Peach in giant melee is when everyone gets to experience having an armada tier punish game
-@darkatma
It’s no surprise that many weird and wacky game modes have spawned over Melee’s 20-some year history. Plenty of these aren’t even in the original game! The inventive minds of Melee’s elite have gifted us with the likes of Cactuar Stamina Pancake and Rishi’s Jungle Jam. Some people even mod their own game modes in! Look at Melee Triples and Super Shine Bros!
Today, however, we celebrate the return of one of Melee’s forgotten game modes, hidden so deeply in the depths of its special versus modes, lost to childhoods in the memories of Poke Ball battles on Temple. Thanks to a handful of dedicated New Jersey players experimenting in the game mode for fun, the mode quickly evolved to a pet project where people pushed the boundaries of what could be expected out of normal Melee. Ganondorf has a chaingrab from 0 to death on JIGGLYPUFF? You can Side-B to tech chase on side platforms as Captain Falcon? Giant Giga Bowser is so big that if you grab ledge on Yoshi’s Story you immediately die? People had fun learning about all of the wild intricacies of the mode, and it was only a matter of time before people started realizing the depth and potential this game mode really had.
The Collision Series was looking for a game mode as a Melee equivalent to Ultimate’s Squad Strike, and has added Giant Melee as its main side event each year post-COVID. These side event brackets have lead to a very small but very dedicated sect of Giant Melee talent coming out of the woodwork for their 1 event per year, showing off the beauty that comes with increasing every character’s size, jumpsquat, and hitstun. On the below list are players who stood out the most at the few tournaments that happened in the last year: some conventional recognizable top players, some Giant Melee grinders, and some who just picked up the game on a whim and happened to be good at figuring out a silly game mode. We celebrate their efforts, their triumphs, and their passions today on this Giant Melee ranking.
If you’re interested in playing Giant Melee, here’s a link to the Giant Melee discord https://discord.gg/KzWxj4BFZM
How to play Giant Melee online — use the following Gecko Code:
$Giant Melee
C216E750 00000008
7C741B78 3ABF0060
3AC00000 1EF60024
7C75BA14 3D80801B
618C9060 7D8903A6
4E800421 2C160003
4182000C 3AD60001
4BFFFFDC 7E83A378
3C808017 00000000
How to play Giant Melee offline — click “VS. Mode”, “Special Melee”, and then “Giant Melee”. That’s it.
Without further ado: the rankings. Every major tournament in 2023 and 2024 so far with Giant Melee as an event was counted in the dataset.
#10: Awesome Video Games | Rating: 10
Once “Exodia”, once “Henrobs Fellover”, and once New Jersey, the New England PR Marth known now as Awesome Video Games is a man of many titles and many regions.
Prior to Collision 2023, Awesome Video Games had never touched competitive Giant Melee before. He wandered around the venue prior to the bracket starting, taking advice from various players on what character to play and what techniques to use. After some brief experimentation, he settled with his regular Melee main, his trusty Marth, and used it to make quite the name for himself in his first ever Giant Melee bracket. He beat NJ Peach Plush in Winner’s, lost to the eventual tournament winner aMSa, then fought through losers, taking out top talent Stavino, Combusting, and NJzFinest to make Top 8,barely losing a game 5 to Axe to go out at 7th.
The battle for rank 10 was treacherous for AVG, but it speaks wonders to his skill and understanding of the game that he made top 8 and got ranked top 10 in the world purely by playing one tournament in-the-moment with no prior experience. The Giant Melee community can only imagine what will happen when the Sconefest staple returns to the prowling grounds of New Jersey to fight in giant combat another day.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
*Ranking panel notes: Compared to the other players vying for the #10 spot, AVG had more wins on the top 11–20 players thanks to his huge losers run, and only lost to top 10 players. The other few players in the running for #10 either did not make top 8 at a major, had worse losses, or did not have as good wins. #11–15 (unordered) were dizy, Treeaye, NJzFinest, Gomi, and HOBORG.
