Sixty Frames — Portraits of Melee’s Competitive History
Previously: Frame Two: Water
First, you master. Then, you transcend.
This is a progression familiar to spiritual mystics; to artists; to anyone who has spent time trying to grasp what creates “greatness.”
This is the story of Apple, Napoleon, Flannery O’Connor and NASA.
And this is an idea critical in all competition — especially sports.
The “transcendence” is the more glamorous half of the equation, and the part most of us associate with “greatness.”
Transcendence is Michael Jordan in the Flu Game; Bobby Fischer in the 1963 U.S. Championship; Ayrton Senna at Spain-1990.
Transcendence is the magical moment when a great player stops attacking their opponent and starts attacking the accepted understanding of what they are reasonably capable of. This is when the lens of history refocuses not on who will win, but on how the game is being played.
But greatness is not born solely in transcendence. Before you transcend, you must master.
Before you break the rules of what is possible, you have to understand more thoroughly and intricately than anyone else what is possible. This is the unsexy part of greatness, the reason why Rocky created the montage. Otherwise, the first two thirds of every sports movie would just be practice and practice and defeat and resolve and practice and practice and practice and practice and defeat and practice and practice. Our narrative-driven brains are bound to fixate on the “popcorn moment;” but in reality, you need both.
Master, then transcend.
Adam Lindgren is “Armada.” As of September 2019, he has retired and claims he will never play Melee competitively again. But Armada was the definition of “greatness” in the game; he achieved possibly the absolute highest level of “greatness” of any Melee player. And I believe his greatness typified this progression.
Master, then transcend.
This is Armada. This is the Greatest Player of All Time.
This is Sixty Frames. Here is Frame 3:
First, you master.
When I started looking for this picture, I didn’t know what it would like, or who exactly would be playing. I didn’t know the name or year of the tournament, or even its exact participants.
Looking at it today, the first things we notice are what is absent. There is no stream overlay; in fact, there is no match information of any kind anywhere on screen. The quality itself is shoddy — the pixelation and digital artifacting are common to non-professional recording setups from 10–15 years ago. Nothing here resembles the pristine clarity, multiple cameras, branding and overlays used by streamers today; all of which indicate that our Frame is many years removed from today’s competitive scene.
In some ways, the gameplay itself is also dated. The tech skill and flashiness associated with the current metagame are notably missing— there are no shield drops, no pivots, no crazy SDI, no Amsah techs. The Peach never even performs “Marth killer” — one of the most well known edgeguarding techniques against the character.
One aspect of the gameplay does stand out: the Peach has some quality of relentlessness, some kind of dominance that at times completely overwhelms the Marth. The player even has some inklings of more complex setups, most of which don’t come together but seem to reveal a certain preparedness, a deep thought process about his gameplan.
In our Frame, the Peach is stringing together an array of attacks — special moves, dash attacks, jabs and aerials — to bully the Marth towards the edge. The Peach will overstep and Marth will get a grab, but flashes like this are distinctive.
Of course, this is why we care at all: because the Peach player in question is Armada. And as near as I can find, this is a screenshot from the earliest ever recording of Armada playing in tournament.¹
The tournament is Renaissance of Smash 4 (RoX4), held in Sweden in early July, 2007. It was the biggest European tournament to that date, and Armada’s first national; in this Frame, he is playing Faab in Loser’s Bracket. Armada will eventually get fourth place, a surprising and relatively strong performance, especially for a first appearance.
But the hint at Armada’s future greatness is not in his placing, or his wins; but in how he is playing the game.
Armada will try to find the best way to win, and he will practice and practice and practice that way until it is second nature to him.
Armada came up in the game with very few high-level Melee players to practice against. Mostly, he played his siblings and the CPU.
The least ideal situation for improving at Melee, most top players agree, is playing against the stock CPU. The computer will not adapt to your play; it will not teach you the tricks of neutral game that are essential to survival. It will not employ any kind of real strategy at all — really, it will just react.
So Armada could not master strategy in the same way that other future top-tier players could. He could not rely on gimmicks or tricks of psychology, on the delicate push and pull inherent in playing real humans.
On his own, against a braindead CPU, Armada could really only master one thing: technical efficiency. Sheer fundamental play.
