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there will Never Ever be another Melee player like Hungrybox
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It's April 21, 2019.
Competitors and spectators have gathered in Laurel, Maryland for the POUND 2019 tournament.
Today we visit the meeting of two players, competing under the aliases of "Mang0" and "Hungrybox."
They're playing Super Smash Bros. Melee, a video game released in 2001 for the Nintendo GameCube.
Despite the age of the game, this event has managed to attract a live audience of
a few hundred spectators and upwards of 70,000 viewers tuning in from around the world.
Today is Championship Sunday.
After battling past the rest of the competition,
the top 12 players are competing for the title of this year's POUND champion.
Since this is a double-elimination tournament, Hungrybox is kicked down into the loser's bracket,
where he now has to face S2J.
The loser of this set will be out of the tournament in fifth place.
Hungrybox wins, and advances to face Zain in the losers semi-finals.
Quickly, Hungrybox finds himself in deep trouble, about to fall to an 0-2 deficit.
With his back against the wall, he rebounds to win game two.
He narrowly wins the next two games to eliminate Zain at fourth.
Once again, Hungrybox wins, eliminating Plup at third.
After defeating everyone in the loser's bracket, Hungrybox has only one competitor left to face.
Mango, the player who sent him down there in the first place.
In their second encounter of the tournament hungrybox defeats mango three games to one to reset the bracket.
Since it's a double elimination tournament, Hungrybox must defeat Mango a second time to win the tournament.
[COMMENTATORS:] ...HBox is your POUND 2019 Smash Bros. Melee champion.
After an incredible comeback victory, Hungrybox begins to celebrate in front of the stunned crowd.
But unfortunately for him, the celebration he earned is about to be cut very, very short.
[COMMENTATORS:] Hungrybox is the champion, once again.
-What is that? What is he holding? - I'm not sure what that is in his hand.
[HUNGRYBOX:] Who threw this at me?
[COMMENTATORS:] He's saying someone threw it at him? Just because Hungrybox won?
Just ten seconds after his victory, a disgruntled spectator throws a raw crab at Hungrybox,
narrowly missing his head.
In a matter of seconds, Hungrybox is transformed from the most joyful person in the arena...
...to the most miserable.
Most people don't care that much about video games, but some people do.
Out of these people, most don't care about competitive gaming, but some do.
And for all the eSports out there, most spectators don't care about watching a 19 year old game.
But still, some do.
And out of those few people, surely, no one cares enough about the outcome of a match
to throw a raw crab at the winner.
But on this day in Laurel, Maryland,
someone did.
As far as I know, this is the only time something like this has ever happened
in the history of competitive video games.
But if it was gonna happen, it was probably gonna happen to Hungrybox.
Who is Hungrybox?
[HUNGRYBOX:] You know how hard I worked out here?
[MUSIC: Battlefield (Super Smash Bros.: Melee)]
Before we can talk about Hungrybox, we have to talk about the game that made his name.
Super Smash Bros. is one of Nintendo's flagship franchises,
releasing on every console dating back to its debut on the Nintendo 64.
The game was originally conceived by developer Masahiro Sakurai,
who was interested in creating a four player fighting game with Nintendo's most iconic characters.
Despite his vision, Sakurai prepared to field the game with generic fighters,
as he never anticipated that Nintendo would approve of their flagship characters in such uncharted territory.
However, much to a surprise, Nintendo greenlit the most ambitious crossover event in history,
and Super Smash Bros. was borne from the defiance of expectations.
The game released in 1999 to a warm reception from critics and audiences alike.
While the novelty of barbarically pummeling beloved childhood mascots drew people into Smash,
the game's unique mechanics kept them playing.
When first conceiving of the game, Sakurai wanted Smash to stand out
from the typical 2d fighters of the era.
And he accomplished this with the game's fundamental objective.
In standard fighting games, players damage each other to deplete a health bar.
And you win the game by lowering your opponent's health to zero.
Super Smash Bros. alters this formula by instead programming damage to increase knockback,
and setting the wind condition to launching your opponent off screen.
This relatively simple change produced a radically different gameplay from other fighting games.
Instead of prioritizing complex button combinations and precise spacing,
Smash places much more emphasis on movement, platforming, and stage positioning --
mechanics that were rarely considered in other fighting games at the time.
While developing Smash, Sakurai wanted to offer the player a new experience with each session,
and in doing so created a game with incredibly divergent outcomes,
resulting in dynamic, unpredictable gameplay, but most importantly a game that's very hard to figure out.
This design philosophy would serve as the blueprint for the series going forward.
And while Smash 64 brought a lot of ideas to the table, the concept wouldn't realize its full potential
until its successor: Melee.
[Intro to Super Smash Bros.: Melee]
It seems as if Super Smash Brothers: Melee has always been in a race against time,
going all the way back to its development.
After the success of Smash 64, Sakurai was tasked with developing its sequel
in time for the debut of Nintendo's new console, the Gamecube,
giving the team at HAL Laboratory just 13 months to complete its most daunting project yet.
After an exhaustive development cycle, the result was an accidental masterpiece.
Compared to its predecessor, Melee was much faster:
faster movement, faster attacks, faster combos.
The rapid pace of the game contributed to incredibly dynamic and unpredictable combat.
Melee offers the player an immense degree of control over their character.
Mechanically speaking, Sakurai described Melee as the sharpest in the series.
Players seemed to agree, as upon release, Melee was a smash hit.
However, despite the game's tight presentation, Melee would go on to be defined by its loose ends.
The game's hasty development allowed a few oversights to slip through the cracks.
In due time, players would begin to discover numerous exploits to gain a competitive edge over their opponents.
Combined with Melee's already fast gameplay,
these techniques were able to transform an already good game
into a masterpiece.
[Music: Menu 2 (SSBM)]
Super Smash Brothers: Melee was without a doubt a very successful casual game.
But its unique mechanics set the foundation for one of the greatest competitive games of all time.
The discovery of such advanced tactics would push the game's potential
beyond what anyone thought was possible.
Shortly after the game's release, local Melee tournaments began to spring up everywhere,
and thousands of players began contending for the title of the best Melee player in the world.
Starting in 2004, Major League Gaming would sponsor Melee on its pro circuit,
incentivizing the highest level of competition with thousands of dollars in prize money.
As tournaments became more prestigious, so too did the players.
Captain Jack, Isai (Isaiah), and Azen emerged as Melee's top contenders.
But no early player was better than Ken - the undisputed king of Smash.
From 2003 to 2005 he won almost every tournament he entered,
beating Melee's best competition along the way.
Around 2006 new challengers like PC Chris and Korean DJ began closing the gap.
Ken retained his crown all the way through, 2007 where Melee made its first appearance at EVO.
After battling through Melee's biggest tournament yet, Ken would once again emerge victorious
in what many at the time considered to be Melee's last hurrah.
[E3 2006 Super Smash Bros: Brawl Preview]
In competitive video games, it's customary for players to compete in the latest version of their franchise.
After seven years as the Gamecube's most popular title,
Melee was scheduled to be supplanted by the next smash game.
As the franchise moved to the Wii, the competitive Melee scene was expected to follow.
