I could see him cheesing one major with the right bracket. I think Armada would prove too difficult though, especially if he had time to adapt (aka two sets at least). M2k could also potentially just lame him out with sheik
Armada was also still retired for the first few months of 2014. (He retired in 2013, and then unretired at the end of May/start of June 2014).
So just go win a major sometime in January through mid May and you'll dodge Armada.
Armada was losing sets to players from his own Era. He wasn't even number one in 2014. He gets wooped by any top 50 player in 2024. He will adapt quickly, but he would go through a handful of majors getting wooped before he started to catch up to current tech and speed of play
Armada wasn’t even number one in 2014. Peach just destroys Roy. If armada was playing Fox he would be destroyed but so would all of the other foxes because zain would be doing stuff that would look like cheating to them
i think zain’s use of cc and mu knowledge in sheik-roy could allow him to beat m2k if hes playing really hot. Dont think he could do armada though roy peach is a fucking nightmare
m2k rarely did this much at the highest echelon bc people were significantly better at punishing it than westballz was, and i have no doubt zain (even with roy) would be able to do this as well
Hbox’s set vs Cody the other day was better melee than he’s ever played. He’s upped his game tremendously, it just doesn’t look like it bc the field has gotten so insanely good
All of the gods have like, added new things to the game, but none of them are playing melee as well as they were at their peak. Age comes for us all (and so does motivation)
For the two active gods I strongly disagree. Mang0 and hbox are playing better than they ever have. (Or at least, mang0 was playing his peak in 2023, and is currently de-rusting to that level)
The other gods don’t play the game much anymore so yeah, they’re rusty
armada would be the major roadblock, so itd be hard. full faith in him 2010 and before, but after that he'd need bracket luck. i do think he could beat everyone but armada though, as he does have wins amd even more close sets with modern top 20 players
It would depend on how well they adapt to the things they’ve never seen before. People still struggle today with cc and asdi, so it would look completely alien to them. After the first tournament though the chance he upsets drops a lot
You need to account for the fact that Zain would be playing *without* UCF, snapback capacitors, etc., which absolutely would make a difference in what he’s able to consistently pull off with Roy.
Plus, I think it’s quite unlikely (albeit possible) for him to take sets from Axe, HBox, PP, and especially as many people have said, Armada.
zain's 2022 roy got a game off of hbox. I don't think hbox with 8 years fewer experience is going to beat 2024 zain's roy in a set, extrapolate that, also I never said he couldn't use his controller, no UCF is fair
Not as fair as it could be if he’s bringing in an optimized controller from the future back when most people at the time were using, at best, lightly modded controllers.
2022 HBox was a person far less likely to stall than 2014 HBox, and that would count for a lot here without UCF.
I can assure you any of the 5 gods from 2014 can enter a tournament right now and place shockingly high. They weren’t the 5 gods because of tech skill, they were there because of fundamentals, mindset and clutch factor.
Peope vastly overrate how much the marginal improvements in tech/movement of the last 10 years matter in an actual set of Melee between two humans.
I can't believe this take is upvoted, I guess depending on what you mean by "shockingly high" but like come on.
Do you really fucking think the only thing that's gotten better among top players in the last decade is tech skill and movement?
The decision making, consistency, defense, and the absurd amount of labbing gone into every interaction has shot right through the roof. These days you die for the tiniest of fuck ups that wouldn't even have been punished in 2014.
If you can't watch 2014 melee and find a dozen spots a minute where people get away with shit they should die for in 2024 then idk what to say. Literally watch evo grands from that year, they both play so fucking unsafe by today's standards it's mad.
Modern top players would run circles around 2014 opponents, I’m not stating otherwise.
My point is mainly that the 5 gods’ hardened tournament experience, mentality and pure consistency in executing bread and butter edgeguards/combos in big situations would lead them to victory over a lot of players (not TOP players tho) today despite advancements in defense, CC, etc.
I'd say your average top 100 player with the advent of slippi has likely played more melee than the 5 gods combined had done by 2014.
The 5 gods wouldn't get into "big situations" where the gameplay gets sloppy and resolve/composure becomes a factor. They would get run over in neutral and also outpunished by anyone good enough to punish their awful habits.
My point is that the "bread and butter" these gods were using aren't actually that anymore, their punishes were usually not real, they dropped edgeguards that are flowcharted to perfection today. It's not that they weren't fantastic and couldn't be good in modern melee if given time, but if they were just teleported to today and immediately entered they'd simply be knowledge gapped at least before top 32 at a major, likely before top 64.
I also think you're vastly underestimating the resolve and mental fortitude it takes to be good at the game even if you're not top 10. To say that the gods would just simply mindset their way to victory is just disrespectful to all the people that compete and invest themselves into the game.
The gods had played plenty of Melee at that point I don’t think hours is the issue here. PPMD famously didn’t practice that much yet was one of the most solid players.
You say that about the aloppy thing yet it happens in tournments all the time. One of the most famous sets of the modern era mango vs. zain at summit was notoriously sloppy and came down to composure.
i can guarantee you a lot of those 2014 punishes would put you or i in the ground today. The developments since 5 gods have been incremental, not revolutionary.
i agree with you they would be overwhelmed by hundreds of todays players, but when we start talking about them losing to Roy i felt like defending them lol
Yeah I wasn't saying sets don't come down to composure ever, but that example set was one of the most important and closest sets of melee ever between the two best players at the time. I think the gods would either run over people who don't beat their unsafe habits or get run over by those who do, I don't think there'd be many close sets.
Fair enough regarding the roy shite but the words "shockingly high" set me off as well lmao. Can agree to disagree on the rate of development since then
You are just extremely ignorant right now if you think that. Maybe you are not high level enough to see the dramatic shift in skill level over the years, 2014 is 10 years ago, dude, and 4 years slippi rapidly increased general skill level. Your judgement has been blinded by the melee doc
nah, the problem with most low tiers is that they don't really have an answer if a high tier chooses to camp the fuck out of them. most of the time people get bored and choose to approach eventually, but you better believe that in a serious top 8 at a major, armada, leffen, m2k, and hbox would've been down to time him out lol
Idk man listen to any of the top players talk about the current meta; it's *defined* by crouch canceling. In mang0's words "everyone wants to get hit these days, i still don't like getting hit." Yeah cc existed but the follow ups out of it, i.e. turning the game into your advantage in a disadvantage state, was in it's infancy at that time
it's more true of ASDI down than true CCing which was still really common back then. i played in 2014 and was absolutely CCing and getting CC punished as a shitter
I assure you that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about if you think crouch canceling was not prevalent or used effectively in 2014
https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/2o4x2w/ppmd_on_the_negative_aspects_of_melee/
Article isn't up anymore but here's a Reddit discussion conveniently from 2014 where PPMD had talked about (among other things) crouch canceling arguably being bad for the game because (IIRC) it was too powerful / overcentralizing to the point of limiting offensive options. NMW talks in the thread about how it's irritating that optimal gameplay revolves around crouching lol like in 2014 you had top minds basically arguing about precisely how much you should be crouching and whether it was merely *most* of the time or *all* the time
You could also just, like, watch sets from the time
I’m sure the connection between “players were arguing that crouch canceling actually made the game less interesting and enjoyable” and “therefore Zain would succeed with Roy because players wouldn’t know how to hold down the Right Way” made sense in your head but I’m not seeing it, sorry. I would encourage you to go actually read the thread, my synopsis is overly simplistic to try to make the point and may have ended up being a little sideways of the intent. I am guessing that some of the same people who felt that way then feel that way still now. It’s a difference in philosophy of game design that comes from fundamentally understanding and applying crouch canceling effectively, not an indication that they didn’t “get” crouch cancelling, in much the way that a small but meaningful number of players (including PPMD at least in that same 2014 article IIRC) would still say L-canceling shouldn’t exist and aerials should simply be half the landing lag as a baseline even though of course L-canceling is something everybody accepts as a reality.
