Well, it’s been a while. A looooong while. Such a long while that the previous power ranking is over 2 years old. The Dutch community never really wanted to count netplay as a measure for PRs, but at this point our old PR was so outdated that the mods threatened to take away our Discord colours. Of course, within a week, a panel was formed and a new PR was in the works!
First up, people were able to submit their own PRs to see how accurate their ranking was. First, I present the PR of PRs!
Points were calculated by taking the difference of a ranking you provided with the actual ranking and summing them up. Lower score equals a more accurate ranking!
Congratulations, ThommyN, you were extremely close! Nice read on what the panel thought.
Players were eligible if they had attended at least 3 events, online or offline. Only major online events were counted, as were offline events that featured a prize pool. The full results sheet and eligibility can be viewed here.
This meant a lot of people went missing. The most notable of these is without a doubt Amsah. This PR ends his uninterrupted streak of being the undisputed #1 in The Netherlands. Even after this PR, he still obviously would whoop everyone ranked here, but sadly it shows his declining interest in the game. Understandable, after having been the best player in your country for over FIFTEEN years. Thank you, Amsah, and we still hope to see you around every now and then!
Other notable absences are Aaron (this time ACTUALLY not having the attendance requirement) and Pixel (a doubles god who simply didn’t attend much). Finally, KasparV, Skills, Shengo, Nukidin, PureEvil and JMYL are all players who were ranked 2 years ago, but failed to make the eligibility cut this year. COVID hit us hard, but where nature leaves an empty space, others will bloom to fill this void. As such, I want to go over the new PR, discuss who the players are and how they got there.
1, 2 & 3 – Skullbro, Renzo, FoutNL – Brabant/Brabant/Brabant
The reason I’m doing the top three all at once straight away, is twofold.
First of all, Brabant dominance. I wanted to highlight that for the first time, Brabant is not a joke but definitely the best region in the country at the moment.
Second, these three players are almost fully interchangeable. Put them in any order you want and you can make an exceptionally good case that you have the ‘correct’ top 3.
Skullbro has had an amazing online year with great European wins and performances, even being flown out to the SWT Qualifier event in the UK. Rising from #9 to #1 shows the amazing grind that Skullbro has undergone since Slippi was released. Consistent top 17 placings at every single S.A.M.E. event, including multiple top 8’s, show that Skullbro is currently the main Dutch threat in Europe. A 9th place at HFLAN confirmed that this was not just an online gimmick.
Renzo has had great online performances, including a win over Professor Pro (34th on MPGR 2019). Due to an injury, he had to miss a couple of S.A.M.E. events, but with offline returning, he showed himself just as strong of a competitor. at ThommyTourney, Renzo has had an exceptional result, making an amazing losers run and beating many of his rivals, including a 6-0 over Stijn to cap it off. ThommyTourney has been viewed as the most stacked offline tournament win for a Dutch player, so this counts a lot.
What FoutNL lacked in either online or offline peak performances, he has more than made up for with his incredible consistency. FoutNL has switched to the Frame1 in June, but you’d barely notice in his results. Currently performing at (or above) the level he was before switching, FoutNL is still a main threat to take any Dutch Melee event, as he showed at Offline smash where he got 2nd in a 100-man tournament.
4 – Jeapie – Groningen
Jeapie is the odd one out in this tier. All of his results are from January until June, which included great S.A.M.E. results that rival those of Skullbro. Just like Renzo, Jeapie later suffered an injury, and also suffers from the ever-present Groningen-Syndrome when it comes to offline events. As such, it was hard to rank him, but everyone knew in their heart of hearts that if Jeapie would show up, there’s an incredibly serious chance of him just taking a Dutch tournament outright.
5 – $tijn – Zuid-Holland
A household name of any Dutch Power Ranking since the reboot in 2017. With not too many online results, and an already unreliable connection/PC, $tijn mostly banked on his offline performances, which were nothing to scoff at. A nice 2nd place at ThommyTourney and a win at Endless Melee are great performances that show $tijn still holds up as a tournament threat in The Netherlands.
