2013 Community Tier List

[Fortress | Sveet]

A move having complex properties doesn't make it a gimmick. A gimmick is basically a derivative term for "trick", implying that it shouldn't work consistently.

 

[Scaremonger]

What do you consider Pikachu's main weaknesses as a character?

Pikachu just has horrifyingly bad matchups against every single s-tier character except Marth and Falcon. I hate using numbers as ratios, but I'd put both spacies as 65:35 and that's comparatively easy relative to Puff, Peach, and ICs.

Pikachu has some decent qualities as a character, like speed and a couple of strong kill moves, but those don't save him from having god-awful matchups against the relevant characters, which is what actually matters. People see that Pikachu has a strong upsmash and think "this character must be at least even vs floaties" which is blatantly false. Peach can wall the ever-living **** out of pikachu. Getting in is so hard because she just outprioritizes pikachu in every way. If Peach is floating, bair or nair will beat all of Pikachu's approaches on reaction. Pikachu also has zero defensive options against Peach because poking his shield is super easy with her FC aerials and downsmash, and crouch cancelling obviously isn't an option.

Puff is pretty much the same as Peach, but not as bad since Pikachu at least has a couple defensive options.

Spacies are at least 65:35 each. Spacies can be gimmicked harder than Peach or Puff, and pikachu can actually combo/kill/gimp them, but they're just as strong in neutral as Peach and Puff, if not stronger. Fox is one of the handfull of characters that is faster than pikachu, which is not a good thing for pikachu. Falco's lasers are also pretty damn hard for Pikachu.

ICs is pretty much unwinnable for the simple fact that Pikachu has terrible options to approach a grounded opponent like ICs without getting grabbed. They don't even need to wobble Pikachu, they just downthrow dair until you're at a million percent and then do a smash attack. Nana doesn't even need to be next to popo to set up a wobble, because Popo can solo chaingrab you.

I'm not really going to go farther than a basic overview of each matchup, but I think you get my point. Pikachu has a lot of really good qualities as a character, but has a lot of unfortunate matchups in the s-tier. His technical requirement is so high for such little reward since every matchup except Marth and Falcon is so unfavorable. Why put in so much work in a character just to get baired 50 times by Peach?

Pikachu is a bad character, but falcon is also pretty terrible. I dont think it really matters if falcon is higher than pika, however it is true that if pikachu blows vs both spacies then falcon is straight up booty butt cheeks and MUs vs spacies define character relevance and will only continue to do so more. In that sense a reasonable argument does exist for pika being higher (not that Id personally agree). I do agree that falcon has a much better MU spread vs everyone else (maybe not jiggs? pika seems to lose but its not too bad).

Also I can't speak for falcon vs sheik but sheik pika is bad but overrated. Pika doesnt actually have an issue hitting sheik but sheik outputs twice the damage. If pika gets some good early kills or edgeguards the dream can stay alive. Fox and Falco are worse, and perhaps ICs as well. If falcon's MU vs sheik is pretty bad it might be about similar.

I do agree that Pikachu-Sheik is overrated, but I think the same thing of Falcon-Sheik. Pikachu clearly loses the matchup, whereas I believe Falcon vs Sheik is even. It's a controversial opinion, I know, but if you don't believe me I'll go into detail. I've already typed so much though. In my opinion, Falcon has 2 losing matchups in the entire s-tier, and those are Fox and Falco, which are both 60:40. Sheik, Marth, and Puff are even matchups and Falcon destroys Peach and ICs. Puff annihilates the **** out of pikachu, so I don't see how you can think Pikachu is better against her than Falcon is.

I think Falcon is an incredibly underrated character right now. His dash length and aerial momentum are two amazing qualities that Falcon has that are entirely unique to him. His dash length allows him to have his entire toolset at his disposal while being in motion for like 1/3rd of the distance of Final Destination, as well as while moving across every platform on legal stages which, with shielddropping, gives him access to all of his aerials at any point in space, in any direction, at any time. Falcon has the best ground movement of any character and when combined with his air speed, he's able to put massive hitboxes anywhere he wants whenever he wants. A lot of people talk about how ****ty his recovery is, and that's just false. Sure, you can bair me 100 times, but Falcon has such high weight that he can continue to come back. If Falcon recovers high, he can edge cancel or change his momentum on a dime and take the ledge, giving him access to one of the most powerful ledgegames of any characters with his multiple 100% invincible stalls and strong invincible aerials. As for the air speed, this is what puts Falcon and Puff away from the rest of the cast in this game. Fox has frame 4 OoS options, but that doesn't matter when Falcon can change his momentum in a single frame and put himself outside of that range, nullifying that option. Being able to change your momentum in the air like that is a ridiculous quality.

Everyone in this thread is underrating Falcon pretty hard. Falcon has won nationals before, albeit a long time ago. It's just that up until now, Hax has been the closest to combining all of Falcon's best qualities. If someone else, possibly Wizzrobe but maybe S2J, manages to combine all of this, I can see Falcon winning a national again.

 

[EddyBearr]

A move having complex properties doesn't make it a gimmick. A gimmick is basically a derivative term for "trick", implying that it shouldn't work consistently.

I meant it more in the sense that it's radically different, but that's fair. Poor word choice on my part.

Still, in that sense, it takes Doc/Luigi even further from "gimmick" status. Lol

 

[Tagxy]

Honestly I think besides his spacies MU Falcon is an extremely solid character. I think perhaps him more than anyone else gets hurt in his bad MUs there in those regards (or moreso the fact that other characters do better). I didnt know anything about falcon vs puff so I just assumed it was bad bc everyone seems to think puff pounds on everyone besides fox (exaggeration for pun purposes). Though puff probably wins, I personally believe puff pika isnt that bad for reasons I mentioned last page. But if what you say is true about falcon then yes falcon does better vs everyone else besides spacies. I cant say much about falcon-spacies MUs aside from what I see in vids and results.

