Anyone can be great

There’s a good chance that most of the people reading this will not know who Zain Naghmi is. However, if you do know who he is, there’s a good chance you love him.

Competitively, the video game Smash Brothers: Melee, or simply Melee, is a grassroots eSport that started in 2001 with the game’s release, but wouldn’t experience a major spike in popularity until 2013; a time when most video games were riding the eSports wave. Despite having three sequels come after it, Melee would remain popular due to its fast pacing and rich competitive history.

A simple way to describe Melee would be to compare it to the notorious Mortal Kombat franchise. Mortal Kombat’s formula is reminiscent of most modern fighting games, with two opponents pitted against each other in a small arena. Melee, on the other hand, is an outlier in the fighting game community. Melee is an ‘all-stars’ fighting game of different Nintendo franchises, and is sometimes seen as being marketed towards children, due to Nintendo marketing the majority of their products to players of all ages, even though the central theme is still combat. Melee is a very open fighting game; whilst there are some platforming elements, victory is achieved by physically knocking your opponent off the level. The more you hit them, the further they fly. It is also possible to play doubles in Melee with four players, but it is far less popular than singles, perhaps due to its deviation from traditional fighting games.

Whilst many fighting games emphasize combos at the high level, they are mostly flowcharted. However, when characters in Melee are hit, they fly through the air or slide along the ground, during which they can influence their own trajectory. For most characters in Melee, every combo is a unique chase sequence where individual expression shines like a dance performance.

The competitive scene took off in America, and has mostly remained there due to its popularity there, with the only other countries posing a significant threat to the American dominated eSport being Canada and Sweden. That said, the players in the competitive scene are still relatively diverse, with relevant tournament threats having ethnicities that originate from Mexico, Nicaragua, Japan, India, Palestine, Pakistan, England, Spain, Germany, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands.

At the beginning of Zain’s career in Melee, an era was ending that had revolved around the so-called five ‘Gods’ of Melee, so named because the five strongest players in the world had won virtually every tournament of significance from 2008 to 2013 whilst rarely losing to lesser players. However, veteran player Leffen would start to win important tournaments, and with the increased activity of the competitive scene from 2013 onwards, the skill gap between the Gods and other players was starting to shrink.

Growing up, I was never a fan of sports. However, during various periods in 2016 I suffered from anxiety and depression, and when I discovered the joy of spectating competitive Melee online from Australia, I used it as a means of escapism, progressively becoming more and more obsessed with it, even when I hadn’t played the game myself in three years. I had always wondered what it would be like to experience this joy of spectating whilst simultaneously being part of a competitive scene. However, I would be unable to do this while living in Australia, where I stayed. Later, however, I would be inspired to enter into competitive Pokémon online, becoming a high level player who had even taken a game off the best player in the world at the time. My experiences with competitive gaming have arguably taught me even more valuable life lessons than my biotechnology honours year at university.

Historically, Melee has been a very accepting scene to people with dark skin; an interesting attribute for a community with a long rivalry between West and East Coasts. However, the black representation from these coasts has been relatively similar, even during the competitive scene’s infancy. Ask a Melee aficionado to name recent tournament threats who are black and most will tell you of Zain, Jeffrey “Axe” Williamson, DaJuan “Shroomed” McDaniel, Kalindi “KJH” Henderson, and Charlie “AbsentPage” Mckinley.

Black participation can even be traced back to the infancy of competitive Melee, with there being veteran legends of the game such as Amsah Augustuszoon, Tony “Taj” Jackson, Kashan “Chillindude” Khan, and Bronston “DaShizWiz” Layton. Even black commentators (many of whom are former tournament threats) have become synonymous with the sound of Melee, such as Phil DeBerry, Brandon “HomeMadeWaffles” Collier, and Wynton “Prog” Smith.

So what are the people who make up this community like? An extremely difficult question. Most go by their stage name, usually the ‘gamer tag’ handle that they would use for video games. Arjun “lloD” Malhotra pursues a career in medicine. Melee God Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma is a chemical engineer, and his coach Luis “Crunch” Rosias is a software engineer for Google.

