Official MBR 2010 NTSC Tier List

[Xyzz]

If they are, there's a melee channel I am not following on youtube :D (which would totally be a tragedy)

 

[Pengie]

The videos are probably going to uploaded to the Iplaywinner channel, probably by the end of this week I'd assume.

 

[strawhats]

If Mango's puff played a bit more, I'm positive he would still own pretty much everybody. I played it in teams here and there without him practicing it.. and even then it was extremely hard to pull off a win. Puff requires little maintenance.

I kinda wouldn't mind seeing this. I still think mango is a jiggs main at heart. Although, I don't think his puff could hang with pp's falco

 

[Bones0]

I think they're on MeleePacWest's Twitch channel. I've started watching pools, but idk if the finals are at the end of the archive or not. There's ~9 hours of footage, but idk if they ran the whole tourney on Friday or changed streams or what. Skipping to the end of the last archive, it seems like they are playing Doubles GFs, but I can't tell 'cause my internet sucks and won't load the match. IPlayWinner's stream had some weird loop feedback error because it links to itself or something when I click past broadcasts. lol

 

[choknater]

IPW will definitely upload them later

 

[Purpletuce]

Jhon, in regards to M2K teching in place on the Arwing, that is because the Arwing is smaller than every platform, so he had to go for something.

Star King, I like your profile pic.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

That and the arwing was rising pretty quickly; m2k was probably worried about dying off the top if he tech rolled

 

[Bones0]

That and the arwing was rising pretty quickly; m2k was probably worried about dying off the top if he tech rolled

Yeah, definitely this. Only noobs tech roll on rising Arwings (though it's such a rare situation that it's hard to account for the Jiggs under you going for a rest. I can't really tell if he reacted, honestly. I think Mango just knew that he would tech in place because of how it was rising. Some pure instinct **** that you have after playing the game for so many years. lol

 

[john!]

it was just an example guys.

do we have frame data that show how many frames the puff has to react on a normal-sized platform for different tech roll times? i'm convinced it can be done.

 

[Purpletuce]

The frame data is somewhere, but I remember that most characters is tech roll finished by frame 49, and tech in place was maybe 35? the problem is getting there though, depending on where you position yourself you don't have enough time to move far enough into the sides where you can cover their roll in either direction, you need a read. The most neutral position (center of platform) requires you to move half a platform to chase in either direction, if you react in 14 frames, that gives you less than 35 frames to move from center into the farthest point on the platform with a rest lined up. You definitely can't do it on most stages. PS has some situations where you can though. (jungle's bouncing tree/burned treetop//water platforms/neutral platforms are small. . .)

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Look at fox. Tech in place is 25 frames total before he can do something like shield. 39 frames for a back roll. So, suppose Jiggs Uthrows Fox onto a (0$) BF platform. She has 48 frames to do something to tech in place. More than that to cover tech roll. However, only a 5 frame window to actually hit fox (20-25) on the tech in place.

She can cover all options in some situations. I doubt she could do this if she had to chase fox all the way up to the top platform.

 

[Bones0]

There is no frame data for what you guys are talking about because it varies based on platform distance, where on the plat the character lands, how Puff spaces herself with her jump, and the Puff player's reaction time. I know there are definitely situations where Puff cannot rest all of the options. If you are about to land on the very edge of a plat, she would only be able to cover the tech in place by being right next to you, and even with her second jump she wouldn't be able to also cover a tech roll to the other side from that same position.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Ah, Jigglypuff. Too slow to reach the ground. Too slow to accelerate upwards. Once those jumps are gone the chase is over with. Why is this character good again?

 

[Doomolish]

Pika, Young Link, Dr. and Yoshi must go up on the tier list, and Ganon and Samus must go down.

Stop talking about Mango here.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

its not consistent and the risk certainly outweighs the net reward.

My test: puff on fox, uthrow at 0% on bf under left platform. Fox no DI, tech roll away. With puff actioning on the 14th frame of fox's tech roll (unreal reaction time) I have not actually been able to land the rest (i've been 1 frame away every time; if i rest on the 34th frame it misses, if i rest on 35th frame its powershielded). I'm sure I could find the proper jump timings if i tried more, but I highly doubt anyone can do it live without reading the tech option.

