Cody Schwab, the number two Super Smash Bros. Melee player and best Fox main in the world, won The Big House 11 in incredible fashion today.
In order to win this prestigious event, Cody beat the majority of the top ten players back-to-back after being knocked into the losers’ bracket early on. Today’s feat was even more impressive because players and commentators have been suggesting this supermajor tournament might just be the most stacked in Melee history.
While Cody held a top seed coming into the event, disaster struck when he ran into Morsecode762, one of the world’s best Samus players and a Michigan native. Morse beat Cody 3-1 in dominant fashion, knocking Cody into loser’s alarmingly early.
This massive upset shook not only the bracket but Cody’s confidence in his own skills. On Oct. 21, Cody tweeted about his loss to Morse, stating “[I] need to figure out my anxiety, can’t let myself be on the verge of throwing up each set.”
After the loss, Cody had a gauntlet ahead of him. The opponents in his path included a majority of the top ten players, including Hungrybox, aMSa, and Zain.
Cody bested all of them to make it to losers’ finals, where he faced one of his greatest opponents, Joseph “Mang0” Marquez. While Mang0 has historically been one of Cody’s bracket demons, this time everything went Cody’s way; he was able to endure hit after hit, outlasting Mang0 in their blow-for-blow battle and earning his spot in Grand Finals.
Cody’s final opponent was Justin “Plup” McGrath, the number nine player and a longtime frontrunner in Melee’s Power Rankings. Plup had an amazing run to make it Grand Finals, which surprised many due to his absence at many of the supermajors this year. After Cody narrowly won the first set at 3-2 to reset the bracket, Cody dominated in the second, beating Plup 3-0—and establishing one of the most dominant losers’ runs in Melee history.
Following his stellar run, he tweeted a thank you to everyone who supported him, explaining it “dragged [him] out of a really dark place.”
The fact a player like Cody, who has always fought against his anxiety while competing, was able to achieve back-to-back victories against the greatest players in the world and win the most stacked Melee tournament yet, demonstrates how far he’s come in improving his mentality.
Speaking as a Melee competitor with an anxiety disorder, I found this tournament to be one of the most inspirational events I’ve seen in a long time. Losing is difficult to handle for anyone when you put your all into competing. But it’s even harder to process when your thoughts get dark and you question your every move.
For a player to not only come out of that but to soar like a phoenix and conduct one of the most beautiful series of wins that the game has ever seen–it convinces me the mind can overcome anything if you encourage yourself to believe.
