How Melee's Biggest Cheater Was Caught

[@paolosworld99]

"The worst part about all this is; he could have just played Pikachu." - Ken

[@noisepollution4473]

My thought is that if he hacked a character other people actually played, they would have noticed sooner, or used it against him without knowing they were using a hacked character But yeah, playing pikachu is a lot like playing pichu with all the character's issues hacked out lol

[@Padgriffin]

@@noisepollution4473 the specific combos required to trigger busted Pichu would’ve made it incredibly difficult for anyone to accidentally stumble onto them, even if applied to someone more popular

[@flux3238]

Not true, because Pichu is underrated

[@randumo24]

@@Padgriffin That wasn't the point. The point was if it was common character, it would have been much more noticeable to have made major changes to the character. Example, people should know that Pichu was taking longer to die, but they would definitely know if it was a character like Puff.

[@mckstellar1005]

​@@noisepollution4473 think the op just meant he could of just played Pikachu no hacks required and probably been pretty good

[@douglasgraham1485]

I can’t believe he changed the weight from 55 to 90 that is INSANE how was no one like “how tf did he survive that for the 60th time”

[@D.A.-Espada]

They probably thought that if he was that good then he probably had really good smash DI, although I'm fairly sure that plenty of players would watch those matches, including the opponents, and could tell something was off either by way of feel or by seeing things like very large hit boxes hitting consistently from a distance visibly greater that that from which the move would normally hit Either way the guy was somehow able to get people to consistently play him on his set up so his speech must be maxed out to have been able to get to Grands lol

[@Isoant]

@@D.A.-Espada I would’ve known when he didn’t want to use someone else’s Console like how didn’t they know

[@tinyclover3849]

@@Isoant it's easy to say that you wouldn't have made the mistake they did, but think about how this is probably the first time they've faced the situation. it's hard to predict something that's never happened before

[@ricardog.s2505]

Because in my experience most players know a lot about top tiers up to mid tiers, but don't know much about low tiers aside from "they are bad" so I get that no one noticed at the moment, I mean in my area one of the top players is a Luigi main and most people don't know how to deal with him because Luigi is so uncommon Also in the middle of a tournament your mind isn't exactly thinking "wow how did that work?" all the time

[@BloodPlusPwn]

Well, obviously they did think that since they ninja'd his SD data lol

[@Jayluna98]

I'm Joeycrzl and when I ended up playing him he was complaining about how broken ICs vs Pichu is for Pichu, and ended up just rocking me with his invincible Nairs and buffed forward smashes

[@DeMoraJS]

Wish I had your schadenfreude. Really do enjoy it tho, you deserve it.

[@Jayluna98]

@@DeMoraJS I found no pleasure in Chaos cheating, it was unfortunate. I just thought it was ironic how much complaining was done while secretly being at an advantage

[@DeMoraJS]

@@Jayluna98 Not pleasure in him cheating, pleasure in him being exposed and (hopefully) ruined. He chose his hill.

[@Jayluna98]

@@DeMoraJS He had been exposed years ago, this isn't something I think of at all these days and he quit playing when he was exposed. I didn't think anyone would talk about this again at all and just found it all a bit funny. I don't hate the guy and hope he's doing well, we all make mistakes.

[@DeMoraJS]

@@Jayluna98 I'm foreign to these subjects and mostly uninformed, so it's all new to me, I apologize. I'm humbled by your final words, you're a much better person. I don't know if all of us can find forgiveness like that, but I can hope. Thank you.

[@Adem92Foster]

Honestly props to 4% for taking the win even against such a busted character

[@dinospumoni5611]

4% is a god.

[@hk-sumo]

I'm saying. Them cheats didn't affect them, just up'd their game

[@gibraltar4841]

My phone is at 3%

[@Xw3dn3sd4yX]

Truly. o7

[@yummyki]

I mean, that says more about Jigglypuff than anything..

[@KeijiKotaro]

Ngl, this left me even more impressed with 4%'s skills in beating a hacked character. No shade to the other players who lost to him. Goes to show cheaters never win.

[@anotherhuman7813]

you'd be suprised how many cheaters YOU'VE probably beaten on Ultimate lmao

[@jonathanc2295]

I was playing ultimate and some dude was clearly using a lag switch cause whenever I killed him I started lagging hard but when he killed me it stopped lagging but he lost at the end

[@krysal1489]

@@anotherhuman7813 Seeing cheaters lose is satisfying. I once was just goofing with a terrible Pokemon team set-up and came across a cheater with a mega Gardevoir that had contrary and spammed V-create, among others. They lost to an Exeggutor, Leafeon, Chansey, Ninetales, Ratatta, and Clefable lmao

[@sabotagefate69]

Nope, just thieves won this time.

[@AshbethXII]

@@krysal1489 bruh who tf still playin pokemon these days...

