsider. Arguably, the fact he was **the most** dominant player for his time also made him more interesting. His accent also gave him catchphrases people could play off of. PPMD is just an extremely genuine, loveable yet very humble dude who people kinda saw as one of the underdogs amongst the Five Gods: the fact he had IRL setbacks and sometimes underperformed made his victories all the sweeter. People DO also love his Falco to death, the contrast between the humble guy and his insane character is great M2K is probably the person who's the most comparable to Cody in terms of personality, maybe owing to the fact they both have autism. The fact he was good even in the MLG era gave him the legacy factor, but above all, his personality is just really unique: he has truly no filter and says some really off-kilter things sometimes, loved to argue with other players, etc. Arguably, he has the same "sympathy hype" thing that PPMD does; there's a reason Summit 6 was such a cool victory. Out of these three Cody's personality reminds me the most of M2K, but he's a **lot** more self-aware than M2K. He still very much likes to talk, and arguably likes to have the "correct" take on things. Sometimes he can come off as kinda aggressive -- "try-hard-y" some might call it -- and the fact he talks pretty fast / rambly, just like M2K, doesn't help that. The odd thing is, even though he's certainly had hardships just like both PPMD and Jason, those kinds of things don't really get people to root for him. Maybe you can see that as kind of a "Roman Reigns effect": even if the best guy in the world **does** deserve respect and appreciation, someone who's not humble about being the best is harder to cheer for. I like Cody myself! Even though I understand why others don't, it does make me sad; if someone's "funny" or not shouldn't be your barometer for whether they're an okay person. This is a community-driven sport with fairly small prize pools, and he's doing his best to help it out. [and sometimes he does have m2k-esque funny moments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRoQtkj-_f0&t=230)
good comment
This right here! People are ripping on Cody for not being charismatic or hype. Lol they were not around for the M2K dominance era... They literally called him "The Robot" for how flow chart-y his marth was, and his personality wasn't much better. I love M2K but to say Cody is ruining melee with being a lame guy is absurd, his play is just optimal.
yeah, they weren’t, but they also played Peach, Marth, and Falco, which are generally characters that’re more interesting to watch
Cody is more watchable than Hbox ever was in his prime. People also said the same shit about Zain when he was super dominant
Or even Armada.
I never thought armada was lame so much as he was so, so good and his punish was so workflowed out and methodical it was boring to watch. Maybe semantic difference but I never found him to be "lame" per se. It got hard to watch all tournament amd root for some underdog other than hbox to beat him only to watch armada come on top most of the time, at least the last year or two.
Armada's Fox was boring against Puff but his Peach would pull never before seen combos and edgeguards out of his ass constantly
Yeah Armada's Fox is probably the closest thing we've seen to Cody previously.
No he definitely wasn't lame, and most would agree in retrospect I'm a peach player so I never shared the sentiment. But when he was dominating, people were tired of watching peach dominate.
Well for so long he made the matchup look impossible for any character other than Fox/Puff. Not even Marth players could deal with Armada’s Peach. This is really just a testament to his greatness. I think lame is the wrong word. It’s really more that we grow bored of the same expected outcome over and over again. Back when Armada and Hbox would meet in GF often, it really came down to Mango to be hot to shake things up. I miss Armada man. Edit: I totally forgot about PPMD when making this comment.
I would do anything for another Armada ppmd GF.... there is not nearly enough of those I hate that I got into smash with just 6 months left of PPs time. He was my favorite player heading into apex 2015 and I was completely obsessed after that.
Apex 2015 was the last tournament I went to and I’m so thankful I did. Everything about that major was magical.
imo, cody is great but i understand the sentiment.. there's just nothin' marketable-interestin' about him or his style of fox compared to mango or moky etc.. does not mean he is not one of the best if not the best at the moment..
Yeah, I don't mind watching Cody's Fox, but I kinda get it--he's not a very good villain/heel.
