The Most Controversial Character In Smash Melee

[@Akshonesports]

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[@Wagabooger]

I have been using chrome all my life, but after watching this video I tried Opera GX and it was game changing! Never heard of it before watching my favourite channel and I KNEW I had to go along with their reccomendation. Huge Shoutouts!!! Akshon stays the goat

[@toast4177]

No it’s not.

[@forkxzer]

nuh uh

[@Gnarfledarf]

Don't put sponsored content in the middle of the video.

[@bruh-rt7sr]

@@Gnarfledarf who cares let them get that bag

[@LunarDuskSSBM]

Thanks for the mention guys 🥳 Awesome video! Just one small thing: The timing for handoffs isn't actually frame-perfect, it depends on the character and Nana's positioning! There's at least a few frames of leniency for most characters, but they can all be handoffed, except for Pichu*, making him an ideal counter to ICs that you guys should absolutely try in tournament! * if some ICs nerd comes in here talking about how you can actually handoff pichu if you do a jump cancel frame perfect grab only on the right side I will throw away your bug collection

[@TheMacaroniPanda]

As a bug collector, I didn’t know that about Pichu handoffs, tbf I don’t play much against Pichu

[@eeveewithcoffee9554]

Ice Climbers without wobblers is the coolest character in Melee and no one can ever change my main. Especially if they think that Fox, Falco, or Captain Falcon is cooler. Yoshi is easily cooler than all three of them

[@khu7379]

the wobbler slur reference is a deep cut lmao. very clear you're active in the melee community, thats awesome

[@guywhoplaysbass]

Fly amanita still went for wobbles and decided to retire from the game once the technique was banned but no one talks ab it. Also chu is easily the best sopo

[@aiden1486]

i love the graphic at the start of the video with all the characters. I want that in wallpaper engine haha

[@enemyskill4286]

i had to sub based off that alone. The editing goes crazy

[@sourlab]

Im amazed by how good this game still looks the art style really helps

[@yordvandamme]

I used to think it looked really ugly until I played it a lot lol

[@bluedistortions]

The graphical jump from sb64 to melee was jaw dropping at the time.

[@NinjaLobsterStudios]

Yeah honestly only a few of the character textures look bad, specifically Yoshi and DK look like they are made of wax but everything else holds up surprisingly well Plus Melee pikachu is still chonky, that's always a win in my book

[@RTU130]

Ye

[@melee9183]

Best aging graphics imo.

[@neorunic]

as an ices main i find a non-wobbling meta game to be more creative, skilled and generally more fun to play as and against the climbers.

[@protocetid]

Didn’t handoffs start off in Project+ (formerly known as PM)? They’re certainly more interesting there, as are Ice Climbers as a whole.

[@savaget2058]

Agreed

[@neorunic]

Handoffs were meta in pm because of nana being able to just constantly backthrow, making it a harder version of wobbling. But handoffs were still used in melee, just to add damage before starting a wobble though to get them out of that 40% range where it becomes a true infinite no matter how TAS your mashing is@@protocetid

[@poleon2003]

But do you admit that it feels really bad when you can't get a good punish on floaties because nana just uthrow'd or bthrow'd a couple of times due to RNG right?

[@fatyoshi696]

i don't play much melee, but it sounds like one thing that makes wobbling even worse than any infinite in a traditional fighter is that it doesn't kill until you decide it does and the match timer is long, most infinites in traditional fighters kill eventually and then you can move on to round 2 or bring in your next character, but all ice climbers need to do is land a grab while not at a stock deficit and they could wobble the opponent at 999% until the 8 minute timer runs out, winning the whole game immediately

[@kkmac7247]

Wobbling (and all melee infinites) were banned past 300%, and they were almost always ended much earlier than that as melee games are rarely under threat of timeout

[@whatarewaves]

There’s a stalling rule in melee’s comp ruleset that prevents this

[@debbit]

we figured this out awhile ago

[@Ics_Cookbook]

to add to what the two previous commentators said. icies are also pretty much *the* most likely character to *be* timed out, and it entirely depended on the opponent. On the icies getting stalled out front, icies have significant issues threatening platforms. the two moves they can really poke platforms with are short hop autocancel upair and short hop late fastfall fair. The former can be shield drop punished if it lands on the opponents shield, the latter is incredibly slow and requires precise timing to even land on shield, and the icies gains absolutely nothing if the opponent jumps to avoid them or takes the hits on shield then moves away. They also both lose to a pre-emptive shielddrop aerial, with fair being hypothetically punished with shield drop shine on reaction by spacies. Their aerial mobility is poor so trying to shark platform movement is high commitment and on top of that the fact they are largely dependent on nana's presence makes literally everything they do higher risk than for most other characters. On the other side of things, icies as a character suck at stalling. they don't move well in the air, don't have great defensive hitboxes to keep the opponent cautious of approaching (especially when on a platform) and even the very slowest wobbles take about 45 seconds to get from 0 to 300, so with three wobbles they'd still need to stall out for almost 6 minutes, which is simply not achievable with the character.