Alternatively, Edgard “n0ne” Sheleby was a former street racer. Johnny “S2J” Kim and Michael “MikeHaze” Pulido are poker players, a useful trait in a game where psychoanalysing your opponent is important. In Melee, it doesn’t matter where you come from, as it should be; sometimes you need to give a diamond light to make it shine. The reason for this is that whilst Melee does require some strategy, which one would associate with education, it is more reliant on reaction time and muscle memory. Reaction time is largely genetic, so success through practice is often achieved through being able to execute the pantheon of difficult techniques in the game; despite the dominance of the Gods, there was no secret formula.

Due to this, virtually everyone in Melee is a character specialist; with the most characters being actively used in tournament by a single person in recent memory being 5, in a game where around half of the 26 characters are viable for competitive success. Since only seven of the very highest performing characters are used by the majority of competitors, there are a scattered few competitors who are nigh impossible to fully practice for; the skill gap is simply too great. Therefore, where you come from has a big impact on who you have access to for practice. Whilst there is a popular online mode that was created by third-party modification of the game, the lag of playing online is significant enough (0.033-0.05 seconds, and even larger when played internationally) that it was viewed as a poor substitute for playing in person.

Traits associated with the West Coast are highly technical and/or prediction based gameplay. Whilst not necessarily originating from the black members of the Melee community, this style borrows much from the ‘Thug Life’ mindset that is often associated with black culture, and is quite popular within the Melee community. Melee God Joseph “Mang0” Marquez could be considered the epitome of this mindset, with much of his play emphasising overkill and disrespect, with the shock-and-awe tactics often working in his favour, as many players will be unable to predict his wide variety of brazen mix-ups. This has led to him being unanimously considered as one of the top two players in all of Melee’s history. On the other hand the East Coast, from which Zain hails, is sometimes associated with traditional approaches and functionality over flashiness.

Zain borrows from elements of both the West Coast and East Coast. Zain plays Marth, a swordsman, whose attacks become stronger the further away the opponent being struck is, and who is quite good at feints. Whilst the obvious move might be to always aim to hit an opponent with the tip of the sword, hitting an opponent with a stronger hit can send them too far away from you, preventing you from stringing successive hits together. In a game where most characters have around thirty different moves, Marth has almost a hundred different viable ways that he could hit you.

Despite the lack of qualifiers for Melee tournaments, a new player can have difficulty placing well at a tournament. Tournaments are double elimination brackets where players are ‘seeded’ based on ranking, which means that the better players are always matched up against the weaker players before the climax of the tournament. For a new player like Zain, this can make their actual placing in the tournament very erratic. Only the later stages of the tournaments are significantly broadcast live, doing otherwise would mean broadcasting hundreds of matches simultaneously.

Unfortunately, when a new player gets unlucky with regards to their tournament placing, it can mean that their exposure to prospective sponsors is limited. Whilst many of the eSports sponsors that have emerged in the 21st century have entered into the Melee scene, the majority of eSports sponsors tend to shy away from Melee; the lack of competitive endorsement by Nintendo, means that there is less financial incentive for a sponsor.

As we start to view Zain’s career, for the sake of clarity, the # symbol followed by a number denotes the most recent rank that its respective player had with respect to the tournament at which they were featured, even if that rank was given after the tournament in question. However, individuals ranked far lower than Zain who would beat him would have a large increase in rank, so their rank PRIOR to the match will be displayed in order to convey the gravity of the loss.

At age 18, Zain starts attending locals in October of 2014. At his first local, he beats one player. He tries doubles with a friend and they get 3rd. At his second local, he beats two players. At his third, he makes his first top 4 in singles.

Interestingly, he seems to have trouble with players who use the character Falco; thought by most to be one of the top two most effective characters in the game. Zain loses to many obscure Falco players who never even come close to seeing the top 100. These players have no idea that Zain will not lose to a Falco player again for three and a half years, even without any high level Falco players to practice against.

Zain enters his first major a year later, the nearby Smash Con 2015. Although he doesn’t defeat any of the 55-or-so well-known players who enter the tournament, Zain achieves 33rd.

Zain’s next major would be Pound 2016 in April. However, he would be nailed by the unconventionally non-technical, psychological veteran #75 Drew “Drephen” Scoles, who plays Sheik, the traditional counter-pick to Marth. He would go on to tear through a number of players in his loser’s bracket before being eliminated by rising star #96 Jack “Crush” Hoyt. All this would lead to Zain being placed 49th at the tournament.

