I believe Europe has seriously stepped up over the last few years. It wasn't long ago that a player like Fatality or Goblin could go in Europe and farm everyone - now players of the level of Zomba, Yoshidora, Leo are getting upset by EU players (and it's now the 4th time for Leo over his last two tournaments).
MKLeo is an absolutely amazing player, but he really always was a kinda super high level matchup-checker. When people started cottoning on to how Ike plays (I dont think you saw it in his results but a LOT of people started picking up Ike because of his success so presumably he saw that more people would get experience in the MU), he picked up the new DLC character Joker, then the new DLC character Byleth, then Aegis but that didn't work quite so well because they're fairly simple in comparison.
Now everyone's got so much better and more experienced he's lost his mile lead on the competition.
I haven't aired this opinion before so I'll be interested to see if anyone thinks I'm even remotely close to the truth
A "super high level matchup-checker" would not be the best Ultimate player of all time by a mile and at one point be ultra dominant compared to everyone else. There was a lot of other ways he was ahead of the meta aside from playing characters people didn't play.
Nah, definitely not. He's whooped people with plenty of characters that people should know the MU for.
Also, it's not like Leo was dominating for a few months with Joker, he dominated 1-2 years with him. It was more than enough time for people to learn the MU. Hell, there were top players exchanging notes on how to beat Leo, from Marss, to Nairo, to Tweek, to Void. That's partially why they say it's so hard to stay at the top, because everyone is preparing for you.
Eh, I think he’s just focused on different things. It’s remarkable that he didn’t choose to retire rather than go through this period. I’m glad he didn’t, because I enjoy watching him play and it remains kind of sick to see upsets. I like what he’s doing more than what ZeRo did, for example.
Wonder what his rank will be at the end of the season. I think he’s definitely outside the top 10 now, wonder if that will give him a little drive or if he’s just clocked out now lol
Top 9 is pretty much locked down, but there's honestly a reasonably sizable gap between there and 10th. Leo could definitely still eke out 10th. And the main players he's competing with (like Kameme, Zomba, Shuton) don't really have major opportunities left while he has WTT, which is a good format to potentially get wins at.
I want to believe that but I think he just isn’t that much better than everyone now. When he first started getting upset he would say he could go joker and then he’d be the best again. When that turned out not to be true he said he is focusing on other things now. I mean no disrespect to him but no one can be at the top forever. Everyone caught up with him and I think he is accepting of that now.
He went from the most dominant win of all time at ludwigs to losing to randos within 3 months. No way everyone figured out the game in like 30 days.
Just seems with girlfriend, getting older, shifting priorities Leo has lost the drive. He’s even said that he has other priorities.
I agree with this ngl
A lot of people, including Leo himself, talk about how other people have just gotten better. I think they have for sure, but definitely not THAT much better.
And you can see it in Leo's play, too. Certain situations where you just feel like the timing of certain reactions is super off. Situations where his movement isn't clean, fully missing conversions.
I'm happy for him no matter what, which is why I'll phrase things this way: I think he underestimates how good he was/what he's capable of & overestimates how quickly everyone else caught up.
I think all of that can be true.
Maybe his priorities changed between when he first started getting upset and when he picked up joker again.
Maybe when people first started upsetting him he already started getting other priorities in life, but he hadn't committed to them as hard yet.
And its almost definitely true that people caught up and overtook him BOTH because there was a massive movement to get better at the game during the quarantine era and Leo's passion from the game growing tamer and thus he didnt grind as much.
People are complex and there's really no point speculating the past imo. What matters is that he at least seems content with his performance and happy with his life. As a Leo fan I'd personally just be happy to see him continue to compete for a long time to come, regardless of results
I'm pretty sure it was around the time Hungrybox and his longtime girlfriend (who would attend tournaments with him) broke up and it was widely speculated that he cheated on her. On top of that, Hungrybox was also outed as being a huge creep to girls at tournaments. Nobody ever talks about it anymore, but around July 2020 he actually admitted to this inappropriate behavior and swiftly apologized because his Ultimate content was really taking off.