[@tuPHwUn]

I understand where your head is, cuz you don't play much Melee, but your point is the _exact_ opposite of the truth. In Modern fighting games, damage scaling would cause an infinite to do so little damage per hit, the 99 second timer would run out before the lifebar runs out. I'm sure you've already read the above replies mentioning rules against wobbling past 300%. Even in a theoretical world a longer timer would give you a better chance at an infinite dropping and in general stalling is actually _better_ and more incentivized with a shorter timer. all of your points were 0% correct, totally opposite the truth ... but I get where you're coming from

[@SableUnderscore]

"dont wanna get wobbled? THEN dont get grabbed" Dont get hit and you win the video game who'd of thought it

[@purffe]

I cannot stress enough how much i love your content, every single video from the Overwatch GOATs stuff to this is just amazing. Please keep doing what you're doing, much love!

[@Akshonesports]

Thank you so much for the support!

[@poleon2003]

Fun fact about the clip at 15:14 believe it or not on Pokemon Stadium the handoff range is larger but only on the right side even if the stage is frozen because iirc it had something to do with the transformations messing with the stage geometry

[@tgr3423]

Restrictions are the breeding ground of innovation, and with the banning of wobbling, a lot of Icies players really had to adapt and invent new strategies to replace its loss. I think that arguably what followed as a result of the ban is a genuinely hype character that checks all the correct boxes for dynamic, engaging play.

[@nickq8093]

> a lot of Icies players really had to adapt and invent new strategies to replace its loss the problem is that this... isn't true. icies didn't "invent new strategies", we simply used worse options in the exact same strategy because icies fundamentally are intensely focused around their grab. wobbling was simply the best payoff for that. instead we now use handoffs, which, while looking cool, aren't fundamentally a different strategy, just a worse option in the same strategy. If we land a grab midstage against a floaty, before we would have wobbled, but now we do a short, optimised for damage per pummel wobble then have to handoff to nana and rely on a 50/50 pure RNG roll to see if we get more than an aerial after. to wit, the single real *major* development in the icies meta *is optimising wobbling*. There's no large scale implementation of new handoffs or combos from throws, everything else we switched to was known about well before wobbling was banned and neutral hasn't really changed because icies combo game outside of their grab punishes is kinda hot garbage.

[@1800mexicano]

Wobbling is like driving drunk. You can do it. But everyone will think significantly less of you, and no one will like you

[@Nawakooo0]

MY BOY LUNAR DUSK LET'S GOOOOO BEST ACTIVE ICS IN THE WORLD BABYYYY

[@ArcadeStriker]

The comedic timing in this one is as strong as wobbling, but I hope we do see way more of it Or else things might get *Messi*

[@canalso5806]

7:15 nana's looking sassy today

[@d.g4466]

man found the only photo where hbox looked happy in the same room as the other 4 in that whole era

[@NorthsideLee]

Melee is the coolest game in the world. It will never die.

[@nifty235]

I now get the context for that viral og Ludwig video, amazing video as always!

[@offandsphere6788]

Imagine if they added a character where at round start you have to play a full game of DDR and if you miss a single note you explode; but if you win you get an unblockable instant kill. There's no level of "execution difficulty" you could make that DDR game that would make it fun to play against, because you _don't_ play against it. You're just there to collect your win if the guy fails his minigame. -redditor complaining about happy chaos's skill ceiling

[@mattdellapenna6668]

you guys do a consistently great job with content. i found the page initially because of melee so i’m always excited to see another one. melee can always use more love :-)

[@himuragoXD]

First good ad read I've heard on KZbin in like 10 years lmao

[@poleon2003]

People cheering for the ICs now? eh I mean slug is a fan favorite but still average unranked people still quit out on ICs and also it's mostly all about having the right playstyle like iirc when it comes to ICs in Brawl people cheered for 9B but not so much for Vinnie

[@FerousFolly]

more akshon smash content lets gooo (10 minutes uploaded and already porn bots in the comments 💀)

[@feargripper]

Really good use of sources!

[@Akshonesports]

Thanks!

