Before 2014, highlight reels of a new Canadian smasher would emerge. The hypest of all Falcons, Edgard “n0ne” Sheleby’s high risk, high reward play style started to make the some noise for the new up and comer originally from Nicaragua.

At The Big House 4, n0ne started to turn some heads when he placed 49th, taking a game off James “Duck” Ma in pools, showing an extremely high technical prowess. After going 2-2 against Roustane “Kage” Benzeguir in money matches and placing third at McSmashter 4 behind Vincent “Vwins” Jodoin and Adam “Armada” Lindgren, n0ne solidified himself as a top contender for the best in Canada.

n0ne showed that he is now a force to be reckoned with after an insane run at Get on My Level 2016. First taking out Hugo “Hugs” Gonzalez with his Ganon, n0ne won unexpectedly against 14th-ranked Kevin “PewPewU” Toy. The big shocker came when n0ne beat Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman. Not only is Mew2King one of the “gods” of Melee, but because Mew2King is known for his Sheik, possibly Falcon’s worst match up in the game, made it even better.

Without getting too much into your background, I still want to start at the beginning. Before you moved to Canada, you played Smash, right?

Yeah, I was playing over there (Nicaragua). After I found my friend, after I picked up Falcon, I moved to the capital and started playing with the players there. That was like the top of the country, the top Melee we could find. I played with them for about three or four years before moving to Toronto. This was like 2010, 2011.

Did you play at all when the game first released?

Yeah I got it way back then with a Gamecube. I bought a Gamecube second hand from someone else like in brand new condition. I probably bought it for like $400 or something, with Melee included. Stuff over there is really expensive.

So it’s hard to obtain things like new electronics and stuff?

Yeah if you got to a regular shop, it’s super overpriced, even more than I’m telling you. So your best bet is to find someone that actually travels and get them to bring that stuff back.

Was gaming a big part of children’s lives over there?

Yeah. Everyone likes video games, obviously, but sometimes getting a hold of the new things was hard. If I recall correctly, Melee came out when the Gamecube came out, so when we got it, all this stuff was really new. I got it in like 2001, and I was the only one that had it so all my friends would come over to play it with me.

How good were you when playing your friends early on?

Well, we were all pretty casual back then. If I had to say, I guess I was probably one of the better ones, yeah.

And you weren’t Captain Falcon yet?

Yeah, I was originally Link. Thing is, I was trying out characters, and eventually I pick up Link. Like, who doesn’t like Zelda? So I pick him up, and I do his down air, and I actually accidentally L- cancel it. I thought it was weird, but I kept experimenting with it, and eventually when I told all my friends, we figured out, the more times you press the L button when he’s falling to the floor, the faster he cancels the move. That was the way we thought. We thought that was a super hidden thing, and we could only do it with Link, since it’s a super long animation and very noticeable.

At the time, did you go on Smashboards or look to the internet to find about more about the game?

At that time, I played until my Gamecube broke, which was about a year or two. After that, I quit playing. After that I got back into it around 2006 and that’s when I went on YouTube to look up videos and see what’s actually going on with this game. I was doing stuff that I didn’t see before and all these new things were interesting to me. So, I eventually found this three-part video series about advanced stuff, I think by Wak. He was a Young Link player and I was as well, so I was especially interested. I switched from Link to Young Link because he’s faster, obviously, and thought he was overall better. That’s where it started I guess.

How were you when you first entered the scene when you moved to Toronto?

I actually came to visit in 2010 or 2012. I met all the top players from the scene, and they would bop me, they were much better than me. I think it was because their play style is more disciplined. Back then I was way more wild and I didn’t have any control over what I did. But I would do OK against them. When I came back, I beat Weon-X, and I guess that was kind of an eye opener and it told me that I had what it takes.

Jumping forward to the recent tournament, Get On My Level, you played a lot of top players, PewPewu, Lucky, Hugs, and Mew2King.

And Ice as well, but I lost to him.

He put you into losers, right? So to start off, how was his Fox compared to PewPewU’s?

Well Ice is a Fox player, and PewPewU is a really good player. Once you get to that level, you can pretty much pick up any character and do good. If you look at the match, he was doing really good player things against me, but I think that there was a few things that he didn’t abuse specific to the character Fox. I think that I kind of rode on that.

Why do you think he didn’t go Marth?

