The last time that William “Leffen” Hjelte played Super Smash Bros. in North America, he swept Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma in the Grand Finals of HTC Throwdown. Just a month later, a visa issue kept him from competing in NA competitions for eight months, and by the time he got back, everything had changed.

Hungrybox transformed from a gatekeeper into an unstoppable force, Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman went from slightly erratic to wildly unpredictable, and Adam "Armada" Lindgren went from an undefeatable god to trading sets with Hungrybox's 'Puff. The gods were in disarray, and the godslayer was trapped at home.

"Before [Hungrybox] used to be one of those guys where, if you were playing well, you beat him. It didn't matter," Leffen told theScore esports. "Now it's like, 'how do I beat Hungrybox?' He's the final boss. Which is really different from how it used to be when he was a stepping stone almost."

Leffen's comeback tour kicked off at EGLX in Toronto, and, based on its slew of A-list talent, seemed more than an appropriate re-entry into the NA scene. He could have played the likes Armada or Hbox or even Joseph "Mang0" Marquez, but Leffen barely squeezed through to the Top 8 after an earlier loss to Jeffrey "Axe" Williams, a player who wasn't even on his radar.

Leffen was once considered a villain, but at EGLX he was the man who could save Melee and restore order by putting an end to Hungrybox’s reign.

But things looked bleak in the godslayer’s match against James "Duck" Ma that would see him qualify for the Loser's Quarterfinals. Leffen was down a stock after a clean f-tilt edge-guard from Duck, who had two stocks and was sitting at zero percent. Leffen opened the stock with double lasers out of shorthop, he dash-danced towards the edge and then he gave up his stock, sliding off the ledge. Leffen turned to Duck, bumped his fist, and slipped into the crowd, disappearing into the venue.

His comeback tour hit a snag.

Since September 2015, Leffen watched as Melee changed around him. His hiatus wasn’t due to a lack of skill, but because of his inability to obtain a visa. Because Leffen is from Sweden and his sponsor, Team SoloMid, are based in California, Leffen needed a special P1 athlete's visa in order to play in North American tournaments. After eight months, TSM secured a temporary visa through July, but he’s struggling to return to the level he was at before he left.

"In the beginning [watching from home] was a strange feeling, especially The Big House, which was like, 'Well now I finally get to watch from home.' I hoped it was the only one,” Leffen said. "And then they kept going. Summit was also a really great event to watch, but it was also like, 'I kind of wish I was there.' And then it just kept going. Especially after I didn't do that well at DreamHack Winter, it started getting pretty annoying. It was pretty rough."

Over the last few months, Hungrybox has dominated Melee. He placed first at nine tournaments since October and has defeated Armada, the reigning EVO 2015 champion, twice.

"You really see him fix a lot of bad habits more so than you see him inventing new stuff,” Leffen said. “So he really cut out a lot of fat out of his gameplay, which is really interesting to see. It's a big gameplay change without people raving about what he changed.

"I honestly think it's nice to see a heavier emphasis on fighting game fundamentals rather than new Melee-specific tech skill. Stuff that people didn't know before. He's just doing the same thing, but better.”

But Leffen hasn't been able to improve those fundamentals lately. Being stuck in Europe is a problem. It’s not that he can’t leave Sweden and play other Smashers, it’s that no one else leaves their own home countries to improve.

"A lot of people in Europe, they get to this level, like OverTriforce, Tekk, ProfessorPro, though ProfessorPro has been stepping it up, Amsah, where they plateau and they never really go anywhere," Leffen says. "They have to travel out of Europe for that to happen, it's really hard for people to get to the next step without playing new people. When they keep playing other French people, like Tekk, or the other Dutch people for Asmah, it's gonna be hard for them not only to straight-up improve, because improving against lesser players is hard, but also to get the motivation."

Related: To be a Master: Hungrybox's battle for first and the most important phrase in Melee

According to Leffen, European Smashers don't tend to travel between countries for tournaments. He says that Scandinavian players stick to their own tournaments, UK Smashers stay at home or travel to France and Belgium, and everyone gets to stay at the top of their small regions. No one leaves, no one gets better. And for eight months, Leffen was trapped on that same plateau, with no motivation to practice or improve.

"I don't think the absolute biggest thing about me not being able to travel was the fact that I couldn't play the top players. It was much more so that I woke up and I was like, 'Why should practice?'" Leffen says. "I tried to practice for Big House, and I went there and I couldn't get in. And I practiced for Summit, but I went there and couldn't get in. And then for Genesis, it was like, 'Even if I get a visa, I'm not gonna do that and kill myself by having to watch a tournament Top 8 knowing that I was fully practiced.

