After an action-packed 15 years of Melee, the times have changed. Surprises are harder to come by; a decade and a half of competition leaves little to be discovered, and with the game’s longevity the top echelon of player has stayed fairly static. When new discoveries are made or new players come to the forefront, it's a big deal, simply because it rarely ever happens.

So when somebody takes out Mew2King with Captain Falcon, people sit up and take notice.

Edgard “n0ne” Sheleby was that Falcon. At GOML 2016, he defeated Mew2King with Captain Falcon, something that nobody has done since the concept of the Five Gods was introduced. But while it may have been a breakout performance, it wasn’t the first — since his move back to Toronto from his home country of Nicaragua in 2014, he’s been catching the attention of the entire Melee community. But the road that he's taken to get here is the most impressive part.

Toronto loves their new hero © Robert Paul/@tempusrob/rmpaul.com

A straightforward start

n0ne’s gaming life started early. At the tender age of three, he started out on a Sega Genesis he recieved for Christmas. “I was a pretty hardcore gamer during the Genesis-SNES and N64-PS1 eras. I became a fan of RPG games, and I liked fast past platformers like Megaman X, and overall just games with good storyline like Metal Gear Solid.” n0ne wasn’t just a gamer — growing up in Toronto, he also played basketball and hockey while maintaining excellent grades — but as a child, it was his passion.

That passion would serve him well. n0ne's family, which was originally from Nicaragua, decided to move back from Toronto when he was 11 years old, and the games he loved started to come in quite handy. “Those same RPG games were what helped me maintain my English, since even TV is in Spanish back in Nicaragua.”

As n0ne aged, however, his priorities shifted from gaming to partying, something that Nicaragua made particularly easy. "Distances are a lot shorter [in Nicaragua] so there was a lot you could do and lots of places you could go without actually needing much time of the day to get there.” n0ne partied hard — to the point that he eventually needed a gallbladder operation — but this party life led him to his first true competitive venture.

It wasn’t Melee.

Need for speed

In the midst of all of n0ne’s fast living, he picked up a new hobby: street racing. “It was all underground since there wasn't a lot of traffic in Nicaragua back in the day. Life is crazy in other countries sometimes. Laws back home are not really strict compared to Canada or the USA, so it was doable to a certain degreee without being caught or traced.”

It was a rush for him, and one that at times made him some good money. "The most I made one time was like 400 dollars. It doesn’t seem like much, but once you convert the currency into Cordobas (Nicaraguan currency) it was actually not bad at all." However, it wasn’t a particularly safe venture either, and that was something which eventually caught up with him. "I was actually pretty good, but near the end of it I got into a bit of bad luck and started having a few accidents; my car would literally come out of the body shop and I would crash again a week later."

For n0ne, his memories of the fast life in Nicaragua are ones he holds dear. But they are also memories that have taught him a valuable lesson in moderation. "If there's anything I learned, it’s never to go too hard on anything. Back then I thought I was mature and thought I was immune to everything, but I learned that you don’t realize all the mistakes you’ve made until you’re already deep in the oven. It was really good eye-opener for me in the end.

"Thankfully I never crashed hard or hurt anyone. It was mostly walls, a parked truck once, and the very last time I crashed I fell into a moderate deep ditch off the highway. So I guess you can say Melee kind of saved my life the moment I ran into an old gaming friend while walking to the body shop."

There's no such thing as a boring n0ne match © Robert Paul/@tempusrob/rmpaul.com

For old times' sake

While he was racing, n0ne had more or less put gaming aside. But on the way to pick up his car from the auto shop after his latest wreck, he crossed an old friend that would reignite his passion. "I hadn't seen him in a while, and he would play Melee occasionally with his group of friends. He was a Ganondorf player, and since I was a Link player there was always a little bit of trash talk between us, though it was all in good fun."

n0ne’s friend invited him to play some Melee, and it quickly became clear that this is what he had been missing in his life. "I didn't doubt for a single second that I wanted to play Melee when I saw him, and when we played it felt completely natural — as if I had never stopped playing since 2001." n0ne started playing with his newfound Smash friends and also started to expand his horizons, finding new competition wherever he could. "On a Nicaraguan Smash website I started meeting other Smashers in the same city I used to go to university for, so I would play with this new group of people for about a year."