After several months, next would come Zain’s first supermajor, EVO 2016, which was the largest Melee tournament of all time based on entrants, with 2,372 players competing. It would also be the first example of Zain flying under the radar; Melee was just one of the many fighting games at EVO, often taking a back seat to them. Because of this, Zain’s victories were not uploaded to the internet. Zain would defeat up-and-comer #89 Juan “Medz” Garcia and the unorthodox #76 Ammon “Ka-Master” Styles. However, he would be eventually be eliminated by #62 Rishi Malhotra to place 49th, who had just almost beaten the Swedish Melee God, Adam “Armada” Lindgren, the number 1 ranked player for the last two years, and unequivocally one of the top two players in all of Melee’s history.

At Zain’s second supermajor, he would defeat former NASA engineer #84 Tafokints, but early in bracket would meet #6 Justin “Plup” McGrath, a consistent player had become regarded as the best Sheik player in the world. Plup was Zain’s first top 10 win, but unfortunately, the match wasn’t even commentated, and Plup had an abnormally bad run at the tournament, causing Zain’s win to be overlooked by many. However, the commentators for Zain’s next match against the fast-paced and technical #34 KJH, during which they were considering whether Zain’s success would be a fluke if he lost to KJH. However, Zain would beat KJH before finishing 17th. At the end of the year, the dozens of Melee figures having their say would ensure that Zain received rank 66 that year, with him only being overshadowed by more consistent competitors.

At 2017’s first supermajor, Genesis 4, Zain came close to beating go-getting veteran #7 Zac “SFAT” Cordoni, and would later be eliminated by another veteran, #55 Kelly ‘Kels’ Smith before placing 33rd. Months later, at CEO Dreamland, Zain would be unfortunate enough to be matched against #11 Sami “Druggedfox” Muhanna, and the explosive but inconsistent #28 Colin “Colbol” Green, causing Zain to finish 17th at the small major. However, Zain would enjoy his first high level doubles success with unranked top 10 MDVA player Cory “SypherPhoenix” Hong, with their team placing ninth, just below the majority of the dedicated, long-term teams with high ranking members.

Zain would face #5 Leffen at Smash ‘N’ Splash 3, a tournament held adjacent to a waterpark. Leffen was still the greatest threat to the dominance that the Gods of Melee had established. Leffen is a traditional, simplistic player, but later in Leffen’s career, his peak performance would become the near embodiment of what it meant for a human to play the game perfectly.

The first of match in the best of five is won by Leffen. After a match in Melee, the player who loses chooses the next level that the stage will be played on, and also has the opportunity to wait until the winner chooses their character, enabling them to counter some of their opponent’s strategies. The character matchup between Fox and Marth is a quintessential part of the game, and some of the level picks have been traditionally one sided. Zain takes Leffen to a level with no additional platforms, which is thought to simplify and amplify Marth’s ability to string together hits. However, it backfires and instead Leffen’s ability to string together hits is what becomes amplified, and Leffen takes game 2. Zain sticks to his guns, and picks the same level again. It pays off, however, Zain must win twice in a row on Leffen’s level of choice to win the set. Leffen takes Zain to almost the opposite of the previous level, one where the platforms are high enough that they become awkward for Marth to put on pressure, and make it easier for Leffen to run around and fight from a distance against the swordsman. Despite this, Zain takes game 4, and in a last hit scenario, wins game 5 as well.

Unlike when he beat Plup, Zain gains recognition in front of a massive crowd this time, but this would be short-lived, as Leffen would be the last upset Zain would make at the tournament, with Zain being demolished by the lighting-fast and daring #16 S2J, and then #6 Plup. Still, after losing to Zain, Leffen went on a long loser’s bracket run to place 2nd at the event, even taking one of two grand finals sets off of Hungrybox, the tournament’s winner. Zain may have very well changed the outcome of the tournament, as in all likelihood Leffen and Hungrybox would have faced off in winner’s finals, and then would have faced off again in grand finals for a total of 3 sets, which Leffen could very well have won.