Edit: Just read your stuff in the first part of your post and cant say I agree much about the things regarding pika. Hes not the best vs the top part of the cast but hes better than youre implying. For instance, pikachu actually has some great defensive options against peach its probably one of the few MUs has any reasonable defense. Ftilt beats any approach she makes from float in the air and dtilt/fsmash outrange her on the ground. I can go into more detail about everything on request but dont want to write an essay if no one cares.

Second Edit: But looking at the top portion of the cast and those on the border it really does seem like falcon gets super screwed by spacies, who perhaps has the worst MU against them until Luigi. Obviously not the same character but collectively I feel like and also do better against spacies than falcon does. Id like to hear thoughts on that though from anyone.

 

[Tityboi]

Stuff

I really have a hard time agreeing that fox and falco are pikachu's worst matchup.... I mean really, 65:35....? I know you said you hate putting numbers to matchups, but come on.

 

[Scaremonger]

I really have a hard time agreeing that fox and falco are pikachu's worst matchup.... I mean really, 65:35....? I know you said you hate putting numbers to matchups, but come on.

Can you point out where I said that? I said Peach, Puff, ICs, and Sheik were all worse. I actually said that Fox and Falco were probably the easiest of the bad matchups.

 

[Tityboi]

Can you point out where I said that? I said Peach, Puff, ICs, and Sheik were all worse. I actually said that Fox and Falco were probably the easiest of the bad matchups.

I misread. I thought you said it the other way around, but still... you think spacies are 65:35 against pikachu....?

 

[1MachGO]

Pikachu just has horrifyingly bad matchups against every single s-tier character except Marth and Falcon. I hate using numbers as ratios, but I'd put both spacies as 65:35 and that's comparatively easy relative to Puff, Peach, and ICs.

...

In my opinion, Falcon has 2 losing matchups in the entire s-tier, and those are Fox and Falco, which are both 60:40. Sheik, Marth, and Puff are even matchups and Falcon destroys Peach and ICs. Puff annihilates the **** out of pikachu, so I don't see how you can think Pikachu is better against her than Falcon is.

The notion that Pikachu performs worse against spacies than Falcon seems a little biased and contrived, imo. Falcon's kit is most effective against characters who are susceptible to the low KB of his nair/uair/dthrow so he can reliably combo and connect his finishers. The falling speed of Fox and Falco pretty much make Falcon's typical BnB combos out of the question. Tech chasing is his most "reliable" way of building damage and a good stomp/knee read is pretty much the only way he'll net an early KO.

In contrast, Pikachu has a lot of opportunity to convert stray hits into gimps, juggles, or even KOs (I don't think I need to elaborate on the properties of Uair, usmash, bthrow, his offstage gimping potential, etc.). And these options become even more threatening on certain stages (One grab for Pikachu on FD should be death for Fox/Falco). Falcon, on the other hand, will never have the opportunity of turning the MU into a hard counter in Bo5's; In fact, the stage list is more or less what kills him in this MU since FD and FoD are always readily available CPs.

On the defensive end, Falcon's flaws in the MU become even more evident. Fox and Falco can gimp Falcon with their shine or dair (respectively) at pretty much any percent (whereas it is very unlikely that Pikachu will be gimped by something like a shine spike). He is a big target with some terrible OoS options (thus, making him extremely easy to pressure) and he gets combo'd hella hard by both spacies (keep in mind, Pikachu is not susceptible to waveshine). Granted, he can take one or two punishes, but if any of those openings put him offstage his options become garbage against the high priority, lingering aerials of the spacies.

 

[Scaremonger]

Second Edit: But looking at the top portion of the cast and those on the border it really does seem like falcon gets super screwed by spacies, who perhaps has the worst MU against them until Luigi. Obviously not the same character but collectively I feel like do better against spacies than falcon does. Id like to hear thoughts on that though.

I think Marth, Peach, and spacies themselves are the only characters that are better against spacies than Falcon is.

To preface this, I will post my own thoughts on how I view the tier list:

Spoiler

Fox and Falco are spacies themselves, and obviously do fine against spacies.

Marth is the only character that can truly contest the spacey neutral game on an even ground, due to his disjointed hitboxes. Getting hit as Marth, by nature, relies on the Marth player making a mistake, just like spacies. If Marth doesn't mess up, he doesn't get hit. Because of this, he's the best character against spacies, since they just win against everyone they can actually interact with.

I think Peach is the 4th best character in the game. She doesn't lose too bad in neutral to either spacey, and she has a much more free/harsh punish game on the spacies than almost any character below her. Laser camping is hard for her to deal with, but it's just as difficult, if not more difficult, for Sheik to deal with. People tend to bring up laser camping in reference to Peach, but what they don't take into account is that upsmash only kills Peach 10% earlier than Sheik on FD. That's 1 stale nair. And it's not like anyone gets kill moves on the exact kill percent anyway. Peach has better methods of starting her punish game on spacies relative to Sheik who requires more guesswork and playing reactively to Fox and Falco.

I don't think Falcon is worse than 60:40 or -1 against either spacey. I think both of them are equally difficult. Tech chasing is his most reliable way to build up damage, yes, but he can techchase both spacies on reaction. He has the best ground movement in the game and the fastest running speed. If Sheik can do it, I dunno how the hell Falcon can't. The thing that separates Falcon from Pikachu is speed and range. Falcon's nair isn't going to combo into knees the way it does on floaty characters, but it still outranges every move the spacies have. Upair works the same way. Fox is also super difficult because he outspeeds pikachu, which is something Pikachu isn't used to and is bad at dealing with. Falcon does not suffer from this.