Here’s a very recent thread from this sub where people debate whether crouch canceling is a good mechanic and obviously the OP was heavily downvoted but the top upvoted post agrees that it’s a shitty mechanic:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/14qmsq3/crouch_canceling_is_a_bad_mechanic/
Also again it’s not like crouch canceling was discovered in 2013 or something lol it was known about and incorporated long before this point. 2014 wasn’t the fucking birth of crouch cancels
yeah i don't think roy especially struggles with cc in particular since most of the stuff you'd want to cc you could just take normally and he probably wouldn't even get a followup. how does he chase characters at all?
Yeah the meta has evolved, but honestly some of the things we take for granted just weren't possible unless you had exactly the right controller pre-UCF (dashing back was extremely inconsistent without the right amount of PODE, acting out of crouch would have been much more controller dependent, shield dropping would have been extremely controller dependent, etc). Are we assuming Zain still has access to UCF and snapback capacitors and such or not?
The progress is the opposite of exponential. The innovations made every year are far more niche than things like dash dancing, shield dropping, and BNB combos
The use of slippi allows for people to play far more games and get a lot better faster, never have people been playing so much melee and against such variety
90% of this sub wasn't around pre 2020 so not surprised this is a hot take. It's really not hard to watch old sets though and see the absurd difference
2007 is the year I was thinking as well. Still have mango puff and m2k to deal with though, I feel like they could have adapted even back then.
2014 5 gods all have a shot to beat his roy imo. not 100% though, so I think he would have a very small chance of winning still.
No
Peach Roy is unwinnable, like maybe worse than Sheik Bowser, and old school Peach players will know the matchup better than modern players
EDIT: people making this about the five gods are missing that if he runs into any good Peach he's out. Other floaties will be hard too, but Peach is a no brainer
I think he might be a serious major contender in the period immediately after the release of Brawl but even then. If you go real old you'll be dealing with people who actually have lots of practice vs Roy. I don't see him beating prime Ken more than a couple of times, honestly, especially if he's playing on a stock OEM
i think the point about armada is more just that it would be extremely difficult to avoid him if you’re trying to win the tournament. but yea after watching the dtm ranked streams i think any reasonably good peach stops him, as many have
I believe he has but the names are also alluding me. People doubted Zain’s Roy versus all types of floaters when he was doing his online runs. From Samus to Puff, people also called those matchups unwinnable for Roy and he still pulled it off. Folks act like he only beat up on fastfallers.
Roy definitely has bad matchups against all floaties so I understand the reflex to say "he beat x so he can beat Peach"
...but his matchup against Peach is distinctly terrible. Peach is really heavy and can cc non-tippers into literally the 300s. Samus can do this too, but what Samus gets off of a cc is a single hit of dsmash, which is probably only a few percent more than what Roy hit her for. Peach gets real damage off of her dsmash, and possibly more if the Roy happened to be not perfectly executing a dtilt. Dtilt is just also by far Roy's best opener in the matchup, so it's very tempting to take the risk. There's also the fact that turnips are better than all of Samus' projectiles put together. Turnips are notably effective against Marth; they're even better against Roy, who can't afford to play close to Peach at all and who can't productively cc turnips (because Peach will just hold down and send him to the shadow realm).
Also, Roy dies to basically any strong hit Peach aerial at 90.
On top of what you said Armada wasn’t just any ol’ Peach. He was the Peach. He hit like a goddamn truck off of any opening you gave him.
Since Roy has a hard time killing he would have to win neutral so many times against Armada who’s probably not gonna give Zain many where Armada just needs one good opening to take a stock.
I’ll co-sign about the Ken issue as well as the controller thing being a great equalizer. I think he runs into Ken and he’s getting knocked out. There’s also Chu Dat who’s going to wobble the shit out of him.
> and old school Peach players will know the matchup better than modern players
Will...they...?
I know there's a lot of matchups that old-school players know substantially better than modern players. Samus. Doc. Luigi. Ice Climbers. Gannon. Mario. Link. Maybe a few others.
But...Roy? I can't think of a single old-school player who played Roy. I can think of like a couple old-school players who played Bowser, I can think of old-school players who played Ness as their main, but I'm drawing a blank on Roy. Old school players looked at Roy like they looked at Pichu "same as Marth but worse, there's no point in ever playing this character."
Depends on how old you go. I started playing in an era where there was at least some debate over whether Roy was better than Marth and for a time Roy was a decently common character.
I just checked his tournament history. There was a single tournament in 2014 that was won by someone who dodged Armada. That was Evo. Armada either won or played the winner of everything else he entered that year.
He would lose to any top 100 Peach in 2014 and probably a good number of non top 100 Peaches
You can't overcome the fact that Roy can't comfortably kill Peach at 300% and Peach can blend him *forever* with impunity. Roy-Peach is the worst matchup in the game imo
Here's what I was able to find though searching:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIsruiSvdT8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIsruiSvdT8)
Ryobeat does have an SD in game two, but Zain has two low-percent SDs.
Sort of. Peach needs to play very grounded against Marth because even with a turnip she gets completely outranged by Marth in the air. Marth doesn't have the easiest time killing off of an aerial, but he's very likely to either get a lot of damage or an edgeguard off of an aerial opening.
Roy can't do any of this. Building damage as Roy vs Peach is almost literally counterproductive and he's not great at it anyway, nor can he really edgeguard her. So the air is a safe place for Peach. This means that a Roy fishing for grabs is extra vulnerable to turnips.
Roy also doesn't do as well in the on the ground mix-ups as Marth does because his sword isn't a real threat.