[@KiraSlith]

What I'm curious is why nobody noticed how fast he falls, or that every win was on his hardware, not the site gear.

[@plusarik8879]

Exactly this, i was wondering "how would someone cheat that easily" my only thought was turbo commands controller at best, but when i saw he brought HIS Wii to tournaments i knew there was a hack involved

[@AMH9000]

@@plusarik8879 like what was said in the video, some of these tournaments run on the setups that the players bring. Bringing your setup isn’t suspicious, but insisting on a specific setup, especially your own, is suspicious

[@redfoxoffire]

But they did notice, didn't they? That's why they got suspicious and checked out his SD card.

[@lennonmueller598]

They did notice. In fact, they were SO convinced it was hacked, they sent Pichu Kid on an errand to look at his SD card. They knew almost right away something was up, it just took some time to definitively prove it.

[@AMH9000]

@@lennonmueller598 the way you’re wording this makes it sound like this did this the day after the tournament, which isn’t the case. Once the second tournament was getting setup and Pichu Kid came with his Wii, they immediately took action.

[@PokeDude011]

"So can we play Melee on my GameCu-" "NO! We have to play on my Wii!" "Okay okay, we'll play on your Wii."

[@TyeBearSaroar]

Crazy how many times that worked though

[@aj6437]

Which is crazy to me bc, as someone who grew up w melee as I'm sure some of these competitors did, I would want to play on the GameCube more than anything. The insistence on using the Wii for a GameCube classic would have been the first red flag for me.

[@mr.dr.kaiser4912]

The biggest thing that surprises me about how long it took to catch this guy was the weight change. Fox, which is a character that is seen _everywhere,_ uses shine _all the time._ It has fixed knockback. It either knocks your character down, or it doesn't. If your character is over 85 weight, shine will not knock them down. Buffing pichu to 90 weight means he wouldn't get knocked down, which should've screamed "something's not right here" to anyone that saw it.

[@NightKev]

Someone being insistent on only playing on their own Melee setup is *extremely* suspicious; that many/most people thought there was no issue there is crazy.

[@Cardboxx]

At the time you'd see samus/link/ylink main bring their own 1.0 disc to tournament because it changes some niche things for them. Even axe did it for ylink sometime. Chaos used that excuse + wanting to record his games for analysis and it didn't seem that far fetched at the time

[@YOSSARIAN313]

Nobody had cheated at an in person event before so people werent thinking about it. Fighting games at the highest level are played at in person events often on event hardware so cheating is completely unheard of.

[@N12015]

@@Cardboxx Yeah, that sounds like a valid excuse to me. I would also want to record my tournament.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

I think once or twice it’s reasonable, but *every* time is suspicious. That’s how he was discovered though in the end.

[@iusethisnameformygoogleacc1013]

Yeah, that there are people here suggesting it's at all normal is kind of baffling. Yeah, no one had been caught doing it before because it's so audacious, so the rules were lax, but it's a lot less audacious when you realize the rules were apparently so lax that anyone *could* just do this. Just making it a rule that tournaments had to have a few disks and/or SD cards on hand and that even if you brought your own hardware you had to use a tournament's copy of the game is the kind of obvious shit that normally happens when a game moves from 'something a few people play in basements and community centers' to something with a cash prize. I think the melee community was just entrenched enough in the vibes from when it was a very niche underground thing that they never moved to the same norms everything else uses. TBH, I would not be at all surprised if other people *have* done it over the years and just never went as far, and so were never caught.

[@x9x9x9x9x9]

What I have never understood about this story is what was Chaos's end goal? If he wanted to get banned then sure this was a fun way to do it. The only other goal I could think of is he hoped to not get caught and wanted to get people working on pichu tech? But people would quickly realize that his pichu was wrong. Or someday he would have to play on the stream setup or on someone elses setup. IDK its such a weird story but these are the stories we love and at the end of the day it was mostly harmless.

[@morioh6623]

The amount of cringe i had watching this video just thinking about WTF was going through this kids head was harmful as fuck to my psyche so idk man...

[@trademarked2476]

It seems quite obvious that his pichu was hacked I don’t know how the TO didn’t realize or force him to switch off his setup. I guess lack of knowledge on pichu but I feel like every top player has messed around with him before…

[@FrekyD]

@@trademarked2476 I think it was a culture thing at the time. If you said, publicly at a tournament, "I think this kid is cheating", you'd be laughed out of the room. It'd be a meme.

[@damiancarr168]

He was 13 or 14 at the time. I don't think he had a end goal at all. Kids that age don't think that far ahead

[@charliemeyer6225]

... to make money?

[@sp1nda]

fun fact: this is one of the weirdest scandals i'd been a part of. i remember going with Pichu Kid to circle K while my friends copied the ISO over to another SD card 😂 I also guarantee I was the first person to play on the super pichu setup but I was essentially gaslit into believing I just "didn't know enough about Pichu" LMFAO The two things that gave away the hacked pichu was actually how quickly he'd act out of aerials (no end lag) and the angle at which dtilt would send at (shine spike angle.) Pichu Kid would claim it was a 1.0 Melee thing, but we did rigorous testing to find out this was total BS

[@chiliwong6311]

ohiospinda...