In contrast, Pikachu has a lot of opportunity to convert stray hits into gimps, juggles, or even KOs

I mean, if we're going to talk about punishes, Falcon can still zero to death spacies in less hits and in a shorter time frame than any other character in the game. If Falcon grabs Fox or Falco, that should be death. I actually think Falco's techroll being better than Fox's is worse than lasers. Falcon can eat lasers all day without any problem since he has to be at such a high percent for bair or fsmash to kill. On top of that, Falcon has plenty of tools in his platform movement as well as raptor boost/nair to deal with lasers. Techchasing Falco is a bit more difficult than Fox, and it's easier for Falco to get out. However, Falco is so much more gimpable, and a lot of Foxes tend to be slippery and evade knees really well, which can be frustrating. If you can't get a solid knee on Fox, then he'll live forever. His speed and guaranteed gimp with his shine makes him more threatening in my opinion, but I think both spacies are equally difficult and which one an individual person finds more difficult is more about personal preference.

Puff does better against Falco than Falcon does, but she falls short in her god-awful matchup against Fox that I genuinely believe is unwinnable on certain stages, assuming the Fox has a thumb on his left hand or some other method of holding left/right on the analog stick. This is why I put her at the top of a-tier. While she doesn't lose to anyone other than Fox, her matchup against the most common and most powerful character in the game is so horrifyingly bad that she just can't compete. Hungrybox not even making top 8 at the last major without even facing mango gives credence to that. The only character that I think does as bad against Fox than Puff in the entire upper half of my tier-list is Yoshi, but that's stage dependent.

 

[Tagxy]

I don't think Falcon is worse than 60:40 or -1 against either spacey. I think both of them are equally difficult. Tech chasing is his most reliable way to build up damage, yes, but he can techchase both spacies on reaction. He has the best ground movement in the game and the fastest running speed. If Sheik can do it, I dunno how the hell Falcon can't. The thing that separates Falcon from Pikachu is speed and range. Falcon's nair isn't going to combo into knees the way it does on floaty characters, but it still outranges every move the spacies have. Upair works the same way. Fox is also super difficult because he outspeeds pikachu, which is something Pikachu isn't used to and is bad at dealing with. Falcon does not suffer from this.

I mean, if we're going to talk about punishes, Falcon can still zero to death spacies in less hits and in a shorter time frame than any other character in the game. If Falcon grabs Fox or Falco, that should be death. I actually think Falco's techroll being better than Fox's is worse than lasers. Falcon can eat lasers all day without any problem since he has to be at such a high percent for bair or fsmash to kill. On top of that, Falcon has plenty of tools in his platform movement as well as raptor boost/nair to deal with lasers. Techchasing Falco is a bit more difficult than Fox, and it's easier for Falco to get out. However, Falco is so much more gimpable, and a lot of Foxes tend to be slippery and evade knees really well, which can be frustrating. If you can't get a solid knee on Fox, then he'll live forever. His speed and guaranteed gimp with his shine makes him more threatening in my opinion, but I think both spacies are equally difficult and which one an individual person finds more difficult is more about personal preference.

Puff does better against Falco than Falcon does, but she falls short in her god-awful matchup against Fox that I genuinely believe is unwinnable on certain stages, assuming the Fox has a thumb on his left hand or some other method of holding left/right on the analog stick. This is why I put her at the top of a-tier. While she doesn't lose to anyone other than Fox, her matchup against the most common and most powerful character in the game is so horrifyingly bad that she just can't compete. Hungrybox not even making top 8 at the last major without even facing mango gives credence to that. The only character that I think does as bad against Fox than Puff in the entire upper half of my tier-list is Yoshi, but that's stage dependent.

Better ground movement then fox? Im not sure many would agree with that, thats a really tough sell and what makes me mostly disagree with Fox. Also one of falcos main objectives in neutral is to cut off opponents options so ground movement doesn't mean nearly as much, and why its also incorrect to say that falcon can just eat lasers when damage isnt the primary point of lasers in the first place. Spacies just seem like the perfect characters to limit what falcon is normally capable of in neutral in fox's case because his viable options are just way more numerous and in falcos case because of how limiting he is. And in both cases falcon is a massive target. I believe hax once said the only worthwhile approaches falcon has vs spacies are nair and dash grab, which while good is also very limited. I just feel like falcon does poorly in the neutral when I think about it. Couple this with their hard punish game and edgeguard capabilities seems like an overall tough MU.

Also both spacies are pikas toughest MUs which are around -2, youre definitely overrating his other bad MUs. But he does just as well as anyone besides marth and sheik. Still, his punish game is a lot more reliable. Its true that falcon can mess up spacies from one successful exchange, but the probability of success is much lower. Pika is also more threatening to spacies in neutral simply because hes a small target with a stronger ability to zone than falcon thanks to his outstanding crouch and movement. Pikachu's biggest issue vs spacies is his defense is terrible, and while he has reliable offensive tools its always a gamble while spacies offense is much more secure. That being said pika seems less limited on offense than falcon.

 

[Tityboi]

Stuff

Can I ask how the **** you can put puff below Ice climbers when you say puff has only one losing matchup and Ice climbers lose to basically everyone above them... Like wtf...

 

[Scaremonger]

Better ground movement then fox? Im not sure many would agree with that, thats a really tough sell and what makes me mostly disagree with Fox.

Falcon has better ground movement than everyone. I don't see how you can argue that. He's faster, has the same standing wavedash, has a longer dashdance, etc. There really isn't a category that Fox explicitly beats him in when it comes to ground movement.

Also one of falcos main objectives in neutral is to cut off opponents options so ground movement doesn't mean nearly as much, and why its also incorrect to say that falcon can just eat lasers when damage isnt the primary point of lasers in the first place.

Falcon still is in the top 3, maybe top 2 characters in the game when it comes to vertical mobility. He has one of the highest fullhops, tied for the fastest falling speed, and has great platform movement. Falcon is tall, yes, but he can still mitigate lasers just fine with his platform movement as well as other tools. At certain distances, raptor boost will go under high lasers, and nair will go over low lasers. Once Falcon closes the distance between him and Falco, Falco is screwed because Falcon is too fast and exerts too much pressure for his usual abilities in neutral to be effective.

