Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Shaya]

Official 4BR Smash for Wii U Tier List v1.0 (1.1.3 patch)

Top
S:

High
A:
B:

Middle
C:
D:
E:

Low
F:
G:

Bottom
H:
I:
J:

Graphic version:

Spoiler: Raw voting data

Character | Average Placement | Standard Deviation | Gap
Sheik | 20.0 | 0.0 | 0.0
Zero Suit Samus | 19.46 | 0.708 | 0.538
Rosalina | 18.77 | 0.87 | 0.687
Ryu | 17.95 | 1.103 | 0.82
Pikachu | 17.86 | 1.065 | 0.099
Sonic | 17.83 | 1.269 | 0.021
Fox | 17.52 | 1.146 | 0.313
Mario | 17.51 | 1.108 | 0.014
Diddy Kong | 17.43 | 0.998 | 0.082
Meta Knight | 17.12 | 1.489 | 0.307
Villager | 16.52 | 1.614 | 0.597
Cloud | 16.5 | 1.657 | 0.023
Ness | 16.39 | 1.502 | 0.11
Captain Falcon | 15.16 | 1.767 | 1.228
Yoshi | 15.15 | 1.893 | 0.013
Luigi | 14.27 | 1.996 | 0.881
Dark Pit | 13.89 | 2.138 | 0.381
Pit | 13.88 | 2.308 | 0.006
Peach | 13.75 | 2.115 | 0.133
R.O.B. | 13.63 | 2.221 | 0.12
Wario | 13.56 | 1.898 | 0.067
Toon Link | 13.2 | 2.416 | 0.357
Lucario | 12.92 | 2.224 | 0.285
Olimar | 12.47 | 2.452 | 0.454
Greninja | 12.25 | 2.633 | 0.215
Ike | 12.12 | 2.425 | 0.126
Donkey Kong | 11.8 | 2.252 | 0.325
Mega Man | 11.41 | 2.159 | 0.386
Pac-Man | 11.29 | 2.278 | 0.124
Bowser | 10.81 | 2.66 | 0.477
Robin | 10.17 | 2.722 | 0.642
Roy | 9.29 | 3.209 | 0.883
Kirby | 9.1 | 3.388 | 0.183
Bowser Jr. | 8.93 | 2.671 | 0.176
Mr. Game & Watch | 8.72 | 2.47 | 0.21
Lucas | 8.65 | 2.993 | 0.071
Mewtwo | 8.35 | 2.666 | 0.297
Falco | 8.12 | 3.026 | 0.232
Wii Fit Trainer | 8.08 | 2.674 | 0.037
Shulk | 7.75 | 2.926 | 0.325
Marth | 7.72 | 2.237 | 0.038
Link | 7.47 | 2.474 | 0.249
Duck Hunt Dog | 7.18 | 3.11 | 0.283
Little Mac | 7.18 | 2.633 | 0.009
Dr. Mario | 7.14 | 2.437 | 0.033
King Dedede | 6.04 | 2.721 | 1.107
Lucina | 5.59 | 2.547 | 0.447
Mii Brawler | 5.01 | 2.952 | 0.584
Charizard | 4.79 | 2.255 | 0.218
Palutena | 4.78 | 2.199 | 0.008
Samus | 4.12 | 1.942 | 0.656
Mii Gunner | 3.6 | 2.153 | 0.525
Mii Swordsman | 3.32 | 2.054 | 0.282
Ganondorf | 3.23 | 1.675 | 0.082
Jigglypuff | 2.79 | 2.035 | 0.448
Zelda | 1.96 | 1.259 | 0.828

Spoiler: Text version

S: Sheik, Zero Suit Samus, Rosalina & Luma
A: Ryu, Pikachu, Sonic, Fox, Mario, Diddy Kong, Meta Knight
B: Villager, Cloud, Ness
C: Captain Falcon, Yoshi
D: Luigi, Dark Pit, Pit, Peach, R.O.B., Wario, Toon Link, Lucario
E: Captain Olimar, Greninja, Ike, Donkey Kong, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Bowser, Robin
F: Roy, Kirby, Bowser Jr., Mr. Game & Watch, Lucas, Mewtwo, Falco, Wii Fit Trainer
G: Shulk, Marth, Link, Duck Hunt, Little Mac, Dr. Mario
H: King Dedede, Lucina
I: Mii Brawler, Charizard, Palutena
J: Samus, Mii Gunner, Mii Swordsman, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Zelda

For the longest time we've been tied to "character competitive impressions" to supplement our lack of an official tier list during the early stages of Smash 4. Constant balance patches and character releases have kept us from taking those steps for a long time now but with the advent of the 4BR (WiiU Back Room) we've together tackled the long awaited elephant in the community. However, the community that has been built up around this lapse of structure has been exceptional and we've become of the most active and critical threads on Smashboards - it needn't be forgotten and you're all apart of what makes it great!