[@simplyhoodie]

But... Even if it was a 1.0 thing... That's not the version that is played at the competitive level...

[@volvomoneygang1178]

Bro was wilin for that, ruined the losers run for ppl, but honestly he was just a kid lmfao, I think it’s hard to call someone a cheater in melee cuz no johns and that it is so rare for it to actually happen

[@kamarapikachu4991]

Going to a Circle K is significantly less cool than going to a Sheetz like the video said happened

[@ColeslawSSBM1996]

Yoooo Spinda was there! I love your channel this is crazy actually lmao

[@Maryeet]

I just think it's absolutely hilarious the dude "saw potential" in Pichu and wanted to see it in actual tournaments/comp play, but went on to play as a hacked Pichu. What happened to seeing potential?? Genuinely, why would the dude complain about nobody using Pichu and claim it has potential but then not even use it legit himself. Obviously I know the answer is clout but still, not even HE had faith in Pichu because he had to hack its kit. Thank you for sharing this story with us! Btw your editing is really nice, very well done!

[@benjamink.crowley4889]

He could've just played Pikachu

[@Bigjuggs64]

He saw the potential to hack pichu lol

[@tylerlane8221]

He was just playing as a competitive pokemon player plays by hacking in max ivs

[@saltytyranitar6981]

I think Fireb0rn's video on Hollow Knight cheaters had a good insight into this. Cheaters don't cheat because they're bad, but because they feel entitled to results because of the effort they put in. Chaos clearly had talent as a player, but his stated goal became too hard to maintain without cheating because of the limitations of the character he wanted to main. So he hacked the character because he felt entitled to win with his favourite based on his talent and game knowledge.

[@xtrem5428]

Sometimes the means become the end. People get so tunnel vision into accomplishing something that they forget why they wanted it in the first place.

[@itsbigbad2050]

I was his main training partner before I left to join the military. He lived about twenty minutes away from me in Ohio and we’d play often. He was a fox main and talked a lot about viewing the game like m2k. I found out about this after I got out of basic training and was shocked. He was a good kid but I was just so upset with him. As far as I know you messed up or missed a couple things. It wasn’t a button combo you had to press. You just had to be port four with the blue goggle pichu. He also made it so pichu f smash was impossible to SDI out of. He said publicly to someone in the scene “I couldn’t beat 4%. It would be too obvious and I would get found out.” He basically made sure he didn’t beat 4%. He had a mental illness issue, a lot of depression mostly. I know for a fact he had really dark thoughts and especially after getting banned. I still feel bad for him. He found a place in the melee community when he had few friends before it. I’ll always love the dude, but wonder what made him want to do it to the community that accepted him…

[@BakingSoda4U]

Being accepted isn't enough for some. They have to know they are regarded as superior among their peers, in order to find peace. Someone like that most likely has some form of mental or emotional disease.

[@FernyFernsworth]

Damn boi, we're going that hard on a kid and his modded electric rat?

[@Supersonic37838]

Couldn’t handle 90 weight

[@PichusBlueberryPies]

I feel like he should have prioritized his mental health before the game, but unfortunately, he made a bad decision. Hopefully he is in a better place now.

[@agentblackbird9435]

@@wondertriplover What the fuck

[@Ludvix]

ofc its in Ohio

[@thecatastrophe132]

didn't even pick that up LOL

[@Kimonia6]

Down in Ohio swag like Ohio

[@kuniokun9117]

can't even play melee in ohio bruh 💀

[@ultimapower6950]

POV You play against Pichu In Ohio

[@VictiniVids]

Average Pichu main in Ohio

[@lynxfirenze4994]

4% performing so well even against someone who was cheating is a good demonstration of skill in my opinion.

[@peeron6829]

He lost on purpose

[@muchotexto4248]

He couldn't beat him. They would find out too quickly

[@WinterShorts0]

By far one of the most detailed information pieces on this player. Talks about things like the name of the player, the details of the tournament and how specifically the other Melee players got the files from his SD card, things no one else talks about for this player (although arguably to try and keep certain personal details out). While I'm much moreso an Ultimate player, I am from the same region and I do remember seeing a detailed facebook post coming out of this guy explaining why he cheated from way back when (maybe something else as well). This was a good video!

[@toshi9742]

Rule to thumb: if someone is REALLY insistent on playing on their own console etc, DON’T play on their console.