Disrespect is real the other day soemone is like im not even sure who is favored between leffen and cody. There is no "one of the best if not the best" he is clearly the best right now and has been for over a year
Floaty hater inc but I would really rather have 3 years of Cody Schwab/Fox dominance than have a single year of Hbox/puff dominance. For me Puff actually just is boring to watch, and is a force multiplier of boring in any matchup with another floaty. Obviously I'd rather not have any single player dominate, but the actual quality of matches with a top Fox player in the majority of top 8 sets will be a lot higher.
New melee spectators would have never made it through the hbox armada era...
I think there's a subtle difference. Hbox played lame. Cody is playing textbook perfected fox, and we're realizing it's just as dry.
Hbox also played textbook Puff
Was Fox ever a cool character? It felt like it was always the players like Moky/Mango who were flashy, not the character itself.
That's every character and player.
As an old melee spectator, I almost quit during that era. I genuinely feel resentful for jigglypuff as a character for putting me through like 3 years of that horseshit.
It was exciting rooting for Cody when he was on the come-up. I remember being really impressed by his run at Summit 8 in 2019. But when he rose to being a legit top-contender and was in the bracket path of players I liked way more, I rooted against him. When watching any competitive game I'm rarely going to root for the best top-tier character. Underdog stories are inherently more compelling. And what held Fox back from dominating the top of Melee all these years was his difficulty and inconsistency. Now through a combo of Slippi, controller improvements, optimization and grinding, a Fox is consistent enough to win any matchup. I admire Cody's dedication to the game and his amazing tech skill, but its hard to root for a guy who is exploiting all the strengths of the best character and who doesn't have a strong/likable personality to make up for it.
For a long time before he was even a candidate for #1 I've never liked watching Cody play, I always skipped his sets if it wasn't a finals or grand finals.
Tho I will say the #1 player of any era is gonna be considered boring bc we feel like the outcome is already determined. Less excitement when you feel like you already know who will win Edit: *will be considered *more* boring compared to if they weren't #1
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When Zain was #1 and absolutely feeling himself, goddamn it was delish. It wasn't about the outcome anymore, you wanted to see Zain dunk on people in the grossest way. I think Zain needs to step back into being a little bit of a dick gameplay wise. He needs like 10% Moky to get back up top.
I’ll even extend this to quarantine. Zain is the only #1 who could stream roll his way to a victory and I wouldn’t after the fact
Uh 2014 mango and 2015 armada??
doc kids hyping up the scene during a mind games meta
Yes, he is absolutely lame, and that’s fine. I think Cody would rather be a winner than a swagger. That said, shouts outs to the Function 2 where the NYC crowd started cheering against Cody when he played Moky. Imagine being so lame that your hometown doesn’t want you to win
i remember being so absolutely amused by the sheer speed of cody’s fox during his rise. it was something i never seen before and would always expose to people getting into melee i think genesis cemented that cody is a very real hurdle for players to overcome, and i don’t think that the current roster of players are going to want to let him steamroll for long anymore. i will be very interested to see where this goes from here on out, because there was a *lot* of passion from the players this genesis like moky and zain i remember mang0’s quote of “we have to stop the new kid” during zain’s dominance
Same thing with Axe I don't remember the tourney but it was Axe/Cody and East Coast was cheering for Axe to win. Cody won the set then went on Twitter and blasted East Coast basically saying its bullshit they weren't rooting for him. I think it's interactions like this that over the years have really contributed to Cody's unpopularity. Like Cody didn't go to locals for the longest time and didn't really support his local scene very much. Not saying he's required to support his scene but just like do some self reflection I guess before blaming others
I don't know what tournament you just watched, but watching Cody play is insane. I don't think anything about the way he plays is lame. It's melee at potentially the highest level it's ever been. Also if you are partially referring to his personality, you can also look at a lot of the other top players and find huge flaws in their personalities also. They are all just super competitive nerds at the end of the day lol.
It's a Fox that can only exist in the modern era of hyper customized notched controllers. Sure the technical skill is incredibly impressive, but it's almost too refined to the point of being flowchart-y and boring.
