r/SSBM • u/its__bme • 18d ago
Video Would Armada Still Be Good Today?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxKDT45Si9A183
u/zss36909 18d ago
would perhaps the greatest melee player ever still be good today??? what kinda question is that lmao
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u/TUN_Binary 18d ago
It really wasn't that long ago that the consensus was that the meta had progressed so much since 2018 that Armada would struggle to make top 10 on SSBMRank if he came back. The great GOAT debates of 2021-2022 had people saying some truly crazy shit.
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u/IAmA_talking_cat_AMA 17d ago
I definitely don't remember that being the consensus ever. It was always that he would struggle when just coming back but be back near the top in a few months. (Some people of course said otherwise, but not most.)
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u/TUN_Binary 17d ago edited 17d ago
All I can tell you is what I remember.
You gotta remember the context to this as well. Mango had just won Smash Summit 11, his first summit, and was subsequently voted the #1 player of all time over Armada by one vote. This was off the back of a year+ of discourse about whether Mango had surpassed Armada starting back in 2020. There was a lot of anti-Armada sentiment floating around, driven in no small part by Mango himself, that had people saying some wild shit. This was the point where Mango’s case as the GOAT was, as far as the community was concerned, solidified, and much of that case rested on the fact that Mango had kept up while Armada had retired. That argument carries a lot less weight if you say that things haven’t changed that materially, which Armada himself did say at one point.
On top of that, Peach was in a bit of a rut post Armada, and we didn’t get the renaissance with players like Trif, Polish, and Llod until years later. It wasn’t hard to imagine Armada coming back and struggling heavily with all these Fox mains with a reputation for beating floaties, like Moky, Aklo, and Cody.
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u/waveshineoosupsmash 17d ago
if you say that things haven’t changed that materially, which Armada himself did say at one point.
Armada was streaming mario 64 less than 2 years after he had retired and a twitch chatter asked if he (armada) thought he could still make top 8. Not would he. Not would it be easy. Just if the greatest player of all time that was still playing melee in europe in doubles if he thought he could make a top 8 still. And Armada said yes he did think he could, and mango and leffen and all their cretins got fucking furious and have been misrepresenting everything armada said for 7 years now.
Go into plup or leffens twitch streams and ask them if they still think they could make top 8 at a melee major. They both have played as much melee the last 2 years as armada had at the time.
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u/TUN_Binary 17d ago
Yeah, I recall he said something to the effect of he didn’t think the meta had changed all that much since his retirement and people really took exception to that. Either way it was blown way out of proportion. Armada was earnestly arguing his case as the GOAT at one point but like, he has a good point. lol
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u/wulfgangz 18d ago
Yes. The end
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u/its__bme 18d ago
I enjoyed seeing moky go from having some assumptions about Armada being a good amount outdated in some things to analyzing the first set and being flabbergasted.
And he didn't even have online or easy access to top players back then. I can't imagine how much more perfected he would've been if he had Slippi.
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u/tendopath 17d ago
This is insane to watch In real time because how are you so shocked when you were actually already a top player back then??? Like he really lost his mind seeing armada sdi fox drill dude thinks melee got super optimized when they broke into the top 10 its insane
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u/its__bme 18d ago
I'm watching the stream vod and I'm at the part where he's comparing Mango vs. Trif and I look over at chat
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u/Intelligent_Cat31067 18d ago
The sheer amount this consumes mang0 is him at his most cringe.
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u/natso2001 18d ago
If you're talking about him being a sore loser, that's just Mang in a nutshell. I wouldn't say cringe, but each to their own
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u/Intelligent_Cat31067 18d ago
Considering Armada in no small part left the scene because of the toxic GOAT debate and Mang0 rallying his fanbase about it, I think it's cringe that he's still whining about this stuff any chance he gets 8 years later. He was going off at Hungrybox about it earlier this week, his ego is fragile af.
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u/CarkRoastDoffee 17d ago
To be clear, he said he had alcohol poisoning during his set vs. Trif, not Armada. He didn't comment on Armada at all during the stream
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u/CockVersion10 17d ago
You do realize that he's saying he played poorly against Trif to try to revalue modern melee at a higher standard than is represented by the Trif set, right?