You can read the full article here.
A more fleshed out blurb and credits can be found there and that should be the primary external reference point.
To note, the tier list assumes no custom movesets and Mii Fighters restricted to Guest Mii sizes and a 1111 move set.
I'll summarize the procedural format as "with up to 20 divisions, and characters in the same division being equal, segregate the cast as such as 20 is best and 1 is worst". We will likely be keeping up with this format and although not explicitly stated thus far, this is so we can transition into v2 (or 1.1.4 patch or later) version easier. There is a good chance we will be expanding the user base for participation in the future and that isn't restricted to just those in the 4BR, keep this in mind .

To differentiate from the article discussion, we will be expecting discussion here on this list to be above nonsensical rants or complaints, petty jabs and otherwise. THE ARTICLE IS THERE FOR YOU OTHERWISE.
Feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like here (probably should tag me at least, I'll hopefully get more members on board in being active in the discussion too!)

 

[Shaya]

Frequently Asserted Complaints (FACs)

"A patch is coming in two days, this is dumb"

This project has been going on for a while and we knew a patch would be coming in shortly after it's release.
We were assuming mid February, but it mattered not - we wanted to be wrapped up in voting after Genesis and this was the case.

We can't predict the future, so a big patch may come soon and really throw this list on it's head.
That's fine. Although the likelihood of such an extreme impact is low...
The subtleties of changing opinion over time is not something we naturally notice, so even now looking back is difficult without references.
It's important that we start somewhere, and with this tier list we can place a bookmark on our progress so that we may better look ahead to the future. =)

The variance in placements across the 52 tallied votes was quite large; so of course the list may not match up with your own opinions, but we're happy with the averaged results. It may not perfectly represent 1.1.3 since December, but it represents a lot of the high level thought in the game covering this time period.

"Headers and separations used aren't what I expected!"

Using the point gaps between averages, characters have been separated as you see them now.
Roy through to Doctor Mario was a very tight range of characters.
Falcon and Yoshi were awkward to place, the largest gap between any set of characters on this list occurred between Ness and Falcon. And a sizable one between Yoshi and Luigi.
We felt justified in the top 3 being their own tier and it being known as top. The Super Bash Sisters Triumvirate has long persisted in dominance.

In terms of us using S-J; for aesthetic purposes we could've reduced the amount, but we didn't want to increase how subjectively we interpreted the results we had, the only exception being not wanting single character tiers (e.g. Zelda). The fact we use S-J rather than pluses and minuses is really down to aesthetics and shouldn't be read too far into. We appreciate the feedback on this though.

"High/etc Tier Orders ARE NOT ACCURATE ENOUGH"

Through the voting format's structure (as many chars as you want per division, you can see San's vote for an example), it would be wise to look at the data directly (applies to a lot) to address concerns. When we have an entire tier limited to just one division (17-18), that means they were consistently rated evenly with essentially the lowest gradient of averages seen anywhere in the list.
Ryu, Pikachu and Sonic are virtually interchangeable. Fox, Mario and Diddy are in a similar boat. Meta Knight coming off too low is fair especially with results in the past few weeks; but he's still looking to be seen as on par with the aforementioned 6.

Cloud didn't really deliver at Genesis in singles and this is when voting was closed. All of Japan rated him highly, I opted for being cautious although many would know a thing or two on how I feel about Cloud's obscene tuning (makes Snake, Ryu and Zero Suit look bad imo).

Bowser probably went up quite a bit in perception from the patch, but people were still being cautious with Mewtwo and Lucas who's momentum is only just starting.

"I CAN'T TELL IF IT IS RESULTS OR MATCH UP BASED TIER LIST!"

Results become more obvious basis for tiers in the long term. Match ups become more universally understood over time. Neither of these are even a fraction as extensive as Melee and Brawl (+64) with their many years of history. People naturally come closer to a consensus with these ideas through reinforcement and clarification. Until then, a single person's rhetoric may be a lot more influential on opinions than we'd hope.
This is where at least having a tier list is nice. When you can start to say to people who think X is a lot lower than they should be, "look at Y,Z,M,A,R,T,H; you think they're all as good? wow, look at these results" and it's pretty effective.