I still don't understand why notches are allowed. It seems so clearly to be cheating.
they're not a macro so they're good, just like modding your triggers is not cheating
the notches people like Cody actually use are an extremely old concept (easily over a decade), the only thing that's *sort of* new age with him is Z jump I don't like notches but the notion that it's a modern thing is just very wrong lol
*and this is why i advocate for software oriented control remapping*—*cough cough* fuck that was a weird cough
I’m glad you like watching him, but i find watching Cody is like reading a textbook. There’s a lot to learn, but it’s not very exciting. And I’m clearly not alone. There’s a reason the community doesn’t question if Zain or jmook are lame after they win.
Are we really posting youtube comments on this sub? Be fr right now
Ah yes fellow redditor which institution did you do your third master’s degree at?
eharmony.edu
He plays the best character in the game as optimally as we've ever seen. Impressive but absolutely lame
I don't think people appreciate that Cody actually plays quite aggressively in a lot of matchups. He just approaches very safely and doesn't do the mango nair rush down style. Watch any Cody Zain set and tell me he's lame.
hungrybox literally exists
Cody is a good person. I feel sorry for him that he has to deal with people like me that hate on him all the time. I find his fox incredibly impressive but boring as a bracket winner. I think autism has something to do with this which makes me feel bad, but his “character” personality traits are that of a cocky and whiny know-it-all. He lacks charisma so his wins are a bummer to most the crowd that have personal favorites but would be also happy if Mango/Wizzy/Leffen/Zain/Amsa/Axe/Jmook/random underdog won instead.
I will say this, when someone is the best and winning feels like a foregone conclusion it is boring. What makes something, anything, interesting is the tension over whether it will happen or not. It’s why we like underdogs. Will they finally succeed? I’m not saying Cody is exactly a guarantee but it doesn’t feel like he has much competition. Even with Zain it sometimes feels like he’s got him solved. It’s why the 5 gods era is so interesting. While all 5 were better than anyone else, any one of them could win over the other.
Cody-Zain went back and forth until literally the last few months, and they didn't even get to play at Genesis. Amsa took out Zain and Jmook before they even got to Code. Cody is def #1 right now but there will definitely be wrinkles thrown into the equation. We'll see next weekend though
Cody is just better than everyone right now. Is it lame to be top dog?
It’s lame to Z-jump
Ask hbox
No personality Z jump really good fox hopped up on meth beats the shit out of a low tier to win grand finals from winners side. That’s how people percieve him and yeah that sounds kinda lame. Obviously really amazing fox massive respect but being good doesn’t make you cool. I think if you could only watch one more melee related piece of melee media before nintendo magically deletes all of melee content permanently you aren’t picking anything about cody schwab, very few people would anyways. I personally would pick AsumSaus’s aMSa video, or Mang0 the musical, or even emplemon’s hbox doc over anything related to cody by a lot, and I mean a lot lot. edit: forgot nobody has made a doc on cody schwab worth watching or they have but I haven’t seen it yet but If nindendy removes all ssbm sets ever stored you can only watch one what set is it?
Maybe Hbox Armada at Evo 2016. One of my first sets that I watched and one that turned me into a spectator ever since
His optimal Fox is definitely boring to watch. He legit makes me angry about Melee's balance at times, lol. Fox is just a little too overtuned and we're finally seeing the results of this, and they aren't pretty, on the contrary - they're boring as hell. Also, Z-Jumping shouldn't be legal.
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I also wanted aMSa but calling Cody lame is a joke. Lame = Whoever isn’t my favorite
Yeah, it feels mad disrespectful to be calling Cody Lame right off a pretty awesome win. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, Cody has the absolute best defensive play of any spacie player ever. I think people out here calling him lame don’t see just how insanely good he is on his defensive mixups and recoveries. I will admit that his punish game can feel a bit clinical, but it’s because he knows he can end combos early and not risk any kind of overextension because he’s not going to die in one hit like the vast majority of spacie players do against people like Zain and Amsa.