However, following one of the most anticipated releases in video game history,
Super Smash Bros.: Brawl was not at all what people expected.
The combat was slow and plodding.
Lower hitstun severely limited the potential of comboing.
Advanced tactics like Wavedashing were replaced with punishing mechanics like tripping,
where the game would randomly stun players for dashing.
Needless to say, the sluggish pace of Brawl was a drastic change from the fast-paced precision of Melee.
Supposedly, Sakurai felt that Melee's highly technical execution made the game too difficult for casual play.
And he worked to make the sequel much more simple and accessible for new players.
While Brawl succeeded as a casual game, It suffered competitively.
Many of Melee's top players tried to give Brawl a chance.
One year after his final Melee victory, Ken would return to the finals of EVO playing Brawl,
where he would be promptly beaten by a 14 year old kid.
The player who beat him had no prior tournament experience,
and he only entered because his family just happened to be vacationing near the venue at the time.
The tournament result was viewed as a total farce by the competitive Smash community.
The fact that essentially a random player could score a fluke win against a skilled veteran like Ken
served as an indictment against Brawl as a competitive game.
With all of this considered, it didn't take long before many of Melee's competitors
soured on the new Smash game.
For the first time ever, the Smash community was divided over the future of the franchise.
In an era before eSports were commonplace in online culture,
many fans struggled to accept Smash Bros. as anything beyond its original role as a party game.
Most were prepared to write off Melee as a stale, dead game with nothing left to figure out.
And the vast majority of players were ready to move on with the series.
Only a small ragtag community would stay behind in what they considered to be the better game.
And luckily for them, this seven-year-old title was still very much alive.
[PAST HBOX:] Now we are in the Atlanta Airport, and it's like 7:30 in the morning...
Hungrybox started entering local Melee tournaments in the summer of 2007.
In just a few months, he started regularly placing in the top 5.
And by the next year, he started winning.
As HBox kept playing, he found himself conquering tougher and tougher competition.
In 2009, he entered Revival of Melee,
the game's first major tournament since the release of Brawl.
Facing off against the best in the nation, Hungrybox placed 7th.
Four months later at Genesis, he placed 3rd.
Two months after that at Tipped Off 5, he won.
Just two years after he started competing, Hungrybox was already contending for the title of best in the world.
But in addition to his individual success,
HBox was arguably taking part in something much more important.
The rise of Hungrybox was indicative of a new generation of Melee.
By 2010, the old legends of yesteryear had pretty much vanished.
Like most of the old community, they had moved on to new frontiers.
The departure of Melee's old generation left new top players the opportunity to usher in a new era.
In January 2010, the Pound 4 tournament would mark the beginning of a period in melees history,
known as the Era of the Five Gods,
specifically serving as the first tournament with all five gods in attendance.
The story of Melee's gods begins with the first god, Mew2King.
Beginning in 2005, Mew2King would eventually rise and defeat Melee's old legends.
Mew2King's Melee ascent was due almost entirely to his pioneering research into the game's combat:
frame data, character matchups, ko percentages.
Information that's readily accessible today
was originally discovered by Mew2King's exhaustive exploration of Melee's mechanics.
And for many years, no player knew more about the game than Mew2King.
In 2008, Mew2King was widely regarded as the top player in both Melee and Brawl.
To this day, he remains the only player to achieve the concurrent title best in the world
in two different Smash games.
And as impressive as this accomplishment was,
it meant that Mew2King's attention was divided among two very different games,
leaving the door open for many to challenge his throne.
The second of Melee's gods to rise to power would be Mango,
who by 2009 would overtake Mew2King as the top Melee player.
Throughout the history of Melee,
many would argue that no player had a more intuitive understanding of the game than Mango.
Watching Mango perform at his highest level is an experience unlike anything else in Melee.
The way he could effortlessly string together complex combos led to a style
that was as fluid as it was unstoppable.
At times, the only thing that could stop him was how much he was willing to try.
Mango's exciting and aggressive play style made him a consummate fan favorite,
especially through his iconic clashes with Melee's third god, Armada.
As Europe's best player, Armada carried the weight of a whole continent on his shoulders
as he traveled to prove himself in the United States.
Historically, Melee's competitive scene has viewed Europe
as a significantly weaker region than North America.
A stigma that was often used by Americans to invalidate the success of European players.
Armada would defy everyone's expectations by immediately contending with America's best.
His unrivaled dedication and consistency would make him
one of the most formidable opponents Melee had ever seen.
Hungrybox stablished himself as Melee's fourth God through his meteoric rise in 2009.
And last, but not least,
Melee's new generation would be cemented through the rise of the fifth god: DrPeePee.
Although he was the last to develop, PPMD would quickly rise to the highest level of competition.
PP's style relied on tactical execution to pick apart his opponents with surgical precision.
When the doctor was in, you were about to be prescribed your daily dose of destruction.
These are Melee's Five Gods.
Now that we've introduced who they are, we can talk about what they are.
Carrying the title of God in any game entails a great deal of prestige.
And Smash Bros. is no exception.
So what exactly did these five players do to transcend us lowly mortals?
It's unknown who exactly introduced the term five gods to describe Melee's top players.
But the expression started seeing frequent use in the summer of 2014,
most likely used to describe the era of supreme dominance that preceded it.
From 2009 to 2015, a member of the five gods would win every major tournament,
utterly dismantling the rest of the competition in the process.
In any competitive sport or game, It's typical to have one or two elite players
win a lion's share of the competitions.
Chess, for example, has witnessed Magnus Carlsen dominate the competition for the past six years.
A rarer case is currently on display in tennis,
which has seen three players dominate major tournaments over the past decade.
A competitive game with five elite players occupying the same era is almost unheard of.
But if such an unlikely event were to occur,
It's somewhat fitting that it would happen in a game used to defying expectations.
As the legend goes, Melee's Five Gods would hardly ever lose to any other players,
and all were capable of defeating each other in any given competition.
But just how much better were the gods than everyone else?
Well, as a reminder, I like to recall two cases involving the player Hax,
a skilled competitor known for his flashy combos and lightning quick execution.
In 2013, Hax was ranked as the number six player in the world, the best of the non-gods.
He would remain a perennial top 10 player until his hiatus in 2015.
In a 2014 tournament, Hax faced off in a set against PPMD.
In the first game, he got three stocked in about two and a half minutes.
In the second game, he got four stocked in 68 seconds.
Later that year, Hax would compete in a set against Mango, which Mango would win three games to one.
Not the most impressive result, until you realize that Mango doesn't actually main Marth or Captain Falcon.
That's just the difference between a good player and a god.
Even when you're good, you're a long way from the best.
[SCAR:] Did he just walk up slowly, and down smash?
At one point, the gods were so far above the rest of the competition
that they could even win with their secondary characters.
Now would probably be a good time to talk about Melee's characters.
Out of all the Smash games, Melee may have the most interesting character composition.
Some Smash games have one or two characters that outright dominate the meta,
with the most obvious example being Brawl's aptly named Meta Knight,
a character so blatantly overpowered that some tournaments chose to ban him entirely.
On the other hand, the best Melee character has always been kind of tough to figure out.
To put it simply, about a third of Melee's roster are completely unusable in a competitive setting.
