Smasher:Leffen

Leffen is a professional smasher from Stockholm, Sweden. He is currently considered to be one of the best Melee players in the world and the best player in Europe. He started off as a main, but later switched to, and is now known as one of the best and most technical Fox players in the world and one of the best  players in the world, using Sheik as a counterpick to. He is the first of only two players in competitive Melee history to have taken a set off of each of the Five Gods (the other being ), and has often been called a god himself since his ascent in 2014. Leffen is currently ranked 1st on the Swedish Melee Power Rankings, 1st on the European Melee Power Rankings, and 4th on the SSBMRank Summer 2023.

Although Leffen didn't play Brawl competitively and only went to a few Smash 4 tournaments, he was active in Ultimate for the game's first year, maining and briefly touching  and. During this period, he was considered one of the best Pokémon Trainer players in the world along with, , and. Leffen has defeated players such as Tweek,, , , , , , and. He was listed as an Honorable Mention on both the Swedish Ultimate Power Rankings and the European Smash Rankings, and was formerly ranked in the Area 51 position on the Fall 2019 PGRU.

2010-2013: Early career
Leffen's introduction to Smash was through Brawl, which he played online in 2009.

In 2010, he started attending tournaments for Melee. He mained Falco and also trained a Yoshi secondary, which he used to great success at Stockholm locals and at Danish events.

Throughout the course of 2012, Leffen established himself as Europe's second-strongest player behind, with key results at and at. He sparred often with Armada, making headway but never taking a set. He came closest at in January 2013, where he was leading winners' finals 3-2 (in a best-of-7) and brought the sixth game to last stock before Armada clutched out the victory, going on to win the set 4-3.

Leffen also began traveling to North American supermajors during this time, and was noted as one of Armada's frequent travel companions from Europe. He displayed many respectable performances vs. the world's best players, but ultimately failed to make any top eight placings in North America from 2011 to 2013. was his first tournament in the United States, where he placed 17th, defeating in pools, but losing to SFAT and  in bracket. At, his first serious event as a Fox main, Leffen placed 33rd, and lost a last-hit set to in winners. At, Leffen defeated and  in winners to meet. He made a splash by bringing Hungrybox to last hit but lost this set as well; this close loss would go on to inspire a Salty Suite rematch the following year. In losers, Leffen lost another last-hit set to, placing 17th.

In February 2013, a group of prominent TOs and community members (led by Armada) announced that Leffen was banned was from many European tournaments due to his conduct. As a result, he only attended three tournaments for the rest of year. His most significant result was at, where he defeated before losing to Hungrybox and  in losers to place 9th, his strongest placing at an American tournament to date. He and scored an upset victory in doubles against eventual victors  and ; the European team went on to place 5th.

Leffen also attended a New York City local in September called CFST: Warzone 2, where he suffered unusual losses to and, perhaps due to lack of practice. He finished out the year at where he placed second, defeating  and  convincingly before losing two close sets to. Given his powerful play despite his scarce results, Leffen was ranked 14th on the 2013 SSBMRank.

Leffen's ban ended in early 2014, allowing him to compete in Europe again.

2014: Emergence as a top six player
2014 marked Leffen's emergence into the highest level of competitive Melee, establishing himself as one of the six best players in the world. He had a breakout performance at, where he earned his first set victory over one of the Five Gods, defeating 2-1 in winners' quarters (despite losing 1-3 in a Salty Suite the previous day). He then lost to 1-3 in winners' semis; in losers' he beat  2-0 and then had a close and intense set with  in losers' semis, but ultimately lost 2-3, getting 4-stocked to close out the set. This 4th place showing immediately confirmed Leffen as a player to watch for the rest of the year and presaged his ascent as a top player.

Back in Europe, Leffen won his first European national and defeated his second God at, winning two sets against Armada from losers, 3-0 and 3-1 respectively. Leffen then won, qualifying for the championship bracket. After losing to Armada 0-3 in winners' finals, he returned to grand finals and defeated him 6-0 across two sets.

Leffen competed in two American supermajors in the summer of 2014: MLG Anaheim 2014 and. In his pool at MLG Anaheim 2014, Leffen earned his third God victory by defeating PPMD 3-2. He also defeated, Colbol 3-1, , and , but lost to Mew2King and. Seeded in losers' for the championship bracket, he defeated both and Hax, before losing to PPMD 1-3 in losers' quarters, placing 5th overall. At EVO 2014, Leffen lost to Mew2King 0-2 in winners' quarters. In the losers' bracket, he was eliminated by 1-2, finishing off at an underwhelming 9th place overall.