[@toshi9742]

@Yoshi’s Woolly World most tournaments have their own consoles/you can borrow someone else’s. Don’t think dlc is a good excuse to be REALLY insistent on playing on your own (it makes you sound sus af). And, again, if it’s for the dlc then you could play on a different console that also has dlc :)

[@toshi9742]

@Yoshi’s Woolly World ok

[@ivysour_]

​@Yoshi’s Woolly World at my local thats how it works they have 4 normal setups tho that your free to use there

[@darkarch757]

Im modding captain falcon to use his gun, they will never find out

[@jestfullgremblim8002]

Bro gon' play Falco(n)

[@FrekyD]

Appreciate all the effort and research into this video! I always wondered how I got 2-0d by a pichu at that time. I honestly just thought they were a god LMAO. I was the main NEOH TO that was in the room at the fest when the SD card was looked at. We pretty much immediately put it into an md5 hasher (for the uninitiated, basically a computer program that's an easy way to tell if the ISO is genuine or not) and my heart sunk when it didn't match. It was a moment in TOing I'll never forget; my first instinct was just to think.. "what now?" I always get very nervous when talking about this story; I think often times it gets blown up into a massive personal issue, there was a lot of vitriol thrown around at the time around them taking money from players. It can be listed as one of the reasons that Northeast Ohio and Pittsburgh, two scenes that were critical working together to make Melee big in the region from 2010-2016ish started to drift apart. I like to think a lot of the vitriol has calmed down somewhat; it's been 7 years and we've all grown as people. I'm really glad this video strayed away from a lot of that noise and focused on the video game aspect of things I hope this story can be used as a lesson for all TOs in the future; ALWAYS check your setups before a bracket starts. Even at your 10 person homie local. I don't think it'll ever happen again, but it's the job of the TOs to make sure of it. It's a lesson I learned then and now, even when I work at events as big as Genesis or Big House, I take with me through all of it. Great video, thank you for making this and telling this story!

[@FrekyD]

Also as a reminder: this person was 16 years old at the time doing this. Please stray away from finding this person and hounding them on this situation. End of the day, it was someone solely doing wild stuff in a video game.

[@killercore007]

Of course this lesson wasn’t exactly followed with the 2 cases of the mismatched launch speed modifier.

[@samskott2344]

Thank you so much for putting in so much work to tell this story. I started in 2016 and am from the Midwest and even back then there were stories of a Pichu main who was apparently very good but something seemed kind of off about him. Even back then, nobody really talked about *how* he did it (we just knew he had a modded Wii) and people didn't even like to mention what his tag was (I think it was because he was so young and they didn't want the community to bully him). Thanks for doing the due diligence to put this all together.

[@charc0al_tv]

This dude really thought he could just beat everybody with a god-tier version of the worst character and nobody would be suspicious

[@feloniuspunk7078]

Lol insanity

[@Deimosthegreat]

"how could he not understand he'd get caught in the long run", well going from the timeline here it sounds like he was an unsupervised teenager who thought of himself as untouchable. Honestly it's for the best that he faced consequences early, you're never gonna learn otherwise. Hopefully in the 7 years since then he's matured and grown up to be a better person.

[@hteety]

Yep. Kids, and teens especially just make stupid decisions a lot. Its good that it didn't blow too out of proportion for him to handle, and one would certainly hope he learned something

[@jestfullgremblim8002]

​@@hteetytrue

[@SBaby]

This kind of makes you wonder how many cheaters DON'T get caught. We hear about cheaters getting caught all the time, but then when we remember the Rule of Hundredths, it really is kind of staggering.

[@murddeath]

The thing is, smarter cheaters KNOW when to toggle their cheats on and off, when to take L's and that having 100% accuracy is an obvious sign you're cheating. Atleast in online shooters. I'm sure there are ways to disguise what you're doing in Melee but he was too obvious

[@ADreamingTraveler]

Especially when there's money on the line people will get very smart with their cheating

[@YOSSARIAN313]

On slippi maybe but it would get really hard to pull this off today in person unless it was extremely subtle as players are way more knowledgeable.

[@hteety]

Melee is honestly too small of a scene to invite a lot of cheaters. Newer games are much harder to cheat on, since you are generally in TO hardware given how much easier they are to obtain compared to melee setups. Game file verification on downloaded games also makes editing the files nigh impossible even if you bring your own setup.

[@Scriffer]

One of my fave games, trackmania had a cheat8ng scandal and it turned out most the top players were cheating runs. Now I guess we may never know if and who did this in smash. Trackmania all records are saved and we can go back years and watch footage to see. But a lot of early smash games aren't around to view. Its possible some of the great smash players chested their way to the top and we will just never know.

[@seanb3226]

4% should really be proud of himself. Not only did he win the tournament, he took GF over a bullshit Pichu! It's like playing a game against someone who uses Action Replay or Game Genie cheats for an advantage without you knowing and beating them anyways.

[@viewerguy10]

It’s a testament to how good top ranked players are.

