Smogon Forums

I'll start this with Mang0 owes me nothing. He doesn't owe any of us anything. He's a professional gamer/twitch streamer. With that being said I got into competitive melee after watching the documentary. Afterwards I watched all the top players videos. Mang0, Hbox, Armada, M2k, Dr. Peepee, Hax, Leffen, S2J ALL OF THEM. After watching countless videos of all the top players I continued to be drawn more and more to Mang0's. I loved his play style, I loved his high risk high reward tactics. His unorthodox follow ups. I loved how he played. From there I started following the big tournaments. The first Super Major I watched was Big House 5 and that was unfortunate as a Mang0 fan. He ended the year at DreamHack with a lackluster finish and I began to wonder if I started following Mang0 too late. Then 2016 comes and he has many stellar performances and it seemed to reassure his fans that he still has it. Then his last 5-6 tournaments have been infuriating as a Mang0 fan. It started at Dream Hack Winter 2016 where he stubbornly went Falco vs Hbox and got destroyed followed by a stubborn 3-0 vs Leffen. Then he went to Summit 3 and same thing. He stubbornly lost to Hbox in losers after he was up. Then came UGC where Mang0 clearly was drunk vs MikeHaze. You could see his eyes were glossy in the player cam. He took 17th. Following this he got a coach and seemed to be on the right track. Started drinking less, practicing more, and he had another great performance at Genesis 4.

Well his dedication to practicing and not drinking lasted all of 1 tournament. Entering Summit 4 he was wasted nearly all day the first 2 days and surprise surprise he loses extremely early Day 3 and then again Day 4 and takes 9th. Now I'm watching FPS and I hear the commentators say "We're looking for mang0. Lucky is texting him. I guess we're going to put another set on until we find Mang0. I hope he hasn't left." I see his twitter and he tweeted "BeeeEEEErrRRRRR". Like I said at the beginning, Mang0 owes me nothing. If he wants to get wasted at every tournament and not reach his competitive heights ever again that's fine. He's allowed to do that. But when I watch his stream and he constantly says things like "don't worry guys, I'll be back. I was just stubborn" "I had a bad song come on that's why I lost to insert player" I hear him say those things and I get a sliver of hope. Then I watch him and he's drunk and doesn't seem to care and loses and I get a huge sense of let down and disappointment. Either he should stop saying he'll be back and that he'll be back on top or he should take the game seriously. I don't see M2k and Hbox getting drunk and sandbagging at tournaments. Granted I don't think he or any top player is required or should take every tournament extremely serious but he's now either player drunk, extremely stubbornly, or both at his last 4-5 tournaments, excluding Genesis 4.