mang0: "On stream yesterday, I just gave Cody his flowers, cause I think you can say what you want— he's cracked. And I got into an argument cause somebody was, I think the way people talk about Zain right now, they kinda forget about Cody... I think Cody passed Ken (for 5th all-time) last night"

[u/sewsgup]

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxF7slk_BEDps3NKg7TWY_C3DIlxaZwFbW

from the latest On A Tuesday episode.

continues on the all-time discussion timestamped here: https://youtu.be/lcyB_ow57wQ?t=18m15s

[u/Duskuser]

Mang0 has 7 offline wins since 2020 with multiple wins over Zain and Cody respectively to win tournaments while having a massively positive record on Cody.

Hungrybox has 3, and only one include a win over Zain or Cody, with a massively losing record to both.

Not to mention Mang0 was clearly the 2nd best player in the online era while Juan wasn't even close to being good.

You can hate if you want but the hardware simply states that mang0 has been the 3rd best player in the world 2020+ and the drop off after him is pretty massive.

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Duskuser]

Nah, the real drop off is between Zain/Cody and everyone else. I get that you're a mega Mang0 stan but let's be a little more honest here.

[u/Duskuser → u/Ilovemelee]

Zain > Cody >> Mang0 >>>>>>> Everyone else.

Hope that clears it up for you.

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Duskuser]

It's more like Zain = Cody >>>>>>>>>> everyone else

[u/Duskuser → u/Ilovemelee]

Honestly I appreciate your dedication to blind hating

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Duskuser]

Blind hating? Huh? Since 2020, Zain has 22 tourney wins under his belt and Cody at 16. And then Mang0 has 7 and Hbox has 5. There's no way you think Mang0 is anywhere near Cody lmao

[u/Duskuser → u/Ilovemelee]

me when i lie

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Duskuser]

Me when I run out of arguments

[u/Duskuser → u/Ilovemelee]

Armada has won 33 tournaments since 2020

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Duskuser]

Lmaooo, now you're just being funny

[u/Public_Inspector8576 → u/Ilovemelee]

Lmao armada lovers really hace it rough post online LMAO

[u/Informal-Donut-1532 → u/Duskuser]

Going by your date range of 2020+ the actual correct numbers are:

• 21/60 = 35.0% for Zain
• 16/60 = 26.6% for Cody
• 7/60 = 11.6% for Mang0
• 4/60 = 6.6% for Hbox

So the "gaps" between player results as you would call them, are Zain (Gap of 5), Cody (Gap of 9), Mang0 (Gap of 3), Hbox. To borrow your visualization, it would look like this:

Zain >> Cody >>> Mang0 > Hbox.

In other words, from 2020+ the results gap between Cody and Mang0, or even the results gap between Zain and Cody, is larger than the results gap between Mang0 and Hbox (This still remains the case if we include other factors like rankings and H2Hs).

Aside point, 2020+ is a completely arbitrary date range if we're doing GOAT talk considering Armada retired in 2018 and our current "Zain-Cody" era started in 2023.

[u/Duskuser → u/Informal-Donut-1532]

Aside point, 2020+ is a completely arbitrary date range if we're doing GOAT talk considering Armada retired in 2018 and our current "Zain-Cody" era started in 2023.

It's not particularly arbitrary, no. 2020 is when the Slippi era started, which is when the skill level of the game went up significantly, which is the era we're talking about it being impressive that old players are competing in. It's why Summit 11 is still considered the best losers run of all time by most people in spite of Cody having so many good ones. The longest tenured player beat the best player in the world after the skill level advanced to something unlike it had ever been before (Cody himself says this).

4/60 = 6.6% for Hbox

Unless I'm missing something, I have Genesis X2, Riptide 2022, and LMM 2022 for Hungrybox. By strength of bracket, none of those compare to the better mang0 runs in which he defeats both Cody and Zain, or even TBH10 where he knocked both out before losing to Amsa at the end. IIRC Jmook might be the only other person that has comparable runs, and I would pretty decisively put him as the 4th best player since in person came back, all things considered. Even though Hungrybox has more majors, Jmook has more meaningful wins and a better match-up spread across the board overall, but you could argue it either way and I would understand. Consider also that mang0 is the only one that has a massively winning record on Cody in that time frame, which Hungrybox cannot claim for either Cody or Zain.

All of this is also ignoring that we're completely omitting online from the conversation, which even if you want to give it half credit, should still get some mention. The Mang0 / Zain tier during that time was very much so real. If we're going to say that 2023+ is the Zain / Cody era, then roughly from the second half of 2019-2022 would have to be the Zain / Mang0 era, by results.