[@kennythekid130]

damn that wallpaper engine looks clean

[@Nikkerman]

8:14 lmao

[@corbinallen4562]

The only issue i ever had with wobbling was the fact they didn't have to kill you till 300% i feel like lowering that to 200 or maybe even 150% would of been a better fix i feel like most people wanting it banned simply didn't know how to counter it or thought it was boring to watch which isn't a good reason to ban something especially if it messes with the viability of a character

[@SadToffee]

Man I thought you were gonna plug animelee not do another opera gx add.

[@TheUssrAirlines678]

I actually had a glitch in smash ultimate that had the frame window

[@b1ab1b-hexcolor]

6:24 Ahh 20Wedon'tfuckingknow the Stupidity Timeline where mains Sheik my Favorite

[@ashequestionmark]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, melee misses slug every day :(

[@ThraxxL0rd]

I can’t believe that was fully legal for that long lmao

[@MrGetownedLP]

BANGER VIDEO THANK YOU AKSHON AND JONAH

[@Hugo_Prolovski]

None wobbling icies is one of the sickest fighting game characters of all time

[@jasperli]

Jonah doing a Singaporean accent to read the quote 💀

[@mollybanku]

Just placed 3rd at my local playing 10 games of Marth ICs in a row Shit is mentally taxing lmfao

[@funnyusername4774]

0:10 “Erm,, I play cloud in ultimate and have a chronic Twitter addiction, and I say you’re WRONG. Have you ever seen Fox,?? He’s like,. THE ONLY CHARACTER anyone ever plays.?, Erm, yeah, so erm, melee, is, erm, basically, STUPID 🤓”

[@LegendScrims]

I cant wait for the day Akshon Esports make's a video on Farlight 84 🤞

[@guildmasterandy3767]

Does this guy sound like the guy who did a voiceover for the 2018 E3 Smash presentation?

[@t1glistenerelf]

I don't even play ICs, but I hate it's being banned for them. I seriously wish that they could have it back, even if it means getting wobbled from time to time.

[@theultimatenatmaster]

why?

[@t1glistenerelf]

@@theultimatenatmasterit's unique, they weren't broken before it was banned, and imagine being a player who learned a specific character just to have their strongest technique banned, how you feel that you might have wasted that practice.

[@ThePi314Man]

@@t1glistenerelf maybe they should actually get good at the game instead of relying on a broken insta-kill technique.

[@FrioGamingOverwatch]

​@@ThePi314Manor learn to do what any good player has done and get good at the matchup rather than waiting on a community to nerf the mu for you lol

[@Ruminations09]

Eh, to be honest - as an IC's main myself - I think it's better for the game that Wobbling is banned. IC's basically have three unique techniques in the game: desyncs, Wobbling, and handoffs. Desyncs are great for the neutral game and have their own niche with and without Wobbling. However, handoffs are completely invalidaded by Wobbling. Handoffs are way more stylish and fun to watch than Wobbling and take way more skill and practice to get good at, but there's literally zero reason to ever go for a handoff when you can just Wobble instead. Both handoffs and Wobbling require you to land a grab. So if you are in a position to do a handoff, you are - by definition - also in a position to Wobble. Why would anyone choose a harder technique that might not even get a kill when they can instead do the easier technique that will definitely get a kill? You mention all the "wasted practice" that people spent learning to Wobble... but honestly, it doesn't take that much practice. It's literally just pressing the A button at 200 BPM. Getting the rhythm down will be harder for some people than others (famously, Fly Aminita was actually never able to get the rhythm down), but there's an easy workaround to that: listen to 200 BPM songs. Back when Wobbling was legal, it was incredibly common to see IC's players bring headphones to listen to music while they played. This wasn't just for fun, it was literally a tool to make sure they kept beat while Wobbling. Hell, I did this myself. In other words: a lot of IC's players weren't even learning the one part of Wobbling that was actually difficult - keeping a steady beat - they were using music as a metronome to keep the beat for them. The only thing IC's players ever needed to spend a lot of time practicing in order to get better at Wobbling was their grab setups. And to be fair, grab setups can be quite difficult and take a lot of practice to get consistent at (especially considering the IC's very short grab range). But here's the thing: banning Wobbling doesn't actually waste that practice. With Wobbling banned, IC's next best option is handoffs. Which ALSO require grab setups.

[@kaito2220]

The fact wobbling was legal for so long, reminds me of ultimate and how much garbage we just allow in that game lol

[@mclovinswagger3664]

Broken or not, watching ice climbers in tournaments was so boring. Especially if they were winning. Even if they were losing it was still boring because their opponent was most likely camping platforms. Regardless, love the video!