[@xAdrianHGx]

i heard in other comments that chaos lost on purpose so it wouldnt end up too obvious (which makes sense since people would instantly find out if he won lol)

[@AnakinSkywakka]

​@Herobrine Gamer// AdrianHG I get that. But the guy was already arousing suspicion up until that point anyways.

[@xAdrianHGx]

@@AnakinSkywakka yea but suspicion is different to just straight up confirming something. better to leave that window open to possibly get away with it than just straight up exposing yourself as a cheater and being called out for it

[@AnakinSkywakka]

@@xAdrianHGx Well, either way, the guys who did expose him would've acted regardless.

[@prooflifedoc942]

This video is absolutely amazing. No ads, and no filler time. A legit video profile that took hours of legit work. This is true KZbin. Thanks Lil Homie

[@cesarcueto1995]

There's tons of filler.

[@prooflifedoc942]

@@cesarcueto1995 maybe your right. I'll re watch some point.

[@Oboromaru]

The thought of luring him away to Sheetz while the rest of the party at the house yoinks the SD card is so funny to me 😂

[@theggamer2824]

Ngl despite Chaos cheating. The whole SD card makes me afraid that if I become amazing someone is gonna steal my switch for quote inspectation.

[@cococock2418]

@@theggamer2824 that’s not stealing it’s checking for cheats

[@theggamer2824]

@@cococock2418 so basically it’s stealing. SD card

[@harrybutimnot]

​@@theggamer2824 So don't refuse to play on other people's hardware. He got caught cus he only ever used his wii.

[@PichusBlueberryPies]

@@theggamer2824 yeah, everyone should keep one eye open for someone trying to commit theft because of suspicion of cheating.

[@coolcorvoid]

As someone who has played the tiniest bit of Smash Bros (only on the Wii and only casually) but a LOT more Pokemon, the idea of Pichu being able to do literally anything is honestly surprising...

[@PikaPenny17]

For a while, Pichu was actually a top-tier in Ultimate.

[@drungaodys5610]

Self proclaimed free thinkers when you ask them to use a main in Melee thats not Fox

[@AMH9000]

With the information in this video, it’s be extremely hard to actually detect any minute differences, such as a move having a few extra frames of end lag, slightly higher or lower knock back values, auto L-cancelling etc. Without properly checking these things, there could be many other cheats that went by unnoticed.

[@steven3814]

Imagine still losing after cheating 😂

[@fahkyew7776]

i couldn't beat a top 100 player in any game even with cheats ngl. unless the cheats are so blatantly obvious that anyone could tell i'm cheating

[@GamingEelektross]

Coulda also been a means to not arouse too much suspicion. Though, by the end of that one tournament, I figure the best way to cover tracks is to try and improve further on unmodded then play like that, idk.

[@retsu_shin]

I've seen that happen live. The guy had no shame and didn't understand why people were upset.

[@cadetsparklez3300]

I mean its still weaker than fox tbh

[@YOSSARIAN313]

In overwatch ive seen top players beat three aimbotters at once. The skill gap between good and the best is huge.

[@travisanderson2380]

@LilHomie the numbers may not reflect it quite yet, but you are putting in the work and creating some of the best Smash content on the platform. Just keep doing the thing, bro. These vids are undeniable.

[@Lil_Homie]

Oh man, this means a lot to me dude! I appreciate your kind words very much. You're giving me more motivation to keep going. Thank you homie

[@travisanderson2380]

@@Lil_Homie Been rockin with you for 4 months now, and even when I think I'm not that interested in the subject of a video, you turn it into something truly entertaining and make it feel bigger and more significant than I anticipated (specifically referring to your recent Borp vid; didn't think I cared, but ended up thoroughly engaged and entertained). Much love, brother. Keep killin it.

[@shen-long9082]

@Lil Homie ___dude, you cry a lot about how much "work" you put on this video. Hard workers don't cry about it or even talk about it. You are Sleazy asf.....

[@ashx8772]

@@Lil_HomieI agree , just discovered you today and you’re one of my favorite KZbinrs in general now after watching like 4 of these documentary things . Greetings from Iowa!

[@Lil_Homie]

@@ashx8772 haven't done these in a while but sometime soon, I'll make a new one for you all

[@crystalcrusader711]

I’m really sad this ended up being a cheater story. I love a good underdog, and Pichu is one of my favorites (mostly because he cute). Would’ve been amazing to see a Pichu completely sweep the scene. But sadly Pichu is terrible. Very sad.

[@muchotexto4248]

It was made for that, so it's fine that he remains lowtier He is meant for you to be able to play with someone less experienced and still have fun

[@crystalcrusader711]

@@muchotexto4248 I never considered that approach. I guess lowtiers are a handicap in that way. Very interesting

[@muchotexto4248]

@@crystalcrusader711 Those characters are just bad. The game was not meant to be taken that seriously and it shows What I talk about is the fact Pichu's description tells you about Pichu being made to handicap yourself

[@Garden0flowr]

Theres a guy who has legitimately won at least 1 tournament with Yoshi, a low tier, and still placed high in many other tournaments I believe someone someday will use Pichu as best as possible without cheating, they just need a LOT of patience lol

[@TalleyBellum]

Any time I hear the name Dan Salvato I keep getting flashbangged with the realization that the ddlc guy plays competitive games like melee and Splatoon

[@ashslashtaki]

SAME

[@newmovietrailers20xx]

He never should of left the SD card unattended, once somethings exposed it's out there.