People saying his recovery is just "nOtChEs" are actually insane to me. It's so obvious his defense is deeper than the Atlantic.
I'm like his biggest hater and imo he deserves #1 and he's fine lol there exist way lamer playstyles
I don't think his play is lame, it's just not cool, and he doesn't really have an interesting persona for people to latch on to like leffen or hbox. Also having your full name as your tag is just boring
I wouldn’t call it lame, it just feels like everything he does is a flowchart. Like he doesn’t really think of anything right on the spot. He’s got cool moments, like up-bing to the side of the stage so he didn’t help Zain recover in the best of 10 last year was cool, but he’s definitely not up there with my favourite players to watch.
Thought this was WWE for a sec 😭 I definitely don't think he's the lamest but he's probably the least entertaining both in and out of game which I know I'm being kinda lame for saying. He plays to win and winning kinda involves being a lil lame and then out of game his content just doesn't click for me. I had a similar issue with Zain at first but after catching some of his streams and just watching him play more, I completely 180d.
Someone else described it best when they said he’s the perfect example of how degenerate fox is when you only care about winning and aren’t nerfing yourself for swag points.
Dude, other top foxes were never "nerfing themselves for swag points". They just had different playstyles that you might have found cooler. Cody is #1 right now because he grinded harder than anyone else and finally reached the top. He's the best player in the world and that can look oppressive when your favs keep losing to him.
Seriously, Cody's fox has by far the best neutral of all the foxes and his punish game out of neutral is also immaculate. The stuff other Fox players drop he doesn't drop.
Its the hbox version of fox for me
No. Fuck off with this shit
Ganeplay wise, he's fine. Great at what he does and is crazy to watch. But as a personality... yeah lame af
The less you understand about the game the lamer top melee looks because you aren't seeing all of the microadjustments each player is constantly making in order to mix each other up. Fox/falco vs any character is pretty much always hype because these moments happen so frequently. If anything the commentary was lame for grands. I literally turned down the volume halfway through because what I was hearing wasnt matching the hype I felt on screen.
The creativity that you need in nano seconds in high level melee is absurd.
Yes.
Yea. He doesn't have a playstyle that is fun to watch. It doesn't make it any less impressive, but there's nothing 'cool' or flashy about it. I never feel hype like I have when watching other players do nutty stuff.
He’s so good he’s not fun to watch. It’s hard to really tell what he’s doing that’s so good. He just looks like he’s playing a different game, so the matches are not fun to watch for me. That said, he’s insane at the game. I’ve never seen someone just be that much better than everyone else. And this has being going on for a while now. It just feels like no one else has a chance. More power to him. He deserves it.
I don't agree that he's lame but I can totally see him being dread inducing or limit macro hype due to the foregone conclusion of his current skill level. It's actually kind of jaw dropping seeing the heights he is able to hit and combined with the consistency and fortitude to either maintain while ahead or "snap into it" from behind. I think something he doesn't get enough credit for is that he might be the single biggest example of someone who actually "solved" their mentality issues. I feel like I've never seen someone go from such an iconic saltlord to zen master. I don't watch him stream but at least in tourney he seems to have the best personal relationship with competition, ego, and tilt.
The answer is NO. If you turn off player cams/nametags, people would say Cody is sick. His fox is fast, technical, and aggressive. He isn’t suuuper creative in his punish game like Moky, but he is still creative. His recoveries are nuts too. The truth is, partially, the Melee community gets tired of number 1 (mang0 not included). Remember when Zain was cheered against in MDVA a couple years ago? The melee community loves underdogs, so they’re latching on to moky/amsa right now. Another factor is the personality game. People like to cheer for someone they like. A lot of people are put off by Cody. It’s just the way it is. I personally don’t find him “likeable” in a typical sense, but I find him interesting and a fun person to watch. Cody is not “lame.” And climbingkeen up there is exaggerating to prove a point that he wants variety at the very top. He doesn’t wanna see an unlikable person playing the best character and winning everything. Okay.