 

[Fortune]

So, now Mango has lost to Armada, Hbox, PP and M2K lately? Mango REALLY must be the best player in the world now. Mango nation, right?

no. mango world.

 

[KrIsP!]

I think they're on MeleePacWest's Twitch channel. I've started watching pools, but idk if the finals are at the end of the archive or not. There's ~9 hours of footage, but idk if they ran the whole tourney on Friday or changed streams or what. Skipping to the end of the last archive, it seems like they are playing Doubles GFs, but I can't tell 'cause my internet sucks and won't load the match. IPlayWinner's stream had some weird loop feedback error because it links to itself or something when I click past broadcasts. lol

Iplaywinner just uploaded all of top 8 except grand to youtube for anyone waiting to see it.

 

[The Hooded Informant]

Biggest Question for the Tier List: When will a new one come out?

Also, Marth, Link, Falco and Sheik need to go up. Marth and Falco need to tie at #1. Link at #10. Sheik at #3.
Jigglypuff, Samus, Captain Falcon, and Donkey Kong need to go down. Jigglypuff at #7, Samus at #17, C. Falcon at #14, and DK at #20.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Not sure, the MBR is essentially dead.

I might open up voting for anyone interested, within reason... i don't want randommeleescrub21234 voting, but if you were someone who was consistently in this thread voting and have some decent tournament results to back up your opinion I would accept it.

 

[Fortune]

I thought there was going to be a new MBR?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Haven't heard anything about it. Activity was pretty low, too. Only threads that were really active back there were a few ruleset discussions ("Ban FD" - "No! Ban Stadium!" - "No! Ban FoD!"), discussion about the SSBPD project, and a heated discussion between umbreon and cactuar about how the mbr should run (particularly, they had some objections to me making a new tier list and wouldn't allow me to release anything).

But yeah, if people are interested in seeing a new tier list compiled from the opinions of tournament level players, let me know. Like this post or reply or something. If it gets enough interest I will do it.

 

[Tarv]

As cool as a new tier list would be, I personally would be more interested in seeing an updated Match-up chart. I feel like this would be more useful anyways and would probably have changed more than a tier list, I mean i imagine that some matches have shifted pretty dramatically since 2010 (most recent mu chart I can find). Tier lists are fun and interesting but they aren't really all that useful in my opinion. MU charts lets newer players see which matches they might have trouble with. Just my two cents though.

 

[Pengie]

meh matchup charts aren't particularly helpful imo. Does it really help anyone to know that character A has an advantage over/goes even with/loses to character B? It seems like going to the respective character boards and asking for specific advice would be more helpful.

as for the tier list: also meh; it'd be nice to have an "updated" for the sake of not using the same on since 2010, but there's never really been a consensus about the tier orders so it also doesn't seem like a particularly big deal.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I don't like matchup charts because they kinda say that matchups are static and and completely known. Every person has unique ways of approaching the matchup (think kage vs linguini for ganon) and so theydo better or worse naturally.

Also, they work as a passive john that really hinders some people's mindset when approaching the matchup or trying to improve. Someone sees that fox wins over falcon so they always complain and declare it impossible to beat certain players before they even give it their best. If a player wants to know a matchip, he should ask someone they respect in private and discuss it, not just look on the boards for the "official" rating

 

[Bones0]

I don't like matchup charts because they kinda say that matchups are static and and completely known. Every person has unique ways of approaching the matchup (think kage vs linguini for ganon) and so theydo better or worse naturally.

Also, they work as a passive john that really hinders some people's mindset when approaching the matchup or trying to improve. Someone sees that fox wins over falcon so they always complain and declare it impossible to beat certain players before they even give it their best. If a player wants to know a matchip, he should ask someone they respect in private and discuss it, not just look on the boards for the "official" rating

I agree with you, but the same can be said to justify not having a tier list at all. I think that's why I'm finding it more and more appealing to construct a tier list with only 3-4 divisions instead of the 8 we have now (which I know people have proposed before).

