2013 Community Tier List

[EddyBearr]

G&W I think is less developed than Kirby in the same way that Mario is less developed than Zelda. G&W just has so much more he can do, whereas Kirby is a pretty simple character.

Mewtwo, I just have no clue.

 

[1MachGO]

I mean the individual number placement for most of the tier list is fairly irreverent. Pretty much everyone agrees Fox is one, and who is s tier a tier etc. That doesn't mean it's not interesting to discuss which low tier champ has the most potential to pull upsets.

Well then you re-arrive at the issue of trying to imagine these characters in the same setting as those listed above them. I mean, just look at how inaccurate the rankings of Puff, Yoshi, Pikachu or Ice Climbers have been in the past. A lot of unintuitive or unappealing characters were written off early, their metas never developed, and were unfairly compared to more fleshed out cast members.

Even Fox being #1 was looking to be contested for a bit. Before the documentary and "platinum era", I would say roughly 30% of the community began to strongly consider Falco was better. Flash forward a couple of years, the community has doubled in size and all these new players are seeing Fox listed as #1 and this abundant Fox success. Needless to say, impressionable opinions take over and stuff like M2K saying "Falco is the best" is scoffed at like a minority opinion even though it was relatively common a few years ago. Is it sheep mentality or undeniable fact? Idk. All I know is that a tier list can create ideas as much as it supposedly reinforces them. I don't see the value of general consensus pretending to be empirical, nor do I see the value of discussing characters we have little knowledge and zero stake in pretending to be empirical.

This isn't to say meaningful discussion can't take place, but when it comes to low tiers it has to acknowledge how speculative it is.

 

[EddyBearr]

It's true, there's a feedback loop between the tier list(s) and general consensus, which can skew things. For example, people honestly think Kirby is significantly worse than Bowser, and people honestly think Pikachu is decent. Silly ideas.

 

[KevJames]

Speaking of how Fox being considered #1 has become fact from belief, what happened to Falco? Recently, there hasn't been a lot of high level falco play. We've seen Mango switch from Falco to Fox in tournament, and Dr. PeePee use Marth primarily. Is this due to Falco's bad matchups?

 

[1MachGO]

Speaking of how Fox being considered #1 has become fact from belief, what happened to Falco? Recently, there hasn't been a lot of high level falco play. We've seen Mango switch from Falco to Fox in tournament, and Dr. PeePee use Marth primarily. Is this due to Falco's bad matchups?

He finds Marth easier and more enjoyable currently. I've never heard him explicitly say Falco loses a MU. According to him, Falco beats Peach and Puff (MUs generally considered even by a lot of Falco players). Can't say for sure about Samus though.

It's true, there's a feedback loop between the tier list(s) and general consensus, which can skew things. For example, people honestly think Kirby is significantly worse than Bowser, and people honestly think Pikachu is decent. Silly ideas.

There is a fine line between recognizing the folly of general consensus and being an intellectual hipster for the sake of being an intellectual hipster.

Pikachu doesn't even meet your criteria since his position on the tier list has followed Axe's rise as a player. The character has gone from severely underestimated to a solid placement in mid tier. If the tier list was revised, he would undoubtedly be ranked higher, but this has nothing to do with a feedback loop since the community perspective more or less revolves around Axe.

Fox, on the other hand, was prematurely ranked 1 well before anyone was able to achieve consistent dominance with him. THAT creates a feedback loop.

 

[MarthZ]

I thought Marth should've been higher and I never knew people still used samus

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

I thought Marth should've been higher and I never knew people still used samus

This was posted back in 2013, I'm surprised people were still reacting too it.

There are a lot of good Samuses still, see Plup or Hugs or Duck.
http://www.ssbwiki.com/Category:Samus_professionals_(SSBM) See this page.

 

[Defile]

people honestly think Kirby is significantly worse than Bowser, and people honestly think Pikachu is decent. Silly ideas.

