Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Y2Kay]

Yeah there was nothing really new istudying was doing in that tournament, besides playing really well.

People just decide to notice this time. Too bad they where several months late

 

[san.]

I think greninja's sheik MU is probably as bad as 's and 's


but I don't main them, so what do I know?

If you could give me a brief on it, Maybe I could explain better

Ike has solid damage and confirms, but gets walled hard. Ike's physics makes some of Sheik's confirms easier to pull off, too. He is forced to bumrush through a top Sheik. he's also capable of directly swatting Sheik's attacks easily, but Sheik has the power to bait and not get baited herself. Ike gets hit a lot then gets one hit to even things out.

Sheik's meta progression keeps making the MU worse for Ike, but then Ike consistently gets help to even that out a bit through buffs.

I don't think Ike has enough presence from high+ level players. Only players who used Ike in past games are really using him here. He was originally a mediocre character with barely any following in the beginning, and I think that contributes towards why he is still a scarce character in tournament.

I doubt many high level players will pick him up. That's why I don't think Ike should be all that high on a more results-based list (where he is right now is ok for a more results-based list), even though his best players occasionally perform well with him. I think as a character, Ike has quite a few damaging technical setups and confirms that no one has really mastered yet.

As far as recent results for Ike that I know of outside of Ryo & Ryuga, he does well regionally. Rango just got 5th at a Georgia regional and has taken sets off the other top players in GA at least once. I perform well in my region and recently won a regional, but it's growing, not the strongest out there. No international presence really hurts.

 

[bc1910]

The thing with Lucario and Toon Link is this: we know that neither loses that badly to Sheik (Lucario has even been claimed to go even w/ her). Even if ZSS bodies Lucario and Rosa bodies TL, neither gets "gatekept" (that's a word now) as hard as Greninja does. Of course, if they end up losing badly to several other A-listers, they could still end beneath Greninja anyway. Luigi also struggles a lot vs. Sheik, though interestingly both Luigi and Greninja have wins over Vinnie. The difference in my eyes is how Luigi probably beats several good characters (Mario, Fox, Pika) whereas I don't know of many characters over whom Greninja has a clear advantage. Corrin is still really tough to call, but has an impressive number of wins in a very short period of time. We'll see how many people actually stick with him/her.

Maybe Ike is comparable to the frog (though doesn't he lose noticeably to Sheik/ZSS?), but I'm really beginning to worry about Falcon MU-wise. You can't really argue that Falcon does better than Greninja vs. Sheik; if anything, he does worse going by results. When you add in the fact that he probably loses to a number of other good characters as well (we wouldn't have seen a Falcon upsetting ESAM), it becomes hard to argue that he should be in the same tier as Greninja.

I see where you're coming from with your reasoning. The fact that this was Mr R's Sheik did play a part here; if Nairo were to body a Lucario, we might be saying the same "gatekeeping" buzzword stuff about the Lucario and ZSS MU. Whilst it's not wise to base stuff off of one tournament, this result for Greninja is still more impressive than anything Lucario or TL have accomplished.

With Luigi he seems to have multiple difficult MUs with the high tiers whereas Greninja's only real issue is with Sheik, so I'd place him lower overall. I would say Greninja probably beats Mario, Ness and Villager, but much of that hasn't been confirmed in bracket (and I wouldn't say the top tiers istudy beat today are winning MUs for Greninja, more like even MUs that he played insanely well in).

Sorry brah, but you're definitely getting a bit ahead of yourself here. If you're gonna hype up istud for his perforamce, by all means go ahead. But if you're talking specifically about the character Greninja you gotta look at context, circumstances and all that jazz. If we look at Greninja's accomplishments ...:

1.) He beat Lp's Luigi in winners -> Greninja beating Luigi is old news by now
2.) He beat Sodrek's Fox in losers -> Greninja being able to keep up with Fox if you outplay the Fox player is nothing fancy
3.) He got eliminated by two Sheik players -> duh
4.) He goes toe to toe with Pikachu -> duh

Everything beyond that [beating ESAM and all] should honestly be credited to istudy and not to the character he uses. The only thing that can be really considered unusual for Greninja's standards is how convincingly he ended up beating MVD's Diddy. That's certainly something ... but for the most part it confirms what people - largely the Greninja mains - have been claiming all along rather than telling us something about Greninja we hadn't ever taken into consideration before.



