Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[FamilyTeam]

Actually: It might sound crazy but even though I do actually believe Marth is a better characater than Lucina, I can actually see Zero's reasonings here very well.
I think the MUs he used to exemplify what he meant with Marth doing better against X character while Lucina does better against Y is bad, but other than that, I agree.
Anyone remember when I said I'd do a big post regarding Lucina once? I'm working on it.

 

[blackghost]

Salem isn't the best bayo, people are freaking out after one tournament lmao.


I mean stuff like this is plainly false, salem's conversions are pretty lackluster in comparison to other bayo's, and he relies on combos that can be easily DI/SDI'd, and very rarely actually mixes up his combo game. His neutral is very good obviously, but a lot of the players were just falling into pre-patch bayo combos (Tweek being a notable example, SDIing IN to all of bayo's stuff, leading to him dying in situations he was at otherwise no risk) which meant salem didn't have to work very hard to get kills.

watch the interview he did after the tournment about all the anti sdi stuff he has. and since when does best combos= best player. void isnt the best shiek and trela isnt the best ryu.
he plays the diddy matchup the best ive seen, he uses bayos best tools WT and witch time the most effectively and he edgegaurds very consistently. if his combos can be sdi in theory thats great but if it doesnt hppen in practice then what does it matter?

 

[ShadowGuy1]

watch the interview he did after the tournment about all the anti sdi stuff he has. and since when does best combos= best player. void isnt the best shiek and trela isnt the best ryu.

But trela is the best ryu

 

[blackghost]

But trela is the best ryu

i thought that some of the pther ryu players had more consistent results as of late maybe im wrong

 

[EternalFlare]

Sheik has more kill setups than Bayo does. A lot more.
and many more opportunities to lead into those setups. The only things she doesn't have are a WT and really easy kills off the top.

Sheik might have more kill setups but none of them will kill nearly as early as Bayo's will.

Heck if Bayo witch times literally anything including a mere jab, a charged Smash from her could mean your stock is gone at 80-90. The fact that witch time is a counter that doesn't depend on countering strong moves to kill is huge. It means player's are forced to severely limit their game versus her or risk losing stocks really early.

Her early ceiling death combos or 50/50s seem very reliable too. Top players fall from all the time, you'd think if SDI really made them irrelevant we'd be seeing it by now. But nope, during this latest tournament Salem got Tweek, DK Will and Zero with them. And as Salem showed in some instances, even if you SDI out, if the Bayo is ready they can still continue the combos.

I'd argue Bayo has better offstage edge guarding than Sheik as well. Outside of bouncing fish and sometimes even including it, even if she lands aerials, chances are they are still living with good DI until really high percents. But if Bayo witch times your recovery you are almost always dead. Plus she's one of the best characters at stage spiking because even if you tech the initial hit, she can do other recovery moves immediately afterwards forcing you to tech multiple times or die. We saw this happening several times yesterday.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

i thought that some of the pther ryu players had more consistent results as of late maybe im wrong

None of them really do. DK Jack did decent o think at EVO, but that's it. Trela did place extremely low at CEO, however the then got 9th at EVO. We also gotta note that Ryo, probably best Ike, also got around the same place as Trela at CEO

 

[EternalFlare]

None of them really do. DK Jack did decent o think at EVO, but that's it. Trela did place extremely low at CEO, however the then got 9th at EVO. We also gotta note that Ryo, probably best Ike, also got around the same place as Trela at CEO

Trela also got 25th at SSC.

Ryu's results have been lackluster lately. He'll occasionally get 7th at lesser tournaments but that's about it. Bayo and Megaman definitely have much better results as of late and deserve to be in top 10 long before him.

 

[Fenny]

Salem isn't the best bayo, people are freaking out after one tournament lmao.

Salem's literally outplaced every other Bayo who's attended the same tournaments as him so far, and as of now he has the best wins out of anyone who plays her. Having wins over ZeRo and Nairo as well as the likes of 6WX and Tweek isn't something you can just dismiss. He might not be the undisputed best, but if you think this doesn't put him in contention for it just because it's one tournament then your logic is silly to be honest.

There's a reason why so many top players see him as one of the most underrated players in the meta right now.

