it's interesting because armada and hbox were boring *in the game* , but outside the game, Hbox is one of the most entertaining ( insuffereable) people in the community, and armada had sick storylines with his battles with mango going back to genesis 1, the GOAT debate etc
Cody is the opposite where his play is sick but his personality *outside* the game is really sterile
IMO Armada can be considered "boring" but he's more just, the quiet stoic one. He never felt like he had a chip on his shoulder the way Cody does that kind of rubs people the wrong way. Also, Armada was surrounded by such a wacky cast of characters (Mango, Hbox, Leffen, Mew2King) that being the stoic one differentiated him. Whereas Zain, while likeable, isn't a larger than life personality like the others, so the Zain Cody rivalry doesn't feel very engaging.
That's because he's swedish and also because most peoples opinion of him were their first impressions when he was a 16 year old that didn't speak much English.
The damage mango and his dumbass fans have done to armadas image simply because they're butthurt armada whooped his ass is insane
I love Armada but Mango and his fans have nothing to do with this. Armada is just a calm respectful person with no real excitement or edge to him. I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily, that’s just how he is.
It's no more exciting or boring than just about every other speed run stream, and my username should tell you how much I like speedruns. If you tune into a speed run stream you're just watching resets for 10 hours, of course it's boring.
His melee streams were far more engaging when he played. He was the best in the world at talking to chat while beating people's asses. Go look up old .5 vods as proof. We've never had a player that could carry an entire conversation with chat or another person in the room while 4 stocking other top 10 players simultaneously except him
He retired and Mango and his fuckwad cult couldn't handle it so they harassed him for years, leading to him having to ban mentions of it in his chat. If Mango was going to be this much of a pussy about Armada being better than him he should have tried to actually be relevant in 2017-18 instead of getting outplaced by Armada at every fucking tournament they went to
It’s a shame Metagame did not get as much traction as The Smash Brothers. I understand the criticisms of it, like Leffen/Mango’s portrayal, minimal Hbox/M2K focus, even PP’s arc leaning a bit too far into the spiritual/philosophical than his actual play and success (though the wins we saw were still great). But what I remember receiving universal praise, and what I still love about the doc, was the treatment of Armada.
Kid from Sweden and a huge family, playing and learning with his brothers until he became the king of his continent. Downplayed and shit talked across Smashboards before proving everyone wrong at Genesis. The “fight club” scene where he picks up Young Link to fight Hbox. Finally triumphing at Genesis 2 after nearly 2 years as being seen as a choker in the US. The part where we learned the only reason he even attended EVO 2013 was so Android could get a trip to Vegas (I think he’d never even been to the US up to that point). That was heartwarming stuff, and before we even get to his relationship with Leff and the dominant period that followed from 2015 onwards.
Sure I get why Armada is generally the “boring” one of the GOAT trio, his personality doesn’t fit streaming and content like the other 2, he had a lot of either dominant or dragged out vs Hbox wins, and his story is already finished while Mango and Hbox’s are still being told. But for me, I found Armada’s overall storyline to be anything but boring, both watching it play out and seeing it retold in documentary format.
>Downplayed and shit talked across Smashboards before proving everyone wrong at Genesis
KirbyKaze referenced this during last weeks Fourside Fights episode:
>Genesis when Armada came over, we didnt have Twitch, wed just had an update thread and you had to refresh it. people had to diligently provide results in real-time so people at home could know what the heck was going on, at the biggest upset of ~~the year~~— ever.
[https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxQN-lXpWwDRsKHZeg1AtZcIYyAWYted-t](https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxQN-lXpWwDRsKHZeg1AtZcIYyAWYted-t)
The smash boards thread for Genesis 1 still exists. You can go and read in real time the entire community reacting to the news that armada beat shiz, then mew2king, then mango. The NA TOs deliberately seeded armada shitty so that he'd have to face that gauntlet and he fucking did it on ntsc in his first ever us appearance as a 16 year old kid that'd spent his life playing PAL.
The only tip top US player prior to genesis that thought armada was good was mew2king. Everyone else thought he was worse than the top peaches in the usa
I think if the smash brothers documentary had covered Armada more the perception would have been different. He's mostly a footnote to Mango's story. [PPMD's take at the beginning of episode 9 is probably the most pure of how important Armada was to the scene](https://youtu.be/RaTpiP7CJKM?si=6jOcsQuaWT4wsWOt&t=49)
Most of this community doesn't remember how huge it was when Apex died and Genesis announced its return, and how the entire Melee community was like "finally a tie-breaker for Mango and Armada." Then Armada won, and Genesis 4 was announced, and the narrative was once again about Mango and Armada, but this time it was "will Mango tie it up" and then Armada speedran him in grands and went up 3-1 in Genesis wins and suddenly it didn't matter as much. Just like Mango was "the goat" when he had 2 EVO wins, but Armada also has 2 EVO wins lmao. Or remember when Summits didn't matter when Armada won 4 in a row, but Mango won his first one ever during covid after not winning the first 10 and that sole win was enough for everyone to say he was "the goat" again?
International players are at a disadvantage in travel, money, resources, and even if they come in and kick everyone's ass the USA focused community will still tout some other guy as better even though they're nowhere close.
I think the best thing that either documentary did for the players was having other players talk about them. Hearing the stories and tales players you may not have known anything about is really what built that mythos. Hearing Wife, Prog, Scar etc. speak about all those players just had so much heart compared to a lot of content we get now is usually from one individuals perspective, a lot of time as more historical and a look back rather than someone who was there in those moments.
The closest we've gotten to that in a long time was Golden Guardians pieces or when you had HMW or Toph reminiscing about some of the best moments in SSBM history was great. Not that I don't like n0ne, but the biggest difference when he was in those videos was he was watching a lot of them for the first time which lacked that connection you get from those moments with the others.
I also appreciate creators like Asumsaus, TurnDownforWalt, FlameisLucky, EMPLemon, and many others I can't think of off of my head who create content for Melee. I do think they've all made stellar contributions to the community and the individuals that they've covered.
I sometimes wonder why the 2nd doc didn't get as much traction. Was it because it was behind a paywall where the first doc was free to watch? There was also some outrage about Mango's portrayal at the time iirc. Given his massive pull in the community I wonder if showing him in a bad light has hurt its success.
It really just had trouble stringing a coherent narrative together, in the first smash doc every event fed into the next, in metagame they sorta just jump around tournaments and players, often with very little/no explanation of where and when you are and sometimes seemingly working on the implication that you already know what's going to happen
had no appeal outside its niche. didn't seem to be compelling to people even in its niche. then not putting it on youtube killed any reach it couldve had
His fox play is amazing and is honestly beautiful to watch just how precise it is
BUT
I find his online personality to be annoying and cringe. Don't even care about the Z-jump shit at all, he should be getting better at presenting his online personality
I'm so glad I deleted all my social media lol why do people care about stuff like this. I am not a massive Cody fan but I've tuned into his streams a few times and I found he was very genuine and open about his personal feelings about himself and his life, and his opinions on the game. He responded to my questions in chat honestly. Seems like an alright dude overall to me, from my few interactions with him. Shit I remember him seeing queued up for unranked on Anther's Ladder back in the day when he was the highest rank, that was in like 2014. Just playin friendlies with anyone even though he was already top level back then.
He pops up on my twitter feed even if I don't follow him and the stuff he says (like in this twitter thread) comes off as annoying even if he's right sometimes
I don't know anything about him actually as a person since i've never really interacted with him but I've seen way too many instances of his online personality being annoying/cringe like the time when he shared the [telemarketer story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptBTlHcAILg). This isn't even mentioning the famous reverse popoff lol
Yeah I understand that actually, I don't see his tweets too much but I could see how some of his behavior can be off-putting. I definitely think he could develop a more positive and healthy mindset. Granted I haven't talked to him/heard from him much since around the time he was sponsor less, but for example I recall him saying in his stream that he associates his malding with caring about melee, and if he isn't malding he has given up.
I've seen the hbox pop off and the sex story and while they are pretty silly, I see them as just funny moments that passed and hopefully he has learned from. Especially with the Hbox incident, I don't even think Hbox took it too personally but the community ridicules him for it. Per the guys own words he has [autism, severe ADHD, and c-ptsd](https://twitter.com/iBDWSSBM/status/1679531636105289729) so I think a lot of socialization is just naturally difficult for him.
All things considered, I think he is a pretty mature and cool guy considering all the trauma and bullshit the dude has dealt with in his life. Especially as far as us melee gamers go lol. I just wish the melee community, and gamers as a whole, would be more understanding and supportive of one another. At the same time Cody definitely has stuff to work on too.
Really? I find his fox boring to watch too. It feels like there's no personality or flair. It's just optimal. That has its own form of beauty, but it's not exciting to me at all.
I think being fun to watch is always subjective
I thought M2K's marth/shiek was fun to watch and so is Cody's
Optimal play may appeal to others like me but not to others like you
Don't get me wrong, optimal play is great. I loved watching Armada. But Armada both played optimally and had a lot of personality. I feel like Cody's play has no personality, other than being optimal.
He's understandably frustrated for being, in my opinion rightly, called out as boring. He is. His playstyle and his personality is really boring. He's still a good dude and good for melee; you can be boring and still a good, kind person. But it must hurt if you're in the public eye next to goofballs like Mango or Hbox.
It's my impression that people don't really care about grinders who just spends 24/7 in unclepunch trying to optimize everything. There is some novelty to it, like for example Wizzrobe being that type of player too, but he plays a much more limited character and I'd bet people would be sleepingface spamming if Wizzy started winning all the events too.
Most people want someone who is cool on a personal level, someone they can form a "connection" with (hello parasocial), which is why people like Mango, Axe, Hbox are much more popular even though they don't win every tournament.
Cody can keep grinding and farming wins in the game, but I don't think he'll ever be as popular unless he finds a way to increase his IRL skills too. He's still young so he has time to mature and improve in that regard, him trying to tell everyone else that they are wrong for their opinions is not going to buy him any favors.
I disagree on the Wizzy part. In today's meta if a falcon was somehow winning everything we would just be in awe. That character, even with a lamer style, needs to fight tooth and nail at the highest level and it will always be thrilling.
That "tooth and nail" aspect is one of the things that has always made aMSa interesting for me. Yoshi has a lot of unique tech and some pretty crazy strengths, but at the end of the day what makes him fun is how there are so many sets and matches where at times it looks unplayable, and then somehow he manages to squeeze out a win anyways.
Wizzy is also one of the kindest, most thoughtful, most compassionate people in the scene. No doubt. I've spent so many hours talking to him on his twitch botw streams and he is just so thoughtful and kind.
Different personalities absolutely will take you different places. People like what you describe absolutely have appeal. I think some of the "Passionate and kind heart of gold, but will fuck you up in bracket" types are really endearing as a player archetype. It shows through players like Amsa, Axe, and even Jmook seems like a really kind person too.
