Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[ぱみゅ]

Customs aren't that much of a logistical nightmare anymore, specially now that hacking and Save Edits are a thing, specially on 3DS.
It would only be difficult if Nintendo were supporting the tournaments (meaning no hacking whatsoever).

Plus, if nobody in your community took 2 out of the 100+ weeks that the game has been out to unlock them, guess who the fault is.



Also, yes, stagelists and stage rulings are important and subtly change the meta.
There's a reason Little Mac isn't a good character despite his AMAZINGLY GOOD ground moves.

 

[Laken64]

Customs aren't that much of a logistical nightmare anymore, specially now that hacking and Save Edits are a thing, specially on 3DS.
It would only be difficult if Nintendo were supporting the tournaments (meaning no hacking whatsoever).

Plus, if nobody in your community took 2 out of the 100+ that the game has been out to unlock them, guess who the fault is.



Also, yes, stagelists and stage rulings are important and subtly change the meta.
There's a reason Little Mac isn't a good character despite his AMAZINGLY GOOD ground moves.

I doubt Nintendo will be a problem, they barely do anything when it comes to the competitive aspect (like sponsoring events except a choice few) of this game cus they're.... Nintendo (lol). Customs in the meta are a whole other ballfield though.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Also, yes, stagelists and stage rulings are important and subtly change the meta. There's a reason Little Mac isn't a good character despite his AMAZINGLY GOOD ground moves.

Yes, because he's just not that good a character. Even if FD and FD variants were the only legal stage, he still wouldn't be that good of a character, because his design is fundamentally not consistent.

Anyways, my point was about expanding the current stage list. Which we would do with...what, Halberd, Delfino, and Wuhu Island? One stage that massively incentivises kills off the top when we already have top and high tiers full to the brim with vertical killers, one stage that is infamous for advantaging characters with good aerial mobility and recoveries when most of them are already in a good place as it is, and another stage that is Delfino, but bigger! And with stupider hazards!

So yeah, sure, maybe we could have tried them out, but I guarantee that for all DK, Bowser, and...I dunno, Robin? would love to see Halberd legal, the prospect of ever having to face a ZSS or a MK there would have people clamoring to see it gone. Which, as I understand it, they did. Repeat ad infinitum, and we're left with the selection we have.

And it sucks. But it sucks because there is only one group that has the power to change it much across a broad enough spectrum of the playerbase, and we know just how uninclined they are to do that.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Customs aren't that much of a logistical nightmare anymore, specially now that hacking and Save Edits are a thing, specially on 3DS.
It would only be difficult if Nintendo were supporting the tournaments (meaning no hacking whatsoever).

Plus, if nobody in your community took 2 out of the 100+ that the game has been out to unlock them, guess who the fault is.



Also, yes, stagelists and stage rulings are important and subtly change the meta.
There's a reason Little Mac isn't a good character despite his AMAZINGLY GOOD ground moves.

I thought the only stages Mac sucked on were Smashville, Dreamland, and DH?

 

[Nobie]

Smash 4 is getting an update in January that is going to (somehow) make custom moves easier to obtain.

Not saying that we should go back to customs, but logistics might no longer be an issue.

 

[blackghost]

...I would respond to this witheringly, but in the spirit of the season I will simply be straightforward.

You are beyond simply wrong, because this stuff has been discussed and debunked before.

• Stages get banned for a variety of reasons, from walkoffs to obvious imbalances to random hazards to simply being incredibly harsh on the eyes.
• Even if we did have more stages from the current stage list, it would not change the current high or top tiers. Anything which would would have enough obvious imbalancing factors that there would be an almost immediate outcry.
• Customs are not used because they are a logistical nightmare for TOs, above and beyond anything else potentially problematic about them.

and none of this is even very relevant because the community is not responsible for the design of the game. We have seen the power that patches and rebalancing can have, the way they can completely change the game with a few lines of code. So sure, maybe we might make some differences in the way the game is played by what we can do, but that is nothing compared to proper patch support.