This is a huge cast. For many voters this was the first time they had created a tier list earnestly and we tried to keep the format as easy to tackle for our voters as possible. We didn't strong arm anyone over whether they thought that X is overrated due to how their match ups have personally gone at majors within the last 3 months.

 

[Thinkaman]

This is the most strictly moderated thread on Smashboards. Read the rules!

Welcome to the Character Competitive Impressions thread. This is the master discussion covering comparisons of characters in Smash 4.

This includes comparisons to specific other characters, or the roster in general.

This can be in theory, results, or personal experience.

And yes, this includes tier lists. But let's lay down some ground rules.

--------------------------------------------------

THE RULES

First, obey the Smashboards Global Rules. This subforum is intended to be the best discussion area Smashboards has to offer. Infractions for Spam, Flaming, Trolling, and Harassment are given out with less leniency here than anywhere else, and punishments tend to be roughly double.


Posts in this thread must also adhere to special Topic and Substance Rules. We allow such a broad spread of interwoven topics here, that we actually require more rules to prevent things from spiraling off-topic. (Defending a bigger territory requires bigger walls.)

There's really only one rule: Posts have to be on-topic and have substance. But that's ambiguous, and so as a guideline topics allowed for discussion in this thread are divided into "Green Topics" and "Yellow Topics".

Green Topics are central topics that are explicitly okay to discuss as much as you want:

• Hard Data on Character Usage or Wins
  • Online or Off
• Character Matchup Explorations
  • Options, Interactions, Mindset
  • Non-obvious Character/Move Advantages/Disadvantages
  • Data, Theorycraft, and Expert Opinions
  • What skill tests does the matchup focus on, for each side?
  • Stage Preferences
• Tournament Results
  • Characters or Players
• Metagame
  • Implications of rulesets, patches, or community trends
• Comparisons of Gameplay in Different Environments
  • Different Regions or Communities
  • 1v1 vs 2v2 vs 3v3 vs 4v4 vs FFA
• Initial Posting of Smash News

Yellow Topics include things that, without context, risk diverting the topic away from characters or boil down to opinion. You may talk about Yellow Topics, but if and only if you can tie each one back to a Green Topic in the same post. (If you are doing it right, this should be entirely organic and you shouldn't have to worry about it.)

• Tier Lists
  • Includes any form of partial tier list
  • "Top 15", bottom 10", "who is the worst character", "viable threats", ect.
• Character Matchup Lists/Summaries
  • Includes any form of matchup ratios
• Obvious Character/Move Advantages/Disadvantages
  • "Mac loses the matchup. He has an amazing ground game, but his recovery is awful."
  • "Mac wins the matchup. His recovery is awful, but he has an amazing ground game."
  • If the reasons you give for something are already known to all, you haven't done anything to make it more than a statement of opinion.
• "Vacuum" Comparisons
  • Direct comparison of individual moves or properties in isolation
  • "Which is better, Mario bair or Luigi bair?"
• Hypothetical Changes
  • Includes patch wishes
• Patch Notes
• Tournament Hype
  • "Wow, Reggie beats Bill 3-1."
  • "That dair spike! If she had just buffered that ledge option..."
  • "I can't believe he is sticking with Rosalina after that match."
• Rulesets
• Custom Moveset Choices
  
• Other Smash/Fighting Games
  • Includes changes to characters or matchups across games
  • Includes comparisons of tier lists or balance across games
  • Includes comparisons of which skills games focus on
• General Gameplay Advice or Guides
  • Giving or Asking
• Discussion of Smash News

Red Topics are explicitly banned. Any post that focuses on them is grounds for a spam infraction.

• Tier List Meta Discussion
  • "Do tiers exist?"
  • "How important are tiers compared to player skill?"
  • "How should tier lists be constructed and expressed?"
  • "What do tier labels really mean?"
  • "What is the point of tier lists?"
• Matchup Ratio Meta Discussion
  • "What do/should matchup ratios mean, exactly?"
  • "What is the best way to express matchup ratios?"
  • "How precise can we really claim matchup ratios are?"
  • "What constitutes a 'counter'?"
• Game Preference Discussion
  • Includes how much you don't respect/like FFAs or online play.
• Ruleset Preference Discussion
• Non-Constructive Criticism (on any topic)
• Meta Discussion on Smashboards Rules
• Naming Moves or Combos

Finally, there are also special Tier List Posting Rules. Tier lists are a helpful way to quickly summarize and compare opinions+experience across the community, as well as provide historical snapshots of the metagame. However, the posting of tier lists often spreads like a virus and leads to a race-to-the-bottom in which discussion focuses more and more on stating opinions without substance. As such:

• If there is already a tier list post on the current 50-post page, no one else may post one.
  • No exceptions.
• They may only be posted by regular members of the discussion, or extremely well-respected players.
  • If you have to ask, the answer is no.
• We don't care about your opinions. We care about your observations, reflections, and conclusions. Never, ever post just a list.
  • Why did you need to post this list? What is different? What does it mean?
• Similarly, replies to a personal tier list are held to the same standard.
  • In particular, non-constructive criticism will be moderated harshly.
  • The correct response to a poor tier list, like most bad content, is to not respond.
• The creator of a list may answer single replies asking for clarifications, but further discussion of the list itself ends there.
  • If a personal tier list and any clarifications lead to discussion of Green Topics, great! But discussion will never be allowed to continue on a list itself, for its own sake.

Breaking these thread-specific rules is likely to result not only in (strict) standard moderation penalties, but is also likely to earn a temporary ban from this individual thread.

If you have any questions about these posting guidelines, please PM me! ( Thinkaman )

--------------------------------------------------

Previous Threads:
http://smashboards.com/threads/char...sions-tourneys-tiers-theories-tactics.422864/
http://smashboards.com/threads/viability-ratings-v2-competitive-impressions.410551/
http://smashboards.com/threads/competitive-impressions-mlg-finals.420852/
http://smashboards.com/threads/competitive-impressions-tbh5.419494/
http://smashboards.com/threads/evo-2kxv-competitive-impressions.410539/
http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

So I'm the first(non mod) reply here.
Well, enjoy this list for two days, and lets hope for more characters to become viable

 

[S_B]

I agree entirely with it.

I feel as though we could've condensed it down to SABCD, but still, I concur with the results overall.

Now, I could go through and speculate on which characters I feel have some tiers to climb through meta development, but again, a patch drops in two days so there's not much point just yet.

We'll see how much 1.1.4 shakes things up...

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I may have missed it in Thinkaman's post, but what guidelines are there for discussing the upcoming patch and Corrin/Bayonetta?

 

[Sinister Slush]

It's nice that I was right about Yoshi being a top 15/20 character since the early Wii U days, just took an entire year of almost no results for it to happen and be voted upon.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I may have missed it in Thinkaman's post, but what guidelines are there for discussing the upcoming patch and Corrin/Bayonetta?

Well, "Patch notes" is in the yellow topics, so i guess its advised against that. I think we will be able to talk freely about it when it releases

 

[Das Koopa]

I've been following the Caucuses but I'm mostly liking this Tier list. If I had to provide one question/criticism; Why is Pikachu so high? ESAM's tournament results have been very middling as of late.

 

[Shaya]

I may have missed it in Thinkaman's post, but what guidelines are there for discussing the upcoming patch and Corrin/Bayonetta?

As always it's preferred for confirmed character discussion to occur on their respective boards before release.

How we talk about wish list balance changes or whatever is a mountain.

If anything is missing from those guidelines, it's the price for being a comedian. Especially if it has to do with corrin/bay and patch notes.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I've been following the Caucuses but I'm mostly liking this Tier list. If I had to provide one question/criticism; Why is Pikachu so high? ESAM's tournament results have been very middling as of late.

Esam and Nakat had a say in this, I think thats why. Pika is still a decently scary character.

 

[PK Gaming]

First off, good job on finally getting this off the ground everyone. Seriously, congrats ☆

I actually don't have much to say about the tier list itself, it looks about how I expected it to look. I'm mainly interested in how things shake up when the patch drops, and it's nice that we have a baseline tier list to refer to when that happens.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

I have quite a few things to say about the tier list.


Rosa should not be in the top tier, she is in the 2nd highest.
Sonic is Top 5, replace Pika with him
Raise Meta Knight
Raise Wii Fit

Those are my only main reasons against this tier list. Also they should have made the tiers combined.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Overall, I like the list, it is not too different from what I had in mind except for few characters being too high in comparison, but nothing to make a fuss about.
Nothing but Pikachu. Why is he so high in the list? I'd like to hear more about that.

