SSBMRank 2023: The Top Ten
Melee Stats is proud to present SSBMRank 2023! Since Melee It On Me started SSBMRank in 2013, the Smash community has kicked off the year by celebrating and recognizing some of the greatest talents in the game. This year’s rankings reflect the grit and perseverance that our competitors have embodied over the last twelve months, and we hope you’ll join us in honoring those players and moments that have made 2023 such an incredible year.
We polled 29 community figures to rate each ballot-eligible player based on their performances throughout 2023. These panelists span a wide range: top players, tournament organizers, writers, analysts, and more. Each panelist rated each player with a value between 1 and 120, and then each player’s rating was aggregated to a single value based on their distribution of votes.
Before we begin to count down the ten best players of 2023, we first must honor a player who made their mark on the year, but was ultimately excluded due to panelist abstention.
Honorable Mention: Leffen
After starting the year with top eights at Genesis 9 and Battle of BC 5, William “Leffen” Hjelte would go onto have one of the most memorable tournament wins of his career at LACS 5. Far from past days of bulldozing the opposition at previous majors, this one involved Leffen gritting out nailbiter sets over Cody Schwab and Zain. It’s only fitting that a player whose rise to prominence came through disrupting the top level of the game could continue to do so against the two leading titans of modern Melee.
While this was the last Melee major he’d compete in all year, by no means was it his defining accomplishment. In the same summer, Leffen would stun the world with an even bigger achivement: winning EVO 2023 in Guilty Gear -Strive- and becoming the only person to ever win EVO titles for a Smash game and a more traditional fighting game. Combined with an invitation to compete at the Teamfight Tactics Vegas Open, 2023 was the single most successful year of his career. Even still, Leffen made time to show up in December for an undercard Melee show match against moky at The Match, dominantly winning it, 5–1. 2023 has shown that Leffen can spread his wings in other games just as well as he does within Melee — perhaps that’s what makes all of his appearances within our community so memorable.
-Anokh “EdwinBudding” Palakurthi
#10: Aklo | Rating: 92.88
After debuting on the Top 100 at #16 in 2022, Dawud “Aklo” Rahman had lofty expectations for his 2023 season. But if anything, he’s exceeded them. He kicked off the year with a regional win over Cody Schwab at Redemption Rumble — but that was just the beginning. Aklo’s proudest moment came months later at Shine 2023, when he defeated Jmook and aMSa in a bracket run that he said felt “unreal” in the moment.
If you asked Aklo about the secret to his rise, he’d bring up his family. This isn’t a metaphor for Aklo supporting locals — it’s a reference to his actual brothers. To this day, he still reps the Brotherhood: a clan of himself and his three siblings, each of whom were and are strong Smash players. One of them in particular, Foxy Grandpa, helped Aklo become far more consistent, active, and handle tourney nerves better than ever before. In 2024, he will look to push himself further into the ranks of the elite by showing that the past year was no fluke. “Now, I have to face the fact that these wins are not unreal,” Aklo said. “I can and will do this again.”
-Alex “Quality Steve” Lee
#9: Wizzrobe | Rating: 93.43
Everybody who pays attention to Smash knows who Justin “Wizzrobe” Hallett is: a Smash prodigy with success at pretty much anything he puts his mind to. But for a long time after the pandemic, that seemed to change. From the start of 2022 to the middle of 2023, Wizzrobe’s career took a sudden turn. He wasn’t attending much, was rusty at whatever he attended, and he dealt with persisting health issues. There was genuine concern that the greatest Captain Falcon of all-time might never have the same success he once had.
However, since his return to competing, the world has seen the epic comeback of the ruthlessly efficient and stunningly unkillable Falcon we fell in love with many years ago. Of note, his CEO 2023 and Riptide 2023 performances came with sets over nearly every top player he faced. The Falcon-slayer Jmook? Gone. Hungrybox? Get out of here. moky? Defeated. Even Wizzrobe’s long-time personal demon, Plup, was not invincible, as Wizzrobe stole a set from him at Riptide 2023, coming one game short of doing it again. It seems like Wizzrobe is back in action, fully capable of beating anybody he sees.
