Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Excuse me but I typically don't watch the streams or double or triple check the names on tournament brackets. My post before asking should've told you that I said it myself 'I'm not very familiar with the players who play sm4sh' meaning I have no clue on their consistency, playstyle OR how often they main tourneys! I'm probably only familiar with Zero, Dabuz, and maybe Esam and that's about it from how often they popped up on Das Koopa's tourney listings and even then I haven't seen videos of their plays so I wouldn't be able to judge if they're good or bad compared to those three (not to mention they main completely different characters so the playstyle might be drastically different anyways).
The reason I'm asking is I CAN'T judge for myself! I don't know the player's history!

edit:In no way is this meant to be mean or disrespectful, (though it can be seen as confrontational sorry) It's just that I'm a complete NOOB not just to the competitive scene but to any sort of sm4sh stream. I'm browsing the boards on my Wii U's gamepad for crying out loud! I'm super happy DHD is getting in on the competitive scene though as a solo main. I'm going to ask if that's rare because with my limited browsing I haven't seen it.

You San aka You3 is a notable Japan Duck Hunt along with Ri-Ma and Brood. Going by the posts in this thread they have consistent results; others can give more detailed info. Hope that helps for now.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

You San aka You3 is a notable Japan Duck Hunt along with Ri-Ma and Brood. Going by the posts in this thread they have consistent results; others can give more detailed info. Hope that helps for now.

Thank you so much! I once asked what the three types of japanese tournies were when all I had to go by was their names so I wouldn't have a clue as to who these players are....would looking up their names as they come up get any results under the smashboards search or google? I don't want to get told off by an admin again for being a NOOB (being a character loyalist sucks sometimes)

 

[ぱみゅ]

The Duckhunts are You3, Brood and Raito, Ri-Ma is a Toon Link player.


And turning my sass switch off, yes, they all get the character to heights that were never seen in the Occidental meta.

9B 2-0 Brood, welp, poster's curse I believe.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

The Duckhunts are You3, Brood and Raito, Ri-Ma is a Toon Link player.


And turning my sass switch off, yes, they all get the character to heights that were never seen in the Occidental meta.

9B 2-0 Brood, welp, poster's curse I believe.

That's awesome! Any other players who main low mid-tier side characters and improve their meta that I should know about? Has there been any notable Bowser Jr. or Roy mains recently that have done well (hang on I don't know where they fit on the tiers!) still my question stands.

 

[Aaron1997]

You3>Ito 2-0 Wtf Am I watching right now

 

[L9999]

Smash of the Titans 15 Notable sets

You3>Regi 2-1
KOSSismoss>Rain2-0
Stark>Earth 2-1
BigD>2-0
Ashley>OCEAN2-0
You3>Stark2-1
Earth>Regi 2-1
Trevonte>Ri-ma2-1
Xzax>9B2-0

Who the hell is Ashley?

NINTENDO Galaxy I would say it is a good win not an upset. I mean, Shaky is very good, but You3 is super good.

 

[The-Technique]

Duck Hunt got slept on, always knew it.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

You3>Ito 2-0 Wtf Am I watching right now

Apparently a very VERY good DHD player, I wonder where he will place? This is great! I hope DHD goes even further than this I like seeing character diversity on the results list. Also, random question does it seem like more characters are doing better as of late? I don't think DHD is the only surprise we've had in a tourney setting over the last few months....

 

[Dre89]

It baffles me that people still get surprised when mid-low tiers get results. It's been happening since Brawl. People still really don't understand how much more important skill is than the characters.