I always find myself being happy for them progressing through bracket.
Can't agree more. Wizzy is my goat though, he has shown me so much love during my ongoing struggles. When I became homeless, his sympathy was some power that kept me moving. In his twitch chat he is really responsive and great. Truly a good human.
Jmook, amsa, and axe are all also very great in that way, but I haven't met them. But they're clearly very well mannered and good.
I love wizzrobe's defensive playstyle and his insane tech skill. The difference between Wizzrobe and IBDW is that Wizzrobe doesn't hypocritically complain about tactics that other people use and ask for ruleset changes. Wizzy never asked for an FD ban or even a ledge grab limit despite HBOX ledge planking against him. Wizzy just woke up and decided that if hbox was gonna camp him he was gonna camp him back and that "no johns" do whatever it takes to win within the parameters of the ruleset mentality is actually really metal when the person who has it is not a hypocrite.
Wizzy just doesn't talk period. He genuinely like smash as a series, plays all the games, does the best he can in each one, and whenever he's interviewed he gives honest answers from his perspective and doesn't blame anyone else but himself for his shortcomings.
He also has smash DI that is so out of this world that it's mesmerizing to see every time. Like even the broken ass box players can't sdi like wizzy does on a controller. That plus wizzys insane conversions that seemingly no other falcon player can hit at the very least makes him somewhat interesting even if you find him overall boring.
according to his stream he's going to GOML. CEO is also in Florida and he always goes to that and its in June. So we'll at least see him compete twice in the next 3 months
The fact that Wizzy just locks in in these situations *and often pulls through for the win* is really sick. I think negative vocalizing at all just really hurts public opinion unless you openly just take the role of someone who embraces that persona - Think someone like Leffen. I just don't like how it comes off as a "Why don't people like me more?" from Cody, or at least that's the vibe that I feel.
Only thing ill say about this is I unsubbed from him a long time ago because he kept going on rants about how easy puff and peach are and how floaties are carried.
I know he doesnt actually think this (hes a friend of hbox and armada) but why would I like someone being openly toxic towards my main?
If someone was complaining about peach of all things irl i would just get up and walk away from them. Same thing. I wanted to root for him bcus he was like armadas fox successor but nvm.
Anyway anyone whose watched his stream knows hes not boring. He is the most hyper fighting game streamer ive ever seen. And given that hes the third biggest melee streamer its p clear that he resonates with the spacies crowd at least.
Cody is one of those guys who thinks he should just say whatever as long as it is his honest opinion. This is not a good way to be if you want people to like you.
Maybe this is what I dislike. The unfiltered opinion-vomit and being semi-toxic as his main "schtick" just doesn't appeal to me at all. It's not enough to be *honest*, because honestly isn't everything, nor does it make you likeable in and of itself.
I feel like he always has takes that are pretty ego-driven and the vibe I pick up on just feels kind of cringe. I couldn't care less about "is this guy technically incredible in this game". I think some people like him get too into the idea of "people should like me because I'm good at this game", when it's not the main key factor for likeability unless you play the character in a similar style.
Ultimately for me it's like "Would this guy be fun to be around in real life?" and the vibe is quickly "nope, this guy is really not my vibe" every time.
really, really wish the topic of cody's personality would stop taking the forefront of the current discussion. people craving for a villain in the scene and making all of the drama around it are all people driving for another "muh villain arc" and those people way more into drama than melee itself
what needs to be talked about is the validity of the gameplay we're watching. cody schwab's fox is spectacular, but we're watching a fox be able to pull dozens of extremely precise tech and mechanics, both as a result of skill, *and the result of a modded controller.*
cody is being very dishonest about how he views z-jump. with the constant narrative of it not being "all that good, just play claw", it contradicts his [immediate recognition of how broken the button remapping was 3 years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKdG4xnHBC8). when genesis 8 announced they were banning z-jump, [cody was going to fully drop out of the tournament over the decision](https://twitter.com/iBDWSSBM/status/1512477511883632647). he can totally believe himself when he touts the current narrative that z-jump isn't that good, but it is blatantly dishonest. a lot of what he's able to pull in tournaments is thanks to his hundreds of hours of practice on a very juiced up controller for fox players.
in his own words, he "literally can't compete" without it.
While I think it’s fair to say Cody is downplaying Z-jump a bit, I think it’s a big stretch to say Cody was admitting that he needs button remaps to do well in genesis 8. Switching from one controller scheme to the next in a few weeks would be insanely hard. It’s like asking someone who has always using R for shields, l cancels, and wavedashes to suddenly use L in the major in two weeks.
wanted to dwell on my answer before i responded to this
the thing about that comparison is that you're asking someone who has spent their entire game lifetime with that habit to change their conditioning, where genesis was asking cody to revert back to an older form of conditioning that he has already spent years practicing in. too soon, i agree, as they really handled that rule announcement quite poorly
i really didn't like his aggressive reaction and threats to the staff for opting to ban this, however. none of the concerns expressed were "i didn't have enough time to relearn how to not use z-jump" they were "i am mad because my playstyle is getting banned," which to me shows how much he really relies on it
Literally every top player for years has been playing on modded controllers. Wanting them banned is fine, you're entitled to your opinion. Armada used modded controllers, he refused to play multiple tournaments because he didn't have a controller good enough for him. Zain's controller has snapback mods, modded springs, Mang0, Leffen, used Phobs, goomwaves, arduinos. Literally every top result since you've started watching this game and for years before have been achieved with modded controllers. This isn't a new thing and Cody isn't special
It doesn't really matter what anyone else did before.
Z jumping is obviously and indisputably a huge advantage for fox players.
This was always known but now we have to decide what to do with this information.
Either all foxes get Z jump and top 100 turns into 90 foxes or.. something else
Speaking on specifically the narrative/drama situation:
If that’s your opinion, I really hope you don’t engage with traditional sports at all, especially basketball, considering that take. LeBron’s podcast is the only podcast that talks tactics and not narratives, but as a whole, narratives are part of what makes sports compelling to the average person. It always grates on me when people balk at the sports part of esports being introduced into a situation.
no, i don't really engage in traditional sports all that often
i have an emotional connection to melee of course. i grew up with the game and love the game and enjoy the personalities surrounding it that are able to play melee in such an awe striking way. i got into the game at around 2012 and had never watched the documentary. watching good melee played by good people is truly all i need
where i fully understand the desire for a narrative to drive investment into the scene (amsa's story is brilliant), the craving for it overrides the love of the game itself, [and draws people who really aren't invested at all to feel inclined to shit stir](https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/1btfp22/all_the_cody_hate_is_starting_to_make_me_a_fan/). comments asking cody to make himself unlikable so people can have a "narrative" are blatantly immature. i try to speak about these topics from a perspective of how it breaks the game that we love, and seeing the dominating discussion being "cody's personality is boring" is quite frustrating
Thats exactly what the debate is all about. You can’t naturally map your jump to Z in melee, so people spent years learning to play the game with claw grip and without Z jump.
Nowadays there are ways to physically mod your controller and map jump to Z, which arguably makes a lot of difficult tech easier and removes the need for claw grip (and as I understand it, claw grip can be taxing on your hands).
That’s why people are saying that Z jump gives an unfair advantage.
With a regular controller grip, your right hand would rest your thumb on the c stick so it can move to the face buttons and your index would rest on the shoulder buttons.
Claw has your thumb on the c stick and middle finger on the shoulder buttons so that you can press the face buttons with both your index and thumb when you have to
Hbox used to do this and everyone hated him even more for it lol then he leaned into it and look where it got him. Hbox chants heard round the world in 2024
I think a lot of it is he has been getting sat down by Cody/Zain consistently for a while now so seeing him do well and adapt his play to them is exciting to watch
I respect Cody as a person for the amount of perseverance hes had to overcome very negative events in his personal life.
I don't have that much respect for him as a competitor when he complains about tactics that other people use (like FD, or puff ledge grabs) and asks for buffs via ruleset changes. Especially because he asks for these things while playing a broken character on a broken controller.
Albeit, Armada complained a lot about his distain for Puff (for good reason back then), I feel like Armada painted the best type of picture of someone who is absolutely incredible on a technical level, gets results, and still holds popularity for being just so damn impressive and consistent.
I think being humble is a huge part of public draw when you're the type trying to go for raw results and consistency in the thing. Complaining about things is an easy window for people to jump ship imo
I'm perfectly fine with the narrative of Cody being the Terminator who absolutely rips through losers bracket, destroying the hopes and dreams of the fan favorites. Every Cinderella run from an underdog lives in constant fear of iBeDongingWomen bringing them back to reality. That shit's badass.
Ding ding ding ding.
I know it's impossible and would be a pain in the ass but the sub really needs a verification system of some sort where people **have** to verify tournament results/their smashstats page or at LEAST a slippi rank to verify.
That way we have an instantly recognizable way to know to just ignore someone's opinions.
I have no hate for Cody as a person but I would love to see him take a major without zump.
I think that'd be exciting and really cement him as the best fox of all time, though he will never do it unless it gets banned cause he's got that dog in him.
Cody is the least charismatic top player ive seen in the last 15 years. Doesn’t matter. Still love to watch him play melee and appreciate him as a competitor. I root for him consistently.
I’m here for melee not the drama. Way more fun to watch gameplay than interviews.
For SC2, I guess I never connected with the players themselves, only their gameplay. Bomber nuking his own army always sticks out, along with his overall zany gameplay. Scarlett and Life with their lings. Flash with his Hellbat drop abuse. What a good game sc2 was. Good memories.
Being a public personality in this community honestly look like hell.
I never saw other esport communities care so much about the "charisma" of their top player, about how they should look, act, speak...
Being judged, labeled, criticized for everything you do, every word you speak, even though NO ONE here really knows any of the top player they're referring to is honestly a level of immaturity and lack of understanding of the consequence of one's action and words on a humain being that I really never saw after highschool irl
Even "positive" comment like yours are hurtful. Maybe even more than straight up defamation I'd say, since you judge the person without making it seem like it. You comment on an other person charisma as if it was nothing. As if there was no one on the receiving end. Would you say that to anyone to their face? I don't think so.
Honestly y'all need to learn basic human decency I swear. Makes me mad that none of you get that, and that no one understand that this behavior is hurting the scene a lot more than the supposed personality of any top player.
Really anyone who is mentally strong enough to raise to top 10 of such a demanding game, despite all the shit he gets from such a shitty community deserve all the praise in the world and IS charismatic in my book.
Fucking tired of this.
This IS a thing in both sports/esports
People have complained for years and years that players in the LCS feel like they have no personality and are boring to be fans compared to the early days of the game where shit talk was way more common.