Another third are just kind of bad.
And the last third are all capable of winning tournaments.
To this day, the community remains largely undecided on which character is actually the best.
A debate that can be traced all the way back to the beginning of the game
through the history of Melee's tier lists.
That's right - this widespread facet of modern internet discourse
originated from the niche purpose of categorizing characters in fighting games.
In the early days of Melee, Sheik was considered the best character with her rapid attacks and movement.
As the meta progressed through the rest of the 2000s, more characters would emerge as top tier contenders.
Peach, with her strong aerial attacks.
Marth, with his chain grabs and huge spacing.
Captain Falcon with his heavy combos.
The Ice Climbers with their infinite combo.
And the space animals, Fox and Falco, with their great mobility and high damage.
And then there's Puff.
In any competitive video game your character is far more important than just a colorful avatar.
It's an extension of the self and an integral part of a player's identity.
In Melee, perhaps no player is more intertwined with a character than Hungrybox and his Jigglypuff.
Jigglypuff is the most confounding character in all of Melee.
She arguably should have never existed as a smash character at all.
Puff is not even among the most popular characters in her own franchise.
But she wound up in Smash anyway because of her similar character designed to Kirby.
The Smash 64 developers would recycle Kirby's character model and animations
to fill out the game's 12th and final character slot.
And thus, the Balloon Pokemon would remain as a mainstay for the rest of the franchise.
At a glance, Jigglypuff in Melee seems like a rather mediocre character.
She has 5 jumps and great mobility, but her ground game leaves much to be desired.
Most of her attacks do unimpressive damage and have a short range.
Combined with the slowest dash speed in the game, Puff has a hard time approaching other characters.
Two of her special attacks are practically useless in a competitive setting.
She's the second lightest character with the slowest falling speed,
meaning she tends to die much faster than any other character in the game.
With all this considered, it's difficult to imagine this character seeing any kind of competitive success.
This sentiment was echoed during the early parts of the game with Melee's inaugural tier list,
which placed Jigglypuff firmly in the bottom half of the cast.
However, as the game progressed,
the Melee community found that Puff was a lot better than what they initially anticipated,
due in large part to two moves.
Back-air is Jigglypuff's strongest aerial attack.
Thanks to a disjointed hitbox, this move provides Jigglypuff with her only powerful ranged option.
Its relatively low end lag makes it spammable, granting Puff her only real way to space out opponents.
And while back-air may be puffs most versatile move, It doesn't come close to her most game-changing move.
[COMMENTATOR:] REST!!! Rest! It's over!
The premise of Rest is quite simple.
Hitting the move deals massive damage and knockback, killing most characters at very low percents.
Missing the move will stun you for three seconds, basically guaranteeing your own demise.
Scoring a Rest is very difficult, due to the move's small hitbox,
basically requiring Puffs to be on top of the opponent's character to connect.
But at the highest level of competition,
the threat of getting Rested forces other characters to treat Puff like a ticking time bomb.
Rest prevents opponents from aggressively rushing down Puff
and smothering her with their otherwise superior attacks.
It forces other players to back down and keep their distance,
as one slip-up could lead to devastating consequences.
Throughout the 2000s, players would begin to discover the power of Puff,
and the character would gradually move up Melee's tier list,
peaking at number three overall in 2010,
after Hungrybox and Mango showed that Puff could dominate at the highest level.
However, on the cusp of what looked to be a Jigglypuff uprising,
the character was about to run into a major roadblock.
Midway through 2010, Mango unexpectedly dropped Puff as his main,
choosing instead to move forward with Fox and Falco.
Mango's character swap marked the beginning of a trend in Melee that would go on to be known as 20XX.
By 2011, the Melee meta game had undergone more than ten years of evolution.
And its combat was starting to get very optimized.
For Melee's community, no character represented the game's optimization more than Fox.
Ever since the beginning, Fox was always considered to be a character with incredible potential.
But no one could truly harness it until the meta game had progressed
beyond a high enough threshold of technical skill.
To put it simply, Fox in Melee is the fastest character in the fastest Smash game.
If played perfectly, Fox's rapid movement and attacks
should theoretically overwhelm any other character in the game.
Optimal execution with Fox pushes the limits of what's humanly possible with a controller.
But that wouldn't stop many players from seeking the holy grail of peak Melee performance.
One of those players was Hax, the originator of the 20xx meme,
and widely regarded as the best Captain Falcon player in the world before switching to Fox,
much to the dismay of Captain Falcon fans who viewed the switch as a betrayal.
Mango's infamous set versus Hax supposedly came as a result of Mango trying to teach Hax a lesson
that Fox was not quite the Melee messiah that everyone envisioned.
Some of you may see this as ironic since Mango himself abandoned his original character for Fox.
But it starts to make more sense when you consider the scale of sickness.
The Melee community loves to throw around this idea of players and characters being sick.
A sick character roughly translates to a character being cool, dynamic, and generally fun to watch and play.
Arguably more important than Melee's tier list is its Sick List, which, by my estimate, looks something like this.
You see, Hax switching from Falcon to Fox may have improved his standing on the tier list,
but he kicked himself down a peg on the sick list and the move was somewhat unpopular.
On the other hand, when Mango switched from Puff to Fox, he upgraded his sickness by a huge margin.
Because, in the realm of Melee, no character is lamer than Jigglypuff.
[commentators booing Jigglypuff player on mic]
For many fans of the game, Jigglypuff represents the antithesis of everything that makes Melee great.
She requires lower technical skill than the rest of the high tier characters.
She's floaty and hard to combo.
Her play style is inherently slow, campy, and defensive.
Spectators often accuse her of being boring to watch and play.
These are many of the same points that Melee players used to claim why Brawl is an inferior successor.
And yet, sitting right inside their otherwise flawless masterpiece, is a little pink blemish.
For this fundamental incongruity,
Jigglypuff is Melee's black sheep.
But even the most despised character in all of Melee can still find support from some players.
One of those people was Hungrybox, who all of a sudden found himself
as the number one Jigglypuff player in the world.
Unlike Mango, who had always demonstrated proficiency with a variety of characters,
Hungrybox only played Puff.
Whether it was out of loyalty or necessity,
Hungrybox would show up year after year, game after game, rain or shine,
with the same tried-and-true character.
Most Melee players consider Jigglypuff to have a solid matchup spread,
having winning or even matchups with most of the other high tier characters.
But without a doubt, Jigglypuff's most difficult matchup comes against Fox,
whose powerful vertical attacks are capable of launching Puff into the stratosphere at low percents.
Fox versus Puff is quite possibly Melee's most intriguing matchup,
pitting the strongest offensive character against the strongest defensive character.
For ages, Fox stood mightily as Jigglypuff's only hard counter.
And as Fox began to dominate Melee's meta, the game was about to get a lot harder for Hungrybox.
By 2011, the era of the five gods was well underway.
Despite HBox's impressive 2010, his tournament results would stumble a bit in the following years.
He would grab the occasional first place at smaller events,
but would struggle to win at tournaments with more than one other god in attendance.
Although around this time, he hardly had much of an opportunity.
Melee was still very much in the midst of a competitive dark age,
and nationally organized tournaments were few and far between.