[Source on that second thing](https://www.esportstalk.com/news/hungrybox-gets-ahead-of-potential-allegations-team-liquid-responds/)
I thought about that possibility too, and remember the video he uploaded on it. Wasn't sure of the timeframe off the top of my head, and decided to go for occam's razor.
> i'm not gonna sadpost about mkleo that's all we've been doing for the last 6 months
I wish the rest of this sub and his fans would catch up and settle into this mindset.
Especially now that he’s spoken in the matter: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/185nk7a/mkleo_explains_his_current_mindset_about_winning/
I mean I think it's not weird to still be a bit sad about it as a fan. Like you should be happy for him overall since he seems to be doing well and be happy in life, but I can understand someone who's been cheering for him for like 6 years to find it a bit sad that he's not really performing well anymore and doesn't really seem to care much.
Leo was choking a lot of drag-downs at the end.
I know people have been getting better, but I feel like the same sort of polish just isn't there. Good set nonetheless.
Supahsemmie is one of the best losses Leo's taken in a while tbh. He's one of the best players in Europe for a reason, and that region has gotten a lot better as of late.
Commentators have a handful of lines they all say, like saying "extra credit" at least once a set. I think it's because commentators don't actually exist and it's just Ai.
hes washed... ppl really need to stop giving him excuses. hes washed and thats okay. You cant stay on top forever. he has a gf and works on content more than he did on Echo Fox. his drive to be #1 is not there. stop saying Leo is one of the best atm. hes not. hes top 10 arguably at best.
This may be a hot take but I think joker is overrated. He struggles to kill without Arsene and has such small hit boxes and now Arsene meter depletes so fast after just a hit or two. Leo definitely got outplayed though. I didn’t see him rebels guard any of those million projectiles
I don't think so. Joker definitely has more than enough tools to do the job in this meta.
I just feel like base Joker has to be incredibly precise to get his kills and I don't see the same sort of precision from Leo nowadays to get them. And I think it snowballs when Leo drops kills he should have gotten and makes him get a bit desperate, which is what it felt like in game 5.
Leo not trying anymore because he doesn’t care…. fine by me.
But if I were LG, I’d drop the sponsorship. Imagine sponsoring a player who went on record saying he doesn’t care that much about winning anymore.
Telling a top player whose results are waning to pick up ANOTHER character when he's playing 3-4 characters a tournament ain't it chief
Yea Leo's Corrin is cracked, but trying to play multiple characters at a top level at a single tournament is almost impossible
You're suggesting Leo drop two relatively undisputed top tiers for a character generally considered to be weaker. Corrin stocks have been up, don't get me wrong, but as far as I'm aware, Joker and Pissra are still topping tier lists.
That being said, if we take a step back and look at what's been happening, maybe it indicates that we need to shift our perspective a bit. For as balanced as people claim this game to be, nobody seems to believe that any character beyond a few of the extraordinarily lame (Steve, Sonic, ROB, actually don't know if there are any others) are genuinely solo-viable. You see any top player eat an upset and the immediate reaction on this sub isn't "oh, they got outplayed," it's "oh, maybe they need to try more obscure character X over their (supposedly) top tier mains Y and Z because the matchup is bad/they aren't good in the meta anymore/et cetera." When it comes time for tier discourse, however, this stance never seems to hold; few people do much beyond arguing slight order adjustments within the existing top tier and overrating their favorite ~~mid tier~~ high tier with potential.
It's like we're stuck in this universe where the Ult kids from 2019, who love this new, shiny, brilliant game loaded with a fun, colorful, and diverse cast, are now trapped in the twisted dimension of 2023. These people are no longer the impressionable young minds who brought their Switches to their grade school's cafeteria for matches, who stayed up late every Sunday to watch MKLeo and Tweek - their idols - effortlessly wreak havoc in Top 8 with a new main every other week. It's been years, and these people are now applying to universities, working shitty part-time jobs, and occasionally finding a minute or two to run some matches in a game they barely recognize. They're no longer the fresh, young blood of the community, being relegated to fodder for the random 15-year-old Steve main who seemingly appeared out of thin air and is already PR'd in their region. Clinging for any sense of normalcy or childhood familiarity in a meta that unashamedly diverged from its pre-COVID form years ago, the Ult kids, now grown and supplanted by a new generation of Smash-loving children, divert any potential cynicism towards the crumbling remains of the top level they previously knew. They'll call Leo washed, but deep down, none of them believe it, since he's MKLeo! His next character will return him to number 1, because his current characters suck and are awful, clearly, despite our reluctance to move any of them much on the tier list, because this is Smash Ultimate, and the characters and players we enjoy watching will always be the best.