If Pikachu wasn't at least decent, then Axe wouldn't have made top 8 at several nationals since 2010. The general consensus is that Pikachu is somewhere in the upper-mid tier. Your opinion stopped being respectable more than a few years ago.

 

[EddyBearr]

If Pikachu wasn't at least decent, then Axe wouldn't have made top 8 at several nationals since 2010. The general consensus is that Pikachu is somewhere in the upper-mid tier. Your opinion stopped being respectable more than a few years ago.

Axe is a better player atm relative to the top players than Shroomed ever was imo, but Shroomed had more consistent results with Doc than Axe is having with Pikachu. I guess it depends on what you call a decent character, but Axe is being held back a ton by his character -- something you can't equally say about Shroomed with Doc. I consider Pikachu pretty much in the middle of mid-tiers. which I don't consider decent.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

Pikachu has enough good matchups vs. the higher tier characters that the char can be argued to be much higher than just middle of mids.

 

[EddyBearr]

I don't think Pikachu's matchups vs higher tiers are very good. I think the only S tier that Pikachu does comparatively better against than other A tier characters is Marth and maybe Falcon, and even then I still think it's a losing matchup.

You then have to question Pikachu's mid-tier matchups. Pikachu loses pretty handily to all 3 plumbers, and I can't imagine he does all that well against Samus or Yoshi. He does beat Ganon quite handily, though.

I've been told that Axe also thinks Pikachu loses to pretty much everyone, though the only source I have is this which, while created by Axe and N64, is terribly outdated.

Edit: Found a better source. http://smashboards.com/threads/pikachu-guide-2011.312544/#post-13513945
N64 claims to have updated this, as evidenced by this and his "last edited" tags on his posts.

 

[1MachGO]

Axe is a better player atm relative to the top players than Shroomed ever was imo, but Shroomed had more consistent results with Doc than Axe is having with Pikachu.

This statement doesn't make any ****ing sense. Axe getting top 8 at a major now is both harder and more impressive than Shroomed getting top 8 at a major 2 years ago. Of course Shroomed's results were more consistent because the competition was relatively worse.

Honestly Eddy, I think you are just misinterpreting how this game works. Having three good moves and amazing mobility will get you a lot further than 10 great moves and crap mobility. Not getting camped is simply too valuable of an asset and that's why Falcon/Pikachu/Yoshi should find more success than the rest of mid tier.

 

[Defile]

At least in high-level play, what really determines a character's viability in the current meta isn't his/her matchup spread, but how well he/she does against Fox, because of how common he is now. And Pikachu actually has a much better matchup against Fox than some of the top tier characters like Falcon and Jigglypuff. His matchup against Fox (and Falco) is arguably semi-decent.

Anyway, Pikachu is definitely viable and a solid character overall. He has incredible mobility, a great edge-guarding game, a recovery that's difficult to intercept, and an above average combo ability. They call him the mid-tier Fox for a reason.

 

[Doser]

At least in high-level play, what really determines a character's viability in the current meta isn't his/her matchup spread, but how well he/she does against Fox, because of how common he is now.

Fox has been the most common character in tournaments for years and years.

 

[EddyBearr]

It's hard to tell what placings Shroomed would get at MLG or EVO if he wasn't in transition, so the best we can work with is compare it to Shroomed at EVO 2013 or Apex 2014. Likewise, I think it's fair to say Shroomed and Axe were about on the same level of play but both below top 5 before the Summer of Smash, but even then Shroomed was having more consistent results.

3 good moves w/ amazing mobility versus 10 great moves with crap mobility sounds like Captain Falcon vs Peach. I think it's fair to say that Peach is significantly better than Captain Falcon. Roy, Young Link, and Pichu both have great mobility but none of them will ever be very good because they just don't have good moves to go alongside them. No matter how many circles Young Link runs around Peach, Jigglypuff, or Ganondorf, one single hit + follow-up is often going to do as much or more to Young Link than many of Young Link's tickles combined -- and I would say Young Link definitely gets more comparative use out of his movement than Pikachu does, thanks to Young Link's multi-directional disjoint and projectiles.