Despite its small, underground, following, the Melee community held steady,
persisting through sparse events and prize money fueled almost entirely by the love of the game itself.
Their patience would pay off when, unbeknownst to anyone at the time,
Melee would once again be thrust into the spotlight.
2013 was arguably the most influential year in Melee's history.
A year that was marked by three monumental events.
2013 oversaw the release of Project M,
one of the most ambitious video game mods of all time, which sought to reimagine what Brawl could have been
had it retained Melee's fast paced mechanics.
For the first time ever, Melee players could enjoy what they felt was a true sequel to Melee.
Also in 2013, independent filmmaker Travis Beauchamp
would release the Smash Brothers documentary to critical acclaim.
The film would bring unprecedented exposure to Melee's underground scene,
and would go on to inspire a new generation of players to compete in the coming years.
But without a doubt, 2013 saw perhaps the most important event in the history of competitive Melee.
Where after six long years of slumber, Super Smash Bros.: Melee would return to EVO.
The announcement quickly drew in over 700 competitors,
making EVO 2013 the biggest Melee tournament to date.
And heading into the event, all eyes shifted towards the five gods of the game.
[PROG/D1?:]...and he can't make it back! And Mango is gonna take it over Dr.PeePee...
[D1:] Still recovering in the edge, positions--Oh! And 2-0, Armada knocks out Mew2King...
[D1:] Mango has knocked him out! He's taking his shirt off! Shirt to the crowd!
To everyone's surprise, Hungrybox found himself in winners finals
of Melee's most important tournament to date.
Even more shocking was his opponent, Wobbles:
an Ice Climbers player in the twilight of his career
who managed to slay two gods on his way to one of the most improbable runs in Melee history.
Hungrybox was in prime position to become EVO champion.
All he had to do was beat Wobbles in a favorable character matchup.
And then win just one more set in Grand Finals, and he would claim Melee's most coveted title.
[COMMENTATORS:] But this time-- - Oh, he got it this time!
- Wow! WOW!
-We're done! Hungrybox down to his last stock perhaps, winners side!
- That's it! Wobbles is in Grand Finals!
Astoundingly, Wobbles did the unthinkable by conquering a third God in a row.
To make matters worse for HBox, the moment he lost, he didn't even know that he had.
[COMMENTATORS:] - Do they know it's 2 out of 3? I think they think it's three out of five.
- I don't know if they know. Do they know? - I don't think--
- Yes, I think they think it's three out of five because that's the standard.
- And there's a handshake. Hungrybox is not happy about this. There's a handshake. And Wobbles...
After this discouraging moment, Hungrybox had to imagine
that his golden opportunity to claim the EVO crown had slipped right through his fingers.
The rest, as they say, is history.
[COMMENTATORS:] ...Hungrybox needs a miracle right now. He needs to go--
-Ohhhhhhhh! -He read that roll! He read that roll!
- ...3-0 in that first set, to get revenge against the man who sent him in the losers' bracket.
-...and there it is! The up smash! And Wobbles is gonna go down 3-1, Mango has come all the way back...
We may never know just how influential Mango's EVO 2013 win was.
But the game's most popular player winning its biggest event
was enough to catapult Melee out of the dark ages and into a renaissance.
It breathed new life into the game as a competitive spectacle,
during a time when eSports were just beginning to enter the public consciousness.
In the coming years, viewership attendance, sponsorships, and prize money would skyrocket.
After EVO 2013, Melee would never be the same.
While the game was booming, Hungrybox was slumping.
With his loss at Evo, HBox only added to his three year long major tournament losing streak.
And he did so in gut-wrenching fashion, not just getting upset by Wobbles,
but also handing the tournament win to Mango, who was, at the time, Hungrybox's biggest rival.
Following his EVO victory, Mango hosted a now infamous Reddit AMA,
on which Hungrybox voiced some scathing remarks
about how Mango had disrespected him for his entire career.
Mango's response? "Come up and get me."
2013 also saw the release of Melee's first annual player rankings.
Mango, following his monumental win at EVO, scored the number one rank.
Hungrybox, in a lackluster year, sat fifth - the worst of the best.
As 2014 rolled around, things would only get more tumultuous for hungrybox.
This was the year that 20XX began to tip the scales of the Melee metagame.
In addition to the other gods of the game,
Hungrybox now to face a rising generation of highly technical Fox players,
like Hax, Leffen, and Lucky.
With each tournament, the Puff main was dealing with more threats than ever before.
If the Fox revolution wasn't enough, Hbox also faced challenges that few others could have anticipated.
During this time, Armada would frequently thwart HBox by using Young Link,
an obscure mid tier who is only really viable at countering Puff.
Hungrybox's losing streak would continue deep into 2014,
where he would once again enter Evo in desperate need of a win.
In his most impressive performance of the year, Hungrybox would play valiantly,
beating PPMD and finally vanquishing Armada's Young Link,
only to be double eliminated by Mango, who won the tournament for the second year in a row.
What hungrybox lacked in winning, he made up for with his flair for the dramatic.
[D1:] ...Oh, man. Hungrybox still alive, Leffen...
[OTHER COMMENTATOR:] He's got his confidence back!
a few moments later
- Uh-oh. Wow. - Is this it?!
- He DI'd out of the way. - Nice DI out of the--
- Oh my-- That's the set! Hungrybox, humongous comeback!
Around this time, Hungrybox started developing a penchant for making ridiculous comebacks.
These clutch displays reminded everyone of his skill, and earned him the moniker of Clutchbox.
But improbable comebacks weren't the only dramatic traits of HBox's play.
Much like his in-game character, HBox too was a bit theatrical and emotional.
During this time, he was most often characterized by his explosive pop-offs after close wins.
Perhaps it was his way of confronting the growing pressure from Melee's new wave of spectators.
The combination of his god status and defensive play style caused many fans to actively root against him.
By the summer of 2014, Melee was no longer just a ragtag bunch of players
competing mostly for bragging rights.
It was becoming a legitimate eSport, with its players falling under the scrutiny of thousands of spectators.
You have to imagine that any player would have a tough time adjusting to such a drastic change,
especially in Hungrybox's case, where more often than not the crowd was firmly against him.
2014 marked a year of tremendous growth and change for Melee,
but Hungrybox ended the year exactly where he started, ranked 5th.
After a disappointing finish at The Big House,
some began to question whether he still deserved his god status,
or if it was even worth it for him to continue sticking to Jigglypuff.
Fortunately for Hungrybox, the world of melee was about to realize
that he performed the best under pressure.
[D1:]...And Mew2King gives up game 1.
- ...you know, I really feel like Hungrybox's tag is applicable for a--
- Back air. That's gonna be it. - Double back air.
- Look at him-- - Mew2King is so upset right now.
- ...and that is it! Beautiful job, Hungrybox beats Mew2King yet again...
Hungrybox opened 2015 with a bang by winning Paragon Orlando in dominant fashion.
At long last, Hbox won a tournament with multiple other gods and attendants,
snapping a losing streak dating back to 2010.
The celebration would not last long, however, as through his victory, Hungrybox had just awoken a sleeping giant.
- Just like that, Hungrybox up 2-0.
