Recent content by Today's Tom Sawyer

It will be interesting to see whether Wario can remain at the current perceived level of viability, specifically if his amazing short hop can compensate for his grounded deficiencies. His short hop has to be top 5 for quality and quantity of options (rising fair, rising nair, falling nair...

Yoshi and C. Falcon began Smash meta history on similar trajectories. Sako/Wizzrobe-esque savanty characters. C. Falcon has held that archetype but Yoshi has become a mutant. Plus

This is referring to Frostbite last night, when Shuton (Olimar main) pulled out Richter against Myran's Olimar in top 8 after Myran had beaten him in the ditto earlier, and pretty much outplayed Myran for most of the set. Belmonts outrange Olimar and have no issues trading with Pikmin throw...

Young Twink has so many kill setups between arrow, boomerang, bomb, fair 1, bair 1, nair, and dtilt, the issue is knowing which one to use in a given situation. As far as really elite players, Cosmos is looking close to that title. Light as well. Then again, it's still super early.

Replace "Snake," "dash attack," and "grenade" with "Olimar," "smash attack," and "Pikmin throw," and you have described my thoughts succinctly. I can grasp that these characters have demanding macro, but, as a Melee player at heart, I play and watch this game for the hype characters. Although...

The issue with this notion is that Toon Link's kit, while possessive of strong tools in isolation, does not knit together in practice like Young Link's does. Without Young Link's nair or arrows, Toon Link can't apply pressure or threaten to approach the way that Young Link can. This in turn...

Leffen has said before that he views the objective of a tier list as to create discussion around the list/its criteria, not necessarily to rank the characters accurately. If you listen to the video, his actual analysis is incisive. That generates more value than fixating minutely on placements...

Toon Link is probably a high tier character, but lacks the reach of the adult variety or the explosiveness of the non-cel-shaded child variety. Sheik, Diddy Kong, and Bayonetta all have significant strengths, but equally significant flaws. Also, Sheik's and Bayonetta's strengths are the sort...

I have been playing a lot of the ZSS matchup against a solid, smart ZSS for the past few weeks. They are the type to dissect habits and condition. Makes for an intriguing style contrast against this lab cat. It's beneficial to learn matchups as an analytical type with a very interactive player...

I have said it before and I will say it again—why is Sora Namco afraid to give C. Falcon a combo tilt? It is really difficult to play bait and punish characters in this game, where a) micro spacing is not that good (C. Falcon's dash dance/initial dash especially not being close to as good as his...

You nailed the Wolf shoto-nalysis, Shaya. I don't understand why this comparison has not gained more traction. As a non-sm4sher, Melee Sheik main, and would-be Sheik player in smUsh, how did they screw up the nerfs specifically, what should they have done, and how should they modify her in smUsh?

Unrelated games, but the moba pessimist in me sees "dagger" and thinks "Riki" and "Quillen." Hopefully it doesn't come to that. Joker should hopefully be pretty hype though. Also best of luck with life, Diddy.

Bookworm, I agree with your post, except that Pichu is not easy. Might not have a floor as high as Fox or Shotos or Mega Man, but certainly one of the highest ceilings given risk-reward is imprinted quite literally into all of its lightning hitboxes and needs to be calculated at all times.

They fill the same boat since they both a) can circle camp characters who either have problems approaching or a stronger approach, and b) can rush down characters with better zoning. As far as C. Falcon goes, Fatality thinks he needs a slightly faster initial dash speed. Given the reduction of...

This is an interesting notion. Can you perhaps expand on the specific concepts you had in mind? It's compelling for me to contemplate this sort of risk-reward relation having come from Melee whereas most of y'all seem to have more recent experience in the floatier games. It's a lot easier in...