 

[Aaron1997]

Smash of the Titans 15 (186 entrants)

1. Tervonte
2. 9B
3. You3
4. Xzax
5. Day
5. Ito
7. Umeki
7. Kameme
9. Shaky
9. Rain
9. Nietono
9. Zenyou
13. FILIP
13. Stark
13. Hitaku
13.Brood

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Bracket for the event if people need it later. https://smash.gg/tournament/smash-o...nesis-4-foundry/events/wii-u-singles/brackets

 

[blackghost]

Smash of the Titans 15 (186 entrants)

1. Tervonte
2. 9B
3. You3
4. Xzax
5. Day
5. Ito
7. Umeki
7. Kameme
9. Shaky
9. Rain
9. Nietono
9. Zenyou
13. FILIP
13. Stark
13. Hitaku
13.Brood

9b had a very inpressive losees run. xzax beat him pretty handily in winners.
lets hold off on the dhd is slept on talk. most ppayers have never even seen one in turnament before.
you3 also just flat out doesnt use frisbee and i think a lot of the american community has been looking at dhd as a true zoner when he really isnt. hes a trap and setup character almost another pac man using can instead of hydrant.

 

[ARGHETH]

All those people, and NorCal still wins.

9B's loser's run: Earth, Brood, Zenyou, Kameme, Ito, Xzax, You3, and Trevonte in the first set of grands.

 

[Fenny]

All those people, and NorCal still wins.

9B's loser's run: Earth, Brood, Zenyou, Kameme, Ito, Xzax, You3, and Trevonte in the first set of grands.

Looks like 9B is finally getting back into the groove of things

Shame he has to fight Salem in G4 pools RIP

 

[Das Koopa]

if you asked me what Japan would make top 3 at the event, You3 and 9B certainly wouldn't have been my first guess

wtf @You3 2-0ing Ito and Shaky. NorCal still won but their only player looking good for G4 long-term is Trevonte.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Skill and character selection is both equally important, I've heard arguments front and down forwards and back about character selection versus skill level. Yes you can be super skilled and win with a lower tiered character but it's harder, on the other hand you can't think picking top tier is an instant win button.
Both are equally important for results, the only reason I'm surprised is I don't see dhd being used that often as was mentioned on here.
I wonder what would happen if a super skilled player known for using a character that was high-tier suddenly decided to solo-main a mid to lower-mid character and got results? Have we really ever seen that at a super major outside of Japan?

 

[Bowserboy3]

I found this rather interesting - it's a list of character usage in the top 50 of the Panda Global Rankings v2.

Only character mains were included in this list (hence why Olimar is in 0 for example with Dabuz).

https://twitter.com/royal264/status/822169684216872960

Ryu representing much (even if his players were on the lower end of the spectrum... shhhhhh!).

 

[ShadowGuy1]

I found this rather interesting - it's a list of character usage in the top 50 of the Panda Global Rankings v2.

Only character mains were included in this list (hence why Olimar is in 0 for example with Dabuz).

View attachment 125164

https://twitter.com/royal264/status/822169684216872960

Ryu representing much (even if his players were on the lower end of the spectrum... shhhhhh!).

That list is missing a sonic player considering Wrath,6WX, ~~Dath~~and KEN were on the PGR. Same with Rosalina with Kirihara. Falln, and Dabuz. Also side note, I am shocked PGR used Ike for Ryo over Corrin because his Corrin has done far more for him than his Ike.

Looks like 9B is finally getting back into the groove of things

Shame he has to fight Salem in G4 pools RIP

I would not count 9B out. The Bayonetta MU, at top level at least, is quite volatile and unpredictable imo. Definitely hope their march is streamed!

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Also side note, I am shocked PGR used Ike for Ryo over Corrin because his Corrin has done far more for him than his Ike.

I think Ryo still considers himself an Ike main. And if he didn't he'd probably consider himself a Roy main instead of a Corrin main with how much he's been using Roy lately and talking him up.

And then there's MLG and Ryo's placement there with pure Ike. Don't think he's ever quite matched that with Corrin though he's gotten close.

 

[blackghost]

Looks like 9B is finally getting back into the groove of things

Shame he has to fight Salem in G4 pools RIP

we might get one game of bayo mirror then more than likely someone will switch to a secondary. but 9b secondary is ryu right? that seems like a pretty rough fight as well.

 

[Deleted member]

we might get one game of bayo mirror then more than likely someone will switch to a secondary. but 9b secondary is ryu right? that seems like a pretty rough fight as well.

9B hasn't touched Ryu since Bayo came out.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Looks like 9B is finally getting back into the groove of things

He's still quite inconsistent, especially compared to his Brawl days.