"Playing the top players is very important, but I do think that losing the motivation to practice or the need to practice is even bigger. "

Leffen says his training regimen is pretty strict. He plays for eight hours a day and watches match videos to study other players and fix his own mistakes. It's a lot of work to go through only to fly across the Atlantic and be turned back at the border. It's even more difficult when all anyone is saying is that you're the only one who can beat the best. But he came to Canada as prepared as he could be. He went to the UK, then flew home before flying to Toronto, where he practiced against Armada and local Smashers.

“Going into the event I felt pretty okay, “Leffen says. “I was doing really well in friendlies, but I focused so much on getting my playing level up to where I wanted it, because I wasn't really ready for every other character.

“I was focusing so much on being able to play, I was really unsure. I was always thinking: 'Am I good enough? Have I fallen off? How much have people improved since I last got here? Has my training in Europe made me terrible?' And it was all this big pressure and it really got into my head and kind of really made me unable to focus 100 percent on the match.”

Leffen says he underestimated the tier of talent just below the five gods. He underestimated Weston "Westballz" Dennis and Justin "Plup" McGrath and McCain "MacD" LaVelle and Axe, but most of all, he underestimated Duck. Leffen’s fallen to Duck before, in a strangely similar fashion to his loss at EGLX.

“It's honestly very similar,” Leffen says. “I think I lost 3-2 to Westballz as well, another Tempo player, then I lost to Duck 3-1. It was very similar where I got into my own head, I think this point was even worse though. I was a bit better in the Samus matchup this time, Duck was obviously better this time too, but I do think I tilted harder this time than I did last time.”

Leffen says that before the tournament started, Mang0 gave him some advice. When Leffen said he wasn't sure about if he could beat Mew2King, Mang0 told him that he doesn't have to get in his own head about it. Mang0 told Leffen he was the better player, and he could beat M2K. He says that it didn't help, and whenever Leffen talks about his losses, it all comes back to his mental state.

"I was thinking, 'Oh no, I don't want to play Duck, I don't want to play blah, blah, blah, who's next after Duck?' I was just in my head, because I also had Mang0's advice. I was thinking, 'You are getting into your head too much.' But thinking that is also not getting out of your head, that's still thinking about not thinking, which is not something you need to do. It's a tricky circle, where you have to stop thinking about thinking.

"During the Duck set and even the KJH set before, I was really just thinking so much. I wasn't concentrating on the games at all, I was thinking about everything. You name it, Twitter, Reddit, what I've been doing, what's gonna come next, I wasn't thinking about what is my opponent doing. Is he doing rock? Is he doing Scissors? Is he doing Paper? And I think that was my absolute biggest downfall."

Related: The battle for Mount Olympus: Armada's hold on the throne of the five gods

In the moments after Duck won at EGLX the spectators were chanting “Red Bull Duck” — a joke based on something the tournament’s emcee had said before the match when he accidentally attributed Leffen’s sponsor to Duck. The crowd had shifted, the TSM chants in Toronto had died out, and Leffen still needed to prove that his comeback was real.

“I'm taking it one step at a time,” Leffen said. “Right now I'm trying to improve my mindset, doing really well at GOML. If I don't win, I don't win, but I'm goin to aim like I'm going to win and then I will try and review after what happened ... and take the pieces of what I did to prepare for this tournament, review them, try them again for CEO, try them again for EVO,"

Leffen’s biggest problem though is that he’s on a time limit. His temporary visa expires in July, meaning he’s able to play through EVO and then has to return to his European exile unless TSM can secure a long-term P1 visa. But for Leffen, this comeback tour is the first step of a much longer process. It isn’t about EVO. It isn’t about beating Armada or beating Hungrybox or slaying the gods all over again. It’s about a legacy. It’s about becoming a legend.

“I'm not trying to be an EVO winner, I'm not trying to be a Genesis 4 winner, I'm trying to be the best player ever,” Leffen says. “My goal is not only to win more majors than everybody this year, it's not to win more than everybody has done this year and next year, it's to win so many majors and tournaments and to go on such a streak that nobody has ever performed better, and no one will ever pick up the game and ever run on a better streak. If you're the best of all time, you're not only the best now, but you have such a good legacy that no one in the future can ever say, 'Is this FalcoMaster55 who starts playing in 2050, is he gonna be better than Leffen?'”

“No, because I was too good for my time.”

Daniel Rosen is a news editor for theScore esports. He only plays friendlies on Hyrule Temple. No one plays friendlies with him. You can follow him on Twitter.