Watching this set against Faab, it is remarkable how clean Armada’s play is — every step looks almost rehearsed, practiced, completely incorporated into his style. He has a lot of room to grow — missing are many of his trademark edgeguards and his mind-melting technical chops — but the foundation is there. The head down, optimal, focused style of Armada was there virtually from the beginning.
Armada’s mastery of fundamentals preceded and anticipated the success to come. And less than one year after this screenshot, he would emerge as arguably the most dominant player in the entire world.
This is Frame 4:
…then, you transcend.
Nearly eight years later, and Armada is at Paragon Orlando 2015. The gameplay looks much prettier, but since RoX4 the screenshot has become crowded with player cams, sponsors, and match information.
Armada by now has cemented his place as one of the greatest players of all time, beyond any shadow of doubt. He has amassed a record of such outrageous consistency, of such thorough domination, that even in 2019 it reads like a joke; like an RPG character with the stats turned too high.
For the last 8 years he has only lost tournament sets to five players. Last year he returned from a 1-year retirement only to immediately find himself a contender for the #1 spot. He has an all-time winning record against every opponent he has ever played. Simply put, Armada is a monstrous, unstoppable force.²
Today, he is losing. Badly.
First, he lost to his long-time demon Hungrybox in a game-5, last-stock set. And in loser’s bracket, he has to face a player who has recently graduated from a thorn in his side into possibly his single biggest threat: Leffen.
The set began with Leffen 3-stocking Armada’s Peach — almost casually. Just over a year ago, this would have set the crowd on fire, the chance of a monumental upset ringing the air; but today, the 3-stock barely merited a golf clap. Leffen destroying Armada’s Peach did not even register as noteworthy.
For Game 2, Armada switched to Fox — a controversial decision. After years of dominating every non-puff player in the game with this practiced, masterful Peach, Armada of early 2015 believes he is on the edge of an era when his best character will be completely invalidated in the metagame. Responding to uncharacteristically strong defeats at the hands of PPMD, Mango and — especially — Leffen, Armada wants to develop Fox as a counterpick and, perhaps, a new main.
At this point, Armada’s Fox has barely ever played Leffen. In one 2014 tournament, Republic of Fighters 3, Armada committed to the Fox ditto; but after winning one set, he was destroyed by Leffen in Grands, failing to win a single game over two consecutive sets. Since then, Armada has clung to his Peach, only sporadically breaking out Fox with mixed results (and, against Leffen, no success at all).
The upshot is, by early 2015, Leffen was earning a reputation as the premier Fox ditto player in the world. And in the second game of the Paragon Orlando set, Armada’s Fox did nothing to slow Leffen’s mounting momentum.
Leffen looked so practiced, so composed in Game 2 that by comparison Armada looked like a second-rate top 30 player. At no point did Armada drive the tempo — he was literally lagging behind his fellow Swede, struggling to match Leffen’s speed and technicality. In the end, Armada lost Game 2 by two full stocks.
The room is sleepy. The commentators are humdrum. MikeHaze, prominent in the wide shot between games, literally closes his eyes in drowsiness. Armada seems to have no answer for the player 2 feet to his right.
Armada’s fundamentals, his mastery, are higher than they have ever been — but mastery is no longer sufficient. Armada plays his game better than anyone in the world, but Leffen has changed the rules, has countered the brutality of Armada’s punish game and has come out on top. For Armada to win this game, for his hope in the tournament to stay alive, he has to reverse the mountain of momentum crashing down on him. As many Melee players will attest, momentum in this game is possibly the single most important factor in determining a set’s outcome.
Armada stares straight ahead, his expression furrowed. When Leffen asks where he wants to counterpick, he doesn’t immediately respond. He is somewhere between resignation and resolve. This is the most pivotal moment of the set — maybe even of Armada’s career.
Game 3 starts — Armada stays Fox. Another two stock is incoming.
But in the opening milliseconds, Armada lands a shine. Then a grab. Then a follow-up. With dizzying speed, he strings together multiple punishing blows, each one raising the energy of the room. The commentators struggle to respond to the suddenness of the shift — D1 sputters “Woah — wait , what!?”
With each hit, the torrent of momentum is palpably, forcefully, turning. Armada is no longer overwhelmed; he is no longer along for the ride. He is in the driver’s seat. And twenty seconds into Game 3, on the tail end of a beautiful 10-second punish, he perfectly connects a charged up-smash with Leffen’s recovering Fox. Armada has the lead for the first time in the set.