- Fox? Did I hear Fox? Okay. Let's see. Let's see what Armada can do here.
Throughout the rise of Fox in the Melee metagame,
Armada was one of the few remaining holdouts who did not pick up Fox in any capacity.
That all changed in 2015, when he determined that solo maining Peach was no longer a viable option.
Over the past several years, Hungrybox had been slowly, but surely improving at the Puff-Fox matchup.
The abundance of Fox players in the meta gave Hungrybox a matchup nightmare at first,
but it also provided him with plenty of practice to learn how to counter it.
The prior years of frustration gave him enough experience
to turn a daunting matchup into an increasingly winnable one.
Armada's Fox, however, was different than anything Hungrybox had ever seen before.
It was as technical as any other player's,
but matched the patience and discipline of Hungrybox's own playstyle.
Following Paragon, Armada's Fox would beat Hungrybox at Apex 2015, then again at Sandstorm.
After the character change, HBox would fall to Armada seven out of the next eight sets they played.
But despite this new setback, Hungrybox was rising.
His tournament results were gradually improving,
but more importantly, he learned how to adapt to the spotlight.
2015 featured the debut of Heel Hungrybox where he learned to embrace his role as Melee's villain.
[SCAR?:] I don't know if you can hear this in my headset, but listen to the crowd.
[TOPH?:] Yo, the crowd is not happy.
Hungrybox developed a cocky, brazen persona that he used to taunt hostile audiences.
And perhaps no other tournament showcased Heel HBox better than EVO 2015,
where, for the third year in a row, Hungrybox faced off against Mango.
-Hungrybox walks off. I don't even think he shook hands with Mango...
[SCAR:] He has Mango right where he wants him!
[TOPH:] And Hungrybox defeats Mango, there will not be a three-peat.
- Mango's out of the tournament in 5th place.
Hungrybox would then go on to beat PPMD and return to EVO grand finals,
before losing once more to Armada's Fox.
Although he equaled his placement from the prior year, EVO 2015 felt different.
Hungrybox had finally bested his greatest rival on the biggest stage.
He looked stronger and more confident in his game than ever before.
Evo 2015 represented a major turning point in HBox's career,
where he toppled one rival for another to take their place.
From that day on, Hungrybox had his sights set on Armada.
[TOPH:]...this tournament is looking pretty, unless Armada blows it pretty hard.
[SCAR:] Oh.....and Armada. [TOPH:] That is it!
A few months later, the two would once again meet at The Big House,
where Armada would double eliminate HBox, who looked no closer to solving his Fox.
He may have been totally stumped if it weren't for a little help from Captain Crunch.
Crunch was a fox player from Hungrybox's hometown of Orlando.
After a disappointing finish as CEO 2015, their hometown tournament,
HBox and Crunch started talking about how to deal with Puff's most difficult matchup.
Soon after, Crunch assumed the role of Hungrybox's full-time coach.
And after losing to Armada at The Big House,
HBox and Crunch made it their mission to analyze Armada's play style and find a way to beat him.
For weeks, Hungrybox dedicated himself to study and grind the matchup,
so that the next time they met in bracket, he would be prepared.
[D1:] Congratulations to Hungrybox, making history here on European soil!
With his win against Armada, Hungrybox had proven that he could conquer anyone and everyone
that Melee had to offer.
He had spent a whole year building himself up as Melee's unstoppable villain.
But after perhaps the most monumental win of his career so far,
the pompous, arrogant HBox unexpectedly broke down in tears.
[HUNGRYBOX:] D1, I've wanted this for so long.
- You know, my dad just passed away, you know.
- It was my biological dad and we--
- I know it's personal stuff, but he told me you'll never be the best.
- "You'll be good, but you'll never be the best."
There's an interview segment somewhere on Youtube featuring four of the five gods.
Hungrybox was supposed to be there too, but due to a scheduling conflict, he couldn't participate.
The producers decided to replace Hungrybox with a cardboard cutout of Hungrybox.
An amusing prop, but also a disturbingly accurate metaphor
of how many in the Smash community view him.
[D1:] It looks like you might know something about him? [MANGO:] I know nothing.
[D1:] Do any of you guys have any experience hanging out with him?
[ARMADA:] I'm actually not entirely sure what to say...
because I feel like I know Hungrybox more than I know Juan.
It seems that Juan has always had a hard time fitting in,
dating all the way back to his childhood when his family emigrated from Argentina to the United States.
You have to imagine that it's not exactly easy to make a lot of friends at school,
when most of your classmates don't even speak the same language as you.
Things at home weren't much better for him, either.
Juan's domestic life was often thrown into turmoil by his father,
who would mismanage his family's wealth and outright abandon them
in pursuit of his own fruitless business ventures.
Juan's complex relationship with his father in the world around him
ultimately created the competitor you see today.
For better or for worse, the conflict Juan faced growing up instilled in him a powerful work ethic
and unparalleled mental fortitude that he used to excel in Melee and in life.
All those losses over the years suddenly become a lot more reasonable when you realize that
HBox was balancing Melee with a full-time student workload, and then a full-time job as an engineer.
[HBOX:] Here's the amazing thing about going through school, and working your ass off.
[MANGO:] The only times I did my homework? (gestures a zero smugly)
- I have more EVO wins than I did my homework.
There's another video on YouTube that intercuts Hungrybox's graduation speech
with Mango's high school stories.
The juxtaposition here is fascinating.
Unlike HBox, Mango never tried at school.
He risked all of his life's prospects to become the best Melee player in the world,
and ultimately succeeded.
That part of Mango's personality represents the spirit of competitive Melee as a whole.
A community that was never supposed to succeed.
Never supposed to make it as far as they did.
Never supposed to outlast the other Smash games.
And yet, against all odds, they did.
Some Melee fans like to imagine that Hungrybox would still be successful
even if he never picked up a controller.
That Hungrybox never needed Melee and that Melee doesn't need Hungrybox.
[HBOX:] This game has been my escape for over a decade,
- from whatever else life offers.
- And for everyone else if that's the same for you, I love you and thank you for coming.
After moving to America, Hungrybox used Melee as a way to fit in, as a way to make friends,
and as a way to seek refuge from the turbulent environment around him.
Hungrybox needed Melee as much as anyone else.
His passion for the game is undeniable.
But soon enough, he would find that the very community from which he sought comfort and acceptance
was beginning to reject him.
Like everything else in his life, it only gave him a bigger chip on his shoulder
[HBOX:] And they hurl insults at you and they they tell you,
- you know, all the worst things you could imagine.
- With no respect or no care for what's going on in your personal life.
- No, they don't give a rat's ass about that.
- They just care that you play a really gay Jigglypuff.
- I came close.
- You know? Came really close to just giving up, to quitting.
- I did.
- I'll play this game for 20 more years if that's what it takes to be the best player in the world.
Hungrybox ended 2015 ranked second behind Armada.
Fueled by his newfound belief that he could beat anyone, Hungrybox entered 2016 on a warpath.
The first half of the year was marked by Hungrybox and Armada swapping tournament wins.
Both competitors were playing at the highest caliber of their entire careers,
and they looked to be on a collision course heading into EVO.
Evo 2016 would represent the absolute peak of Melee as a competitive game.