 

[TDK]

Smash of the Titans 15 (186 entrants)

1. Tervonte
2. 9B
3. You3
4. Xzax
5. Day
5. Ito
7. Umeki
7. Kameme
9. Shaky
9. Rain
9. Nietono
9. Zenyou
13. FILIP
13. Stark
13. Hitaku
13.Brood

Notable players that didn't make it out of pools:

Kuro
Regi
Captain L
OCEAN

What a tournament.

 

[mountain_tiger]

Duck Hunt got slept on, always knew it.

In all fairness the only thing massively holding DHD back is the severe lack of reliable kill moves. The poor recovery certainly doesn't help, and personally I reckon they should be a tad heavier (around Villager's weight), but overall aside from that one fatal flaw you actually have a pretty solid character.

It's just a shame that said fatal flaw has so much potential to become extremely fatal.

 

[Fenny]

He's still quite inconsistent, especially compared to his Brawl days.

True, but he was even more inconsistent before recently, especially after coming out of his character crisis

 

[|RK|]

It baffles me that people still get surprised when mid-low tiers get results. It's been happening since Brawl. People still really don't understand how much more important skill is than the characters.

Additionally, people ignore the importance of character/player matching too often. ZeRo, for example, doesn't *just* pick the best characters - Diddy and Sheik happen to work exceptionally for his style. Nairo's style is reliant on heavy punishes/early kills, so ZSS and Bowser are his picks (and Doc, for that matter), etc. The best players don't just choose the best characters - they choose the characters that work the best with them.

Meanwhile, randoms who just pick Cloud or Sheik because they're good characters end up eating losses because they don't work with their character at all. Worse, they don't recognize it.

 

[verbatim]

Zero started playing Diddy Kong and Sheik when they were both the respective best characters in the game, and Nairo switches to Cloud in doubles.


You should be playing to win with the best character that you can play well, the top players are flexible enough to play with most of the cast, so they pick the best characters.

 

[|RK|]

Zero started playing Diddy Kong and Sheik when they were both the respective best characters in the game, and Nairo switches to Cloud in doubles.


You should be playing to win with the best character that you can play well, the top players are flexible enough to play with most of the cast, so they pick the best characters.

The thing is both Diddy and Sheik (pre-patch) undeniably complemented his playstyle really well. The top players can switch to Cloud, more or less (and that's in part because he - like Mario - is flexible and dependent upon good fundamentals). They main the characters that best match their playstyles, though.

 

[ぱみゅ]

ZeRo basically spammed dashgrabs with Sheik until they eventually killed the opponent.
Back in the day I also had a lot of success by winning neutral over and over with oppressive tools and then having a safe kill setup.
It is not coincidence he doesn't pick her anymore except for specific matchups.

 

[|RK|]

ZeRo basically spammed dashgrabs with Sheik until they eventually killed the opponent.
Back in the day I also had a lot of success by winning neutral over and over with oppressive tools and then having a safe kill setup.
It is not coincidence he doesn't pick her anymore except for specific matchups.

As much as I've seen people downplaying ZeRo, I've never seen this level of downplaying.

ZeRo relies on characters with oppressive neutral games. This is more often than not the characters considered to be the best in the game. After all, a character that can win neutral consistently and set up kills will more often than not reach the highest heights consistently. ZeRo used his tools smartly to force opponents into situations where he could more easily predict their reactions. Needles, nair, etc. His natural ability to see what opponents want to do is only accelerated by powerful tools - and moreso when they're in situations that give them even fewer options (e.g. ledge trapping). Beyond that, his ability to see and capitalize on opportunities is only more powerful when he has a reliable setup to kill. In short, he took the characters that enhanced his natural abilities and used them to reach incredible heights. Example - ZeRo has an amazing disadvantage, and picks characters that don't have to think about it. ZeRo has an insane neutral, and picks the characters that allow him to control it completely. So on.

But he basically spammed dash grab until he killed the opponent, I guess.