So instead of this:


S: Fox, Falco, Jigglypuff, Sheik
A: Marth, Peach, Captain Falcon
B: Ice Climbers
C: Dr. Mario, Ganondorf, Samus
D: Pikachu, Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong
E: Link, Young Link
F: Zelda, Roy, Mewtwo, Yoshi, Mr. Game & Watch
G: Ness, Bowser, Kirby, Pichu


We would have something like this:

A: Fox, Falco, Jigglypuff, Sheik, Marth, Peach, Captain Falcon
B: Ice Climbers, Dr. Mario, Ganondorf, Samus, Pikachu, Mario, Luigi
C: Donkey Kong, Link, Young Link, Zelda, Roy, Mewtwo, Yoshi
D: Mr. Game & Watch, Ness, Bowser, Kirby, Pichu

OR

A: Captain Falcon, Fox, Falco, Jigglypuff, Marth, Peach, Sheik
B: Dr. Mario, Ganondorf, Ice Climbers, Luigi, Mario, Pikachu, Samus
C: Donkey Kong, Link, Young Link, Zelda, Roy, Mewtwo, Yoshi
D: Mr. Game & Watch, Ness, Bowser, Kirby, Pichu

We can keep the ranks within the tiers or just put them in alphabetical order. I'm leaning towards the latter. I think this would do a much better job at serving the purpose of a tier list. Falcon is really not that much less likely to win a national compared to spacies (relative to the character's base population) so having him on a separate tier from spacies doesn't make sense to me. This will also help to reduce the focus on what tier certain characters are so people will stop johning about it. Players who use C or D tier characters are rare enough, and B-tier mains can just say "yeah, my character is slightly worse off than A-tier mains, but I can always revolutionize my character to push them up to A." It's also just easier to make a list if all we have to do is get people to place a character in A, B, C, or D.

One problem that concerns me is if people vote on this and we have 50% putting Falcon in A and 50% putting Falcon in B, we're going to end up with another tier just for Falcon or characters that people can't decide on. Then we'll just end up with pretty much the same tiers now because there is no description for what separates each tier. Melee's cast doesn't seem to really have a sudden drop off of viable characters. It's very much a gradual decline in character quality.

 

[BTmoney]

I like 85% of what you said

 

[Bones0]

I like 85% of what you said

Well what was the 15% you didn't like?

 

[BTmoney]

This will also help to reduce the focus on what tier certain characters are so people will stop johning about it.

Well I don't think that is at all relevant to how a tier list should be put together

B-tier mains can just say "yeah, my character is slightly worse off than A-tier mains, but I can always revolutionize my character to push them up to A."

I am a firm believer in characters being superior to each other so in most cases no character is being revolutionized because there isn't a lot of undiscovered/game changing meta for tournament viable characters. When you get someone like a Hax with all his success as a solo Falcon main, he's just better than who he is playing (usually) he's not revolutionizing the character. He's optimizing his play style. You should say "I can play better so my character is now as good as mediocre A-tier character play." The worse your character the better you have to play or the worse the opponent has to play.

One problem that concerns me is if people vote on this and we have 50% putting Falcon in A and 50% putting Falcon in B, we're going to end up with another tier just for Falcon or characters that people can't decide on.

I don't think that's a problem.

Just that, lol

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

My opinion has changed quite a bit since I last posted my list, so I guess its time for a new one:

Marth - Fox - Sheik - Falco
Puff - Peach - Falcon - ICs - Pikachu
Doc - Samus
Mario - Young Link - Luigi
Ganon - Link - DK

*massive gap*

Mewtwo - Ness - Roy - G&W - Zelda
Pichu - Kirby - Bowser

unlisted: Yoshi

Feedback? I'm curious to hear what others think ...

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I don't know if I can support a tier list that has Captain Falcon in the same group as Fox. I like the general idea of having less tiers and/or not ordering them inside the tier.

 

[Bones0]

I see you are an Axe fanboy now, Crimson. At least based on that Pikachu and YL placing. lol

 

[ShroudedOne]

Pikachu on the same level as Peach? I'm HIGHLY skeptical.

I like the Marth placement though. Glad to see you have that much faith in him.

 

[Habefiet]

My opinion has changed quite a bit since I last posted my list, so I guess its time for a new one:

Marth - Fox - Sheik - Falco
Puff - Peach - Falcon - ICs - Pikachu
Doc - Samus
Mario - Young Link - Luigi
Ganon - Link - DK

*massive gap*

Mewtwo - Ness - Roy - G&W - Zelda
Pichu - Kirby - Bowser

unlisted: Yoshi

Feedback? I'm curious to hear what others think ...

