While Link is one of the worst characters in terms of viability across all games, there have been a brave group of players that have pushed Link to the brink of success. Here's an in depth video going over the long and storied history of Link mains!
Also, at 1000 subscribers, the revenue of this video will be given to a link player; nominate someone below!
Despite Axe's low placing at GOML, pikachu has been one of the most common characters in top 24 at the past 3 big events. Jchu, Swift, Zachhhh, Nairial, and Blesse have all done well, plus Axe had a fantastic CEO. There are clearly some tough matchups like icies and puff but I still think that there is a lot more we can see from the mouse! Here's a video going more in depth with a lot of the successes from mid tiers the past 2 weeks, like RapMonster winning almost everything he enters, kuro's ganon winning a monthly, and more.
Supernova is my favorite tournament of the year and I'm really looking forward to this weekend. While ultimate is much less stacked due to no Japan presence and melee is back to normal size without Ludwig giving free entry, it'll still be great to watch and Supernova being sandwiched between GOML and CEO means that there's a lot of weight and anticipation. Here's a video overview of the entire event, plus I'll be making quick recaps for each game as soon as they finish!
In case you were living under a rock over the weekend, goml had some crazy results for the lower seeded characters. Sebas and Phorox both bringing Doc to top 32, 3 icies in top 16, some up and down results from the pikachus, DialM getting top 32, joey bats almost getting ness to top 64, and of course RapMonster getting 2nd to lloD. I know that RapM gets talked about a ton but I don't think some people realize that he doesn't just have wins on Zain and spacies; he has beaten ALMOST EVERYONE HE'S PLAYED.
I've been looking at his results pretty consistently since the start of the year, and the amount of wins he has vs the top 30 in such a short time is astounding. Since the end of June, RapMonster has beaten 6 unique top 30 players for the first time; ginger and MOF at patchwork, Magi at Krewe, Zamu at Melee at the Elm, and now n0ne and lloD at GOML. This now makes RapM having defeated 20 out of the 29 other players in last year's top 30, most of which have been in the past 365 days. RapM has now beaten: Zain, moky, SDJ, Wizzrobe, lloD, Nicki, Soonsay, Aklo, Krudo, Aura, Ginger, Junebug, Magi, MOF, Panda, Zamu, n0ne, SluG, Khryke, and 404Cray (as of 8/5 Joshman has been added thanks to the Supernova prelocal).
He hasn't beaten: Cody, Hbox, Axe, Jmook, Trif*, Salt, Ossify*, aMSa* (* means they haven't played offline yet).
Now with the new summer top 30 releasing there's a few new names for him to beat like Spark, TheWeapon*, Fiction*, DarkGenex*, Zasa, DialM*, Ultra* (already beaten preeminent, kodorin, and ben).
It's just so cool to see someone systematically dominate the field so consistently after being almost unknown 2 years ago, reminds me of KoreanDJ from the documentary where he has a list of players to beat and kept crossing them off after beating them (I think hbox also did this, I remember seeing a clip of it in a combo video or something). I doubt RapM had an actual list or anything but it's clear how much time and effort he's putting in to get better and it's so cool to see. Also, at supernova he's projected to play the winner of axe/jmook then joshman, so the new Ws may not stop! Fun times in modern melee!
I really enjoyed this year's iteration of streamer games, my personal favorite was 2025 but I think 2026 was a close 2nd and better than 2024 was. I didn't recognize as many people as last year but that didn't take away from the entertainment. Some of the new events were improvements, I think a few things that could be done is removing archery and doing a different accuracy-based game like curling or bocce ball, bringing back field goal kick instead of PKs, bringing back BULL royale, keep cratestacking volleyball musicalchairs simonsays, bring back an egg drop-esque game where time finished and success determine the point instead of paper airplane, maybe trying a hurdle race, and overall having more events were everyone goes against each other instead of a bracket. Single elim events with inconsistent seeding can be pretty mickey mouse (all 4 of group 2 in archery did better than group 1 but 2 of them were still eliminated, dodgeball PKs etc weren't super balanced). I'm a tournament organizer in my spare time and have also worked at different jobs were games need to be organized, but I understand that I may be out of the loop with some of the decisions Lud and his team were making. Either way, super fun event!
