Wobbles is a great commentator © [unknown]

Within Melee, the Ice Climbers are simultaneously the most unique, and the most divisive, character in the game. This is for a variety of reasons. For starters, the player controls two characters. Because of this, the Ice Climbers have some of the most devastating setups in the game, including chain-grabs, desyncs, and infinites. At the same time, their strength is also their weakness: when the Popo and Nana (the two Ice Climbers) are separated or put into a bad spot, they’re easily defeated. To play Ice Climbers requires heavy devotion to the character – because they have so many unique tricks and techniques, playing them like a more traditional character will inevitably end in failure. A top Ice Climbers player makes the duo look like the best in the game; an unexperienced player can make them look like the worst.

In that sense, Wobbles embodies the Ice Climbers. On any given day, Wobbles can be the most devastating player at a tournament, throwing out unbelievable combos, or off his game and in loser’s bracket surprisingly early. Some days he’s the happiest guy in the room, and others he’s quitting his matches with two stocks to go out of disgust. But on those good days, well… whoever he faces had better watch out.

Wobbles the Amateur

Wobbles has been around Melee for a very long time, but he didn’t start out as a strong player – in fact, quite the opposite. “I started playing Melee competitively in July 2004, but at the time I played several different characters,” Wobbles told me. “Link was my ‘main,’ but I also played Samus, Mario, Doctor Mario, Captain Falcon, Falco, and Fox. I just liked tinkering with all the characters and couldn't settle on a particular one.” Not only did he not start off playing the Ice Climbers, he didn’t start out with much success, either. “I got started in Melee at a time when Dallas had a developed region, and I was somewhere in the low end. I had a bit of luck in the sense that other players were also new, so I didn't automatically sit at the bottom of the heap, but I didn’t win, or even do that well, in a Dallas tournament for years.”

What’s more, Wobbles didn’t even pick up the Ice Climbers of his own accord. “I learned a bit about the Ice Climbers because we had an IC player in the region but also because my friend was interested in them; since he didn't have a Smashboards account nor did he own a Gamecube, I had to pick up the slack and learn them so I could teach him things about them,” he admitted to me. “I kept the ICs in my back pocket for some time. I didn't really explore the idea of using them until 2006, when I noticed that I seemed to win with them more than any other character I played. Other characters slowly faded from my tournament arsenal after that; I'd occasionally try a different one as a counterpick or for 2v2, but ultimately I developed ICs the most.” When he moved to Arizona for school, he found slightly more success than he had in the past, but it still took him some time to realize his full potential.

Wobbles at Evo 2013, taking second place © [unknown]

Wobbles the Contender

Even as Wobbles continued to improve, his character’s uniqueness kept the masses from accepting him as a truly talented player. Even in the late 2000s, several years into Melee’s lifespan, the Ice Climbers were chronically misunderstood, meaning the general public couldn’t decide whether to crown Wobbles king, or label him as a fraud. “Most people have an inaccurate perception of my skill level. Some people think I'm horribly overrated and trash, and some people think I'm top 6 material, and both of those are probably untrue. In the past, [Ice Climbers] didn't have a large pool of players. Nobody felt the need to research the Ice Climbers as a salient threat, and that meant that even a very modest pool of tricks was strange and impressive. I still get explosive reactions for tricks that are ten years old,” he chuckled. “Once I first cracked top ten of a California tournament back in 2006 and gained notoriety for using an infinite is when I first established I was a threatening player. After that I won Evo South in 2007, got top 10 at Evo East that same year, and started consistently getting high placings. But since many of my big victories featured Wobbling, most people kind of discredited them and forgot about them.”

Wobbling, for those that aren’t aware, is the technique of grabbing an opponent and locking them in that grab by alternating Popo’s grab attack with Nana’s f-tilt. It results in an inescapable grab, meaning that any time the Ice Climbers get a grab, there is the potential for a kill. Even now, most Ice Climbers techniques are difficult to understand, much less react to, for anyone other than experts of the character. Desyncs play a huge part in that. “The short version is this,” Wobbles explained to me. “You can think of Nana as either ‘synced’ and ‘de-synced.’ When synced, she inputs whatever you do, except 6 frames later. When de-synced, she doesn't.” Using what’s called soft desyncs, Ice Climbers players can effectively have both Nana and Popo doing different things at the same time, while still being under control of the player. It’s insanity, it’s fun to watch, and it’s what Wobbles specializes in. Don’t take our word for it though: the video below will show you all you need to know. He’s doing things so unbelievable that even his opponents are smiling about it.

Wobbles The Jerk

The other issue that kept Wobbles from achieving the recognition he deserved came down to one simple thing: in the eyes of his opponents, he was a jerk, plain and simple. Like many players, Wobbles has struggled to keep his emotions in check during matches, and he knows it. “On a personal level, I expected a lot of myself in every situation. So that applied to school, to other games, to social situations, you name it. I didn't just have a goal to be the best, I expected that it would happen, and every failure and error hurt tremendously.” A couple of bad stocks could incite fits of rage that stopped matches early and saw controllers hurtled at the floor.

Arizona, his home at the time, was known for anger. But Wobbles took the cake. “Making mistakes and losing made me feel pretty worthless, and I reacted very strongly to that feeling. I just couldn't have a reasonable response to it. I think that these kinds of feelings aren't surprising among competitive people, and they can provide a lot of motivation and drive, but mine were out of control.”

Interestingly, his emotions are one of the reasons he’s begun to Wobble less. “I function best when I am having fun with no nerves whatsoever, and if I commit to wobbling beforehand, I end up focusing heavily on winning, which introduces stress and nerves, which hurts my focus and execution.” While Wobbles has improved his temperament significantly since those days, he knows that it’s still a work in progress. “A lot of people had to deal with me over those years; I'm generally more relaxed nowadays but old patterns of thought and emotion don't go away very easily, and if I'm not watching carefully they tend to creep back in rather quickly.”

Wobbles, in The Smash Brothers Documentary © East Point Pictures

Wobbles The Phoenix

Wobbles currently enjoys a semi-retired status. He plays in local tournaments and will occasionally travel to majors (such as Apex 2015 , where he placed in the top 33), but he doesn’t take the game as seriously as he once did. This unique position has given him two things – peace of mind, and perspective. He believes that “any situation can be used to learn about yourself and improve yourself. I like competitive gaming because handling stress and pressure is a key life-skill that honing it, in whatever form you can, is important,” and loves Melee for helping him win against the pressures in his life. But like many of the old heads of the scene, he hopes that the game’s soul will remain intact throughout its modern renaissance.

“My main qualm about Melee's growth is that it's actually a rather personal game; without a real online scene for it, people have to meet each other and connect. I also worry that people might get too obsessed about the eSports and winning element and forget the simple joy and fun of playing the game. I know this can happen because it happens to me all the time.”

While many may not expect it from his past temper, Wobbles can be a bit of a romantic when it comes to Melee. His quote to end The Smash Brothers documentary sums up what the game means to him - it’s an outlet to be creative, to meet new people, to make new experiences. The tournament scene may be stronger than ever, but Wobbles wants people to remember to have fun along the way. It is a game, after all.