Leffen's last big event of the year was, where he defeated Hungrybox 3-2 in winners' quarters and Armada 3-2 in winners' semis; this marked the first time Leffen made winners' finals at an American major. However, he lost 0-3 to Mew2King in winners' finals and 1-3 to Mang0 in losers' finals, with a 4-stock by Mang0 to close out the set, finishing 3rd, his best major placement so far.

Leffen ended the year ranked 6th on the SSBMRank 2014, only behind the Five Gods. Many players now viewed Leffen in the same tier as the Gods (as part of a new "big six,"), as he was the first non-God who had proven the ability to consistently beat several of them in tournament, and rarely losing sets to non-God players. He was popularly nicknamed "The Godslayer" as a result.

2015: Rise to the top
2015 marked Leffen's final push to the very top of competitive Melee, defeating all five Gods and competing for the title of best player in the world. He started the year at, where he defeated Armada 3-1 in winners' semis, earned his first victory over Mang0 3-2 in winners' finals, and faced Armada again in grand finals. Despite a closely fought set from both players (with Armada notably 4-stocking Leffen in game 4), Leffen managed to win grand finals 3-2; Leffen had now defeated four of the Five Gods, and became the first non-God to win a major with at least two of the Gods present since the start of the Five Gods era. Mew2King was now the only God he had yet to beat.

was a highly anticipated tournament for Leffen. He first fought a Salty Suite exhibition match vs. ; Leffen easily won 5-0, and as punishment for losing, Chillin was unable to use the default color in tournament ever again. Following the match, Mang0 went on stage and challenged Leffen to place $1000 on their match if they played each other in bracket, which Leffen accepted.

In the main bracket, Leffen easily made it to winners' quarterfinals to face Mew2King, his last undefeated God. In a momentous 2-1 victory, including a dominant 3-stock in game 3, Leffen defeated Mew2King, becoming the first player to take a tournament set from all of the Five Gods of Melee. He then went on to defeat Mang0 3-1, winning the set and earning an additional $1000. Looking poised to take the tournament, Leffen ultimately fell to PPMD 2-3 in winners' finals and Armada 1-3 in losers' finals, earning 3rd place. Having defeated all Five Gods in tournament, and having outplaced three of them, Leffen cemented his title as the "Godslayer" of Melee. (While Leffen was considered at the same level as the Gods, the Melee community has reserved "God" as a historical title to mark an era of the game's competitive history.) Soon after, Leffen was signed by Team SoloMid, one of the largest and most famous eSports organizations.

In the spring of 2015, Leffen placed 3rd at, 5th at , and 9th at (where he was upset 2-3 by  in winners' quarters and lost 0-3 to Mang0 in losers' bracket); this was now considered a relative underperformance for Leffen.

Leffen's dominance continued to grow throughout the summer of 2015, and following a series of first place finishes, he developed a claim as the best player in the world. At, Leffen won his first American major, defeating Armada twice in winners' finals 3-0 and grand finals 3-1. He then placed first at, where he beat Hungrybox 3-1 in winners' semis and Armada 3-1 in winners' finals, including a 4-stock in game 1 on. In grand finals, he met Hungrybox once again and beat him 3-1. Leffen earned another major victory at, including an impressive 3-0 victory over Mang0's Falco in grand finals, marking three consecutive first place finishes in singles.

Following his three major wins, Leffen was seen as the favorite to win, the biggest event of the summer. However, he failed to repeat this success at EVO, as he was sent into losers by Hungrybox and then upset by Plup's Samus for 5th place.

At, Leffen bounced back and took first place once again in singles, beating Mew2King 6-1 collectively in winners' finals and grand finals. Mew2King answered back in their next meeting at, where Mew2King famously took the tournament with a collective 6-0 victory over Leffen.

Due to his performances, Leffen was ranked 2nd on the Summer 2015 SSBMRank (only behind Armada); by now, Leffen had firmly established himself as a clear tournament favorite.

Leffen entered more American events in fall 2015. At he was sent to losers by Mew2King, and eliminated by Hungrybox, ending at 5th place. At, Leffen made it to grand finals from the winners' side, where he defeated Hungrybox 3-0.

2015-2016: Visa issues
Leffen's reign of dominance was cut short, however. While traveling to, he was denied entry into the United States and deported due to his lack of a workers' visa (as required due to his sponsorship by Team SoloMid). Leffen was unable to enter the Big House 5, and his visa issues continued to affect him for over a year, preventing him from entering many large tournaments, including, , , and. Furthermore, he was denied a worker's visa from the United States, primarily for reasons that questioned Melee's legitimacy as a sport. The video showing the rejection letter started a movement to reverse the decision, including a petition on the White House's official website. Eventually, Leffen was temporarily allowed into the United States up until and throughout July 2016, tentatively letting him attend. However, due to his visa going through additional processing resulting from his previous deportation from the US, Leffen was ultimately unable to attend EVO 2016.

