Double Jump Gaming News

The Story of MKLeo: The Greatest Smash Ultimate Player

Article by: Brett Ransom

Smash Ultimate has had the single longest run time of any Smash title before it, currently coming up on its 8th anniversary without a new Smash title. With that long run comes other stories within it, perhaps none more important or colorful than that of the greatest Smash player to ever do it: MKLeo.

MKLeo is a player from Mexico who has played a myriad of characters, a rarity in Smash. While most players stick to one character, MKLeo started in the early days of Ultimate known for his Ike, Lucina, and Wolf before he committed to his iconic Joker. In February 2019, MKLeo won Ultimate’s first supermajor, Genesis 6, and positioned himself as the player to beat. When he debuted his Joker at Umebura Japan Major 2019 in May, he got an unusually low placing of 33rd. After this, he was more than dominant. He won majors such as MomoCon, Smash ’N’ Splash 5, and CEO, and the MKLeo and Tweek rivalry emerged as the defining rivalry of early Ultimate. His win at MomoCon also started the record streak of reaching Grand Finals at 37 tournaments in a row. The inaugural Panda Global Rankings Ultimate ranked Leo #1 in the world right before the biggest Smash Ultimate tournament of all time, EVO 2019.

For those unfamiliar, EVO, or Evolution Saga, is the Super Bowl, the World Cup, of fighting games. In Smash Ultimate’s first year at EVO, it had 3,534 entrants. Leo lost relatively early to Kameme and had to make an enormous losers run through Maister, ScAtt, Abadango, Zackray, Raito, Samsora, Glutonny, and finally Tweek. To put this into perspective, he lost to the best Mega Man player in the world, then went on a win streak beating the best Mr. Game and Watch player in the world (at the time), the second best Mega Man in the world, a top Japanese player who played several characters, the best Wolf in the world, the best Duck Hunt in the world, the best Peach in the world, the best Wario in the world, and the best Pokemon Trainer in the world with each of the last 5 players being top 20 in the world. This single tournament started the myth, the legend, of Game 4 Leo. When Leo was down 2-1 or facing elimination, he was statistically more likely to reverse the set and win. MKLeo was undoubtedly the best player in the world. Tweek, Samsora, Marss, Nairo, Zackray, Glutonny and others could beat him, but nobody had Leo’s combination of consistency, adaptation, and tournament wins or even the ability to actually eliminate him from losers if they could even put him there in the first place. The rankings were basically: #1: MKLeo, gap, everyone else trying to beat Leo.

One of MKLeo’s most notable losses was up next: Genesis 7. Here, MKLeo would place second to Marss, one of the few players who stood a chance against Leo and could actually beat him. This was a rarity for Leo, not placing first. Then, at FrostBite 2020, he made one of the longest losers runs ever. Leo was upset by Prodigy extremely early, in the round of top 96. From there he won 11 consecutive sets, mowing through a ridiculous collection of highly ranked players including Tea, Zackray, Nairo, Tweek, Samsora, Dabuz, and Maister to win the tournament. Around this time Echo Fox dissolved, and Leo joined T1 in February 2020. He also began experimenting with the newly released DLC character Byleth. Then COVID happened.

In person, offline tournaments were gone. There was only WiFi, something Smash Ultimate is known for. By that, I mean having a terrible online experience. At its base, Smash Ultimate already has a very high input delay of 4 frames, the highest of any Smash Title. This is bumped up to 10 frames on WiFi. It is so significant that it changes the character tier list significantly, with rush down characters going down the tier list and zoners going up. Leo was certainly still good online, but by no means dominant. Leo finished 33rd at the gigantic 8,192 player online event The Box and lost Grand Finals of one of the Quarantine Series majors to Sonix. He was ranked only 11th on Wi-Fi Warrior Rank v5. While he struggled online, Leo committed more and more to Byleth over his iconic Joker, while dabbling occasionally with the new top tier DLC character Pyra and Mythra, AKA Aegis. While Joker was considered top tier and even the best character in the game at one point before further DLC was added, Byleth was only considered to be a mid tier character. The question at this point was whether or not Leo could remain dominant after a year without offline events while using a mid tier character. Of course, the answer was yes. At his first offline event back, Central America Smash World Tour Regional Finals, he won the whole thing without dropping a set.

Then at Smash Ultimate Summit 3, something dramatic happened.Tweek had committed himself to his new main Diddy Kong and absolutely destroyed Leo, beating him 3–0 twice, including Grand Finals. Tweek won Summit, and for probably the first time since early Ultimate, there was serious discussion that somebody might actually have overtaken Leo. Two weeks later they met again at Riptide. Tweek was up 2-0. I hope you didn’t forget about Game 4 Leo. Leo reverse 3-0’d him in Winners Finals and beat Tweek again in Grand Finals to win the tournament. From here on, Leo used Byleth to win Riptide, Low Tide City, Port Priority 6, Mainstage, and the Smash World Tour Championships. But, in the beginning of 2022 at Smash Ultimate Summit 4, Leo placed 4th losing to ProtoBanham. At this point, his record setting streak of 37 consecutive offline Grand Finals reached ended and the invincible MKLeo began to show some cracks. 4th at one of the most prestigious events of all time might not sound bad, but it ended a 3 year streak of never placing below second at an offline event. Not too long after, Tweek once again eliminated Leo at 3rd place at Collision 2022. Leo would come back experimenting with Corrin, another mid tier, and won both RETA 2022 and Genesis 8 before placing second at Pound 2022. Outside of MKLeo, the scene around him was rapidly changing. His fellow countryman Sparg0 was a genuine contender for #1 in the world. Steve, by far the best character in the game introduced through DLC, had exploded onto the scene as players had figured out how to play him. Japanese players became far more prominent to the point of becoming the best overall region in the world. The new generation was here.