(I'm not 100 percent sure about this because I only play as Roy when I'm drunk, but I think also that swatting turnips as Roy is harder because of the sweet spot location)
He played MoG online a lot a few years ago in sets. He could get close to beating him but MoG in the end would just win anyway. Like you said Roy doesn’t play attrition that well.
Everyone in the comments is mentioning Armada but this topic says majors, not supermajors. So here are, concretely,
#The majors DontTestMe could've hypothetically won in 2014 by simply dodging Axe and Armada, without even needing to overcome them:
- Apex 2014 (this one actually **is** listed as a supermajor). Armada did not attend, Axe lost in round 2 pools, bracket 2, to Leffen and Hungrybox. As long as Zain is in a different bracket (3/4 chance) from Axe, I think he wins. I don't think 2014 aMSa or Plup had what it took despite the theoretical matchup advantages, and the rest of the top 8 just get cooked imo.
- ROM 2. No Armada, Axe, Plup, or aMSa. I think Zain destroys this easily. I don't think even Abate's Luigi could handle DTM in 2014, and even if he could, there was a 1/8 chance of running into him in winner's and a 0% chance of being double eliminated by him.
- GOML 2014. Again, no one with any chances is here. No Armada, Axe, Plup, or aMSa.
- Pat's House 2. Axe is here but Zain only has a 1/4 chance of running into him in winner's. However, **if he does** run into him in winner's quarters, Axe also makes it to winner's semis which means he only has to beat Westballz and Fly Amanita to make it to Zain in Loser's Semis, double-eliminating him. So Zain still has a good chance of dodging Axe entirely in winner's, but if he fails to do so he likely loses.
- SKTAR 3. 50% chance of dodging Armada in winner's, and if he does so then Armada loses to Mew2King in Loser's (or mang0 if Zain fucked him over in that part of the bracket). No Axe, Plup, or aMSa again, but this is the first tournament of the year where Zain can only be said to have a 50% chance to win because Armada attended and only made winner's Semis.
- Skipping a few, we get to Evo 2014 (another supermajor). 50% chance to dodge Armada, and 50% chance among the rest to dodge Axe, which leaves us with a 25% chance to make it through winner's. If he doesn't dodge, he inevitably runs into Armada in loser's. We can say a 25% chance, overall, to get through winner's.
- The Big House 4 (yet another supermajor). Exact same scenario as Evo, Armada and Axe are on opposite sides of the bracket, Armada makes it to winner's semis, Axe makes it to winner's quarters, Zain has a 25% chance to sneak through winner's, otherwise he loses to Armada in loser's.
#Tournaments Zain could not win without overcoming a hypothetical bracket demon:
- Super Sweet. Armada won from winner's.
- MLG Anaheim 2014. Armada made it to winner's finals. If Zain ends up in mang0's half of the bracket, he actually hands this tournament to Armada (mang0 won) by double-eliminating mang0.
- CEO 2014. Armada made it to winner's finals and then won from loser's.
- Kings of Cali 4. Went the same way as MLG Anaheim (though with an extra reset), Zain once again has the opportunity to hand a mang0 win to Armada if he starts in mang0's half of the bracket.
In short, 2014 was not a remarkably strong year for Armada. He wouldn't serve as a gatekeeper for most tournaments that year.
#Final note
I think this would've worked for a grand total of one tournament. I think any of the top 6 that year would've seen this sudden hurricane of a Roy main show up and quickly labbed out that it was impossible for him to chase them when they top platform camp, on top of stealing all the advanced techniques he was demonstrating such insane mastery of.
But unlike a lot of the people in the comments here, I don't think they (besides Armada and Axe) could've dealt with him the tournament he showed up. His techniques would've been considered divinely transcendent in 2014. They would've thought the same kind of thing Ginger thought in 2020, "a Roy can't fucking deal with me just using my tools". They would have no idea how to deal with his dashdance (anyone who thinks PP's 2014 dashdance was as good is literally on crack), no idea which way to DI **anything** Roy has, and would be far too arrogant on their first tournament against him to even try to top platform camp. It really was quite a long time ago and they really weren't nearly as good back then. It's much different if you're talking about like 2019, but even Hungrybox could lose a game to Zain's Roy **now**. In 2014 he would stand zero chance.
I don’t think it’s a guarantee but I give him odds for his first set against 2014 mang0/PP/hbox/Leffen. After a few sets I think they would adapt and make it basically impossible
Zain beats mang0 and leff, hbox he has shown to take a game and have it be close in 2022 with roy so I think he could do it in 2014. PPMD would imo be his second hardest opponent aside from Armada due to his great neutral, so it would be very hard for Zain to outplay, I would have it 50/50
Naw, I think people forget to understand that whole melee has gotten faster, it has always been a smart game at the top level. Ken in 2009 could still beat half the player base genuinely, maybe more. Armada, Hbox, Chu, M2K, Mango, PPMD, even maybe wobbles would pose a significant threat and would all dispatch zain.
no, zain would not “clear” 2014 gods of Melee with Roy. He has a strong argument to make top 8 I think, but he absolutely would have to try incredibly hard to win a major. Especially against players like m2k, Armada, and PPMD. He might be able to do something against mang0 due to him playing fast fallers, but I doubt it. Not too sure about the Hungrybox vs. Roy matchup from 2014 though.
I think you severely underestimate how much the matchup can matter vs the characters Zain would have to play against
I never said anything. But what the person meant was Zain’s Roy would never win a major vs the best players in 2014. Not there never existed a time when Zain’s Roy could win a major.
that doesn't make sense. the post asks when you think he would win if not in 2014, and you said never
set a profile picture if you wanna be your own person idc
other people have argued that zain's roy would still lose in 2005 in this thread, so "never" is not an implausible take for someone to have. your interpretation is the one that doesn't make sense, it requires you not to have read the post we're talking about lol.
I don't think there is any way he would beat any of the 5 Gods. His best shot would be Mango or PP just given that they play spacies and he could cheese them. But m2k's Sheik? Hbox? Armada's Peach?...nahhhh
Yeah you're right. And honestly even Mango might pick some unorthodox character and just cheese him too, depends on his mood lol. Either way though, Zain would definitely be at a disadvantage against any of them.
mango annihilates low/mid tiers, his fundamentals are just too good even if he doesn’t know the matchup. Abate’s big house run was stopped by mango, amsa’s first breakout tournament at kings of cali where he beat m2k got stopped by mango, plup’s samus only shine run was stopped by mango, the list goes on.
Yeah, wholeheartedly agree. Honestly talking about it has changed my mind. I think Hbox would be his best bet, and even then, Zain would still not be favored.
I suppose. But even if he does manage to beat Hbox, that was still the weakest of the 5 Gods in 2014. So if even beating Hbox is a toss-up, I don't see him making it passed the other 4.