 

[Fenny]

Double post rip

 

[NotLiquid]

Best Bayo player is still probably going to be debated for a while but Salem definitely made a solid case for himself with the recent tournament. It's kind of ironic in a way since ZeRo only just two weeks ago said that he is one of the most underrated players in the scene right now - a statement which got vindicated in the biggest way possible.

ZeRo's Top Tier list is certainly interesting but then again you can say that about any Top 10 list because it's usually the same people in different order. The main thing I still find myself disagreeing with him is Ryu being so high up, since that's still a character I feel is touted as a potential powerhouse that just isn't seeing enough results to justify being above the rest as of present. It almost reminds me of Peach discussion (and lord knows I still think she is untapped). Bayonetta is probably at least higher than Ryu at this point but I imagine Salem's Collision performance wasn't accounted for in this video. Rosalina as 1 is something I'm mixed on but at the very least I do feel that her tier position is not far removed at all from Sonic's in terms of how balanced their matchup spread seem.

 

[Murlough]

If he swapped Rosalina and Sonic's placements and dropped Ryu several places I'd actually be blown away by his list.

Mewtwo has a good matchup versus Rosa and Sonic seems like the most versatile character, even compared to Mario and Sheik. I honestly can't think of a character who can beat Sonic when he optimizes his play for that character. If Sonic's adapted to their opponent rather than doing their usual style then I think Sonic would be near uncontested for first place.

EDIT: I'm still super iffy about Lucario.

 

[my_T]

Yes but that's fast for a super heavy. The only heavy I feel that has a better OoS option than that is Bowser and his up B.

And how many characters have a move that strong and can do two of them in a short hop?

I'll wait.

It's not fast for a superheavy. Ganon's uair is frame 6 and nair is frame 7. DDD nair is also frame 7. DK's bair is frame 7 and uair is frame 6. All of these options are too slow to punish a lot of things oos because of both start up combined with jumpsquat frames

Charizards up B and usmash are the next best oos out of all the superheavies. His up B comes out frame 9 which is kinda slow. His usmash comes out frame 6-7. Both of these options are faster than the options i listed above because you can jump cancel with up B and usmash, thus bypassing the jumpsquat frames (correct me if im wrong)

And how many characters have a move that strong and can do two of them in a short hop?

I'll wait.

None that i know of. What's your point? It's still too slow to be a reliable oos option

 

[soniczx123]

If he swapped Rosalina and Sonic's placements and dropped Ryu several places I'd actually be blown away by his list.

Mewtwo has a good matchup versus Rosa and Sonic seems like the most versatile character, even compared to Mario and Sheik. I honestly can't think of a character who can beat Sonic when he optimizes his play for that character. If Sonic's adapted to their opponent rather than doing their usual style then I think Sonic would be near uncontested for first place.

EDIT: I'm still super iffy about Lucario.

At the same time, Spindash counterplay will develop and people will realize how not-broken it is than what they initially thought.

 

[Murlough]

At the same time, Spindash counterplay will develop and people will realize how not-broken it is than what they initially thought.

I don't think its broken. People said the exact same thing about Bayonetta combos and months later she still kills players off the top.

My point in my post wasn't "OHMYGERD SPINDASH TOO GOOD!!!1!" I didnt even bring up spindash. Why? Because Sonic doesn't even need to use it. Sonic doesn't even have to use that powerful tool and still challenge the other top tiers. Tell me Sonic isn't gaurenteed Top 3 when you think about every playstyle Sonic can have, his matchup spread, and his movement options at any given point in time during a match.

Spindash isn't all Sonic has.

 

[Luco]

Notable excerpts from Avalon U-V, S1 3-0'd Ixis in losers finals (although Ixis flubbed an edge-guard on his last stock at like 20% which cost him the game via him promptly SD-ing) which might be the first time S1 has won vs Ixis in like... Months? Longer? Talking to him just then he said he's feeling like he's worked some stuff out, so I'm super hype to keep an eye on these two and their sets together in the near future because from where I was sitting it was basically a half-hour long series of heart attacks. Good stuff to him.