 

[Vipermoon]

What does everyone think of Meta Knight and Pikachu's placement? Obviously this was done by voting but it seems pretty obvious to me that if anyone were to switch places in the tier list (man it feels good to say THE tier list) it would be and

 

[Funen1]

Based on what I've seen from previous CCI threads, this tier list pretty much doesn't surprise me at all. I couldn't go that much in depth on individual placings beyond, say, top 3 (those felt the most set in stone to me), but as others have suggested elsewhere, any shifts in character placings specifically for v1.1.3 likely wouldn't move them more than a few spots, barring the sudden appearance of a top player winning big with a mid-tier or lower. I actually feel like the timing for this list may encourage even more discussion on character placings once the patch hits, now that people having something more "concrete" to go off of.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I think MK is fine there, him having a powerful punish game does not over compensate for his average neutral, not as much as ZSS.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

What does everyone think of Meta Knight and Pikachu's placement? Obviously this was done by voting but it seems pretty obvious to me that if anyone were to switch places in the tier list (man it feels good to say THE tier list) it would be and

I think Meta Knight should be higher, but jsut outside of top 5. Sonic should swap Pikachu easily because he has more results in general and vs sheik. but that is just me and it may seem like bias.

 

[JesterJaded]

Bowser and Lucas should probably switch places, but I think I'll just ignore everything mid-tier and lower for the first few lists.

What objectively puts Ryu at the top of high tier and not Meta Knight?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Well I'd do my part as the vocal Ike main in these topics:

Why did Ike end up so low when results put him noticeably higher?

He has a top 8 at a major going solo (MLG). He has at least 4 people who have hit top 20 at majors (San, SM, Ryo, Ryuga) and they're all from different regions. There are several other Ikes who don't travel to majors much but still do well locally. Of important note: that's more mains hitting that range in NA than a number of the characters above him. Quite a large number in fact.

He obviously has very good tools: the auto-cancels on his aerials, the various throw combos, the very high edgeguarding potential, etc. These have been proven to work not just in theory but in practice.

Particularly important: results say he flat out beats Sonic. There's not really any wiggle room for debate in that one. He has a good MU against Pikachu. ZSS is certainly doable: San has beaten V115. While MK looked ugly the first time it was shown on stage, further tournament sets have proven it to be quite manageable. Sheik is a bad MU yes, but it has been won at high level. He's even or ever so slightly advantaged against Rosalina (this is the most common opinion I've seen from both sides of the MU). Ryu, Mario, Villager, Ness are all very doable and around even. Fox is a disadvantage match, so is Diddy. So out of the top/high tiers he loses to: Sheik, ZSS, MK, Fox, Diddy. Rest are even or slight advantage and of those 5 at least 2 are growing more and more doable with practice (ZSS/MK). That's a pretty darn good spread.

He has consistent spread out results (the italics being particularly important there and something a lot of mid tier characters lack), proven tools, and a good spread against the relevant characters. I honestly feel that Mid Tier as a whole is kinda all over the place but... Ike simply has more proven things than a large chunk of the characters above him. He's a good 9-10 spots too low. He should be right around the Pit/Peach area, with Luigi knocked down past him.

 

[jespoke]

Pikachu is regarded pretty highly by several top players, but noone has picked it up because the same type of player can play Sheik in much the same way but with better kill options. Having it THAT high might just be a relic form past patches where Pika's strong matchups were more relevant or something though

 

[Browny]

Legitimate question not intending to break the rules;

What medium are we supposed to use to offer constructive criticism on how to improve the 4BR logo.

On the topic of the list as I said elsewhere,

I find Pikachu and Ryus placings to be unfairly weighted towards theory. Ryu particular has some of the best players in the entire world using him, yet they cant seem to emulate the success that MULTIPLE diddy/sonic/fox mains are pulling in.

If you removed Esam as an outlier for pikachu, you have literally nothing for the character. If you remove one top player for diddy/sonic/fox then the character is still solo winning big tournaments across 3 different regions.

Cloud has seen more success than Ryu has in one month of existing. Let that sink in for a bit.

 

[Radical Larry]

I still don't think Link should be that low. He's at least above Roy, no?
Link has advantageous MUs against characters like Roy and Kirby, and even Robin, and any low tier character can be beaten by Link or be at an even at least. He sure as heck does have an advantageous MU against Bowser and Donkey Kong for sure, and they're much higher than him.

I'm still iffy on the whole Link being so low thing. It just doesn't sit right with me.
Yeah, he's got little tournament representation, but what do you expect of a character that is meant to be the epitome of precision and mastery? Link's a character that's not that hard to learn, but very hard to master.

What does anyone else seriously think? I'm just going to ask.

 

[Mario766]

What a mountain of things to look at.

Pikachu being 5th is suspect. I know everyone says not to look at ESAM, but we have one really big Pikachu player in national tournaments, and he's gotten since EVO

2nd at Smash Con
13th at Paragon
9th at Big House
3rd at MLG
13th at Genesis
7th at Pax

At 3 nationals, he's gotten out of the top 8 in all 3 tournaments. The smaller tournaments he's done better in, but is Pikachu a top 5 character? Just looking at results, it doesn't correlate.