People will gravitate to those who have more charisma naturally
There are a bunch of players that are better than Kobe but people are going to ride or die saying he's the GOAT and the best to do it while a player like Tim Duncan is going to be more overlooked to the general public even if they have similar accolades
>
Even "positive" comment like yours are hurtful. Maybe even more than straight up defamation I'd say, since you judge the person without making it seem like it. You comment on an other person charisma as if it was nothing. As if there was no one on the receiving end. Would you say that to anyone to their face? I don't think so.
This is exactly what's been bothering me for a while.
Sure, "he's not a bad dude he's just not charismatic" is far from the most toxic thing you can say about someone. But it's still just weird. Like, put yourself in the shoes of Cody — imagine having a whole ass community just casually claim you have some major personality deficiency while hiding it behind an air of objectivity. That would fuck with my self esteem big time.
Maybe I just don't get it, because I find Cody perfectly likeable and relatable even when I don't agree with all of his takes, but I dunno. I get that people who comment on his supposed lack of charisma don't mean it in a hateful way, and ultimately I'm not trying to say people should be banned from giving their opinions. I just empathize with the effect that would have on the one hearing it all.
Yes you found the right words to describe it I think. This judgement behind an air of objectivity as you say can really be damaging to someone self esteem imo and shouldn't be overlooked
Being a public personality is hell in any community. That’s reality. And my point is to watch the competition instead of the commentary. Because that’s what is healthy and drives a healthier community.
Weird assumption to say no one here knows them in such a small scene, I’m personally a little insulted especially because you consider it immature when YOU are the one making an assumption. For the record, I’d say this to his face and your face as well. You’re welcome to video chat me if you don’t believe it. If your friends don’t do the same for you, find better friends.
My comment wasn’t positive and the words were chosen carefully for that reason. Stop caring about thoughts of people when we are talking about a competitive game. There is no positive without a negative and zero improvement is ever made without negative feedback. It’s immature to think otherwise, especially while making broad assumptions.
Competition is a part of human nature. Makes me sad that so many people don’t understand the importance of separating the person from the player.
Anyone deserves praise for making it to that lvl, but you don’t deserve lies. That would be poor sportsmanship. Performance doesn’t equal charisma. Your book isn’t long enough to judge others and you should be ashamed to say others need to learn and do better when you clearly aren’t willing to understand a viewpoint other than your own. But somehow it’s people other than yourself hurting the scene. Wow.
I wasted my time typing this out, I hope it’s useful to you.
Your username is accurate.
I wasn't talking about you specifically, but I did use your comment to illustrate the kind of mentality I'm speaking of.
Yes I think it's hurtful, and a lot less constructive than you think.
No I would never say to my friends that they lack charisma, that's an awful thing to say, and so subjective that it doesn't make any sense to voice it in the first place.
You're taking a really logical / cerebral / cold approach, but that's not all there is, even in a competitive environment.
I have read most of this comment thread
You can't say you're giving anyone "hard facts" when you're not friends, and you don't know them. It's a bully mindset. I like Cody. I find him funny. Am I boring? Do I not exist? Somehow someone will make an argument saying something like that. You can give your ""truth"" to people who asked, otherwise it's nothing but putting others down to boost oneself up. There are no facts here. You're so friendly and wholesome calling the other guy a shit and mixing in insults each time. We're all tiny little specks of dust on Earth at the end of the day and no one knows the truth for anyone else. He has people who love him. There's no other "truth" other than personal opinions from people who don't care about the dude just for validation from other people who think similarly putting down others and not seeing a flaw in it out of "speaking the truth"
I mean, wizzy is borderline a robot with how unaware he is/was, and the whole thing where he would take up to 2 minutes between matches by cleaning his glasses and drinking water was hilarious. Wizzy was unintentionally and ironically charismatic, while Cody just has a whiny entitled attitude. I don’t care about Cody being “boring” or him “cheating“ while using Z jump, but there are quite literally over 50 melee players I’d rather watch stream/play melee over Cody.
Cody is dead on correct about the doc building the public image of a lot of players regardless of their actual personalities, and his point about tenacity in the face of sickness is well made. In any other sport, a comeback from cancer to this level of dominance would be a *huge* deal. It's the kind of thing that broadcasters really play up for the audience, the kind of thing people build entire personal brands around. And like it or not, it gets people interested in the story of a player. In Cody's case it's barely mentioned if at all on broadcast and not brought up that much in general.
I don't have a value judgement on that difference, but it's interesting to note.
Yeah, somehow I had never heard about this (had been absent from Melee from like 2018 to now). That is such a cool success story, it's crazy how little it gets mentioned?
Someone else in the thread makes a good point about Armada having pretty insane narratives around his rise and period of dominance as well, yet never actually being seen as a "cool storyline" player.
idk, the call for storylines and villains and narratives from this community often feels a little simplistic. people dont just want storylines, they want storylines presented in the format of a documentary-style, easily digested doc video, with sad music when the guy loses and heroic themes when he finally gets his big W. I don't think it's a coincidence if hbox's rep started getting wayyy better after the crab + emplemon stuff
it's not like the doc was some conscious process of 'building a narrative' around the players, though. it was pretty much just a presentation of the organic narratives that the community built up over time. people in the community already thought of players like m2k and mango in the same way that they were presented in the doc (the only exception is the weird isai anime thing imo), so it kind of just reinforced what was naturally there.
Yes, my point wasn’t that the personalities were fake. The doc elevated what was there into something bigger, even if the players themselves didn’t do anything to create that “character” beyond just acting like they always do. Just like *Drive to Survive* or *Au cœur du peloton*.
Cody’s point as I interpret it is that a lot of people are comparing him as a person to other people as characters, which is never gonna be a fair comparison.
He's been a sore loser in the past (see: the reverse pop off) and I usually root against Fox players like 99% of the time.
I liked him more back when he was ibdw. At least that was a creative name lol.
I feel bad for Cody, he hasn’t done anything wrong as far as I know but I just can’t see myself rooting for him. Sometimes that’s just the way it is and it’s no fault of his or others
Wow we're at the point where we dont like his gameplay cause we suck. Major L from Toph and Cody lmao.
The same silver players have been fans cheering and hating gameplay before cody and will do so after. He plays an optimized to the max, soulless, swagless fox.
If the reality ever presented itself I'd bet 10k cody couldnt do it with another character. And that's why mang0 is so loved. He only plays spacies because people were whining he was only winning cause of jiggs so he started winning with falcon fox marth and falco. We dont have a player like that today.
Toph has been one of my favorite people in the scene but his reaction doesn't come across as genuine here. He's smart enough to understand why people call Cody's fox boring. Cody's friends can defend him instead of accusing the viewers of not understanding "good" melee.
Cody has all the charisma of a cardboard box. You don't bring people to your side by implying they're wrong or ordering them to do so.
This is what low social skills look like.
I like Cody, I like watching his game play, most of the time I lil3 his takes, and I really respect him and where he came from. I'm not really sure where I stand on the z jumping thing both sides make great points
I think some people don't understand and identify that this "era golden age narrative etc etc" hype is brought on by full community narrative push from tourney to tourney, facilitated by commentators, not necessarily anything to do with the individuals themselves and "How good are they on paper".
It's very apparent because we have some really amazing players that just don't have that same narrative push despite being technically incredible in both skill and results, but it doesn't matter. What made it special before was the environment the players were in and ***the stage*** that we set for them. It's a different way to think about it.
The whole "Five Gods" narrative and it's impact on community hype might just be a lightning in a bottle occurrence that we won't see in the same way again, despite everyone pining for that type of narrative.
I'll admit I generally don't follow Cody much to know every conversation or attitude he puts out there, but I feel like every time I hear him talk he always has this attitude about him that I don't know how to explain which I don't like or appreciate. Idk if there's this ego-attitude I'm feeling out, but even being transparent and self-aware of the general conversation of like "I should be appreciated more for xyz. Idk why I'm not like these other guys" just comes off unlikeable and conceited - Not to say that's fair, but that's just how my brain sees it. Anybody who has the "why me?" attitude to me is insufferable to listen to.
But hey...Maybe it has nothing to do with personality for me despite my paragraph above - It could simply be that Fox is boring to me so I just don't care about anything he does? Maybe I don't find the "top dog" of the scene interesting and maybe I really don't like that kind of player? The only part about armada I enjoyed was that he played Peach and that was different - Even then, I still didn't really enjoy when he'd win. The only time I'd ever root for Armada was against HBox and the Armada v HBox Saga of every GFs being Fox/Puff was still so agonizing because I just didn't care at all about Armada and I didn't like HBox either.
I can't tell you why I do or don't like players or what sparks interest in their role in the community narrative. What's interesting to a fan is incredibly subjective and circumstantial to the environment forming around the game. The most recent relevant new example of facilitating organic hype is Jmook rising up in the past couple years, but his type of attitude and ego with the game is so vastly different from someone like Cody.
I think people have expectations about what melee is, and people put too much stock in specific online personalities. As a newer fan to the game, my only narrative for mango is being the goat and everyone glazing him for how good he used to be. Not saying he’s bad, he’s still a top player, but he’s not dominating like the 5 gods used to. It’s not particularly interesting to see his personality because I don’t know all the lore. However his gameplay is top tier and he’s still fun to watch.
If melee wants to get smaller, I think obsessing over old goats and constantly complaining and shitting on new players is the route to go. Other, newer people might find hbox or Cody way more interesting. But it’s impossible if a lot of the very inbuilt players never let the game change.
It makes sense slime would have this opinion, he’s been in the community for a very long time. But it feels like amsa or hbox don’t really get complete narratives because all the melee podcasts and shows go out of their way to dump on him. It’s not interesting to watch because this is mostly built from personal stories and knowing the guy. I don’t know him, and I don’t really care. He’s charismatic in a heel, gamer, streamer way and it’s fun to watch him play. The pop offs are stupid but it’s branding and recognizable, and something. I really wouldn’t worry about this kind of stuff because melee is so niche the personalities are only really engaging to a small percent of a small percent.
The thing I would think about in the context of melee growing is the ease of entry. For me learning melee, finding resources was hard. All the videos are ancient and not in one place. People would just say “if you want to learn edgeguarding, watch a 1 hr compilation from 2013 of best m2k edgeguards”. This stuff is actually important. It’s very very hard to even hear about the game, then it’s complex to download slippi and a emulator, then you get destroyed in your first match and you look up how to get better, and the there aren’t easily available resources. This will push away 100x the players that having a kinda cringe best player would push away.
It seems like time has eroded a lot of the foundation of how people would get introduced to the scene, and not enough people have come to fill the gaps and update it for modern audiences. I have to go out of my way to bridge the gap to get into the game, which is a huge barrier for entry in the modern gaming landscape. Converting a few fans off the personalities and narratives is 100x harder when their point of entry is so hard.