He also took a set off of Mr R who was using Bayo in GFs set 1. Given that it's his bayo and he's still experimenting with her (and that MU isn't nearly as bad for Ness), that might lessen the impact of the win, but apparently it's the first set Mr. R has dropped in Europe for about 6 years (that goes back into Brawl), so good stuff there too. He also took a game off his Sheik in set 2, but the other few games were gut-wrenchingly difficult for him and Mr. R finished him off.

 

[SaltyKracka]

At the same time, Spindash counterplay will develop and people will realize how not-broken it is than what they initially thought.

This is literally the opposite of how things have happened.

 

[soniczx123]

I don't think its broken. People said the exact same thing about Bayonetta combos and months later she still kills players off the top.

My point in my post wasn't "OHMYGERD SPINDASH TOO GOOD!!!1!" I didnt even bring up spindash. Why? Because Sonic doesn't even need to use it. Sonic doesn't even have to use that powerful tool and still challenge the other top tiers. Tell me Sonic isn't gaurenteed Top 3 when you think about every playstyle Sonic can have, his matchup spread, and his movement options at any given point in time during a match.

Spindash isn't all Sonic has.

Sorry for the wrong interpretation. I just assume everyone's main reasoning for Sonic's top placing is spindash

But yeah, all the top players play Sonic is distinct fashion, which is why I think he's top 5 at most atm. Someone needs to combine all those styles and start winning tournaments. Then he can contend for 1st. The problem is that playing in so many different styles and shifting between them inbetween games or even mid-game is really hard to do atm.

 

[EternalFlare]

Going back to Zero's tier list series which is now done:

He underrates characters he plays and overrates characters he loses to as usual. I'm going to ignore tournament results as that alone would destroy a lot of his placings and just focus on matchups and tools as Zero suggests that's what this list is based off.

Diddy at 7th place? His logic is he loses badly to Megaman and Olimar. Well MK beats Rosalina badly as well. His argument was it didn't matter much because MK is a rare character. Well I'm willing to bet he's still much more common than Megaman and Olimar especially when considering secondaries, yet Diddy is only 7th despite only doing badly versus 2 extremely obscure characters? As for Fox and Rosa, even if he loses to them, that's still only 2 slightly losing matchups among the top tiers. Also, Diddy has a lot more going for him than just his banana so to imply characters that can nullify it destroy him is just nonsense which Zero fully knows, he just hates admitting he's playing one of the best characters. I personally think Diddy does fine versus Rosa, his SH rising fair, downtilt and forward roll are amazing tools in the matchup.

Ryu at 3rd place. His description of him is full of misinformation. No Ryu cannot kill you everytime he touches you or deal tons of damage every time. Watch any top level Ryu match to see how untrue this is. He gets big damage at lower percents sure, but so do several other characters in the game.You are going to live versus Ryu for a while as long as you don't do anything super unsafe while right next to him or get hit by approximately 10000000 frame startup focus attacks, if you space him out, he's mostly landing aerials and none of his aerials kill super early. And that's before getting into matchups where even multiple mid-high tier characters give Ryu a ton of trouble due to their high mobility/evasiveness.

Rosalina at 1st place. Zero recently went to Japan and lost a FT10 versus Kirihara. That's probably a bigger factor for Rosa being this high than anything he actually mentioned. In reality in terms of matchups, if a character has a 7:3 matchup (MK) they definitely cannot be the best character in the game when so many other top tiers have no matchups that bad. Zero also ignores how exploitable Rosa's recovery is, how bad her landing options are especially without Luma and how easy it is for some characters to get rid of Luma in general.

This is a good example of why solely listening to top player opinions is a bad idea, they are as biased as the rest of us. The only thing that's truly not biased is tournament results.

 

[Murlough]

Sorry for the wrong interpretation. I just assume everyone's main reasoning for Sonic's top placing is spindash

But yeah, all the top players play Sonic is distinct fashion, which is why I think he's top 5 at most atm. Someone needs to combine all those styles and start winning tournaments. Then he can contend for 1st. The problem is that playing in so many different styles and shifting between them inbetween games or even mid-game is really hard to do atm.

Very true. If and when we can get a Sonic who can switch his playstyle on the fly then I think Sonic will start ripping the meta a new one.