Here's a video where I give more details regarding the pros/cons of each event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZlJyqHHE8Q
And here's the tier list link if you want to make your own: https://tiermaker.com/create/streamer-games-events-19738184
What a fantastic tournament! While I mainly focused on Melee, all events were really cool and well run despite the outages requiring some changes for top 64. GOML continues to be a great event, and with Supernova and CEO following right behind, this summer of smash will be awesome! Here's a video with some more details regarding GOML 2026.
I think that they are really hitting a niche with crossing over different communities into this event. Exposing different audiences to the more challenging parts of pokemon is great; while I prefer the nuzlocke portion over VGC, 90% of the content was the nuzlocke and it makes sense to have a tournament be the destination. I have a few nitpicks but ultimately I will be watching for as long as they host it! Really exciting times to be part of the nuzlocking community, here's a video with a more detailed description of the event.
With over 500 entrants for both melee and ultimate singles, plus almost 200 doubles players for each, this event will be a great way to lead the 3 week gauntlet of NA events (Supernova and CEO following in the next 2 weeks). While there are some top 10 players for each game not in attendance, there's still plenty of high seeds looking to continue their year of good results, plus some up and comers with some good opportunities. Here's a video going into detail for bracket paths and scheduling.
I looked at all offline events for the past few months and compiled a tier based ranking. I think Cody Zain and Hbox are still top 3 (their consistency of being the top 3 for a while is impressive), with Wizzy falling down next to Joshman moky Salt RapMonster Aura Jmook etc. The order is pretty difficult to determine, here's an in depth explanation of the top 30ish players for Q2 of 2026 melee.
While many were skeptical, Ludwig vs Tyler1 in Street Fighter 6 was fantastic, and proves that Ludwig is excellent at being a entertaining competitor if he cares. League, fighting games, pokemon, chess, and so many others have benefited from having streamers like Ludwig and Tyler in their events. Having someone buy in and grind a game is so important for the viewing experience. It reminds me the difference of celebrity games for all star weekend (softball, basketball, flag football, etc) vs the rise of influencer boxing; instead of a bunch of people running around and goofing off, having people dedicate time out of their schedule to practice and learn leads to a more satisfying product. Easier said then done of course, with events like Twitch Rivals, AT&T annihilator cup, recent marvel rival tournaments, etc having a variety of effort and ambition leading up to the event. I think that the template of coaching and the competitors applying themselves has been so successful and enjoyable. PogChamps, Sajam Slam, Wolfe Glicke's invitationals, influencer boxing, MCSR Mid-Offs, pchal and pointcrow's Nuzlocke Invitational, Wisely Wars, and many more have been some of the best content Twitch has to offer despite the overall skill level being much lower than the pros (and sometimes can be better because of the lower skill level). Big props for Ludwig and Tyler for putting on a genuine show and I'm looking forward to what's next!
With the introduction of meleeunderdogs.com and different cash values for players who reach a certain threshold with lower tiered characters, we saw hbox's ness and salt's zelda make top 64 and each each earning $400, along with axe's bowser getting close. While these players were motivated by the money to make it as far as possible with bad characters, there were other players that had good runs, with one of the biggest upsets of the event coming from a samus player plus a mewtwo getting top 64. I think that the bounties for mid and low tiers placing well at majors is pretty cool but isn't a perfect system, with collusion potentially being a temptation (I trust most players to have enough integrity to not game the system, plus rankings will dissuade it too) and others raising the point that adding pot bonuses or funding for players to attend for events could have been a better use, but it's their money and I think it'll be very interesting to keep up with. Here's an overview of recent mid and low tier results plus some predictions for who will get the next bounties!
Some might consider BoBC8 to be boring due to there not being many upsets at the higher end of bracket, but the event was run very well, the character lineup was decent, and the gameplay was pretty high; not every melee bracket can have huge upsets/underdog runs, and melee majors continuing to deliver a positive experience helps keep the community going. It was pretty top heavy and didn't have a ton of mid level with under 300 entrants, but there were several surprising upsets in r1 pools and top 64. Here's a video recap!