[@Ics_Cookbook]

> was most likely camping platforms. I mean, camping platforms is arguably even stronger vs icies post-ban, especially with specific positioning to remove the possibility of a raw grab giving icies platform handoffs.

[@Weedsm0kr79]

What? You don’t like getting wobbled? Just, don’t get grabbed.🤷🏿

[@Zzzlol94]

Nightmares of YAYUHZ is over.

[@armorbearer9702]

This is why it is unwise to automatically dismiss a mid tier character.

[@marcokrautwald1886]

its pretty obvious that a more diverse cast is not always good for the game

[@ssjmura1654]

as a mid-high level ICs main, I appreciate this video

[@harpot678]

how many wobbling videos have there been

[@elucidator1277]

dude, you don't need to define dogma and lauded to us. We're not stupid. Don't condescend to us. If someone doesn't know them, they can look them up themselves.

[@TibbyII]

If there truly wasn't any ciunterplay fir wobbling, Wobbles wouldn't had lost to Mango in the runback. Simple as.

[@DarthDaddy-ib2jx]

Unban wobbling will just make Ics more viable not like they were winning every tourney they never got a major win wobbles evo 2013 was the farthest they got

[@whatarewaves]

Is it ic’s or icies?

[@RockBottomBrenny]

Both are correct

[@Lasergunjesus]

Absolute clownshoes stuff. Banning a technique that caused the character to rocket in standings from dead last to *checks notes* the middle. In a game where entry-level competitive play requires mastering like half a dozen different input bugs. Get outta here.

[@VooVoo007]

bring it back

[@Gamesforus1]

Lets go Swid

[@lotgxj9215]

God wobbling is cringe and so is hand offs can't believe we still allow some of it

[@pandaforce6162]

excellent video essay

[@jammies701]

Nice vid mate

[@kwobbleguy9252]

Melee??? Perfectly balanced????? Looooooooool I wish, m8

[@TheMacaroniPanda]

ICS PUFF IS AN EVEN MU

[@poleon2003]

Yeah I've actually been told by CookBook (top ICs player in New Zealand) that ICs-Puff is only TRULY dogshit for ICs if the puff plays campy however if the puff doesn't play campy then it's actually way more managable for the ICs

[@Gnarfledarf]

Don't put sponsored content in the middle of the video.

[@fhjunior6183]

Thanks for the vid

[@JESUSsavesfrfr]

Go back to God while you still can God Bless you all Amen

[@rainman01]

Aweaome video!

[@Akshonesports]

Thanks!

[@latinobacon]

Handoffs are just wobbling with more button inputs

[@noobauditor2898]

7:15 😐😐😐

[@bluedistortions]

In an alternative timeline, icies become the new fox, and competitive melee bombs in participation and viewership 😂

[@zachariemelanson485]

I still don't see how an infinite like handoffs should be allowed just because it's limited to 1/3 of the stage. Walls are a reason to ban a stage because fox has his shine infinite on some characters. So following that logic now walls should be allowed.

[@zachariemelanson485]

@@JD-wu5pf Yeah I'm surprised banning all stages where wabbling is possible wasn't the solution

[@CarloVaccariPlus]

Handoffs are generally not infinite, you march forward until the regrab is not possible. There is a very difficult true infinite involving inputting a backthrow and a Nana wavedash with the same stick input though…

[@Ics_Cookbook]

​@@CarloVaccariPlusi hate to say it but on the second sentence you're wrong in a way that puts you so close to being right rofl. there's a very difficult true infinite with a throw + wd input, but it uses forward throw there's a very difficult true infinite involving a nana WD and a popo Bthrow, but it doesn't use the same directional input for them there *is* a psuedo-handoff technique that involves doing Bthrow and wd back with the same directional input, but it's not an infinite.

[@Ics_Cookbook]

@zachariemelanson485 Walls are banned for more than just "cos infinites" Walls MASSIVELY overcentralise the metagame around already top-tier characters even ignoring fox infinite. In melee having to drop down on the opponent from a surface you can't drop through is a significant, almost universal disadvantage state, it's why when rock or fire transformations pop up on stadium the players often just sit on opposite sides of the wall and wait it out. Fast, strong neutral characters with good vertical hitboxes get an insane boost on stages with permanent walls as they can repeatedly force this situation by just going over the wall. Fox, marth, falcon, sheik and even puff massively benefit from permanent walls and are already top tier characters without them. That's the main reason walls are banned, not the fox infinite.

