Smash Melee God PPMD explains why he doesn’t enter netplay tournaments

Retired Super Smash Bros Melee pro and one of the game’s “five Gods”, Kevin ‘PPMD’ Nanney, has explained why he doesn’t enter netplay tournaments.

Despite being retired since 2016, the Marth-Falco main still streams Melee on his Twitch channel leading many to question why he doesn’t compete in online events.

With LAN events off the table for the foreseeable future, entering netplay tournaments for a streamer seems like a no brainer, which is why the Melee legend felt the need to set the record straight.

“The reason I don’t enter netplay tourneys is not truly because of Twitch chat. It’s not truly because of fear or whatever,” he began. “I mean, maybe there’s something that’s at the deeper root of that, but it’s not my conscious experience.”

According to PPMD, the real reason he doesn’t enter tournaments is because he has chronic fatigue syndrome. “It makes me very tired,” he said. “It lowers my reactions. It makes me not play as well as I can. It makes me not learn from matches as well as I can.”

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In most fighting games, being able to adapt to your opponent’s play style is instrumental in being able to pick up the win in the end. So, for PPMD to not be able to learn from the match, it can be a major blow to his performance.

He continued to elaborate on the issues with not being able to improve. “In fact, I learn very little from matches. I don’t really improve, so I can’t just do it for fun. I’d feel like I’m not getting anything and people will be misunderstanding that.”

That all said, there’s still a chance that PPMD will compete again, but the right conditions for himself have to be met.

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“I’m not going to do it until I feel like I can actually do it and actually enjoy it and actually learn from it. And if you don’t accept and understand that, that’s fine. But this is my experience and this is also getting easier for me. So, I encourage you to stick around and watch the growth,” he told his viewers.

Hopefully, the Smash God can get the confidence to compete in tournaments again. The last time he competed was at 2017’s Bad Moon Rising event where he placed fourth in doubles while teaming with LoZR.