A month later was the small major Bad Moon Rising 2, where Zain would best the greatest of Connecticut’s players, #38 Anthony “Slox” Detres. However, next would be the first time that Zain would face off against his first Melee God, #1 Hungrybox.

This was a completely different beast from Leffen. The character matchup was traditionally skewed in the favour of Hungrybox, although due to the overall unpopularity of Hungrybox’s sole character, Puff, it was not as much of a traditional counter to Marth in the way that Sheik was. Puff was unpopular due to it being associated with repetitively, sometimes mindlessly, using a singular move, a long range kick that is a cut above most of Puff’s other options. Despite this, practicing against Puff was difficult due to the slim few who played Puff well, particularly in Zain’s region, although he had thoroughly bested #42 Prince Abu, the second best Puff, at Genesis 4.

Zain would fail to take a single match against Hungrybox, who was ranked 2nd the previous two years, and would go on to be ranked 1st in the world until the COVID pandemic began. Zain then immediately lost to an unranked player to finish at 9th at the small major tournament; only eight high level players had been present at the tournament. This would partially lead to Zain’s somewhat underwhelming midyear ranking of 41st in favour of more consistent players.

Still lacking a sponsor, Zain didn’t attend the supermajor EVO 2017, instead next appearing at his first major tournament in Canada, Get On My Level 2017. He would beat Prince Abu again, then have an even closer set with #8 SFAT, despite losing. Afterwards, he would beat up-and-comer #49 Avery “Ginger” Wilson, the first of Zain’s high-level Falco victims, and veteran #22 MikeHaze. Zain would then be dismantled by #14 Shroomed, yet another psychological Sheik player, to place 9th, although unlike his 9th place finish at Bad Moon Rising 2, around forty well-known players were in attendance this time.

Back in MDVA, Zain would have a tournament run at Smash Con 2017 that would propel him up the rankings again. At this point, Zain would start utilising pivots, a Marth-based technique that had a 0.017 second margin of error. Whilst not always successful, the effects were devastating. Despite pivots being most relevant in the matchup against Hungrybox, Zain wouldn’t take a game from Hungrybox, but would humiliate #8 SFAT, and would also beat legend of the game #7 Daniel “Chudat” Rodriguez, #40 Rishi Malhotra, and his brother, #48 lloD. The last Melee God in our story, #4 Mew2King (as Melee God Kevin “PPMD” Nanney was inactive for much of Zain’s career due to depression), would eliminate Zain soundly at 5th place with Sheik; Mew2King was a major proponent of switching characters to have the best counter to specific players.

At Big House 7, Zain would experience his first success in doubles at a supermajor. This time Zain would team with MDVA player #79 Cory “Milkman” Hong, who had a history of placing well in doubles. They would beat the European team of #41 Professor Pro and #39 Amsah Augustuszoon, then the technical and aggressive team of #12 Weston “Westballz” Dennis, and #30 Justin “Syrox” Burroughs. Both of these were long-term, dedicated teams, and beating them would earn Zain and Milkman 7th place. Despite all of this, the lack of interest in doubles would mean that Zain would only receive $82 for his doubles performance (the largest cash prize in Melee history is over $30,000). Unfortunately, Zain would not experience the same success in singles, he would be eliminated by local Sheik player #54 Arjun “Junebug” Rao, then would eliminate #68 Drephen before being beaten by the prediction based Marth, #19 Kevin “PewPewU” Toy, to place 17th.

At his last tournament of 2017, DreamHack Denver, Zain would beat Westballz, this time in singles, who was known for being the most technical Falco player in the world. Zain would fail to make a dent in Hungrybox, and would be beaten convincingly by #9 SFAT to place 7th at the small major.

The Smash Summit series, a bi-yearly invitational where the current top 8 gained automatic entry. The invitational still had the money to incentivize everyone who was invited to come; the money came from the democratic system where the remaining entrants would be voted for based on how much the public purchased the Summit’s merchandise in the name of their player of choice.

It was typical for people who had been voted into Summit to go up in rank after being able to practice against the absolute best in the world. A lot of prospective entrants would intensively stream gameplay to incentivize people spending more on them for Smash Summit; everyone wanted to go. However, Zain’s stream viewership was low; he was predominantly known for practicing against Hungrybox online, which many found tedious to watch due to Puff’s unpopularity, which would contribute to Zain missing out on Summit for another half a year. However, Zain would still be #22 at the end of 2017.