#9: mossy mat | Rating: 9
mossy mat has been playing regular-sized Melee for a while, but shot into prominence in late 2021 where he seemingly out of nowhere triumphed over a handful of New Jersey PR players in a short period of time. Landmark wins on 404Cray and Chem alongside some great wins on other Tristate talent came hand in hand with his strong debut on the South Jersey PR. He’s a staple in the region now, and as a South Jersey Puff player in normal Melee, it was only a matter of time before another certain South Jersey Puff player started influencing him, training him in the arts of a… different game mode, leading him down a grand path of giant glory.
Sticking with mostly Captain Falcon, dabbling with his normal main Jigglypuff on the side, mossy mat went into Collision 2024 with very few expectations. After a loss to the 1st seed of the tournament, Preeminent, in winners, mossy mat went on a war path in losers, benefiting from the Zain and Jmook DQs, then taking down strong tristate players like HOBORG and dizy using the knowledge he had gained from many-a-session with Giant Melee mentor Miffee. This lead him straight to rematch with Preeminent, the man who sent him into loser’s, where mossy mat unfortunately suffered the same fate again. His 5th at Collision 2024 is a strong performance for sure, but the Giant Melee community can only wonder how far he could have gone had he not run into a bracket demon twice in one day.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
*Ranking panel notes: Similar to Miffee in that he has very few losses, the HOBORG win + he’s a 5th placer puts him here but Axe has a top 10 win which is why he’s lower ranked than Axe
#8: Axe | Rating: 8
Axe needs absolutely no introduction. AZ’s proud Pikachu player is one of the kindest souls in the Melee community, and he’s no stranger to playing silly game modes for fun. He showed up for the Giant Melee bracket at Collision 2023 and had a blast, playing some intense sets versus players who would forge their own paths and become champions in the Giant Melee ecosystem. With little practice prior to the event, he even took down a top 10 player, Awesome Video Games, in his bracket path to 5th place at the first Giant Melee supermajor. With this in mind, we all know that Axe’s main story lies outside of Giant Melee, and that is completely OK, it is simply a blessing that for a little bit of time, we get to share the love for our game mode with a legend like himself.
There is one more thing to note with his bracket run at Collision, though. He mostly played Ganon throughout the bracket, and this character being his “main” makes Axe technically the highest ranked Ganon player ever on a Melee ranking. I’m sure Axe is thrilled.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
*Ranking panel notes: Ranked over mossy mat for 8 vs 9 because he has a Top 10 win
#7: chaka | Rating: 7
On the night of March 11th, 2024, chaka posted in the Expert channel of the Melee Online discord, a bold message regarding its bracket path for Collision 2024.
“LOL iam seeded so high in giant melee cause i cheesed axe’s ganon”
chaka followed this message up with a picture of a bracket where it was seeded to beat moky and Zain, then lose to Nicki for 5th place. This high seeding seemed like a surprise to chaka for some reason, and to this day, we’re unsure as to why. First off, chaka’s no slouch in regular Melee, having beaten Top 50 Puff Khalid to end off 2023 with a bang. Plus, in Giant Melee, chaka was a relatively low seed at Collision 2023, then placed 5th losing only to 2nd and 3rd of the tournament, taking DarkGenex to Game 5 in the process. This surprise at being a high seed at 2024’s Giant Melee supermajor seemed unwarranted, given chaka’s pretty strong resume.
If there’s anything chaka’s learned since then, it’s to not doubt the Collision seeders. With a well-deserved massive seed upgrade since the year prior, everyone in its path fell swiftly to chaka’s giant tech chases (and by the way, Sheik’s boost grab goes across the entire stage in Giant Melee). chaka, as predicted, would beat everyone seeded beneath it, and would place a respectable 5th yet again, only losing to Giant Melee titans Miffee and Nicki in the process. chaka is a beacon of consistency, who is able to take Giant Melee’s most elite to the wire, one grab at a time.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
*Ranking panel notes: Very consistent, win on #8 and a few top 15 players, 5th twice at Collision better than 1 5th place (Axe/mossy)
#6: Ex-Girlfriend | Rating: 6
A strong PR-level Peach main in regular Melee deciding to grind the supersized version of the game is a scary thought for anyone looking to make a deep bracket run. That fear was realized at Collision 2023 when Ex-Girlfriend decided to spend the majority of her practice time for the tournament’s Giant Melee bracket. Coming in as a perhaps-underrated 15th seed, the musically-gifted green Peach rocked her way through the bracket to winners semis, solidly defeating Giant Melee godfather DarkGenex in the ditto on the way there. In the losers bracket, Ex-Girlfriend then eliminated Axe in a last-stock, game 5 set to cap off her first (and only) Giant Melee bracket run at 4th place. While we have yet to see the talented musician behind many Ludwig productions square up in the big bracket a second time, competitors must beware, lest they find themselves a victim to her spinnin’ and winnin’ once more.