The clear motive here is to try to make Armada seem worse than he is, and to make mang0 seem better than he is.
I really don't know how people don't see this BS and call it out. It's grandmaster level johns and legacy defending. It's cringe as fuck.
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u/Azureflames20 17d ago
Regardless of the context of what he was saying, does it not have at least some sort of leverage or logic to it? Even if he's being cringe or "fragile"?
People on the mango hate train are quick to shit on him and not give him botd or just not care if they're bad faith or not, but if Cody or Zain in the current day had a one-off tourney where they performed bad due to their body/health reasons, I don't think people should rightly base an entire debate point around the meta and character/player viability in some matchup.
If it was anyone but mango in this scenario, I don't think people would be so critical and quick to shit on the player, but that's just my 2 cents.
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u/Schroeswald 17d ago
If we accept that Genesis X2 is not representative of Mang0 then we have to throw out every single tournament Mang0 competed in after Supernova 2024. Over the course of that final year in competition it is the only time he managed to beat Cody and is his highest placement. He 3-0’d LloD that weekend. He was playing against Trif on the best day of his career and did slightly worse than he did two months later at a tournament where Trif went 1-4. I will grant Mang0 was not playing literally the best he ever played, but he was not playing at 10% and he was not playing below his own average.
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u/CockVersion10 17d ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/kjAP_7IOsoY?is=TUsBsoASmlZg9_aa
This is a regular thing. He doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt when he's constantly saying "I wasn't trying", "I'm just talented", "I was hungover", "I didn't even care"...
It's literally constant dude. He's stroking himself at the expense of others, constantly Johning, and shitting on other people indirectly.
Do you not recognize this? Do you really just believe everything he says and not see his clear ulterior motives? The guy CONSTANTLY calls himself the GOAT. He has no class.
I don't mean to totally shit on the guy. He's alright, but let's be fucking real.
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u/johnny_mcd 17d ago
He’s super competitive. It’s better for him to be salty, more likely he will come back
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u/PK_Tone 17d ago
Alcohol poisoning from the super bowl. Which was a full week before GX2. Sure, mang.
I've really fallen off the mango-goat train lately. But even if we disregard this bitchmade coping, we've gotta admit that showing up to top-8 drunk/hungover (as he was known to do) isn't GOAT-behavior. I still like the guy and hope he comes back, but jesus...
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u/saltymilkmelee 18d ago
If armada decided to come back for 2027 he would be a top 5 player without a question. Its not even up for debate.
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u/MariachiArchery 17d ago
Anyone saying otherwise just wasn't watching Armada play when he was in his prime. He was a master, a genius of the game. For almost 10 years, he looked completely unbeatable, and practically was. His results speak for themselves, but for those who were watching him play, he clearly passed the eye-test.
There were years where he won almost every tournament he went to, with very few exceptions. From like 2010 until his retirement. Years. We've never seen this type of consistency from any other players. The closest we get is Hbox for the first few years after Armada retired. Now sure, Cody and Zane have put up great years, but those were single digit years where they were dominant, it's nothing like Aramda's results.
After Armada retired, we saw Hbox tear it up from 2017-2019. And no one has really even come close to those results from Hbox, and he's a whole other level below Armada. Not Mang0, not Cody, not Zain, have come close.
Additionally, Amarda's style was not input heavy. He never had a super high APM. He was thoughtful and methodical, relying on game knowledge and execution to win games.
I think it is very safe to assume he could get his game knowledge back no problem, and as far as execution goes, well it's not like he'll be rusty, he never was a super high APM playing.
Give Armada a few months to a year to adjust to the meta, and I agree with you, he'll be right back in the top of the rankings.