At the start of 2018, Zain would enter Genesis 5, losing to #17 Lucky, but would have an extremely close set with the stoic and theoretical #8 Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett, which would be infamous for causing Wizzrobe to pass out for several seconds after winning. 13th place would be Zain’s highest placement at a supermajor. Full Bloom 4 was another bittersweet tournament for Zain; he would defeat SFAT, but would then be decisively beaten by #4 Leffen, Zain’s main claim to fame, and then have another frustratingly close set with Wizzrobe before finishing at 9th at the major.

Zain’s first Summit would see a wealth of practice pay off; Zain would almost defeat #5 Mew2King, and would defeat the best Falco in the world, #6 Mang0, as well as #2 Plup, to place 3rd at the event, losing only to Mew2King and #3 Armada. Zain would overtake Mew2king’s reputation as the best Marth player. At this point in time, there were eleven of the Melee characters whose strongest representative was having relative competitive success. Zain had now faced all of the eleven strongest representatives (excluding himself) and had beaten five of them. Zain would proceed to enjoy various successes in doubles, as he was now popular among high level doubles players.

Despite Zain’s success, he would be slightly overshadowed by other rising stars and their more consistent performance. For example, #8 Masaya “aMSa” Chikamoto, Japan’s much loved champion, had bested Hungrybox at the same tournament, as well as beating Mew2king, Axe (then ranked 7th) and #12 Crush at EGLX 2018. Nonetheless, by July Zain would cement himself as a frequenter of a tournament’s top 8, and would be ranked at 9th, higher than #10 Axe and #11 SFAT.

Zain’s inconsistency was highlighted at Get on my Level 2018, where he lost early to Kevin “Hyprid” Bandel, an unranked player who rarely left Canada. However, Zain went on a vicious run, beating fan favourite #19 n0ne, #25 Shroomed, Canadian rising star #46 Kurtis “moky” Pratt, and SFAT, before losing to Axe. Axe is the only player of his character among the top 100, and to this day is unbeaten by a Marth player since 2015.

At Smash ‘N’ Splash 4, Zain would defeat Mang0 again in one of the shortest, most brutal humiliations in Melee history. However, Zain would then proceed to receive a similar humiliation by Armada to achieve 5th at a tournament series that many were starting to consider a supermajor. At EVO 2018, Zain would be beaten soundly by Hungrybox before having to face off against Armada. The number of people who have ever defeated Armada can be counted on your fingers. The set would be extremely close, and Zain would perform things that had never been seen before in Melee. Zain would lose, however, and this would be the last time Zain and Armada would play: Armada would retire after placing 2nd at EVO and 1st and Smash Con 2018.

At Smash Con 2018, Zain would barely miss out on defeating Hungrybox before being upset by ARMY, who was the first ‘Ice Climbers’ player to ever defeat Zain outside of locals or regionals. However, Zain would finally close the deal against Hungrybox at Shine 2018, winning the major without dropping a set, despite also having to beat Mang0 again. This would be a history defining moment which coinciding with Armada’s retirement would define 2018 onwards as the era of the downfall of the Gods of Melee.

Of the strongest representatives of the eleven relevant Melee characters, Zain had now bested all but three of them; #4 Mew2King, #6 Wizzrobe and #9 Axe (Armada’s retirement meant Zain was now #8). However, Mew2King would take a nine month hiatus from Melee the next year, due to the Melee’s third sequel, Ultimate, soon to be released, causing Mew2King to focus on his Ultimate career. Zain also now had a win on the strongest member of America, Canada and Sweden.

At Big House 8, Zain would defeat the Texas and Minnesota champions: #17 Connor “Bananas” Lamb and #20 AbsentPage, but despite Zain’s recent successes, he would suffer a loss to #3 Plup and would be upset by innovator #42 Jason “Gahtzu” Diehl. At GameTyrant Expo 2018 Zain would finally beat #7 Wizzrobe before losing to Hungrybox and for the first time, #4 Mang0, to place 3rd. Despite losing some of his claims to fame, Zain would be #7 at the end of the year, the first time he would be ranked above Plup, Wizzrobe and aMSa.