-Seal
*Ranking panel notes: Ex-Girlfriend is 1–1 with DarkGenex and 1–0 on Axe, no bad losses either, less active than Miffee, better wins than 7–10
#5: Miffee | Rating: 5
In the ancient times of pre-rollback Melee, a trio of three New Jersey players made it their goal to grind the forgotten game mode Giant Melee. Asidyx, DarkGenex, and legendary Puff Miffee would practice this game online using Faster Melee, and at tournaments years before Collision ran the event.
As one of the founding fathers of the game mode, Miffee has done more than most people to spread Giant Melee’s greatness. He has countless Giant Melee YouTube videos here he painstakingly edits hundreds of clips together to spread word of the growing game mode. He is the main admin in the Giant Melee Discord, and will regularly post newly updated Giant Melee tier lists as the meta develops. But Miffee is not just the game mode’s most vocal cheerleader, he is one of the greatest players to ever touch the game.
Miffee is probably has the most knowledge out of any player in the world at Giant Melee. He does not lose iron mans — his character roster goes deeper than his player card could ever fit, having experience with Kirby, Link, Mr. Game & Watch, and the entire set of regular Melee’s top tiers. In practice, however, he deliberately limits himself to the characters he finds fun, and thankfully for his opponents, they’re mostly mid or low tiers.
His #5 rank is deceptive. Miffee has unmatched talent in learning platform fighters: he got 5th at Rivals of Aether 2 at Collision 2024 having never touched the game before, and without knowing how to hitfall. In regular Melee, Miffee is a monster, having accrued wins along the likes of the entire New Jersey PR that he’s played, including Swedish Delight. In Giant Melee, he has not even scratched the surface of his potential: his losses are only to the top 3 players in the world. He’s had friendly sessions where Preeminent and DarkGenex both struggle to take games off of him. Miffee grinds the game more than probably everyone else on the list combined. His time will come.
*Ranking panel notes: Very hard to evaluate because both years his losses were #1 + DarkGenex, but really consistent and has the Preeminent win + more activity to edge him out over Ex-GF
#4: Preeminent | Rating: 4
81st in the world on the 2023 SSBMRank, Minnesota Fox Preeminent is not like the rest of the players on this list, who either play Giant Melee out of love, or played it on a whim because it happened to be at Collision. It may surprise you to hear this: despite having the most tournament attendance in the entire world in the game mode, Preeminent hates Giant Melee.
Ask him and he will tell you himself: it’s degenerate, everything autocombos, and it is not fun to play. But Preeminent loves making money. And what better way to do it than farming a bunch of random side events at majors? So Preeminent went on the grind, in the weeks prior to Collision 2023 practicing giant Peach as he waited for his controller to get fixed for the real event. And he took his practice seriously too — he trained with Giant Melee titans DarkGenex and Miffee leading up to each Collision, and it’s paid in dividends. His head to heads are phenomenal against the top 10, he placed 2nd and 4th respectively at both Giant Melee supermajors, Collision 2023 and 2024. Additionally, he has a major win of his own, winning an impressive two person bracket to take Texas’s very own Giant Melee major, Rise n’ Grind 2023.