i am arguong purely from the aspect of competition and character viability and trying to bring otit the point we are responsible for our own metagame. we have designed rules and restroctions that sufficated characters from ever seeing a true chance.
and you contradict yourself. we would see changes if more tools were added to characters. no one really knows whatvtech would have come from custom specials over time but from the mild research ive persinally done, im looking at more kill setups and while no custom can compeltly replace a characters downsides they do all add a new toy to be used. bowser gets movement, ganon gets better approaches. palutena lols. megaman get new setups, peach gets absolute nonsense on shield, shiek gets more consistent killsetups, ect. and the dlc that so much of this community hates get nothing. (but lets face it cloud and bayo are carrying custom moves in kit). palutena greatest buff according to dabuz would be changing her specials. it would do more than almost any other patch change.
and stage list definantly matters if we onl used fd or omega would zss be such a terror? would ryu rise over time? imo without a doubt. likewise if the stage list included domethinglike rainbow cruise thats brutal for mac or ryu to deal with.
last point there is no such thing as a neutral stage. thats always been true.

 

[|RK|]

Customs are always a toss up. Personally, I'm split on them - after all, Kirby gets way better with his poor man's Dolphin Slash and poor man's Monkey Flip (and a better recovery!). But I think the main reason people were all about customs was because of the poor balance at the beginning of the game. While yes, there are still characters much stronger than others, we have like > 10 characters in top tier and a bunch of others in high tier and mid tier. You can, for the most part, pick a character you like and still remain competitive.

While customs have been balanced as well, they haven't really been balanced for the current metagame. One example being - we recently re-discovered how good Pikachu is outside of being able to kill. You get customs, now he can do that too. How much of a threat does this make him? Who knows? That's before giving a Ranai-caliber Villager Trip Sapling, or Rocketbarrel Attack to ZeRo's Diddy. On one hand, if you're concerned with the dominance of DLC characters, those will definitely fall. But IDK what sort of nonsense that would be replaced with.

Maybe if we had a good way to re-test customs - like more side-events (with actual monetary prizes), but even that requires a lot of support for something we're not sure we wanna throw in with.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Customs and Marth right now would be absolutely broken and I would argue nigh uncontested among most of the roster.

Imagine Crescent Slash on the beast that is Marth right now.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Pikachu with customs is a nightmare. He gets another infinite but this time its actually worth using and leads into easy kills. He also gets a direct upgrade to his side b with ridiculous 50/50s that can end lightweights at 60
Villager becomes nigh unapproachable and uncampable.
Yoshi gets better burst mobility that almost solves his weakness to grabs and your choice of a projectile or an amazing recovery (id still pick the projectile tbh)
DK is the Smash 4 equivalent of Brawl MK
Marth would be banned within a month
Rosalina gets a legitimate projectile and ****ing star warp

We would need to decide on certain combinations that need banned. 2211 Pikachu is the first thing that comes to mind.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I don't want to play against custom Rosalina, Villager, or Sonic anymore.
Sorry.
Lets not open up this can of worms again.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

Not really sure why customs has been brought up once again, but I imagine would be very stupid due to the fact he now has wind-box-up-b + ding dong (which previously he didn't have when customs were being tested) which just sounds toxic vs a lot of characters.... not to mention some other questionable customs. Just seems to makes more match-ups even more volatile. Also most if not all top players are against customs and I don't even think Japan has ever touched customs.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Shouldn't be brought up in terms of custom jank; can't forget how that custom got figured out.

I know this comes from playing marvel/ VS games and games that resemble them (cyberbots, the game in my sig), but the sound of brokenness appeals to my inner quest for freedom.

Broken Marth vs broken Diddy VS broken villager (imagine if ChrisG played him......), vs etc...

I'd like to see that.

EDIT:

Smash 4 is getting an update in January that is going to (somehow) make custom moves easier to obtain.

Not saying that we should go back to customs, but logistics might no longer be an issue.