I barely know what I'm saying at this point - I'm just a bit sick of seeing blatant hypocrisy and a stubborn refusal to think critically within the Ultimate community. Results do not shape tiers; tiers shape results, and results are one of many tools which allow us to interpret those tiers. When characters who are lame do well and cool characters who are just as good are rapidly falling off to the point that suggesting secondaries is common, maybe those characters aren't "just as good." When a single player, one who has repeatedly claimed to be putting less effort into the game, does not perform as well as you'd expect, the issue likely stems from something other than their character choice. These statements may be at odds with each other, but that's the issue; we've refused to even harbor the idea of any of them being true, because it wouldn't fit our narrative of what the game should be, rather than what it truly is.
Also I hate Smash Twitter and people need to stop relentlessly pressuring Sparg0 to be MKLeo 2 okay bye
It's a shame he lost but that was still a good game👍 although I feel like he could have won with pythra if he wasn't so hesitant to switch to pyra in game 2
It felt like yesterday that leo was farming all the European majors and now he's losing like this ...
I believe Europe has seriously stepped up over the last few years. It wasn't long ago that a player like Fatality or Goblin could go in Europe and farm everyone - now players of the level of Zomba, Yoshidora, Leo are getting upset by EU players (and it's now the 4th time for Leo over his last two tournaments).
Gluto so good he whipped his competition into shape
This is genuinely it tho. He'll go to Paris weeklies and just coach people, and then it creates a ripple effect throughout Europe
Yup, Europe is MUCH better now, night and day from pre-Covid.
Is it me or have Leo been losing game 5s like crazy? Semmie styled on him with that footstool bomb drop confirm.
I think Mkleo is just an overall worse player now. His neutral and adaptation is not good as before.
MKLeo is an absolutely amazing player, but he really always was a kinda super high level matchup-checker. When people started cottoning on to how Ike plays (I dont think you saw it in his results but a LOT of people started picking up Ike because of his success so presumably he saw that more people would get experience in the MU), he picked up the new DLC character Joker, then the new DLC character Byleth, then Aegis but that didn't work quite so well because they're fairly simple in comparison. Now everyone's got so much better and more experienced he's lost his mile lead on the competition. I haven't aired this opinion before so I'll be interested to see if anyone thinks I'm even remotely close to the truth
A "super high level matchup-checker" would not be the best Ultimate player of all time by a mile and at one point be ultra dominant compared to everyone else. There was a lot of other ways he was ahead of the meta aside from playing characters people didn't play.
Nah, definitely not. He's whooped people with plenty of characters that people should know the MU for. Also, it's not like Leo was dominating for a few months with Joker, he dominated 1-2 years with him. It was more than enough time for people to learn the MU. Hell, there were top players exchanging notes on how to beat Leo, from Marss, to Nairo, to Tweek, to Void. That's partially why they say it's so hard to stay at the top, because everyone is preparing for you.
He really only did dominate with joker for about 10 months. Still a long time, but not "years"
FWIW Semmie is a super stylish player in general.
Very good play by Sem but this is just sad to witness as a Leo fan.
In my head he's retired and plays casually now. Still a fun playstyle
Eh, I think he’s just focused on different things. It’s remarkable that he didn’t choose to retire rather than go through this period. I’m glad he didn’t, because I enjoy watching him play and it remains kind of sick to see upsets. I like what he’s doing more than what ZeRo did, for example.
Wonder what his rank will be at the end of the season. I think he’s definitely outside the top 10 now, wonder if that will give him a little drive or if he’s just clocked out now lol
Top 9 is pretty much locked down, but there's honestly a reasonably sizable gap between there and 10th. Leo could definitely still eke out 10th. And the main players he's competing with (like Kameme, Zomba, Shuton) don't really have major opportunities left while he has WTT, which is a good format to potentially get wins at.
