From Smash Ultimate to Melee, Kola Can Do It All
Josef “Fluid” Ayupan
“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.”
― Miyamoto Musashi
Roughly two months ago, Kolawole “Kola” Aideyan triumphed over Edgar “Sparg0” Valdez at The Luminosity Invitational: Back 2 School, an invitational tournament featuring top-level Smash Ultimate talent. During his winner’s interview, he would go on to thank his parents, explain his strategy against Sparg0’s play, and even reveal that he practiced for 20 hours on Thanksgiving Day. And within the spotlight of having beaten world number #2 Sparg0* in a grueling losers’ bracket run, Kola made the announcement that he intends to compete more in Melee.
Prior to this announcement, Kola’s most notable performance at a Melee event was Collision 2023 where he took a game off Masaya “aMSa” Chikamoto, who would go on to be ranked the 6th best player of that year. In his sole game win, Kola found himself down two stocks to one on his counterpick of Pokemon Stadium while playing Fox McCloud. Kola produced an ingenious shine deflection against a mid-air Yoshi egg to take aMSa’s penultimate stock. The low percentages of both characters allowed Kola to get back to stage quickly, while Amsa lost his jump allowing Kola to quickly seal the edgeguard. While precariously holding onto his final stock, Kola strung together effortless waveshine conversions and well-spaced aerials that ultimately culminated into an up smash that would not have killed if aMSa had just 5 less damage**.
Though Kola would lose the set, even the most cynical Melee analyst would probably confess to the acumen demonstrated in that last minute. Indeed, it is rare to see such decisive and well thought out play for a player who 1. Does not actively practice the game and 2. Should have little to no practice against Yoshi. For the rest of the year, Kola’s Melee results stayed unremarkable. This game win would be a blip and fun fact that only the most astute viewers would bring up on rare occasions. Kola’s next noteworthy results would occur in November of next year which reignited this discussion and became the catalyst for this article.
Guildhouse Fighters is a SSBM local in the heart of downtown San José, California. Notable active entrants in 2024 include players such as S2J, Umarth, Typhoon, and MOJOE. In the area because of a Smash Ultimate invitational, Kola attended the tournament in both Ultimate and Melee. Prior to the tournament, Kola tweeted out that he was “tipsy” and to “expect the most goated… run [of] all time”.
Umar “Umarth” Sohi is a Marth player in Northern California and was ranked 93rd in SSBMRank 2023 with wins over Skerzo, nut, and Matteo among others. Kola’s first test in this bracket would be against the 2nd favorite to win the tournament, a test he ultimately passed with flying colors.
Marth versus Fox is a matchup that is commonly thought to be among Fox’s worst in Melee. At times, Marth can make it very difficult for Fox to find hits, and Marth can brutally punish Fox off a single grab. It is a matchup that most Fox mains have difficulty finding success in, with players such as William “Leffen” Hjelte switching to another character altogether. For someone who does not seem to actively practice the game, there was very little chance for Kola to even win a game.
Despite the deck heavily stacked against him, Kola would clutch a last game win against Umarth in a best-of-three set. In the final game, Kola had to once again make a comeback down two stocks to one. Perhaps his ability to win while down is a defining characteristic of his play.
Kola’s next match was against another Marth, Ty “Typhoon” Hunter. Though not ranked yet, Typhoon has wins this year against players such as Squid, Zeo, and Umarth. This time, the set went to game 5 last stock last hit. Kola’s game-winning kill was a single hit up air to kill Typhoon, a sequence that prevents his opponent from using SDI to escape.
Now in Winner’s Finals, Kola’s final boss stood before him: Johnny “S2J” Kim, a veteran Captain Falcon player who was ranked 10th in 2017 and now resides in Northern California. Some interesting observations about this match include Kola’s consistent edgeguarding against S2J’s tricky recoveries and Kola finding openings against the barrage of aerials that is a hallmark of S2J’s play. Game 5 goes down-to-the-wire as S2J uses his knowledge of Fountain of Dreams to hit Kola through the side platforms with a down air into the inevitable Captain Falcon knee. It was poetic. The grizzled veteran demonstrated his experience of the game to triumph over the unsuspecting but burgeoning upstart.
Kola would go on to lose to Typhoon in the runback, and place third at this relatively stacked NorCal local.
Since the release of Smash 4 in 2014, no player who first became a top player in the subsequent games ever became a top player in Super Smash Bros. Melee. There are clearly transferable skills between both games such as aerial drift, spacing, understanding damage windows, and utilizing stage positioning. No one has articulated why Smash Ultimate players struggle to make the leap into Melee’s competitive scene, but if I were to take a stab at it, I believe it is a mix of social stigma that the Melee community exhibits towards later Smash games and the Ultimate scene still being somewhat healthy comparatively speaking.
Perhaps all it takes is for someone to shake things up and blow the cap off of things.
*As of 2023
**This was tested in UnclePunch Training Mode with unstale Fox up smash