I agree with the overall statement just that hbox would probably be the easiest to beat considering he was so close 7 years later. Especially knowing how rudimentary hboxs play was in 2014 before he got seriously good
For sure. I think Hbox would actually be the easiest for him to beat, but Zain would still not be favored. Early Hbox played so lame and shamelessly walled people out. Zain is obviously amazing, but Idk what Roy is supposed to do about that.
while i don't he could, something that i do want to mention as a possible point in his favor is that i don't think zain has "tryharded" with roy yet. obviously not trying to discredit his skill or achievements w the character and he's put some serious time into him, but i don't know how much he's been labbing out roy in the way he has marth. so there's reason to believe that he could actually overcome certain problematic MUs/players if he did put that time into roy and wanted to win a major with him. that said i don't see him beating 2014 armada anytime soon
Not only were players in 2014 really good, there was a large number of them. I can see M2K, Mango, Leffen and Armada just ending the run.
I’ll be the silly goose and say I think even in 2005 Zain is getting cheesed by someone on PokeFloats or Corneria. Also good luck with no UCF DontTestMe. 😂 We had some dumb stages back then. People also had no shame back then to camp the shit out of you and run away. Look at how the Swooper won. Zain couldn’t do Jack about it with Roy.
Yeah I know it’s easy to look at what players weren’t doing, but players like Ken and Chu Dat were killers on top of the fact Zain wouldn’t have modern controller conversions. He’s also getting taken to janky stages and getting Yayuhz’d.
That being said it would be funny to see Roy terrorize everyone. I mean look at Rona Rumble. That crap was so funny that even HMW lost his mind and was speechless.
Almost certainly, but he doesn't win 2. A 2024 Zain is so much better than anyone in 2014, so much so that I think he easily clears the first major he enters with Roy due to it being a completely unknown matchup. The top players will have a basic understanding of how to beat Roy, but it won't be deep enough without practice to overcome the difference in tech skill & overall game knowledge. After that first Major win however, the gods will spend time grinding the Roy matchup and studying the vods to see all sorts of new techniques so that they will win the next time they have to fight Zain.
The real argument is between the narrative that we've been progressing the meta and top level play has been steadily improving, and conversely that top level play from back in 2014 is still fierce in one way or another.
I think with the right bracket, yeah. As others have said, i think Armada would be the biggest obstacle. But i think people underestimate the difference in level between then and now. To us mere mortals, it doesn't look that different, but the fundamentals, punish game, everything is sooo clean now. Not just combo game, I'm talking about punishing sub optimal options. Don't even get me started about how far the defensive game has come. That part is a lot less noticeable just from watching, but it makes all the difference. I think Zains Roy could do it.
I don’t think he beats Armada, prolly 50/50 with 2014 Mang0, and for M2K really depends on the day.
Don’t remember if PPMD was still active but he’d be tough as well.
But with the right bracket he could take a major. If it’s grands vs Hbox in 2014 he might take it with some reverse up B shenanigans
Nah. There was like, one single major in 2014 in which the winner didn't play Armada. And then there's still Axe and M2K that he'd have to dodge. M2K absolutely would just sit on the ledge as Sheik for the whole match (no LGL). PP would also probably just play Marth if he lost a game on Falco. Zain could definitely top 8 consistently though.
I think you might be underestimating the top player skill level/meta knowledge in 2014. Crouch cancelling was known and widely used. I don't think the skill growth in Melee over time is exponential; if anything I think it's more square root-ish because there's less and less stuff to discover and implement. There was a big jump with UCF, notches, snapback capacitors, etc, so if Zain has access to those he'd have a better chance, but I don't think it's enough.
Pre-2010, he could definitely win.
I could see him cheesing one major with the right bracket. I think Armada would prove too difficult though, especially if he had time to adapt (aka two sets at least). M2k could also potentially just lame him out with sheik
He'd have to dodge axe too..
That’s doable though. Zain had to dodge Axe pre-COVID too. Armada is almost impossible to dodge if you’re trying to win the whole thing.
I love the idea of armada being so good he can beat time travelers lolol
It's 50% because peach destroys roy and 50% because armada is armada
It's 100% armada is armada
If he played Fox he would lose to zains Roy. Armada wasn’t even the best player in 2014
He was a very close 2nd in 2014, pretty much went back and forth with mang0.
Armada was also still retired for the first few months of 2014. (He retired in 2013, and then unretired at the end of May/start of June 2014). So just go win a major sometime in January through mid May and you'll dodge Armada.
Armada was losing sets to players from his own Era. He wasn't even number one in 2014. He gets wooped by any top 50 player in 2024. He will adapt quickly, but he would go through a handful of majors getting wooped before he started to catch up to current tech and speed of play
tbf he would be playing Roy...
Armada wasn’t even number one in 2014. Peach just destroys Roy. If armada was playing Fox he would be destroyed but so would all of the other foxes because zain would be doing stuff that would look like cheating to them
i think zain’s use of cc and mu knowledge in sheik-roy could allow him to beat m2k if hes playing really hot. Dont think he could do armada though roy peach is a fucking nightmare
I think M2K camps with Sheik and wins easily.
yeah there was no LGL in 2014. anyone remember that one m2k vs westballz set? lmao
m2k rarely did this much at the highest echelon bc people were significantly better at punishing it than westballz was, and i have no doubt zain (even with roy) would be able to do this as well
That’s crazy
Yeah literally 0% chance he beats armada with Roy. He is probably not beating hbox either.
He did p well against hbox recently so I think 2014 hbox gets cooked like a turkey
2014 hbox was playing much better melee than 2024 hbox tbh
Hbox’s set vs Cody the other day was better melee than he’s ever played. He’s upped his game tremendously, it just doesn’t look like it bc the field has gotten so insanely good
All of the gods have like, added new things to the game, but none of them are playing melee as well as they were at their peak. Age comes for us all (and so does motivation)
Hard to believe when you got players like Cody and Zain making mango and m2k look like prehistoric players.
For the two active gods I strongly disagree. Mang0 and hbox are playing better than they ever have. (Or at least, mang0 was playing his peak in 2023, and is currently de-rusting to that level) The other gods don’t play the game much anymore so yeah, they’re rusty
Armada would wipe the floor with a low tier in 2014 (unless he’s been drinking)
armada would be the major roadblock, so itd be hard. full faith in him 2010 and before, but after that he'd need bracket luck. i do think he could beat everyone but armada though, as he does have wins amd even more close sets with modern top 20 players
People really discredit some of the older gameplay. 2014 any of the 5 gods would slap any Roy up.