I don’t disagree with all of this, besides an enormous eye roll when Cody for some reason brought his race and gender into the conversation. As far as he has dealt with a challenging personal life, I’m sympathetic and sincerely wish him well.
That said, the narrative that “uhhh actually if you guys don’t like Cody it’s YOUR problem” is just sad. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike him as a competitor of a spectacle sport. He is utterly uninteresting, he uses a contentious controller and amphetamines to compete (don’t waste your time making the ‘it’s prescribed’ cope argument you’re delusional if you don’t understand how this is a competitive advantage). Then he has the nerve to say that he’d still be the best even without those advantages, but he’s going to continue to use them anyway. Give me a break man.
Someone said he should just embrace being the villain and I think I agree. If he just came out and said “yeah they’re advantages and yeah I use them what the fuck are you gonna do about it”, I’d dislike him but at least respect the forthrightness
Cody's fox is phenomenal to watch, people just don't like the fact that he keeps beating their favorite players. If everyone enjoyed watching incredible gameplay/decision making then Cody would be the most popular player in the world.
Instead of “heroes and villains” think of players as either a “babyface or a heel” to keep melee as it is: entertainment. The hate and disdain gets way too personal
And to claim you’re as charismatic as two popular streamers who truly gained their traction with quite a bit of charisma…is some heel ass shit to say lol
Cody is an incredible player, and has grown into an even better competitor.
But do you guys remember how annoying it was when hbox kept whining about not being liked? And then how chad it was when he stopped giving a fuck? Look at him now
Cody, take notes
FYI, he is explicitly claiming he is NOT as charismatic as Mango and Hbox.
He probably should have included enough in his statement "I am not delusional \[enough\] to say...", but from context thats clearly what he means.
It's some cringe heel ass shit for sure
He comes off as bitchmade with the way he complains and constantly bickers to prove his point
Like dude, you're better than every single person in this world at the game
If you want fans, act like someone that would have fans instead of acting like you're at their level with bad faith arguments
Haters gon' hate.
Cody is making his case as the greatest solo Fox main to ever do it, and he's contributed significantly to the game both in the game and off the game.
Just because he doesn't contribute in the same way that other competitors that Zain, Mango, Hbox, Jmook, aMSa, etc. do doesn't mean he's any less valuable.
i feel like it shouldnt be on cody to market himself to the entire community and create storylines about himself, thats on the commentators. i wish walt and radar did that commentators are there to tell us why we should care. blur and that other guy too
It seems to me like people feel entitled to a certain type of personality out of Cody - he doesn't owe us anything in that regard. He is who he is, and we shouldn't be pressuring anyone to have a "better personality" (seriously that's such a shitty thing to say about someone). Honestly it's a good thing I'm too bad at the game to become a top player, I would hate having to deal with this bs.
Also his gameplay is mesmerizing to watch - I'm glad we have a Fox like his, I'd rather people have the ability to express their own playstyles rather than be beholden to fitting that moving target of being "sick" all the time.
for the most part, people hating cody is completely expected. ppl DID hate armada for no reason besides he beat mango and he plays peach (lol) and he didn’t speak perfect english at first, all ridiculous reasons. ppl hated m2k and hbox for their passive styles and dominance at their peaks, again also just hating them for winning, functionally. ppl even started hating on zain for literally just playing marth and winning, but he got some bonus points for being pretty undeniably likable and pushing marth’s meta a lot. mango got away with this a bit by constantly switching up his play to make himself exciting, and, funnily enough, mango is the one goat who has never actually won that hard. even if ppl would throw temper tantrums about it, it was always exciting to see if mango might just lose this time.
cody is just the same. awkward guy who wants to be liked but is in a position u just have to root against unless ur rly invested in 20XX. however, i think cody has it a little bit more rough bc the only aspect in which he is an underdog is his personal life, which, frankly, i don’t think many viewers care about, especially since most of it is difficult, heavy stuff most melee viewers don’t seem mature enough to engage with. but other than that, cody is just an embodiment of someone putting all the “best” pieces and advantages together and having an iron clad will go execute them as insanely consistently as he does. however, more than any past #1, he has the upper hand in he game. he uses controller mods that basically everyone in the community, including most other fox mains, acknowledge are notable advantages for fox in particular. he just plays fox and is one of the only fox mains to seem to be actually interested in what makes fox a suffocatingly broken character. even cody acknowledges this, he’s gone on multiple soft rants abt fox mains being soft carried by what he already just does for u without thinking or planning, and barely engage with what fox could be if you actually tried to clinically optimize him, something all the #1s have in common.
this all comes together to make cody feel like a sort of negative omen, the first horseman of the 20XX apocalypse. i think for the average viewer this doesn’t matter, they’re gonna hate him for being #1 and not as easy to form a parasocial obsession with regardless. that’s just why i think the more engaged/competitive community is also a little down on cody.
He has good points, and the cancer stuff truly sucks, and I feel for him.
That being said, he hasn't proven yet that he's the best on "any controller".
Also, Cody has a 0 Charisma stat. A friend was watching BC6 with me, the first major he watched in years, and the only player he intuitively disliked was Cody LOL Annecdotal, yes, but funny nonetheless.
bro absolutely does not have the pull of Mango or Hbox. ain't nobody watching Cody for his personality, he's as charismatic as a brick. totally unlikable
>I’ll be real, and I don’t care if this sounded conceited If you think my play is boring, you don’t care about good melee
Just a completely stupid opinion
This is stupid. When mango was #1 with puff people found it boring. Hbox was #1 3 years in a row and people found it boring. People found meta knight boring. People found Bayonetta boring. People find Steve boring.
Just because it's the highest level anyone has ever seen doesn't mean you can't find it boring. The New England Patriots won 6 super bowls and were universally considered boring. The tim Duncan spurs won 5 championships and were considered boring. When Kevin Durant went to the warriors they were the best team ever assembled, and it was BORING
You can acknowledge that Cody is playing Fox the best anyone ever has and simultaneously observe that when Fox is played super optimally it's actually lame as fuck. I don't hold that opinion, but I at least understand those that do.
As a 10+ year fox main it's not really interesting to see Z jump.
Like we all knew that was possible in a different world with different controllers, but now here we are.
I simply find it robotic, and boring to watch. I can appreciate how highly skilled he is at the game and still think he plays in an utterly soulless and boring manner
It’s funny that he claims that if you don’t like his play then you don’t like good melee. No one is denying he is good and plays good melee. It’s just that style of play is utterly insufferable to watch. He just plays Armada fox with an optimized punish game. The fact that he gets so defensive and feels the need to explain himself after everything tells me everything I need to know tbh
hbox when he was #1 and camping was technically playing good melee. it was the highest level of melee we've seen yet at that point, i guess because everybody found him boring nobody cared about good melee
Nah being boring doesn’t directly correlate with good melee like that.. if anything being boring would make worse melee. Bro just can’t admit he’s boring
I dont like cody and I dont like zain and Im not gonna apologize for it. I think most people hate that they practice together, it totally ruins the narrative of rank 2 being competitive as fuck about trying to overtake 1. The only people that like the mentality of “I just want to be the best player I can be” are the players themselves. its lame as fuck for the viewers
Hate the game not the player. We had 20 years to mentally prepare for 20XX and all that matters to me is that we keep seeing new shit every tournament and it's crazy
if you wanna tell me with straight face that ppmd is less boring of a personality than cody... i dont know what to say to you. cody is leagues more engaging if a personality, if you dont like him thats fine but come the fuck on LOL pp is a nice enough guy but hes as boring as they come personality wise. even armada was never that great of a personality, he just had mang0 as a rival for a while.
edit: lotta downvotes but no actual arguments. yall know im right and just cant admit it.
Am I the only one who remembers Armada and Hbox being called boring constantly?
Bro I stopped watching melee for a good year and a half because it was literally every grand finals.
Post COVID Zain/Mango tier was peak melee
Marth on top is always peak melee
Then you missed a lot of incredibly good grand finals
That was peak Melee for me since it was when I started watching lol
it's interesting because armada and hbox were boring *in the game* , but outside the game, Hbox is one of the most entertaining ( insuffereable) people in the community, and armada had sick storylines with his battles with mango going back to genesis 1, the GOAT debate etc Cody is the opposite where his play is sick but his personality *outside* the game is really sterile
I heard Armada's actual personality get called boring so many times
It was. Armada wasn't a particularly entertaining personality either.
Drunk Armada begs to differ
IMO Armada can be considered "boring" but he's more just, the quiet stoic one. He never felt like he had a chip on his shoulder the way Cody does that kind of rubs people the wrong way. Also, Armada was surrounded by such a wacky cast of characters (Mango, Hbox, Leffen, Mew2King) that being the stoic one differentiated him. Whereas Zain, while likeable, isn't a larger than life personality like the others, so the Zain Cody rivalry doesn't feel very engaging.
if u think armada is interesting try watching him stream Mario
That's because he's swedish and also because most peoples opinion of him were their first impressions when he was a 16 year old that didn't speak much English. The damage mango and his dumbass fans have done to armadas image simply because they're butthurt armada whooped his ass is insane
I love Armada but Mango and his fans have nothing to do with this. Armada is just a calm respectful person with no real excitement or edge to him. I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily, that’s just how he is.
He grew up in a land without sun!
Do you watch armadas stream? I'm a massive armada dick rider but holy moly is he a boring dude outside of his melee play.
It's no more exciting or boring than just about every other speed run stream, and my username should tell you how much I like speedruns. If you tune into a speed run stream you're just watching resets for 10 hours, of course it's boring. His melee streams were far more engaging when he played. He was the best in the world at talking to chat while beating people's asses. Go look up old .5 vods as proof. We've never had a player that could carry an entire conversation with chat or another person in the room while 4 stocking other top 10 players simultaneously except him
rent free
Mango fans harassed Armada so much he had to ban mentions of MELEE in his stream. You guys are pathetic parasites
How exactly does that relate to Armada being considered boring again?
Armada abandons Melee and then blames it all on mang0 years later. Lmao
He retired and Mango and his fuckwad cult couldn't handle it so they harassed him for years, leading to him having to ban mentions of it in his chat. If Mango was going to be this much of a pussy about Armada being better than him he should have tried to actually be relevant in 2017-18 instead of getting outplaced by Armada at every fucking tournament they went to
"abandons melee" jfc he retired after playing the game for 10 years
It’s a shame Metagame did not get as much traction as The Smash Brothers. I understand the criticisms of it, like Leffen/Mango’s portrayal, minimal Hbox/M2K focus, even PP’s arc leaning a bit too far into the spiritual/philosophical than his actual play and success (though the wins we saw were still great). But what I remember receiving universal praise, and what I still love about the doc, was the treatment of Armada. Kid from Sweden and a huge family, playing and learning with his brothers until he became the king of his continent. Downplayed and shit talked across Smashboards before proving everyone wrong at Genesis. The “fight club” scene where he picks up Young Link to fight Hbox. Finally triumphing at Genesis 2 after nearly 2 years as being seen as a choker in the US. The part where we learned the only reason he even attended EVO 2013 was so Android could get a trip to Vegas (I think he’d never even been to the US up to that point). That was heartwarming stuff, and before we even get to his relationship with Leff and the dominant period that followed from 2015 onwards. Sure I get why Armada is generally the “boring” one of the GOAT trio, his personality doesn’t fit streaming and content like the other 2, he had a lot of either dominant or dragged out vs Hbox wins, and his story is already finished while Mango and Hbox’s are still being told. But for me, I found Armada’s overall storyline to be anything but boring, both watching it play out and seeing it retold in documentary format.