Can you confirm this? With evidence?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Let's stop right here because
1. This discussion is insanely unproductive
2. Most of the stuff said here is false or exaggerated.
3. It's Christmas already

Let's move on~

 

[ILOVESMASH]

I may in the minority, but I feel Customs could give this game a lot more depth, assuming that tournament rulesets are altered so that players can ban certain custom moves similarly to stages. This would force players to learn more about their characters, adapt to their new options as the set progresses, etc.

One of my biggest issues with customs though is that certain characters like Mario gain incredibly overpowered options (he now has kill confirms into U-Smash and gets a ladder combo that kills earlier than Pre-patch ZSS's combo). That being said, it wouldn't hurt to try them again. People clamored that certain character like Villager were broken when customs were tried out a while back, yet most of the same top tier characters like Diddy Kong still won a majority of the tournaments.

 

[ぱみゅ]

The best option for Customs right now would be to only allow one at a time.
That would minimize the amount of potential broken combinations, unless one includes a "standard" move.

 

[Aaron1997]

Kome> Rain 2-1

 

[blackghost]

i brought the customs point up but not argue for thier return. rather o brought them up as a reminder. one of the arguments used was "wait until yhe netagame settles"
noe we have people complaining "what do you mean only x numbers of characters are viable!?"
you. cannot. have. both. ways. the more retrictions any game has the more it regulates its cast into tiers and removes characters from compeititve play. in contrast to smash 4 you have marvel. marvel 3 had very loose rules that dodnt even always apply to itself it lead to many characters like hulk wining majors or being used. without custom (and i hate this term) jank to doscover or explore why would a top tier player ever explore the depths of mii swordfighter, charizard, puff, or zelda? sure salem,m2k, and nairo mess around with and dazzle subs online with these characters but theyd never secondary them truly for majors. they enter tournements to win otherwise prople like us bash them on forums and twitter.
so once again i apologize for unintentionally opening the custom debate. just trying to inject some emblem lord honesty. merry christmas and happy holidays to all.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

the more retrictions any game has the more it regulates its cast into tiers and removes characters from compeititve play.

I think this is in general-ish. It varies.

ST is pretty counter-pick-ish, while marvel 2 had 15 ish great characters out of 55.

 

[Deleted member]

Kome takes it 2-1 over RAIN at Sumabato Tokaigi Qualifier.

 

[Nu~]

I don't want to play against custom Rosalina, Villager, or Sonic anymore.
Sorry.
Lets not open up this can of worms again.

Tfw people want to keep duck hunt because "camping is a legit strategy and there's counterplay to it!!!"

But also want to ban customs because "What's counter play? I don't want to get camped out again!!!!"

It's even funnier when it's coming from a sheik main who advocates for needle camping...but I digress
ぱみゅ is right. Custom based arguments are awful due to the overwhelming misinformation so let's stop.

 

[verbatim]

Easier access to customs --> side event. Kind of like how some tournaments run VIP (3v3) or crew battles.


Also just looking at the Tokaigi bracket:

• Goma 2-0 Earth
• You3 2-1 Maashi
• Edge and Atelier are both back, in winners

 

[FeelMeUp]

Tfw people want to keep duck hunt because "camping is a legit strategy and there's counterplay to it!!!"

But also want to ban customs because "What's counter play? I don't want to get camped out again!!!!"

It's even funnier when it's coming from a sheik main who advocates for needle camping...but I digress
ぱみゅ is right. Custom based arguments are awful due to the overwhelming misinformation so let's stop.

You're comparing needle camping to infinites, kong cyclone, easy ladders, easier camping, and more bull**** hitboxes/get out of jail free cards/kill setups?
Really?
Camping isn't the issue. Getting rid of many characters' main issues while sucking the deeper strategy out of gameplay is.

 

[Nu~]

You're comparing needle camping to infinites, kong cyclone, easy ladders, easier camping, and more bull**** hitboxes/get out of jail free cards/kill setups?
Really?
Camping isn't the issue. Getting rid of many characters' main issues while sucking the deeper strategy out of gameplay is.