 

[Luco]

This is a good example of why solely listening to top player opinions is a bad idea, they are as biased as the rest of us. The only thing that's truly not biased is tournament results.

Agreed with most of this post but just wanted to say pure results data isn't the be-all and end-all of analysis. Results are garnered by human players, humans are inconsistent and fragile, so results can be just as much so. The whole point of this thread is discussing the reasons why things are the way they are, and interpreting data rather than merely collating it.

But when used well, results are one of the strongest tools we can possibly use to formulate and synthesise overall meta viability conclusions.

I just disagree that ZeRo synthesised his data in the best way he could have. But all power to him and his opinions, we've all a right to have one.

 

[soniczx123]

Very true. If and when we can get a Sonic who can switch his playstyle on the fly then I think Sonic will start ripping the meta a new one.

This is also on some part thanks to the playerbase. You need to listen to us when we try explain on how SpinDash works, it's strengths and weaknesses so that you guys can develop counterplay. Only then will the meta develop to that point

 

[sedrf]

"x player plays rate character I feel is good time to rage"

Here is the list for anybody who is at work/doesn't want to watch:
top tier:
1st. Rosalina

2nd. Sonic

3rd. Ryu

4th. Sheik

5th. Fox

6th. Cloud

7th. Diddy Kong

8th. Mario

9th. Bayonetta

10th. Mewtwo

11th. Zero Suit Samus

12th. Lucario

13th. Marth / Lucina

also a post by tetra-76:

Interesting list overall, IMO.

Keep in mind that like ZeRo said, it's not just based on current results, it also includes his opinion on thepotential of each character. AKA how good they might become if pushed far enough, even if they don't have the results to back it up yet.

That's why Ryu is so high, even though he doesn't place that well right now, and why Diddy and Mario are so low, even though they're probably the most consistently good characters in the meta atm.

I feel like a lot of times, people disagree on tiers and matchups because we all have different definitions of what these mean exactly. Is a matchup bad because top players keep struggling with it, or because in theory one character has the upper hand, if played "perfectly" from both sides? Some people rate things based on current results, and some like to dig deeper and try to understand how things might evolve when the meta has advanced.

Neither of these is the right or wrong way to go about it, but try to keep it in mind when analyzing someone's tier list/matchup chart, put yourself in their shoes, and understand where they're coming from. You'll get a lot more out of it that way.

I don't think it's smart to blindly ignore the opinion of one of the most experienced players in the world just because it "feels wrong" at first glance. Even with that in mind, you don't have to agree with everything, but at least think about it a bit.

 

[Murlough]

This is also on some part thanks to the playerbase. You need to listen to us when we try explain on how SpinDash works, it's strengths and weaknesses so that you guys can develop counterplay. Only then will the meta develop to that point

To a certain extent, yes. I don't exactly disagree but we've argued about Spindash before. It isn't a godlike option but it isn't easy or simple to handle, either.

Because I don't feel like bringing back our last argument, I'm just going to listen. What are Spindash's weaknesses? (Please don't say commitment.)

 

[soniczx123]

To a certain extent, yes. I don't exactly disagree but we've argued about Spindash before. It isn't a godlike option but it isn't easy or simple to handle, either.

Because I don't feel like bringing back our last argument, I'm just going to listen. What are Spindash's weaknesses? (Please don't say commitment.)

Limited options if shielded
loses to almost all hitboxes after the inv frames
Shield.

 

[L9999]

Notable excerpts from Avalon U-V, S1 3-0'd Ixis in losers finals (although Ixis flubbed an edge-guard on his last stock at like 20% which cost him the game via him promptly SD-ing) which might be the first time S1 has won vs Ixis in like... Months? Longer? Talking to him just then he said he's feeling like he's worked some stuff out, so I'm super hype to keep an eye on these two and their sets together in the near future because from where I was sitting it was basically a half-hour long series of heart attacks. Good stuff to him.

He also took a set off of Mr R who was using Bayo in GFs set 1. Given that it's his bayo and he's still experimenting with her (and that MU isn't nearly as bad for Ness), that might lessen the impact of the win, but apparently it's the first set Mr. R has dropped in Europe for about 6 years (that goes back into Brawl), so good stuff there too. He also took a game off his Sheik in set 2, but the other few games were gut-wrenchingly difficult for him and Mr. R finished him off.