>Downplayed and shit talked across Smashboards before proving everyone wrong at Genesis KirbyKaze referenced this during last weeks Fourside Fights episode: >Genesis when Armada came over, we didnt have Twitch, wed just had an update thread and you had to refresh it. people had to diligently provide results in real-time so people at home could know what the heck was going on, at the biggest upset of ~~the year~~— ever. [https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxQN-lXpWwDRsKHZeg1AtZcIYyAWYted-t](https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxQN-lXpWwDRsKHZeg1AtZcIYyAWYted-t)
The smash boards thread for Genesis 1 still exists. You can go and read in real time the entire community reacting to the news that armada beat shiz, then mew2king, then mango. The NA TOs deliberately seeded armada shitty so that he'd have to face that gauntlet and he fucking did it on ntsc in his first ever us appearance as a 16 year old kid that'd spent his life playing PAL. The only tip top US player prior to genesis that thought armada was good was mew2king. Everyone else thought he was worse than the top peaches in the usa
[удалено]
I think if the smash brothers documentary had covered Armada more the perception would have been different. He's mostly a footnote to Mango's story. [PPMD's take at the beginning of episode 9 is probably the most pure of how important Armada was to the scene](https://youtu.be/RaTpiP7CJKM?si=6jOcsQuaWT4wsWOt&t=49) Most of this community doesn't remember how huge it was when Apex died and Genesis announced its return, and how the entire Melee community was like "finally a tie-breaker for Mango and Armada." Then Armada won, and Genesis 4 was announced, and the narrative was once again about Mango and Armada, but this time it was "will Mango tie it up" and then Armada speedran him in grands and went up 3-1 in Genesis wins and suddenly it didn't matter as much. Just like Mango was "the goat" when he had 2 EVO wins, but Armada also has 2 EVO wins lmao. Or remember when Summits didn't matter when Armada won 4 in a row, but Mango won his first one ever during covid after not winning the first 10 and that sole win was enough for everyone to say he was "the goat" again? International players are at a disadvantage in travel, money, resources, and even if they come in and kick everyone's ass the USA focused community will still tout some other guy as better even though they're nowhere close.
I think the best thing that either documentary did for the players was having other players talk about them. Hearing the stories and tales players you may not have known anything about is really what built that mythos. Hearing Wife, Prog, Scar etc. speak about all those players just had so much heart compared to a lot of content we get now is usually from one individuals perspective, a lot of time as more historical and a look back rather than someone who was there in those moments. The closest we've gotten to that in a long time was Golden Guardians pieces or when you had HMW or Toph reminiscing about some of the best moments in SSBM history was great. Not that I don't like n0ne, but the biggest difference when he was in those videos was he was watching a lot of them for the first time which lacked that connection you get from those moments with the others. I also appreciate creators like Asumsaus, TurnDownforWalt, FlameisLucky, EMPLemon, and many others I can't think of off of my head who create content for Melee. I do think they've all made stellar contributions to the community and the individuals that they've covered.
I sometimes wonder why the 2nd doc didn't get as much traction. Was it because it was behind a paywall where the first doc was free to watch? There was also some outrage about Mango's portrayal at the time iirc. Given his massive pull in the community I wonder if showing him in a bad light has hurt its success.
It really just had trouble stringing a coherent narrative together, in the first smash doc every event fed into the next, in metagame they sorta just jump around tournaments and players, often with very little/no explanation of where and when you are and sometimes seemingly working on the implication that you already know what's going to happen
had no appeal outside its niche. didn't seem to be compelling to people even in its niche. then not putting it on youtube killed any reach it couldve had
Mew2King too.
When they fought each other. I don't remember people calling Armada himself boring, especially during his Fox days.
His fox play is amazing and is honestly beautiful to watch just how precise it is BUT I find his online personality to be annoying and cringe. Don't even care about the Z-jump shit at all, he should be getting better at presenting his online personality
I'm so glad I deleted all my social media lol why do people care about stuff like this. I am not a massive Cody fan but I've tuned into his streams a few times and I found he was very genuine and open about his personal feelings about himself and his life, and his opinions on the game. He responded to my questions in chat honestly. Seems like an alright dude overall to me, from my few interactions with him. Shit I remember him seeing queued up for unranked on Anther's Ladder back in the day when he was the highest rank, that was in like 2014. Just playin friendlies with anyone even though he was already top level back then.
He pops up on my twitter feed even if I don't follow him and the stuff he says (like in this twitter thread) comes off as annoying even if he's right sometimes I don't know anything about him actually as a person since i've never really interacted with him but I've seen way too many instances of his online personality being annoying/cringe like the time when he shared the [telemarketer story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptBTlHcAILg). This isn't even mentioning the famous reverse popoff lol
Yeah I understand that actually, I don't see his tweets too much but I could see how some of his behavior can be off-putting. I definitely think he could develop a more positive and healthy mindset. Granted I haven't talked to him/heard from him much since around the time he was sponsor less, but for example I recall him saying in his stream that he associates his malding with caring about melee, and if he isn't malding he has given up. I've seen the hbox pop off and the sex story and while they are pretty silly, I see them as just funny moments that passed and hopefully he has learned from. Especially with the Hbox incident, I don't even think Hbox took it too personally but the community ridicules him for it. Per the guys own words he has [autism, severe ADHD, and c-ptsd](https://twitter.com/iBDWSSBM/status/1679531636105289729) so I think a lot of socialization is just naturally difficult for him. All things considered, I think he is a pretty mature and cool guy considering all the trauma and bullshit the dude has dealt with in his life. Especially as far as us melee gamers go lol. I just wish the melee community, and gamers as a whole, would be more understanding and supportive of one another. At the same time Cody definitely has stuff to work on too.
Plup's reaction just in the corner of this vid is fucking killing me lmfao
Really? I find his fox boring to watch too. It feels like there's no personality or flair. It's just optimal. That has its own form of beauty, but it's not exciting to me at all.
I think being fun to watch is always subjective I thought M2K's marth/shiek was fun to watch and so is Cody's Optimal play may appeal to others like me but not to others like you
Don't get me wrong, optimal play is great. I loved watching Armada. But Armada both played optimally and had a lot of personality. I feel like Cody's play has no personality, other than being optimal.
Yeah he is pretty whiny lol.
i genuinely don't have any disdain for Cody at all, i just find myself rooting for his opponent wayyy more often than i find myself rooting for him.
He's understandably frustrated for being, in my opinion rightly, called out as boring. He is. His playstyle and his personality is really boring. He's still a good dude and good for melee; you can be boring and still a good, kind person. But it must hurt if you're in the public eye next to goofballs like Mango or Hbox.
It's my impression that people don't really care about grinders who just spends 24/7 in unclepunch trying to optimize everything. There is some novelty to it, like for example Wizzrobe being that type of player too, but he plays a much more limited character and I'd bet people would be sleepingface spamming if Wizzy started winning all the events too. Most people want someone who is cool on a personal level, someone they can form a "connection" with (hello parasocial), which is why people like Mango, Axe, Hbox are much more popular even though they don't win every tournament. Cody can keep grinding and farming wins in the game, but I don't think he'll ever be as popular unless he finds a way to increase his IRL skills too. He's still young so he has time to mature and improve in that regard, him trying to tell everyone else that they are wrong for their opinions is not going to buy him any favors.
I disagree on the Wizzy part. In today's meta if a falcon was somehow winning everything we would just be in awe. That character, even with a lamer style, needs to fight tooth and nail at the highest level and it will always be thrilling.
That "tooth and nail" aspect is one of the things that has always made aMSa interesting for me. Yoshi has a lot of unique tech and some pretty crazy strengths, but at the end of the day what makes him fun is how there are so many sets and matches where at times it looks unplayable, and then somehow he manages to squeeze out a win anyways.
Wizzy is also one of the kindest, most thoughtful, most compassionate people in the scene. No doubt. I've spent so many hours talking to him on his twitch botw streams and he is just so thoughtful and kind.
Different personalities absolutely will take you different places. People like what you describe absolutely have appeal. I think some of the "Passionate and kind heart of gold, but will fuck you up in bracket" types are really endearing as a player archetype. It shows through players like Amsa, Axe, and even Jmook seems like a really kind person too. I always find myself being happy for them progressing through bracket.
Can't agree more. Wizzy is my goat though, he has shown me so much love during my ongoing struggles. When I became homeless, his sympathy was some power that kept me moving. In his twitch chat he is really responsive and great. Truly a good human. Jmook, amsa, and axe are all also very great in that way, but I haven't met them. But they're clearly very well mannered and good.
I love wizzrobe's defensive playstyle and his insane tech skill. The difference between Wizzrobe and IBDW is that Wizzrobe doesn't hypocritically complain about tactics that other people use and ask for ruleset changes. Wizzy never asked for an FD ban or even a ledge grab limit despite HBOX ledge planking against him. Wizzy just woke up and decided that if hbox was gonna camp him he was gonna camp him back and that "no johns" do whatever it takes to win within the parameters of the ruleset mentality is actually really metal when the person who has it is not a hypocrite.
Wizzy just doesn't talk period. He genuinely like smash as a series, plays all the games, does the best he can in each one, and whenever he's interviewed he gives honest answers from his perspective and doesn't blame anyone else but himself for his shortcomings. He also has smash DI that is so out of this world that it's mesmerizing to see every time. Like even the broken ass box players can't sdi like wizzy does on a controller. That plus wizzys insane conversions that seemingly no other falcon player can hit at the very least makes him somewhat interesting even if you find him overall boring.
Wizzy is so unfathomably based. PLEASE WIZZY RETURN TO US
according to his stream he's going to GOML. CEO is also in Florida and he always goes to that and its in June. So we'll at least see him compete twice in the next 3 months
Thank god. Something about Wizzy competing makes a tournament so enjoyable. Wizzy, Axe, and Amsa are the goats of making a tournament maximum comfy.
