Ranking the 16 Strongest Melee Regions

Tl;dr – I know this is a little longer than our normal articles and goes against our “Quick, Informative, Informal” style, so if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing there’s a tl;dr and data at the bottom.

Since the beginning of competitive Melee people have been claiming that their region is the strongest. In the early days of Melee, there was a big East Coast/West Coast rivalry; and while there is still somewhat of a rivalry there, most people feel allegiance to more specific regions. Instead of East Coast we have regions like Tristate, New England, and MDVA. The last three Big House tournaments held a regional crew battle where each region sent in their 5 best players and put their reputations on the line. These crew battles only include 8 regions in the bracket, but I’ll be expanding our regions to 16. The Big House has named 12 regions, Midwest, Canada, Northwest, Tristate, Southwest, NorCal, Florida, Europe, SoCal, Atlantic South, New England, and MDVA, and I’ll be adding in 4 more regions, Latin America, Japan, Australia, and Asia Pacific.

It was a little difficult to find players and data for some of the smaller regions, but I’ve looked at local PR’s, tournament results, and spoke to some players from the different regions to get a good idea of who they would want to send into a crew battle. For regions that have their own PR, like SoCal, I took their top 10 players for their crew, with the one exception being MDVA, Chillindude and ChuDat were not ranked in MDVA because of the attendance requirement, but I’ve added them into the crew based around MIOM rankings. For regions that are too large to have a single power rank, like Atlantic South, I first looked at how many of their players made it onto SSBMRank 2017. After that, I gathered the Power Rankings of every state and compared their top players to see who should fill the remaining spots. This year’s SSBMRank gave us more data than usual because we technically have a rank up until #126, and then on top of that, they released a larger list of notable players.

Before we get into the actual data I want to explain some of the player’s placings. First off, Rishi. Rishi recently moved from MDVA to NYC and is currently ranked 6^th on the New York Metropolitan Area Power Rank. Rishi will be playing for MDVA, because he’s still MDVA at heart.

The same reasoning applies to SFAT. Even though he currently lives in SoCal, he still chooses to be part of the NorCal crew, so he’ll stay there. Dizzkidboogie is ranked in both NorCal and NYC, but also chooses to play for NorCal so that’s where he’ll be.

Perhaps the most difficult player to confine to a region was Slox. Slox lives in Connecticut and is ranked in both New England and Tristate. Connecticut itself is a little bit of a conundrum, because in recent years it has become both New England and Tristate. So to get to the bottom of this I asked Slox which region he identifies more with. His response was “This is the equivalent to asking a parent which child do you love more. Both!” After some discussion Slox replied “I would probably play for the team that needs me most.” So with this in mind, I’m going to go ahead and add him onto the New England crew. Let me reiterate this, I put him in New England. I don’t want Tristate to think that he’s abandoning them, and for them to give him flack. I also don’t want New England to think that Slox said they need more help, or that they’re the weaker region, that was my call as well. Tristate had 10 players ranked this year and 5 honorable mentions. New England however, only had 2 ranked players, so I’m using that as my basis for putting him in New England. I don’t want either region to give him shit; Slox didn’t want to take sides, so I made the decision.

New England also had another problem in choosing their crew. Mafia met the activity requirements for the SSBMRank, and was voted in the top 100, however, he was recently banned in New England and NYC melee, and because of that he was not ranked this year. Seeing as how he qualified, he’ll be on the team, but because he doesn’t have a rank I technically had to give him unranked points.

The last point I want to make before getting into the actual data is about Latin America. A few months backed I asked LatAm Smash who they would send in for the crew battle. There were some names that everyone agreed on, and then some that were a toss-up. I thought this region would be difficult to find 10 agreed upon players, until Blea Gelo came to the rescue. He explained to me that even though they all moved away, the top Latin America players would still fight for LatAm. He specifically mentioned himself, n0ne, Eddy Mexico, and Javi would all play for LatAm. This means that Canada will be losing one of their big hitters, and that Blea Gelo won’t be playing for Florida.

With all that out of the way, let’s get into the rankings.

16. Asia-Pacific

Asia-Pacific might have been the most difficult region to find information on, but it was probably also the most interesting to research. There is not much of a unified scene across Asia-Pacific; it’s mostly individual countries that have relatively small scenes themselves. To come up with their crew, I took the top 2 ranked players from India, China, Korea, The Philippines, and Hawaii. Hawaii recently held a regional event called Poi Poundaz, and some SSBMRanked players attended. Two Hawaiian smashers made it into the top 8, FireflyHi and Mystery, with their only losses to Lucky & Ka-Master, and Lucky & aMSa, respectively. The other regions unfortunately don’t have any other 

out of regions results to compare to the SSBMRank.