I'm ... not alone?!?

I think both the character and the performance deserve to be hyped up here. istudy played incredibly well, but we'd be getting into very muddied waters if we start asking ourselves what he could have accomplished using a different mid-tier.

I don't disagree that this confirms several things that we've been saying all along - but I'd say that's entirely the point. It's nice to have these things confirmed to a wider audience. Essentially quite a bit of mid-level "theorycraft" has been confirmed today. Also, high level Greninja vs Pika has never happened to my knowledge, so again it's nice to see some hope for the frog on that front. I definitely think it would be wise not to get ahead of ourselves, but I'd say we kinda aren't because again, it's stuff we've been saying all along that's getting confirmed.

Incidentally I agree with you on Peach as well. Though what's Umeki's most impressive result? Curious on that one.

 

[FullMoon]

I do agree that we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves here. Today was a great achievement for Greninja but let's not go too crazy here.

Like I said, iStudying demonstrated everything good and bad about Greninja. The fact that Sheik hard-counters him is a real issue for his viability that some other characters around his level like Pit and Toon Link (?) don't have to deal with.

But we also got to see Greninja's crazy damage-racking potential, kill setups, silly edgeguarding and stuff that confirms that he has enough tools at his disposal to compete at top level, as long as he doesn't run into Sheik.

If nothing else we saw that Greninja actually does pretty well against Pikachu and Diddy, two MUs that were always a little controversial in regards to who won, if anybody. While one set doesn't dictate a MU, at least we now have top level footage of those MUs around.

Where should Greninja be in the tier list? I honestly don't know and I don't care anymore, the only thing I care about is that there isn't misinformation about him being spread around. iStudying basically confirmed most of what Greninja mains have been saying for a long time now.

And boy does it feel good when everything I've been telling people all this time gets proven right.

 

[Charoite]

Super Bit wars right now DKwill beats Dakpo 3-0 in winners semi finals thoughts?

next is Mew square vs Mew2king

This is the bracket: https://smash.gg/tournament/super-bit-wars-4/brackets/11149/4031/16433

 

[C0rvus]

That's a tough MU. Props to DKWill. Will is a great player. His DK is pretty clearly striving for optimization, which is pretty admirable.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Mew squared 6 stocked M2k Cloud. Good day for Pokemon.

 

[Nobie]

Mew^2 over Mew2King triple 2-stock.

Ahhhhahahahaha.

But to be thread-relevant, that was very much a case of Mew2King not being ready for Mewtwo's strong edgeguarding + Cloud being easily edgeguarded.

 

[Spinosaurus]

We've spent months fighting to prove that this character is worth something and now istudying has done it. This is such a good day for us (and by the way, to most of you guys in this thread who are riding the hype train with us, we really appreciate it; this thread has been reasonably pro-Greninja all the way).

Don't tell us not to overhype ****.

There's a difference of being happy about your character's performance and getting so ahead of yourself that you're calling out others for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not directing this at you at all and talking generally here since it's something that can happen with any character, but it's a childish attitude to have that just comes across as saying "haha I'm right you're wrong, sit down." I don't think that sort of behavior is acceptable.

Where were the Toon Link mains when he got 2nd in two major japanese tournaments recently anyway? (Or anyone else for that matter, I don't remember seeing any hype for that.)

 

[Thinkaman]

The thing that struck me about that match, was how large of a cone Mewtwo can threaten above him with the option of DJ-fair. I always knew that was where the party was with Mewtwo, but dang.

 

[Nobie]

An important thing to remember is that Fair is Mewtwo's fastest aerial, and also one of his best kill moves.

Seeing Mew^2 sink deep to scare Cloud and then do a rising DJ fair caught me by surprise too, because I have a tendency to default to nair in those situations. Lesson learned!