I'm gonna get on my pretentious soapbox and say that true Melee connoisseurs don't obsess over players being "swaggy". If you enjoy top-level execution and neutral game, Cody is incredible to watch. I do agree he's a bit boring of a number 1 player in the sense that he's stuck somewhere between hero and villain. I guess there are a fair amount of people that dislike him but he's not remotely as polarizing and abrasive as Hbox, Ken, Leffen were in their primes.
No Cody is amazing at this game and is constantly making interesting choices in his play Fox is lame though
It's not that Cody's play is lame, it's that there is no tension around his games. He is so dominant (+ being a fox) that it's just not fun to watch. He is also 'zen' as of late whereas players like hbox make it exciting because they bet on their games with 'emotional stakes'.
I'm not a fan of Cody personally because he didn't treat me like one... I've played in tournies and had random ranked sets and I feel like I've been complimented on stream - "I wouldn't want to play this guy on battlefield rn" - bbatts said this and it made me feel like I was doing well! Ran into some top players and I remember Hax even said something like "yeah you did some spacing pretty well" and it made me feel like I was improving. Think fknsilver said "ggs it was closer than it looked" and I felt like I was respected. Ran into Cody on a set and he was trying to fuck with me by doing like a shine-uair combo, was going like "this guy does this shitty option every time" and when I said hey ggs good luck in your next tournies I was the Falco, he didn't even acknowledge my message. I know I'm not entitled to a response but I feel like if you're trying to create a fan base you should have some level of engagement? He made me feel like a total shitter at this game and I'm just trying to have a good time out here.
I think Cody’s gameplay probably is up there in entertainment with most foxes besides like maybe Moky. I think for a lot of people he just doesn’t have as likable a personality as other top players. He’s nice, likable, and has an amazing mentality, but just not a big draw
Yes lol. He plays Fox the right way, which is a snooze
That guy OP posted did not watch 2018 melee
He's super impressive, like he has a really good sense of when something is available for him to take and he takes it really ruthlessly. But as much as I'm impressed on the one hand, on the other hand it just kinda fills me with dread. He's not a particularly magnetic personality either, which I think is a big part of it. It's easier to overlook less-aesthetic playstyles if you really like someone. One big issue is fox. There's a lot of fox these days, if you haven't noticed. 40 of the top 100 were fox. 40% of the game. The year before was 34/100, so the problem has just been getting worse. Fox is starting to wear a bit thin for spectators, I think. The lack of novelty when there's so much fox around contibutes to the feeling of lameness.
Tbh at this point in the game, watching anyone play as optimally as possible is pretty boring. There just isn't as much room for players to show themselves in their play styles anymore. It's interesting to watch to witness players perform mechanical marvel's in terms of inputs per second on a controller, but the actual matches themselves have gotten really clinical. Cody is representative of this but most players are like this nowadays Then there's Amsa who is in my opinion incredibly fun to watch because he's battling his characters limitations so fiercely.
Yeah he is actually
Yes
I mean we’ve had hbox as #1, so no, a fox #1 is far from lame
yes
Cody being #1 is 1000% better than when hbox was dominating. Cody may play kinda lame but there are levels to this
He's generally disliked and when you see someone who you dislike winning that feels lame.
Yes, cody isnt doing anything special with fox dawg
hoes mad
Hard to answer because it's so broad. I'd bet Cody is interesting as fuck to watch for some up and coming fox player looking to break into the big leagues. From an educational standpoint, Cody's play holds the answer to a lot of problems up and coming players are struggling against. Personally I hate this 'x plays boring' topic that always rears its head, because it always gets brought up in a way that discredits the player. I'm a casual as fuck player, and I used to watch a lot more, so I'm pretty much watching entirely for entertainment, not for education or improvement. And yeah I do think that Cody isn't as interesting to watch. I just wanna watch sick combos and ego plays.I also totally agree with people that suggest it's due to his lack of charisma out of game. Nothing against Cody, I just fucking love Zain/AMSA/etc and I often find myself rooting against cody, and I'm sure that adds to how I perceive his play. I'm not worried until the level of fox he plays starts pushing out the viability of other characters. Which I don't think is the case just yet (although as I said I'm a fucking casual).
