Smasher:Plup

Plup is a smasher from Florida who is currently residing in Oregon, and is considered to be one of the best Melee players in the world. He is one of the best players in the world, a top  player, one of the best  players in the world, and one of the best  players in the world. He has strong placings in nationals, including 1st at and, 2nd at  and , 3rd at , 4th at , and 5th at , , and. He is also the second player in competitive Melee history to take a set off of each of the Five Gods, after defeating at The Big House 7. He is a strong doubles player, frequently teaming with, with the pair (collectively referred to as "Plupbox") currently considered the best doubles team in the world. He is currently ranked 9th on the SSBMRank Summer 2023 and was formerly ranked 2nd on the Central Florida Melee Power Rankings.

After, Plup switched from Samus to Sheik while still using Samus as an occasional counterpick. Plup has also demonstrated his competence with other characters, such as Luigi which he used exclusively at, defeating and , and placing 5th, the highest placing a solo Luigi has received at a major. He placed 3rd at CFL Smackdown 72 by playing exclusively. He also won CFL Smackdown 132 going exclusively. In 2016, Plup showed early success with Fox, winning Frame One and defeating, , and in the process.

Plup is also a professional Project M player, with secondaries  and. He took 1st place in Project M doubles with fellow Florida smasher Wizzrobe. He also participates in Ultimate tournaments playing and  with a  secondary, and has wins on, , , , , , , and.

On June 30th, 2015, Plup was signed by. He left Panda on December 2nd, 2022, following his disapproval of Panda's actions that allegedly resulted in the cancellation of the Smash World Tour 2022 Championships.

2010-2015: Birth of a Sheikah
Initially starting as a player, Plup's first notable tournament was at, placing 13th out of 62 entrants. Starting with Advent II, Plup teamed with in doubles, placing 1st at many doubles events and would be his main doubles partner until 2015. Later in 2012, he attended and placed 33rd with a win over. A year later, his next tournament was where he defeated, and lost to  and. He placed 17th at the event, a notable improvement over last year. After a few years of sparse results outside of locals, Plup started to make a name for himself by attending more major tournaments as well as improving his results.

At, he placed 13th with wins over and  and losses to  and. Later on, at, this was one of the first few tournaments where he started to use , mainly as a counterpick for the matchup. Despite this decision, he lost to Hungrybox in winners and grand finals. was notable as his first top 8 at a major tournament. After being sent to losers bracket by, he defeated and Fiction until being eliminated by , placing 5th. The latter half of the year would have Plup improve in results, but was just shy of making another top 8 at a notable event. At, he would lose to , albeit with notable wins in losers bracket over and  before losing to  at 9th place. would also be a 9th place finish for Plup and was his last tournament of 2014. However, with more notable placements and wins under his belt, he was ranked 16th on the 2014 SSBMRank.

At, he used a combination of Samus and now , being the first notable tournament where he used the latter character. However, Plup placed 49th at the tournament, being his worst placement in Melee singles to date. After Apex 2015, Plup started to use Fox and Sheik more frequently, with Samus no longer being his most notable character. The rest of the year would be better in terms of results and Plup has never placed outside of top 48 since Apex 2015. His notability with Sheik was first seen at. He placed 2nd with solo Sheik, taking out Hanky Panky,, and in the process. He only lost to Mew2King in both winners and grand finals. He then placed 7th at and his Sheik took more sets off of top level players, defeating ChuDat, Westballz, and  before losing to both  and  in very close sets. Plup would end up having a runback on both players at and ultimately won over both players, with his losers set with Leffen in particular becoming one of Plup's most famous sets. He also took additional sets over and  at this event before losing 2-0 to both  and Hungrybox and placed 4th in the tournament. Plup was invited to the first and would remain one of the invites for almost every future Smash Summit. In winners, he beat Shroomed before Mew2King sent him to losers. His losers run was notable however, defeating, Lucky, and PPMD, defeating another one of the Five Gods and placed 4th after losing a set to Mango. At, he placed 3rd with wins over , Mango, , and Westballz, with Plup 3-0ing the former in the Samus ditto. He only lost to Armada in both winners quarter-finals and losers finals. By the end of the year, Plup was ranked 7th on the 2015 SSBMRank, with this being his first top 10 placement on the rankings, only being ranked below the Five Gods and Leffen.

2016-2018: The Rise of the Jorts
At, he defeated PPMD and , with his losses being against Armada and Mango, ending in 5th place. He placed 1st at, defeating Colbol in both winners and grand finals, then placed 4th at , 3rd at , and 7th at , 17th at , and 5th at , which would be his would be his last tournament of the year outside of locals. With more consistent placements compared to 2015, he placed one spot higher of 6th on the 2016 SSBMRank.

Plup garnered strong results in 2017, starting the year by winning. Plup would go on to place 5th at, , and , with the latter tournament being notable for his use of solo. He eventually placed 2nd at, losing to Hungrybox. While Plup has won tournaments at this point, was his first truly notable win in Melee singles, as this was the first tournament won by a non-God with multiple Gods in attendance since Leffen's win at. Shortly after, Plup placed 5th at and. Notably at, he defeated Armada, the only God up to this point he never beat in bracket, becoming the second player to win a set against all of Melee's Five Gods, after Leffen. It was also the first time Armada lost to a Sheik player since 2010 where defeated him at. For the event itself, he placed 2nd behind Hungrybox. He would later go on to place 5th at. With his tournament and player wins, as well as his notable top 8 placements in account, he was ranked 5th on the 2017 SSBMRank, only being ranked below the active Melee Gods.