Crew: melee Mike, Yat, Global Economics, FireflyHI, Wazoli, Mt. Crushmore, Junkyard Dude, JBirds, Dirt, rudesubs

15. Australia

Australia was another region with no players on the SSBMRank, but, there’s a name that some people might recognize, Spud. Spud is a melee player from New Zealand who became well known after his upset of Alex19 at BAM7 in 2015. More recently, he placed 3^rd at Emerald City 6. Here he was able to rack up quite a few wins over ranked players like FatGoku (69), Iceman (93), and Moky (96). Spud also won BAM9 last year, solidifying his spot as best Australian smasher. Other strong players from the region are SA Nick and Sora, who are currently ranked 2^nd and 3^rd on the Australian rankings.

Crew:  Spud, smopup, SA Nick, Sora, S.D., Tristan, Quetz, Kami, Prolific, Aluf

14. Japan

aMSa might be most people’s first thought when Japanese melee is mentioned, but Japan is home to many more great players. While aMSa is their most well-known player in the states, this is the first year that he has been ranked #1 in his home country. Last year aMSa was ranked 2^nd in Japan behind Rudolph, the Marth main who plays lying down on chairs. This year, it was a close battle for first but aMSa came out as Japan’s best player. 2018 has been a great year for aMSa, only 3 months in and he already has wins over Wizzrobe, SFAT, Axe, and Mew2King. Rudolph doesn’t enter as many foreign tournaments as aMSa, so he doesn’t have as many MIOM wins but still performs well. Rudolph’s last US major was Genesis 5 where his only losses were to Hungrybox and Shroomed. Gucci and K.F. travelled to Evo 2017, but didn’t garner any impressive wins.

Crew: aMSa, Rudolph, Yu, Gucci, Y.F., Shippu, Tapioka, Kounotori, Nanashi, Sanne

13. Pacific Northwest

The first US region to be on the list, the Pacific Northwest added quite a few players to the SSBM2017 rank. PNW had 4 ranked players and an honorable mention on the most recent rankings. Bladewise is their highest ranked player coming in at 37, but Ka-Master, Fat Goku, and Iceman are still all threats. While many of their players have strong results at majors and regionals, the region took a hit when Silent Wolf, their top player, announced his retirement.

Crew: Bladewise, Ka-Master, Fat Goku, Iceman, Rustin, Chango, eBay, OkayP, Vinodh, Vish

12. Latin America

With the inclusion of their transplanted players, Latin America’s rank jumped up a couple spots. LatAm includes the countries of Central America, South America, and Mexico. Surprisingly, very few Mexican players were included in their crew. Despite having more wins on American players, and some of them even being ranked in SoCal, most of the Latin American crew consists of players from South America. Dark, YoshiCR, and Vercetty  were all clear choices that almost everyone mentioned to be part of the crew. YoshiCR recently attended Too Hot To Handle in Florida and came in 17^th place tying with Slox.

Crew: n0ne, Blea Gelo, Eddy Mexico, javi, Dark, YoshiC, vercetty, Blassy, Roche, Aisengobay

11. Atlantic South

The Atlantic South is the second largest American region on this list, with players coming from 8 different states. 3 players from the Atlantic South made the top 100 list, and they had another as an honorable mention. For the remaining players I compared the states’ power ranks, and picked the 6 players that best filled out their ranks. A lot of larger tournaments in the Atlantic South have a large out of state presence so it was easy to compare players from within the region. While they’re fairly low on this list, I’m sure they can rise a few spots when PPMD comes back to play.

Crew: Druggedfox, KPAN, $mike, Sharkz, Shinobi, HT, Smashbob Squarepants, Dublat, Zasa, NIX

10. New England

New England, home of Shine, MattDotZeb, and some kick ass players. New England was easy to find their top 10 players because the whole region has one collective power rank. As mentioned earlier, despite Mafia not being ranked in 2017, he’s still a strong player and ranked 3^rd on the New England PR. Their top 3 players have a number of Top 100 wins, and even though the rest of their PR might not have amazing wins, none of them have particularly bad losses.

Crew: Crush, Slox, Mafia, th0rn, Lint, Zoso, Kalvar, squible, Thumbs, Klap$

9. Canada

Canada is the world’s second largest country, so it’s no surprise in a country so large there’s a boatload of great players. Even without n0ne, Canada has strong performers like KirbyKaze, Ryan Ford, and Kage. Canada has been in every crew battle that the Big House has hosted, but tied for last place 2 out of the 3 times. In 2015 they upset NorCal to make it to the semifinals before losing to Europe. Since the Big House has been hosting crew battles, there have only been 2 upsets, so it’s quite a feat for Canada to claim one.

Crew: KirbyKaze, Ryan Ford, Kage, Trulliam, Moky, Legend, Nightmare, Coffeeblack, Lunar Dusk, 

Tranimal

8. South West

South West is on the come up. I can definitely see them being ranked higher within the next few years. The crowd favorite, Axe, is the best player in the region, but don’t think he’s their only big deal. Syrox blew people away with an explosive 2017 and flashy technical skills. Despite not being ranked on SSBM2017 this past year, Taj is ranked above Tai, who is ranked, in Arizona, which just goes to show how strong this region is, even without a strong national presence.