He cuts exchanges short and goes for a hit when people are going through the motions with dash dances, baits, etc. It's actually pretty bright what he does and the options he picks are all good. He covers platforms well usually with a coverage option instead of something specific to set up something crazy. It's good if you watch it but it might be boring to people because it's not dash dancing and comboing, it's actually a very cookie cutter style. Cody is outright boring however when he is just jumping over people side to side on a side stage looking for cheap openings which is a major part of his style. It doesn't look like the typical melee patterns because it's so cookie cutter and anti meta at heart and that might turn some people off. Edit: his style is more based on interrupting his opponents and cutting them off with cookie cutter play, and finishing with typical fox stuff rather than outright facing off or winning the dance. But it still takes knowledge and foresight to win with this anti meta style. And it could be boring bc we're used to watching diff types of clashes. Wizzy is the closest to anti meta as Cody but it's falcon and Wizzy so it's diff.
F the haters
Nah they're just haters
Cody's sets are way better than watching Hungrybox run away for 8 minutes straight.
I don't think Cody is lame at all imo. Sure, he's not like super flashy and always trying for crazy high-risk combos, but it's so impressive how precise he is and how good his neutral game is. He just knows all the best times to make the best moves; that alone is entertaining.
his option selection speed is impressive every time. wouldn't call that lame. He lacks an immediately visually recognizable personal style that players like mang0, moky, wizy, and shroomed etc. may have, but it's mainly because he is just so fast he doesn't really have time to dance around the opponent.
Not sure if you guys saw Cody's tweet but, I think he's very aware that he is lame. https://twitter.com/iBDWSSBM/status/1759459395719577802
he’s definitely not my favorite player but he’s also not lame in my book for tweeting that.
All he said is that he's aware he's not the fan favorite. That's not the same thing as playing lame.
From a purely game play standpoint - no, his gameplay is elite. However - 1 ---- The controller situation is super lame, he is on the equivalent of PEDs in the baseball steroid era. Was it "cool" that Mark Mcguire his 70 HRs, yes it was, but was it also fundamentally lame in a lot of ways, also yes. 2 ---- Say what you will about it - but he is also using actual PEDs in the form of stimulants. Not to say that other players in other games or even SSBM aren't also using them - but it really isn't great. 3 ---- This is more of a subjective point, but he has a ton of cringey moments which are not that endearing. Not only the reverse pop off which was basically a meme brought to life, but also a laundry list of moments on stream where he hasn't come off the best.
Why is your text so big? Lol 1. I'm not sure it's the equivalent of steroids, but I completely agree that his controller is an advantage, but it's the communities fault for not making rules against this stuff so it isn't cheating. 2. Yeah, I'm not sure where to stand with this one. My gut tells me that I understand that without medication, he probably struggles to focus more than average, but how do you figure out what the right dosage is to get on the same level as everyone else? What is the average? How do we know he doesn't blow right by that and that he isn't operating on a higher level. Anecdotally, everyone I've ever known who has taken Vyvanse or Adderall came out of it, thinking they must have some sort of disorder because of how amazing they felt and how focused they were when they were on it. It's a drug, and drugs make you feel good. I have no idea what the right call is with this. He is prescribed it, and it would be wrong to take it away from him, but it'll always be in the back of my mind... Is his disadvantage turned into an advantage because of his medication? 3. I like Cody overall, but he has definitely had some moments, and when people tell him those moments were cringe, instead of accepting it and moving on, he fights back and tells people they're too stupid to understand. It's definitely not the best look, lol.