Leo placed 2nd at Double Down before winning Smash Factor 9 and Rise N’ Grind. Then came Super Smash Con 2022, where Leo lost 3-0 to Onin the Steve player placing 5th. Then at Smash Ultimate Summit 5, Leo placed 9th. This was the second time in his career missing a top 8 ever. All anyone was talking about was whether or not the era of MKLeo was over. Then came the Ludwig Invitational, an extremely stacked event that only a handful of top players from around the world were invited to. Leo defeated top players including Dabuz, asimo, Sonix, acola, Kurama, and acola again. Across eight best of five sets, he lost one game. His two wins over the Steve main acola were especially notable here as he was emerging as a new contender for #1 in the world as the best player in Japan and the best Steve in the world. 2022 would end as the last year MKLeo would be ranked #1 in the world.

2023 would start with Leo placing 4th at Let’s Make Big Moves and shortly after winning Genesis 9. Unfortunately, Leo would struggle in the coming major events. He placed 9th at Collision, then 9th at Smash Ultimate Summit 6. 13th at Battle of BC. 9th again at Get On My Level. Smash Factor X: 5th place. Luminosity Makes Moves Miami: 13th place. Watch the Throne: 13th place. Players who seemed like they had a possibility of taking down the invincible MKLeo became bracket demons. Tweek, Riddles, and Gluttony all began to take sets. Even players who weren’t top 25 in the world began to take sets, like ApolloKage, ShinyMark, and Jakal. At this period, Leo struggled to stick to any one character. He played a combination of Byleth, Aegis, Meta Knight, R.O.B., Joker, and others. The old Joker was still good, but Leo’s Joker was no longer a force of nature. His Aegis had moments of excellence but never quite recreated the oppressive feel of 2019 Joker or 2021 Byleth. This year Leo also left T1 in February 2023 and joined Luminosity Gaming in March, alongside Tweek. 2023 ended with Leo ranked #11 in the world, a stark contrast from his all of his previous ranks of #1. Leo’s invincibility was gone, his era over.

2024 didn’t start much better. He opened with 4th at Luminosity Makes BIG Moves, but then flopped with a 25th at Genesis X. He did, however, win King Con, notably beating Sparg0 twice. He took 2nd at Bonito Harbor too. His placements were, for his standards, mediocre at the many events he entered in the first half of 2024. 7th at Collision, 13th at Battle of BC 6, 7th at the Luminosity Invitational, 9th at DELTA #8, 25th at Kagaribi #12, 7th at GOML X, 9th at S Factor 11, 17th at Supernova. He ended the first half of 2024 ranked #25 in the world, falling even further. The second half of 2024 felt reminiscent of his glory days. Leo increasingly returned to Joker, won Warehouse War 4, won Fist Bump International, took 5th at Umebura SP11, 5th at the Luminosity Invitational: Back 2 School, 4th at Let's Make Moves Miami, and 3rd at The Throne 2. He was taking sets from players like Sparg0, Light, Zomba, Glutonny, MuteAce, Zackray, and ShinyMark. He finished the year ranked #8 in the world, back to top 10, confirming he wasn’t totally washed and could still hang with the best despite losing his extreme dominance.

2025 began with mixed results. He still accumulated some excellent wins, beating top players such as Sparg0, Sonix, Shuton, Hurt, Raru, Glutonny, Kola, Zomba and Onin. At Get On My Level: Forever Leo beat Hurt, Shuton and Kola before Sparg0 eliminated him in 4th. At S Factor 12 in July, he finished 5th, but that tournament included some notable wins for other reasons. Leo beat Hurt, Glutonny and Onin, and the Onin victory was particularly meaningful because Steve had been one of Leo's most notorious problems for years. It was Leo's first tournament-set win over Onin. At the time, Hurt was one of the strongest players in the world and even in the #1 discussion. Leo was able to beat some of the best, but he just couldn’t finish the full bracket. This may have partially been because he was putting a lot of time into Pyra and Mythra and experimenting with Cloud and R.O.B. He struggled a lot at first, but started finding success later in the year.