 

[Dre89]

Skill and character selection is both equally important, I've heard arguments front and down forwards and back about character selection versus skill level. Yes you can be super skilled and win with a lower tiered character but it's harder, on the other hand you can't think picking top tier is an instant win button.
Both are equally important for results, the only reason I'm surprised is I don't see dhd being used that often as was mentioned on here.
I wonder what would happen if a super skilled player known for using a character that was high-tier suddenly decided to solo-main a mid to lower-mid character and got results? Have we really ever seen that at a super major outside of Japan?

No they're not. Skill is a lot more important. This evidenced by the fact that people have been winning negative MUs in high level play since Brawl. If character selection was equally important that wouldn't be the case.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I obviously oversimplified it.

ZeRo is a top player, smart enough to use his tools to his advantage, and with at least above average reaction time to fully employ said tools. He likes to use characters that overwhelm the opponent at the neutral because is his natural strength (despite he refuses to recognize how good or potentially those options are), player-character synergy is important after all.
HOWEVER, a lot of his 2015 dominance can be attributed to how powerful Sheik was as a whole, with the icing on the cake being a safe-on-whiff tool that set up for kills. Once he lost that, he moved to the next character with strong neutral, slightly less oppressive, and with a better ability to safely remove stocks.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

No they're not. Skill is a lot more important. This evidenced by the fact that people have been winning negative MUs in high level play since Brawl. If character selection was equally important that wouldn't be the case.

Hrmm interesting, so what you're saying is that because certain players win negative MUs that automatically must mean that skill is the most important thing, that might be oversimplifying it but wouldn't character selection and MU familiarity not to mention as several people have said on here having a character that works with your playstyle, isn't that important too? Why aren't we seeing a lot of bottom tier characters take top marks even when skilled players use them? Some have tried only to discard them when they got thrashed. Skill may be super important but if you're unfamiliar with the MU, what the other character can do as well as what your character can do then you can't take advantage of all of your character's options in a proper smash.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Additionally, people ignore the importance of character/player matching too often. ZeRo, for example, doesn't *just* pick the best characters - Diddy and Sheik happen to work exceptionally for his style. Nairo's style is reliant on heavy punishes/early kills, so ZSS and Bowser are his picks (and Doc, for that matter), etc. The best players don't just choose the best characters - they choose the characters that work the best with them.

Meanwhile, randoms who just pick Cloud or Sheik because they're good characters end up eating losses because they don't work with their character at all. Worse, they don't recognize it.

While this is true, it's actually the reason why ZeRo doesn't play Sheik in tournament outside of certain match ups.

ZeRo explained it as, when they nerfed the range on needles and fair, they nerfed Sheik's neutral, which led to the Sheik meta being more centered around combos and follow ups off of every hit and making sure you kill with anything at your disposal, which ZeRo doesn't feel fits his style and isn't one of his stronger points, while Diddy Kong still allows him to play that way.

ZeRo didn't just spam dash grab and win, he abused the hell outta that Marth-like fair (remember, at the time Sheik had more range than Marth), forced approaches with needles, edge guarded like crazy and then started to rely more on nair and grab when percents got high and he needed to kill. To say he only spammed dash grab when he's with out a doubt the best player at applying pressure needles to have ever existed and he made sure most of his attacks hit every time really sells short how incredible he was and still is at playing neutral.

 

[Nemesis561]

Told you not to sleep on Child Das Koopa , beat Pugwest and made it out of his pools in winners. Don't sleep on Florida we have tons of hidden killers.. I just wish Wormynugget (Josh) could have Made the trip to Genesis, he would have shocked some people.

Anyways, after watching Shaky pull out Game and Watch against Xaltis, was wondering if that character has a niche in the meta? What meta relevant characters does G&W do well against?

 

[MistressRemilia]

Told you not to sleep on Child Das Koopa , beat Pugwest and made it out of his pools in winners. Don't sleep on Florida we have tons of hidden killers.. I just wish Wormynugget (Josh) could have Made the trip to Genesis, he would have shocked some people.

Anyways, after watching Shaky pull out Game and Watch against Xaltis, was wondering if that character has a niche in the meta? What meta relevant characters does G&W do well against?

