"This is Bizzaro Shiek vs. Marth" - Hugs, professional Melee player and streamer. @Hugs86

It is not often that you see incredibly high gameplay between two of the very worst characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Roy vs. Zelda isn't something you see in any high level bracket. However, thanks to the rare good things 2020 has brought humanity, Slippi.gg rollback netcode has given high level players a chance to show off their skills online.

And Zain, one of the top melee players in the world, sometimes sandbags in online tournaments under the tag "DontTestMe" as Roy, one of the supposed worse characters in the game. Sandbagging in video games is about using less than optimal strategies in order to make it competitive between your opponents who have less skill.

Some people hate Sandbagging, some people understand it as a necessary part of the game that allows higher skilled opponents to still feel challenged when facing mid to high-level competition. However, is it still sandbagging when your opponent is playing with an even worse character?

"ZeldaFool beat Zain straight up." says Hugo Gonzales, iconic Samus main and professional Melee player.  Despite the horrible lag, Zain did not decide to DQ ZeldaFool over connection issues or request to restart. So what resulted was some incredibly high level... jank.

Sure, Zelda and Roy don't do a lot of damage and most of their moves don't really work. However, like all characters in Melee, once movement techniques and high-level spacing tools are utilized, any character can feel lethal and dangerous.

Such was the case of this iconic low-tier match.

It was a beautiful looking Melee match.  When it wasn't lagging, the matchup felt like Shiek vs. Marth in a strange dimension where Marth F-Airs aren't godly and down-tilt is a combo starter, not a defensive poke.

And Zelda? Imagine if Shiek still had to dash-attack and down-smash but had 0 grab game and kill options that demand sweet spot F-airs and B-airs. We learned a lot about this low-tier match-up and it was an accidental reminder of how cool and interesting different tier match-ups can be once played at the highest level.

On the tier list, Zelda and Roy are matched well. Roy still has Marth movement and grab game and with proper crouch-canceling defensive maneuvers, can deal with Zelda's dash attack and early percentage F-airs. As for Zelda, her speed and quick attacks often take priority over Roy's only reliable kill move F-smash. Zain is well aware that D-smash also would kill, but ZeldaFool has an impeccable style of air movement that essentially removed that option.

In order to compete with Zelda so persistently, ZeldaFool has a level of character mastery that ultimately defeated Zain. However, I can't help but remember the match being marred by so much lag. When will we have this low tier run-back?

Please, let's make it happen.

Follow the Players

ZeldaFool - @Gosho4869

Zain - @ZainNaghmi