Does Ixis plays aggro-Sonic or camp2win Sanic? If he played aggro it was more likely he would lose.

 

[soniczx123]

Does Ixis plays aggro-Sonic or camp2win Sanic? If he played aggro it was more likely he would lose.

He was playing more patient than usual but lost stocks due to misjudging Uair's range.

 

[Piipp]

It's not fast for a superheavy. Ganon's uair is frame 6 and nair is frame 7. DDD nair is also frame 7. DK's bair is frame 7 and uair is frame 6. All of these options are too slow to punish a lot of things oos because of both start up combined with jumpsquat frames

Charizards up B and usmash are the next best oos out of all the superheavies. His up B comes out frame 9 which is kinda slow. His usmash comes out frame 6-7. Both of these options are faster than the options i listed above because you can jump cancel with up B and usmash, thus bypassing the jumpsquat frames (correct me if im wrong)



None that i know of. What's your point? It's still too slow to be a reliable oos option

Then let's be honest. What move are you likely to use out of shield? Because DK doesn't really have great OoS options. His fastest moves are frame 5 (aside from aerial spinning kong), which are jab and utilt. And Jab and Utilt aren't great OoS options, especially when his back is turned.

 

[EternalFlare]

Agreed with most of this post but just wanted to say pure results data isn't the be-all and end-all of analysis. Results are garnered by human players, humans are inconsistent and fragile, so results can be just as much so. The whole point of this thread is discussing the reasons why things are the way they are, and interpreting data rather than merely collating it.

But when used well, results are one of the strongest tools we can possibly use to formulate and synthesise overall meta viability conclusions.

I just disagree that ZeRo synthesised his data in the best way he could have. But all power to him and his opinions, we've all a right to have one.

Results should definitely be put into context as numbers alone don't tell the whole story.

For instance, let's say a top ranked Rosa player got 49th place at 2 consecutive majors but happened to lose to run into multiple notable MK mains at those tournaments, than due to sheer bracket luck their placements could be a lot lower than they should have been.

My particular point is opinions which are subjective don't influence results, at least not directly. Even if all top players insisted Ganon was top tier as a joke, he still probably wouldn't suddenly start making top 8 consistently. In that sense, results are much more objective unless players suddenly start colluding.

Over a long period of time if characters fail to perform at the highest level, they probably just aren't that good. Take Ryu for instance. No other character has such poor results at the biggest majors and yet is ranked so highly. The best Ryus having a bad day is an excuse that can only work for so long before it should start raising eyebrows.

A big reason why Zero claimed Diddy is only 7th is due to losing to Megaman and Olimar. I'd argue Ryu most certainly loses to Megaman just as badly and Olimar should beat him too. These characters can easily play around Ryu's danger zones (they rarely have to put themselves in positions where sweet spot TSRK is even a possibility). If Diddy struggles in neutral versus them with his vastly superior mobility and pokes, the same should be true even moreso for Ryu. So if we're trying to be consistent with our reasoning I just don't see how Ryu is top 3 (or even top 10 for that matter) while Diddy is only 7th.

 

[DanGR]

My particular point is opinions which are subjective don't influence results, at least not directly

Opinions on characters influence which characters are played, practiced against, and explored, which all fairly directly influence results, imo.

For example, because I have the opinion that Metaknight is my main character's worst matchup, I've put more time into understanding that particular matchup than any other matchup. Consequently, this positively impacts my performance against Metaknight players in tournament. i.e. results.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Also, I have a question: if there was a character who you were told would be literally unbeatable if used to absolute perfection, but that the effort required to achieve this level was 10x harder than Melee Fox and utterly unforgiving (even one technical error could cost you a stock), would you want to use such a character?

Yep. Playing to win isn't the only reason. Such a character would have an unimaginable amount of options and such options would allow many ways to create a playstyle. I like to do what I want.

 

[TDK]

Interestingly, one thing ZeRo pointed out about Diddy for putting him at 7th is because he's a low-risk, low-reward character. I think it was @falln who said everyone favours different things on their tier list (I think he singled out disjoints), and ZeRo seems to value high-reward characters, even if those characters have a higher risk to them.