A few hundred dollars extra to his name, with multiple high supermajor placements under his belt in the game mode, Preemiment’s Giant Melee prowess is undeniable. And unlike most of the players on this list, if you ask him to play Giant Melee friendlies for fun with you at any supermajor, he will absolutely, and very proudly, tell you no.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
*Ranking panel notes: Preeminent and Miffee were very close, but Preeminent had a better peak win and overall better placements (2nd 2023 vs Miffee 7th 2023, 4th 2024 vs Miffee 3rd 2024) even if Miffee had the H2H. 1–0 on Genex looks good vs Miffee’s 0–2 to Genex
#3: DarkGenex | Rating: 3
If you can’t tell by this point, I really like Giant Melee.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
*Ranking panel notes: DarkGenex is the only player with a top 2 win (Nicki and aMSa never played each other and they beat everyone else) and has strong records against the top 10.
#2: Nicki | Rating: 2
It may be shocking to hear this, but most of the top Melee players at Collision are automatically signed up for the Giant Melee bracket, and have absolutely no intention of waking up early to play the larger game mode. When Nicki learned that Giant Melee was happening at Collision 2024 — he immediately signed himself up for the bracket and began to grind. Almost instantly, he began translating his optimized ICs handoffs from smaller Melee to its larger counterpart, and started asking around for European challengers to train Giant Melee with. Nobody responded.
After 2 months of grinding against ONLY CPUs, he woke up early for his first supermajor, and went to work. After losing early in a nailbiter game 5 set to DarkGenex, Nicki proceeded to make the greatest losers run in Giant Melee history: taking down multiple top 10 players in a row — chaka, Preeminent, Miffee, and overcoming DarkGenex twice to win the tournament. Traveling overseas after only playing CPUs and winning grueling matchup after grueling matchup, taking down Samus and three different Peaches, Nicki made a run of legends — cementing himself as the best Giant Melee player in Europe, and one of the best Giant Melee players of all time.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
*Ranking panel notes: Nicki won a supermajor but dropped a set so he is rank 2
#1: aMSa | Rating: 1
Following up his massive accomplishment of becoming the first Yoshi player to ever win a Melee supermajor, aMSa blew peoples’ minds once more by becoming the first Yoshi player to ever win a Giant Melee supermajor. His character’s potential was completely unknown before aMSa’s gargantuan run — early Giant Melee tier lists had no idea where to place him due to the small playerbase, and the playerbase itself consisted of 0 Yoshi players. People just assumed he wouldn’t be a great character.
All theories about Yoshi being potentially bad in the game mode were thrown out the window when the tournament started. After dabbling with a few secondaries in the earlier rounds, aMSa went full-on Yoshi and obliterated the Collision 2023 bracket. He won 5 sets over top 10 players in a row: Awesome Video Games, Miffee, Ex-Girlfriend, and Preeminent twice in an unstoppable manner, making it look impossible to break through aMSa’s rock solid defenses. It looked like he was playing normal Melee, just a little bit bigger. To make things a little more impressive — the last 3 of those sets were all against Peach, a conventionally difficult matchup for Yoshi. Perhaps the most wild part of the bracket, though, was that no one even managed to take him to game 5. aMSa is just that good.
The stars shine bright for aMSa this year: both of his normal-sized Melee supermajors this year had massive bracket runs and a fantastic return to form for the beloved red dinosaur. Unfortunately, aMSa has not been able to make it to any Giant Melee supermajors since his impeccable Collision 2023 performance. We can only dream of what would happen if the world got to see more giant Yoshi, perhaps another year where burning Godzilla stomps through a Collision bracket. We can only hope the opportunity to see more giant aMSa gameplay comes soon, as we wish for his upmost success in the normal game mode. The Giant Melee community eagerly awaits the return of its undisputed #1.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
*Ranking panel notes: aMSa won a supermajor without dropping a set so he is rank 1
Credits:
Lead Organizer: Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
Graphic Template: Nick “DarkDragoon” Konstantino
Consultation: Brendan “GimmeDatWheat” Malone
Blurb Writing: Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen, Seal
Melee Renders: JD “JDMH” Mannor
Ranking Panelists:
Daniel “NicelyDressedDad” Aiello
Arthur “404Cray” Hernandez
Adam “Asidyx” Miller
Matt “bambi” Deslatte
Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
Grady “Graddy” Henick
Mifee “Miffee” McNally
Paul “MKPablo” Lubrun
Michael “PudgyPanda” Serpico