Spacies just seem like the perfect characters to limit what falcon is normally capable of in neutral in fox's case because his viable options are just way more numerous and in falcos case because of how limiting he is.

Spacies have more options than every single character in the game. I'm not sure what exactly this means. Falcon is still the only character that's faster than Fox, he can zero to death Fox far faster and in far less hits than Fox can zero to death him save for shinespike cheesing, and Falcon can outrange both spacies. Lasers are hard, and I still think both spacies win the matchup, but I don't think Falcon is worse against them than Pikachu is. The more I play the matchup, the more I think it's only a slight advantage for them, and I've never even come close to feeling like I've lost at the character select screen.

I believe hax once said the only worthwhile approaches falcon has vs spacies are nair and dash grab

This is how Falcon generally approaches every character, lol. Melee is a game of endless options for any given situation, though, and is incredibly complex. Defining a character in this way is far too oversimplified.

Also both spacies are pikas toughest MUs which are around -2, youre definitely overrating his other bad MUs. Still, his punish game is a lot more reliable.

There's absolutely no way that spacies are more difficult than Ice Climbers. I could believe that they're equally difficult as Peach and Puff and maybe slightly more difficult than Sheik (all of which I still kind of disagree with), but there's absolutely no way that ICs are easier than Fox. That's just something I can't accept. And while a big part of Falcon's punish game on fastfallers is techchasing, he can still techchase on reaction super hard and is theoretically guaranteed. If Falcon grabs a spacey, there really isn't an excuse other than getting blatantly outplayed for you not to kill them.

Pika is also more threatening to spacies in neutral simply because hes a small target with a stronger ability to zone than falcon thanks to his outstanding crouch and movement.

You keep referring to "being a small target" as some huge part of the neutral game, but I don't see how that's the case. I also don't see how pikachu can zone better than Falcon, since out of all 4 characters he has the most range/disjoints by a pretty large margin.

Can I ask how the **** you can put puff below Ice climbers when you say puff has only one losing matchup and Ice climbers lose to basically everyone above them... Like wtf...

ICs are better against Fox and don't get bodied for free. That's enough to put them above Puff. Fox is the most heavily weighted matchup because he's the most important character. Having a bad matchup against Fox is far worse than having a bad matchup against Peach or something.

 

[Tityboi]

ICs are better against Fox and don't get bodied for free. That's enough to put them above Puff. Fox is the most heavily weighted matchup because he's the most important character. Having a bad matchup against Fox is far worse than having a bad matchup against Peach or something.

I think you should reconsider the criteria you chose for your tier list.

 

[Scaremonger]

I think you should reconsider the criteria you chose for your tier list.

Why?

 

[Tagxy]

Spacies have more options than every single character in the game. I'm not sure what exactly this means. Falcon is still the only character that's faster than Fox, he can zero to death Fox far faster and in far less hits than Fox can zero to death him save for shinespike cheesing, and Falcon can outrange both spacies. Lasers are hard, and I still think both spacies win the matchup, but I don't think Falcon is worse against them than Pikachu is. The more I play the matchup, the more I think it's only a slight advantage for them, and I've never even come close to feeling like I've lost at the character select screen.

I had more to say on this but tbh I respect your mentality and dont want to trash on it by being depressing about this MU. Ill just state my disagreement.

You keep referring to "being a small target" as some huge part of the neutral game, but I don't see how that's the case. I also don't see how pikachu can zone better than Falcon, since out of all 4 characters he has the most range/disjoints by a pretty large margin.

Pikachu has some very threatening options on the ground and doesnt need to jump for them to work. One thing I intended to talk about was how ground movement extends beyond mobility stats and attacks such as pikachu ftilt, dsmash, upsmash, and dtilt all command respect on the ground along with his good mobility. Even fsmash to an extent. Hes actually very solid in this regard, only that spacies have just as many tools but even better.

There's absolutely no way that spacies are more difficult than Ice Climbers. I could believe that they're equally difficult as Peach and Puff and maybe slightly more difficult than Sheik (all of which I still kind of disagree with), but there's absolutely no way that ICs are easier than Fox. That's just something I can't accept.

Fox is definitely tougher. Falco is questionable. Not sure if you care enough for details but Id have to know why you think one MU is tougher than another if so.

 

[Sir Bubbles]

If anything, Pikachu is the gimmick here. Lol. It almost all boils down to that up-air for Pikachu, whereas Doc/Luigi are both quite well-rounded by comparison. Still, a great gimmick can beat a good balance, which is why I'd still put Pikachu above Mario.

Pikachu is definitely above Mario. Mario is well rounded... That's it. At the very least Luigi has great ground movement options and Doc has excellent edge-guarding and decent punishing attributes.

I actually feel pika has the most room for growth among floaties. He doesnt need to necessarily straight combo them to death, his mobility and attacks do a good job juggling them and preventing them from returning to neutral. Then as mentioned a solid usmash kills them fairly early which isnt terribly hard to land due in part to pikas small size, good mobility, and their slow movement. Pika has the tools to do a lot better than most others against them offstage too with much less risk of getting counter gimped.

Pikachu is a bad character, but falcon is also pretty terrible. I dont think it really matters if falcon is higher than pika, however it is true that if pikachu blows vs both spacies then falcon is straight up booty butt cheeks and MUs vs spacies define character relevance and will only continue to do so more. In that sense a reasonable argument does exist for pika being higher (not that Id personally agree). I do agree that falcon has a much better MU spread vs everyone else (maybe not jiggs? pika seems to lose but its not too bad).

Also I can't speak for falcon vs sheik but sheik pika is bad but overrated. Pika doesnt actually have an issue hitting sheik but sheik outputs twice the damage. If pika gets some good early kills or edgeguards the dream can stay alive. Fox and Falco are worse, and perhaps ICs as well. If falcon's MU vs sheik is pretty bad it might be about similar.