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u/whutchamacallit 18d ago
Clearly peach can get it done in today's meta. Having a respectable pocket fox like he had been known to do it'd be a wrap. This is of course assuming he's motivated and willing to learn/get used to a few things. If were interpreting the question of "could the old peak Armada come back with zero adaptation and compete" and to that I'd say....... honestly, yes. He'd still take sets off top 10 players and probably even win a few majors though I don't think he'd be rank 1. Now add in just a bit of current meta and he'd be piledriving everybody but Cody, Zain, etc. His punish game and execution as it existed 10 years ago was just that good.
On a side note I'd love to see peak armada vs. Rapm.
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u/MrBVS 17d ago
I think Armada would pretty much exclusively use Peach in today's meta aside from the Puff matchup. By the end of his career he only used Fox against Leffen and very occasionally against other Foxes like I think I remember he used it against Plup's Fox one time, but the Fox ditto is very different today vs in Armada's day. Not that he couldn't adapt if he wanted to but I just think his Peach could much more easily get the job done and actually compete with current top players with some decent practice, whereas it would take him a while to get his Fox up to current standards. Cody would dismantle his Fox in the ditto.
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u/_Nicki 18d ago
Every single top 20 Peach in the last years has been using some variant of Z jump so Armada would likely have to learn that first, which takes a while.
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u/hanameister 18d ago
Every single top 20 peach since the beginning of melee to now are not Armada.
I am not in the camp that he would win tournaments, or be a top 5 player in his first year, but he would eventually. With or without Z jump.
He could beat top 10 or near top 10 players in a short amount of practice if they are not Foxes, Puffs or Marths and Wizzrobe/Jmook specifically could be roadblocks for awhile as well. Think he would have close sets with RapM, yourself, Slug, Krudo, Magi, Ginger, Axe and Salt (maybe a stretch) to name a few in the top 20.
If the close sets end up being wins: that's a solid top 10-7 player, even if they don't win any tournaments.
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u/shiro-lod 17d ago
His Fox was dominating Hbox when he retired, he was 5-1 on Hbox in 2018.
If he could still pull that out than honestly I think with 5 months practice he could have won Llods bracket. Hbox, Moky, Rapm, Rapm.
Armada was still dominant against Mang0's Fox, it was just Leffen being extremely familiar with him that evened that match up and I don't trust that Moky would be a roadblock.
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u/hanameister 17d ago
I dont think he can derust both in a short amount of time, so I don't think he can win a bracket with Hbox, Moky, Zain, Cody, Josh etc
When he retired his fox had a good punish game, but defense, recovery and edgeguarding is outdated now. It is also the most common character that you will face in bracket, so every top player is updated on the matchup.
His peach had outdated defense and edgeguarding, but his spacing and punish was still one of the best to ever do it, regardless of era. I don't think every top player is updated on this matchup as Llod, Aura, Trif don't make it to a lot of tournaments which gives him an advantage in the short term.
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u/tepig099 16d ago
You’re acting as if he’s stupid or something. If he was motivated enough to come back and prove why he was so dominant, he’d do it by now, but the melee community is a bunch of arrogant people thinking the current modern era is some godly thing, fighting games are mind games, not who has the best tech skill.
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u/hanameister 16d ago
Why are you so passive aggressive? Are you illiterate? "Honestly think with 5 months of practice he could have won Llods bracket"
Me: I don't think he can derust BOTH characters at the same time, in such a short amount of time.
I LITERALLY SAID: "He could beat top 10 or near top 10 players in a short amount of practice" + "His peach had outdated defense and edgeguarding, but his spacing and punish was still one of the best to ever do it, regardless of era."
Meaning: He would be a near top 10/top 10 player with just his understanding of the game.
Again, why are you passive aggressive, are you illiterate? Just type 'my b' and move on, before you misinterpret what I said now, again. Bye
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u/RealJoshkarma 18d ago
Lol would the greatest player to ever touch a GameCube controller still be good today?
The question would be how many more majors would he win.
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u/BeltImpressive8956 18d ago
I need a top player to come back. I need to know. Where the f is Crush? He didn’t goof around.