6 – Jim Morrison – Zuid-Holland
Yours truly, once again gracing the Dutch PRs in the 4-7 region. At this point, anything outside of that would feel wrong. Nothing really exciting happened for me besides an amazing run at Valhalla and a win over Charon in January. Dominance in the first NL League iterations and consistently threatening performance at weeklies are what still keep me up there.
7 – Nebbii – Zuid-Holland
You’d be forgiven to think Nebbii simply got worse because he dropped from 2nd to 7th. The only issue is that he no longer is your friendly neighbourhood Yoshi. Nebbii picked up Mewtwo in the beginning of 2021. His performance at S.A.M.E. events with Mewtwo rivalled that of the rest of the Dutch top players and he even beat Jim Morrison in a best of 5 to qualify for the Dutch crew with his Mewtwo. After a while, he switched to Falco, who he is currently maining. Taking sets from Aaron, $tijn and Renzo in his last offline events bode extremely well for the Falco, and should make anyone ranked above him very scared.
8 – Noxxa – Brabant
By far the highest ranked newcomer and most underrated player by the user-submitted PRs. I can’t blame them; if you don’t have all his results in front of you, it’s easy to miss the bigger picture. Noxxa simply doesn’t lose to players ranked below him (ok, maybe één keer, ThommyN), and has performed exceptionally well in the S.A.M.E. circuit. He entered each event and picked up wins on Liax, Max, Sharp, Savestate, Abbearv and more. These wins, and the evident rising trend in his results, give him the edge over his competition and put him firmly in 8th place.
9 – Happymealz – Zuid-Holland
Consistent, cute and based. That’s the 3rd of the Fox mains from Rotterdam. Rising up through the ranks from 20th, to 13th, to a 9th spot on the PR now, Happymealz stock still is looking very strong. Happymealz has had a solid performance at The Upset, beating R23 and going last hit/last stock with Leffen in the first round. Who in The Netherlands can even do that?! Besides that, he’s got solid wins over Epikfaal and beat Jim Morrison at Offline Smash. At this point, these types of results are expected out of Happymealz: the most convincing proof that he deserves the top 10 spot.
10 – Nuckels – Zuid-Holland
The player with the lowest attendance currently ranked, Nuckels has to have REALLY good results to be ranked so high. Luckily, a 2nd place at Endless Melee and top 8 finish at TSEA is enough for this (and 3rd at S.A.M.E. Circuit Doubles if you look at that). The in-house doubles expert and TO also knows how to play singles, and everyone who has played against him knows this. He could probably have been ranked higher, knowing how well he can perform, but his lack of attendance is currently holding him as the top 10 closer.
11 – Epikfaal – Noord-Holland
Another player who is lacking in attendance, but Huub did make the cut. Epikfaal has participated in the NL Leagues, of which he won the 4th instalment over Happymealz, Jim Morrison and Renzo (2x), a stellar performance. Other than that, Epikfaal hasn’t had too many other performances, but people should still wary when they face him in bracket.
12 – NVZ – Brabant
This tier is another one that is really close. NVZ, RestlessWhale, ThommyN and Mezzy all have shown great improvement and have very similar results and skill level. However, NVZ came out on top due to his consistent online performances. Every player in this tier is inconsistent, both online and offline, but NVZ managed to hold a steady top 48 performance for every S.A.M.E. event from February until July. A respectable showing at HFLAN shows that NVZ really knows how to perform at the European level, which is something that is highly valuable in the Slippi era.
13 – RestlessWhale – Noord-Holland
He can talk a lot of shit on commentary, but at least he can back it up. This Falco main from the Amsterdam area has a number of good performances, including wins over Stivo and SenX during the S.A.M.E. circuit. Later on, he dropped out of events primarily to commentate, but I imagine he would’ve had great performances as well. Offline, RestlessWhale has had great performances beating Nukidin and KasparV (2 retired sukkels) and Jim Morrison (a regular sukkel). Great showing, and we hope he can continue to combine the life of an international superstar diva commentator with that of a gracious, humble, local mid-level PR player.