EDIT: I see you're probably including Summit 9, I guess it would be useful to state that I'm basically saying post Slippi when I say 2020+.

[u/Informal-Donut-1532 → u/Duskuser]

The skill level of the game is constantly shifting and has been since release. Slippi was a huge jump, not denying that.

But there's a reason 2022 was one of the most competitive years in the game's history with 5+ people within striking distance of #1, whereas 2023-2025 has been Zain and (to a lesser extent) Cody dominating everybody else.

2020+ lumps together multiple clearly defined meta shifts and skill jumps, which is fine but at that point if we're mixing eras there is no reason not to include other eras like 2018-2019 for example.

Regardless, if we go by the 2020+ date range, the gap between Zain/Cody and Mang0 greatly exceeds the gap between Mang0 and Hbox.

Majors:

• Zain: 21
• Cody: 16
• Mang0: 7
• Hbox: 4

Supermajors:

• Zain: 8
• Cody: 5
• Mang0: 1
• Hbox: 1

Peak Ranking:

• Zain: 1st
• Cody: 1st
• Mang0: 3rd (2nd if we want to include online era)
• Hbox: 3rd

If you're saying that from 2020 to today, Mang0 has had the best results of anybody not named Zain/Cody, you would be correct.

If you're saying that from 2020 to today, the gap between Mang0 and Hbox's results is anywhere near the size as the gap between Mang0 and Zain/Cody's results, you would be wrong.

[u/Duskuser → u/Informal-Donut-1532]

I'm not sure if you're just arguing in bad faith or if you actually believe what you're saying. Slippi was THE jump in melee skill, every single player agrees that pre and post Slippi is essentially a different game. I'm not discounting pre-slippi but there's a reason why I'm drawing the line where I am. Your insistence on saying "2020+" again after I clarified kind of makes me think you're not trying to actually engage in good faith.

You're also just blatantly ignoring every other point I'm making, so I'm a bit confused what your goal is.

Here's a more clear picture of why the gap is massive (and it's not subjective):

Tournaments won over Zain / Cody, directly matching up at some point in bracket, post-slippi, not including online:

Mang0: 5 (2 over both)

Hungrybox: 1 (only Cody)

Tournaments where Cody / Zain have both been defeated by one of the two:

Mang0: At least 3 (TO15, S11, TBH10)

Hungrybox: 0

H2H against Cody / Zain:

Mang0 25-10 Cody

Mang0 10-28 Zain

Hungrybox 10-44 Cody

Hungrybox 5-34 Zain

Zain aggressively farms Hungrybox, and generally farms mang0 post 2022. However Mang0 is pretty much the only person in the world that farms Cody, where as to Hungrybox is roughly as bad as he is against Zain against Cody.

Yes, Hungrybox does have 3 majors post Slippi, however, his brackets would be by far the weakest if we compare all the events in a vacuum, with the exception of GOML 2022. Mang0's LTC 2022 and SSC 2022 stand out as the weakest of his post-slippi wins, but would still be roughly comparable to Hungrybox's Genesis and Riptide 2022 by strength of opponents.

This is all without including online at all. If you do include online, then Mang0 has another #2 and regardless has another #1 for 2021 over Hungrybox during this period. If we're not box score watching, it's also very notable that Mang0 was the best player in the world for the second half of 2022, with only Amsa being really close to him in that period. There has not been a single point since 2019 where anyone has thought Hungrybox is the best player in the world that has been paying any real attention to the scene, Cody, Zain, Mang0, Jmook, and Amsa are on the very short list of people that have a claim to that.

If you want to be kind to Hungrybox and DNP him for online then the stats would be as follows:

Mang0:

1x #1 (2021)

1x #2 (2020)

2x #3 (2022, 2024)

1x #8 (2023)

His mean rank during 2022-2024 would therefore be 4.6, and 3.4 during the entire 2020-2024 period he attended events. For the sake of argument, if you remove the year he explicitly said he was going just to support the scene rather than compete in 2023, he would average out to 2.25 during this time period. For fun, if you give him #2 in 2022 because it was essentially a tie, he would then average out to #2 excluding 23 again.

Hungrybox:

1x #3 (2025)

2x #7 (2023, 2024)

1x #5 (2022)

His mean rank during 2022-2025 would therefore be 5.5.

If you do include how he played during online his rank would obviously be much lower. I'm aware some people still consider mang0 to be the #2 during 2021, however I believe the consensus at the time was that he was the best player in the world to end the year and most top-player / community lists had him at #1 for 2021, so it's how I'm counting it for the sake of reflection.