--

If we go with the N64-PikaChad-Axe-etc. matchup numbers, then Pikachu's matchup with fox is honestly kinda terrible. Likely worse than Falcon's on Fox and probably about on par with Jigglypuff's (though possibly somewhat better). I don't see how Pikachu does significantly better than any mid tier, but he definitely does way worse against Fox than Samus.

 

[Defile]

If we go with the N64-PikaChad-Axe-etc. matchup numbers, then Pikachu's matchup with fox is honestly kinda terrible. Likely worse than Falcon's on Fox and probably about on par with Jigglypuff's (though possibly slightly better).

But you just said that matchup chart is "terribly outdated". It's not considered even close to accurate anymore.

One shine is all Fox needs to take a stock off of Falcon, and there's literally nothing Jigglypuff can do about laser camping. So I doubt they do better against him than Pikachu. Just because foxes eat mice in real life doesn't mean they do in Smash.

 

[EddyBearr]

But you just said that matchup chart is "terribly outdated". It's not considered even close to accurate anymore.

One shine is all Fox needs to take a stock off of Falcon, and there's literally nothing Jigglypuff can do about laser camping. So I doubt they do better against him than Pikachu. Just because foxes eat mice in real life doesn't mean they do in Smash.

Check the edit. N64 updated it 3 months ago and claimed to have been talking to PikaChad about it, which is why I included PikaChad in the equation.
http://smashboards.com/threads/pikachu-guide-2011.312544/#post-13513945

These were the numbers I was referring to:
http://smashboards.com/threads/pikas-matchups.68694/page-10#post-16665489


Gravy would tell you that if Falcon grabs Fox, fox should lose the stock by guarantee. I think both the 20GX and 20XX mentalities are flawed. Until Mecha-M2K arrives, all who attempt to be able to "convert every shine/grab into a KO" are just going to go the way of Hax. This is, of course, assuming you aren't just referring to shine spikes.

 

[Kimimaru]

I guess it depends on what you call a decent character, but Axe is being held back a ton by his character -- something you can't equally say about Shroomed with Doc.

I'm not sure if this is accurate considering Shroomed switched his main from Doc to Sheik for that exact reason but Axe hasn't switched his main from Pikachu at all.

 

[EddyBearr]

@ Kimimaru I interpret that as Shroomed giving up earlier, especially since his "low placing" was only getting 13th. We could use the same kind of thinking to say Axe was less held back by his character than Armada since Armada gave up.

 

[1MachGO]

It's hard to tell what placings Shroomed would get at MLG or EVO if he wasn't in transition, so the best we can work with is compare it to Shroomed at EVO 2013 or Apex 2014. Likewise, I think it's fair to say Shroomed and Axe were about on the same level of play but both below top 5 before the Summer of Smash, but even then Shroomed was having more consistent results.

I would argue that Shroomed was being outpaced by competition; not suffering from transitional hindrances. His performance at Apex 2014 was consistent with his subsequent performances that year. The same Doc at Evo 2013 showed up at BH4, but it wasn't good enough to beat Leffen anymore.

And again, you cannot equally compare the competitive climate of 2013 to 2014. Being consistent is getting harder and harder as competition improves. If you are comparing their 2014 performances, well, Axe has tied or outplaced Shroomed at every single tournament they've both attended.

3 good moves w/ amazing mobility versus 10 great moves with crap mobility sounds like Captain Falcon vs Peach. I think it's fair to say that Peach is significantly better than Captain Falcon. Roy, Young Link, and Pichu both have great mobility but none of them will ever be very good because they just don't have good moves to go alongside them. No matter how many circles Young Link runs around Peach, Jigglypuff, or Ganondorf, one single hit + follow-up is often going to do as much or more to Young Link than many of Young Link's tickles combined -- and I would say Young Link definitely gets more comparative use out of his movement than Pikachu does, thanks to Young Link's multi-directional disjoint and projectiles.