Despite being unable to travel to the United States, Leffen was still able to compete in Canada, and entered majors in the spring of 2016. At, Leffen lost to and  to finish an underwhelming 7th. However, he rebounded at, where he defeated Mew2King 3-2, Armada 3-1, Hungrybox 3-2, and Mang0 3-1 to take 1st place without losing a set. Leffen's GOML run is often regarded as one of the most difficult and impressive tournament runs in Melee history, as he defeated all four active Gods in succession.

Leffen's visa was finally accepted on October 3rd, 2016, allowing him to compete in the US again. Leffen’s first tournament back in the US was, where he elected to sandbag with secondaries, placing 17th. He ended the year ranked 5th on the SSBMRank 2016, largely due to his lack of attendance compared to the other top players.

2017-2020: EVO 2018 victory
After finally returning to full-time competition, Leffen was unable to replicate his dominance of 2015. While still regarded as a tournament threat, he failed to win a major throughout 2017 and the first half of 2018, ending 2017 ranked 6th on the SSBMRank 2017. Leffen additionally began competing in other fighting games at this time, including .

Leffen's biggest tournament win to date came at, where he finally won the coveted title after many years of coming short. After going down 0-1 vs. Hungrybox in winners' semis, he didn't drop a single game for the rest of the tournament; he made the comeback against Hungrybox to win 2-1, and then easily defeated Plup 3-0 in winners' finals, followed by a 3-0 over Armada in grand finals to win one of the largest Melee tournaments of all time. Leffen's EVO 2018 run is often regarded as one of the most dominant tournament runs in Melee history.

At, Leffen took 1st place, winning his first major since the EVO victory, notably 6-0'ing Hungrybox.

2020-present: Post-pandemic era
Leffen was one of the top players most heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to his location in Europe. He was unable to enter many North American online events, as they were often region-locked for European players due to high ping issues. During this time, Leffen was perceived to be a top three player in the world, alongside Zain and Mang0, but it was difficult to compare his skill against other players due to a lack of results.

He received an automatic invite to, the first post-pandemic LAN major, but was unable to attend due to further visa problems. As such, in 2021, he attended only one tournament in North America:, where he placed 5th.

Leffen began entering more North American events starting in 2022; by this time, he also had picked up another fighting game, , and competed in that title full time alongside Melee. Despite splitting time between the two titles, Leffen still proved that he was capable of winning a major and defeating the best players in the world. His first post-lockdown victory came at, where he beat , Hungrybox, and Zain twice. In 2023, he won, where after losing to and  in pools, he managed to make it out of the Swiss bracket and into winners' top 16. He beat Hungrybox 3-0, Zain 3-2, Cody Schwab in winners' finals, and Zain once again in the runback.

During this time, Leffen also developed his secondary as a counterpick to, due to his previous difficulties against Zain in the Fox-Marth matchup. He used Sheik to double eliminate Zain at both Battle of BC 4 and LACS 5, and is one of the few players who holds a positive record against Zain post-pandemic.

Other Smash games
Leffen also played Project M at a high level for a while, and was known as one of the best players of, , and.

Leffen has occasionally played Smash 4, and notably pioneered the usage of 's up throw to up air combo.

Upon Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's release, Leffen often streamed the game and offered his own opinion on the meta. He was one of the early pioneers of using and has since used the character successfully in tournaments. Leffen briefly dropped Pokémon Trainer in favor of and  in April 2019, citing that Pokémon Trainer was not worth the effort, but he would eventually return to the character. Leffen also began labbing Joker upon his release and discovered an infinite lock technique performed by repeatedly using short-hopped s under the opponent while the opponent is on top of a platform. The technique has since been named "Leffoble" in honor of him.

At the end of April, Leffen announced his semi-retirement from Ultimate singles, mainly citing the smaller scene in Sweden and issues with online play making it difficult for him to get any meaningful practice. However, the release of saw his return to the game, and he intended to compete in, but issues with his visa kept him from doing so. Leffen continued to enter for both Melee and Ultimate at major tournaments such as, and although he put more importance towards Melee, he still found success in Ultimate, with set wins over , , and other top players. Following his first place at, Leffen announced he would once again be putting Ultimate on the backburner, instead focusing on Melee and other fighting games. He has since been critical of the game, which has brought about some controversy.