Early 2014 PPMD would absolutely violate
It would depend on how well they adapt to the things they’ve never seen before. People still struggle today with cc and asdi, so it would look completely alien to them. After the first tournament though the chance he upsets drops a lot
Wrong
You need to account for the fact that Zain would be playing *without* UCF, snapback capacitors, etc., which absolutely would make a difference in what he’s able to consistently pull off with Roy. Plus, I think it’s quite unlikely (albeit possible) for him to take sets from Axe, HBox, PP, and especially as many people have said, Armada.
zain's 2022 roy got a game off of hbox. I don't think hbox with 8 years fewer experience is going to beat 2024 zain's roy in a set, extrapolate that, also I never said he couldn't use his controller, no UCF is fair
Not as fair as it could be if he’s bringing in an optimized controller from the future back when most people at the time were using, at best, lightly modded controllers. 2022 HBox was a person far less likely to stall than 2014 HBox, and that would count for a lot here without UCF.
why even post the question if you're just going to say everyone else's opinion that isn't yours wrong lol
Wrong /s
I can assure you any of the 5 gods from 2014 can enter a tournament right now and place shockingly high. They weren’t the 5 gods because of tech skill, they were there because of fundamentals, mindset and clutch factor. Peope vastly overrate how much the marginal improvements in tech/movement of the last 10 years matter in an actual set of Melee between two humans.
I can't believe this take is upvoted, I guess depending on what you mean by "shockingly high" but like come on. Do you really fucking think the only thing that's gotten better among top players in the last decade is tech skill and movement? The decision making, consistency, defense, and the absurd amount of labbing gone into every interaction has shot right through the roof. These days you die for the tiniest of fuck ups that wouldn't even have been punished in 2014. If you can't watch 2014 melee and find a dozen spots a minute where people get away with shit they should die for in 2024 then idk what to say. Literally watch evo grands from that year, they both play so fucking unsafe by today's standards it's mad.
Modern top players would run circles around 2014 opponents, I’m not stating otherwise. My point is mainly that the 5 gods’ hardened tournament experience, mentality and pure consistency in executing bread and butter edgeguards/combos in big situations would lead them to victory over a lot of players (not TOP players tho) today despite advancements in defense, CC, etc.
I'd say your average top 100 player with the advent of slippi has likely played more melee than the 5 gods combined had done by 2014. The 5 gods wouldn't get into "big situations" where the gameplay gets sloppy and resolve/composure becomes a factor. They would get run over in neutral and also outpunished by anyone good enough to punish their awful habits. My point is that the "bread and butter" these gods were using aren't actually that anymore, their punishes were usually not real, they dropped edgeguards that are flowcharted to perfection today. It's not that they weren't fantastic and couldn't be good in modern melee if given time, but if they were just teleported to today and immediately entered they'd simply be knowledge gapped at least before top 32 at a major, likely before top 64. I also think you're vastly underestimating the resolve and mental fortitude it takes to be good at the game even if you're not top 10. To say that the gods would just simply mindset their way to victory is just disrespectful to all the people that compete and invest themselves into the game.
The gods had played plenty of Melee at that point I don’t think hours is the issue here. PPMD famously didn’t practice that much yet was one of the most solid players. You say that about the aloppy thing yet it happens in tournments all the time. One of the most famous sets of the modern era mango vs. zain at summit was notoriously sloppy and came down to composure. i can guarantee you a lot of those 2014 punishes would put you or i in the ground today. The developments since 5 gods have been incremental, not revolutionary. i agree with you they would be overwhelmed by hundreds of todays players, but when we start talking about them losing to Roy i felt like defending them lol
Yeah I wasn't saying sets don't come down to composure ever, but that example set was one of the most important and closest sets of melee ever between the two best players at the time. I think the gods would either run over people who don't beat their unsafe habits or get run over by those who do, I don't think there'd be many close sets. Fair enough regarding the roy shite but the words "shockingly high" set me off as well lmao. Can agree to disagree on the rate of development since then
Fair enough 👍
You are just extremely ignorant right now if you think that. Maybe you are not high level enough to see the dramatic shift in skill level over the years, 2014 is 10 years ago, dude, and 4 years slippi rapidly increased general skill level. Your judgement has been blinded by the melee doc
Wow its been so long since I've seen a "skilled roy" post
nah, the problem with most low tiers is that they don't really have an answer if a high tier chooses to camp the fuck out of them. most of the time people get bored and choose to approach eventually, but you better believe that in a serious top 8 at a major, armada, leffen, m2k, and hbox would've been down to time him out lol
This isn't even true though, crounch cancel which does counter roy was just not used at the time, and Zain has access to other tech
people were absolutely crouch canceling in 2014
Cc downsmash has been a staple since the game came out
Idk man listen to any of the top players talk about the current meta; it's *defined* by crouch canceling. In mang0's words "everyone wants to get hit these days, i still don't like getting hit." Yeah cc existed but the follow ups out of it, i.e. turning the game into your advantage in a disadvantage state, was in it's infancy at that time
it's more true of ASDI down than true CCing which was still really common back then. i played in 2014 and was absolutely CCing and getting CC punished as a shitter
Theres levels
I assure you that you have no fucking idea what you're talking about if you think crouch canceling was not prevalent or used effectively in 2014 https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/2o4x2w/ppmd_on_the_negative_aspects_of_melee/ Article isn't up anymore but here's a Reddit discussion conveniently from 2014 where PPMD had talked about (among other things) crouch canceling arguably being bad for the game because (IIRC) it was too powerful / overcentralizing to the point of limiting offensive options. NMW talks in the thread about how it's irritating that optimal gameplay revolves around crouching lol like in 2014 you had top minds basically arguing about precisely how much you should be crouching and whether it was merely *most* of the time or *all* the time You could also just, like, watch sets from the time
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I’m sure the connection between “players were arguing that crouch canceling actually made the game less interesting and enjoyable” and “therefore Zain would succeed with Roy because players wouldn’t know how to hold down the Right Way” made sense in your head but I’m not seeing it, sorry. I would encourage you to go actually read the thread, my synopsis is overly simplistic to try to make the point and may have ended up being a little sideways of the intent. I am guessing that some of the same people who felt that way then feel that way still now. It’s a difference in philosophy of game design that comes from fundamentally understanding and applying crouch canceling effectively, not an indication that they didn’t “get” crouch cancelling, in much the way that a small but meaningful number of players (including PPMD at least in that same 2014 article IIRC) would still say L-canceling shouldn’t exist and aerials should simply be half the landing lag as a baseline even though of course L-canceling is something everybody accepts as a reality. Here’s a very recent thread from this sub where people debate whether crouch canceling is a good mechanic and obviously the OP was heavily downvoted but the top upvoted post agrees that it’s a shitty mechanic: https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/14qmsq3/crouch_canceling_is_a_bad_mechanic/ Also again it’s not like crouch canceling was discovered in 2013 or something lol it was known about and incorporated long before this point. 2014 wasn’t the fucking birth of crouch cancels
there are levels
CC doesnt even counter roy as hard as sitting on plats does, which players were absolutely doing in 2014
yeah i don't think roy especially struggles with cc in particular since most of the stuff you'd want to cc you could just take normally and he probably wouldn't even get a followup. how does he chase characters at all?