Oh boy, this is exactly what I was talking about. The degree of misinformation in this post alone is scary. (Pikachu's infinite was patched out for starters, villager's exploding balloons were nerfed twice, and no one seems to complain about mega man's footstool infinite/loop but w/e)

We can bring this conversation to the custom moves atelier thread to discuss it further. Myself and those far more knowledgeable than I on the subject can give you all the reasons why this is wrong, but this isn't the thread for it.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Oh boy, this is exactly what I was talking about. The degree of misinformation in this post alone is scary. (Pikachu's infinite was patched out for starters, villager's exploding balloons were nerfed twice, and no one seems to complain about mega man's footstool infinite/loop but w/e)

We can bring this conversation to the custom moves atelier thread to discuss it further. Myself and those far more knowledgeable than I on the subject can give you all the reasons why this is wrong, but this isn't the thread for it.

I actually used to be a Falcon main. The Pikachu infinite wasn't even on my mind, but good try.
Would love to see what else you consider "misinformation." You didn't even attempt to refute anything else.

 

[adom4]

Easier access to customs --> side event. Kind of like how some tournaments run VIP (3v3) or crew battles.


Also just looking at the Tokaigi bracket:

• Tsu playing solo Falcon
• Goma 2-0 Earth
• You3 2-1 Maashi
• Edge and Atelier are both back, in winners

Can you post the bracket please?

 

[Krysco]

The only custom infinite that remains to my knowledge is Captain Falcon's with his Lightning Falcon Kick. And if customs are being discussed and a reoccurring problem is misinformation, wouldn't it be a better idea to correct any and all of it rather than just change topic? It'll forever be a problem and only be a bigger and bigger one if no one bothers to correct the misinformation.

If the community can rule out items being used in competitive play, choose which stages are legal and aren't, change that list over time even, choose how many stocks and minutes are used (and choosing stock over time, bonus and coins overall) and ban acts like ICies holding someone indefinitely or MK being invisible for the entire match, customs should be little to no problem to sort out. Do research and testing, get rid of anything overpowered or over-centralizing and keep what works. It would be a mess at first but then so was Melee with items on and stages like Mute City and Poke Floats being legal. The 3DS version and hacking make things easier and a future patch or the Switch version could make access even easier, though that particular topic is best left alone until it happens. Not much use in uncontrollable 'what ifs'

 

[Nu~]

I actually used to be a Falcon main. The Pikachu infinite wasn't even on my mind, but good try.
Would love to see what else you consider "misinformation." You didn't even attempt to refute anything else.

That's because I said I'm not continuing the argument here. I gave a few starter examples but I don't want this to become a three page long discussion.

The custom move thread is in need of attention anyways lol

 

[FeelMeUp]

The community can't even come together and decide what number of maps we want between 3-7.
I mean, ****, we STILL have arguments over 3 mediocre characters precisely because of their customs.
What the hell makes you think choosing what we ban out of 350+ customs won't tear the community apart?

 

[SaltyKracka]

What the hell makes you think choosing what we ban out of 350+ customs won't tear the community apart?

Alternatively, why wouldn't we just say "screw it, no customs so we don't have to deal with all of this crap" oh wait we did.

 

[Krysco]

Tournaments have however many stages the TO feels is right and the TO chooses which stages they think are best fit for competitive play. Not all stage lists are the same but they are generally similar. The Mii argument is 3 characters who come with the purchase of the game being held back by pure laziness. An entire country banned a character for a time already in Sm4sh. Different places and communities could easily ban whichever customs they find problematic (ranging from none of them to all of them) and in the end, whatever the biggest tournaments use will inevitably become the norm. No point in banning Heavy Skull Bash in your community if you'll end up running into it at the likes of EVO and Genesis and such.