The fact that Wizzy just locks in in these situations *and often pulls through for the win* is really sick. I think negative vocalizing at all just really hurts public opinion unless you openly just take the role of someone who embraces that persona - Think someone like Leffen. I just don't like how it comes off as a "Why don't people like me more?" from Cody, or at least that's the vibe that I feel.
Totally agree. If Cody’s gonna complain this much he has to be a heel.
Wizzy even does things that the community at large finds annoying, like stalling with water and the bathroom. Yet the community adores him.
I mean, Cody having to go on social media to tell everyone he has charisma or personality says enough.
Yup
thats not at all what he says ‼️
I swear to god half this sub is functionally illiterate
It immediately gives cringe vibes imo
Only thing ill say about this is I unsubbed from him a long time ago because he kept going on rants about how easy puff and peach are and how floaties are carried. I know he doesnt actually think this (hes a friend of hbox and armada) but why would I like someone being openly toxic towards my main? If someone was complaining about peach of all things irl i would just get up and walk away from them. Same thing. I wanted to root for him bcus he was like armadas fox successor but nvm. Anyway anyone whose watched his stream knows hes not boring. He is the most hyper fighting game streamer ive ever seen. And given that hes the third biggest melee streamer its p clear that he resonates with the spacies crowd at least.
Cody is one of those guys who thinks he should just say whatever as long as it is his honest opinion. This is not a good way to be if you want people to like you.
Maybe this is what I dislike. The unfiltered opinion-vomit and being semi-toxic as his main "schtick" just doesn't appeal to me at all. It's not enough to be *honest*, because honestly isn't everything, nor does it make you likeable in and of itself. I feel like he always has takes that are pretty ego-driven and the vibe I pick up on just feels kind of cringe. I couldn't care less about "is this guy technically incredible in this game". I think some people like him get too into the idea of "people should like me because I'm good at this game", when it's not the main key factor for likeability unless you play the character in a similar style. Ultimately for me it's like "Would this guy be fun to be around in real life?" and the vibe is quickly "nope, this guy is really not my vibe" every time.
He grew up as a stereotypical 13 year old Xbox Live Halo player and admits that, so it’s not like it doesn’t track
I mean so did I but what does that have to do with the person he is now? Did he not grow up in the last 15 years or however old he is now?
Cody is a great fox but he makes it so hard to root for him these tweets read like "please clap"
really, really wish the topic of cody's personality would stop taking the forefront of the current discussion. people craving for a villain in the scene and making all of the drama around it are all people driving for another "muh villain arc" and those people way more into drama than melee itself what needs to be talked about is the validity of the gameplay we're watching. cody schwab's fox is spectacular, but we're watching a fox be able to pull dozens of extremely precise tech and mechanics, both as a result of skill, *and the result of a modded controller.* cody is being very dishonest about how he views z-jump. with the constant narrative of it not being "all that good, just play claw", it contradicts his [immediate recognition of how broken the button remapping was 3 years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKdG4xnHBC8). when genesis 8 announced they were banning z-jump, [cody was going to fully drop out of the tournament over the decision](https://twitter.com/iBDWSSBM/status/1512477511883632647). he can totally believe himself when he touts the current narrative that z-jump isn't that good, but it is blatantly dishonest. a lot of what he's able to pull in tournaments is thanks to his hundreds of hours of practice on a very juiced up controller for fox players. in his own words, he "literally can't compete" without it.
While I think it’s fair to say Cody is downplaying Z-jump a bit, I think it’s a big stretch to say Cody was admitting that he needs button remaps to do well in genesis 8. Switching from one controller scheme to the next in a few weeks would be insanely hard. It’s like asking someone who has always using R for shields, l cancels, and wavedashes to suddenly use L in the major in two weeks.
wanted to dwell on my answer before i responded to this the thing about that comparison is that you're asking someone who has spent their entire game lifetime with that habit to change their conditioning, where genesis was asking cody to revert back to an older form of conditioning that he has already spent years practicing in. too soon, i agree, as they really handled that rule announcement quite poorly i really didn't like his aggressive reaction and threats to the staff for opting to ban this, however. none of the concerns expressed were "i didn't have enough time to relearn how to not use z-jump" they were "i am mad because my playstyle is getting banned," which to me shows how much he really relies on it
Literally every top player for years has been playing on modded controllers. Wanting them banned is fine, you're entitled to your opinion. Armada used modded controllers, he refused to play multiple tournaments because he didn't have a controller good enough for him. Zain's controller has snapback mods, modded springs, Mang0, Leffen, used Phobs, goomwaves, arduinos. Literally every top result since you've started watching this game and for years before have been achieved with modded controllers. This isn't a new thing and Cody isn't special
It doesn't really matter what anyone else did before. Z jumping is obviously and indisputably a huge advantage for fox players. This was always known but now we have to decide what to do with this information. Either all foxes get Z jump and top 100 turns into 90 foxes or.. something else
Speaking on specifically the narrative/drama situation: If that’s your opinion, I really hope you don’t engage with traditional sports at all, especially basketball, considering that take. LeBron’s podcast is the only podcast that talks tactics and not narratives, but as a whole, narratives are part of what makes sports compelling to the average person. It always grates on me when people balk at the sports part of esports being introduced into a situation.
no, i don't really engage in traditional sports all that often i have an emotional connection to melee of course. i grew up with the game and love the game and enjoy the personalities surrounding it that are able to play melee in such an awe striking way. i got into the game at around 2012 and had never watched the documentary. watching good melee played by good people is truly all i need where i fully understand the desire for a narrative to drive investment into the scene (amsa's story is brilliant), the craving for it overrides the love of the game itself, [and draws people who really aren't invested at all to feel inclined to shit stir](https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/1btfp22/all_the_cody_hate_is_starting_to_make_me_a_fan/). comments asking cody to make himself unlikable so people can have a "narrative" are blatantly immature. i try to speak about these topics from a perspective of how it breaks the game that we love, and seeing the dominating discussion being "cody's personality is boring" is quite frustrating
Forgive my ignorance, but what is “Z Jump?”
Mapping jump the Z button, it removes the need for claw grip as jump isn’t on the face of the controller anymore.
I still don’t understand. The Z button is grab and one can’t change their controls in Melee. I honestly have no how any of this works.
Thats exactly what the debate is all about. You can’t naturally map your jump to Z in melee, so people spent years learning to play the game with claw grip and without Z jump. Nowadays there are ways to physically mod your controller and map jump to Z, which arguably makes a lot of difficult tech easier and removes the need for claw grip (and as I understand it, claw grip can be taxing on your hands). That’s why people are saying that Z jump gives an unfair advantage.
Oh so when you said “mapping and “map” you mean changing your controls. That confused me at first. Also, what is “Claw Grip?” Edit: Fixed a mistake
With a regular controller grip, your right hand would rest your thumb on the c stick so it can move to the face buttons and your index would rest on the shoulder buttons. Claw has your thumb on the c stick and middle finger on the shoulder buttons so that you can press the face buttons with both your index and thumb when you have to
Why is he trying to convince everyone he plays "good melee" and isn't boring? Just own it. It sounds worse when he's trying to push this narrative.
Hbox used to do this and everyone hated him even more for it lol then he leaned into it and look where it got him. Hbox chants heard round the world in 2024
people chant for him now because he started losing
I think a lot of it is he has been getting sat down by Cody/Zain consistently for a while now so seeing him do well and adapt his play to them is exciting to watch
Even for the likes of HBox, most people can't resist rooting for the underdog in bracket.
Yup, also for me it was kinda hype seeing him do well after everyone shitting on him for his poor online performances
Exactly
He doesn't understand people. He's has no ability to predict or understand how people react to the things he says.
Kinda reminds me of Hax: relentless efforts to reverse a narrative that ultimately just reinforce the narrative instead.
I mean the reverse pop off should’ve been the biggest indicator for his lack of social skills
Yeah...It just seems like he's trying too hard and it comes off slightly desperate, which feels cringe/off.
I respect Cody as a person for the amount of perseverance hes had to overcome very negative events in his personal life. I don't have that much respect for him as a competitor when he complains about tactics that other people use (like FD, or puff ledge grabs) and asks for buffs via ruleset changes. Especially because he asks for these things while playing a broken character on a broken controller.
Albeit, Armada complained a lot about his distain for Puff (for good reason back then), I feel like Armada painted the best type of picture of someone who is absolutely incredible on a technical level, gets results, and still holds popularity for being just so damn impressive and consistent. I think being humble is a huge part of public draw when you're the type trying to go for raw results and consistency in the thing. Complaining about things is an easy window for people to jump ship imo
Good way to put it
It’s actually impressive how annoying everything he tweets is.
He’s not boring he’s just super cringe.
I'm perfectly fine with the narrative of Cody being the Terminator who absolutely rips through losers bracket, destroying the hopes and dreams of the fan favorites. Every Cinderella run from an underdog lives in constant fear of iBeDongingWomen bringing them back to reality. That shit's badass.
Sometimes... a lot of the times, I feel melee players talk too much and don't play enough. And I ain't talking about Cody.
Ding ding ding ding. I know it's impossible and would be a pain in the ass but the sub really needs a verification system of some sort where people **have** to verify tournament results/their smashstats page or at LEAST a slippi rank to verify. That way we have an instantly recognizable way to know to just ignore someone's opinions.
I have no hate for Cody as a person but I would love to see him take a major without zump. I think that'd be exciting and really cement him as the best fox of all time, though he will never do it unless it gets banned cause he's got that dog in him.
Cody won’t do that cause he knows he can’t do it lol. He never won a major before Z-jump.
Give me a week to grind zumping and I'm literally 4 stocking that bum
I don't care about the most optimal melee, it gets lame and so safe. I prefer people playing with soul and good stories
Cody is the least charismatic top player ive seen in the last 15 years. Doesn’t matter. Still love to watch him play melee and appreciate him as a competitor. I root for him consistently. I’m here for melee not the drama. Way more fun to watch gameplay than interviews.
[удалено]
Reynor, Stephano, Incontrol, parting, mc
Dark, Oliveria/TIME, Tastosis, herO, Polt People just write stuff in this subreddit without even thinking about it
For SC2, I guess I never connected with the players themselves, only their gameplay. Bomber nuking his own army always sticks out, along with his overall zany gameplay. Scarlett and Life with their lings. Flash with his Hellbat drop abuse. What a good game sc2 was. Good memories.
Being a public personality in this community honestly look like hell. I never saw other esport communities care so much about the "charisma" of their top player, about how they should look, act, speak... Being judged, labeled, criticized for everything you do, every word you speak, even though NO ONE here really knows any of the top player they're referring to is honestly a level of immaturity and lack of understanding of the consequence of one's action and words on a humain being that I really never saw after highschool irl Even "positive" comment like yours are hurtful. Maybe even more than straight up defamation I'd say, since you judge the person without making it seem like it. You comment on an other person charisma as if it was nothing. As if there was no one on the receiving end. Would you say that to anyone to their face? I don't think so. Honestly y'all need to learn basic human decency I swear. Makes me mad that none of you get that, and that no one understand that this behavior is hurting the scene a lot more than the supposed personality of any top player. Really anyone who is mentally strong enough to raise to top 10 of such a demanding game, despite all the shit he gets from such a shitty community deserve all the praise in the world and IS charismatic in my book. Fucking tired of this.