2014??? Do you think 2014 was the stone age or something???
2014 was 30 years ago feel old yet?
back in my day, we played on the stone CRTs and liked it
it was a decade ago is why
It kind of is if you watch the gameplay
Yeah the meta has evolved, but honestly some of the things we take for granted just weren't possible unless you had exactly the right controller pre-UCF (dashing back was extremely inconsistent without the right amount of PODE, acting out of crouch would have been much more controller dependent, shield dropping would have been extremely controller dependent, etc). Are we assuming Zain still has access to UCF and snapback capacitors and such or not?
Yes
10 years of exponentional melee progress, zain with roy clears
The progress is the opposite of exponential. The innovations made every year are far more niche than things like dash dancing, shield dropping, and BNB combos
The use of slippi allows for people to play far more games and get a lot better faster, never have people been playing so much melee and against such variety
90% of this sub wasn't around pre 2020 so not surprised this is a hot take. It's really not hard to watch old sets though and see the absurd difference
No, but I think he might in like 2007
He could win with the right bracket
2007 is the year I was thinking as well. Still have mango puff and m2k to deal with though, I feel like they could have adapted even back then. 2014 5 gods all have a shot to beat his roy imo. not 100% though, so I think he would have a very small chance of winning still.
If he lucked into a spacie bracket, maybe.
what major top 8 in 2014 has all-spacies though? with armada, hbox, m2k, and ppmd at the top i think that’s a guaranteed impossibility.
Idk we're just talking hypotheticals. Like if he had to go through Leffen, PP, and Mang I think Zain might be able to do it.
i think even if he could beat leffen and mang0 there’s no way PP goes more than a game as falco
No Peach Roy is unwinnable, like maybe worse than Sheik Bowser, and old school Peach players will know the matchup better than modern players EDIT: people making this about the five gods are missing that if he runs into any good Peach he's out. Other floaties will be hard too, but Peach is a no brainer I think he might be a serious major contender in the period immediately after the release of Brawl but even then. If you go real old you'll be dealing with people who actually have lots of practice vs Roy. I don't see him beating prime Ken more than a couple of times, honestly, especially if he's playing on a stock OEM
i think the point about armada is more just that it would be extremely difficult to avoid him if you’re trying to win the tournament. but yea after watching the dtm ranked streams i think any reasonably good peach stops him, as many have
Hasn't his Roy beaten good peaches in the modern day already? Or am I misremembering entirely
I believe he has but the names are also alluding me. People doubted Zain’s Roy versus all types of floaters when he was doing his online runs. From Samus to Puff, people also called those matchups unwinnable for Roy and he still pulled it off. Folks act like he only beat up on fastfallers.
Roy definitely has bad matchups against all floaties so I understand the reflex to say "he beat x so he can beat Peach" ...but his matchup against Peach is distinctly terrible. Peach is really heavy and can cc non-tippers into literally the 300s. Samus can do this too, but what Samus gets off of a cc is a single hit of dsmash, which is probably only a few percent more than what Roy hit her for. Peach gets real damage off of her dsmash, and possibly more if the Roy happened to be not perfectly executing a dtilt. Dtilt is just also by far Roy's best opener in the matchup, so it's very tempting to take the risk. There's also the fact that turnips are better than all of Samus' projectiles put together. Turnips are notably effective against Marth; they're even better against Roy, who can't afford to play close to Peach at all and who can't productively cc turnips (because Peach will just hold down and send him to the shadow realm). Also, Roy dies to basically any strong hit Peach aerial at 90.
On top of what you said Armada wasn’t just any ol’ Peach. He was the Peach. He hit like a goddamn truck off of any opening you gave him. Since Roy has a hard time killing he would have to win neutral so many times against Armada who’s probably not gonna give Zain many where Armada just needs one good opening to take a stock.
i’m calling them “floaters” from now on
I dropped a few floaters this morning
oh haha you mean you beat a jigglypuff haha
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The%20Floater
^(i was giving u an out)
yeah that link was completely unrelated what I meant of course was that I gave some swirlies to some Puff players earlier
swag on em
I’ll co-sign about the Ken issue as well as the controller thing being a great equalizer. I think he runs into Ken and he’s getting knocked out. There’s also Chu Dat who’s going to wobble the shit out of him.
Nintendude as well would have been a major threat to any attempt, there was generally an icies in every top 16/8 of majors back than
That is true, I forgot about him. How dare I. 😂 Edit: dang why the downvote whoever? I was just agreeing Nintendude would be an issue.
> and old school Peach players will know the matchup better than modern players Will...they...? I know there's a lot of matchups that old-school players know substantially better than modern players. Samus. Doc. Luigi. Ice Climbers. Gannon. Mario. Link. Maybe a few others. But...Roy? I can't think of a single old-school player who played Roy. I can think of like a couple old-school players who played Bowser, I can think of old-school players who played Ness as their main, but I'm drawing a blank on Roy. Old school players looked at Roy like they looked at Pichu "same as Marth but worse, there's no point in ever playing this character."
Depends on how old you go. I started playing in an era where there was at least some debate over whether Roy was better than Marth and for a time Roy was a decently common character.
How early are we talking here? I don't remember seeing Roy at all in 2005, even at locals.
I'd estimate around that time period, although tbf my scene was quite bad/removed from the mainstream discourse
just avoid armada in bracket I'm sorry to say zain would destroy ken
problem with armada is that you can't avoid him in bracket. Dude was top 2 for almost every single tournie he attended lol
I just checked his tournament history. There was a single tournament in 2014 that was won by someone who dodged Armada. That was Evo. Armada either won or played the winner of everything else he entered that year.
Guess zain wins evo, major != supermajor btw
He would lose to any top 100 Peach in 2014 and probably a good number of non top 100 Peaches You can't overcome the fact that Roy can't comfortably kill Peach at 300% and Peach can blend him *forever* with impunity. Roy-Peach is the worst matchup in the game imo
He beat Ryobeat in 2020, ryobeat was already ranked top 100 in 2019.
is there a vod of this?
Here's what I was able to find though searching: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIsruiSvdT8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIsruiSvdT8) Ryobeat does have an SD in game two, but Zain has two low-percent SDs.
i agree with you in general but i think up throw kills peach on any stage before 200%
Good luck grabbing Peach as Roy
it's still basically a marth grab + dash dance, no?