Crew: Axe, Syrox, Medz, Taj, Tai, Mojo, Bananas, Eikelmann, Sycthed, Fizz

7. Tristate

If we were to expand this list to look at the region’s top 20, or look at their unranked players, Tristate would certainly go up. Tristate has so many hidden bosses it’s ridiculous. At Big House 7, Vortex, who was unranked in NYC at the time, defeated Westballz in pools. When Syrox travelled to New York to compete he lost to Just Jason, who’s also unranked in NYC. Unfortunately, we just don’t have the ability to look into each region like that. Regardless of their hidden bosses’ talent, Tristate offers many household names like La Luna, Swedish, Hax$, Smuckers who can hold their own in bracket. Tristate was close to have a crew of all top 100 players, but the New Jersey Peach man, mayb, just missed the cut at 101.

Crew: La Luna, Swedish Delight, Hax$, Captain Smuckers, DJ Nintendo, iBDW, Darktooth, Kaeon, 2Saint, mayb

6. Midwest

The Midwest is the largest  American region on our ranking, consisting of 14 states, and the western half of Pennsylvania. The Midwest is the only other region besides Canada to have an upset in the regional crew brackets. The Midwest upset Tristate at Big House 7. I understand there was an issue with who would be playing for Tristate’s crew, but even with that, the Midwest shouldn’t be taken lightly. They are the also the first region on this list that has all 10 of their players be ranked in the top 100.

Crew: Duck, KJH, Prince Abu, Ginger, Kels, Abate, Drephen, Cal, Absent Page, Rik

5. MDVA

MDVA took a back seat in terms of regional significance in the last few years, but that is quickly changing. ChuDat had a stellar start to 2017 was ranked 11^th in 2017. Zain is going on a similar tear at the start of 2018. Junebug also started playing Melee more, and has proved himself to be a national threat. MDVA is certainly a region that people should look out.

Crew: ChuDat, llod, Zain, Rishi, Junebug, Chillin, Redd, Jerry, Milkman, Juicebox

4. NorCal

Despite suffering one of the only 2 upsets in the regional crew bracket, NorCal is still a force to be reckoned with. Armed with players like SFAT, Shroomed, PewPewU, and dizzkidboogie, NorCal is still one of the strongest regions in the country. NorCal won their first round crew battles at the last 2 Big Houses. With so many outstanding players, it’ll be tough for other regions to surpass them.

Crew: SFAT, Shroomed, PewPewU, dizzkidboogie, Nintendude, Spark, Azusa, Rocky, Cactuar, 

Kalamazhu

3. Europe

We’ve made it to the top tier of regions. I consider spots 1, 2, and 3 to have a clear lead on the others below them on this list. Europe is the largest region here and it’s a powerhouse at that. Armada and Leffen are the 2 big front runners here, the GOAT and the God Slayer together is a dangerous duo, but round that out with Ice, Trif, and Amsah and Europe is a dangerous crew. They made it to the grand finals at the last big house tournament beating Canada and NorCal.

Crew: Armada, Leffen, Ice, Trif, Amsah, Professor Pro, Android, Overtriforce, Zgetto, Mahie

2. Florida

Florida has 4 members in the top 10. Hungrybox, Mew2King, Plup, Wizzrobe alone are all amazing players, but put them on a crew together and they’re near unstoppable. Florida beat Europe in the Big House crew battle last year to win it all. If this list measured their chances of a 5-vs-5 crew battle, Florida would be considered for the number 1 spot, but unfortunately their numbers ease out a little bit towards their later spots. Florida is still a mighty region, but not the mightiest.

Crew: Hungrybox, Mew2King, Plup, Wizzrobe, Colbol, Ghatzu, Drunksloth, King Momo, Porkchops, Pengie

1. SoCal

Did this come as a surprise to anyone? Did anybody read this and think maybe SoCal wouldn’t be the #1 region? SoCal has gone undefeated in every Big House crew battle they’ve attended. SoCal didn’t get to participate in the latest Big House crew battle simply because they weren’t voted in, so they weren’t able to defend their title. However, there’s very little doubt that SoCal would’ve put up a hall 

of a fight.

Crew: Mango, S2J, Lucky, Westballz, HugS, Mike Haze, MacD, Army, Captain Faceroll, Squid

So there you have it, our rankings of the 16 strongest Melee regions. For those of you who didn’t read the whole article here’s the tl;dr

16. Asia-Pacific
15. Australia
14. Japan
13. Pacific Northwest
12. Latin America
11. Atlantic South
10. New England
9. Canada
8. South West
7. Tristate
6. Midwest
5. MD/VA
4. NorCal
3. Europe
2. Florida
1. SoCal

And for those nerds interested in the numbers/rankings I used they can all be found here