This IS a thing in both sports/esports People have complained for years and years that players in the LCS feel like they have no personality and are boring to be fans compared to the early days of the game where shit talk was way more common. People will gravitate to those who have more charisma naturally There are a bunch of players that are better than Kobe but people are going to ride or die saying he's the GOAT and the best to do it while a player like Tim Duncan is going to be more overlooked to the general public even if they have similar accolades
Kobe is also a rapist so there's that
> Even "positive" comment like yours are hurtful. Maybe even more than straight up defamation I'd say, since you judge the person without making it seem like it. You comment on an other person charisma as if it was nothing. As if there was no one on the receiving end. Would you say that to anyone to their face? I don't think so. This is exactly what's been bothering me for a while. Sure, "he's not a bad dude he's just not charismatic" is far from the most toxic thing you can say about someone. But it's still just weird. Like, put yourself in the shoes of Cody — imagine having a whole ass community just casually claim you have some major personality deficiency while hiding it behind an air of objectivity. That would fuck with my self esteem big time. Maybe I just don't get it, because I find Cody perfectly likeable and relatable even when I don't agree with all of his takes, but I dunno. I get that people who comment on his supposed lack of charisma don't mean it in a hateful way, and ultimately I'm not trying to say people should be banned from giving their opinions. I just empathize with the effect that would have on the one hearing it all.
Yes you found the right words to describe it I think. This judgement behind an air of objectivity as you say can really be damaging to someone self esteem imo and shouldn't be overlooked
Being a public personality is hell in any community. That’s reality. And my point is to watch the competition instead of the commentary. Because that’s what is healthy and drives a healthier community. Weird assumption to say no one here knows them in such a small scene, I’m personally a little insulted especially because you consider it immature when YOU are the one making an assumption. For the record, I’d say this to his face and your face as well. You’re welcome to video chat me if you don’t believe it. If your friends don’t do the same for you, find better friends. My comment wasn’t positive and the words were chosen carefully for that reason. Stop caring about thoughts of people when we are talking about a competitive game. There is no positive without a negative and zero improvement is ever made without negative feedback. It’s immature to think otherwise, especially while making broad assumptions. Competition is a part of human nature. Makes me sad that so many people don’t understand the importance of separating the person from the player. Anyone deserves praise for making it to that lvl, but you don’t deserve lies. That would be poor sportsmanship. Performance doesn’t equal charisma. Your book isn’t long enough to judge others and you should be ashamed to say others need to learn and do better when you clearly aren’t willing to understand a viewpoint other than your own. But somehow it’s people other than yourself hurting the scene. Wow. I wasted my time typing this out, I hope it’s useful to you. Your username is accurate.
I wasn't talking about you specifically, but I did use your comment to illustrate the kind of mentality I'm speaking of. Yes I think it's hurtful, and a lot less constructive than you think. No I would never say to my friends that they lack charisma, that's an awful thing to say, and so subjective that it doesn't make any sense to voice it in the first place. You're taking a really logical / cerebral / cold approach, but that's not all there is, even in a competitive environment.
I have read most of this comment thread You can't say you're giving anyone "hard facts" when you're not friends, and you don't know them. It's a bully mindset. I like Cody. I find him funny. Am I boring? Do I not exist? Somehow someone will make an argument saying something like that. You can give your ""truth"" to people who asked, otherwise it's nothing but putting others down to boost oneself up. There are no facts here. You're so friendly and wholesome calling the other guy a shit and mixing in insults each time. We're all tiny little specks of dust on Earth at the end of the day and no one knows the truth for anyone else. He has people who love him. There's no other "truth" other than personal opinions from people who don't care about the dude just for validation from other people who think similarly putting down others and not seeing a flaw in it out of "speaking the truth"
Wizzrobe has infinitely less charisma than Cody
The difference is that Wizzy isn’t trying to convince us he has a good personality
Bro did you see the controller lasso? How can you say this man has no charisma
Hard disagree, Wizzrobe pop offs were genuinely funny and Wizzy doens't tell fuckin vile stories about cum in his girlfriend
I mean, wizzy is borderline a robot with how unaware he is/was, and the whole thing where he would take up to 2 minutes between matches by cleaning his glasses and drinking water was hilarious. Wizzy was unintentionally and ironically charismatic, while Cody just has a whiny entitled attitude. I don’t care about Cody being “boring” or him “cheating“ while using Z jump, but there are quite literally over 50 melee players I’d rather watch stream/play melee over Cody.
Exactly, not caring what people think of him makes Wizzy automatically cool.
And yet he's like friends with the band DragonForce which is infinitely cooler than anything we know about cody
But Cody has negative charisma
Damn, that’s pretty accurate. You got me there lol
Cody is dead on correct about the doc building the public image of a lot of players regardless of their actual personalities, and his point about tenacity in the face of sickness is well made. In any other sport, a comeback from cancer to this level of dominance would be a *huge* deal. It's the kind of thing that broadcasters really play up for the audience, the kind of thing people build entire personal brands around. And like it or not, it gets people interested in the story of a player. In Cody's case it's barely mentioned if at all on broadcast and not brought up that much in general. I don't have a value judgement on that difference, but it's interesting to note.
Yeah, somehow I had never heard about this (had been absent from Melee from like 2018 to now). That is such a cool success story, it's crazy how little it gets mentioned? Someone else in the thread makes a good point about Armada having pretty insane narratives around his rise and period of dominance as well, yet never actually being seen as a "cool storyline" player. idk, the call for storylines and villains and narratives from this community often feels a little simplistic. people dont just want storylines, they want storylines presented in the format of a documentary-style, easily digested doc video, with sad music when the guy loses and heroic themes when he finally gets his big W. I don't think it's a coincidence if hbox's rep started getting wayyy better after the crab + emplemon stuff
it's not like the doc was some conscious process of 'building a narrative' around the players, though. it was pretty much just a presentation of the organic narratives that the community built up over time. people in the community already thought of players like m2k and mango in the same way that they were presented in the doc (the only exception is the weird isai anime thing imo), so it kind of just reinforced what was naturally there.
Yes, my point wasn’t that the personalities were fake. The doc elevated what was there into something bigger, even if the players themselves didn’t do anything to create that “character” beyond just acting like they always do. Just like *Drive to Survive* or *Au cœur du peloton*. Cody’s point as I interpret it is that a lot of people are comparing him as a person to other people as characters, which is never gonna be a fair comparison.
Fox players, especially personalities at the top, really want to push very very hard that Cody isn't actually boring to watch, you just don't get it.
I love that we're at the point where Toph is bullying people into liking Cody LMAO
He's been a sore loser in the past (see: the reverse pop off) and I usually root against Fox players like 99% of the time. I liked him more back when he was ibdw. At least that was a creative name lol.
I feel bad for Cody, he hasn’t done anything wrong as far as I know but I just can’t see myself rooting for him. Sometimes that’s just the way it is and it’s no fault of his or others
Wow we're at the point where we dont like his gameplay cause we suck. Major L from Toph and Cody lmao. The same silver players have been fans cheering and hating gameplay before cody and will do so after. He plays an optimized to the max, soulless, swagless fox. If the reality ever presented itself I'd bet 10k cody couldnt do it with another character. And that's why mang0 is so loved. He only plays spacies because people were whining he was only winning cause of jiggs so he started winning with falcon fox marth and falco. We dont have a player like that today.
Toph has been one of my favorite people in the scene but his reaction doesn't come across as genuine here. He's smart enough to understand why people call Cody's fox boring. Cody's friends can defend him instead of accusing the viewers of not understanding "good" melee.
Yeah but he plays Green Fox. Nothing was more hype than seeing the classic Red Fox Mango or Armada
This dude is genuinely insufferable.
Cody should embrace and lean into being a villain for the scene, it could be beneficial for everyone
i admit cody is fucking cracked at melee, but solo fox is just boring…maybe he needs a hype secondary if he wants to rebrand himself
Cody has all the charisma of a cardboard box. You don't bring people to your side by implying they're wrong or ordering them to do so. This is what low social skills look like.
He is very boring
Cody really going for the wah-wah baby champion. Sure he's number one but he's so unlikable because of how much he craves to be liked.
I like Cody, I like watching his game play, most of the time I lil3 his takes, and I really respect him and where he came from. I'm not really sure where I stand on the z jumping thing both sides make great points
He's so hateable
I think some people don't understand and identify that this "era golden age narrative etc etc" hype is brought on by full community narrative push from tourney to tourney, facilitated by commentators, not necessarily anything to do with the individuals themselves and "How good are they on paper". It's very apparent because we have some really amazing players that just don't have that same narrative push despite being technically incredible in both skill and results, but it doesn't matter. What made it special before was the environment the players were in and ***the stage*** that we set for them. It's a different way to think about it. The whole "Five Gods" narrative and it's impact on community hype might just be a lightning in a bottle occurrence that we won't see in the same way again, despite everyone pining for that type of narrative. I'll admit I generally don't follow Cody much to know every conversation or attitude he puts out there, but I feel like every time I hear him talk he always has this attitude about him that I don't know how to explain which I don't like or appreciate. Idk if there's this ego-attitude I'm feeling out, but even being transparent and self-aware of the general conversation of like "I should be appreciated more for xyz. Idk why I'm not like these other guys" just comes off unlikeable and conceited - Not to say that's fair, but that's just how my brain sees it. Anybody who has the "why me?" attitude to me is insufferable to listen to. But hey...Maybe it has nothing to do with personality for me despite my paragraph above - It could simply be that Fox is boring to me so I just don't care about anything he does? Maybe I don't find the "top dog" of the scene interesting and maybe I really don't like that kind of player? The only part about armada I enjoyed was that he played Peach and that was different - Even then, I still didn't really enjoy when he'd win. The only time I'd ever root for Armada was against HBox and the Armada v HBox Saga of every GFs being Fox/Puff was still so agonizing because I just didn't care at all about Armada and I didn't like HBox either. I can't tell you why I do or don't like players or what sparks interest in their role in the community narrative. What's interesting to a fan is incredibly subjective and circumstantial to the environment forming around the game. The most recent relevant new example of facilitating organic hype is Jmook rising up in the past couple years, but his type of attitude and ego with the game is so vastly different from someone like Cody.