TCB you're one of those dudes where like 95% of the time I just silently co-sign onto whatever you're saying because you know more about the game than me and have better ideas and say things that I agree with but eloquently and from the perspective of a more experienced and involved player

That being said, I'm dying to know what kinda crack you're on to put Marth up at 1st and Falco down at 4th

 

[Ziodyne]

stuff

Hey crimson, ol' buddy

I usually don't weigh in on this stuff, but I will this time cuz you're mah dude

Not sure I agree with Pika's placement. Even watching Axe play, I feel like he does a good job masking what makes Pikachu bad with very smart/technical play, and seeing SFAT vs. Axe at Koc2 did a good job of convincing me that Pika's a fair bit worse than what Axe makes him look like

Confused a bit about your lower-mid-tier placements (starting with Mario, ending with DK). Then again, I don't think I know enough about these characters to argue much. A small explanation for some of your changes around here would be cool, if you're down.

Apart from that, not a bad list IMO

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

TCB you're one of those dudes where like 95% of the time I just silently co-sign onto whatever you're saying because you know more about the game than me and have better ideas and say things that I agree with but eloquently and from the perspective of a more experienced and involved player

Oh, shucks. Embarrass

That being said, I'm dying to know what kinda crack you're on to put Marth up at 1st and Falco down at 4th

I have a lot to say on this, so I hope you're ready:

First off, let me preface my statements with the warning that I don't actually believe there is much difference between the top 4. Melee is a fantastically balanced game, especially among the top, and it is a blessing that we are able to have active discussion 12 years after release. Subtle metagame shifts, technical discoveries, and new strategies in age-old matchups are the primary motivators for change, and nowhere can we see that more clearly than in the Falco-Marth comparison.

So, despite the near equalness of the characters, I'm going to try to draw distinction between them. I'll do so by highlighting Marth's strengths (and how they affect his tournament viability) and Falco's weaknesses (ditto). This will make my argument seem incredibly one-sided, but rest assured, Falco still has down-air, and Marth still has next to no active frames on all his attacks. They are both incredibly good, though flawed in their own ways. My argument is simply to show that Marth, at the moment, is ever so slightly better.

---

When smashers talk about Melee history, you'll often hear them classify it into eras: periods of time separated by the coronation of a new Champion. There is the Ken era, M2K's reign, Mango's dominance, and more recently, Armada's rise. But, as accurate as that classification is at defining the history of the community, it doesn't tell us much about the history of Melee as a game.

So I have my own set of eras. There is the basic spacing and move selection era where Marth and Sheik were dominant, with Ken, Azen, Captain Jack, and Ek/Amsah winning in their respective regions; the edgeguarding / punishment era where M2K took the game by storm, inventing combo trees never thought possible, and creating mechanical gimp routines unlike ever before; and finally, the shield pressure era where Mango showed us the power of dancing around shields and the tricky timings you can exploit to create openings. There are counter-movements in association with each: for example, people learned to recover better once gimping became common, the out-of-shield game started to get much more thoroughly researched (we're still in the process of this) as people got more aggressive on shield, etc.

But now, I think we're approaching a new era: the movement renaissance. We're seeing the ripple effects already: everyone is zipping around with wavelands, stopping on a dime with shield stops, using their shield as a method of approach, perfecting their dashdance and using pivot aerials to protect it, incorporating running shield drops to enhance their platform game, ledgecancelling aerials to lower their lag, ledgedashing to quicken their escape from the corner, etc. The primary innovations I'm seeing worldwide is in our movement, and while we've progressively been getting faster as a community year-after-year, I think the difference in speed between Westballz, S2J, Axe, etc and their predecessors is starker than ever before. Melee is played at a much, much, much faster pace than it was merely 3 years ago.

So it should come as no surprise that the character which benefits most from this shift is the one with the most robust movement suite: Marth. After all, only a couple months ago we were all in awe as PP nearly dethroned Armada almost entirely with dashdance and dtilt. And then he followed it up with a shocking level of control in the ditto and the Sheik matchup against one of Marth's notorious killers: Mew2King. And on the other side of the continent, PewPewU is employing shield stop late forward-airs with such accuracy that he beat Axe in a matchup he was previously considered invincible in, and took Hungrybox to the brink in the closest 3-0 I've ever seen. Marth's killers are going down, one by one (PewpewU v Fly at KoC 1 is another notable victory), and it finally looks like Marth players are starting to find the answers to the problems that have been haunting them.