 

[EternalFlare]

Opinions on characters influence which characters are played, practiced against, and explored, which all fairly directly influence results, imo.

For example, because I have the opinion that Metaknight is my main character's worst matchup, I've put more time into understanding that particular matchup than any other matchup. Consequently, this positively impacts my performance against Metaknight players in tournament. i.e. results.

Even if most top players suddenly switched to Ganon because they legitimately believed he had potential, I doubt results would be any different at the highest level, the remaining top tier top players would just dominate harder.

Despite apparently most of the community thinking Ryu has major potential (largely thanks to Zero) we have yet to see his results get any better for months now. If anything they are getting worse.

On the other hand some characters that were thought as mediocre by the majority for a very long time have put up surprisingly great results like Megaman. It only takes one player to figure things out and showcase a character's potential if it's there and prove the majority including most top players wrong.

Interestingly, one thing ZeRo pointed out about Diddy for putting him at 7th is because he's a low-risk, low-reward character. I think it was @falln who said everyone favours different things on their tier list (I think he singled out disjoints), and ZeRo seems to value high-reward characters, even if those characters have a higher risk to them.

That's another thing I disagree with from Zero. Diddy is far from a low reward character.

Zero claims his combo game is not that good and all he has is neutral. Which is absurd.

Banana combos into whatever you want at literally any percent, how many characters can say they have a move like that? A typical banana, up throw fair combo is around 20 percent. And this continues to work against most characters well past low percents. Up throw to bair/fair alone working for as long as it does is more damage than what most characters can get off grabs after low percentages.

Similarly downtilt is an amazing move not just for killing but also damage racking. Diddy can do things like Dtilt into grab or jab at lower percents, double dtilts at midish percents into potentially more things and Dtilt into fair-bair at high percents.

Then there's his under used falling nair. This causes tons of hitstun and can lead into multiple bairs or at least a fair early on and even a potential kill from up air at 140+. Of course it's not safe at all on block but if you can visually confirm and punish something with it while in the air, the reward can be quite high.

Diddy's damage output isn't low at all. It's definitely well above average even if it's not among the absolute best.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I don't think ZeRo really appreciates the value of how badly Diddy stomps a lot of bad characters.
Characters like Rosa and Diddy are super dumb because they lolstomp a looooooot of the bottom 75% of the cast.
I'd rather have a bunch of +3s and a few -1s like Diddy than a ton of evens, a few -2/+2s and a bunch of -1/+1s like Mario.

 

[Jjab430]

I'm not seeing much disagreement over ZeRo's placement of Marth which is odd to me. I've also heard whispers from top players of him being top tier and a lot people on this site upset over his "low" placement on the official tier list when it first came out.

Did I miss something? Because as far as I know he hasn't done anything to distinguish himself from the likes of Toon Link, Pikachu, Falcon, Lucario, etc. All solid, top 20ish characters that perform well at regionals, are capable of breaking into top 16 and occasionally top 8 at majors but can't do it consistently. Just look at some of the recent results from his best solo mains.

Mr. E: 13th at Collision XIV, 9th at Shine 2016, 5th at Endgame, 49th at SSC, 9th at KTAR Saga, 13th at EVO, 33rd at CEO, 9th at Apex, 7th at MomoCon, 17th at GOML, and 65th at Pound 2016.

Pugwest: 25th at Shine 2016, 17th at KTAR Saga, 17th at EVO, 49th at CEO, 13th at Apex, 9th at TGC7, and 17th at Pound 2016.

So a lot of losing before top 8 at regionals right when the real competition steps in, just barely missing bracket at majors, and a number of straight up bad placements at some of the most important tournaments of the year. The only somewhat impressive performances from arguably the two best solo Marth mains in the world were their 13th and 17th placements at EVO. Certainly nothing that screams hidden top tier or a shoe-in for top 15.

Marth also has False repping him but his best results such as his 7th place finish at CEO and his win at Midwest Mayhem 3 came primarily from Sheik.

