3. S2j

The player S2j is a special one to me, he is my 2nd favorite player ever and my first favorite Captain Falcon player ever. His first name is Johnny, which most of his close friends refer to him as, and his tag "s2j" stand for "smoke 2 joints". I've always wanted to ask him if that is a reference to the song by Sublime, but I guess we might never know for sure. If you haven't heard that song by Sublime I strongly recommend it. So what to say about s2j, well first off he is definitely the fan favorite no matter who he plays it seems. Captain Falcon being considered on the lower end of the high tier players, everyone likes to cheer for the underdog to win. Even without that though, Captain Falcon is by far one of the most explosive and flashy characters in the game and all of his moves look cool. He is also extremely fast, maybe even the fastest in melee, and watching him move all over the stage is mesmerizing. As someone who plays the game and knows how hard it is to do some of the high level movements like wavedashing, dash dancing, and wavelanding its very fun to watch someone do it so cleanly. S2j and Mang0 are also really close friends and there play styles are also very similar. S2j has a very fast and unpredictable play style which can either give him a insane advantage or crushing disadvantage. He holds a special part in my heart because he is actually the reason I decided I wanted to play Captain Falcon as my main character. Watching him actually made me want to play the game the way he did, because what he did looked so much fun. Most people would want to pick one of the very high tier characters and get really good at them, but I think you should never play someone just because they are good. You need to have fun with what you are doing if you ever expect to have any kind of drive to get better. Being bored and winning is probably one of the most pointless things anyone could do.  

2. Armada

Armada is the number 1 player in the entire world for the game Super Smash Bros Melee. He dual mains Fox and Peach and had a very very successful 2015 tournament year. Armada won well over $100k in tournament prize money this year, which if you are familiar to smash tournaments you know you have to win a ton to make anything close to that. Armada is from Sweden and even though the competitive scene over there isn't as great as it is over here he does well for himself. He actually has been one of the biggest advocates for Melee's competitive growth throughout all of the years. I have even heard rumors of a documentary coming out detailing Armadas life with Melee. Armada's play style with either of his characters is simply an insane punish game. He won't do any of the unpredictable crazy things that Mang0 does, but everything he does is ludicrously efficient. In a game like Super Smash Bros it is very difficult to do the perfect thing at the perfect time all the time. Armada is an example of someone who can do that, he has some sort of sense in him to be able to do the exact right thing at the exact right time. There are other players that have shown they have potential to do something like Armada has done, but anyone has yet to rise up and overcome him. Although, there is another player from Sweden named Leffen who was also ranked number top 5 in the world and had a chance at the rank 1 title, but unfortunately something happened with his Visa when coming to The Big House 5 in Michigan and the Us government wouldn't let him in the country. Armada's future unlike Mang0s is looking extremely promising. In almost every tournament he entered and played in he placed in the top 8. As long as players like Leffen and Mang0 don't figure out how to beat the way he plays he will be alright. Although he did come 2nd in the last major tournament of the 2015 year, there should be no reason for anyone to overlook him as not the favorite to win every tournament.

1. The Goat

Joseph "Mang0" Marquez is known as one of the best super smash brothers melee players of all time. On top of that, he is also personally my favorite player to ever play the game as well. Mang0 is the player in Melee that I think everyone really really wants to be. He isn't one of the really smart players that knows all the frame data and percentage timing and what not. He is a player that has so much experience through out the years with the game that he has a sense of what he knows will or wont work. A lot of players rely on knowing exactly what times to do things and having a game plan from the start. Mang0 doesn't do any of that, he goes into games almost completely blind and just finds his way around how the opponent is playing. He is always so unpredictable and fast with his movements, and his punishes are always harsh and long that the other player won't get to do anything for a solid 10 seconds. He has nicknames of The Goat(Greatest Of All Time), The kid, the nonsleeper of thee, and so on. He is also probably one of the most winningest players through out its competitive history as well. Lately Mang0 has been kind of in a slump, but that is to be expected with the progression of the game and the players of it. Mang0 plays on team Cloud 9 and gets to play this game for a living and travel the country going from tournament to tournament. He's also known as being a very large gambling advocate and a very large fan of alcohol. Especially the 40 oz. Although he may seem like a good for nothing video game player, Mang0 actually has a child with his girlfriend and is doing pretty well for himself at this point in life. The future for Mang0 is a very tough thing to distinguish. He is a very "spotty" kind of player, is he shows up to a tournament and is playing well there is almost no one in the world that will be able to stop him. Though, he can get in a weird mindset or for whatever reason not be playing at his 100% normal rate. But, as Mang0 has said before, you gotta be a gambling man to vote on the kid.