The Bizarre Reason A Competitive Smash Bros. Player Is Dropping Out Of A Tournament

Super Smash Bros Melee
(Image credit: Nintendo)

A lot of times certain eSports competitors or fighting game community members end up missing out on a tournament due to a visa expiring, or because they missed a flight. Life comes at you fast sometimes. But in one Smash Bros., player's case the reason he had to drop out is quite bizarre. His controller isn't malfunctioning.

In a tweet posted by the official Alliance eSports team, they explained why one of the best players in the Smash Bros., FGC wouldn't be showing up at DreamHack 2017. According to the post, Swedish player Adam "Armada" Lindgren will be dropping out of DreamHack 2017's Super Smash Bros., tournament due to a technical issue with his controller.

More specifically, the technical issue is actually a lot more complex than just it not working properly... it's more to do with the fact that it is working properly. You see, Armada's controller is specifically designed to malfunction in a certain way, and this is what helps him overcome a certain bug in the game.

A technical frame data specialist and analyst for Super Smash Bros., from Vienna, Austria, named Kadano, provided an actual breakdown of what happened with Armada's controller. It's extremely technical and filled with jargon that only the most robust controller enthusiasts would understand, but essentially Kadano informs the community that the rare controller malfunction actually helped Armada play at a peak level and avoid a certain technical bug in Smash Bros., that isn't possible with a normal controller. Over a series of tweets, Kadano states...

There's a bug in Melee that only technically malfunctioning controllers can avoid. The malfunctioning is rare, volatile & causes other issues. Due to this malfunctioning being a necessary criterion as long as we don't employ Magus' smash turn fix code, only about 1-3% of [GameCube Controllers] are viable for players like [Armada] and [Mew2King], since that's how few have said malfunctioning (PODE) to a sufficient degree.

So basically, only a malfunctioning controller can overcome a certain bug in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Armada's controller apparently either stopped malfunctioning or stopped working altogether. This is why even having multiple controllers on hand wouldn't solve the problem.

According to Kadano, there's like a possible one in 50 chance of Armada going into the store and picking up a controller that malfunctions in a way that suits his play style to overcome the bug. And buying 50 controllers in hopes of getting one that malfunctions properly is not only expensive but doesn't actually guarantee that it will solve his problem.

This is just one of the many conditions some competitive esports players have to deal with on the tournament scene. A controller is essentially the equivalent of the muscles of an athlete in any other sport, and if you're having muscle issues then you aren't going to be competing at your best.

Hopefully, Armada can get his controller malfunctioning again so he can step back into the Super Smash Bros Melee single competitions.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.