Mario, Ryu, Pikachu, Villager, Meta Knight & Lucario are all good matchups for G&W.
The character of G&W also has, overall, a lot of stuff that can throw people off, giving you the element of surprise, and the ability to counterpick with G&W on a bunch of G&W's decent matchups, which includes almost everyone in the cast, minus a few exceptions like Sonic ( Please never use G&W against Sonic, it singlehandedly crushes G&W from a volatile strong threat to what he is )
Such basic things as our edgeguarding game, the fact that a fair amount of our hitboxes stay for long, our mildly dumb safety on moves that don't feel like they should be safe, our absurd advantage state, our low FAF on Smashes, and so on. Many of these elements can be used at your advantage as long as your opponent isn't adapting to them. The process of adapting to a good G&W isn't easy, as the character is a combinaison of a character that would seem like shielding is a good idea against, and a character with an absurd throw game ( Probably Top 10 in the game, honestly )

 

[soniczx123]

Mario, Ryu, Pikachu, Villager, Meta Knight & Lucario are all good matchups for G&W.
The character of G&W also has, overall, a lot of stuff that can throw people off, giving you the element of surprise, and the ability to counterpick G&W a bunch of G&W's decent matchups, which includes almost everyone in the cast, minus a few exceptions like Sonic ( Please never use G&W against Sonic, it singlehandedly crushes G&W from a volatile strong threat to what he is )
Such basic things as our edgeguarding game, the fact that a fair amount of our hitboxes stay for long, our mildly dumb safety on moves that don't feel like they should be safe, our absurd advantage state, our low FAF on Smashes, and so on. Many of these elements can be used at your advantage as long as your opponent isn't adapting to them. The process of adapting to a good G&W isn't easy, as the character is a combinaison of a character that would seem like shielding is a good idea against, and a character with an absurd throw game ( Probably Top 10 in the game, honestly )

What is it that makes Sonic so hard for G&W compared to Mario and Pikachu or Fox???

 

[MistressRemilia]

What is it that makes Sonic so hard for G&W compared to Mario and Pikachu or Fox???

In a nutshell, none of these characters have the insane defensive potency that Sonic has.
We already know hard it can be for any opponent to catch up to a Sonic who has the lead, but when you're playing as G&W, this advantage that Sonic has is taken up to Eleven:
- Sonic has the lead, you kind of have to act in order to make things change
- Your moves are, for the most part, fairly commital and add on to nothing but pressure at best. Your grab range isn't good enough to try & react to Sonic's whole spindash & shield cancelling spindashing game
- If you don't approach, courtesy of Sonic's insane mobility, it is likely that this state won't change, leading into a timeout.

In this specific matchup, i sometimes feel like i'm playing Ganondorf, that's how bad the whole neutral/approach game is.
You can't afford to ever lose the lead against Sonic, if you do, consider the match over, and consider counterpicking.

A prime example of this being showed was at Genesis 3's crew battles, when Komo & Regi fought:

 

[Game7a1]

In a nutshell, none of these characters have the insane defensive potency that Sonic has.
We already know hard it can be for any opponent to catch up to a Sonic who has the lead, but when you're playing as G&W, this advantage that Sonic has is taken up to Eleven:
- Sonic has the lead, you kind of have to act in order to make things change
- Your moves are, for the most part, fairly commital and add on to nothing but pressure at best. Your grab range isn't good enough to try & react to Sonic's whole spindash & shield cancelling spindashing game
- If you don't approach, courtesy of Sonic's insane mobility, it is likely that this state won't change, leading into a timeout.

In this specific matchup, i sometimes feel like i'm playing Ganondorf, that's how bad the whole neutral/approach game is.
You can't afford to ever lose the lead against Sonic, if you do, consider the match over, and consider counterpicking.

A prime example of this being showed was at Genesis 3's crew battles, when Komo & Regi fought:

The same example can also been seen last night in Japan vs MexiCanEU crew battle since they fought each other again.
To add on, the G&W matchup against Sonic is worst on stage like FD. At least with Battlefield or Dream Land you have platforms to use, but when the G&W player being counterpicked like in both crew battles, he's almost done for.

 

[Scott-To-Be]

Bowser is also a heavyweight.