-Melissa Blight
#8: Mang0 | Rating: 94.44
By most measures, Joseph “Mang0” Marquez had a successful 2023. While he fell short of winning a major and admittedly forced the world to watch his Dr. Mario take on Hungrybox’s Jigglypuff, Mang0 still made top eight at each of his last five majors. In these performances, he took a set from Cody Schwab, defeated aMSa, and beat moky three times. Even a not-fully-dialed-in Mang0 remains a top level threat and someone you can never count out.
Beyond the storyline of Mang0’s results, there’s been a gradual transformation in his relationship with Melee. Both on his stream, as well as his new podcast On a Tuesday, Mang0 has lately shared a more vulnerable side, particularly when it comes to expressing his uncertainty about his professional future. Don’t worry though — the “old Mang0” is still there; still the same guy who loves making fun of Hungrybox and playing Melee when he’s not coming up with beer tier lists. The community will always treasure more time with its most iconic player, one whose personal evolution has been undeniably captivating.
-Anokh “EdwinBudding” Palakurthi
#7: Hungrybox | Rating: 94.96
Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma eclipses the concept of tournament results. His “HGod” moniker is more than a title — it’s a crown of glory affirming his status as the undisputed content king of Smash. But every now and then, his competitive successes remind us why his name is forever engraved in the gilded pantheon of the Five Gods. Consider, for instance, the return of Clutchbox in a second place run at Super Smash Con 2023. Channeling the spirit of his legendary performance at Mandalay Bay all those years ago, Hungrybox decimated multiple of his fiercest rivals in a row: Mang0, moky, and even longtime nemesis Cody Schwab.
We’re now approaching ten years since Hungrybox missed a major top eight. Though his focus lies in content creation, the Jigglypuff juggernaut has remained an unwavering bastion of consistency, a mythical figure destined to make top eights at every major until the end of time. From the remnants of the Era of Five Gods blossoms a new age of Juantent where the very fabric of the Smash community has become forever intertwined with Hungrybox’s presence. This is his world, and we’re all living in it. Welcome to the HFam.
-Justin “DarkGenex” Cohen
#6: aMSa | Rating: 95.60
This was the year that Masaya “aMSa” Chikamoto lived in North America — and what a year it was. From his temporary home base in Vancouver, the Japanese Yoshi main made it out to more Western tournaments than ever before, attending a total of 19 majors and regionals across Europe and North America in 2023. All told, aMSa attended a total of 36 events over the past two years, more than the entire four-year period between 2018 and 2021.
In 2023, aMSa remained a dangerous threat to the elite of the elite, being one of few players to have an even record against Zain, as well having defeated Jmook a whopping three times at SSBMRank-qualifying events. Now aMSa is back in Japan, but he’s armed with newfound knowledge and experience forged in the fires of the North American scene. He isn’t really going anywhere; we can expect more exciting gameplay and potentially a major victory from him in 2024.
-Alex “Quality Steve” Lee
#5: Plup | Rating: 96.68
For a small portion of this year, it seemed like the Smash community was split into two universes: the first one being where normal majors happened without Justin “Plup” McGrath, and the second being the bizarro realm in which he destroyed everyone he played. It was incredible to see him routinely beat down the likes of aMSa and Wizzrobe, while winning sets over Hungrybox and Mang0. Furthermore, these results came with zero upsets to players outside the Top 10. With incredible consistency and two tournament victories in CEO 2023 and Riptide 2023, Plup fully returned to Melee’s top five — his highest rank on an annual Top 100 since 2018.
Keeping this in mind, Plup doesn’t actually exist in a bizarro realm. He exists in the real universe, and here, Plup has actually suffered quite a bit of heartbreak at the hands of his former teammate Cody Schwab. The two played five sets in 2023, and all five times, Cody came away with the victory, with the last two spoiling Plup’s otherwise magnificent run at The Big House 11. However, if Plup can snap the streak in 2024, there’ll be practically no one left to stop him.
-Anokh “EdwinBudding” Palakurthi
#4: moky | Rating: 97.73
Ever since five years ago, when Kurtis “moky” Pratt defeated Plup and Leffen, moky has been the Next Big Thing. And yet never could anyone have predicted just how special moky would turn out to become. With his flashy play and status as a fan favorite, moky began his year with an astonishing third place finish at Genesis 9. However, rather than being the peak of his year, it was a stepping stone for consistent major performances, ones which came with sets over Hungrybox, Cody Schwab, Plup, and, most notably, aMSa, whom he beat seven times throughout the year. It was no wonder that moky ends 2023 at a career high #4 spot on SSBMRank.
