I wish people could realize this whole issue of "OMG APPROACHING IS NOW BAD IN MELEE" is ridiculous. Look at the parameters within which top level Melee games are timed out:
1. Hbox is playing. He is quite infamous for his patient play, so this is not surprising.
2. Hbox uses Jiggs. Jiggs is a character well adapted to patient play due to her ability to space aerials without worrying about landing lag and her great recovery. She is, at the same time, susceptible to being timed out due to her lack of projectiles and slow ground and vertical movement speed.
3. Armada is playing. Armada is going into each game vs. Hbox with the mentality that he will time him out. It has become his GOAL, rather than a result of him trying to play patiently.
4. Armada uses YL. He SPECIFICALLY chose YL as a character best suited to time out Jiggs. He is faster than her, and he has powerful projectiles that consistently lead into KOs.
Competitive Melee has been shown to only result in time outs under these circumstances. It is a completely pointless issue in every other matchup or with any other combination of players (I don't recall Armada reverting to YL for Mango's Puff, nor do I think it would have done him any good due to Mango's style). Armada's YL vs. Hbox's Puff is the absolute brink of campiness that Melee can be pushed to, and I think most talented players are able to watch GFs and be
fairly entertained with the effort and skill being displayed by each competitor. Is it ideal for entertainment? No, but considering that it is probably the least entertaining matchup possible,
it's actually pretty promising.
This notion that Melee is somehow drifting towards Brawl-like game play is laughable. I mean that quite literally. The discussion between Hax with other top players on the State of the Game stream literally resulted in laughter at the possibility that someone could feasibly run away all game and win. Hbox is showing it is difficult enough to do in the best possible matchup for that style, so the idea that YL, let alone any other characters could reproduce similar results against Jiggs, let alone any other opposing characters, is ridiculous.
Even if Melee somehow became a game of entirely push-and-pull, that game will still be vastly more deep than Brawl. Cactuar even specified in that quote that the true source of the camping in Brawl isn't so much the lack of punish as it is the lack of precise and delicate mobility. Top level Melee players are so good at spacing they frequently rely on tactics such as fade away aerials that land just pixels outside of their opponent's grab, or a Marth landing a tipper fsmash on their opponent's shield leaving them completely incapable of punishing the relatively large amount of lag. They frequently avoid attacks by pixels as they dash dance and wave dash in an eternal struggle to maximize their opportunities while limiting their opponents. Don't tell me Melee will become like Brawl because in Brawl, you CAN'T space like
THIS.