For Plup's career, 2018 is considered his best year in Melee singles. is considered his strongest tournament run in Melee singles, as he went on to take win sets against, Mango, Armada, and Hungrybox to became the champion of GENESIS 5. He then went on a dominant streak of placing 2nd at both and, and won another event in. With his wins at GENESIS 5 and Austin 2018, as well as placing top 8 in every tournament he attended in throughout early 2018, Plup jumped to 2nd on the Summer 2018 MPGR, his best placement on the rankings and the first time he outplaced Armada, Mew2King, and Mango. In the second half of 2018, Plup took two consecutive top placements at notable tournaments, with him placing 3rd at and 4th at  respectively. He would go on to place 2nd after losing to Hungrybox at. This streak throughout the year would end at where he was knocked out at 9th place. This was also only time he didn't appear in top 8 at a notable tournament in 2018. Despite the weaker result at Smash Summit 7, 2018 was undoubtedly a very strong year in terms of placements and wins over MPGR players. On the 2018 MPGR, he was ranked 4th and is currently his best placement with the whole year in account.

2019-present: Soft Decline and the Era of the Spoonfed Fish
Going into 2019, Plup took 3rd place at and. In the next two months, he had two fifth place finishes at both and. Due to not starting off as strong as the previous year, having slightly less notable wins, and stiff competition, his ranking dropped to 7th on the Summer 2019 MPGR. Unfortunately, the second half of the year became a slump in Plup's career. At, he fell to both Swedish Delight and Axe to place 17th at the event. was the next tournament he attended, he progressed in winners side of pools and defeated HugS 3-0, but unfortunately DQ'd in 17th place due to sickness. His next tournament was almost two months later and would place 9th after losing to SFAT and Fiction. He ended the year with a 7th place finish at, losing to both Swedish Delight and Hungrybox in 3-1 sets. Despite his shaky performance by the end of the year, his top 3 finishes at majors and top 8 placements throughout the year were strong enough for him to be ranked 8th on the 2019 MPGR, albeit this was his lowest ranking since 2015. Starting in 2020, Plup attended, playing primarily Fox. However, he lost in notable upsets from both PewPewU and. These losses put him in a lackluster result of 25th, being his worst placement in singles since The Big House 6. His next tournament was. He went on to dominate the winners bracket before being sent to losers by Hungrybox, eliminating Mango in losers, and faced Hungrybox once again in grand finals and placed 2nd despite resetting the bracket. In contrast to GENESIS 7, this is currently his best Summit placement, his best performance at Smash Summit since its inception at the time. In late 2021, when offline Melee tournaments were available again, Plup largely continued to maintain consistent tournament placings. He finished first in the before going on to win the, and would eventually place second at , , and , and win both  and.

Other Smash games
Outside Melee, Plup has competed in other Smash games. He slightly dabbled into Smash 4 during the game's early days, only competing in CFL weeklies and a very rare major in the case of where he placed 33rd. In Project M, he played in the game's heyday. He teamed up with Wizzrobe in doubles when he was an active player for the game, placing 1st at both CEO 2014 and and a second place finish at both The Big House 4 and Smash 'N' Splash, placing behind Mew2King and ZeRo and Mew2King and, respectively. In Ultimate, he primarily plays and  and is one of the best Ultimate players who are more known for Melee, considered only behind Leffen. With Mega Man, he has taken sets off of, , and. As Ridley, he solely used the character at and placed 49th at the event, being the highest placement for a solo Ridley player at an S-Tier. He had notable performances of 17th at two Ultimate supermajors at and, and was voted in for the first  although he only placed 13th. He occasionally uses and  as counterpicks.

Trivia

 * Plup has an even record with (8-8).
 * Plup humorously forgot to receive his medal on stage with the other top 8 finishers at.
 * Plup dropped and broke his 1st place trophy at, which was later replaced.
 * Plup has taken at least 1 set off of each of the members of the 2015 top 6. He first defeated at Advent II, Leffen at,  at EVO 2015,  at ,  at , and  at.
 * By placing 5th at while using only, Plup became the highest placing Luigi ever at a major Melee tournament, beating 's 7th place finish at.
 * Plup is the second player to defeat each of the Five Gods in a tournament set at least once (after ).
 * Plup is also the only player that has taken multiple sets off of each of the Five Gods.
 * In a set against at, Chillin's  beat out Plup's  in the first game. This prompted Plup to switch to Fox to close out the set, and he ended up going only Fox for the rest of the tournament. This prompted various memes afterward that "Chillin retired Plup's Sheik" that the Smash community has joked about.
 * In 2019, Plup guest-starred on a REACT "Secret Pro Gamer" episode, in which he played Ultimate against and easily defeated the reactors, initially with reactor Eric posing as Plup, with the latter hidden behind a curtain.
 * Since winning the, Plup is commonly associated with a GIF (and emote, known as plupYUMYUM) of a koi fish being spoonfed. This emote is often spammed in tournament stream chats whenever Plup is playing to cheer him on, alluding to him "consuming" or "devouring" his opponents.
 * The ubiquity of the fish (accredited to the efforts of Melee/Minecraft player NotEnder) has led to, , , and others to make their own spins on the emote.
 * Plup is the second player to complete Melee's All-Star gameplay mode on the Very Hard difficulty with every character (after Canadian Fox player Laser). The feat (which does not involve the use of continues) took him over two years to accomplish.
 * Plup is also the only player to have beaten All-Star, Very Hard with every character, plus Giga Bowser.
 * Plup is the subject of a satirical feud with YouTube content creator AsumSaus, stemming from a video the latter made on the importance of port priority.
 * After leaving, Plup switched to using 's blue-themed costume.