With Super Smash Bros Ultimate having been out for some time now, the top-player strategies and metas forming, a big inaugural appearance at EVO 2019 coming up, and DLC characters like Joker from Persona 5 making the scene, the future looks bright for Smash. Shareable creative modes have added new life to the game and while it all may not be perfect, there’s a lot to like. That said, The pro-scene of Smash can be a fickle bunch. It's arguably deserved, but the bar of expectation for the higher level end of the Smash community has always been difficult to touch. With that in mind, we caught up to Echo Fox’s Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman to talk about his views of Smash Ultimate, it’s place at E3, his feelings on the roster, and the current competitive scene. Perhaps surprisingly, the God of Melee had a lot of positive views to share on the game and his expectation of its future.

The EVO Question: Ultimate’s Dominance & Melee’s Absence

One of the ongoing stories as we approach EVO 2019 is Smash Bros Ultimate’s spot as the #1 registered spot in the line up of games right for awhile now. EVO head honcho Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar has posted the ongoing registration ranks a few times already and each time Ultimate has sat at the top of the registrations despite the hard feelings from many over Smash Bros Melee being dropped from the mainstage games. Mew2King always believed that would be the case.

Evo 2019 Reg Scoreboard May Edition!

1st - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

2nd - Tekken 7

3rd - Street Fighter V

4th - Under Night In Birth

5th - Samurai Shodown

6th - Mortal Kombat 11

7th - Dragonball FighterZ

8th - Soul Calibur 6

9th - Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle#Evo2019 — Joey Cuellar (@MrWiz) May 1, 2019

“I’m exactly zero percent surprised that Ultimate is leading the registrations,” M2K explained. “Smash has always been a huge game that anybody can play. If you’ve ever played a Zelda game or Mario game or just any game… If you’ve played video games, you’ve probably played at least one of the Nintendo games and you’re probably like ‘I should buy Smash,’ or ‘I’m interested because of that,’ and that alone makes the franchise so big, because of all of the brand names. It’s also just a really good game in addition to that and it can appeal to various audiences kids, children, and teenagers to adults. So because it appeals to so many different audiences, with all the different characters, it’s no surprise it’s very popular.”

Moreover, despite the hard feelings over Melee being dropped from the spotlight, Mew2King claims it was bound to happen eventually, more out of the fact that Nintendo’s mood on their new games has always been pretty clear.

“I figured it was just a matter of time since Nintendo’s always trying to push for the new game. It makes logical sense from a business perspective and it was eventually going to happen.”

The Smash Ultimate Roster: The Good, The Bad, & The Wanted

When it comes to the current Smash Ultimate roster, there’s a lot to like and dislike, but it caters to a ton of different playstyles. For M2K’s tastes, there are a few standouts when it comes to who he enjoys playing the most, though he wishes some of them were better.

“I like playing Incineroar, Jigglypuff, and Bowser,” Zimmerman offered. “But among those, I think Bowser’s an average character where Incineroar and Puff are very underwhelming and need significant buffs to be able to compete in my personal opinion. I really enjoy all three of those characters, but I really think two of the three are held back in terms of top-tier potential as the meta progresses. I can tell they have limitations on how good they can be in the long run. I hope they buffs so at top-level meta, they can actually flourish.”

Incineroar is one of the more enjoyable newcomers to make the Smash scene according to M2K, but his limitations leave something to be desired currently.

Despite his disappointment with two of his three favorites, Mew2King still finds the roster to be mostly worthwhile. That said, despite his three favorites, there’s a particular style he finds enjoyable and still wants to see more of.

“A lot of people complain about the sword fighters. I actually like them,” Mew2King admitted. “Historically, in every Smash game I played, I was always using a top-tier sword fighter. I’m naturally drawn to those types of characters, although I may not be limited to that type. I like fast, agile characters, combo-based characters, and characters with good, disjointed hitboxes, which sword fighters often have. I like characters that edge guard as well.”

M2K further explained that though there was a time when he thought the story or lore of a character mattered, he’s come around to simply wanting fun and competitive characters to play regardless of their background.

“When you talk about lore of the character, in the past I used to care about that more, but as I’ve gotten older, I care more about if I enjoy playing them throughout the game, like in competitive matches. Your favorite character may not be the your favorite character to play in the game.”

Zimmerman would go on to bring up a couple examples, regarding the newer characters to come to the Smash Ultimate roster.

Having been playing through Persona 5 already, Mew2King had been interested in Joker's inclusion to the Ultiamte roster for awhile.