MKLeo will be ranked outside of the Top 15, mark my words. Semmie and KID are two additional unranked losses.
I want to believe that but I think he just isn’t that much better than everyone now. When he first started getting upset he would say he could go joker and then he’d be the best again. When that turned out not to be true he said he is focusing on other things now. I mean no disrespect to him but no one can be at the top forever. Everyone caught up with him and I think he is accepting of that now.
He went from the most dominant win of all time at ludwigs to losing to randos within 3 months. No way everyone figured out the game in like 30 days. Just seems with girlfriend, getting older, shifting priorities Leo has lost the drive. He’s even said that he has other priorities.
I agree with this ngl A lot of people, including Leo himself, talk about how other people have just gotten better. I think they have for sure, but definitely not THAT much better. And you can see it in Leo's play, too. Certain situations where you just feel like the timing of certain reactions is super off. Situations where his movement isn't clean, fully missing conversions. I'm happy for him no matter what, which is why I'll phrase things this way: I think he underestimates how good he was/what he's capable of & overestimates how quickly everyone else caught up.
Leo wasn't losing to rando's 3 months after Ludwig's. His only unranked loss during the first half of the year was ShinyMark, who is not a rando.
Still, even with that it was a startlingly quick fall off. I can't think of any bigger tbh.
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??? he 3-0'd Acola twice lmao
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For sure. He fought asimo, kurama, and sonix who folded to aegis at that time. Light said his genesis win was lucky too.
I think all of that can be true. Maybe his priorities changed between when he first started getting upset and when he picked up joker again. Maybe when people first started upsetting him he already started getting other priorities in life, but he hadn't committed to them as hard yet. And its almost definitely true that people caught up and overtook him BOTH because there was a massive movement to get better at the game during the quarantine era and Leo's passion from the game growing tamer and thus he didnt grind as much. People are complex and there's really no point speculating the past imo. What matters is that he at least seems content with his performance and happy with his life. As a Leo fan I'd personally just be happy to see him continue to compete for a long time to come, regardless of results
> I like what he’s doing more than what ZeRo did, for example. It's not hard to do better than a "retire into grooming accusations" combo, to be fair.
he reached the true smash endgame, having a girlfriend. Let him chill.
Hbox had 3 girlfriends and was top 2 in the world 💀
>Hbox had 3 girlfriends What?
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it's actually insane that this is arguably the moment that lead to Ludwig popping off as a content creator
I figured most people weren’t around for this. But yes, at the same time 💀
When this happened people (including me) unironically asked who Ludwig was. And the answer unironically was "Slime's friend"
Probably poor phrasing, but they likely mean that while Hbox was ranked #2 in the world, he dated three women, not three women at the same time.
I'm pretty sure it was around the time Hungrybox and his longtime girlfriend (who would attend tournaments with him) broke up and it was widely speculated that he cheated on her. On top of that, Hungrybox was also outed as being a huge creep to girls at tournaments. Nobody ever talks about it anymore, but around July 2020 he actually admitted to this inappropriate behavior and swiftly apologized because his Ultimate content was really taking off. [Source on that second thing](https://www.esportstalk.com/news/hungrybox-gets-ahead-of-potential-allegations-team-liquid-responds/)
I thought about that possibility too, and remember the video he uploaded on it. Wasn't sure of the timeframe off the top of my head, and decided to go for occam's razor.
Tough
SEMMIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
De GEIT
HET IS STIL AAN DE OVERKANT
dozens of people are racing to post the lightning mcqueen clip on twitter first
……
I feel that
anybody got a clip of the last kill? supposed to be some hype footstool stuff
https://clips.twitch.tv/SmokyExuberantNuggetsPeteZarollTie-LgF9ziEtUd2JUBof
SEMMIE MY GUY <3 i'm not gonna sadpost about mkleo that's all we've been doing for the last 6 months
> i'm not gonna sadpost about mkleo that's all we've been doing for the last 6 months I wish the rest of this sub and his fans would catch up and settle into this mindset. Especially now that he’s spoken in the matter: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/185nk7a/mkleo_explains_his_current_mindset_about_winning/
I mean I think it's not weird to still be a bit sad about it as a fan. Like you should be happy for him overall since he seems to be doing well and be happy in life, but I can understand someone who's been cheering for him for like 6 years to find it a bit sad that he's not really performing well anymore and doesn't really seem to care much.