Alternatively though, Sm4sh already has a meta that people are fine with and some of those people would rather it be left untouched, some are indifferent and some would rather characters like Miis, Palutena, Ganondorf etc have whatever tools they possibly can to give them a better chance.

 

[verbatim]

Can you post the bracket please?

Sure,

http://challonge.com/SumabatoTQT



EDIT: @ Below

corrected

 

[TDK]

Tsu playing solo Falcon

There's two Tsus. Tsu- who plays Falcon and Tsu~ who plays Lucario.

 

[ぱみゅ]

The reason why it's better to stop any Customs talk instead of clarifying misinformation is that we've been there already, and all the opposing party needs to do is to to keep saying everything is broken and call it a day.
It's pretty frustrating that they most of the time don't even want to have the discussion.
And by that I mean, how people are still complaining about Kong Cyclone? Seriously. That thing didn't even got Top 32 at EVO.

ANYWAY, If anyone is up to really talk about Customs, their future, possible abuses, what still exists and what doesn't anymore, there's always the Fighter Atelier, a thread in this same Competitive Forum where such discussions are welcomed.

 

[TDK]

http://imgur.com/lKs7IyP

Merry christmas, everyone. As a present I got you a pre-Wii U tier list.

My, how far we've come. Remember when Dedede was a high tier?

 

[L9999]

http://imgur.com/lKs7IyP

Merry christmas, everyone. As a present I got you a pre-Wii U tier list.

My, how far we've come. Remember when Dedede was a high tier?

We clearly had no idea how this game worked back then. Merry Christmas TDK .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htXu0uUwQTo
FeelMeUp I was watching this casually and since I once heard Sheik could steamroll over Ryu...Is this Mr R being himself or something else? Ryu after all has the 55% clutch button.

 

[TriTails]

Everyone is freaking out about customs.

I am freaking out about the balance changes that may be slipped in this patch.

It has been quite a while since the last time we had to update. One could say they were waiting a few months (Just like some of us wanted) to see how the metagame sort out, and then dropping the bat when they feel like they needed it Another one could also easily say they are done with balance though, considering the last patch changed soooooo many characters.

What's interesting though, if this patch DOES contain balance tweaks... Who's in line for the nerf bat? Cloud is commonly complained but the character fails as a solo-main from what we've seen so far. I'm not too sure about Bayo to comment about her. The rest of the top tiers are... just fine. Top 16s and Top 8s are often seen with varying different characters and while there are still some atrocious MUs in this game, I'd say the balance so far has been quite pleasant.

Perhaps this patch will tell us if they are truly done with the bat they liked to swing around last year. Customs meta be damned. Unless they have some super ultra mega revamps I don't see them being legal tbh.

But let us not talk about Super Janky Bros anymore lol.

 

[Rizen]

We clearly had no idea how this game worked back then. Merry Christmas TDK .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htXu0uUwQTo
FeelMeUp I was watching this casually and since I once heard Sheik could steamroll over Ryu...Is this Mr R being himself or something else? Ryu after all has the 55% clutch button.

I'm not going to knee jerk and say Ryu's top tier but daymn, he's never out until the match is completely over and IDC who the opponent character is.

 

[Aaron1997]

Sumabato Tokaigi Qualifier (174 entrants)

1.Ikep
2. Kameme
3.Shuton
4.Gomamugitya
5. Kisha
5. You3
7.Atelier
7.Ranai
9.Nietono
9.Earth
9.Lickey
9.Mattun
13.Edge
13.HIKARU
13.Mangalitza
13.9B
17. Kome
17. Oishiitofu
17. Rain
25.T
33. Taiheita
49. Kie
49. FILIP
49. Ginko

 

[The-Technique]

I'd be appalled if anyone got nerfed, given that no single character in this game is overly dominant or oppressive at this point. If anything they should focus on buffing the weaker characters.

 

[Minordeth]

Of Bowser note at the Tokaigi qualifier, Kisha took out Ranai 2-0 on his way to 5th, losing only to Ikep 2-0 and Kameme 2-1.