Smashboards

Careful, you'll incur the wrath of Theorycraft-man.

I think he's top 15 to 20 personally.

He may even be best character in the game with customs.

#boldstatement

Didn't you know? He goes 45:55 against the entire cast. Luigi can run up and F-air him and he can't do anything about it.

In customs he's the only Top/High Tier character who stands to gain a lot from *every single one of his custom choices*. I don't think that he loses a single MU with the right custom set. Trouble with Zelda? Take punch of super doom, win MU. Trouble with Luigi? Take Gust Cape, High Pressure Flood, and Fast Fireballs, win MU.

Just my two cents for a devoted character main.

Oh you're serious, sorry I thought you were kidding.

Hm I dunno about that. Non-customs he has problems. Customs makes it better but at a cost. What makes you think he's top 5?

Mix of experience and reasoning. I don't see Mario as having any serious problems. He has some bad matchups with customs off--namely, Luigi, Ganondorf, and Diddy Kong, imo, with no one else really going past 5 point advantages at most on him--but he flattens those characters with the correct customs. Having no bad matchups with customs is better than anyone else in the cast can say, including Sheik.

I have to look into his customs if my scene ever goes down that road, for now I'll just have to take your word for it. For the Non-Customs scene, I feel Mario is very solid but ultimately held back by having only U-Smash as a solid kill move. I think a road that needs to be explored is aggressive edgeguarding, which I haven't seen from anyone yet.

But don't you see? Mario's lacking in a few areas, namely cape stalling AND jab cancels being gone!

Just swooping in to say he's like Top 25-20 for me. Top 5 is the boldest thing ever dude.

Not even close to the boldest thing ever. Mario's really good. Have you played against a high-level Mario? It's one of the hardest things ever.

I'm not arguing that he's really good (probably top 15-10 with customs) but Top 5 is a really bold claim in the grand scheme of things with other, much sillier/easier to use characters. Not losing MUs is great but I think what else is important is who do you crush and how.

Like, coming from Super Turbo (and other SF games), from what I know about tier lists and how they work, Mario would likely be high tier, maybe fringing on top (with customs.) Being able to fight anyone is a plus, but I don't know how much relevant characters he outright beats. He's def super good though!

In a roster with 51 characters, having no bad matchups makes you a more viable solo main than having some great matchups and a few bad matchups, imo.

I would use Mario and demonstrate this in tourney, but Pikachu/Mii Gunner have my heart stolen lol. Though I am looking into a third character! Maybe it will be Mario!

IMO (and this is from personal FGC experience) having a lot of even-ish/good MUs is great if you want to solo main but you generally get more results out of either having said character as a panic button. Would you rather specialize vs. certain popular characters or not specialize? THAT'S the key IMO.

Sure. Diddy may lose to Olimar and Pikachu, but they're rare characters and you'll get mileage out of winning the Rosalina matchup 65:35. But that's just Diddy, Sheik, and ZSS/Sonic/Pikachu. Mario is a natural fit for 5th/6th, especially since the others don't benefit much from customs (their MUs get worse).

Finally, A2Z is a good friend of mine and I mean no disrespect to him, let it be known.