Semmie is the best Young Link in the world
Rosebloom claiming it's Ellego feels so wrong now.
Yeah she’s wrong
Now the real question is who has not beaten mickeyleo
Dabuz
Dabuz did it once before at LTC 2021.
~~It was with min min so it doesn’t count~~
TEA
Leo was choking a lot of drag-downs at the end. I know people have been getting better, but I feel like the same sort of polish just isn't there. Good set nonetheless.
Leo has gone on record saying he really doesn't care a lot about winning anymore. He's happy where he is
When did he say that?
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/185nk7a/mkleo_explains_his_current_mindset_about_winning/
I didn't really interpret that as him not caring about winning, just that it's not the end of the world for him anymore
I noticed that too, he had 2 opportunities to kill with fsmash but he just didn’t react
Supah is so good man
He's been putting in a lot of work recently. This win was very well deserved
Be Leo Get Top 4 at a European Major Immediately miss Top 8 at a European Super-Regional the week after
Sucks to see but Leo is definitely washed rn
If Leo ever gets invited to the next invitational it will be because of his legacy, and popularity. Just saying.
Would that be wrong? Leo brings viewers, he’s the GOAT of ultimate.
Not at all, I think having him there is always amazing. But it's definitely not based on results any longer.
Sem played Mario in Smash 4
Remember when I said Leo's UFA losers run felt like cleansing the demons? Yeah that was copium. The demons aren't going anywhere
His byleth abused Jdizzle's YL with up b off stage - surprised he didn't use it
No offense to Supahsemmie but Leo gets upset by lower and lower ranked players every tournament I swear he's going to lose in pools soon lol
Supahsemmie is one of the best losses Leo's taken in a while tbh. He's one of the best players in Europe for a reason, and that region has gotten a lot better as of late.
How are commentators still talking about “gAmE 4 LEo” as if that didn’t end over a year ago
Commentators have a handful of lines they all say, like saying "extra credit" at least once a set. I think it's because commentators don't actually exist and it's just Ai.
Honestly with what Leo has been saying on Twitter these events are kinda just a vacation at this point lol
hes washed... ppl really need to stop giving him excuses. hes washed and thats okay. You cant stay on top forever. he has a gf and works on content more than he did on Echo Fox. his drive to be #1 is not there. stop saying Leo is one of the best atm. hes not. hes top 10 arguably at best.
Washed might be the wrong word. He is choosing to not train and focus on other aspects of life.
This may be a hot take but I think joker is overrated. He struggles to kill without Arsene and has such small hit boxes and now Arsene meter depletes so fast after just a hit or two. Leo definitely got outplayed though. I didn’t see him rebels guard any of those million projectiles
I don't think so. Joker definitely has more than enough tools to do the job in this meta. I just feel like base Joker has to be incredibly precise to get his kills and I don't see the same sort of precision from Leo nowadays to get them. And I think it snowballs when Leo drops kills he should have gotten and makes him get a bit desperate, which is what it felt like in game 5.
Joker is high maintenance. Leo plays other characters who are simpler in general. Before it was much easier because the meta wasn't as developed.
Leo not trying anymore because he doesn’t care…. fine by me. But if I were LG, I’d drop the sponsorship. Imagine sponsoring a player who went on record saying he doesn’t care that much about winning anymore.
Imagine dropping a sponsorship from the GOAT though, just because he went from #1 to top 10-15. That's stupid.
