“A skilled Roy can beat any Fox in the world. This is why I main Roy.”
This has become a meme in the competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee in recent years; in fact, Roy’s spot in the tier list has been a source of contention and memes in the Smash community for well over a decade.
For many years, Roy enthusiasts claimed that he was on par with Marth in the meta, and that the only reason he wasn’t getting the same tournament results is due to underrepresentation and that players hadn’t unlocked the character’s full potential.
As time went on, it became clear that Marth was the better character and Roy would never reach those same heights. In fact, Roy is currently ranked 20th in the SSBM tier list, a combination of being easy to combo and KO while struggling to do the same to hit opponents. Nevertheless, the character still has a large fanbase that yearned for Roy’s moment to shine.
Well, it seems that moment may have finally come.
Zain Wins Rona Rumble East Coast
Due to offline events being cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, many Melee netplay tournaments have been hosted in the past few months. They’ve featured some of the top Melee players in the world, and Rona Rumbe East Coast was no exception, with players such as Ginger, bobby big ballz, KJH and more signing up for the event.
The biggest name in the bracket was definitely Zain, a Marth main who has a strong argument for being the best player in the world. However, Zain entered this tournament with a bit of a twist: he would only play Roy for the whole bracket. His skill in general would definitely carry him a long way, but winning a stacked tournament using a character like Roy wasn’t going to be easy.
The run would turn out to be historic, with Zain getting wins against 2saint, bobby big ballz, KJH and Ginger to take first place out of around 40 entrants. While it was still an online event, winning a tournament with Roy against expert Jigglypuff, Fox and Falco players breathed life into the community once again.
Zain Breaking Down His Play
With many content creators capitalizing on the hype, Zain finally released a video breaking down his final match with Ginger. In the video, he talks about how Roy has to win neutral consistently, zone effectively, and also how he deals with one of Roy’s biggest drawbacks: finding the KO option.
Roy has a lot of solid KO power on top of a good grab game, but the issue for him has always been finding a way to get that final hit to secure the stock. Zain’s gameplay is a showcase in how he is able to find those clutch hits against top level players.
He also describes how playing Roy has led to great improvements with his Marth, which will be exciting to see as tournaments start up again in the future.
The video breakdown can be seen here:
Be sure to follow Zain on Twitch to catch his streams as he continues to play Roy!
