I know that everyone I play against is different,but if I don't find people that I can play with at my best, then all of my enemys will be able to walk over me. If a Swordsman can find the type of blade he works best with, he'll fight better.
In compeditive play, I try never to use items. It's just that all of my friends know they don't win in compeditive play, so they like being able to throw out a pokeball or use a final smash when they gotta. Personaly, I enjoy firing Zelda's Light Arrow, but I'm fine with a couple of Din's Fires as well.
I use a lot of people who's weaknesss tend to overlap eachother (atleast in my eyes). Mario, Zelda, Samus, ZSS, Pit, Fox, Metaknight, Lucario, Ike and Sonic seem like they overlap and work well with eachother. I may not know them all perfectly, but I brawl with mainly them, and can work on them to learn more. I've tried everyone, and they're my favorites.
Also, DON'T YOU DARE SAY THE WORD "tier" IN THIS ROOM! AS DR. RIGHT SAYS, TIERS ARE 4 QUEERS! *smacks with Wiimote* (Check out Smash Kingdom / Melee on Negrounds if you wanna know where that's from. Not recommeded for young children though.) XD But seriously, I don't like Tiers. Tiers are mainly tournament rankings, which makes them pretty much popularity contests in my eyes. Plenty of people can destroy others in tournament settings, but those same people don't always make it to the tournament itself. Plus, not every tournment is considered, and not all of those that are have everything running correctly. To me, Tiers are dumb. I say we let true experts like the SBR battle it out and decide who wins against who, or better yet, let the experts in Nintendo tell us who they think are the best (despite they probably wouldn't). But I don't ever rely on Tiers. I didn't know that Sonic was low tier and Meta-Knight top until just recently.