When you think about Smash 4 in general most fairs usually have some kind of tradeoff between power or speed, but Mewtwo's one of a handful who has a really good balance of both (1.1.4 Marth joining the crew over the past month).

 

[Jaguar360]

There's a difference of being happy about your character's performance and getting so ahead of yourself that you're calling out others for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not directing this at you at all and talking generally here since it's something that can happen with any character, but it's a childish attitude to have that just comes across as saying "haha I'm right you're wrong, sit down." I don't think that sort of behavior is acceptable.

Where were the Toon Link mains when he got 2nd in two major japanese tournaments recently anyway? (Or anyone else for that matter, I don't remember seeing any hype for that.)

That was one person who got a little excited and he's already apologized multiple times. Bc and most other Greninjas in this thread aren't really calling people out and are just finally happy to see that people are realizing that Greninjas just haven't been talking out of their asses.

 

[ARGHETH]

Where were the Toon Link mains when he got 2nd in two major japanese tournaments recently anyway? (Or anyone else for that matter, I don't remember seeing any hype for that.)

We have no TL mains here lol. TL has already proven himself at previous Japanese tournaments and G3 anyways.

 

[L9999]

Whilst it's not wise to base stuff off of one tournament, this result for Greninja is still more impressive than anything Lucario or TL have accomplished.

For TL, Hyuga has been 2nd in everything he attends in México, barring when Mr R. and Vinnie came, and the moment he leaved México he got 9th at the most stacked tournament ever beating people like Nairo in the process. Since then TL is popular, because before that, most people said TL was around, roll the dice, current F tier. For Lucario, yes, the most impressive thing Lucario has done was Serge beating Leo, and seeing that Leo 2 stocked Mr. R 2 games in a row, it's impressive.

 

[Vipermoon]

Mew squared 6 stocked M2k Cloud. Good day for Pokemon.

Yes! Now Mew2King can finally switch to Mewtwo.

 

[Spinosaurus]

That was one person who got a little excited and he's already apologized multiple times. Bc and most other Greninjas in this thread aren't really calling people out and are just finally happy to see that people are realizing that Greninjas just haven't been talking out of their *****.

Again, I'm speaking generally, and not just strictly here. I wasn't trying to antagonize you guys.

Rather, I'm trying to avoid any more posts like that here.

 

[Thinkaman]

Mewtwo's fair does more knockback any any move (including smashes) in the movesets of except ZSS Flip Kick's kick. It does under 10% less than the typical f-smash, like that of .

 

[bc1910]

For TL, Hyuga has been 2nd in everything he attends in México, barring when Mr R. and Vinnie came, and the moment he leaved México he got 9th at the most stacked tournament ever beating people like Nairo in the process. Since then TL is popular, because before that, most people said TL was around, roll the dice, current F tier. For Lucario, yes, the most impressive thing Lucario has done was Serge beating Leo, and seeing that Leo 2 stocked Mr. R 2 games in a row, it's impressive.

A good point well made. I'm not entirely sure how the Mexican scene stacks up against the caliber at BEAST 6 in terms of skill level but judging by Leo, Hyuga and some others , it's about as good. So yeah, certainly impressive.

There's a difference of being happy about your character's performance and getting so ahead of yourself that you're calling out others for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not directing this at you at all and talking generally here since it's something that can happen with any character, but it's a childish attitude to have that just comes across as saying "haha I'm right you're wrong, sit down." I don't think that sort of behavior is acceptable.

Where were the Toon Link mains when he got 2nd in two major japanese tournaments recently anyway? (Or anyone else for that matter, I don't remember seeing any hype for that.)

I amended my post to make it crystal clear that I didn't intend to be aggressive, nor did I say anything aggressive in particular, so I'm not sure why this post was necessary. But let's not argue on this, the greatest of days lol.

 

[ARGHETH]

Mewtwo's fair does more knockback any any move (including smashes) in the movesets of except ZSS Jump Flip's kick. It does under 10% less than the typical f-smash, like that of .

It's actually similar to Robin's Fair damage/knockback-wise, but it's twice as fast.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Where were the Toon Link mains when he got 2nd in two major japanese tournaments recently anyway? (Or anyone else for that matter, I don't remember seeing any hype for that.)