It’s truly awe-inspiring how far moky has come. It seems inevitable that he will not only win a major, but potentially do so multiple times. If he can pull it off, moky could possibly become the best player in the world and further cement himself as a giant of Melee’s new generation.
-Melissa Blight
#3: Jmook | Rating: 98.54
Watching Jake “Jmook” DiRado over the past two years has a strange way of lulling you into forgetting that what he’s doing shouldn’t be humanly possible. We’ve never seen anyone beat top-level Fox players this consistently with Sheik, let alone the vicious Jigglypuffs or pesky Ice Climbers players. A solo Sheik main can’t win a supermajor, let alone claim their first two in quick succession with historic triumphs at Genesis 9 and Collision 2023. Nobody can be this sharp on the sticks or this affable off them; there has to be a catch.
Is it that he dodges friendlies? Nope; our top players constantly spar in twelve-hour ultra-marathon sessions. Not only is Jmook defeating Zain and Cody Schwab, he’s aggressively seeking them out to grind matches. When Jmook falls in an upset, or when his controller’s wiring shatters under the weight of the unthinkable feats he does time and time again, it doesn’t feel real. It instead feels like the laws of the universe are briefly reasserting themselves — at least before Jmook takes a deep breath, draws himself up in his chair, and continues to rewrite the fabric of Melee reality.
-Jacob “chroma” Robins
#2: Zain | Rating: 99.31
When the door closed on 2022, Zain Naghmi was finally crowned Melee’s #1, marking the start of a new era in Melee. Yet as quickly as this story came to an end, an arguably greater one quickly emerged to take its place. Though 2023 began with electrifying starts from Jmook and Cody Schwab, Zain would suddenly win not one, not two, not three, but four majors. He wasn’t just back in the race; he had locked it in. At least, that’s what everyone thought before Cody won Shine 2023 and The Big House 11.
Tied in major victories, Zain and his greatest rival agreed to an unprecedented first-to-10 that determined the top spot on SSBMRank 2023. They would arrive at The Match, plugging in their controllers one final time and leaving the world waiting to see who would emerge victorious. History will never forget that, in the end, this was a story that Zain co-authored: a grand finale to the closest race for #1 ever. But as colossal as it felt in the moment, this was ultimately just one story. Like before, the doors of 2023 have closed, and the doors of 2024 have opened, with Zain ready to write yet another chapter of his legacy.
-Glenn “KayB” Kim
#1: Cody Schwab | Rating: 100.00
After a year of withstanding personal turmoil and broken promises, Cody Schwab was four games away from seeing his efforts vanish into thin air. Zain had just four-stocked him to tie The Match at 6–6. This was no mere set; the controversial first-to-ten would determine #1. Cody’s Arcamelee 4 victory, Santa Paws victory, and his multiple majors were about to be for naught. However, if Cody’s year showed anything, it was familiarity with having his back to the wall. Just like how he won Major Upset in a game-five grand finals, came through loser’s to win Battle of BC 5 , held off a red hot Zain at Shine 2023, and capped off all-time great loser’s run to win The Big House 11, Cody would recollect himself one more time at The Match, taking four of the next five games to seal the deal.
To this day, Cody inexplicably remains unsponsored. But amid the uncertain future of competitive Melee and the dying embers of esports’ glory days, Cody’s success still proves that anyone can achieve their dreams if they put in the work. Through sheer determination, the biggest free agent in the world has earned himself Melee’s most legendary title: best player in the world.
-Anokh “EdwinBudding” Palakurthi
The SSBMRank 2023 Team
Director: Brendan “GimmeDatWheat” Malone
Editing Lead: Anokh “EdwinBudding” Palakurthi
Data Lead: Eryk “Ambisinister” Banatt
Graphics Lead: Nick “DarkDragoon” Konstantino
Check out start.gg/SSBMRank to follow along with the full list as it releases, https://youtu.be/RRjRdrX0iFU for our video covering the Top 10.