I honestly believe Ike should be at least above Olimar. This would put him at 23rd, which is basically what everyone has put him at that isn't a Japanese player, ~20th. ROB being higher than 20th I dunno about. The character has a glaring MU in ZSS, and I don't believe he does very well against top/high tiers in general.

Another viewpoint I have. Is Falcon really a top 15 character?

The character has been known to struggle heavily against Pikachu and Sheik, ZSS gets massive reward off hits. He's easily edgeguarded, and is one of the easiest characters to combo for extended strings. Falcon doesn't really beat people above him, and also possibly loses to people below him. I understand the Yoshi/Falcon duo at ~15th are like the outliers who aren't exactly 'high' tier, but is he top 15? My money is on no.

Ness is another character with a massive MU flaw...but his strengths are so big it makes up for in, basically. His spot is okay in my book. Not a top 10, definitely a top 15 character.

I can see Falcon drop more and more, going into mid tier once people get down their strings and improve edgeguarding. Pikachu honestly will start dropping towards ~10th, IMO. Villager probably will stay around the same. Most people don't know the MU, and don't exploit some things.

Cloud's the outlier, this patch and how people play the MU will determine how he fares in the competitive meta.

Asking about Link...

He's a slow, heavy character who doesn't have the frame data to survive in the meta. He'll stay where he is.

 

[san.]

Here's my list. I wasn't too fond of making one, but it was nice to really consolidate my thoughts on how I thought certain characters ranked in my mind.

Full Brawler would be ~15, Full Gunner would be ~16, Full Swordfighter would be ~13.
20.
19.
18.
17.
16.()
15.
14.
13.
12.
11.
10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.


I rated Diddy a lot higher than the general 4BR list, while I tended to rate Ryu and Pikachu a bit lower. For Ryu, I felt that he was just one touch of death character out of many up there. Ryu has to take more damage to really get some of his damaging attacks going. He doesn't have guaranteed escapes, but numerous mixup options that leave you on your toes.

Pikachu I feel lacks way some top tier traits to be up there. He doesn't get all that much for free, although his general characteristics are still overall quite stellar.

Diddy was nerfed, but then he was buffed again and aided by the shield stun patch somewhat. The change to usmash made it an awesome move in general that's like frame 4 or something. Movement options and attack speed remain pretty great, though the initial nerf did allow for some poor MUs to appear.

I was hesitant on how good Cloud could be. He's an awesome character and a great secondary, but I wasn't sure how consistent he could be. So far, Cloud seems to be getting better and better in tournaments, though I'm not sure if players are necessarily getting a boost from using him or not compared to how they usually perform.

I think I may have underrated quite a few characters like Mega Man and co., but it was nice to see how my opinions differed and when I was comepletely out there for some characters. I was going to go through more characters in this post, but it'll be easier to respond. I felt like most characters I put in 15-11 and 10-6 could move around and not look out of place. Characters within the same number are generally interchangeable, but I tried to order them.

 

[Appledees]

I'm satisfied with Megaman's placment. Its pretty perfect but I'll be honest I don't see how Pacman is worse than him. I guess Megaman has better results kinda(??) but other than that Pacman is all around alot better and shouldn't be under him. Ike's placement is really bizzare too considering his results and character traits

 

[BetaDjinn]

Initial Impressions:

is way too high, is probably the most under-placed.

Mid tier is in flux right now so it's hard to say much there.

There's some stickiness with tier placings ( should have dropped a bit by now).

There's also some over-hype ( are just a touch over-placed).

Overall there's not too much to complain about; great list to build off of).

Edit: san. has a list 2 posts up that is on point.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Another viewpoint I have. Is Falcon really a top 15 character?

The character has been known to struggle heavily against Pikachu and Sheik, ZSS gets massive reward off hits. He's easily edgeguarded, and is one of the easiest characters to combo for extended strings. Falcon doesn't really beat people above him, and also possibly loses to people below him. I understand the Yoshi/Falcon trio at ~15th are like the outliers who aren't exactly 'high' tier, but is he top 15? My money is on no.

You mean Duo?

Also I agree with Falcon not being top 15 (along with Yoshi maybe). If I was to put a supposed trio in the C tier they made, it'd have prolly Peach Wario and Luigi in there over Falcon/Yoshi (or even both)
I mean sure fatality and tearbear did well at genesis, but a handful of Luigi and Peach players did just as well at Genesis and many other tournaments.