There you go:

I love how everybody loses their **** over ****ing Komrikiri winning a tournament just because it's Bayonetta.

But for some reason nobody seems to care that Toon Link took 2nd at both tournaments? Can we like please start talking about that some more [at least until we actually have representative tournament data from Bayonetta]? Last weekend also had 3 or 4 Lucario players placing very high at some pretty stacked tournaments, that also seems to have gotten lost among the Bayonetta-hyperbole. Both characters have a multitude of players [at least three each] bringing home very strong results recently. I think at this point it's no longer justified for characters like ROB or Wario to be placed higher than them.

 

[Luig]

Mewtwo's fair does more knockback any any move (including smashes) in the movesets of except ZSS Flip Kick's kick. It does under 10% less than the typical f-smash, like that of .

Mario's isn't THAT typical. If you sweetspot it, it can kill as early as 56% fully charged, but I get your point.

 

[Djent]

Lucario and Toon Link had great finishes in Japan, with the top player of each pulling something as impressive as iStudying's run:

Spoiler: Examples:

Comparable: Motsunabe (1st at Umebura 20 & 3rd at SHI-G Tournament with wins over Rain, KEN, Kirihara, Paseriman, and Nietono).
Also of note are Gomamugitya (3rd at Sumabato 7 beating Shogun Aki) and mow (who beat Rain in WR2 at Umebura 21).

Comparable: Hayato (tore through Umebura 21, finishing 2nd and beating Shu, Nyanko twice, Brood, Nariyasu, and Nietono).
Also of note is Sigma (2nd at Sumabato 7 beating Saiya and Gomamugitya, and also top 16 then top 8 at the NicoNico qualifiers).

I am thrilled that is finally doing as well as he theoretically should, but these other two have been outperforming the theory on multiple continents to the point where I think they could sneak into A-tier. I don't want to beat a dead horse, though; today is OSfrog's day and I don't want to dissuade people from celebrating.

 

[momochuu]

greninja doesn't have terrible results. most of the excitement comes from seeing him do well in a tournament that had american players in it, since that's where most of the doubt comes from. greninja has good results in japan, and good results on a mostly local level.

 

[Sinister Slush]

It feels like a bittersweet ending finally happened.
Greninja mains and some others alike who knew and fought for Greninja's placement being so low and not actually being a bad character finally gets recognition today, while Yoshi mains who knew Yoshi wasn't as good as people thought at first and later on still fought for the opposite.

With what's been happening with characters like the ones mentioned in this post the past couple weeks (before and after patch)

IMO are the top competitiors for the 15th spot. All of them can make a case for having that spot

Yoshi is looking to drop to even below top 20 by the next tier list, even C.falcon is still doing better.
Think Yika cyfe and Zude were the big Yoshi's that attended, a lot of us hoped for our old brawl god and savior Zude would do really well but sadly it didn't happen, him and Yika got 65th place. Dunno about Cyfe.

 

[FullMoon]

I think next order of business is shipping iStudying to EVO and see what happens.

 

[wedl!!]

Peach sucks.

Overrated mid tier with basically no niche over any potential high tier in this meta. So glad I dropped her.

Back to Street Fighter with me. *whoosh*

 

[Djent]

For sure, we need to help that frog get across the pond.

...a sentence I never thought would need to be written.

 

[bc1910]

Lucario and Toon Link had great finishes in Japan, with the top player of each pulling something as impressive as iStudying's run:

Spoiler: Examples:

Comparable: Motsunabe (1st at Umebura 20 & 3rd at SHI-G Tournament with wins over Rain, KEN, Kirihara, Paseriman, and Nietono).
Also of note are Gomamugitya (3rd at Sumabato 7 beating Shogun Aki) and mow (who beat Rain in WR2 at Umebura 21).

Comparable: Hayato (tore through Umebura 21, finishing 2nd and beating Shu, Nyanko twice, Brood, Nariyasu, and Nietono).
Also of note is Sigma (2nd at Sumabato 7 beating Saiya and Gomamugitya, and also top 16 then top 8 at the NicoNico qualifiers).