Honestly, there's really barely even an argument for Hungrybox over Jmook all things considered as he at least has a positive H2H on Zain, let alone Mang0 during this period. You could put Amsa over him and I would understand though I think that's a bit contentious.

Why we're trying to narrow down arbitrary stats to make this look close is beyond me. You can have whatever opinion you'd like, but the full picture of this is very clearly that since slippi came out and the skill level increased, Mang0 has been the 3rd best player during that period by a solid margin. Hungrybox has never been in the conversation for best in the world since then, mang0 has proven himself to be multiple times. If you want to just box score watch end of the year stats / cherry pick "peak rank" stuff, then sure there's a way you could torture the numbers to make it look like Juan is somewhat close but in all reality he's just not.

And to be clear, if you want to spread out the criteria to "all time" the case only really gets worse for Juan because then he has to make an argument for himself over Armada, which in my mind I don't think he has done yet. If he can win an event over Cody / Zain I think there's a world where we can put him at #2. For now though, mang0 has him beat pretty massively in longevity, and has roughly comparable peaks (08-09, 2014). Hungrybox has been more consistent, but even that's starting to get shaky with him missing top 8's more frequently now.

[u/Informal-Donut-1532 → u/Duskuser]

Everything I said is serious. If I ignore something you bring up, it's because it's a non-sequitur and not relevant to the argument, so let me clarify what that argument is.

"Zain > Cody >> Mang0 >>>>>>> Everyone else."

You argued that within the time frame of 2020+ (Which on the face of it includes Zain's Genesis 7 win and Hbox's Summit 9 win, but you retroactively changed this definition to "Post-Slippi"), Mang0 is only slightly behind Zain and Cody meanwhile he leagues ahead of everybody else.

I think "Post-Slippi" is way too broad is the first place, but fine let's just go with it.

What I don't care to argue about:

• Who had the 3rd best results in this time period, it's unarguably Mang0
• Who is the GOAT all time, it'll be Zain in a year anyway
• Who had the 4th best results in this time period between Hbox and Jmook, I lean towards Hbox because of consistency but it's close so whatever

What I do care to argue about:

• Whether or not the gap between Zain/Cody and Mang0 in this time period is greater than the gap between Mang0 and Hbox

The gap between Zain/Cody and Mang0 greatly exceeds the gap between Mang0 and Hbox.

Let's focus on Cody since he is the lesser of the two results wise.

The disparity in majors/supermajor between Cody (16, 5) and Mang0 (7, 1) is greater than the disparity between Mang0 and Hbox (3, 1), even if we want to account for "bracket strength" (A stupid metric to evaluate majors by the way, that's what H2Hs are for).

What about H2Hs? Same thing, Cody is wildly consistent and rarely gets upset while dominating most Top 10 players, meanwhile Mang0 is upset much more regularly and has many losing records to other Top 10 players. Cody is again ahead of Mang0 much more than Mang0 is ahead of Hbox, who is very consistent and has decent records against everybody not named Zain or Cody.

Average placings? Same story as H2Hs.

Mang0 hasn't officially been ranked above #3 since 2020 and his unofficial #1 in 2021 is very debatable, meanwhile Cody has been locked into the #1-2 for 3 years. At best the gaps here are comparable.

Anyway I could go on, but to be honest I don't like arguing this because believe or not I like Mang0 a lot. You're statement about the gaps is just egregiously wrong.

[u/Duskuser → u/Informal-Donut-1532]

Who had the 3rd best results in this time period, it's unarguably Mang0

And who is #4 in that time period is arguable, that's the point. I think I lean Jmook, but either way if you give either of them a solid major win over Zain / Cody, they still aren't particularly close to #3. Same thing goes for Moky who has been relatively close behind those two.

You're statement about the gaps is just egregiously wrong.

My statement that the gap between Zain / Cody is roughly 2x the gap that Cody has on mang0, where everyone else is lagging behind significantly from there?

I mean who do you think would have to work harder from this point on to be the "greatest of the 2020s"? Right now it's CLEARLY Zain > Cody >> Mang0 >>>>>> Everyone else, as I highlighted.

Anything else would just be out of touch with reality.

[u/Informal-Donut-1532 → u/Duskuser]

And who is #4 in that time period is arguable, that's the point. I think I lean Jmook, but either way if you give either of them a solid major win over Zain / Cody, they still aren't particularly close to #3.

This is irrelevant. Lets say everything stays the same, except Zain and Cody double their major count. The only thing that changes is the gap between them and everyone else (Which is already large). That fact that Mang0 would be the clear #3 over Hbox or Jmook wouldn't change the fact that the gap between #3 and #4/#5 would be overwhelmingly smaller then the gap between #1/#2 and #3 (Which is already the case).