But then again if this was only a results based tier list characters like Toon Link Ike and WFT would be much higher, especially Tink after the performance that was made at G3.

 

[jespoke]

I can definitely agree that Pikachu could end up in a spot where he could in theory compete for at a higher spot than he ends up on (As in, competing for 5th after he drops) but people don't do so because it is more work for the same reward a higher tier can get easier. Sort of like Yoshi, another character that is unnaturally high for his results because he in theory is a character that deserves the spot.

 

[Shaya]

Title names and degrees used aren't what I expected!

Using the point gaps between averages, we separated characters as we have.
Roy through to Doctor Mario was a very tight range of characters.
Falcon and Yoshi were awkward to place, the largest gap between any set of characters on this list occurred between Ness and Falcon. And a sizable one between Yoshi and Luigi.
We felt justified in the top 3 being their own tier and it being known as top. The Super Bash Sisters Triumvirate has long persisted.

In terms of us using A-J; for aesthetic purposes we could've pushed things down, but we didn't want to increase how subjectively we interpreted the results we had, beyond not wanting a single character tiers (e.g. Zelda). The fact we use S-J rather than pluses and minuses is really down to preference and shouldn't be read too far into.

 

[DblCrest]

Good to see you again Shaya !

I'm sorry but Kirby's placement , I can't stop smiling XD Hope someone sheds some light on that because I sure as hell can't.


So what's the deal with Lucario being above Greninja and Ike? The old forum I know we rarely spoke about Lucario especially.

There's Diddy did the loss of the Hoo hah really screw him up that badly (Yes I know he's still high but even Mario and Fox are above him? :o

 

[FallofBrawl]

I'm kind of iffy on Pacman, on one hand, you got his best player Abadango drop him, and on the other hand, you got new age Pacmen like Tea show the world that he's practically untouchable. I think over the course of this meta, he will rise very slowly and kind of settle around/just under high tier assuming no patches change him or his MUs.

Pikachu is too high but I guess it's just ESAM rating him as #2 as per usual.

I think for the next tier list, Japan and Mexico will need more rep for the next voting session, it's a little skewed towards the NA meta but I guess it makes sense since it's the most prevalent/dominant.

 

[Big-Cat]

I'm reasonably satisfied with Bowser's placing, but what I don't like is that the tiers are separated from S to J tier. From a superfical point of view, it paints a REALLY negative light for anyone below C tier which is the standard FGC low/bottom tier. We don't even need the letters spread out like this as the balance is much more condensed than in, say, Brawl.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

I'm reasonably satisfied with Bowser's placing, but what I don't like is that the tiers are separated from S to J tier. From a superfical point of view, it paints a REALLY negative light for anyone below C tier which is the standard FGC low/bottom tier. We don't even need the letters spread out like this as the balance is much more condensed than in, say, Brawl.

I think bowser is too high for now. We need to wait for more result before we bump him up like 2 tiers. He does have nice confirms, but waiting is always the best thing to do imo.

 

[jespoke]

I think Diddy (and to a lesser extent Luigi) were hit harder on their perception than their actual power, and the list reflects that. Ignoring patching, i would expect them to ever so slowly rise a few spots over time, if nothing else for ZeRo's continued use of Diddy in certain cases, like choosing it over the Sheik ditto yesterday.

I just hope aMSa makes a splash with Greninja to get him the results he needs to rise closer to the potential we hear of every now and then.

 

[Pyr]

I still don't think Link should be that low. He's at least above Roy, no?
Link has advantageous MUs against characters like Roy and Kirby, and even Robin, and any low tier character can be beaten by Link or be at an even at least. He sure as heck does have an advantageous MU against Bowser and Donkey Kong for sure, and they're much higher than him.

I'm still iffy on the whole Link being so low thing. It just doesn't sit right with me.
Yeah, he's got little tournament representation, but what do you expect of a character that is meant to be the epitome of precision and mastery? Link's a character that's not that hard to learn, but very hard to master.

What does anyone else seriously think? I'm just going to ask.

Why would a character move up because they beat another low tier? Hyperbole incoming:

Character A loses to the lower half the cast, but beats the upper half. Character B beats character A and a the lower half, but loses spectacularly to the upper half.

Character B will always be lower then A because character B loses to characters that matter more then character A.

