Smasher:La Luna

La Luna (formerly known as The Moon) is a former professional main from New York. He was considered one of the rising stars in the region; he had only started playing around 2011 under, but has climbed the ranks quickly. His breakout performance came at, where he beat players such as and  in Losers' bracket to secure 3rd place. He is currently ranked 53rd on the 2019 MPGR and was previously ranked 2nd on the New York City Power Rankings. He boasts high-level wins over, , , , , and.

La Luna has also seen strong placings in Ultimate as a main. He has wins over and  and placed 49th at  making him one of the most successful Melee players at the tournament.

La Luna was picked up by Mazer on February 9th, 2019, but parted ways with the organization on March 2nd, 2020.

Sexual misconduct allegations and ban
On July 2nd, 2020, amidst a wave of sexual harassment allegations in the community, a user by the name of ProbablyJut shared the story of a person named Alexus, who criticized La Luna for sexually provocative behavior. According to Alexus, after a party, La Luna went to her boyfriend to ask him to "arrange having sex with me for the night". She alleges that, since this happened, La Luna repeatedly and openly asked to dance with her and questioned where her boyfriend was, while making sexual gestures to her given any opportunity, despite her asking him to leave her alone.

La Luna responded to the allegation the next day in a Twitlonger. He posted chat logs of his conversations with Alexus, explaining that he did not go to the party in question due to still being at the venue late into the night, consequently ignoring Alexus' message to have him escort her to the party. He directly denied the claims of his supposed actions, saying that they were completely out of character for him even in their language. La Luna also pointed out a contradiction in her story, since Alexus alleged that La Luna made the remark to her boyfriend after the party, yet subsequently asserted that La Luna kept asking why her boyfriend abandoned her at the party. He showed further chat logs from the months and years following the tournament, showing that she maintained contact despite feeling uncomfortable around him.

Although many users came to agree with La Luna, other users cited that the alleged antics carried on his other social media platforms as evidence that he was very cognizant of his sexual behavior. In particular, a post he made on Facebook describes his sexual preferences in detail, with a number of users arguing that he indeed lacked control of his behavior. Some users who witnessed him first making the post recalled seeing it as a "dumpster fire" or a "shitshow", and also remarked that he incurred significant pushback for it.

As a result, La Luna has been banned indefinitely from participating in all tournaments in NYC, and his name was added to the Global Ban Database.

On March 23rd, 2021, La Luna posted a video discussing his behavior and the allegation at length. He admitted to having made inappropriate comments in the past, but remarked that he has since learned to not say such things and apologized to the people he made the comments to. He also pointed out further holes in Alexus' story, noting that someone corrected her story by claiming the incident occurred at GENESIS 4 and not 5, which he found even more questionable as there was no party at GENESIS 4. He also criticized Melee Hell for providing false alibi's to corroborate her allegations, which he considered doubly questionable since the group had feuded with him before this. In response to a member of Melee Hell claiming that he stopped La Luna from speaking to Alexus at GENESIS 6 and 7, La Luna showed further chatlogs of his conversations with Alexus. In them, she mentions not seeing him until the final day of GENESIS 6, and also put a thumbs up on a voice message he sent to her saying to stay away from Melee Hell. To console her during a time when she was being accused of misconduct by members of Melee Hell, La Luna reached out to her, urging Alexus to distance herself from Melee Hell. La Luna also criticized the posts regarding his Facebook post, noting that, contrary to what users recalled, those who commented on it responded to it positively.

Trivia

 * La Luna has been notably upset by a few mid and low-tier mains, which carries overs to majors. This includes 's at Zenith 2012, 's  in locals, '  at Get On My Level 2015, 's  at The Big House 5, and 's Donkey Kong at.
 * He is also known for being the origin of a commentator meme in the Melee community. Years ago, when he was not as well-known as a player, he claimed that one of Falco's most popular ledge getup options (the ledge hop double laser) was actually an "unsafe" option, contrary to popular opinion. This was brushed off at the time, but frame data and advancements in the metagame have since shown that he was actually correct. As such, when modern Falco mains perform this technique and are punished for it, commentators will often reference La Luna and quote the history of his claim.
 * La Luna almost always plays white Marth, but switches to black Marth when in grand finals of a tournament. When he was called The Moon, he referred to this as "the dark side of the moon".