So I am seeing a lot of pretty goofy talk about Meta Knight since the patch hit. I had my initial impressions but I have had a chance to play him and have collected my thoughts after labbing and playtesting.
Meta Knight is objectively worse as a character. Anyone believing otherwise is delusional. I will elaborate as to the exact reasons.
The way that Meta Knight operated pre-patch was to use specific set ups or combos at 0% to damage the opponent into a true kill window so that when a confirm was hit, Meta Knight would instantly kill them. People had some misconceptions about this combo so I will provide some insight.
Using Sheik as an example, she died to dash attack 1 (sweet spot) at exactly 31-32 on a Final Destination ceiling. She died to dash attack 3 (the tail end) at 28. From up tilt 2 (the hilt) it was 33-35. If the Meta Knight ever attempted the combo outside these windows, it would fail, or succeed because the opponent was bad.
As a general rule, this combo never worked in these windows if the initial confirm was DI'd in any way. This is why up tilt 2 as a confirm, or any confirm out of down tilt locks, were not reliable. It also almost never worked on Battlefield ceilings without the assistance of platforms, and Town & City would either extend the window slightly or patch up 'holes' in percentages the combo would fail at.
To give an example of this, Sheik would never die on Battlefield from dash attack 1 if proper DI was used. In contrast, using Rosalina, she would die to dash attack 1 on Final Destination from 8-9, and 11-15, but would only die at 10 if she held away. This is because you could no longer connect 6 up airs, and 5 was not enough to kill if you held away on the 5th up air. Town & City remedied this, making the true window 8-15.
So the goal before would be to use confirms and optimal or sub optimal combos to get these characters into these ranges. The issue is that if the opponent knew the windows, like my local players do, it could be quite difficult to land the kill confirm because the options on what tools you choose become limited to one or two options.
People perceived this combo to be stronger than it was because people looked at threads like
this and assumed they were real, or would watch Abadango body people on stream who have clearly never labbed against this combo before. The truth of the matter is that against most characters, the window was often 1%, sometimes 2-3%. i.e. Zero Suit should only ever die to dash attack 1 at 39, Fox at 35, Luigi at 22, Mario at 32-33. Et cetera.
This make successful use of this combo at high level play difficult should the player be informed. For example, if I was ever in a ditto, I knew that if I was hit with a sweet spot dash attack from 30 or less, holding away would allow me to escape. 34 or later, all I needed to do was hold in, and DI the Shuttle Loop and last up air away, and I would survive.
However, even in high level play, this string was vital. Why? Because it meant Meta Knight did not have to rely on his Shuttle Loop as a form of damage and could get consistent damage off in the mid game.
Meta Knight has four main kill confirms at higher percents: dash attack/forward throw, down tilt, Shuttle Loop, and up smash. They kill in that proceeding order.
If I want to kill Sheik, pre-patch, I would play out the neutral and try and get her to about 28-35 and land the appropriate confirm based on which % she was in. Preferably sweet spot dash attack since this was the safest, so 31-32. From there, if the combo failed, I would tack on at least 40%, and she would be at roughly 70%. Sheik dies to dash attack to Shuttle Loop starting at 90%, so basically I would just need to tack on 20% and she was ready to die.
The problem now is you cannot link up airs anymore. People are saying you can, but they're wrong and train against CPU's and toddlers. The only characters you can link consecutive up airs against are characters like Rosalina, Pit, Olimar, Peach, etc. Floaties that do not go into tumble animation when their true window hits. These characters will still die. However, characters like Fox, Mario, Zero Suit, Cloud, Bayonetta (i.e. Most of the best characters) literally hold down or down and away after getting hit with dash attack and you can only confirm one up air. The gifys you're seeing with this down air to down air crap are nonsense.
So why is this important? Basically players now need to use one up air to Shuttle Loop as their primary source of damage. Dash attack, up air, Shuttle Loop does 22%, while previously it did 40%+. That is a huge damage nerf. The biggest issue is that when Sheik finally gets to 90%, and Shuttle Loop is in the stale move que several times, she likely will not die at 90%. The window for this confirm is narrow, about 15% or so, so Meta Knight cannot afford to use it at the wrong time or percent because if he does he is now past that window and has to fish for down tilt set ups which can be teched and raw up smashes.
The combos
Amadeus9
posted are just signs of community optimism, but these were never combos Meta Knight could not do before, and they do not solve the problem that now Meta Knight does not have a reliable means to damage the opponent post 35% without staling Shuttle Loop. He could always manage early % damage fine.
The other problem is that now Shuttle Loop as a kill from up air is very inconsistent. Because of the angle the up air sends opponents at, and the large area the Shuttle Loop sweet spot occupies, it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to land a Shuttle Loop without hitting the sweet spot. This is bad because since the base knock back on the sweet spot is so strong, the opponent simply DI's the Shuttle Loop and they fly away from the 2nd hit. Basically, you are punished for landing your combo. And since Meta Knight goes into special fall, and many of these characters are fast fallers, he is going to eat some damage or die much of the time.
This was quite frankly a very poor change. The characters that got ***** by Meta Knight are still going to get ***** by Meta Knight because they do not go into tumble animation, meanwhile Meta Knight's gameplay has become less rewarding and inconsistent. To top it off, his RCO lag on Shuttle Loop is still not fixed.
The major benefits of this patch are that Sheik is no longer a problem (6-4 pre-patch) and Battlefield is a very good stage now. But this does not mean he came out ahead. Most of the cast are now much better against him, and he has likely acquired new bad match ups. i.e. The reason Ryu was even before was because it was feast or famine. If Ryu did not get you to 76 and kill you with TSRK, he was dying at 35-36. Now, Meta Knight has to get him 102/68 and fear a move that does 18% and is invincible.
Is he bad? Nah. Are people being dumb when talking about him? Yeah, pretty much.
becoming more relevant due to top tier nerfs, 