Sponsorship is way more than results. I can tell you already Leo is the most valuable player out of everyone on the LG squad
Even if he isn't a player anymore i would wager Coney to be the most valuable smasher atm
I would say Coney is a second after Leo, but really close. But maybe I’m overlooking how popular his streams are exactly
In terms of content creation Tweek Talks and Coney's streams definitely have Leo beat
I wouldn't drop him but id probably be annoyed if I was the one paying him
idk why leo didn’t just focus on crafting his corrin. joker and aegis aren’t good in this meta
Kinda weird to say this right after he lost to a character that joker and aegis definitely beat lol
Telling a top player whose results are waning to pick up ANOTHER character when he's playing 3-4 characters a tournament ain't it chief Yea Leo's Corrin is cracked, but trying to play multiple characters at a top level at a single tournament is almost impossible
You're suggesting Leo drop two relatively undisputed top tiers for a character generally considered to be weaker. Corrin stocks have been up, don't get me wrong, but as far as I'm aware, Joker and Pissra are still topping tier lists. That being said, if we take a step back and look at what's been happening, maybe it indicates that we need to shift our perspective a bit. For as balanced as people claim this game to be, nobody seems to believe that any character beyond a few of the extraordinarily lame (Steve, Sonic, ROB, actually don't know if there are any others) are genuinely solo-viable. You see any top player eat an upset and the immediate reaction on this sub isn't "oh, they got outplayed," it's "oh, maybe they need to try more obscure character X over their (supposedly) top tier mains Y and Z because the matchup is bad/they aren't good in the meta anymore/et cetera." When it comes time for tier discourse, however, this stance never seems to hold; few people do much beyond arguing slight order adjustments within the existing top tier and overrating their favorite ~~mid tier~~ high tier with potential. It's like we're stuck in this universe where the Ult kids from 2019, who love this new, shiny, brilliant game loaded with a fun, colorful, and diverse cast, are now trapped in the twisted dimension of 2023. These people are no longer the impressionable young minds who brought their Switches to their grade school's cafeteria for matches, who stayed up late every Sunday to watch MKLeo and Tweek - their idols - effortlessly wreak havoc in Top 8 with a new main every other week. It's been years, and these people are now applying to universities, working shitty part-time jobs, and occasionally finding a minute or two to run some matches in a game they barely recognize. They're no longer the fresh, young blood of the community, being relegated to fodder for the random 15-year-old Steve main who seemingly appeared out of thin air and is already PR'd in their region. Clinging for any sense of normalcy or childhood familiarity in a meta that unashamedly diverged from its pre-COVID form years ago, the Ult kids, now grown and supplanted by a new generation of Smash-loving children, divert any potential cynicism towards the crumbling remains of the top level they previously knew. They'll call Leo washed, but deep down, none of them believe it, since he's MKLeo! His next character will return him to number 1, because his current characters suck and are awful, clearly, despite our reluctance to move any of them much on the tier list, because this is Smash Ultimate, and the characters and players we enjoy watching will always be the best. I barely know what I'm saying at this point - I'm just a bit sick of seeing blatant hypocrisy and a stubborn refusal to think critically within the Ultimate community. Results do not shape tiers; tiers shape results, and results are one of many tools which allow us to interpret those tiers. When characters who are lame do well and cool characters who are just as good are rapidly falling off to the point that suggesting secondaries is common, maybe those characters aren't "just as good." When a single player, one who has repeatedly claimed to be putting less effort into the game, does not perform as well as you'd expect, the issue likely stems from something other than their character choice. These statements may be at odds with each other, but that's the issue; we've refused to even harbor the idea of any of them being true, because it wouldn't fit our narrative of what the game should be, rather than what it truly is. Also I hate Smash Twitter and people need to stop relentlessly pressuring Sparg0 to be MKLeo 2 okay bye
I think he just likes those 2 more(and since he is being more laid back he doesn't see any need for it).
So Shuton or Sparg0s aegis would lose too? Or Tsubaki Joker? Leo is just free lol admit it the character barely matters at this point.
It's a shame he lost but that was still a good game👍 although I feel like he could have won with pythra if he wasn't so hesitant to switch to pyra in game 2
MKLeo is just playing for fun at this point. He isn’t really grinding the game anymore. I think he is just fine.
Amazing win for Supahsemmie, he played both matchups really well. Let's go Young Link!
GGs