Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma is a decorated Super Smash Bros. Melee veteran with wins at many of the largest tournaments: Evo, Genesis, CEO, Shine—he has trophies for them all. Yet despite his dominant track record, he has yet to win at Super Smash Con, one of the most competitive annual events, set in Chantilly, Virginia.
Hungrybox is a Jigglypuff main and No. 8 player in the world, as of the summer rankings unveiled live at Smash Con. He’s well known for his ability to always mount a comeback. And to emphasize this strength, he makes the most of one of Jigglypuff’s most devastating moves: Rest. By using her down-special, she puts herself to sleep for a little over four seconds, but becomes invincible for the first half-second. This might not sound impactful, but what makes the move so potent is that on the very first frame, Jigglypuff has a small hitbox inside her body that, when it connects with an opponent, sends them flying and KOs at an absurdly low percent.
With this attack, Hungrybox has a nearly-guaranteed kill anytime his opponent leaves themselves vulnerable. And because of the invincibility that Rest provides, it takes priority over any other attack. Hungrybox only has to be certain that he’s close enough for the Rest to connect. However, he recently faced a desperate situation when his failure to land this risky attack led to a devastating loss.
Super Smash Con took place this year from Aug. 10 to 13. Hungrybox beat top players like Frostbyte, Drephen, and Axe to make it to the winners quarterfinals, but took his first loss of the tournament to Kurtis “moky” Pratt, an electrifying Fox player and the highest-ranked Canadian in Melee history at No. 5.
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After being knocked into the losers bracket, Hungrybox ran into lifelong rival Mang0. Both are two of the most long-lasting figureheads in the competitive Melee scene, with tournament placings going as far back as 2007. Mang0 has publicly complained about Hungrybox’s “campy” playstyle with Jigglypuff and often compares it to his own usage of the character, where he rose to fame with his aggressive, high-risk punishes.
Hungrybox bested his rival (perhaps thanks to Mang0 playing Dr. Mario all weekend, and not his customary Fox or Falco picks) and pulled off an astonishing win streak to end up in the finals against Zain, the No. 1 rank in the world and a Marth main who’s demonstrated a mastery against the Jigglypuff matchup. Their tie-break match was looking to go to a time out with Zain in the lead. With few options, Hungrybox had to find the kill before time ran out. But Zain was only at 32 percent, so Hungrybox only had one move that would kill: The high-risk, high-reward Rest.
He landed an uptilt, which, at that percent, can combo directly into Rest. He jumped toward Zain to land the killing blow to reset the bracket. And yet, Zain went nowhere. The Rest completely whiffed. Rest has a tiny hitbox within Jigglypuff’s body which lasts for only the first frame that the move is used. To combo uptilt into Rest, Hungrybox had to be frame-tight in order to keep Zain from being actionable again and counterattacking. Hungrybox went for Rest as fast as he could, but in his haste he used the ability too soon, missing the attack by mere pixels and putting himself to sleep without securing the kill.
After the first half-second of invulnerability wears out, Jigglypuff remains inactionable for an additional three and a half seconds. This gave Zain plenty of time to attack with a charged-up Shieldbreaker, killing Hungrybox and ending his impressive tournament run.
Shortly after the set, Hungrybox tweeted a picture of the frame that he went for Rest. If he were just a few pixels closer, the hitbox of Rest would have been touching Marth’s nondominant hand, sending him flying into the blastzone, causing the reset and keeping Hungrybox’s Smash Con run alive. Funny enough, the 26 frames of invincibility on the startup of Rest actually hurt Hungrybox: Since Zain was swinging his sword at the time that Hungrybox hit Rest, if not for the invincibility, the weak hit of the sword would have hit Hungrybox, waking him up without killing him. It’s specifically because of the invincibility that Jigglypuff failed to wake up.
How ironic that Hungrybox failed the Rest that mattered most, considering his dominant display of the move that he’d demonstrated all weekend. Against moky in losers semis, Hungrybox had even managed to land three of them in the span of 30 seconds. Back when he held the No. 1 rank in the world for three years straight (from 2016 to 2018), it was a move that he used less frequently due to its risky nature. But as competition has grown fiercer and more players have pushed him to his limits, Hungrybox has had to master every tool in his character’s kit to reemerge as the best. Unfortunately for him, the impending time out forced his hand, and his misplay made him pay the price.
Hungrybox was devastated, but that didn’t stop rival Mang0 from some trash talk. He tweeted, “15 year old Mang0 hits that [Rest]”. This started a back-and forth argument between the two, before taking a turn when Hungrybox took a jab at Mang0’s Dr. Mario, comparing Mang0 “cooking” with the doctor to a picture of a nasty Krabby Patty. In the comments, Mang0 issued a $10,000 money match between Mang0’s Dr. Mario and Hungrybox’s Jigglypuff, saying “give me a month of pure doc you’d get so COOKED.” Hungrybox simply responded with “make it $15,000″
Whether the match will actually happen is unclear. Since that exchange, Mang0 has already tweeted “maybe we should play for 5k,” so the stakes might have some wiggle room, assuming it happens at all. If Mang0 really does decide to fully commit to Dr. Mario, that will surely impact his performance in coming tournaments. But with how long he and Hungrybox have gone toe-to-toe in Melee, there’s plenty of reason to say that settling a grudge would be more important to Mang0 than a few brackets.