“Ryu, I don’t care about him, but Joker? He seems pretty cool. I’m actually currently playing Persona 5 and have gotten (at the time of interview) about 30 hours in. It’s a super fun game.”

The Best & The Overlooked of Smash Ultimate

When it came to his fellow players, Zimmerman had some interesting thoughts on who’s pulling their weight in the competitive scene. For the most underrated player of the top-level, M2K gave praise to Saleem “Salem” Young. Despite the player’s often controversial opinions of Melee and its community, Mew2King still believes Salem is far better at Ultimate than people give him credit for.

“He’s way, way better than people think,” Mew2King explained. “and super amazing with every single character in the entire cast. Hands down the most underrated player in Smash Ultimate.”

As for the actual best of the best in Smash Ultimate right now? For that matter, Zimmerman had a lot of love to share for his fellow Echo Fox player, Leonardo “MKLeo” Perez.

“[MKLeo] is clearly the best and there’s a little gap after him,” M2K went on to say. “Most people probably think Tweek is at Number 2, but Leo is way more consistent.”

For Zimmerman, his impressions MKLeo’s level of play began back in 2015.

“I actually met Leo at a Smash tournament in Mexico,” Mew2King recalled. “We were playing early Smash 4 and I could see he was good - very young, very skilled, and nice. He beat Ramin 'Mr. R' Delshad at that tournament and I happened to be streaming the tournament on my Twitch channel and a lot of people learned who he was from that moment. And then one year later, he was traveling more and I was like, ‘let’s get him on [Most Valuable Gaming] and Echo Fox.’ I told them he was definitely going to be super top level. Even though he got 13th at that tournament, I still believe he is the best or one of the best in the world and I knew we needed to get him asap.”

MKLeo has been making waves since Smash 4, and his skill hasn't dulled with Smash Ultimate. Mew2King doesn't see him trailing off any time soon. [Image via EVO]

Indeed, Leo has already achieved several high-profile first-place finishes in 2019 for Smash Ultimate, including GENESIS 6, Heart of Battle, and the Smash Ultimate Summit. The player seems primed to continue to impress throughout the year as Smash Ultimate’s competitive scene continues to evolve and grow, but how does one separate skill like Leo’s from other good Smash players? What makes Zimmerman so confident in players like Leo and Salem? To that end, Mew2King claims it’s like an artist observing the work of their colleagues in a way.

“When you’re a top-level Smasher, you can see what people are doing, think about many given outcomes for a given situation, and tell if someone’s [playing] smart or not,” Mew2King described. “Not only in terms of fighting against them and seeing how hard they are to beat or not, you can also just watch them and think about what they’re doing, how smart you think they are, the choices they’re making, and why they could be doing it. I theorycraft a lot about playing Smash in my head and whatnot. If an artist looks at art, they can probably tell if it’s good art in ways that differ from people who aren’t actual artists. I have more than 10 years of experience doing this, so for me, it’s natural, immediate, and super easy to tell.”

The Staying Power of Smash Ultimate

Smash Bros Melee is a bar against which all Smash Bros games must be stacked. Can Ultimate achieve that level of love and dedication? M2K doesn't believe the answer is simple.

One of the biggest debates people always have when it comes to Smash games is whether or not any title will ever be as beloved as Melee or whether its player base will ever be as dedicated. Super Smash Bros Wii U/3DS was hindered by the issues of the system’s lackluster success. For the time being, the Nintendo Switch and, by extension, Smash Ultimate don’t have that issue, so can Ultimate capture the same love and dedication in its community that Melee did?

For Zimmerman, it’s a bit of a complex answer - Apples to oranges if you will.

“The main reason I believe Ultimate will stay relevant is because everyone has a Switch,” M2K explained. “Everyone’s been playing it and the sales of the game were amazing, so when your game is that popular, it’s guaranteed to be huge. Melee flourishes because the game mechanics reward a lot of high-level play in tournaments. It’s really engaging for a top-level mastery of the game whereas Ultimate is just a very popular game.”

Indeed, that popularity of the Switch is could be argued to be the largest contributing factor to Smash Ultimate’s success, but could the game’s flame fizzle out? Mew2King doesn’t think so.

“It’s not going anywhere anytime soon. It will always be relevant,” Zimmerman claimed.

Bold words which remain to be seen, but again, with so much competitive steam behind it, not to mention DLC characters like Joker continuing to make the scene, patches shaking the meta, and creative modes allowing players to make and share unique levels and Mii characters, it may be more than difficult to prove Mew2King wrong.

Want to see more? You can check out the entire interview in the video below.