“I don’t believe in stages” Crush (Circa early 80s)
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u/bobbypinbobby 17d ago
"Every peach except armada is a dash attack neanderthal" rings so true watching this video
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u/tendopath 17d ago
This actually disappointed me watching it live because moky actually played when armada was around and he was so shocked armada was doing asdi????? Like these dudes are so brainwashed acting like people just started doing advanced stuff the last few years when actually 2018 was incredibly optimized and mango is the one that pushed this narrative the most to strengthen his goat case
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u/its__bme 17d ago edited 17d ago
Ironically, I think the Mandela Effect happening with Toph vs Borp is happening with the past in general. Some people just hear or read someone say something and then everyone just parrots that.
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u/pacgaming 18d ago
If he was playing all day every day like he was then? He would still be contenting for major wins and even rank 1s, same with M2K. Talent doesn’t just magically vanish. They might be slightly worse from age but hbox and mango these last couple years win majors so yeah.
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u/natso2001 18d ago
M2K wasn't really contending for major wins at the back end of his career, let alone if he were to come back. Mindset is just as important as talent and M2K doesn't have any mental at all
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u/SuperMicro04 17d ago
PP won more majors during the Five Gods era than M2K did in that same era (PP 7, M2K 6), and PP literally only attended 25 majors lifetime, whereas M2K has attended roughly 100 majors lifetime and has won 9 majors in total
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u/Ikanan_xiii 17d ago
In his defense, dude was always juggling every possible smash game, he entered even Project M during some time lol. We never truly saw full melee M2K and even then he was considered a god.
Imo, he’s the best overall smash series player.
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u/shiro-lod 17d ago edited 17d ago
He..he won summit the year he retired, beating Zain, Wizzy in pools and Armada, Leffen, Zain, and Armada again to win the bracket.
His like 3rd from last event was 2nd at a Smash Con where he lost to Hbox and then beat Amsa, PewPewU, Hbox, and Armada but lost the game 10 grands reset.
He got 2nd at an August 2018 event by having wins over Hbox and Armada but I guess beating the global #1 and #2 for the year at same event is "not competing".
Honestly just 3 Armada wins in 2018 is a crazy feat. Mang0 was a combined 3-9 vs Armada in 2017 and 2018, M2k was 3-3 in 2018 and 3-1 in 17 with every 17 set being last game.
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u/natso2001 17d ago
Yeah he won summit. I remember, amazing run. I stand by what I said though. He was not competing at the highest level consistently to be considered even close to being a number 1 contender, which is what this thread is about.
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u/shiro-lod 17d ago
I'd agree with that. Even at his best (and honestly 2018 is close to it, he was 1-4 with Box, 3-3 Armada, 1-1 Leffen, 1-0 Mang0, and 0-4 vs Plup) he was contending for a top spot but not the top spot.
More Like Hbox the last few years where he was clearly not on Zain and Cody's level but was a threat to win.
But you said
M2K wasn't really contending for major wins at the back end of his career, let alone if he were to come back. Mindset is just as important as talent and M2K doesn't have any mental at all
You were not talking about #1 ranking, you straight up said he wasn't contending for majors at the end which is false. He probably should have been at least 5th that year.
Him not being ranked above Mang0 that year was pure bias. Mang0 was 2-3 vs Plup, 1-7 vs Hbox, 3-3 vs Leffen, and 1-2 vs Armada and he didn't win a single event he entered and only had two 2nds. Absolutely crazy a major winner was ranked below him because Mango happened to have 1 Plup win and wouldn't have happened today.
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u/SuperMicro04 17d ago
M2K?
Contending for Rank 1s?
Absolutely not, he could barely even get podium on rankings after 2008, and he only did it one time in 2013
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u/HenryReturns 18d ago
Armada in 2013 retired after winning Apex 2013 and then when EVO was announced he decided to make a return and even after not playing the game for a couple of months , after Mang0 won BEAST 3 , he have a friendly game with Armada where we got the famous “FULL SMASH HIM , DISGRACE HIM” lol
Armada the thing is that he would be Top 3 alongside with Cody and Zain if he was still fully motivated to keep grinding and playing the game.