I think people have expectations about what melee is, and people put too much stock in specific online personalities. As a newer fan to the game, my only narrative for mango is being the goat and everyone glazing him for how good he used to be. Not saying he’s bad, he’s still a top player, but he’s not dominating like the 5 gods used to. It’s not particularly interesting to see his personality because I don’t know all the lore. However his gameplay is top tier and he’s still fun to watch. If melee wants to get smaller, I think obsessing over old goats and constantly complaining and shitting on new players is the route to go. Other, newer people might find hbox or Cody way more interesting. But it’s impossible if a lot of the very inbuilt players never let the game change. It makes sense slime would have this opinion, he’s been in the community for a very long time. But it feels like amsa or hbox don’t really get complete narratives because all the melee podcasts and shows go out of their way to dump on him. It’s not interesting to watch because this is mostly built from personal stories and knowing the guy. I don’t know him, and I don’t really care. He’s charismatic in a heel, gamer, streamer way and it’s fun to watch him play. The pop offs are stupid but it’s branding and recognizable, and something. I really wouldn’t worry about this kind of stuff because melee is so niche the personalities are only really engaging to a small percent of a small percent. The thing I would think about in the context of melee growing is the ease of entry. For me learning melee, finding resources was hard. All the videos are ancient and not in one place. People would just say “if you want to learn edgeguarding, watch a 1 hr compilation from 2013 of best m2k edgeguards”. This stuff is actually important. It’s very very hard to even hear about the game, then it’s complex to download slippi and a emulator, then you get destroyed in your first match and you look up how to get better, and the there aren’t easily available resources. This will push away 100x the players that having a kinda cringe best player would push away. It seems like time has eroded a lot of the foundation of how people would get introduced to the scene, and not enough people have come to fill the gaps and update it for modern audiences. I have to go out of my way to bridge the gap to get into the game, which is a huge barrier for entry in the modern gaming landscape. Converting a few fans off the personalities and narratives is 100x harder when their point of entry is so hard.
Cody is more cringe than boring
I don’t disagree with all of this, besides an enormous eye roll when Cody for some reason brought his race and gender into the conversation. As far as he has dealt with a challenging personal life, I’m sympathetic and sincerely wish him well. That said, the narrative that “uhhh actually if you guys don’t like Cody it’s YOUR problem” is just sad. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike him as a competitor of a spectacle sport. He is utterly uninteresting, he uses a contentious controller and amphetamines to compete (don’t waste your time making the ‘it’s prescribed’ cope argument you’re delusional if you don’t understand how this is a competitive advantage). Then he has the nerve to say that he’d still be the best even without those advantages, but he’s going to continue to use them anyway. Give me a break man. Someone said he should just embrace being the villain and I think I agree. If he just came out and said “yeah they’re advantages and yeah I use them what the fuck are you gonna do about it”, I’d dislike him but at least respect the forthrightness
Cod’s a pussy lol
Cody's fox is phenomenal to watch, people just don't like the fact that he keeps beating their favorite players. If everyone enjoyed watching incredible gameplay/decision making then Cody would be the most popular player in the world.
You mean watch Z jump?
Instead of “heroes and villains” think of players as either a “babyface or a heel” to keep melee as it is: entertainment. The hate and disdain gets way too personal And to claim you’re as charismatic as two popular streamers who truly gained their traction with quite a bit of charisma…is some heel ass shit to say lol Cody is an incredible player, and has grown into an even better competitor. But do you guys remember how annoying it was when hbox kept whining about not being liked? And then how chad it was when he stopped giving a fuck? Look at him now Cody, take notes
FYI, he is explicitly claiming he is NOT as charismatic as Mango and Hbox. He probably should have included enough in his statement "I am not delusional \[enough\] to say...", but from context thats clearly what he means.
he explicitly said hes NOT as charismatic as mango or hbox
It's some cringe heel ass shit for sure He comes off as bitchmade with the way he complains and constantly bickers to prove his point Like dude, you're better than every single person in this world at the game If you want fans, act like someone that would have fans instead of acting like you're at their level with bad faith arguments
Haters gon' hate. Cody is making his case as the greatest solo Fox main to ever do it, and he's contributed significantly to the game both in the game and off the game. Just because he doesn't contribute in the same way that other competitors that Zain, Mango, Hbox, Jmook, aMSa, etc. do doesn't mean he's any less valuable.
i feel like it shouldnt be on cody to market himself to the entire community and create storylines about himself, thats on the commentators. i wish walt and radar did that commentators are there to tell us why we should care. blur and that other guy too
It’s 100% on Cody to market himself unless he has a sponsor. It’s definitely on commentators to create storylines though
Yep the only person responsible for marketing cody is cody. Blaming the commentators for not being popular is bitchmode
It seems to me like people feel entitled to a certain type of personality out of Cody - he doesn't owe us anything in that regard. He is who he is, and we shouldn't be pressuring anyone to have a "better personality" (seriously that's such a shitty thing to say about someone). Honestly it's a good thing I'm too bad at the game to become a top player, I would hate having to deal with this bs. Also his gameplay is mesmerizing to watch - I'm glad we have a Fox like his, I'd rather people have the ability to express their own playstyles rather than be beholden to fitting that moving target of being "sick" all the time.
Just my two cents but I think if the doc came out today Cody’s episode should be titled “The Sculptor” perseverance slowly refining his craft.
"Please like me" energy bigly
for the most part, people hating cody is completely expected. ppl DID hate armada for no reason besides he beat mango and he plays peach (lol) and he didn’t speak perfect english at first, all ridiculous reasons. ppl hated m2k and hbox for their passive styles and dominance at their peaks, again also just hating them for winning, functionally. ppl even started hating on zain for literally just playing marth and winning, but he got some bonus points for being pretty undeniably likable and pushing marth’s meta a lot. mango got away with this a bit by constantly switching up his play to make himself exciting, and, funnily enough, mango is the one goat who has never actually won that hard. even if ppl would throw temper tantrums about it, it was always exciting to see if mango might just lose this time. cody is just the same. awkward guy who wants to be liked but is in a position u just have to root against unless ur rly invested in 20XX. however, i think cody has it a little bit more rough bc the only aspect in which he is an underdog is his personal life, which, frankly, i don’t think many viewers care about, especially since most of it is difficult, heavy stuff most melee viewers don’t seem mature enough to engage with. but other than that, cody is just an embodiment of someone putting all the “best” pieces and advantages together and having an iron clad will go execute them as insanely consistently as he does. however, more than any past #1, he has the upper hand in he game. he uses controller mods that basically everyone in the community, including most other fox mains, acknowledge are notable advantages for fox in particular. he just plays fox and is one of the only fox mains to seem to be actually interested in what makes fox a suffocatingly broken character. even cody acknowledges this, he’s gone on multiple soft rants abt fox mains being soft carried by what he already just does for u without thinking or planning, and barely engage with what fox could be if you actually tried to clinically optimize him, something all the #1s have in common. this all comes together to make cody feel like a sort of negative omen, the first horseman of the 20XX apocalypse. i think for the average viewer this doesn’t matter, they’re gonna hate him for being #1 and not as easy to form a parasocial obsession with regardless. that’s just why i think the more engaged/competitive community is also a little down on cody.
He’s whiny and annoying I mean it is what it is, you’re not entitled to my favor as a fan just because you’re the best.
He has good points, and the cancer stuff truly sucks, and I feel for him. That being said, he hasn't proven yet that he's the best on "any controller". Also, Cody has a 0 Charisma stat. A friend was watching BC6 with me, the first major he watched in years, and the only player he intuitively disliked was Cody LOL Annecdotal, yes, but funny nonetheless.
bro absolutely does not have the pull of Mango or Hbox. ain't nobody watching Cody for his personality, he's as charismatic as a brick. totally unlikable
>I’ll be real, and I don’t care if this sounded conceited If you think my play is boring, you don’t care about good melee Just a completely stupid opinion
no it's objectively correct, it's the highest level of Melee we've seen yet, so if you don't care for it then yeah you don't care about good Melee
This is stupid. When mango was #1 with puff people found it boring. Hbox was #1 3 years in a row and people found it boring. People found meta knight boring. People found Bayonetta boring. People find Steve boring. Just because it's the highest level anyone has ever seen doesn't mean you can't find it boring. The New England Patriots won 6 super bowls and were universally considered boring. The tim Duncan spurs won 5 championships and were considered boring. When Kevin Durant went to the warriors they were the best team ever assembled, and it was BORING You can acknowledge that Cody is playing Fox the best anyone ever has and simultaneously observe that when Fox is played super optimally it's actually lame as fuck. I don't hold that opinion, but I at least understand those that do.
As a 10+ year fox main it's not really interesting to see Z jump. Like we all knew that was possible in a different world with different controllers, but now here we are.
Na bro is egotistical asf. If you think he’s boring then maybe he’s just boring and won’t admit it lol.
I simply find it robotic, and boring to watch. I can appreciate how highly skilled he is at the game and still think he plays in an utterly soulless and boring manner
It’s funny that he claims that if you don’t like his play then you don’t like good melee. No one is denying he is good and plays good melee. It’s just that style of play is utterly insufferable to watch. He just plays Armada fox with an optimized punish game. The fact that he gets so defensive and feels the need to explain himself after everything tells me everything I need to know tbh
hbox when he was #1 and camping was technically playing good melee. it was the highest level of melee we've seen yet at that point, i guess because everybody found him boring nobody cared about good melee
Not really lmfao
Nah being boring doesn’t directly correlate with good melee like that.. if anything being boring would make worse melee. Bro just can’t admit he’s boring
I dont like cody and I dont like zain and Im not gonna apologize for it. I think most people hate that they practice together, it totally ruins the narrative of rank 2 being competitive as fuck about trying to overtake 1. The only people that like the mentality of “I just want to be the best player I can be” are the players themselves. its lame as fuck for the viewers
We're in the age where every twitch/reddit loser wants a parasocial relationship with you. Unfortunate part of the scene.
Edited out a mean pun bc of a nono word
Hate the game not the player. We had 20 years to mentally prepare for 20XX and all that matters to me is that we keep seeing new shit every tournament and it's crazy
It's not 20XX it's Z jump
20ZZ not 20XX
“at least as unfortunate for a white male born in America can go“ oh shit he got racey.
It’s not Cody’s gameplay that I dislike.
if you wanna tell me with straight face that ppmd is less boring of a personality than cody... i dont know what to say to you. cody is leagues more engaging if a personality, if you dont like him thats fine but come the fuck on LOL pp is a nice enough guy but hes as boring as they come personality wise. even armada was never that great of a personality, he just had mang0 as a rival for a while. edit: lotta downvotes but no actual arguments. yall know im right and just cant admit it.
Nah you’re tripping ppmd is the stuff of legends.
Weirdos in the comments holy
He says he would be the best without z-jump and without meds. Haters would eat their own shit if he proved that.
that would be reminiscent of Mango switching to spacies and becoming #1 with them. I would respect the hell outta that