[@neputendo]

You know shit got real when Dan Salvato calls you out

[@Cupheadsadvocate]

Super Pichu: I'M THE MOST OVERPOWERED THING TO EXIST Brawl Meta Knight: Hold my cape

[@SSB_Seal]

I gotta say, I'm not really a fan of the obviously fake game footage (in the Remix and 4% sections). I get that it helps for storytelling purposes to have gameplay during the sets, but personally I don't regard it as accurate documentation of the situation, which seemed like the angle you're going for.

[@125conman]

It also went on WAY too long

[@tokisuno]

true

[@Uiopty]

It was nice wdym

[@pikafanone]

I feel like it could be improved but I feel like the cinematic fake gameplay makes it a lot better. Though it could have been done a lot better in this video.

[@XEPHOURIA]

What do you want him to do? Not have footage? Also, it's not OBVIOUSLY fake, could just be the fact that, yk, the video is abt a cheating pichu. Idk if ut is or isn't still. Regardless tho, if yhu wanna give criticism, make it constructive, telling the video author that yhu don't like the footage is not that. Plus this story already has plenty of accurate documentation, why would he need to be 100% accurate? He's trying to tell a story, not make a documentary. Let him add flair.

[@ubermaster1]

I’m just imagining walking into a tournament and overhearing a guy going into an tense argument as to why everyone should exclusively use his Nintendo Wii if they wanna fight him. I probably wouldn’t guess it was for hacks but I’d definitely question if the dude was mentally sound

[@orangepeel4542]

Man I really hate that this is pretty much what comes to mind first when people bring up melee pichu

[@ryan_ford522]

When the dtilt out-ranged the Marth up-b at the start I was like 👀 Also surviving the upsmash at FoD at 79% before the hit with no DI had me cackling

[@tacolordc]

Really enjoyed watching this, but the audio could have been louder as it was a bit difficult hearing you over the music

[@hypotenuseless9979]

I can’t fathom how people didn’t spot this earlier. Even before watching the video through to the part where it details the mods, when watching the very first game on the very first set shown, I could tell the hit boxes on down tilt and nair were absolutely busted. They were hitting from so much further away than any move should naturally hit. I’m not even a melee veteran. How did nobody call this out sooner?

[@JoelHernandez-tz3vk]

I wonder if many spotted the modding. But decided against speaking their minds because they're against name calling or whatever.

[@azinyefantasy4445]

My guess is casino rules. You can know 200% they are cheating but if you can't explain it clearly to the judge then it is fair play. Cause you don't want to be the person that cries foul play and they spend the whole tournament trying to recreate the cheat.

[@andrewgregg5873]

They did realize. Because he was always waiting for his setup pichu kid was behind in the bracket and all his later matches from my understanding happened in quick succession so it was too fast to formulate action in real time because it was so unprecedented. When you lose to pichu you are in shock. But like S1/sweet and 4%/minnty were close friends, and after the tournament I spoke with them and they all deeply suspected something. Like minnty/4% knew something was wrong immediately. You have to realize minnty is a really chill dude who wouldn't stop the presses without proof. There were a lot of "glad the mods were so egregious or else it may have taken several tournaments to realize". Anyways while what pichu kid did was awful and I supported his ban, you have to remember he was a high schooler with mental health issues and give him a break. I am honestly sad I didn't go to this tournament and missed out on the memes though.

[@k-bit-gaming7865]

I didn’t see the nair but that down tilt was insane.

[@FlameIsLucky]

he's done it again

[@creamteam499]

😁💙

[@Quasartist]

I remember when this story originally came out a handful of years ago. Absolutely nuts. I feel like a lot more people should have noticed the weight issue a lot earlier on because a lot of those hits he was taking should have been outright KO's at those percentages, especially that Fox up smash at 5:10. No way Pichu should have lived that at 75%. Cheaters in video games are getting more creative every generation lol I remember seeing one story about a guy who played Guile in SF5 and had a modded controller to where if he pressed his right trigger just 75% of the way instead of a full press he would get a frame perfect EX flip kick every time. It was so under-the-radar that anyone else using his controller in training mode to see the button commands wouldn't likely think to do it. Wild stuff going on in the minds of people like these. You have to wonder what he hoped to accomplish though because the farther along he might get, the more suspicious it would become when he insists on playing with his own setup. Imagine if he made it to the big leagues like Summit or Apex or something and kept pushing to get his own setup to be the one used instead of the provided setups. No idea what his endgame could have possibly been. His technique and precision were pretty good so he could have really made an honest but respected name for himself in a positive light if he just taken the high road instead.