14 – ThommyN – Zuid-Holland
The little Puff who could, who is now terrorizing Den Haag (and recently, Best). ThommyN has literally ZERO online results, and has attended every offline event, with the exception of the one he hosted himself. Now THAT is dedication. ThommyN would be the first to tell you he is incredibly inconsistent. Losing to Zeventien definitely doesn’t bode well, though it would be one of my favorite losses to tank. However, his other performances have held up very well, with wins over Verdant and Baxon at HFLAN, Epikfaal at TSEA and always playing close sets with higher ranked players at Todosmash. From #20 to #14, not bad!
15 – Mezzy – Brabant
This person might need a little introduction for the international reader: Mezzy is a Marth main who has started seriously competing in Melee since mid-2020. He very quickly started taking names and became a threat at the Dutch Netplay weeklies. Internationally, you might know him as the most loyal LEVO attendee that Europe has known, but he also participated in a couple of S.A.M.E. events and GOML online. At Endless Melee, he also took wins over Nuckels and Jim Morrison, both in best of 5’s, which are impressive results. As one of the newest players in the scene to be ranked on the Dutch PR, Mezzy’s trajectory is looking very bullish.
16 – Fezwa – Groningen
Fezwa, just like Jeapie, is suffering from Severe Chronic Groningen Syndrome(SCGS), which severely limits his offline attendance. His online attendance isn’t doing much better, with him barely having 3 tournaments. However, at all of these tournaments, Fezwa did not encounter any surprises. No one upset him, and he didn’t have any weird losses. He even took a set over JiM (Doc main from France) at The Upset! Had he attended more, I’m sure he could have ended up even higher on the list.
17 – Risc – Noord-Holland
A veteran of the PR, Risc enjoyed the last one so much, he decided to end up in 17th place again. However, this time he traded in his trusted Donkey Kong for a somewhat more viable character, Sheik. Risc has wins over Noxxa earlier in the year and a solid performance at TSEA, beating ThommyN and Nukidin, losing out barely to Happymealz. Regardless, he also had very low attendance, so just like Fezwa, will suffer a bit more for missing out on events.
18 – Paytay – Overijssel
HE FINALLY MADE IT!!!! OVERIJSSEL ON THE MAP WOOOOOO!!!!
Paytay has the honour of finally being the first officially power ranked individual hailing from Overijssel, one of the most passionate regions of the country. He didn’t even bribe the panel, it was completely by his own merits that he got in. Paytay had a very solid start of the year, with wins over Meatzorz, CC, Gabe and playing 1-2 with MINT and Frenzy, this guy knows how to hold his own at online events. Offline, Paytay has attended Endless Melee and HFLAN, both of which did not contain particularly surprising results. Hopefully, Paytay can bring the heat that he showed at the start of the year to the upcoming events.
19 – Noon – Zuid-Holland
Noon, Poop, MskJ, Commander Cliff, you name it. Another newcomer to both the Dutch melee scene and the PR. For the longest time, Noon was a random Mario who was extremely good, but no one knew what he looked like. Hiding his appearance from the camera, he shocked the Dutch scene when he finally graced us with his presence. Noon suffers from the NL Netplay Weekly curse, where he usually performs stellar and got his biggest wins, but sadly they’re not counted in the PR discussion as is. Despite this, Noon’s performance was good enough to barely get him on the PR. With wins over Neproxin, Ravio, Muren and Rev, he’s shown to be enough of a threat to take out many players who’d consider themselves above losing a Mario brother. Who knows where noon would have ended up if we counted Netplay Weeklies…
20 – Xin – Noord-Holland
Bean boy, Red Pants or Yung Niffo, I think this guy has to be one of the most famous non-PRd players we had in The Netherlands. Well, this top level commentator FINALLY made it, with his heels over the creek, as we say in Dutch. After much deliberation and heated discussion, the contested 20th spot went to Xin who fills out the Dutch Power Ranking with his Pikachu. While his offline results were somewhat lacklustre, his early performance during the S.A.M.E. circuit certainly left their mark. Wins of Jayson (formarly Enerj), JJLinyard and Muren were enough to push him over the edge. Rarely losing to players currently not ranked, his consistency in play gave him the edge, and finally immortalized him on the Dutch 2021 PR.
Jim Morrison's Melee Tidbits 