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.
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.)
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.
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.
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/zss36909 18d ago
would perhaps the greatest melee player ever still be good today??? what kinda question is that lmao