lloD wins Get On My Level 2026 for his first Melee major

Arjun "lloD" Malhotra won the 512-entrant Super Smash Bros. Melee bracket at Get On My Level 2026 in Toronto, Ontario, taking the first major title of a career that began in 2005. Malhotra, a longtime Peach player, is an orthopedic surgery resident, and is listed by Oklahoma State University in that role after attending the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.

The run

The bracket included several of the game's best-known competitors, among them Hungrybox, Zain and moky. Malhotra reverse swept Hungrybox to reach the top eight, then beat moky and RapMonster on the way to grand finals.

RapMonster, a rising Luigi player, took a second route to the final by beating Zain 3-1 in losers finals. He then won the opening grand finals set 3-1 to reset the bracket. Malhotra recovered to take the deciding set 3-2, closing it out on the last stock of a fifth game.

Dexerto reports it was the first Melee major won by a Peach player since Armada took Super Smash Con in 2018. The final also produced an unusual statistic: as the analyst PracticalTAS noted, Malhotra entered doubles at BOMB 4 in 2005 at the age of 10, while RapMonster was born in 2006 — one competitor had been playing the game for longer than his opponent had been alive.

A record on the way out

Malhotra, who is 31, said after the win that the result may have set another mark.

A 2022 profile by Upcomer, cited by Dexerto, recorded that Malhotra first entered Melee tournaments as a 10-year-old and that his attendance fell away while he was in medical school, though he continued to climb the rankings through long breaks from competition. He said at the time that he did not see himself quitting.