It was with this new group that he found the rival who would bring him to his current main: Captain Falcon. “The best player there was a Falcon player. At first, I would probably only take a game or two in a four-hour session. At a small get-together we had, he literally hit me with like 15 knees in a best-of-3 set and I was completely disgusted with myself. I got fed up with him and just picked up Falcon to counter him — but without using knee, just to prove a point to him.

"The irony of all this is that I was into this racing business and in the end, went on to main a race car driver in Melee. Never saw that one coming."

My way or the highway

n0ne’s knee-less Falcon encapsuates what he’s all about: doing it his way. "I admire uniqueness in every sense of the word. You can be original almost 100% of the time as long as you think outside of the box. I picked n0ne — as in noKnee — as my tag since i thought it was a cheap move, so i would replace it for another move in almost every situation i could.

"I think sometimes you have to prove a point with your gameplay on who you are. In melee you can actually play the way you want to: There is no right or wrong way to play this game, and I think that’s what the true beauty of Melee is all about."

Growing up playing in Nicaragua helped foster that unique style of play — but for a reason few would expect. "There were literally no tournaments ever back home. Nicaragua is a third world country, so prices to register were probably not worth it compared to the prize. I personally never attended tournaments, it was only weekend-long smashfests between six or seven of us and that was pretty much it."

n0ne wowed his home crowd by beating M2K © Robert Paul/@tempusrob/rmpaul.com

Without tournament play, n0ne learned to play his own crazy style. In fact, he’s so comfortable with his style that it's difficult for him to resist risking an epic combo — even in high-stakes tournament matches. "I’m usually very cool-minded, so execution in tournament is not an issue for me. I can actually pull off all the stuff I do from friendlies in tournament. My problem is that I sometimes go too hard or too deep — honestly, I still do. But I've learned to control all the craziness until the exact moment I need it, so I guess I've been learning tournament Melee the opposite way people usually learn it."

Homecoming

When n0ne moved back to Toronto in 2014, he didn’t waste any time finding Melee. Within his first week back, n0ne attended — and won — his first tournament as a Toronto resident. "I guess thats where people started to hear about me. I beat Weon-X in Winners and Grand Finals, and lots of people couldn’t believe it."

It’s only been uphill from there. n0ne was ranked 58th in the world on the 2015 Melee It On Me Top 100 list, but after his lights-out performance at GOML 2016 that ranking stands a good chance of improving this year. GOML was a special tournament for him, but not because of his string of high-profile victories; truth be told, he barely remembered it until after the fact. It was the quality of his play that weekend that he valued. "I didn't really pay attention to the people I was beating because I guess I was in the zone, it was until after I came to my house and watched the VODs with Dunk was when I was amazed with my gameplay and proceeded to watch each set 98 more times. When I beat M2K I was like 'oh cool,' but it wasn’t until after that it kinda sunk into my brain that what I had done was actually pretty impressive."

Just getting started

n0ne is still getting used to his newfound fame. And in trademark Canadian fashion, he's held on to his humility throughout his newfound successes; he went out of his way to thank some of the players who have helped him improve. "I had intense friendlies with Leffen, Armada and Ice [in Canada]. All three are amazing players who I respect very much. I think that combined with all the practice I got in SoCal with Mango, S2J, Alex19 and Mikehaze really helped me improve in the weeks before EGLX and GOML 2016."

Between his amazing Falcon play, his humble demeanor and love of the game, n0ne is a rising star that Toronto — and the entire Melee community — can be proud of.