A 3 frame disjointed combo starting move is a gimmick? I guess Marths sword must be a gimmick too. Pikachu might suck at the highest level play but at least he exists there, Doc and Luigi don't even have a place.

Luigi has more of a place then Pikachu, no doubt about it.

Can't speak for Doc right now, but Luigi has far more dedicated mains and better average tourney results, excluding Axe.

Axe isn't always going to be top 5 material. Just like what happened to Shroomed, people are going to figure out his Pikachu and realize "Wow, Pikachu literally has zero options" and he's going to start loosing more and is probably going to have to switch his main to an actually viable character.

 

[Tityboi]

Why?

Because you weighted the fox matchup to a ridiculous degree. Your tier list places Ice Climbers, who loses to fox, falco, marth, PUFF,and gets ****ed up by falcon and peach, above jigglypuff who goes even with or beats all those characters I listed, except fox... And your reasoning is that the puff-fox matchup is worse for puff than the Ice Climber- fox matchup is for Ice Climbers, who also get destroyed by fox. And your evidence for the puff-fox matchup being so extraordinarily bad for puff is hungrybox getting 9th at TBH4, where he lost to leffen, an arguably better player than him at this point, and lucky, a probably top 15 player.
Not only that, your criteria isn't consistent throughout. You place an enormous emphasis on the fox matchup, so much so that you claim ICs are better than puff solely because they lose less to fox, and then you turn around and put samus at 11th, despite samus going even, or close to even, with both fox and falco........

 

[Scaremonger]

Because you weighted the fox matchup to a ridiculous degree. Your tier list places Ice Climbers, who loses to fox, falco, marth, PUFF,and gets ****ed up by falcon and peach, above jigglypuff who goes even with or beats all those characters I listed, except fox... And your reasoning is that the puff-fox matchup is worse for puff than the Ice Climber- fox matchup is for Ice Climbers, who also get destroyed by fox. And your evidence for the puff-fox matchup being so extraordinarily bad for puff is hungrybox getting 9th at TBH4, where he lost to leffen, an arguably better player than him at this point, and lucky, a probably top 15 player.
Not only that, your criteria isn't consistent throughout. You place an enormous emphasis on the fox matchup, so much so that you claim ICs are better than puff solely because they lose less to fox, and then you turn around and put samus at 11th, despite samus going even, or close to even, with both fox and falco........

When you have an almost unwinnable matchup vs Fox, you are not s-tier. Sorry, lol, but it makes no sense. Fox is the best character in the game, and by far the most commonly played. It makes absolutely zero sense for Puff to be s-tier when the matchup vs him is lightyears in his favor. ICs don't lose to Fox nearly as hard as Puff does. ICs also do not lose to Puff, I don't know who told you that.

TBH4 was not my entire reasoning, I'm not sure if you either didn't read what I said or just don't know what the word "credence" means.

Samus does not go even with Fox. That's a super antiquated opinion that nobody who actually plays either character believes anymore. Samus does just as good against Fox as Luigi does, and Doc is even better against Fox. Doc and Luigi also have better matchups against every other s-tier except Falco than Samus does. Samus is also just... a bad character, so there's that too.

 

[Tityboi]

When you have an almost unwinnable matchup vs Fox, you are not s-tier. Sorry, lol, but it makes no sense. Fox is the best character in the game, and by far the most commonly played. It makes absolutely zero sense for Puff to be s-tier when the matchup vs him is lightyears in his favor. ICs don't lose to Fox nearly as hard as Puff does. ICs also do not lose to Puff, I don't know who told you that.

TBH4 was not my entire reasoning, I'm not sure if you either didn't read what I said or just don't know what the word "credence" means.

Samus does not go even with Fox. That's a super antiquated opinion that nobody who actually plays either character believes anymore. Samus does just as good against Fox as Luigi does, and Doc is even better against Fox. Doc and Luigi also have better matchups against every other s-tier except Falco than Samus does. Samus is also just... a bad character, so there's that too.

There are a lot of people who still believe fox samus is even but I guess if you don't agree with that, that's fine.

In regards to me saying you justified the puff-fox matchup as almost unwinnable for puff with hungrybox's placement, I said it because, well, that's all you said about the matchup, outside of something about any fox with a thumb...

I just comprehend your placenment of puff based on your claims about the fox matchup, nor can I comprehend your claims about the matchup without any justifications whatsoever.

 

[Scaremonger]

There are a lot of people who still believe fox samus is even but I guess if you don't agree with that, that's fine.

In regards to me saying you justified the puff-fox matchup as almost unwinnable for puff with hungrybox's placement, I said it because, well, that's all you said about the matchup, outside of something about any fox with a thumb...

I just comprehend your placenment of puff based on your claims about the fox matchup, nor can I comprehend your claims about the matchup without any justifications whatsoever.

The thing about "having a thumb" was a half-joke about upthrow rest. The only way Puff can win this matchup is if she gets like at least 2 or 3 unpunished rests, and upthrow rest is the easiest way of getting that, but it's not even guaranteed since the Fox player can just hold left or right to escape it.

Aside from that, Fox can:

• crouch cancel and punish everything below like 40%
• is way faster than her
• has the most spammable projectile in the game that takes her like 5%-10% of the way to death percent with each hit
• You can also just bair her like 3-4 times and she's at death percent
• has tons of kill setups on her, upthrow upair kills between like 50 and 90%
• has one of the strongest vertical kill move smash attacks in the game that's far easier to land than the other similar strength ones and Puff is the easiest character in the game to kill off the top
• has 2 other hilariously powerful vertical kill moves
• can easily avoid getting gimped by just fastfalling and recovering low or recovering high. If you recover smart, it's really ****ing hard for Puff to cover every option, and Fox has 5 bazillion options to recover.
• If you don't have terrible DI, puff is not going to WoP you
• Platform camp the everliving **** out of Puff
• wall her out with bairs
• etc.