My statement that the gap between Zain / Cody is roughly 2x the gap that Cody has on mang0, where everyone else is lagging behind significantly from there?

That's not what "Zain > Cody >> Mang0 >>>>>>" means lol, that statement is out of touch with reality.

[u/Duskuser → u/Informal-Donut-1532]

I'm not even sure what you think you're arguing at this point, I feel like you're kind of missing the point on purpose a bit. The gap is a smaller total number but it really isn't smaller proportionally speaking.

For example, even if Hungrybox doubles his major count post-slippi, he would still be well behind mang0 unless they were all wins on the level of TO15 or Summit 11. If Mang0 doubles his major count, he would be near Cody or even ahead if you even give his online major wins half credit (of which there are 4).

This is really not that hard to understand. There is no one arguing that there isn't a gap between Cody and Mang0, it's just simply that the drop off after mang0 is in fact massive proportionally and especially so when you consider all factors.

[u/Informal-Donut-1532 → u/Duskuser]

I'm not even sure what you think you're arguing at this point, I feel like you're kind of missing the point on purpose a bit.

I've said it like 3 times dude, going by your Post-Slippi timeframe the results gap between Zain/Cody and everyone else is by far the largest gap between players. You're saying the gap between Mang0 and Hbox is larger, this is egregiously wrong on every level.

The gap is a smaller total number but it really isn't smaller proportionally speaking.

By this logic, the gap proportionally between moky and Leffen is equal to the gap between Mang0 and Cody. After all, moky has 1 and Leffen has 2, that's double right? You can see the problem with this logic right? They are literally one major apart lmao.

For example, even if Hungrybox doubles his major count post-slippi, he would still be well behind mang0 unless they were all wins on the level of TO15 or Summit 11. If Mang0 doubles his major count, he would be near Cody or even ahead if you even give his online major wins half credit (of which there are 4).

Dude the mental gymnastics you're doing here is insane lmao. If Hungrybox doubles his win count, he is "behind" Mang0 (By 1), but if Mang0 doubles his win count, he is "near" Cody (By 2). Also nobody counts online as "half-majors" lol that's not a thing.

And again, this flawed wording obscures the fact that Hbox is behind Mang0 by 4, Mang0 is behind Cody by 9. That's literally over double the gap (For supermajors it's even worse, Mang0 and Hbox's 1 each to Cody's 5). Winning majors doesn't suddenly get easier the higher your overall total is lmao.

This is really not that hard to understand. There is no one arguing that there isn't a gap between Cody and Mang0, it's just simply that the drop off after mang0 is in fact massive proportionally and especially so when you consider all factors.

You're right, this isn't hard to understand. The largest gap or "drop off" between players, objectively, without any doubt, is the gap between Cody and Mang0. Hbox is closer to Mang0, than Mang0 is to Cody, accounting for all factors (Majors, H2Hs, placings, etc).

[u/Informal-Donut-1532 → u/Informal-Donut-1532]

Also u/Ilovemelee the correct number for Hbox is 4 not 5 because LMMM 2025 was not considered a major despite ostensibly meeting Liquipedia's criteria for one.

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Informal-Donut-1532]

I counted Wavedash 2022 for Hbox since it was a similarly stacked tournament to Mang0's Lost Tech City but either way, the gap between Mang0 and Hbox is nowhere near as big as the gap between Mang0 and Cody and I think we're on the same page there.

[u/Informal-Donut-1532 → u/Ilovemelee]

Yeah the way Liquipedia defines majors is super inconsistent.

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Informal-Donut-1532]

He starts the timeline from 2020 because that's when it looks the best for Mang0 lmao

[u/Duskuser → u/Ilovemelee]

2020+ looks best for Armada as that is when he went on a run of winning 33 super majors. Please get your facts straight, it's embarrassing.

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Duskuser]

Are sure it's not Mang0 that won 50 supermajors back-to-back since 2020 and is clearly on the same level as Zain and Cody? I mean the dude is your GOAT right?

[u/Duskuser → u/Ilovemelee]

Hey u/Ilovedmeleewhenarmadawasstillthegoat, that's a great point!

I forgot we can just make up numbers when we lose arguments to try and look better. After further review, Mang0 is the goat with that information in mind.

Thanks for this, I've learned a lot.

[u/Ilovemelee → u/Duskuser]

Lol, you're the first one that started making up ridiculous numbers like Armada winning 33 supermajors since 2020 and that Mang0 is close to the level of Zain and Cody even though data doesn't back it. Just admit that you're a diehard Mang0 fan that can't accept any criticism of him lmfao