The tournament drew more than 2,300 entrants, a figure not matched before or since.
For Hungrybox, his path was clear: make it back to grand finals, where, more likely than not,
Armada would be there waiting for him.
This time, however, Hungrybox would know how to beat him.
Truly, it would be a battle for the ages.
[D1:] Whoa, alright! Hungrybox with the 2-0 victory over Chillindude.
[HMW?:] Being down this much, even without time is hard. Classic Hungrybox, my man's in top 8.
[TOPH:] The needles right now--! He's trying to snipe his jumps, what's he gonna get?
[SCAR:] Hungrybox is dead! 2-0! [TOPH:] Oh my god!
[SCAR:] And Plup advances to the winner's side!
[SCAR:] Hungrybox going down to the losers' bracket...
As the story goes, following his loss to Plup in winner's semi-finals,
Hungrybox was so discouraged that he almost checked out of the tournament entirely.
All of a sudden, the memories of his past failures all came rushing back,
along with the bleak realization that this year would be no different.
Although he adorned the nickname of clutch,
he had never actually won a major tournament from the losers' bracket.
For a brief moment in his mind, his fate was sealed.
For all the progress he made and as far as he came,
Hungrybox could not win on the biggest stage when it mattered the most.
He likely would have been finished too, if it weren't for a little help from Captain Crunch.
Sometime in the interval between matches, Crunch was able to calm HBox down
and refresh his mindset for the next match.
Sometimes, before you can learn how to win, you have to learn how to lose.
It was at this moment that Hungrybox truly became clutch.
Because, after all, there was still so much Melee left to play.
[SCAR/TOPH:]...and he is not turning around!
[TOPH:] There's the Rest, bouncing off the wall, doesn't get the tech!
- HBox sending Mango out of the tournament in 4th place!
[SCAR:] EVO 2016 is on the line right now.
- One more big hit from Armada is gonna end this tournament.
[TOPH:] Oh my go--! [SCAR:] He just goes for a read!
[TOPH:] The rest has kind of no point right now, because if he rests Armada...
And then, the moment that changed Melee forever.
[TOPH:] Smash DI!
[SCAR:] He gets him off the ledge! An airdodge! No punish!
[TOPH:] Way too high of a percentage to get anything off of that up-throw.
- But that back-air is probably gonna close off the stock.
[TOPH:] Armada not giving him anything. [SCAR:] But he gets hit!
- That could be it!
[TOPH:] And he gets the Rest to reset the bracket! [SCAR:] The reset!
[TOPH:]...crouch cancels into a shine. Not a KO move.
- What's he gonna get?!
- And the Rest!
[SCAR:] and that's the end of EVO 2016!
Sometimes the only thing you need to win is believing that you can.
In Melee, the difference between winning and losing can often come down to just a few pixels and a few frames.
But the difference between winners and losers feels far, far greater.
For years, Hungrybox embodied the competitor who was never quite good enough.
He was always so close, yet so far.
EVO 2016 changed all of that, and Hungrybox walked out of that building a completely different player.
After accomplishing what he did nothing could stop him from becoming the best in the world.
From that moment on, Hungrybox would never be the same, and neither would Melee.
After conquering his greatest challenge yet, Hungrybox fell into a bit of a slump.
After starting the year on fire, he would not win another tournament after EVO,
finishing second in the rankings, once again trailing Armada.
Following a disappointing loss in The Big House, he would take a moment to pause and reevaluate his life.
Perhaps guided by those discouraging words that haunted him for his entire career,
he knew what he had to do.
At the end of 2016, Hungrybox quit his job to play Melee full-time.
At first, his newfound commitment to the game didn't seem to change much.
It didn't help that it coincided with possibly the most dominant stretch of Armada's career.
But then, late in the year, Hungrybox started winning, and then he kept on winning.
If he could score a victory at The Big House,
HBox could put himself in serious contention for the number one ranking.
His rival Armada would fall to Plup, who was in the midst of an incredible winners' bracket run.
Hungrybox would stumble early, then proceeded to tear through the losers' bracket to meet Plup in grand finals.
As the crowd rallied around the underdog Plup to complete his fairytale run,
the glass slipper broke.
[HMW:]...and Hungrybox closes it out.
There was no pop-off after Hungrybox double eliminated Plup to capture his first Big House title.
He just slowly turned his gaze towards the now lifeless crowd.
A few people clapped. A couple cheered.
Most had already begun filing for the exits without saying a word.
[HBOX:] Man, I'm in a weird mood.
[HMW:] In what way? [HBOX:] Usually, when I win an event,
- I'm ecstatic and I jump off, but like... [HMW:] Right.
[HBOX:] I think I feel like I left part of me on that stage today.
- You ever have everything you ever wanted, and then when you finally have it, you're like, now what?
One year ago after the very same tournament,
Hungrybox decided that he was ready to become Melee's best player.
He never stopped to consider whether Melee was ready for him.
Be careful what you wish for, Juan.
And so, we enter the era of HBox as the number one Melee player.
An era characterized by two remarkable shifts in Melee.
The first of which being the end of the five gods dominating the game.
The untouchable status of the gods had been in decline ever since 2016,
after PPMD was forced to take an indefinite leave of absence due to medical issues.
To this day, he has still not returned to competitive play.
The four remaining gods continued to hold the keys to the kingdom through 2017,
but many were beginning to tell that the end was near.
[SCAR:] Leffen is our EVO 2018 Super Smash Bros.: Melee champion...!
2018 saw the year's two biggest events fall to new contenders,
with Plup taking Genesis and Leffen taking EVO.
Midway through 2018, Armada seemed poised to retake the number one rank from Hungrybox,
only to shock everyone by announcing his sudden retirement from Melee singles competition.
Although never explicitly mentioned,
many have attributed his retirement to the constant stress he suffered
from trying to keep pace with Hungrybox.
[ARMADA:] For me, I feel like if I can't have fun doing it,
- Then it's no point in doing it.
At around the same time,
Mew2King started shifting his focus away from melee in favor of streaming and writing his book.
In 2019, Mew2King only competed in four events,
and looks unlikely to return to full-time competition anytime soon.
Mango, perhaps the most dominant player ever in his prime, failed to win a tournament in 2018
And while he can still crank out the occasional epic performance,
his inconsistency has relegated him to a shadow of his former glory,
placing his god status in serious question.
These days, it seems that hungrybox is the only god left who can still strike fear into the hearts of his opponents
through his sheer dominance alone.
In his time, there were four others like him.
Now, there's just one (Juan).
The current state of melee is represented partly by the decline of the gods,
but mostly by something far more confounding.
Hungrybox always wanted to become the best in the world.
He struggled through years of frustration,
gradually improving and eventually defeating the best players that Melee had to offer.
But when he finally achieved his life's goal,
he began to realize that the promised land didn't exactly come as promised.
Becoming number one in the world was the hardest thing Hungrybox had done in his entire life.
He was about to find out that being number one was even harder.
It's common for sports or games to generally dislike their most dominant competitors.
But in all these cases, most of the hatred never strays far from the confines of the competitive landscape.
You hate Tom Brady when he destroys your favorite team in the playoffs,
but if you saw him walking down the street, you'd probably want his autograph.