Puff can:

• Gimp Fox if the Fox player sucks
• Upthrow rest if the Fox player doesn't have a left thumb
• combo Fox if he has terrible DI
• Attempt to wall Fox out with the disjoint on her super slow bair, even though he's way faster and can just punish the lag
• Eat delicious lasers

The only reason this matchup isn't 100-0 is because Puff can cheese so hard with rest.

 

[1MachGO]

...

You have not illustrated that Falcon has a better punish game than Pikachu and have not refuted that Falcon gets punished harder than Pikachu.

The only arguments I am able to gather from your post is that you believe Falcon's speed and range is enough makes him superior in the MU and that tech chasing is the cure-all for Falcon's lackluster punish game [against spacies]. This, to me, is not enough evidence to justify that Falcon's MU vs. spacies is better than Pikachu's.

On another note, you keep reiterating how Falcon's "ground mobility" is the best in the game; going as far to tell Tagxy that Fox and Falcon's grounded wavedash are the same despite there being measurable differences between the two (Fox has both better speed and range with his WD)

The thing you have to realize is that mobility isn't entirely dictated by speed. Sure, Falcon has a huge initial dash and the fastest run speed in the game... but is that really enough to say he has the best ground mobility? I think you are simplifying it too much. Fox has negligibly less run/dash speed in favor of wayyyy more mix ups:

-Fox is a smaller target by default, making his movement in space more meaningful; he also distorts himself more than Falcon with a lower lean
-Fox's SHFF is faster, allowing him to waveland in/out
-Fox's Wavedash is longer/faster, allowing him to perform differing movements and approaches
-Fox's initial dash isn't as long while still having insane speed; this allows him to crouch sooner and gain access to to his ground moves at a faster rate than Falcon
-Falcon's best options out of dash/run are usually grab or aerial. Fox has both of these in addition to better shielding options, usmash OoS, and, on the whole, significantly better ground normals.

 

[Scaremonger]

...

Falcon's punish game isn't really better than Pikachu's (at least after low-percents, Pikachu doesn't really have throw followups on spacies at low-percent if they DI and all of his other approaches are CCable whereas Falcon can followup off of throws at any percent). Falcon's techchasing is literally less guaranteed than Pikachu's, since it's a techchase which will always be theoretically not guaranteed 100%, but in practice you can techchase spacies on reaction perfectly fine. On top of that, Falcon can build up more damage in fewer hits in a shorter amount of time, which gives the spacey less chance to escape punishment. Pikachu's game centers around gimps and comboing into an upsmash.


Can you show me any proof that Fox's wavedash is longer than Falcon's? Because it actually isn't. Both of them have the exact same traction value, you can see it in the characters' DAT files:

Spoiler

If anything, Falcon's dash -> wavedash is effectively longer from carried over momentum.

Fox's SHFF is faster, allowing him to waveland in/out

By like 4 or 5 frames, which is almost negligible. Falcon is also many times faster in the air, so if we're going to bring wavelanding into ground movement, then I don't see how Fox is ultimately superior.

Fox's Wavedash is longer/faster, allowing him to perform differing movements and approaches

Again, Fox's wavedash isn't longer, and it's faster by 1 frame, lol (I assume you're saying it's faster because of the jumpcrouch animation being 1 frame shorter. In terms of actual sliding speed, they're the same). If we were talking about Ganon or Bowser, then yeah, the faster wavedash point would make sense, but this is a 1 frame difference.

Options out of that movement was not something I was referring to anyway, I was referring to the actual movement. I'll give you that Fox's control of space is slightly more meaningful, though.

Falcon's ground movement is still better than Fox's on a whole, though. His longer dash range, equivalent traction, and higher speed make it as such. The only thing Fox has that's superior to Falcon pertaining to actual motion on the ground is a 1 frame faster wavedash. Fox has more options on the ground out of a dash, and is smaller, but Falcon can also control space better once he leaves the ground with his far superior range. Falcon's disjoints and general range beat every character in this entire game except Marth.

 

[Bones0]

Falcon's punish game isn't really better than Pikachu's (at least after low-percents, Pikachu doesn't really have throw followups on spacies at low-percent if they DI and all of his other approaches are CCable whereas Falcon can followup off of throws at any percent). Falcon's techchasing is literally less guaranteed than Pikachu's, since it's a techchase which will always be theoretically not guaranteed 100%, but in practice you can techchase spacies on reaction perfectly fine. On top of that, Falcon can build up more damage in fewer hits in a shorter amount of time, which gives the spacey less chance to escape punishment. Pikachu's game centers around gimps and comboing into an upsmash.


Can you show me any proof that Fox's wavedash is longer than Falcon's? Because it actually isn't. Both of them have the exact same traction value, you can see it in the characters' DAT files:

Spoiler

If anything, Falcon's dash -> wavedash is effectively longer from carried over momentum.



By like 4 or 5 frames, which is almost negligible. Falcon is also many times faster in the air, so if we're going to bring wavelanding into ground movement, then I don't see how Fox is ultimately superior.



Again, Fox's wavedash isn't longer, and it's faster by 1 frame, lol (I assume you're saying it's faster because of the jumpcrouch animation being 1 frame shorter. In terms of actual sliding speed, they're the same). If we were talking about Ganon or Bowser, then yeah, the faster wavedash point would make sense, but this is a 1 frame difference.

Options out of that movement was not something I was referring to anyway, I was referring to the actual movement. I'll give you that Fox's control of space is slightly more meaningful, though.

Falcon's ground movement is still better than Fox's on a whole, though. His longer dash range, equivalent traction, and higher speed make it as such. The only thing Fox has that's superior to Falcon pertaining to actual motion on the ground is a 1 frame faster wavedash. Fox has more options on the ground out of a dash, and is smaller, but Falcon can also control space better once he leaves the ground with his far superior range. Falcon's disjoints and general range beat every character in this entire game except Marth.