In September at EugeneBound Summers using Pyra and Mythra and Cloud, he took sets off of MuteAce, Jakal, and Sonix. In the Grand Finals, Sonix was able to reset the bracket 3-0. In the Grand Finals reset, Leo won game 5 using Pyra and Mythra. This was one of his biggest wins in a while. Following this, Leo went on a trip to Asia, going to tournaments in Taiwan and Japan. In Taiwan, Leo placed 3rd at Fist Bump III. He was double eliminated by Asimo, but beat Gackt and a win on Gluttony while the Wario main was experimenting with Link. Then came Kagaribi #14 in Japan. Going into one of the biggest events of all time that was classified as a Premier tier event, Leo was known for flopping in Japan. Despite that, he placed 7th overall losing to two players in contention for #1 in the world. He lost to acola and Hurt using Pyra and Mythra. Given who he lost to and his historical flops in Japan, it was overall a good result. After Kagaribi, he would go back to North America and play in Port Priority 9. Port Priority 9 was one of Leo’s worst performances of his entire career. He placed 65th losing to Yeast the Mii Brawler and RM8, an infamous Ike player who has played in so many tournaments that if you look up his profile on stats sites like Supermajor, they just crash. By no means is RM8 or Yeast top global threats. Once again, Leo would end the year outside the top 10 at rank #14 in the world. This was a fairly accurate description of his ability to take names and games, but not the whole bracket. It would not be long until this was no longer the case.

Starting out 2026 Leo placed 9th at the first Vars Ultimate Summit, a replacement tournament for the discontinued Ultimate Summit invitational series. Through Swiss pools, Leo would lose sets to Jakal, Omega, and Osh9 but he took sets from Neo, WebbJP, ApolloKage, and Sparg0. In the main bracket, Leo would start in losers and get his revenge on Asimo before losing immediately after to Jakal in losers round 2. Not the greatest start, but not awful. At Let’s Make Big Moves 2026, Leo beat Epic_Gabrial, PKChris, Lui$, and Monte, losing to Sonix and Peabnut for 5th. Following this, he would have two back to back rough performances. At Genesis X3, he would place 17th beating Riddles and Sparg0 and losing to MuteAce and Lui$. At Lvl Up Expo 2026 he would place 17th again beating Jakal and losing to Crepe Salee and Nyonoknb. If you stopped watching Leo here, you would think the GOAT of ultimate was washed, that acola was the new GOAT of Smash Ultimate. You’d be wrong. .

Kagaribi 15 was the world’s first warning that Leo was back. Leo went on a tear to 4th place beating Leaf, Miya, Ryuoh, Shuton, and Zomba, losing to Sparg0 and Doramigi. He beat several top contenders but lost to, again, two contenders for #1 in the world who were both previously #1 in the world. Leo took the recently crowned #1 in the world Doramigi to game 5 with Joker and Meta Knight. At Blink Respawn 2026, Leo would place second double eliminating Riddles and getting double eliminated by Sonix. This would place Leo at number 12 in the world in the mid-year rankings. He was 0.25 points from being in the top 10. He had better losses than other contenders but not enough big wins on the top 25 players. After these rankings, Leo would display dominance not seen since before 2022.

Leo would take first place at X Factor X3, taking out Ouch!?, Lima, Light, Zomba, Shuton, Sparg0 and double eliminating Sisqui. Taking names like Zomba, Light, Shuton, and Sparg0 were huge because Leo was stacking big wins on top 10 players again like it was nobody's business. Two weeks later at GOML, Leo would beat Nyonoknb, Lima, Riddles, Sparg0, and Light before getting double eliminated by Hurt. At ClashMania 2026, Leo would place first beating Umeki, Peabnut, and double eliminating Raru. Leo historically struggled against Mega Man, but managed to take his first set off of Peabnut. This takes us up to modern day as of the writing of this article.

Right now, Leo looks poised to be top 10 in the world once again at the end of 2026. His wins are up, his losses remain good. Assuming he continues his hot streak, it is extremely likely he will find himself in the top 10 for the first time since the second half of 2023. He is also poised to keep his position as the GOAT of Ultimate. acola is a relatively close second with Leo having 20 supermajor wins and acola having 19 supermajor wins. Both had huge periods of extreme dominance. Leo’s peak was more dominant, but acola’s has lasted longer into the modern era. While Leo was number one between 2019 to 2022 (minus the online era from 2020-2021), acola has been top 3 from 2022 to the first half of 2026, also being #1 from 2023 to 2024. acola may have been more consistent for a longer period of time without a decline, but MKLeo is having a resurgence. Both players have had a period of dominance over the other in terms of set count too. The argument for each is close, with players like Miya, Sparg0, Sonix, and Tweek trailing behind.

If you’re an MKLeo fan, you want this hot streak to continue. However, at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2026 this past weekend in Europe, Leo placed 5th as the 1 seed losing to Luugi and KID with his only notable win being Raflow. While this isn’t great for his record this season, especially in comparison to his record setting streak of first places and second places. As an overall record, however, it’s a normal fluctuation that in reality really isn’t that bad. Even earlier this year, Leo placed 17th twice in a row. This is far better. He can still be top 5 in the world if he can keep up this hot streak of grand finals and good wins at majors and supermajors. It remains to be seen if he can ever be ranked #1 in the world again, but he certainly has shown the ability to do it like no other before.