Similarly, its understandable that the slowest of the top 4, Falco, would suffer most. Armada has mastered Peach movement to such a degree that he removed conscious decision-making out of PP's hands at APEX WFs, and had PP swinging for the fences like hes Ganon. Indeed, its become more and more common to see Falcos YOLO dair/nair in frustration at their opponents flurry of baits. For a character who gets hit so hard, this is doom, and as good as nair and dair are respectively, in 2013 if you aren't careful about your commitments with Falco, you lose a stock.

Falcos have been gradually losing ground in the patient game, too. Powershielding is becoming a dominant tactic (see: Ice v Mango, BEAST 3), and even without it, the anti-laser metagame at the top has advanced so much. Lasering equals a stock against aggro Foxes like Javi or Mango, who jump on Falcos and never let go. We've seen that matchup in particular completely shift as Foxes have started to exploit Falco's weak reversal options (no, wakeup shine and spotdodge shine aren't good. Its 2013 and people are better than that). Falco loses momentum and footing on stage and never gains it back.

So the matchups have shifted. Marth v spacies still looks as good as ever, meanwhile Sheik, ICs, and Pikachu have shown notable gains (notice: I don't mean this necessarily in terms of results, but insofar as to how the base strategy has evolved, both for me personally, and therefore my opinion of the matchup as a whole, and for Marths around the world). Meanwhile, Falco's hold on the Fox matchup is all but gone, and he faces an utter wall v Peach that no one has come close to cracking.

[there's much, much, much more I'd like to say, in particular Marth's frame advantage on all his aerials, just how amazing fair OOS is, side B's utility, the control dtilt provides and how Marth can bully people in positional disadvantages, etc and how edgecancel DIs have blown open a lot of Falco's combo game, how hard it is to land a clean hit with Falco nowadays, the added tech of jumping into dairs and converting with shines or grabs, the weaknesses in Falco's edgeguards (tech-prone), etc

But I think I gave the basic idea without going into the details too much. Besides, i g2g and no one reads this thread so **** all ya'll]

 

[Griffard]

Damn @ Crimson, one of the best posts I've read on this site in recent memory, at least in terms of argument. I totally feel you on the 'eras' of the game, and I think movement is definitely becoming more and more crucial. I don't know if I can get behind Marth as the overall best character, but I do support the feeling that any of the top characters can absolutely compete with anyone. Anyways, props, I def appreciate the knowledgable wall of text.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I like that post a lot Crim. I don't agree that marth is number 1, but you made a really strong argument and i'm very hopeful for the future of the character.

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

The best post I've ever read

Wow

Just wow

I can't believe how much you just changed my view of this game.

You have just convinced me to start using Marth MUCH more often in tournaments.

More than the plethora of people at locals who 2 stock my Mewtwo and Ganon in tournament and then lose to my Marth in friendlies and then proceed to tell me that I should stop using Mewtwo in favour of Marth, that one post has completely convinced me to focus on my Marth.

Thank you The Crimson Blur.

Thank you, for opening my eyes.

 

[Bones0]

I don't agree with Crimson's list, but I definitely agree with the trend he is depicting. That is all that really matters to me anyway as I've already explained how precise character placings are seemingly pointless because Melee's metagame just refuses to peak. If we have yearly advances in nearly every matchup, then I don't see the point in trying to construct things like matchup charts and specific tier lists (as much as us humans LOVE to list things).

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

2013 Tier List: CHARACTERS NOT ORDERED WITHIN TIERS

Viable Tier:
Fox/Falco/Marth/Puff/Sheik/Peach/ICs/Falcon

Semi-Viable Tier aka You Better Be REALLY ****ing Good At The Game In Order To Do Well Tier:
Dr. Mario/Pikachu/Samus/Ganon/Luigi/Mario

Viable With A Secondary Tier:
Young Link/Link/DK

Not Viable Tier aka You Must Be Crazy Tier:
Everyone Else