It’s not every day that you get a collection of some of the best players from across gaming together in one location, but EVO 2018 is certainly the place to go if you’re hoping to catch the top names in the FGC. We managed to sit down with Adam “Armada” Lindgren between his busy schedule and talk about his thoughts on the tournament, the direction that the Smash Bros. franchise is going in, and what he would say to game director Masahiro Sakurai, given the chance.

The top seeds in most of the tournaments play 8am pools on Friday morning, which, sure, the strategy there is give them rest until the top 32’s on Saturday, but would you rather maybe have a later pool on Saturday, so you can just ride the wave of momentum into top 32?

“First round of Pools is normally fairly easy for top Melee players, the game is very old and a lot of players have played the game for a decade or more, or at least close to that, so I don’t care too much about it, I’m not really a morning person though, so noon would have been preferred, but you have to take what you can get.”

Now, you are included in that, you’ve been playing Melee for almost a decade, you’re coming off of an EVO 2017 win, but a full year of 2017 that might not have gone the way you would have liked it to. What is your focus coming into this year, you’ve already done pools, so you’ve got top 32 to look forward to, what is your mindset going into tomorrow’s tournament?

“I try to take each match as it comes, but that’s true, late 2017 didn’t go quite the way I wanted, but you know, that just means I need to work harder and smarter.”

The rivalry between Armada and Mang0 has been going on for years.

You also have the Twin Galaxies Fight Club with Mang0, how does that feel, going straight from one thing to the other, have you ever done events back to back? Does it feel different, do you carry a different mindset for each one, or do you just play the same?

“I think playing wise it will be practically the same, but I’ve never really been a part of exhibitions and stuff like that, I think it’s very cool and fun idea of Twin Galaxies, and I think people will especially appreciate the rivalry between me and Mang0. I think it’s a very good match for the very first Twin Galaxies fighting event, but playstyle wise and all that, it’s probably going to be incredibly similar to a normal tournament.”

Are there any things that you might do in the Exhibition, things that you know are not going to come back to haunt you, goofy things let’s say, like picking a character you wouldn’t normally pick because it’s an Exhibition?

“I think most people would like to see a classic set between me and Mang0, so I’ll play Peach as I always play against him, and I’ll take it very seriously, and I’m pretty sure he will do the same. The fans always love it when we do play, so I think that’s what we want to give them, and I think that’s also what they want to get from us.”

Obviously Smash Bros. Ultimate is coming out, we’re getting all of the characters back into the game, although there are going to be a lot of changes to a lot of different characters as the game comes out. What’s your interest level in going into Smash Ultimate?

“I’ll try to stream the game and YouTube the game a lot when it comes out, I did get to test it at Nintendo’s invitational, and it was pretty fun, but I still feel that Ultimate is much more in the path of Brawl and Smash 4, rather than Melee. Melee is a very unique game for many different reasons, it’s really fast paced, the combo game, the off-stage game, and all of these traits are very Melee unique compared to Brawl and Smash 4, and even though Ultimate is a step in the right direction, if they really want to get the Melee players to move to Ultimate, they will have to take many more steps. But I’ll still stream it and YouTube it, enter tournaments early on, and if I do like it then I will continue, but I see it as pretty unlikely that I will continue it past 3 or 4 months.”

Armada has been considered one of the top, if not the best, Melee players for some time now.

As a follow-up, do you feel like the direction that Smash has been going is the right direction, or do you feel like you would like it to return to the Melee style?

“Personally, as a Melee player I think they’re going in the wrong direction, but it’s more like preference, right? It’s not technically right or wrong, it’s more like what makes a Melee player play Melee is a lot of the unique traits of Melee, and Brawl and Smash 4 were actively going away from that. So, that’s why a lot of Melee players stick to Melee, because we don’t have a game that is similar to Melee at all.”

“If a true sequel to Melee came out I think a lot of people would be very interested, but Sakurai has on countless occasions made it very clear that he does not want to make a game even remotely close to Melee. He has the idea that casuals can’t really enjoy Melee because it’s too fast and too technical, but as someone that grew up playing Melee as a casual for three years before I even knew what Wave-Dash or L-Cancel or anything like that was, I think that’s just simply not true.”

[Sakurai] has gone on record even with this game, that he wants to try and find that balance between Melee and the Brawl / Smash 4 style that you just brought up, but he also has said that he’s not trying to cater to just professional players. What would you say to him, if you had the chance to sit down with Sakurai and say, “Look dude, here’s my opinion”, what would that be?

“I would probably try to explain what I just told about a lot of Melee professionals these days, they all started out as casual gamers. Not only with Smash Bros. but casual gamers overall, casual gamers as Smash’ers, I personally feel like he has the wrong idea, that Melee can’t be a casual game. If you look at the records, Melee was the most sold game for the GameCube, and out of these 7 / 8 millions of copies, however many were sold, only a fraction of that were tournament people, so I feel that that proves enough that the game was perfect for casuals as well. So, probably somewhere in that area, I would try to pinpoint that, I’m pretty sure he would not agree with me though.”

Do you feel that the future of Smash Bros. as a series, old games and new, continues to be bright, continues to be a draw for tournaments, building a scene for tournaments and players everywhere?

“Yeah, I think so. I feel like Smash Bros. future is kind of going to be similar to what we saw with Melee and Smash 4, where you have Melee players, and you have people playing the newest Smash game. We’re going to share a lot of tournaments, partly grassroots tournaments between mainly Melee and Ultimate and whatever game comes after Ultimate, and you’re going to have events like EVO, FGC events featuring all kinds of fighting games, not just Smash Bros. and I feel like that’s how it’s going to continue. I feel like each sequel in the Smash franchise is going to be more in the path of Brawl and Smash 4, and even though they went a step or two in the right direction, it’s still like 95% in the Smash 4 direction.”

“That’s why I feel there’s always going to be that separation between the players, but honestly even Melee benefits a lot from the new Smash games, because they give attention to Smash Bros. as a whole, and even though most people go into the new game, because it’s new, a lot of people also see Melee and decide to go into that because they personally prefer the faster pace, and it’s also, for a lot of people, a better viewer sport as well.”

You can catch Armada when he competes in the Twin Galaxies Fight Club Exhibition Match against Joseph “Mang0” Marquez, among other high-profile players, when the event kicks off at 9pm PT, Saturday August 4th.