At 2019’s Genesis 6, Zain would be demolished by #4 Plup before coming incredibly close to beating Axe, finishing 9th at the event. Months later at Pound 2019, Zain would almost lose to #28 Chudat, and would then be dominated by both #7 Plup and Hungrybox. At Get On My Level 2019. Zain would face off against #4 Leffen, who like Mew2King had taken a hiatus to focus on his Ultimate career, with this tournament being his return to the scene after half a year. It would be close, but Leffen would emerge the victor. Zain would cleanly defeat #8 aMSa before losing to #3 Axe to place 7th.

At Smash ‘N’ Splash 5. Zain would have another close loss against Leffen, and after beating aMSa would lose to Plup. This would be the last time that Zain would play aMSa, as the COVID pandemic would keep aMSa in his homeland of Japan in 2020, where the lag of playing competitively online internationally would have caused an uneven playing field, preventing aMSa from competing. This would also be true for Leffen in Sweden.

At Smash Summit 8, Zain would be upset by Spain’s champion, #35 Alvaro “Trifasia” Garcia, and would suffer another loss to #5 Mang0, although he would defeat the New York champion, #10 Cody “iBDW’ Schwab, the Australian champion #33 Spud, before having revenge against Trifasia, defeating him cleanly, before finally scoring another win on Plup. Zain would then be eliminated by #2 Wizzrobe and #3 Axe to finish 5th. At Low Tier City 7, Zain would defeat the Louisiana champion #48 Magi as well as Mang0 before suffering an extremely close loss against Hungrybox in Grand Finals.

Midway through 2019, Zain had beaten most of the players that existed in the top 50 rankings that came out, and had now risen to 6th amongst them. With recent wins on Plup and Mang0, and his repeated close sets against Leffen, Axe, Hungrybox and #9 S2J, Zain was now a threat to every single top player. Big House 9 would be Zain’s next big hit, where he would place 2nd at the supermajor, taking a set off of #13 SFAT, demolishing #10 Mew2King (admittedly rusty from his hiatus) and #2 Leffen, then finally trading sets with #3 Mang0.

By the end of 2019, Zain had a positive or even record against every overseas champion except Leffen, and had beaten every relevant American state champion except Axe, with his only lack of a positive record for the year against the state champions being Mang0 for California, and Hungrybox for Florida (although it is worth noting that Plup, Wizzrobe and Mew2King also belong to Florida). He had beaten every active Melee God, and had also beaten the best character specialist of every relevant character, except for Axe. He would end 2019 with a flawless record against #7 aMSa and #9 iBDW, which would partially lead to Zain’s continued #6 placement, with Wizzrobe still remaining above Zain at #5.

At 2020’s Genesis 7, Zain would defeat #11 S2J, #3 Mang0 and Hungrybox without dropping a single set to win his first supermajor. At Smash Summit 9, the last tournament before the COVID pandemic, Zain would defeat #12 Fiction before being slaughtered by #8 Plup, then would defeat iBDW before barely losing to Mang0.

The COVID pandemic would cause every major tournament to be cancelled. Due to the small, yet significant lag experienced in the online mode, many would question the legitimacy of the online tournaments; the online lag would disadvantage certain characters in the game, which in turn would disadvantage many players, due to them all being character specialists. Despite tournament entry decreasing, the pandemic caused online viewership to rise, and in the unusual setting, the three greatest players would be Mang0, iBDW, and Zain.

In the middle of 2020, a scandal emerged in the competitive community of Ultimate which involved over fifty accusations of pedophilia and grooming across the community, many of which were revealed to be true. Whilst Melee’s community had stayed relatively clean after the floodgates opened, various former Melee commentators would be among the guilty. Zain would display his guilt online, feeling that some of the scandals had taken place right under his nose, as the Melee and Ultimate tournaments would often be one after another at the same venue. Zain proclaimed that he would attempt to perform a greater role in the protection of minors in the community once the pandemic was over.

So now you see why Zain specifically is inspirational to many, including me. Despite having a somewhat lackluster set of local players to practice against, Zain rose from obscurity and climbed to the top of arguably the most difficult fighting game of all time in just under six years, and when he was finally at the top, he would decide to choose to use his notoriety for good.