Fox's WD is definitely longer than Falcon's.

 

[Scaremonger]

Fox's WD is definitely longer than Falcon's.

Wanna give me some evidence on that? Because you're the 2nd person to tell me I'm wrong with zero basis after I literally showed that they have the same traction in the character files.

 

[Tityboi]

Wanna give me some evidence on that? Because you're the 2nd person to tell me I'm wrong with zero basis after I literally showed that they have the same traction in the character files.

http://www.antd.org/ssbm/wavedash-distances/

 

[Scaremonger]

http://www.antd.org/ssbm/wavedash-distances/

How was this tested? For all I know, he just went into homerun contest and just did a wavedash or something. Why do spacies randomly have a different wavedash distance than the rest of the characters with the same traction value?

 

[1MachGO]

How was this tested? For all I know, he just went into homerun contest and just did a wavedash or something. Why do spacies randomly have a different wavedash distance than the rest of the characters with the same traction value?

Marth and Mario have the same traction value. Are you going to argue their wavedashes are the same length? Please. The basis of your argument is your own personal incredulity.

Needless to say, WD distance isn't solely based on traction. I don't know the exact mechanics myself, but IIRC, I believe Strong Bad told me that max walking speed was an important factor (which would easily explain why Marth/Fox have the best WDs for their traction class and why you can enter a full-speed walk after a WD)

 

[Tityboi]

How was this tested? For all I know, he just went into homerun contest and just did a wavedash or something. Why do spacies randomly have a different wavedash distance than the rest of the characters with the same traction value?

"I take my measurements in debug mode, by looking at the code itself (ASM), by manipulating the contents of RAM, and by playing frame by frame. I combine all of these techniques in order to produce fair tests when measuring stats. Distances are calculated by using the Home Run Contest Scale and calculating the equivalent coordinate values!"

 

[Bones0]

Well, that was embarrassing.

 

[Scaremonger]

Marth and Mario have the same traction value. Are you going to argue their wavedashes are the same length? Please. The basis of your argument is your own personal incredulity.

Needless to say, WD distance isn't solely based on traction. I don't know the exact mechanics myself, but IIRC, I believe Strong Bad told me that max walking speed was an important factor (which would easily explain why Marth/Fox have the best WDs for their traction class and why you can enter a full-speed walk after a WD)

"I take my measurements in debug mode, by looking at the code itself (ASM), by manipulating the contents of RAM, and by playing frame by frame. I combine all of these techniques in order to produce fair tests when measuring stats. Distances are calculated by using the Home Run Contest Scale and calculating the equivalent coordinate values!"

I guess I'm wrong, then.

Well, that was embarrassing.

Thanks. I guess nobody should ever ask questions as to why something is and being wrong makes me stupid.

Anyway, I still think Falcon is better against Fox than Pikachu is, though. Falcon is better in neutral and punishes equally hard (harder at low percents.)

 

[EddyBearr]

I think the punish game between Falcon/Pikachu on Fox is pretty comparable (albeit they have differing strengths depending on percents and stages), but Falcon is way better at getting opportunities to punish, giving Falcon a better chance overall. Likewise, Falcon has a pretty clearly better neutral.

 

[1MachGO]

Anyway, I still think Falcon is better against Fox than Pikachu is, though. Falcon is better in neutral and punishes equally hard (harder at low percents.)

What about Falco though? Are you still arguing that Falcon is better vs. Falco, too?

And arguing that Falcon and Pikachu have equal punish games is an outright contradiction of your prior argument.

In this post, you clearly imply that Falcon's is worse.

Falcon's punish game isn't really better than Pikachu's (at least after low-percents, Pikachu doesn't really have throw followups on spacies at low-percent if they DI and all of his other approaches are CCable whereas Falcon can followup off of throws at any percent). Falcon's techchasing is literally less guaranteed than Pikachu's, since it's a techchase which will always be theoretically not guaranteed 100%, but in practice you can techchase spacies on reaction perfectly fine. On top of that, Falcon can build up more damage in fewer hits in a shorter amount of time, which gives the spacey less chance to escape punishment. Pikachu's game centers around gimps and comboing into an upsmash.

Regardless, the argument that Falcon has a stronger low percent game is false. Pikachu can easily follow up uthrow at low percents (idk what gave you the impression he couldn't) and he has plenty of fast moves with high base knockback to counter CC's and start combos (such as usmash, dsmash, and uair).

Furthermore, you seem to be implying that damage building is better than Pikachu's gimping potential. If the goal of this game is to get your opponent offstage and kill them, it would seem that your fastest and most efficient way of accomplishing this goal would be the best strategy. I'm sure Falcon would go for gimps, too, if his recovery allowed him to go extremely low or if he had any throws with decent horizontal knockback.

If you are still convinced that Falcon has the better punish game vs. spacies then I suggest you watch Axe's 4 stock on Silent Wolf. While this match is obviously an extreme example, I can't see this situation being replicated with Falcon. He just doesn't have the kit to reliably combo, kill, and edgeguard spacies at the same level Marth, Sheik, Doc, Pikachu, and Peach can.

An example of how Pikachu can turn a stray hit into a KO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZIxUjct3uo#t=429

As for the neutral game, again, I'll remind you that Falcon is a larger target, has terrible OoS options, and has much more at stake than Pikachu when going for a risky read/approach. Falcon does have range, and the power of reads can make threatening, but he seems far less consistent than Pikachu in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Scaremonger]

What about Falco though? Are you still arguing that Falcon is better vs. Falco, too?

And arguing that Falcon and Pikachu have equal punish games is an outright contradiction of your prior argument.

In this post, you clearly imply that Falcon's is worse.