I am thrilled that is finally doing as well as he theoretically should, but these other two have been outperforming the theory on multiple continents to the point where I think they could sneak into A-tier. I don't want to beat a dead horse, though; today is OSfrog's day and I don't want to dissuade people from celebrating.

One thing I would say is that those Luke and TL results weren't at international majors. They are impressive but don't mean as much on an individual basis. Those characters are clearly showing consistency though which is just as important.

 

[Y2Kay]

I remember istudying saying he'd like to come to America this summer

so stay tuned I guess

 

[~ Gheb ~]

One thing I would say is that those Luke and TL results weren't at international majors.

Those wins still include international top level players and do not take Hyuga's G3 performance or Serge winning a tournament in Mexico & beating Leo into account. I think it's fair to say that Lucario and Toon Link overall have stronger results than Greninja, even if it's not by that much anymore.

 

[Jaguar360]

It feels like a bittersweet ending finally happened.
Greninja mains and some others alike who knew and fought for Greninja's placement being so low and not actually being a bad character finally gets recognition today, while Yoshi mains who knew Yoshi wasn't as good as people thought at first and later on still fought for the opposite.

With what's been happening with characters like the ones mentioned in this post the past couple weeks (before and after patch)

Yoshi is looking to drop to even below top 20 by the next tier list, even C.falcon is still doing better.
Think Yika cyfe and Zude were the big Yoshi's that attended, a lot of us hoped for our old brawl god and savior Zude would do really well but sadly it didn't happen, him and Yika got 65th place. Dunno about Cyfe.

Didn't Yikaur get 33rd? https://smash.gg/tournament/beast-6/brackets/10660/10838/38057

Losing to Ixis and Meru isn't so bad. Not a particularly great placing for Yoshi though or anything, but better than 65th.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Dunno, I heard him say 65th in one of the Yoshi groups. Might've got it wrong along with zude?

 

[Asdioh]

Peach sucks.

Overrated mid tier with basically no niche over any potential high tier in this meta. So glad I dropped her.

When even I, as pessimistic as I am about Kirby, start to wonder if Peach might be one of his few winning matchups, you know that's not a good sign for Peach.


What blows my mind most about this Greninja hype, is that I thought people already accepted he was basically a "high tier." But now we're gloating at all these supposed Greninja naysayers, who I am not entirely convinced exist. It's been obvious to me that he's a Very Good Character for some time now, but that might be because I played him for more than a day.
http://www.ssbwiki.com/tier_list#Super_Smash_Bros._4_tier_list just on that list (which is official, unfortunately ) I'd definitely put him above Olimar, Wario, Peach, Luigi, ROB, Yoshi, and Falcon. Not sure about the Pits and Lucario. I haven't been following the Lucario scene, but if Gheb says he has good results, I believe him. I personally think Greninja has more potential than the Pits, outside of the obvious Sheik matchup sucking, but Pits have been getting pretty good results, as far as I know. So yes, top 20, almost pushing top 15. Greninja's pretty good.

Yoshi kinda sucks. Falcon, as much as I hate it, has probably been overrated for a long time, because of how much better he is than he was in Brawl. Hopefully I'm wrong, as Fatality just won a tournament, but he's practically the only Falcon that has any results... as far as I know. Again, I haven't been following the worldwide results too closely.

 

[Ffamran]

Mewtwo's fair does more knockback any any move (including smashes) in the movesets of except ZSS Flip Kick's kick. It does under 10% less than the typical f-smash, like that of .

But Fox's Side Smash only does 14% clean and 11% late... Mewtwo's Fair does 13%... Thinkaman, would you like some coffee?

 

[Nobie]

But Fox's Side Smash only does 14% clean and 11% late... Mewtwo's Fair does 13%... Thinkaman, would you like some coffee?

I think he means 10% as in .10 and not 10% as in Smash Bros characters do damage in percentages.

 

[bc1910]

Those wins still include international top level players and do not take Hyuga's G3 performance or Serge winning a tournament in Mexico & beating Leo into account. I think it's fair to say that Lucario and Toon Link overall have stronger results than Greninja, even if it's not by that much anymore.