Playstyle
With Fox, Leffen is known for his consistent execution and movement, and boasts solid fundamentals in all aspects of the game, using a methodical and efficient approach, making him a very well-rounded player. Leffen has both a great neutral game, as he rarely overextends or overreaches in games even against weaker opponents, and a solid combo game, especially against fastfallers. He is renowned for his proficiency against, , and other Foxes, having made his first upsets against the Five Gods in those matchups. Leffen's prowess against Peach is so great that even, the best Peach in the world, would primarily opt for the Fox ditto in tournaments instead, generally only playing Peach on Final Destination. He is also arguably the best Fox player in the world at edgeguarding, which heavily contributes to his success in the Fox ditto and several other matchups.

While Leffen is well-rounded, he undoubtedly focuses on mental fortitude and adaptation more than technical play. Leffen once stated in an interview that he believes many high-level players are held back by "flowchart" behavior that he is able to exploit. This is clearly exemplified by his ability to "clutch" out sets from losing positions, even from 0-2 deficits. Despite this, he still puts in the work to lab certain matchups or situations that give him trouble, showing his solid work ethic; he's even known to lab other miscellaneous characters solely to push the metagame forward. Along with Armada, he practices with for the Jigglypuff matchup and has flown him out to events such as Summit in order to prepare for facing Hungrybox in bracket.

Prior to his establishment as a top 5 player, Leffen had noticeable trouble against punish-heavy players. Despite his strong fundamentals, he struggled if his opponent could overwhelm him technically, leading to losses against, , and , among others. He also could not defeat for a long time, even after he had upset the rest of the Five Gods, because of that aforementioned weakness. Leffen was also noted to be fairly poor at the matchup, having, at one point, losing records with  and, both of whom are considered far below his skill level. He has also lost three times to in solo Samus sets. However, he has since overcome these weaknesses and no longer drops sets as frequently to these types of players, most notably not having lost to solo Samus since 2018.

Ban from European tournaments
Despite being considered one of the best professional smashers in Melee, Leffen has led a controversial career as a smasher, due to his previously rude conduct during and outside of tournaments. Several players, most of which were new smashers to the scene, accused him of:
 * deliberately sandbagging in pools by playing low tier characters while insulting his opponent's skill throughout and after the match.
 * spreading exaggerated rumors about others, making rude and provocative comments on SmashBoards, and deliberately starting arguments with users.
 * further blaming other people when confronted about his actions, using his status as a top professional player to decrease his punishments.

After noticing his poor behavior, Swedish tournament organizers and other Melee professionals of his caliber gave him repeated warnings concerning his attitude. In August 2012, Leffen was eventually threatened with a ban from tournaments if he did not improve his attitude, but he did not take the claim seriously. This led to further discussions among the European Smash community that culminated in his national ban from Swedish tournaments, effective February 9th, 2013.

The discussion group announcing his ban compiled a significant amount of evidence of his poor behavior into a downloadable archive, and demanded that Leffen create a lengthy apology about all of his wrongdoings and how he would change his behavior in the future, should he return to the community. On March 21st, 2013, Leffen made his public statement asking for forgiveness; despite this, he was not immediately unbanned, and ended up missing almost one year's worth of local tournaments. On January 24th, 2014, it was announced by that the Swedish ban on Leffen was no longer in place. Since the ban, Leffen remains a relatively controversial figure in the community, especially on social media sites such as Reddit and Twitter, due to his blunt comments.

Ban from commentary
At Heir II the Throne, Leffen was banned from commentary on all future European Smash Circuit events for saying that it wasn't a "serious" tournament and players were playing their secondaries and not trying. Leffen notably compared the tournament to The Foundry, a series notorious for its relaxed and non-competitive atmosphere. Many argued that the TOs had overreacted in their decision, and that a full ban was an excessively harsh punishment.

Opinion on Ultimate
Despite focusing on Ultimate for a year, Leffen has been openly critical about the game, even going as far as to say that playing top-level Ultimate "is just pure fucking torture to me." As a result, he has butted heads with several other Ultimate professionals. Most notably, on September 26th, 2020, he argued with that streaming Ultimate was painful to him, that he would "rather flip burgers at [sic] mcdonalds if it paid the same amount," and that streaming Ultimate was harder than holding a minimum wage job. This Tweet was met with backlash and mockery from the community: users noted the difficulty of minimum wage jobs especially during the COVID-19 pandemic while several Smashers such as recounted how they hated working at their minimum wage jobs before they went professional. The Tweet eventually caused "Leffen" to trend on Twitter. Leffen would later delete and apologize for his minimum wage Tweet.