[@zachariemelanson485]

@@Ics_Cookbook Sure, makes sense. I guess my point is just that wall infinites themselves could no longer be a reason to ban a stage. I don't think that is the only reason for any stages to be banned so it wouldn't make any new stages legal again. But I personally WOULD ban the ability to wall infinite, or the stages where it would be possible. Which explains my stance in the first comment.

[@DarkGenexSmash]

We need to bring back Wobbling

[@Game_Hero]

Seeing how the popular support, how the number of techniques to use rose up and became more technically appealing for playing as and agains them Climbers, I'm not so sure.

[@ch3rry833]

MESI

[@Risky_Boots999]

Should be able to wabble 1 stock

[@BradleyFreakin]

Last

[@prw56]

I don't understand how they ever allowed wobbling. I hate how every tournament is the same few characters, but allowing that ridiculous mess just to make ice climbers an option never made sense.

[@hunbi1875]

Same reason why Steve isnt banned in Ultimate. Even if something is objectively broken, people dont want to ban things that arent technically "dominating the meta". There werent enough icies exploiting it.

[@justincash386]

First

[@as95ms98]

Still find it so stupid that the melee community banned a technique from a mid/low tier character that was the only thing keeping them viable cause they thought it was "boring". LMAO

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

If tournament viewership falls off and most other players find it extremely frustrating, it is worth limiting in some way. The only people benefiting from its legality is a small handful of players at the expense of everyone else.

[@ladian5475]

I guess you didn't watch the whole video huh

[@Game_Hero]

It allowed for hands-offs to happen and other more interesting playstyles to happen, playing Ice Climbers was more fun and still as viable while being less cheap as an "automatic win move".

[@lilsush.]

🤦‍♂️ theres zero counterplay its bad for the game you muppet

[@Ics_Cookbook]

@@haruhirogrimgar6047 > If tournament viewership falls off it didn't. the only person to have done any sort of look into (crimsonblur) has said that there was basically no difference in viewership between tournaments running bans vs no bans, if anything viewership was slightly higher on the tournaments with it unbanned but that was likely just noise from the data. ultimately wobbling matters extremely little for viewership. > most other players find it extremely frustrating most other players find floaties in general extremely frustrating, i'm not even joking. > The only people benefiting from its legality is a small handful of players at the expense of everyone else. at *minimal* expense to everyone else. this is a change that affects icies in every tournament match they play vs affecting other players on average less than once a tournament. the impact on icies *should* be weighed more heavily than the impact on other players. It should be noted that said impact is literally forcing them into playing around inherent RNG, that oftentimes cannot be played around or accounted for, unlike stuff like peach turnip.

[@MmoviesE]

I would bet money this script was AI generated

[@x9x9x9x9x9]

I have a weird stance on wobbling. I think it should be allowed for 1 stock and again for one more stock if the IC's player is down more than 1 stock. So they can wobble stock 1. Lose 3 stocks be on their last while the opponent is on 3 stocks. But one they get that kill they gotta adapt. But I highly doubt this will ever happen. No I am not an ICs player. I do think they can be cool and hand off combos are incredible but I couldn't main them.

[@x9x9x9x9x9]

@skratchrapture yeah I had originally even said that in my comment explaining it would be hard to enforce without a modded version of the game.

[@Midori_Hoshi]

Bros. is pronounced "brothers".

[@YOSSARIAN313]

Both wobbling and the freeze glitch should be unbanned its ridiculous that either technique is banned

[@nahometesfay1112]

Lmao bring back freeze glitch! 20IC!

[@YOSSARIAN313]

@@nahometesfay1112 also remove the ledgegrab and stalling rules. If melee is supposed to be this creative and expressive games i should be allowed to play as degenerate as i want

[@nahometesfay1112]

@@YOSSARIAN313 Remove the timer too. Expression knows no bounds

[@YOSSARIAN313]

@@nahometesfay1112 based

[@Celia_Dawn]

@@YOSSARIAN313 Legalize picking Giga Bowser with the CSS glitch. I can do it in the game so they can't tell me not to.

[@SquattingxBear]

They should retroactively remove Wobblers that made the Top 100 in previous years like when the NCAA takes away a collegiate team's sports championship.

[@KuzuTomoki]

Melee is timeless in the way that a razor in a cup of water is timeless. That game looks like absolute dookie-ass and I'm amazed people still willingly look at it with their own eyeballs 🤷‍♂️

[@pugiaxe]

how are there people old enough to read/write that are still "amazed" that people like different things than them? you don't have to like the game, but also no one asked

[@TheNightman.]

Wobbling, the "technique" where you're not good enough to learn a character.