Either way, it's fair to say Greninja is competing with the likes of TL and Lucario for tier spots and not the likes of Mega Man and Olimar.

When even I, as pessimistic as I am about Kirby, start to wonder if Peach might be one of his few winning matchups, you know that's not a good sign for Peach.


What blows my mind most about this Greninja hype, is that I thought people already accepted he was basically a "high tier." But now we're gloating at all these supposed Greninja naysayers, who I am not entirely convinced exist. It's been obvious to me that he's a Very Good Character for some time now, but that might be because I played him for more than a day.

As I mentioned earlier, I think this thread has generally been more pro-Greninja than the average player. You didn't have to look far to find Greninja naysayers, common opinion of him among top players and the general community was pretty low. I think he was lucky to end up as high as 25th on the BR tier list, to be honest.

 

[R3D3MON]

Asdioh
Umm I don't think Luigi is below Greninja. Although Luigi doesn't get the highest results at nationals and such, he still does solidly at locals and he has a good number of people still representing the character. His results overall are still better than Greninja, who has yet to prove his viability in NA nationals such as TBH, Paragon, EVO, etc etc etc.

Over time, this may change as Greninja mains perfect their footstool combos and such, but for now Greninja does not have enough tournament data to place him above Luigi (this is coming from a Luigi main who doesn't have the most optimistic view about Luigi's future in the meta).

 

[Ffamran]

I think he means 10% as in .10 and not 10% as in Smash Bros characters do damage in percentages.

Stupid Smash and your percentages! Why can't we use heart blocks? Less complicated counting all the little pixels!

Anyway, yeah, that makes sense. Unrelated to all of this, going through Corrin's frame data for recovery frames, Corrin's aerials are hilariously uniform: Uair, Fair, and Bair all have 26 recovery frames, Nair has 28, and Dair has 24 in the air and 22 on landing (after the landing hit is inactive). Other noteworthy thing is that her Bair suffers from Wii Fit Trainer Bair syndrome where for whatever reason, the clean hit is only active for 1 frame. WFT can have an excuse because hers is frame 5 and does 13.5% sweet-spottied, but Corrin doesn't when it's frame 13 and only does 11% clean. It's disjointed and it moves her, but still.

 

[KenMeister]

When even I, as pessimistic as I am about Kirby, start to wonder if Peach might be one of his few winning matchups, you know that's not a good sign for Peach.


What blows my mind most about this Greninja hype, is that I thought people already accepted he was basically a "high tier." But now we're gloating at all these supposed Greninja naysayers, who I am not entirely convinced exist. It's been obvious to me that he's a Very Good Character for some time now, but that might be because I played him for more than a day.
http://www.ssbwiki.com/tier_list#Super_Smash_Bros._4_tier_list just on that list (which is official, unfortunately ) I'd definitely put him above Olimar, Wario, Peach, Luigi, ROB, Yoshi, and Falcon. Not sure about the Pits and Lucario. I haven't been following the Lucario scene, but if Gheb says he has good results, I believe him. I personally think Greninja has more potential than the Pits, outside of the obvious Sheik matchup sucking, but Pits have been getting pretty good results, as far as I know. So yes, top 20, almost pushing top 15. Greninja's pretty good.

Yoshi kinda sucks. Falcon, as much as I hate it, has probably been overrated for a long time, because of how much better he is than he was in Brawl. Hopefully I'm wrong, as Fatality just won a tournament, but he's practically the only Falcon that has any results... as far as I know. Again, I haven't been following the worldwide results too closely.

Not to mention Fatality has had a very inconsistent record in general. People talking about people gatekeeping Greninja don't seem to realize how much characters like Diddy, Sheik and Pika absolutely **** on Falcon, which is far more detrimental than having one gatekeeper like Ness and Greninja's case. He's probably on the lower end of mid tbh, and his lackluster results and the aforementioned characters curb stomping him don't make his future look too bright.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Dunno, I heard him say 65th in one of the Yoshi groups. Might've got it wrong along with zude?

He got 33rd. Shoutouts to @adom4 for also getting t-33rd with Dorf.