I’m assuming that it’s because we played before at Genesis, and I beat him at Genesis. I also heard he doesn’t like playing against Falcon, so that might be a reason as well. I think he might have wanted to try something out.

He’s a very highly rated player. Looking at the 2015 rankings, he was ranked much higher than you and you were only 58th. Do you think that they are inaccurate, or simply outdated?

I think that there might be a lot of bias, regarding Cali. They make the rankings a lot based on each state, and “we’re Canada, we’re nobody” so no one cares about Canada.

So do you think if they made the rankings again, you might be higher?

I hope so, I hope I’m not in the 50’s next time.

Can you be top 10 or top 20?

I think I can be. There is a super big difference from last year and I’m doing a lot better. I’m not sure though, when they ranked me so low initially I was pretty salty and mad. But now, I’m fond to the number. People underestimate me, they sleep on me. That’s even better for me, I’ll take that.

How was Mew2King’s Sheik?

The matchup is really bad. Mew2King is super good. Everything he does just makes sense. I guess that is his weakness. Because he does the thing that makes sense, you can work around it. Because he is going to do the obvious thing, because it makes sense, you know what he’s going to do. Not only that, I have played so many different Shieks that I know the matchup really well. There was a time I was talking to Ice a lot, and I really respect Ice. We were talking a lot, playing a lot, and he was giving me a ton of pointers, and I think that definitely showed when I played against Mew2King.

What do you think about Captain Falcon in general? Is it possible to become a top player as a Falcon main?

I think it’s doable, honestly. Personally I still have bad matchups, like I still suck against the Pokemon. There’s a few matchups here and there I’m not good at, that I’d rather go Ganondorf against. Like against Hugs, it’s a bad matchup for Samus, but I don’t think of Melee that way. I believe you should just go who you are more comfortable with. Sometimes I go too hard with Falcon, and that’s my downfall. With Ganondorf I can limit myself, I can tone it down abit. Since he’s naturally slower, I can go at a slower pace.

Is there a possibility that you can be sponsored in the future?

I’m currently with EMG right now. EMG has been really good to me, They’ve helped me out a lot. They really strive in regards to Melee content in the Canadian smash scene and I have nothing to complain about. I think all Canada appreciates them honestly, they do so much. Obviously I’m open to any kind of opportunities that could help me out to improve myself even further as a Melee player, like traveling so I can level up my overall skill and if the case comes, bring my play style to other parts of the world, which people seem to enjoy. I have gained lots of fans for that, so I’m grateful.

Are you looking to travel a lot this year for Smash?

Yeah I want to travel a lot. I’ll be at CEO that’s coming up, and I’m currently looking into EVO. I’m not 100 percent on EVO but I really want to go, so probably.

How strong is the Canadian scene?

We have some good players, but people talk down on Canada a bit. I think that it’s all about if you can pull off the things you do in friendlies, in tournament matches. It all comes down to mindset and how much you can control your nerves. I think a lot of them are really good, but they have fixed mindsets when they go onto the big screen. They get really nervous when they go up against top players and have trouble adapting against new players.

Do you get nervous against top players?

Honestly, who doesn’t? Everyone gets nervous. For me, I try to convert the nerves into adrenalin. I think of it like this: if you are going to use your nerves to SD, try converting those nerves into a sick stock kill.

It seems like you stayed pretty calm during the hype matches.

Yeah, I think I’m just calm-minded. I don’t get too hyped up when crazy things happen. Like I’ve seen so many things happen in game, a lot of crazy things in gameplay, so unless I’ve never seen something in my life, then maybe I’d get startled. But like popping off thing, I’m just really humbling. I view it as pretty disrespectful, so I don’t like doing it.

What about that last match with Lucky, seems like the crowd was really involved and Lucky popped off. Was there any bad blood?

Oh no, there was no bad blood or anything. Me and Lucky are friends. I could hear the crowd trash talk him, they were really trash talking Lucky. I was like, holy shit, this just got real, you know. I knew he was fighting against me and he was fighting against the crowd, so I know how it is. No bad blood or anything, we talk and stuff.

Anything else you would like to add before I go?

I hope to be ranked No. 58 again next year.

Do you mean better than 58?

No, I hope it’s exactly 58! I’m just kidding. [laughs]

Cover photo: Screenshot