Libel allegations
On July 2nd, 2020, amidst a wave of sexual harassment allegations in the community, artist Jisu posted a tweet where she called out ZeRo for showing her hentai and explicit Craigslist ads when she was 15. ZeRo later responded, admitting that he looked at hentai but denied that he had shown it to her, nor would he show it to an entire room of people. He also denied showing her the ads. Following this defense, many people started to target Jisu for "clout-chasing." Leffen however would defend Jisu's claims by claiming that he saw ZeRo show people hentai in public, a statement that was backed up by a screenshot from an anonymous user later sent to Leffen. ZeRo would later confirm this and many other allegations made about him to be true several days later.

However, on June 25th 2021, would make a YouTube video where he challenged a vast majority of Jisu's allegations towards ZeRo. In the same video, Technicals featured a brief section where he interviewed ZeRo about Leffen's allegations. ZeRo stated that he didn't remember any of the events that Leffen claimed to have happened. He would later state in the interview that he felt as if "he was trapped by Leffen into being pressured into admitting the truth" due to all of the allegations against him, and that by apologizing for Leffen and Katie, he would be creating a false agenda that Jisu's story would be correct. Both Leffen and Jisu have yet to respond to Technical's and ZeRo's allegations.

On September 9, 2022, ZeRo would release a video where he accuses Leffen as the biggest instigator during the allegations made against him, as he claimed Leffen lied about a story regarding ZeRo sharing hentai with Leffen and Japanese players when they housed together for, and also accused ZeRo for exchanging hentai with fans without verifying their age. Both the Japanese players and the the fan have since denied Leffen's claim or retracted their statement. ZeRo ultimately accused Leffen for profiting off the drama while tarnishing ZeRo's name in the process.

Trivia

 * Leffen was commonly considered a villain in the Smash community due to his reportedly rude behavior and trash-talk. He claimed that he enjoyed his given title due to the community's need of someone to root against, although a controversy existed over whether he should embrace it or not.
 * Leffen has also been compared to from the Pokémon anime due to their similar personality and appearance.
 * Leffen is the subject of the two-season Red Bull documentary Cultivation Leffen: Resurrection, which chronicles the time period from his initial ban through his visa issues and his triumph at Get On My Level 2016.
 * Leffen's lifetime set count against Mew2King (9-17) is his worst set count against a god (excluding PPMD).
 * Leffen is infamous for a spate of losses against players, Plup, and  in 2015 and 2016 after having mocked Chillin's losses to the same character on Twitter.
 * He is the first person to four-stock Armada in bracket, doing it twice at FC Smash 15XR: Return and at Smash 'N' Splash 4.
 * Leffen, along with and, holds the title of the most money won in a single money match. He won $1,000 on three different occasions:
 * At Apex 2015, where he defeated in bracket 3-1 after betting on it following his salty suite against Chillin.
 * At, where he defeated in a money match 5-1.
 * At, where he won a bet against Mango as to who would win the loser's quarter-finals match between and ; Leffen bet on Swedish Delight, who ultimately won the set.
 * Leffen is sometimes referred to by his nicknames Yung Leff or Big Leff. Depending on how he plays and if he wins or loses, the adjective used can vary (Humoungous Leff, Massive Leff when winning, Small Leff, Minuscule Leff when losing). He has also been referred to these names by Dragon Ball FighterZ commentators.
 * Outside of Smash, Leffen has competed in both Dragon Ball FighterZ and Guilty Gear: Strive events. He is currently the only Smasher who was invited to a non-Smash-related Summit event (DBFZ's Summit of Power), as well as the only player to win an official EVO event for both platform and traditional fighting games (having also won EVO 2023 for Guilty Gear: Strive). He has since retired from Dragon Ball FighterZ, citing Toei’s meddling in tournaments, and Arc System Works's way of patching as the two reasons he does not enjoy the game anymore.
 * Leffen is the subject of a popular Twitter parody account known as the Deep Leffen Bot, a natural AI learning model created by a PhD student that is trained on Leffen's tweets, various Smash subreddits, and other "unsavory source materials". The bot is popular in the Smash community for its humorous and creative content output. Although he initially blocked the bot's account on Twitter, Leffen has since come around and praised the bot for its artistic and comedic value.
 * Despite being a sandbagging secondary, Leffen's reached the top of the ranked European Project Slippi leaderboards (and taking offline sets locally against top European players) under the alias of MewTwoMan.