This Frame is the key point when air absolutely vacates any body with a thinking brain and a beating heart. The crowd erupts, ferociously snapped out of their hazy sleep state, a wave of noise crashing through the room. The commentators can only shout in utter disbelief.
The only people in earshot who show little to no response are the players themselves; Leffen hunches a bit closer into the screen, his face contorted in concentration. Armada looks pretty much the same as before.
Leffen fails to regroup. In Game 2 he made Armada look second rate, but in Game 3 it barely looks like Leffen is holding a controller. Literally seconds later, in the most stunning reversal Melee may have ever seen, Armada four-stocks Leffen. The room explodes, and the score is 1–2.
Armada hangs on to his momentum. On the verge of getting four-stocked again in Game 4, Leffen finally digs in and takes one stock before Armada closes with a three-stock. The score is tied 2–2, heading into a Game 5 decider.
Now the two players are at last matching each other’s pace: trading stocks, applying ferocity and technicality, punishing brutally and totally. Eventually they are both down to one stock, which lasts for over 40 seconds — an eternity in Melee. The room is on a knife’s edge as the game drags on: edgeguards are being dropped, key attacks are whiffing, the players are frantically fighting for their lives, and it all culminates in one of the greatest turnarounds in Melee history…
…Leffen wins.
The up-and-comer jumps out of his seat; after shaking Armada’s hand he turns to MacD and shakes his head, wearing an expression of total disbelief. He has beaten Armada before, but Leffen knows that he just fought something else — something ridiculous, and maybe a little miraculous.³
Armada, in the background while Leffen is being congratulated by fellow players, shakes his head as he wraps up his controller. He has placed 5th, his worst tournament performance — ever.⁴
On paper, this is all a bit disappointing. Without the video, it would be little more than two numbers in a few brackets posted online: “[A]rmada 2 : Leffen 3.”
But the results do not tell the whole story.
Before this set, no one would have denied that Armada was one of the most accomplished of any players of the game — ever. No one would have denied his absolute grasp of the essence of Melee, the fundamental play that drives all interactions.
But in this set, Armada reached the end of where those abilities could take him on their own — and then he pushed further. He didn’t give himself a pep talk, or redouble his strategy, or pull out a cheap trick or gimmick that Leffen was unprepared for. He didn’t even refocus on fundamentals, or run an analysis of his opponent.
I believe that Armada accessed a will to push even harder; to create and then grasp a mental vision of what was possible which far exceeded what anyone else would have reasonably expected.
In short, I believe Armada accessed transcendence. And in that moment, cemented his absolute greatness.
Greatness, it turns out, is for sale. But it is not cheap.
It requires resolve, tenacity, single-mindedness, and focus. It requires a certain immeasurable level of devotion to your craft. And it requires the ability to push yourself beyond the point when everyone would expect you to flounder.
In the end, all you get is being the best person to ever do it.
Greatness is born in sleepless nights of practice; and greatness is born at the precise moment that your lizard brain screams at you to just give up. At the moment of deepest frustration, anger, confusion, and despair, greatness is a product of whatever strange demon compels you to believe that your story is not over.
Greatness is bred of two ideas working in tandem and tension:
First, you master. Then, you transcend.
Next time: Mew2King, luck, and Game 4.
buy me coffee (if you want)
Footnotes:
[1] It is possible someone will dig deeper and find an even earlier recorded game of Armada playing, but either way this game still stands as clearly one of the absolute earliest instances of Armada playing in tournament.
[2] Several of these records no longer stand (for example, in the four years since this tournament Armada would lose to two more players, Plup and Swedish Delight). All the same Armada commands a powerful argument for GOAT, though Hungrybox continues to increase the strength of this own argument (this is a great analysis from February 2019). Of particular note is Armada’s stunning win percentage: at 39% (wins out of all majors attended), his still towers over Ken and Hungrybox, who both have more 1st place results.
[3] Leffen would proceed to lose to Mew2King, who in early 2015 was the only god he had never beaten (this would change one month later at Apex 2015). Hungrybox eventually won Paragon 2015 in one of the most infamous Grand Finals sets ever.
[4] At GOML 2016 Armada would tie his worst performance ever with another 5th place; amazingly, this is still Armada’s worst tournament placing, discounting sandbagging and forfeits due to sickness.