Regardless, the argument that Falcon has a stronger low percent game is false. Pikachu can easily follow up uthrow at low percents (idk what gave you the impression he couldn't) and he has plenty of fast moves with high base knockback to counter CC's and start combos (such as usmash, dsmash, and uair).

I actually didn't imply that Falcon's punish game was worse. I don't know where you think I said it was worse. In fact, I said at low-percents that it was better. Falcon's low-percent game is definitely better than Pikachu's. Pikachu has far worse range and everything he does can just be CC-punished except grab. Grabbing Fox as Pikachu is pretty damn hard, and even if you do get a grab you actually don't have guaranteed followups on upthrow until 15-20% if Fox DIs. Falcon can techchase on reaction and his aerials can't be CC punished like Pikachu's can.

Furthermore, you seem to be implying that damage building is better than Pikachu's gimping potential. If the goal of this game is to get your opponent offstage and kill them, it would seem that your fastest and most efficient way of accomplishing this goal would be the best strategy. I'm sure Falcon would go for gimps, too, if his recovery allowed him to go extremely low or if he had any throws with decent horizontal knockback.

If you are still convinced that Falcon has the better punish game vs. spacies then I suggest you watch Axe's 4 stock on Silent Wolf. While this match is obviously an extreme example, I can't see this situation being replicated with Falcon. He just doesn't have the kit to reliably combo, kill, and edgeguard spacies at the same level Marth, Sheik, Doc, Pikachu, and Peach can.

An example of how Pikachu can turn a stray hit into a KO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZIxUjct3uo#t=429

rofl, I'm 100% aware about Pikachu's gimp game on Fox. You don't need to link me to ****ing Axe vs Silentwolf as if that's going to change my entire viewpoint on Pikachu. I've already seen the game like 30 times.

I would argue that guaranteed techchases are better than gimp potential. If Falcon grabs Fox at 0% at centerstage, he can techchase until he can upthrow into a kill move or otherwise combo into one. If Pikachu grabs Fox at 0% at centerstage, then what does he do? Upthrow? What if Fox DIs? Then oh well. Pikachu is too slow and has too short of a grab range to techchase on reaction like Falcon can. If you just stay away from the edge against pikachu, and avoid getting gimmicked, his gimp setups are all pretty avoidable.

As for the neutral game, again, I'll remind you that Falcon is a larger target, has terrible OoS options, and has much more at stake than Pikachu when going for a risky read/approach. Falcon does have range, and the power of reads can make threatening, but he seems far less consistent than Pikachu in the grand scheme of things.

Why the hell is everyone obsessing over someone being a large target? You people act like this is some kind of massive factor in this game when it really isn't. It's not a good thing, obviously, but it's not like slightly larger hurtboxes = huge disadvantage. It's not like he's even bowser-sized anyway. And as for OoS options, Falcon's OoS options are 10,000 times better than Pikachu's with his airspeed. Have you seen pikachu's shield? Pikachu's OoS options don't even get a chance to get beaten by shine because he just gets shieldpoked and dies. What do you even mean he has "more at stake" than pikachu when going for a risky read/approach? And I have no clue how you can argue that Falcon is less consistent than Pikachu when there has literally been one pikachu in the entire history of Melee that gets actual results.

 

[Bones0]

Thanks. I guess nobody should ever ask questions as to why something is and being wrong makes me stupid.

Anyway, I still think Falcon is better against Fox than Pikachu is, though. Falcon is better in neutral and punishes equally hard (harder at low percents.)

Your disbelief that they had the same WD wasn't so embarrassing on its own, but rather it was your hostile attitude towards people telling you a relatively well known and obvious fact. If I had two people tell me I was wrong about something as simple as WD length, I'd at least check in Training Mode real quick to confirm or try googling around a third party source. Even after someone gave a source with extremely precise measurements, you continued to assume that traction values were directly related to WD lengths.

 

[Tagxy]

Alright I said I didnt want to comment on this esp about falcon but theres too much misinfo on this about pika.

There's no percent pikachu can't have a hard punish off a throw and low percents certainly arent harder for pikachu to punish spacies then later. He can uthrow > usmash > regrab > chaingrab fox/falco from 0% and can always uthrow > usmash. Chaingrab starts sometime below 10% but its hard. And the only thing pikachu does that gets cc punished a lot is nair that isnt space i'm pretty sure falcon has this same issue. Dsmash, spaced nair, grab, uair, spaced fsmash, usmash past like 10% are all solid against crouch cancel. Somehow people realized pikachu couldnt hit you with any nair for free and follow up to take this to mean pikachu had nothing vs crouch cancelling.

Im not sure how you came to understand pika upthrow + fox DI = no follow ups but thats completely wrong.

And when comparing pika v falcon size does matter. If it was fox or ICs then yeah its not as much of a difference. Pikachus small size is a big asset to him and the way his hitboxes work, i.e. Its the reason pikas ftilt is so amazing. And when compared to someone large like falcon the dispariy is greater.

Im also not sold on people being able to tech chase on reaction. If people could do this Im pretty sure melee would look a lot different then it does now. Pikachus dthrow forces spacies to tech and he has the speed to land follow ups, but theres no point for pika to do this because he has guaranteed follow ups from uthrow or edgeguard potential with bthrow/fthrow.

 

[Scaremonger]

Your disbelief that they had the same WD wasn't so embarrassing on its own, but rather it was your hostile attitude towards people telling you a relatively well known and obvious fact.

Actually, I just read back through what I wrote, and I definitely was being more hostile than I realized. Not to excuse it, obviously, just as an explanation. So I apologize for that.

 

[gravy]

I think falcon is the best character.

 

[Sir Bubbles]

I think falcon is the best character.

*grabs popcorn*

 

[1MachGO]

...

Well, I was going to respond but I feel like Tagxy already stated most of things I would have wanted to say.

 

[Scaremonger]

Well, I was going to respond but I feel like Tagxy already stated most of things I would have wanted to say.

Neato