Cody “iBDW” Schwab is no stranger to sharing hot takes. The top Melee player has been taking a break from playing for health reasons to focus on, well, Twitter. iBDW recently posted a controversial opinion about the MPGR that was met with mixed results from the Smash community.
The MPGR is seen as a trusted source for analytical insight into who is truly the top Melee player in the world. They use an abundance of statistics, including players’ tournament results, to come up with their seasonal top 10 list. Ever since COVID-19, however, online tournaments have become more popular and many have continued throughout the past few years. And iBDW is wondering if online tournaments should hold as much weight as in-person tournaments when it comes to calculating the MPGR.
“My main issue with online tournaments counting that I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone talk about yet: how the hell do you enforce no cheating?” iBDW said, adding that it’s “absurdly easy” to cheat in online Melee tourneys.
my main issue with online tournaments counting that im surprised i haven't seen anyone talk about yet:
how the hell do you enforce no cheating? it feels absurdly easy and we've already seen it in small instances
— Cody Schwab (@iBDWSSBM) August 24, 2022
Is cheating actually that common in online Melee tournaments? Popular YouTuber Ludwig Ahgren brought up this possibility earlier in 2022. At the time, Melee players were unsure if Ludwig was right about the cheating during his stream, but now content creators are finding evidence to support this.
Top R.O.B. player Salvatore “zomba” DeSena agreed on this point too, stating that online players could even be getting coached mid-match without anyone’s knowledge. This added insight could make a huge impact.
The question was also answered by PGStat’s AndrewNestico, who replied: “You’d have to enforce no texture mods — and no gecko codes on the emulator side. Both doable, but would mean people can’t have their animelee/crystal melee/whatever unless those get explicitly whitelisted with nothing custom allowed.”
A Smash player replied that Slippi, the platform used in online tournaments, should “version-lock” tournaments to enforce this. Nestico replied that they are already working on a “custom version of Dolphin,” which would allow Slippi to prevent the user’s codes from activating in ranked matches.
they're already working in a custom version of dolphin, they can just prevent the user's codes from activating in ranked
— Andrew Nestico (@PracticalTAS) August 24, 2022
Aside from the possibility of cheating, other Melee players didn’t want online tournaments counted at all due to the game’s online inconsistency. While nowhere near as bad as the lag Ultimate players experience, the online Melee experience is still nowhere near as smooth as it would be in person. On top of that, some people just have poor connections.
main reason I don’t wanna count online is for the sheer fact that everyone’s internet is just built differently tbh, this is also good point in theory someone could have just been lying the whole time and covering it up very well lol
— TheSWOOPER (@TheSWOOPERR) August 24, 2022
Overall, the competitive integrity of online matches is questionable, especially compared to in-person competition, leaving many on iBDW’s side here.
Per usual, however, iBDW faced some backlash; also per usual, the criticism frustrated him.
iBDW took to Twitter to rant about the social platform for its toxic environment and character limit. The Melee player has left Twitter in the past over continued harassment and arguments. This time around, iBDW will most likely stay to continue updating fans on his health and event schedule.
This platform is just dogshit for nuance and productive discussion, the day I internalize that and stop engaging on that here I’m gonna be so much happier lmao
Seeing other people try to have a conversation with a character limit almost always ends in a disaster
— Cody Schwab (@iBDWSSBM) August 25, 2022
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