In Melee, the hatred for hungrybox has progressed far beyond a simple competitive rivalry.
A large fraction of the Melee community seem to treat Hungrybox with utter contempt.
A lot of this comes from the idea that by simply being the number one player,
Hungrybox is killing the game.
Much of this rhetoric stems from players like Leffen,
who has assumed the role of Hungrybox's archrival following Armada's retirement.
Leffen is perhaps the biggest proponent of the Puff doomsday theory,
a scenario I have unofficially labeled 20FF.
Leffen believes that Jigglypuff is not only the strongest character, but the easiest to play.
In the year 20FF,
no one plays Fox anymore because everyone has switched to Puff in order to beat Hungrybox.
Melee games have devolved into boring, unwatchable stall fests
where the only measure of winning is determined by which Puff player can outcamp the other.
A compelling theory, until you realize that Hungrybox is the only puff player in the top 35,
and has been for basically the past decade.
Even now, entering year 3 of Hungrybox as Melee's top player,
Jigglypuff mains are still few and far between.
If Puff was truly such an unskilled, overpowered character as many of its ardent critics like to claim,
then surely someone,
anyone else could have risen to the top of the Melee metagame besides HBox.
20FF theorists will often counter this by saying that playing Puff is so boring,
that hardly anyone is willing to play as the character
even if they could vastly improve their tournament results.
They say this despite the great number of Ice Climbers players
who only practice wobbling setups for the sole purpose of cheesing tournament wins.
In a competitive game, it's no surprise that people will do anything to win.
"You play to win the game"
"Hello?!"
And at some point, you have to account for the fact that Hungrybox is the only Puff player in the modern era
who has been able to consistently win.
"That's the great thing about sports!"
"You play to win!"
"You don't play to just play it"
The same critics also like to claim that Puff is as boring to watch as it is to play,
and that Melee is hemorrhaging viewers for as long as HBox is on top.
Even though in 2019, during Hungrybox's most dominant stretch,
peak viewership actually increased across most tournaments.
This is consistent with many other spectator sports.
By and large, audiences tune in to watch juggernauts.
Michael Jordan was possibly the most dominant player in NBA history.
As he led the Bulls to their sixth championship in eight seasons,
the NBA set their all-time record for television viewership.
The next season, after Jordan's retirement, ratings plummeted.
The same pattern can be observed in golf,
whose ratings are notoriously dependent on whether Tiger Woods is in contention.
The trend even holds true in games you wouldn't expect.
During James Holzhauer's 22 game Jeopardy! winning streak, ratings skyrocketed.
Do you think the same number of people tuned in a month afterwards
when the show returned to its regular, unremarkable contestants?
When people watch stuff they want stakes.
They want to follow a story.
They want antagonists to root against.
Dominant players are inherently interesting because they fulfill all of these things.
But that still doesn't stop a vocal portion of the community from zealously believing
that Hungrybox is single-handedly killing Melee.
[AXE:] I'm basically trying to say hungrybox deserves more credit,
- and people discredit him because he's been winning for so long.
Hungrybox victories are treated like funerals while his defeats are celebrated like God's gift to the game.
The goal of the game for many has devolved into stopping HBox.
The Smash community as a whole has a tendency to rally hard against their top players.
In Smash 4, the sequel game to Brawl, no one was better than ZeRo.
At one point, he won 56 tournaments in a row,
a record that will likely never be broken by any other Smash competitor.
His staggering winning streak also spawned an insatiable desire to see him lose.
And after three years of constant pressure and harassment from the smash 4 community,
ZeRo lost all passion for the game and retired from competition entirely.
Even Armada at his peak faced a considerable amount of hate in Melee
despite being one of the most widely respected players of all time.
Even though he also dominated with a pink, floaty, defensive character,
not many people considered Armada to be a threat to the game itself.
Nothing Armada faced ever came close to the amount of bitterness and vitriol
that Hungrybox tolerates on a regular basis.
His eternal reward for struggling and clawing to Melee's top rank
is to be perhaps the most ostracized top player of any game ever played.
At least perennially hated teams like the Patriots can return to their home crowd and be cheered.
It doesn't matter where Hungrybox goes today.
Nobody cheers him.
He can never be applauded for his achievements.
Many in the Melee community say he deserves the hate.
In addition to the prevailing belief that he's ruining the game,
many are quick to express their sheer disgust for HBox as a person.
Some decry his unwillingness to play friendlies or mentor other players,
as he tends to guard his Jigglypuff gameplay as a trade secret.
Others cite instances of his infidelity in past relationships as an indictment against his morals.
Most just accuse hungrybox of being generally rude or egotistical based on interactions from years ago.
There's a saying in the Melee community that everyone has an HBox story, me included.
I mean, this one time I saw Hungrybox at a grocery store in Gainesville.
But I won't get into that here.
The point is that Melee players can usually pull out a laundry list of reasons
for why they detest HBox on a personal level.
And for that reason, he gets scrutinized more than any other player in the game.
Athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods each had their own share of personal demons.
But their respective audiences were both able to look past that
and appreciate their accomplishments as competitors.
It seems that the Melee community has an all too difficult time applying the same treatment to Hungrybox.
They'd like to assume that everything hbox does has some nefarious, self-serving plan behind it.
It got bad enough to where Hungrybox couldn't even look at his watch on stage
without facing backlash and drama.
It's as if Melee people have such a low opinion of HBox
that they couldn't give him the benefit of the doubt that he may have been running late for a flight
and wanted to keep track of the time.
It doesn't matter how much he reforms his actions and attitude today.
Hungrybox has always been held to his lowest standard and he's never allowed to overcome his past reputation.
Perhaps the community's apparent zero-tolerance policy for rudeness and ego would make a little more sense
if they also applied it to Leffen,
who publicly disrespects other players, games, and communities on a weekly basis.
But alas, Leffen, like every other player, gets cheered wildly over Hungrybox.
After a while, the whole list of grievances against Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma
reads like sour grapes, double standards, and empty excuses.
At the end of the day, the Melee community stigmatizes hbox for the same reason they always have.
He doesn't fit into their idea of what Melee should be.
The mere existence of Hungrybox challenges the fundamental identity of the game itself.
Melee prides itself on its fast-paced gameplay,
yet its top player uses one of the slowest characters.
Melee celebrates these highly skilled technical mechanics,
yet its top player uses the character with the most simplistic controls.
Melee relies on its risky and aggressive play styles to wow its spectators,
yet its top player plays patiently and defensively.
Hungrybox can never be truly respected because Hungrybox isn't Melee.
But allow me to explain to you how he is.
It's July 9, 2013.
After raising more than $90,000 for charity,
the Melee community punched a ticket for their beloved franchise to return to EVO.
After 6 long years of waiting, the biggest Melee tournament in history was less than a week away.
This could be Melee's big break.
If the talent can put on a good enough show,
Melee may finally be recognized for the brilliant, competitive masterpiece it is.
With less than three days to go before the tournament,
Nintendo blocked EVO from streaming Melee, to the absolute shock of the Smash community.
Eventually, after a sizable amount of backlash,
Nintendo allowed the event to proceed as normal, but the message had been delivered loud and clear.