 

[Radical Larry]

You know, as a person who plays a pretty good Samus, I can say that she could be about 4 to 5 characters higher than she currently is, maybe even up to 10 total spots. Samus is a pretty good character that, like quite a bit of characters, falls under underrepresentation in tournaments. But she has the quips to actually benefit herself in winning various match-ups. In my opinion, she has a positive-only MU spread against characters like and , and an even-only spread with and . Little Mac is basically a given since she can gimp him with her semi-spiking N-Air and combo him up for days, and I listed the bulky super heavies because they just can't do anything against her that's worthwhile, except for Bowser and DK, who have their good combos, which only fall short due to Samus being a floaty heavyweight. Samus just has that good viability that seems to be under wraps and not presented properly. She does lose a lot of MUs, but most of her MUs are even and some are advantageous, but not noticeable, such as and since the two puff balls are harder for Samus to beat. Characters like and can be an even, but Shulk might actually feel like a 55:45 MU advantageous to Samus, and would fit this too, had it not been for his cape being a great reflector. The characters she loses against are quite obvious, but there are distinct characters like who will trump her.

For Samus, she's under-estimated as a character completely. For one, if you ever see a match with me against other people using her, you'll see how ballistic one can get with Samus against someone like DK. It gets absolutely disgusting when it comes.

Any opinions? Who thinks Samus could move up a bit? Even just the slightest out of bottom tier?

(I mean, this is coming from a guy who once thought Samus was the worst character in the game, and this guy thinks she might be a possible lower middle to middle low tier. Until I started playing her, I didn't know she actually was decently powerful!)

Why would a character move up because they beat another low tier? Hyperbole incoming:

Character A loses to the lower half the cast, but beats the upper half. Character B beats character A and a the lower half, but loses spectacularly to the upper half.

Character B will always be lower then A because character B loses to characters that matter more then character A.

But you know, the point about Link is, is that he's underplayed and left out in the wind. The lack of tournament results cannot determine alone if Link is good or not, because without proper information, we're actually becoming misguided into determining which character can be good and we'll often try piecing it together with failure.

When someone who does play the character quite well enters in and tries giving valid arguments, maybe even could show that the underplayed character can be good, it may be tossed aside because it's not good enough results or that they might not be valid enough arguments.

Link is a victim of having less results than the average character, but that doesn't ultimately determine him as a low tier or a bottom tier. It just says that "hey guys, you kind of need to play me to get more accurate results", more than it does "hey guys, I'm bad/good". I've been working myself slowly to raise awareness of Link and what his tools can do, and I'm hoping to aim for bigger and badder tournaments as time goes along, but there is a sheer amount of underrepresentation for Link himself and that calls him as a victim of "No Show".

I may sound like a hypocrite (from what I said in the past), but MUs are crafted delicately by what results we can get, not just by theorycrafting and nitpicking results. But if a character, however, has little representation, we cannot just know if the character is bad or good, and if the representation is shown that he/she loses, people will assume they are not worth playing.

But so I can get this straight, here are two tournaments (despite being out of the states) where a Link player actually has made it to top 32 and even top 8.

http://www.ssbwiki.com/Umebura_Niconico_Qualifiers (Out of 320 entrants, T, a Link player, made T17th)
http://www.ssbwiki.com/Eclipse (Out of 101 entrants, Christian Johnson, playing Link and seconding Ryu, made 5th; special note, this is a national in Norway.)

Now these might not mean anything special, but these could be the inevitable baby steps in actually starting up something fresh and investigating Link further. If Link has the potential to do these, then further study could at least be conducted to see how the players managed.

Instead of leaving characters in the dust, like Link, just because they're really underplayed in tournaments, we can just investigate more. We can see more things about the character if we just try. I'll probably get a response like, "But we see how Link plays and he's bad", but let's just know something alright, Link needs some investigation and much more players than what he has right now.

I probably went on too much, but you know, I'll just take the flak for this.

 

[warionumbah2]

I think MK is fine there, him having a powerful punish game does not over compensate for his average neutral, not as much as ZSS.

The results cannot be ignored, he won 2 stacked events and got 5th at another. MKs results at G3 was also good despite the best player being absent. Sheik is a huge problem, it'll only get worse too. I no longer view this character as borderline top tier, counterplay is being used at top level yet results are still coming out positive.

 

[Big-Cat]

I think bowser is too high for now. We need to wait for more result before we bump him up like 2 tiers. He does have nice confirms, but waiting is always the best thing to do imo.

He's no high tier, but he has very strong tools for his archetype and just about every attack fulfills some niche in his design. The only "useless" attack is DSmash.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Falcon and Yoshi are not top 15. Falcon in particular gets hard countered by Sheik. The Pits should probably be in those spots. Ike probably belongs around there as well. Top 13 I feel are about right. Below that there's plenty of things to quibble over.