While BoBC might seem small and not as stacked as some other iterations, there are still 7 top 10 players (1, 3-7, and 9) and most of the top 24 seeds are in last year's top 100 so it'll be one of the highest level top 8s of the year. I think that moky has a good bracket with lots of falcons in his path and I think zain will beat jmook then hbox/joshman then moky in winners finals and whoever makes it to grands. Axe has a tough path to top 8, likely having to beat spark in the runback from gx3 even if he beats soonsay in winners top 32. I'm not confident in wizzy winning again but almost certainly will get top 4. I have lots of other predictions too in in the video, lmk your predictions too!
After the biggest upset of the year surrounded by underperformances, pikachu's place in the meta has been odd recently. Clearly there are a lot of solid pikachu's (axe, swift, jchu, blesse, bonn, ralph, etc) but stringing together multiple big wins is something many of them haven't done this year. However, Nairial, #2 in New England, just beat bonfire10 twice and Epoodle to win Giga HoG 10.1 this past weekend as the 6th seed, pretty impressive. Additionally, we saw Ben play luigi against icies, Stiv play yoshi vs falco, Dial M win the rising stars online invitational with DK, and kuro get top 8 at giga hog with ganon. Lots of mid tiers staying active and going to regionals, here's an overview!
After MeleeStats' summer ranking announcement got ratio'd (mainly by moky), it seems like there are a lot of negative emotions between panelists and players. I really wish that there would be more collaboration and less hostility, that definitely requires some cooler heads prevailing but I think here are some decisions that could help:
Summer ranking should stay at top 50, or at least have a 31-40 tier and 41-50 tier alongside a top 30 ranking. Yeah it might be a little scuffed but still think it's worth it to include those players.
Have a more clear tiering system for events leading to more events being considered, not necessarily like ult (helpful but flawed) but enough to where there's an easily presentable method of how much prestige an event has. Entrant counts alone don't really tell the full picture, and the methodology for major/national/regional has been perceived to be very flimsy and inconsistent.
More meaningful sets at events. Some players in contention for top 50 or 100 only play 2 or 3 important sets at a major so their rank isn't nearly as affected as it could be. Experimenting with swiss, waterfall, round robin pools, floating top players for them to play sets against each other before final bracket (the off season did a pretty cool iteration of this a few years ago), any maybe another invitational to take over for nounsvitational. I don't think that running a supermajor as double elim is bad and not every tourney needs to change, Out Of The Blue did a great job implementing waterfall and it was a pretty large 1 day event, more events should try and give players more bang for their buck.
Count major prelocals as regionals. DEFINITELY A HOT TAKE DONT GET ANGRY, but if there are a bunch of top 50 players that decide to enter an extra bracket then idk why it shouldn't at least count for something.
More events late in the year, or make Genesis be the end of the ranking. I prefer keeping the yearly ranking just bc it's easier to organize, but there needs to be more consistency in bigger events at the end of the year. I understand the holiday season isn't fun to schedule around but I think even putting more events in Q4 would help.
Mend the fallout from "The Match". There was some frustration from the panelists due to some players forcing them to accept on unconventional method of determining #1 or else there would practically be a boycott of the ranking. Anyone that doesn't get why the panelists were so angry, imagine the 1 thing you work on all year gets changed in an unprecedented way and you're forced to implement it no matter how much you dislike it or else to risk getting ostracized, then you accept it and still get hate for it. However, I think that there could've been a little bit less negativity from the panelists too, ultimately the ranking is meant to serve the players and if both of the top 2 that are pretty much tied agree on a method that won't affect the ranking 3rd and below, then I think it's reasonable to try. It seems like there's still some frustration that could've been discussed interpersonally instead of larger groups of people avoiding each other.
Luckystats and MeleeStats can coexist, anyone suggesting that MeleeStats isn't helpful and shouldn't be cared about doesn't appreciate the hard work they do to help the scene. A regularly updating ElO-esque system is also cool. Having both is only a positive imo.
So yeah, not exactly easy to implement all of these but I think they are steps in the right direction for the health of our community.
Last weekend we saw high level gameplay from Luigi, DK, Icies, and even Link and GnW.