Nintendo would never truly respect Smash as a competitive game.
No matter how popular competitive Melee got, the community would always be on their own.
It didn't really make much of a difference because that's how it had always been.
But in an age where most game developers embrace competitive play by bankrolling huge tournament pots,
it's discouraging to realize that Melee will never have that privilege.
2019 saw a Fortnite player earned 3 million dollars by winning a single tournament.
That's nearly 10 times the prize money that Hungrybox has won in his entire career.
A career in which he consistently placed top 5 at more than a dozen tournaments per year for over a decade.
It's sad to think that top Melee players who are so talented and draw in so many viewers
often have a hard time affording rent from tournament winnings alone.
Melee fans love Mango because Mango represents how they see Melee.
What many of them don't consider is that Hungrybox represents how the rest of the world sees Melee.
Other Smash players often regard Melee players as rude and arrogant,
and they actively root against Melee's success.
Casual players are often hostile to the idea that Smash is even played competitively at all.
Much of the Smash fandom can't even comprehend the reasoning behind turning off items in tournament play.
When Melee was removed from the EVO lineup in 2019, many people celebrated,
saying that Melee no longer deserved the spotlight.
Lots of people in the general fighting game community believe that Melee never deserved the spotlight it got.
The Smash Bros. franchise and Nintendo games in general have been stigmatized as kids' games
ever since they censored blood in Mortal Kombat.
Many traditional fighting game players don't respect competitive Smash for this very reason.
They can't take a game seriously if it was never intended for serious play.
Because Smash is a kid-friendly, casual-friendly game,
the FGC likes to assume that it's easy,
and claim that competitive Smash players don't have the skill to lace their boots.
As long as Smash players don't have to memorize button combinations with quarter circles,
that must mean that their controls are crude and basic,
and that you don't need to put in any real effort to win a Smash tournament.
All this sound familiar?
Well, that's because Melee sees Hungrybox how the rest of smash sees Melee.
The fighting game community treats Smash how Melee treats Hungrybox.
You may not want to believe it, but Hungrybox is Melee in the most literal sense.
Both spent years being told they weren't good enough,
that they would never achieve what they would eventually become.
Both were constantly disrespected, stigmatized, and ridiculed
because they didn't quite fit into what others thought they should be.
Both were able to succeed, even though everyone else wanted them to fail.
Both have a huge chip on their shoulder because no matter what they accomplished,
how many challenges they overcome, and how much they proved themselves,
they will never get the respect they deserve.
In the countless, endless online arguments between the FGC and Smash,
Melee fans will always defend their game by saying just because it's different doesn't mean it's easy.
Every time this happens,
Hungrybox just shakes his head and sighs.
[HBOX:] It's hard for everyone.
- It's not easier for Puff, or for Falco, or for Fox; it's all hard to win tournaments.
- So just get better.
Hungrybox is Melee.
And you know what else? Hungrybox is the best in the world.
And as much as some people would tell you otherwise,
Melee has never been more interesting.
2019 saw Hungrybox win 12 of the 20 tournaments he entered.
It also saw a Pikachu main and a captain falcon main win majors for the first time in the history of the game.
So despite Melee entering its 20th year of competitive play, it appears to be far from a solved game.
And that's because despite how many people buy into 20XX,
Jigglypuff is the meta.
While the rise of Fox encouraged many players to get increasingly faster and more aggressive,
the rise of Hungrybox has forced many of them back to the drawing board.
Even though the new era has been tough on Foxes,
It has led to the rise of a new generation of players with more patient, strategic play styles.
Players like Zane, Wizzrobe, and aMSa have all demonstrated the capacity to beat Hungrybox
without a favourable character matchup.
At times, despite his recent dominance, Hungrybox has never looked more vulnerable,
frequently losing to players and characters that he never has before.
This is mostly due to how, at long last,
the rest of Melee's competition is finally catching up to the level of the gods.
In present day Melee, the gods are the old generation, and Hungrybox is the last of the gods.
Melee is approaching the precipice of an entirely new era,
and Hungrybox remains the last stickler of the old days.
In a way, Hungrybox carries the torch of all the gods.
Newer players will never know the satisfaction of challenging a prime Mango, Armada, or PPMD.
For them, facing Hungrybox is the next best thing.
He represents one of the few remaining links between old and new Melee.
And as much as some melee fans would like to forget,
he's an integral part of the game's history and legacy.
Hungrybox, like Melee, is still going strong all these years later.
In 2018, Nintendo released the fifth installment to the Smash franchise with Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
So far, it has been the first smash title to successfully appeal to both sides of the competitive community,
with players like Armada, Leffen, and even Hungrybox frequenting Ultimate events.
However, despite the popularity of Ultimate, Melee still consistently surpasses it in viewership.
Even in its advanced age, Melee is the future and shows no signs of dying off any time soon.
There will come a day when hungrybox stops playing Melee,
and in his absence, the game will become that much less interesting as a result.
And now at long last we return to the crab,
perhaps the most enduring symbol of Melee's relationship with Hungrybox.
Crab mentality refers to the unwillingness of a community to let its individuals succeed.
It's based on the behavior of crabs in a bucket,
who will often prevent their peers from escaping by pulling them back from the brink of freedom.
Thus, dooming them all.
If Melee is to survive in the future, they'll have to learn to tolerate their top player.
By trying to destroy HBox, they're only destroying themselves.
Because at the end of the day, Hungrybox is Juan DeBiedma.
Despite playing for the past decade with the status of god,
he's only human.
[HBOX:] It is my personal belief that human beings are naturally meant to persevere.
- No matter what happens, as long as we simply make the decision not to give up,
- It simply does get better if you believe it will.
- There are certain experiences that even thinking about, even the act of thinking about it,
- sets you back, maybe all the way back to all the work you've done just by thinking about it.
- But that's not the point.
- The point is, you need to focus on the fact that you overcame it.
- And if you're going through it, focus on the fact that you are choosing to overcome it.
- You're pushing through, and that's more than anyone can ask of you.
Will HBox ever ovecome the hate?
That remains to be seen, but until that happens, he will always have a reason to keep fighting.
To overcome perhaps his greatest challenge yet.
And if there's one thing the Melee community has learned over the years,
it's to never count out Hungrybox.
The one player in melee who spent his entire career doing stuff that couldn't be done.
[HBOX:] I said I'll be top-5 jigs in Florida. I'll be best taking Florida. I'll be top 3 in Florida
I'll be the best player in Florida one day. I'll be the best player in the East Coast, maybe.
One day, I'll be the best player in the world.
Just how did Hungrybox get so good?
The truth is that Hungrybox became the best in the world not because he learned how to win,
but because he learned how to lose.
So, yeah, he may get upset by unranked Albert or four-stocked by Zane or 6-0'd by Leffen,
But after every defeat you can count on HBox to pick up the pieces, come back later, and win.
Hopefully one day, Melee will learn to appreciate Hungrybox while they still can.
Because there will Never Ever be another player like him.
[crowd cheering, "Hungrybox!"]
[Music: Multi-Man Melee 2 (Super Smash Bros.: Melee)]
Never Ever is made possible due to contributions from viewers like you.
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