[@expoexpodia]

Dawg I was like 16 when this happened, shout out to the bois. We got em 😎😎 And @Lil Homie told our story. Keep shit up! This was super well done! Thank you!

[@viewerguy10]

I just find it weird no one noticed how early he was getting stocks. And those hitboxes were huge!

[@spicytuna62]

Chaos fighting tooth and nail to play on his hardware every time is a major red flag. Someone who must be in control of the variables is probably not being honest.

[@Lucrei.]

Especially what should be a near inconsequential variable

[@PsychoticDuck1]

This guy really thought that he wouldn’t arouse suspicions by insisting on playing on his setup all the time, 2-0ing every player in the losers bracket, and absurdly buffing Pichu to astronomical levels lmao.

[@fluffcake]

I’ve heard of many cheaters in smash but it’s nice to hear the first one in recorded Melee history and also accompanied by last media as well!

[@Faniwa828]

With how dedicated Melee players are, I'm surprised it took so long for people to realize he was cheating lol

[@ChrisStavros]

"We all hope that something like this never happens one more time, but we'll never know, until that day strikes again." Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Steve Brule.

[@RicShaymin3398]

Plot twist the narrator is super Pichu

[@randomperson4915]

I did a legitimate spit take when I heard the words "surf's up, hail satan" said so casually

[@jordy3401]

Bro I thought I was the only one 😭

[@TheRealMew2king]

LOL imma give my thoughts on this too this is hilarious

[@Lil_Homie]

I love you m2k

[@alexsssi1848]

Unexpected dan salvato jumpscare

[@MrMoffatt]

Very good video, I remeber when AsumSaus uploaded his video originally and I was like "I wonder if there's a video about this pichu player?" You came at the perfect time. Also, the weight should've been one the first red flags when the players were playing (At least for me since I usually play low-tiers).

[@michaelflatt4663]

I opened this in a panic, I thought you were on to me.

[@dftew53]

Just imagine how many people who have done something like this and gotten away with it

[@GetOffMyLog]

I don't actually think the number is that high. You need a degree of technical skill to mod the game like this. On top of that, melee players are extremely dedicated and know kill percents and move interactions very well. The only reason this went so far is because pichu is not a well known character to play against.

[@EsmeraldaTGG]

Fun Fact: Dan Salvato is the same guy who created popular visual novel horror game Doki Doki Literature Club. He _also_ happens to be the same guy who made the infamous Super Mario Maker level, P is for Pain. I'm kind of impressed that he's managed to gain notoriety in three different ways, since I'd imagine a number of people aren't even aware it's the same dude!

[@thinkublu]

I'm actually curious how the whole tournament he only played on his own setup

[@goldenboy_808]

Yeah that’s wild. I get it was a lot earlier but most tournaments have a dedicated stream set up where top 8 matches are played. He would be instantly found out if he tried to use his own setup on the stream deck

[@zeusdeegoose]

cheating so much and still losing the tournament is crazy bro 💀

[@jestfullgremblim8002]

He (allegedly) lost to 4% on purpose

[@doublenikkel]

He just made Ultimate 1.0 Pichu.

[@pickles3128]

It's cool how Smash went along with Pichu's dex entry (it can't use electricity w/o shocking itself) and added to your damage score.

[@ddumpy]

hey man, just wanted to say thanks so much for making the content that you do! keep up the great work and I hope to see your channel see the success it very much deserves!

[@Lil_Homie]

All love back to you homie. I appreciate it dude. Hope you have a great day :)

[@cyanthermus5235]

I remember hearing about this. Fsmash killing at like 30%, nair being huge, dtilt being 3x the size and the angle being horrendous, and of course his weight being increased from 55 to 90.

[@QuartzGolem]

Sounds like a mid tier to me.

[@bigschn0se541]

You really don't have to be a detective to see these busted ass hitboxes

[@deyontemyers4109]

Marth grab hitbox is still a thing Melee not Ssbu Edit: I just said this because well yes these hitboxes are completely bs...this is smash some character have bs hitboxes Brawl snake (up tilt) 64 Kirby (up tilt) Melee jiggly puff (back air) Marth melee (grab) Melee yoshi (seriously why can't this move grab at close ITS A GRAB THATS THE POINT) THE FREAKING STAGE LEDGE ITSELF IN FINAL DESTINATION I'm just trying to say that yea there kinda obvious but it could also just be smash fans going whelp thats just smash and assume there broken hitboxes made by the devs not a modded software Worse part no one played Pichu so people could also go Oh wow I didn't know that Pichu had broken hitboxes man that sucks

[@vash121086]

It’s noble to want to make a character that is really bad into something incredible, but cheating your way to victory is vary wrong and I’m glad he was caught. And those he fought in the tournaments were avenged. I know how difficult it is to train yourself with a charter in smash bros melee. My KZbin picture is my best fighter in melee. I entered a melee tournament that was being held and I made it into 3rd place. I was very happy with my improvement.