Leo has been taking many of his locals with Marth and had a big win over Mr. R. But he also uses a lot of MK and Cloud in deep bracket runs so we don't really have a good idea of how he'd perform going all Marth. When he pulled him out against Ally and Larry he got 3-0'd by the former and immediately switched back to MK against the latter. We're also still yet to see how Mexico's players (other than Leo and Hyuga, far and away their #1 and 2) would stack up to the competition at American majors. If you ask me, Leo's just miles ahead of his competition. Even Dabuz said that he didn't have trouble with anyone at SF5 until Leo.

I dunno, I can't help but feel that popular opinion of Marth is riding a bit off of hype and confirmation bias at the moment. I could be wrong, who knows. Definitely still a solid character though.

 

[EternalFlare]

Another thing Zero ignores when trying to make Diddy sound like nothing but a neutral character is how reliable his kill confirms are, they are arguably the best in the game (banana and Dtilt).

To use Ryu as an example again, yes technically Ryu can kill much earlier than Diddy can but that doesn't mean his kill options are better.

Diddy's downtilt will confirm into up Smash at larger ranges than Ryu's uptilt or downtilt will with sweet spot SRK. To confirm downtilt into TSRK you have to be at point blank range since you need 2 of them to confirm it. With uptilt you can confirm with just 1 but it stops leading into sweetspot TSRK at higher percents especially on floaties.

Diddy's banana especially when combined with glide tossing is a kill confirm at ridiculously large ranges . At distances where most characters could only threaten with a dash attack or grab and often not even those, Diddy threatens with either a damaging combo or your stock.

Then add the fact that Diddy has great mobility allowing him to get in positions for these confirms very effectively. To elaborate a bit, he's pretty fast both in the ground and in the air, has a very good roll and has a crawl (which makes downtilt even more effective).

Admittedly Diddy can struggle at killing if he has to rely on his aerials only as they are quite weak relatively speaking. But generally characters can't safely stay in the air for long and he does have some great AA options as discussed previously.

 

[Das Koopa]

i don't know how you can logically justify a character with a poor matchup against MK being #1

No, he's not top tier, but metagames adjust and people pick up secondaries. I don't see how she could reasonably ranked above Sonic or Sheik or even Diddy, considering how hard he underrates Diddy, using the logic above that's mysteriously absent when he's discussing RosaLuma.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Not only is it a "poor" matchup vs MK, but the things that make the MU poor can be easily executed by anyone playing the character for less than a week.
It doesn't take a genius to ftilt/Fsmash and kill Luma from halfway across the stage, cover Rosa's up b with bair/nair and jump>uair following DI repeatedly. You know a MU is bad when I feel like a player of S2H's level is capable of beating Dabuz.

 

[Kofu]

i don't know how you can logically justify a character with a poor matchup against MK being #1

No, he's not top tier, but metagames adjust and people pick up secondaries. I don't see how she could reasonably ranked above Sonic or Sheik or even Diddy, considering how hard he underrates Diddy, using the logic above that's mysteriously absent when he's discussing RosaLuma.

Not to mention that Dabuz has switched off Rosa multiple times in the top 8 of recent stacked tournaments. While some of that could be a player/player thing, if the best Rosalina player is opting not to use her when it arguably matters most, what does that say about the character?

 

[Illusion.]

San Japan (121 entrants)
http://challonge.com/sj9singles

1st. SU | Megafox
2nd. HaKii
3rd. Magister
4th. Nanon
5th. GO! | Bryan
5th. Whiteout
7th. CO | Daimy
7th. Josi
9th. Ninjafish
9th. Goyo Master
9th. Atmos
9th. Shade
13th. GO! | TonySherbert
13th. HeroOfWinds
13th. I.AM
13th. GO! | KJ

 

[Das Koopa]

San Japan (121 entrants)
http://challonge.com/sj9singles

1st. SU | Megafox
2nd. HaKii
3rd. Magister
4th. NANON
5th. GO! | Bryan
5th. Whiteout
7th. CO | Daimy
7th. Josi
9th. Ninjafish
9th. Goyo Master
9th. Atmos
9th. Shade
13th. TonySherbert
13th. HeroOfWinds
13th. I.AM
13th. KJ

thank you for this