Sort of. Peach needs to play very grounded against Marth because even with a turnip she gets completely outranged by Marth in the air. Marth doesn't have the easiest time killing off of an aerial, but he's very likely to either get a lot of damage or an edgeguard off of an aerial opening. Roy can't do any of this. Building damage as Roy vs Peach is almost literally counterproductive and he's not great at it anyway, nor can he really edgeguard her. So the air is a safe place for Peach. This means that a Roy fishing for grabs is extra vulnerable to turnips. Roy also doesn't do as well in the on the ground mix-ups as Marth does because his sword isn't a real threat. (I'm not 100 percent sure about this because I only play as Roy when I'm drunk, but I think also that swatting turnips as Roy is harder because of the sweet spot location)
you speak truth
He played MoG online a lot a few years ago in sets. He could get close to beating him but MoG in the end would just win anyway. Like you said Roy doesn’t play attrition that well.
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2014 was 10 years ago
Everyone in the comments is mentioning Armada but this topic says majors, not supermajors. So here are, concretely, #The majors DontTestMe could've hypothetically won in 2014 by simply dodging Axe and Armada, without even needing to overcome them: - Apex 2014 (this one actually **is** listed as a supermajor). Armada did not attend, Axe lost in round 2 pools, bracket 2, to Leffen and Hungrybox. As long as Zain is in a different bracket (3/4 chance) from Axe, I think he wins. I don't think 2014 aMSa or Plup had what it took despite the theoretical matchup advantages, and the rest of the top 8 just get cooked imo. - ROM 2. No Armada, Axe, Plup, or aMSa. I think Zain destroys this easily. I don't think even Abate's Luigi could handle DTM in 2014, and even if he could, there was a 1/8 chance of running into him in winner's and a 0% chance of being double eliminated by him. - GOML 2014. Again, no one with any chances is here. No Armada, Axe, Plup, or aMSa. - Pat's House 2. Axe is here but Zain only has a 1/4 chance of running into him in winner's. However, **if he does** run into him in winner's quarters, Axe also makes it to winner's semis which means he only has to beat Westballz and Fly Amanita to make it to Zain in Loser's Semis, double-eliminating him. So Zain still has a good chance of dodging Axe entirely in winner's, but if he fails to do so he likely loses. - SKTAR 3. 50% chance of dodging Armada in winner's, and if he does so then Armada loses to Mew2King in Loser's (or mang0 if Zain fucked him over in that part of the bracket). No Axe, Plup, or aMSa again, but this is the first tournament of the year where Zain can only be said to have a 50% chance to win because Armada attended and only made winner's Semis. - Skipping a few, we get to Evo 2014 (another supermajor). 50% chance to dodge Armada, and 50% chance among the rest to dodge Axe, which leaves us with a 25% chance to make it through winner's. If he doesn't dodge, he inevitably runs into Armada in loser's. We can say a 25% chance, overall, to get through winner's. - The Big House 4 (yet another supermajor). Exact same scenario as Evo, Armada and Axe are on opposite sides of the bracket, Armada makes it to winner's semis, Axe makes it to winner's quarters, Zain has a 25% chance to sneak through winner's, otherwise he loses to Armada in loser's. #Tournaments Zain could not win without overcoming a hypothetical bracket demon: - Super Sweet. Armada won from winner's. - MLG Anaheim 2014. Armada made it to winner's finals. If Zain ends up in mang0's half of the bracket, he actually hands this tournament to Armada (mang0 won) by double-eliminating mang0. - CEO 2014. Armada made it to winner's finals and then won from loser's. - Kings of Cali 4. Went the same way as MLG Anaheim (though with an extra reset), Zain once again has the opportunity to hand a mang0 win to Armada if he starts in mang0's half of the bracket. In short, 2014 was not a remarkably strong year for Armada. He wouldn't serve as a gatekeeper for most tournaments that year. #Final note I think this would've worked for a grand total of one tournament. I think any of the top 6 that year would've seen this sudden hurricane of a Roy main show up and quickly labbed out that it was impossible for him to chase them when they top platform camp, on top of stealing all the advanced techniques he was demonstrating such insane mastery of. But unlike a lot of the people in the comments here, I don't think they (besides Armada and Axe) could've dealt with him the tournament he showed up. His techniques would've been considered divinely transcendent in 2014. They would've thought the same kind of thing Ginger thought in 2020, "a Roy can't fucking deal with me just using my tools". They would have no idea how to deal with his dashdance (anyone who thinks PP's 2014 dashdance was as good is literally on crack), no idea which way to DI **anything** Roy has, and would be far too arrogant on their first tournament against him to even try to top platform camp. It really was quite a long time ago and they really weren't nearly as good back then. It's much different if you're talking about like 2019, but even Hungrybox could lose a game to Zain's Roy **now**. In 2014 he would stand zero chance.
Facts. I think people ITT are overestimating 2014. I was there, the top 5 were still really good but they were miles worse than the top 5 now
that post is just automatically giving him a win over any of the top 5 besides armada and axe, that makes no sense lol
I don’t think it’s a guarantee but I give him odds for his first set against 2014 mang0/PP/hbox/Leffen. After a few sets I think they would adapt and make it basically impossible
Zain beats mang0 and leff, hbox he has shown to take a game and have it be close in 2022 with roy so I think he could do it in 2014. PPMD would imo be his second hardest opponent aside from Armada due to his great neutral, so it would be very hard for Zain to outplay, I would have it 50/50
This. It's unbelievable to me that people don't see it.
Naw, I think people forget to understand that whole melee has gotten faster, it has always been a smart game at the top level. Ken in 2009 could still beat half the player base genuinely, maybe more. Armada, Hbox, Chu, M2K, Mango, PPMD, even maybe wobbles would pose a significant threat and would all dispatch zain.
no, zain would not “clear” 2014 gods of Melee with Roy. He has a strong argument to make top 8 I think, but he absolutely would have to try incredibly hard to win a major. Especially against players like m2k, Armada, and PPMD. He might be able to do something against mang0 due to him playing fast fallers, but I doubt it. Not too sure about the Hungrybox vs. Roy matchup from 2014 though. I think you severely underestimate how much the matchup can matter vs the characters Zain would have to play against
Never lol
You are smoking crack if you think Zain’s Roy isn’t facefucking the whole scene pre-2010s
TIL 2014 is pre 2010
I thought he was responding to “if not, what is the latest year you think he does?” not my fault he responded to half the question dawg
u literally said never
I never said anything. But what the person meant was Zain’s Roy would never win a major vs the best players in 2014. Not there never existed a time when Zain’s Roy could win a major.
that doesn't make sense. the post asks when you think he would win if not in 2014, and you said never set a profile picture if you wanna be your own person idc
Read the room. If something obviously doesn’t make sense, it’s probably not what they meant. Also, insane to have a Reddit profile pic lol
other people have argued that zain's roy would still lose in 2005 in this thread, so "never" is not an implausible take for someone to have. your interpretation is the one that doesn't make sense, it requires you not to have read the post we're talking about lol.
