The Ugly Sides of Competitive Melee

Hey guys. It’s kinda hard not to notice how the ugly sides of Melee video has been reuploaded. This was done to more accurately cover the topic of SG vs Fortune, which was put together very well in my opinion. I wanna give a special thanks to Zain Naghmi, my buddy eric, and a couple of MDVA veterans for helping me clear up a story that is not very well documented I know it will be very hard to have this upload gain the same traction as the original, but I personally do not want a video of mine to blow up after not getting the facts straight the first time I recommend giving this video a watch again with the new edited portion. If you are only interested in watching the new section, that’s fine too. Below is the time stamp from beginning to end of new portion: 32:30-39:04 Hope you guys understand. And if you don’t, at least I do (:

Westballs is remarkably patient in that conversation

Leffen pausing the game to tell scar to sd bc of pause clause is so funny to me its like “alright dude, you next” lol

hey yall, I'm the eric mentioned in the pinned comment. I'm an MDVA TO, a friend of Fortune's, and was someone who reached out about the previous version of the video. I was the one who asked for and worked on the revision. Some of you have mentioned feeling confused and looking for answers about this version of Fortune's story. I understand that feeling. That's on purpose, unfortunately. Fortune was private about his pain. I asked that specific details be removed. Honestly, I'm still uncomfortable with how much I've shared on Fortune's behalf but I think it's necessary to keep pushing against the narrative that haunted him. I promise you that Fortune and SG were friends. He and I were friends. I promise that the grime video is a misunderstanding. He struggled with the backlash to it. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to reveal more details about Fortune, so you'll have to take my word for it. If you don't believe me, please at least know that there are people out there still grieving him. Juiceman treated Fortune's memory with care. He didn't have to take down the previous video or revise the section, but he took it seriously and with urgency. I'm grateful to him and I ask for as much kindness as you can gather.

The fact that leffen brought up the air time limit, means that it should never be added to the game.

I miss my wife

I can't believe the TOs gave Moky the final say in that decision. What a stupid decision to put it all on the competitor. Imagine if this was the Olympics and you'd ask the competitor to make this kind of call against another competitor. You would insta-ruin your reputation by taking the W. Seriously suprised that such a terrible decision was taken.

Regarding Hbox vs Chudat. If you want to play lame, don't get mad when your opponent responds by playing lame. I occasionally do Ultimate locals. Some new guy showed up playing Toon Link. He would run away and spam projectiles. Naturally my response was to get a % lead, and just stand at the opposite end of the stage, easily dodging all of the projectiles. He eventually got frustrated and started running at me, and the match ended pretty quickly after that. There's no fundamental difference. Chudat was playing lame the entire tournament, and Hbox's response to play lame for 1 round, and people still try to vilify him for that. And yes. It's not the same thing as M2K. M2K had no reason to think he'd lose without playing that way. M2K was playing that way on his own. He wasn't playing lame in response to someone playing lame. He was just playing lame. And I doubt anyone would have cared as much as they did if he wasn't such a shit about how Puff needs a ledge grab limit but no one else. He is literally the reason there is a ledge grab limit implemented now. It is fundamentally different.

If I were in Moky's position, I would look tell the TOs "Nope. You're the TO, not me. You have to make the call." There's no way he wouldn't have been vilified for taking the win. The TOs practically forced him to give up the win. It's speculation, but I don't see any reason to not make the decision as a TO other than not wanting to be the "bad guy" in the situation.

For those wondering, the cause of the reupload appears to be the Fortune segment at 32:40. Having seen both versions it looks like reuploading was the right choice, especially considering the context, so thanks for not just sweeping it under the rug. Great video!

Im suprised Ice Climbers hadnt caused actual irl violence.

Mew2king playing in the scummiest way possible barring wobbling and then proceeding to say "hey man you didn't even try" is infuriating.

I love how Westballz tries to make some sense into M2K argument by telling that his strategy was way too good to not work because of his skills without insulting him for doing so, but by reinforcing his points ahaha

why would you allow such a clearly broken move like wobbling and then try to ban the response to wobble? lol

56:45 yes, Moky did agree to restart the game, but the TOs decision to let him decide was wrong. They're the TOs, THEY have to decide. I felt bad for Moky, he decided to restart the game and lost mostly because of the audience taunting him.

In regards to the RU Fortune segment; I have a pretty unique perspective because I live in the DMV (known to the smash community as MD/VA) and actually knew Fortune through a close friend of his. Fortune was known as a decent guy with a bit of misguided humor, but struggled with personal battles. When this clip blew up in the smash community a lot of us were on the mindset of “did Fortune really do that?” It seemed a bit out of character but also believable. I’m not here to tarnish his reputation since he’s no longer with us, but the whole truth is that he “admitted” to joking about it only after the game had finished, and the common sentiment was a clear divide of “sure you did bud” and “ok well that was a bad joke.” Most of us at the time all had the same line of thought, “If it was a joke in poor taste, why string it along til after the set?” Truth be told he never had one clear answer, and as the weeks turned into months the main counter story you heard was that it was supposed to be a joke, but his actions and demeanor contradicted this. In the end, he wasn’t a BAD guy and was forgiven by the community here, but the whole truth isn’t so black and white, he tried to get away with it, and then covered up, apologized, and moved on after the fact. People make mistakes, and in competition all’s fair, but Fortune’s situation has truth on both sides. I hope people learn to recognize it was a bad moment in his legacy and move past it, but I also believe some of the criticism was earned; he pushed the “joke” too far and only admitted so after everybody’s reactions and the game playing out. He apologized for the poor moment and was forgiven. Anything other than that is twisting the story for a subjective opinion. I hope Fortune rests in peace, and people can stop coming in to the situation with charged opinions. He wasn’t a saint who was misunderstood, but he also wasn’t the devil incarnate, he was somebody who tried to take advantage, realize he messed up, covered it as a joke, apologized, and moved on.

this is a really good doc, i love the style of weaving through a bunch of different sets with all these common through lines to really tell a story and build a case for why things are the way they are

Fantastic video. I love your narrative empathetic style. Great stuff and thank you for reuploading the Fortune SG portion to add more much needed context.

Thank you for the upload. I definitely remember seeing that Fortune SG moment so long ago and always thinking in my head “wow that Fortune guy is scummy”. But seeing this now, can’t help but feel bad for all the misinformation spread about a silly moment.

I love the irony of players switching to Phob controllers in order to prevent small malfunctions from wear and tear; only to cause HUGE malfunctions with maybe one year of use.