[@thundermaster4247]

This is the video game equivalent of taking performance enhancing drugs

[@trentonamor]

What an incredible video. Shocked at how few subs you have. Your story telling is phenomenal

[@TheLazyRegulator]

My favorite part about all of this is that Pichu was actually so bad that even anime protagonist belief in him wasn’t enough to make him viable and he had to cheat. That’s some tier list confirmation right there.

[@beneeney]

Dan Salvato? Doki doki dev? He exposed chaos? That's amazing haha

[@jewels3846]

I (as an outsider looking in) keep forgetting how much he was involved in these communities until videos mention him. He really does seem to have an interesting and story rich history already

[@SebastianGomez-uj8iu]

Homie could have left with the money but he just wanted to go hang and bring his set up. Like bro what more did you want?

[@SWIGGITYSWAGWIGGITYWAG]

Looks like im binging these videos today

[@byrontheusurper6505]

Never played thegame but man do I love the melee community, I'm such a sucker for melee community stories!

[@thenerdbeast7375]

I mean, if I joined one of these tournaments and brought my own console I would insist on playing on it every time too, just because I'd be paranoid about losing it. The console stays with me at all times, even if it just unplugged and by my side.

[@papertiger4525]

I can't help but wonder. If this guy spent his entire career honing his Pichu and training relentlessly, instead of ever hacking the buffed Pichu, how would he be doing now?

[@andrevieira2534]

The amount of time you put into this was more than worth it. My hat is off to you!

[@SchlickSteve]

andre put your hat back on

[@andrevieira2534]

@@SchlickSteve GASPS HOW DARE!!!! D;

[@armandopineiro4022]

A testament to these players who were getting cheated on and still took games off him

[@gnardawgyt]

Really great video, definitely your best, thanks for the upload

[@projectdrunkguy4112]

Not only was he an awful cheater. The people in charge were dumber than all hell!

[@Yvs8962]

No way bro thought he would get away with this forever 😂

[@JaggedBird]

This is why venues like the pokemon world championship supply their hardware but transfer over the player's pokemon to examine them.

[@liamcollinson5695]

When I saw Pichu I was extremely skeptical I never played in tournaments or anything but I did spend hours fighting friends I could normally win with most characters but never Pichu

[@Opetox]

Dude if i deied at 18 on the ledge i would have immediately called for somebody to test that shit

[@TheAoalec14]

You did a good job bro! Never played smash in my life but the style and info in your video made this a great watch..as long as there is money involved there will always be incentives to cheat..imagine all the situations that went undiscovered ??

[@chungo_016]

why did i get goosebumps from a guy telling a story about how a kid modded his wii 💀

[@gotgud]

Such a well made video, nice job man

[@funkyyukiedits]

This video deserves more likes! The research was insane. Thanks for sharing!

[@MrHangman56]

really great video. it was very informative the clips of the matches lasted a tad long though.

[@Queazii]

As a trained underwater welder I can confirm that I have no idea what’s going on.

[@CherrieBoard]

Im actually so glad you brought that heatmap part up lol no one ever seems to mention this and to me, it kinda spoke volumes on what type of obsession he had

[@Chad-Dion]

How the top players did not call him out that day... is beyond me.

[@LarryMozzarelli]

I think the best pichu ive ever played is a dude named citric in an online tourney and let me just say THAT pichu is making it seem like hes cheating but dudes just that cracked lol

[@nsahandler]

We have a "main screen" at every event where we put the "best matches" (the matches people want to see) on the big screen, but we ALSO go out of our way to ensure that everyone HAS to play at the "main screen" because: 1) it is hooked up to the projector and streaming service so everyone gets a shot at shining in the spotlight, and 2) the "main screen" is house-owned hardware, so we know that nobody can claim that anyone who won had cheated in any substantial way ALWAYS control the main screen. It's better for event planning, advertisement, and audience attention. Hell, if a player thinks that their opponent is using a modified controller, we have rules that give them the option to force both players to use brand-new, untouched controllers.

[@Charitish89]

So glad this got recommended to me. Dude you covered this topic amazingly!

[@pottdjur]

He felt pichu was underused, he just needed a 100% buff

[@mnloring7867]

Great Video man keep up the good work

[@justnobody5527]

Dan Salvoto is my favorite bit, I love his work on the replay mod for Mario Sunshine that people never talk about!

[@Bleeper852]

Thank you for your work ❤ definitely got my sub and I will continue to support 🙏🏼

[@opadrip]

Feels like he wouldn't have been caught if he just picked a high tier and did minor adjustments that weren't so noticable but just enough to give him the edge every time.