To start, RapMonster and Aklo in LQs of Creed V was a great set, with 3 out of the 4 games being Link vs Luigi. For RapMonster, the Aklo win was a great notch in his belt, becoming RapM's 7th unique win against last year's top 15 (Zain, moky, SDJ, Wizzrobe, Nicki, Soonsay, Aklo) with only 2 of last year's top 15 that RapM hasn't played yet (Joshman, Trif) and 6 that RapM has only losses against (Cody, Hbox, Axe, Jmook, lloD, Salt). Plus, for the rest of the top 30, RapM has 7 more unique wins (Krudo, Aura, Junebug, Panda, SluG, Khryke, 404Cray), 5 he hasn't played yet (Ossify, Magi, MOF, aMSa, Zamu), and only 2 that he has only lost to (Ginger, n0ne). The accumulation of wins have been very impressive, and I don't think RapM will have trouble getting wins on most of the top 30 in the near future. Plus, 2v1ing Hbox and XIF was lit.
Dial M had a solid weekend, getting 5th at both Fight at the Museum 2 and it's prelocal, plus 2nd in doubles at FATM. While neither of the singles placings sound that spectacular, Aura is now Dial M's best win imo, above the Ossify win at GX3 and the MOF win at a Colorado local. That was also Dial M's 10th top 100 win ever and 8th this year, definitely a meteoric rise.
SluG hasn't done very well after OOTB, most recently getting 9th at Creed as the 4 seed with losses to Inky's Sheik and RapM. I don't think SluG is suddenly going to get ranked outside of the top 20, but it might be a surprise to those expecting that he'll be near the top.
I also made a list of players going mid tier characters at Creed, Fight at the Museum, their prelocals, and Melee Supreme in the UK. I get a little longwinded in the video but there's a lot of interesting stats and info!
Between MomoCon, ComicPalooza Fight Club, and multiple other events, last weekend had several tournaments with some of the best players in the world. Here's a recap!
Last weekend was a great one for melee, with 2 pretty stacked regionals across NA; Creed V in Pennsylvania and Fight At The Museum 2 in Oregon. I think both were valuable to rankings and the larger melee landscape, but I think it's interesting to compare the two events.
FATM had 221 singles entrants while Creed had 155, which I think is even more impressive for FATM considering the locations and the higher player count on the east coast. Oregon's been doing some great stuff recently with ASS, Eggdog House Party, etc.
Creed had last year's 3, 7, 14, 16, 27, 28, 30, 34, 41, 46, 48, 57, 62, 63, 71, 74, 76, 77, 83 and 99.
FATM had last year's 4, 15, 17, 21, 52, and 89, while also having former and future top 100 players.
Both had a mid sized doubles bracket, with FATM at 46 teams and Creed at 34. It seems like Creed's doubles bracket was more top heavy and slightly taken more seriously but both were good.
Both were 1 day events, which I think will start being more common due to higher costs for venue, travel/lodging, etc.
FATM had a lot more fastfallers with tons of spacies while Creed had 3 sheiks in top 8 along with puff, luigi, marth, and a cameo from aklo's link.
Creed had higher viewership, likely due to hbox's channel being bigger than salt's but both did fine and FATM got some of the viewership due to Creed ending first.
I think that Creed is going to be considered as more impactful but FATM was also a great event with some interesting matchups and some important head to heads for the upcoming ranking.
Also, here's a video going over upsets and overall results in depth!
Momocon already started and is looking to be a really exciting event, but ComicPalooza in Texas is also worth paying attention to. With Texas' best trying to defend (MuteAce, Lima, SHADIC), along with Asimo and Tea from Japan, other top talent like Sonix, Peabnut, Monte, and Marss. MomoCon is much larger and more stacked for top 64 by a significant margin, but both top 8s will be high level. Lots of ult to watch this weekend!
https://www.start.gg/tournament/comicpalooza-fight-club-2026-3/details
Creed V is likely more well known and established as a tournament series, but Fight At The Museum 2 is just as stacked. Both are 1 day events on saturday with a prelocal tonight, I wish there'd be some melee on sunday but thankfully they are scheduled to where there's not a ton of overlap thanks to time zone differences. Hbox, RapM, Jmook, Aklo, and Slug on the east coast, plus Joshman, Salt, Magi, Aura, and Dial M on the west coast. Definitely tune in to some high level melee this weekend!