That doesn't sound like Falcon vs. Peach because Peach's mobility, or the mobility of any top 8 char for that matter, isn't crap (though its funny you mention that because Armada believes Falcon has a better chance of winning a national than Peach BECAUSE of her mobility). A better example would be Captain Falcon compared to Ganon. Falcon's nair and fair are definitely better than Ganon's, but on the whole, Ganon has better ground normals (excluding utilt), throws (including a dthrow that would make most characters god tier if they had it), and special moves (Falcon's recovery would be pretty decent if he had Ganon's down-b).

As for the rest of the stuff you're saying, I honestly think you were just taking the statement too literally. The point is that good mobility will typically reap more success than good moves and this is only becoming more and more evident as the meta progresses (Y. Link outranking Link, people finally wanting Ganon at the bottom of mid tier, Armada's stance on Peach's viability, etc.). Camping is becoming more, and more prevalent of a tactic. So unless you have a powerful counteraction (i.e. amazing, high tier mobility) you're ability to beat people using Westballz camping tactics will be dubious.

 

[Tomas Keselik]

damn fox and falco

 

[the muted smasher]

Not a fan of westballz when he fought armada. We have soft bans at lowest levels of play that have simply carried on, it isn't even needed to win in the match-up like sheik vs ics.

Like we never banned planking even tho its very broken in some match-ups.


Pikachu is pretty bad just has a solid neutral so it kind of works

 

[1MachGO]

Usually we ban stages that can potentially invalidate characters due to degenerative strategies (see: KJ64). Peach, or any character with similar issues in vertical mobility (So basically every character not Fox/Falco/Falcon/Marth/Sheik/Pikachu and maybe Mewtwo) should get bopped by DL/Battlefield camping.

Top platforms on stages like Battlefield, DL, Yoshis, and FoD have honestly served no purpose other than camping, creating breathing room, the occasional extended combo, and giving a couple of characters an extra recovery option (probably just Fox and Pikachu though). Outside of a handful of scenarios, it pretty much never comes into play and only aids characters who are already good.

Though they tend to polarize a lot of MUs involving fastfallers (good and bad) FoD, FD, and Pokemon are probably the most "balanced" stages in the game because they are the hardest to camp on. You could make an argument for YS as well, but the stage honestly only favors Marth, Fox, Falco, and Yoshi to varying degrees.

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Off topic, but am I the only one who thinks Kirby isn't the worst character in the game? He is bad, but worst? Triple R recently got top 8 in The Great Revival, and I didn't see a zelda (not Sheik, I mean zelda) or a Bowser take one of the spots.

 

[Sir Bubbles]

Off topic, but am I the only one who thinks Kirby isn't the worst character in the game? He is bad, but worst? Triple R recently got top 8 in The Great Revival, and I didn't see a zelda (not Sheik, I mean zelda) or a Bowser take one of the spots.

Bowser is flat out worse than Kirby, no doubt about it.

But there is no way Kirby is better than Zelda. Triple R is amazing, and there's only a few good Zelda mains anyway, so seeing a good Zelda with a good Kirby in a tourney that isn't a national is pretty rare.

 

[EddyBearr]

Triple R actually thinks Zelda is worse than Kirby. I think he's wrong. But yeah, Kirby is definitely not the worst, any look at matchup spread or frame data, or even tournament results with Triple R and his regional semi-dominance for years, points that out.

 

[MarthZ]

its weird because kirby was awesome in 64

 

[DeepDish]

- Fox+Falco should be in their own tier.
- Tiers need to be better defined for the top 8 characters in general.
- Marth+Sheik: an argument can be made for either being above the other. Not a huge deal who outranks who, but if current top level play is considered, Marth is obviously doing much better
- An argument can be made for Samus to be above Doc and Pikachu.
- YLink should be bumped above Mario
- Yoshi should obviously be bumped up. I think he's better than Pikachu. Not totally sure if he should be considered better than Doc or Samus though.
- Luigi+Ganon are on similar potential footing and can stay where they are. An argument can be made for Luigi being better than Ganon and maybe even Pikachu if you want to get really crazy. Axe is the exception and not necessarily the rule for any argument involving Pikachu.
- To end the lower end of the tier list: G&W > Zelda > Mewtwo > Pichu > Kirby > Roy > Ness > Bowser
- I know it doesn't matter as much but G&W, Zelda, Mewtwo should be in their own tier. Then Kirby, Roy, Ness. Then Bowser. Bowser is bad.