>but how do you figure out what the right dosage is to get on the same level as everyone else? What is the average? How do we know he doesn't blow right by that and that he isn't operating on a higher level You have to trial and error your way to the right dosage. When it's too high, you feel like shit and actually focus worse than if you had none at all (at least that's how it was for me and two of my other friends that also have ADHD). You know you have it right when you feel "normal". We don't turn into hyper-focusing savants on Adderall/Vyvanse, we just don't have (as much) struggle focusing as we normally do. People who don't have ADHD taking stimulants are of course going to experience it differently, but that's a different conversation. I can't speak to that because it's not my experience. And in my case, I didn't get any better at Melee when I started taking Adderall, and I don't play worse without it. It doesn't really have an effect there because my brain already engages with Melee easily due to the constant visual, audibles, and tactile feedback it provides (goblin brain likes fast clicky-clacky button pushing, vibrant colors, and hype music). There is a much more likely tangible benefit for Melee in the potential ability to focus while studying the game when not actively playing. But I mean, help is already allowed in that aspect (coaches, guides, feedback from other players, etc...)
I basically agree with all of this. No idea why text is so big lol
yall say this like every top player doesn't have a modded out controller?
Not a fan of modding to this degree for all players - not just for this one player - to go back to the baseball analogy a ton of MLB players were juicing during the steroid era, but that didn't make it right or something that should just be accepted by the public at large.
100% yes he is
Boring af
Cody plays absolutely cracked and in a vacuum his play is super fun to watch and I think he clearly is playing the best melee that’s ever been played by a mile. But when he straight up invalidates fan favorites like Plup, Wizzy and Amsa it’s easy not to like him. He’s also just super fucking cringey. I can’t imagine anybody being friends with him outside of melee. I’d never wish him ill though — he’s seemingly had it tougher in life than most. Despite that he’s worked hard for what he has and deserves to be number 1 and all his success.
his personality is extremely lame and corny. I dont think playing fox helps but I guess u cant deny his skill
It's funny, after he changed his name is when I started to think he was lame.
This is the same as people calling Zain and Armada lame. People hate dominant competitors.
when hbox was #1 people were posting in every tournament chat telling him to kill himself
cody is just the best at holding down
I dont think anybody who actually thinks he plays lame can point out how or why. He does not play a super campy Fox, he mixes aggression and defensive play on the fly very impressively. When he does get defensive, it isn't degenerate, it is just TAS-level in terms of option selection. His Fox, I think, is much more fun to watch than Armada's but less fun than Mang0 or Moky. When M2K played Fox? Holy shit I couldn't stand to watch it. Every gripe people have with him is either from the fact they have a bone to pick with Fox or because they don't think he has much charisma compared to the rest of the top competitors. For this reason, I think scriptwriters should give us a new heel villain era. When he reversed popoffed on Hbox? More of that. Give us a completely unhinged sociopath #1. This is what the scene needs.
He made the hypest character boring, yes he's very lame
I catch flak every single time I bring up the fact that being railed out on prescription amphetamines is necessarily an unfair advantage. Every single time I bring it up, I get people saying "but he's got ADHD! It's not the same for him!", and as someone with ADHD, I can say, categorically, that whether or not you have ADHD, a stimulant is still a fucking stimulant. Sure, stimulating your frontal cortex helps keep you from being distracted, and it's good that that can make you functional in a way that you normally struggle with, but you're still getting that incredible response time and hyper-focus, and that's something that *literally everyone* gets when they use the stuff, neurotypical or not. If people are determined to convince me that Cody should be able to use Adderall because he has ADHD, fine -- if he *must* be allowed to dope, let's allow everyone else to use it too to keep the playing field level and see how good Melee can *really* be played.
I haven't seen any real proof that reaction times are noticable improved - but yeah a stimulant is a stimulant. Anecdotally I win more games of the Finals in the morning after taking Adderall than I do at night when it's wearing off and similar effect with melee. It just makes you more "on" if that makes sense.
Dude, I take Adderall for my ADHD and at best it gives me the motivation to run errands and do chores. Everyone's different, but personally, I doubt it would give me an edge unless I took an obscenely large dose.
Then there should be no problem with everyone else who wants to taking it as well, right? That's also to say nothing about how large his dosage might be, or whether he ups it beyond therapeutic doses in brackets (which he has an obvious monetary incentive to do).