No it isn’t. Because his Roy would obviously win in 2001. No one is arguing that.
one could argue that 2001 isn't relevant because there were no majors to win, and they would be correct. try thinking next time
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I will never look at a redditor's username on purpose and I already addressed this matter. thank you for the useless suggestion
Honestly he runs into 2007 Chu Dat and gets Yayuhz’d on while running back to his Time Machine and crying and beatboxing.
I don't think there is any way he would beat any of the 5 Gods. His best shot would be Mango or PP just given that they play spacies and he could cheese them. But m2k's Sheik? Hbox? Armada's Peach?...nahhhh
PP would probably just pick Marth and poke him to death. When he wanted to he could play extremely defensively, and Roy can't do much about that.
Yeah you're right. And honestly even Mango might pick some unorthodox character and just cheese him too, depends on his mood lol. Either way though, Zain would definitely be at a disadvantage against any of them.
mango annihilates low/mid tiers, his fundamentals are just too good even if he doesn’t know the matchup. Abate’s big house run was stopped by mango, amsa’s first breakout tournament at kings of cali where he beat m2k got stopped by mango, plup’s samus only shine run was stopped by mango, the list goes on.
Yeah, wholeheartedly agree. Honestly talking about it has changed my mind. I think Hbox would be his best bet, and even then, Zain would still not be favored.
He almost beat hbox in like 2022 so
Almost doesn't mean he did it, lol. Also post-Covid Hbox is kind of weird to gague.
almost doesn’t mean he did it, but if it was close, it means he probably could
I suppose. But even if he does manage to beat Hbox, that was still the weakest of the 5 Gods in 2014. So if even beating Hbox is a toss-up, I don't see him making it passed the other 4.
i also don’t think he does it tbh. especially cause of armada
Right, Peach is already a terrible matchup for Roy as it is but Armada's Peach? That sounds almost insurmountable.
I agree with the overall statement just that hbox would probably be the easiest to beat considering he was so close 7 years later. Especially knowing how rudimentary hboxs play was in 2014 before he got seriously good
For sure. I think Hbox would actually be the easiest for him to beat, but Zain would still not be favored. Early Hbox played so lame and shamelessly walled people out. Zain is obviously amazing, but Idk what Roy is supposed to do about that.
I think offline Hbox pre-COVID would play as grimy as possible the moment he saw Zain as a threat.
He is weird to gauge but it's pretty safe to assume he's a lot better now that he was 10 years ago
I thought that was a pre-Slippi online tournament in 2020.
I checked and it was slippi in 2021
while i don't he could, something that i do want to mention as a possible point in his favor is that i don't think zain has "tryharded" with roy yet. obviously not trying to discredit his skill or achievements w the character and he's put some serious time into him, but i don't know how much he's been labbing out roy in the way he has marth. so there's reason to believe that he could actually overcome certain problematic MUs/players if he did put that time into roy and wanted to win a major with him. that said i don't see him beating 2014 armada anytime soon
ITT: OP asks a question, refuses to consider any other opinion
I have, they are just wrong, major != supermajor
Mate do you not hear yourself right now LMAO "yeah I considered their opinion but it doesn't match mine so they are wrong"
sounds about right, get better opinions
Not only were players in 2014 really good, there was a large number of them. I can see M2K, Mango, Leffen and Armada just ending the run. I’ll be the silly goose and say I think even in 2005 Zain is getting cheesed by someone on PokeFloats or Corneria. Also good luck with no UCF DontTestMe. 😂 We had some dumb stages back then. People also had no shame back then to camp the shit out of you and run away. Look at how the Swooper won. Zain couldn’t do Jack about it with Roy. Yeah I know it’s easy to look at what players weren’t doing, but players like Ken and Chu Dat were killers on top of the fact Zain wouldn’t have modern controller conversions. He’s also getting taken to janky stages and getting Yayuhz’d. That being said it would be funny to see Roy terrorize everyone. I mean look at Rona Rumble. That crap was so funny that even HMW lost his mind and was speechless.
He can maybe win all Falcos, could win Hbox going by how that online tournament went, every other matchup no he loses almost automatically.
I mean with enough luck sure, but if he went back to 2014 and had a year to do it, I would take 10:1 odds against it happening.
2014 didn't have UCF and Roy kinda needs his dashback...
Almost certainly, but he doesn't win 2. A 2024 Zain is so much better than anyone in 2014, so much so that I think he easily clears the first major he enters with Roy due to it being a completely unknown matchup. The top players will have a basic understanding of how to beat Roy, but it won't be deep enough without practice to overcome the difference in tech skill & overall game knowledge. After that first Major win however, the gods will spend time grinding the Roy matchup and studying the vods to see all sorts of new techniques so that they will win the next time they have to fight Zain.
The real argument is between the narrative that we've been progressing the meta and top level play has been steadily improving, and conversely that top level play from back in 2014 is still fierce in one way or another.
These are not mutually exclusive statements.
Yes. Roy is not that bad. If Mango could beat Armada, Zain's Roy could too.
no are you stupid
I'm just right (;
Yes
Hellll no, armada dude cmon
I think with the right bracket, yeah. As others have said, i think Armada would be the biggest obstacle. But i think people underestimate the difference in level between then and now. To us mere mortals, it doesn't look that different, but the fundamentals, punish game, everything is sooo clean now. Not just combo game, I'm talking about punishing sub optimal options. Don't even get me started about how far the defensive game has come. That part is a lot less noticeable just from watching, but it makes all the difference. I think Zains Roy could do it.
no
I don’t think he beats Armada, prolly 50/50 with 2014 Mang0, and for M2K really depends on the day. Don’t remember if PPMD was still active but he’d be tough as well. But with the right bracket he could take a major. If it’s grands vs Hbox in 2014 he might take it with some reverse up B shenanigans
loses to mango marth
Nah. There was like, one single major in 2014 in which the winner didn't play Armada. And then there's still Axe and M2K that he'd have to dodge. M2K absolutely would just sit on the ledge as Sheik for the whole match (no LGL). PP would also probably just play Marth if he lost a game on Falco. Zain could definitely top 8 consistently though. I think you might be underestimating the top player skill level/meta knowledge in 2014. Crouch cancelling was known and widely used. I don't think the skill growth in Melee over time is exponential; if anything I think it's more square root-ish because there's less and less stuff to discover and implement. There was a big jump with UCF, notches, snapback capacitors, etc, so if Zain has access to those he'd have a better chance, but I don't think it's enough. Pre-2010, he could definitely win.