 

[MarthZ]

- Fox+Falco should be in their own tier.
- Tiers need to be better defined for the top 8 characters in general.
- Marth+Sheik: an argument can be made for either being above the other. Not a huge deal who outranks who, but if current top level play is considered, Marth is obviously doing much better
- An argument can be made for Samus to be above Doc and Pikachu.
- YLink should be bumped above Mario
- Yoshi should obviously be bumped up. I think he's better than Pikachu. Not totally sure if he should be considered better than Doc or Samus though.
- Luigi+Ganon are on similar potential footing and can stay where they are. An argument can be made for Luigi being better than Ganon and maybe even Pikachu if you want to get really crazy. Axe is the exception and not necessarily the rule for any argument involving Pikachu.
- To end the lower end of the tier list: G&W > Zelda > Mewtwo > Pichu > Kirby > Roy > Ness > Bowser
- I know it doesn't matter as much but G&W, Zelda, Mewtwo should be in their own tier. Then Kirby, Roy, Ness. Then Bowser. Bowser is bad.

yeah this was 10 years ago but I'm still bringing it up Ken beat that one shiek and I think that pretty much started the arguments also M2K's Marth is extremly better than his sheik

sheik

Marth

 

[Doser]

- Fox+Falco should be in their own tier.

But why?

 

[Diddy Kong]

>

Those are my thoughts.

 

[DeepDish]

But why?

Match-up spreads are better and something something one frame move.

 

[Doser]

Match-up spreads are better and something something one frame move.

Marth really only has trouble with Sheik, most other matchups are evenish or in his favor. Hell, people are now thinking at the top levels he goes roughly even with Sheik. Sheik has a superb matchup spread as well. How is that radically different than Falco's matchups - especially divergent enough to warrant a tier break?

Also while shines are obviously great moves, I'm not sure how you can ignore other top tiers' amazingly effective moves/properties. For example, Marth has tons more disjointed range and grab range than the space animals, but does that make him in his own tier? Nope.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Marth also struggles with random cast members, such as Jigglypuff and Falcon, and even Ganon to a lesser degree. On the other hand, Fox, Falco and Sheik pretty much invalidate these characters (besides sheik/falco vs puff)

 

[Doser]

I'd say Falco struggles with Peach, Puff, and Samus

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

He struggles and yet still they are even match-ups

 

[Doser]

I could say the same for Marth with Jigglypuff and Captain Falcon. What's your point?

 

[1MachGO]

Fox, Marth, and Falco probably don't lose to a single character at top level and go even with each other in the current meta. Sheik's development has been somewhat stagnant lately but still deserves to be ranked in the bottom of top tier since her mus are so good (ICs and spacies probably being her own MUs that are less than even but still winnable)

@ Fortress | Sveet , those are some outdated viewpoints. Marth does not struggle with any of those characters. Falcon is possibly even but I suppose it depends on how lame Marth is willing to make the neutral for him. Ganon currently has no chance against any of the top 4.

I would say the only obscure character Marth "struggles" with is Yoshi but even then I doubt its worse than even. On the whole, I would actually argue that mid tiers would fare better against Fox/Falco than against Marth. Particularly the Mario bros., Pikachu, and Samus.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

You could say that, but that doesn't make it true.

 

[DeepDish]

Marth still has a harder time killing Puff, Falcon and even Yoshi at high percents while Falco does not have the same problem. You can't always get the early kills on these characters as Marth.