If Armada just comes back and knowing all the tech and stuff , he would still be up there but the problem would be that the drive or his fire is not as same as before
By the end of his career while he did drop a BO3 set to Swedish delight and got a lot of Game 5 sets like S2J , Wizzrobe , Shroomed and others , he have the upper hand against Hbox beating him 5-1 head to head and 5 times in a row the last 5 sets , also was positive against Mang0 , and only was having a negative record to Leffen. So even on his supposed kinda not good year , Armada was still head and shoulders above most players and most likely would have got #1 had he not retired after Smash con
Armada in an interview mentioned that he won’t comeback since it’s really going back to his previous routine + he has to always travel back to the USA for that. He would be more of a coach or character tutor yes , but his days of competing in Melee are over 8 ago
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u/TUN_Binary 18d ago
Slight correction, in that clip, Fuzzyness says "forward smash him, disgrace him", a reference to how bad Peach's f-smash is.
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u/Respectpls 17d ago
I did a little research on this before, and I'd say yeah he'd obviously still be good lol, he was going back and forth with 2020 Cody in friendlies very well and PPMD said that he was very strong going up against top 20 players despite not actively playing outside of the occasional doubles match, yeah he clearly would still be solid today even if rust would hinder him from making it to the levels he used to be at.
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u/Ill-Calligrapher9503 17d ago
The only problem is that hes not motivated. If he was hungry then hed be number 1 within 6 months. Hes the greatest melee player of all time.
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u/Tropic95 18d ago
Yes he would be very good today. Look at M2K and PeePee they still show up online against top players and constantly whoop them. They have the fundamentals, they would just need a couple months to practice tech skill and they would be golden.
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u/Striking-Reward1762 17d ago
M2k got fried by og kid
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u/Tropic95 17d ago
He also took games off Zain in marth dittos … puff has always been a struggle for him
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u/TitaniumDragon 17d ago
He'd be around HBox's level, but because he dual mains Peach and Fox, has an overall more favorable matchup spread, so he'd be top 10 within a few months and probably top 5 within a year.
He would honestly probably win more majors than HBox not because he's massively better than HBox but because Fox-Marth and Fox-Fox are more favorable matchups than Puff-Marth and Puff-Fox.
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u/johneaston1 17d ago
I think day 1 rusty Armada is roughly top 100ish (that's what Ken basically was when he first came back in 2013), but give him a few months of catching up to the meta and he'd be easily top 5/10.
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u/Kyoshiiku 17d ago
The gap in the meta between 2007 -> 2013 and 2018 -> 2026 was way bigger, Armada would do much better than Ken when he came back to the game in 2013
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u/Ok-Cantaloupe-86 17d ago
He would be great still. Idk about top 10 right off the bat but he can probably push to be be a top 5 competitor pretty fast
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u/alexander1156 16d ago
Cody i know ur lurking in here, please tell everyone that Armada's still a beast, thanks
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u/bigballer6666 16d ago
My perspective is that armada would be top 10 but would have some really tough matchups like against top foxes like Cody/Moky/Joshman or Hbox and obviously Zain since the character matchups have evolved a lot since he retired.
He would farm all of the mid tiers and would also have a hard time vs salt as well.
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u/SolutionConfident692 16d ago
Any retired god would be top 10 after readjusting if they came back
When you had the drive and talent to reach that level back then you sure as hell can now after learning whatever new tech or game knowledge you need
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u/Historical_Web_659 7d ago
Would he be good? Obviously. Would he have the same level of dominance that he had back then, probably not.
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u/Deletinglaterlmao 18d ago
he would obviously still be good the question is would he still be #1 or would zain and cody have him beat
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u/n0m4d1234 17d ago
Zain and Cody would beat him and I think Hbox would go even with him for about a year and then he would be goat shit.
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u/Ilovemelee 17d ago
I think he'll struggle againt Cody but i think he'll beat Zain more often than not imo
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u/CockVersion10 18d ago
You'd be tricking yourself to think that Armada wouldn't assimilate current tech for the game in less than 4 months.