2013 Community Tier List

[Fortress | Sveet]

Well I'm more convinced we need an update. I think I may start this up again this summer.

 

[EddyBearr]

I think before an updated tier list, we should get an updated matchup chart; I always think tier lists should be very heavily about matchups and partially about results (and never about TAS level potential) I might put some effort in on this once summer happens.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I'd love to see that happen, but I don't think its necessary. If you want any help let me know. GL either way

 

[Cool]

UPDAAAAAAAAAAAAATE HYYYYYYYYYYYYYYPE

 

[LunarWingCloud]

Yes we definitely need an update to this

 

[Kidney Thief]

I've made a new tier list, this time I've been playing for over a year and I am considered the 16th best player in my region but since the last power rankings I'm probably around 11-12 now and our monthly tournaments brings on average 80 to 90 people. I've improved a lot since my last lists and I think my opinion is finally worth something for a change. so here it is :

Best Characters

1. Fox (A solid top spot and unless the metagame changes drastically I don't see him losing it for reasons that I feel have been mentionned enough times I won't go over it again)

2. Marth (Arguably should never lose if he doesn't mess up the neutral in most matchups, but because not messing up is impossible and there are some questionnable matchups such as Yoshi (once you know how to parry) and maybe Pikachu and Sheik he will stay below Fox)

3. Falco (Probably the best character at my skill level, but as people learn to powershield most of his lasers and space out of his short hop range his horizontal control is reduced, but he has shine and his down air if spaced properly are great tool and he has much more to work with that I feel I don't need to go over)


Second Best Character

4. Sheik (solid 4th place but I feel like because of her movement options she can't be classified in the same category than the best characters, but I think she's significantly better than the characters below her due to her easy wins on many mid tiers so she gets her own category alone)


Amazing characters

5. C Falcon (Probably one of the most under-developed characters because capfal mains tend to play stupidly for style instead of winning, but as we see the 20GX people are starting to develop this character seriously we will probably see him become the best or second best below the "great 4" of melee)

6. Peach (a character that has proved it's worth with Armada, I think that she still has a lot of unlocked potential. I as a player main of this character also believe she goes even with Jigglypuff it's just that Europeans suck against Jiggs so that has influenced my opinion)

Good Character

7. Jiggs (Probably one of the characters that has been the most developed compared to everyone else, and everyone is catching up or has already caught up to her so she can only go down in tier lists as time goes on, but for now I think she deserves her spot at 7th. Also due to the growing popularity of Fox I don't see Jiggs mains do too well in the current metagame but in due time I am likely to move her down with the above average characters)


Above Average Characters (At this point it gets hard to win a National)

8. Pikachu
9. Samus
10. Yoshi


Average Characters (At this point it gets hard to win a Regional)

11. Luigi
12. Ice Climbers
13. Doc
14. Ganondorf
15. Mario


Below Average Characters

16. Link
17. DK
18. Young Link
19. Roy


Bad Characters (At this point it gets hard to win a Local)

20. Game & Watch
21. Ness


Useless Characters (At this point it gets hard to win a Friendly)

22. Pichu
23. Zelda
24. Kirby
25. Mewtwo
26. Bowser

Last Update : May 11 2015

 

[keymanb]

Mine.

Falco
Fox
Marth
Shiek
Jiggle
Falcon
Peach
Ice climbers
Pikachu
Doc
Ganon
Luigi
Samus
Yoshi
Mario
DK
Young LInk
Link
Roy
Zelda
Game&Watch
Mewtwo
Ness
Bowser
Pichu
Kirby

 

[Sempai]

Damn, I need to catch up on Apex.

I have a highlight reel of Apex, if you need to make up some lost time. Just click my banner to be taken to my channel, it is my most recent video

 

[MTL Kyle]

I didn't want to post this, but I needed to write about this somewhere so I can copypaste my opinion whenever this kind of discussion shows up in my locals, so imma do it now (can't sleep qq).
I could leave it in a .txt, but I guess writing all this to myself defeats the point of making people think about the game. It's also easier to leave it in the cloud than just copypasting it in every pc I use lol.

Mind that this reflects a mix of my opinions + current state of top level metagame.
I'm not good or super knowledgeable, but I'm cocky enough to think I'm right about a bunch of stuff.

Unless I'm super dooper extra wrong about some stuff, refrain from "correct me". This is more a personal thing that I want to leave posted than an actual subject that I wanna discuss aout.

S tier

1. Fox
Best matchup spread, TAS god, has a lot of good options and his only barrier is how long you can play him without having injuries.
One could say he is tied with Marth or Falco for first, but NEVER lower than this.

2. Marth
Marth is probably the actual best character in the game at human levels, but he requires players to understand the neutral/stage control game (in older games like Street Fighter, people are still figuring out stuff about this, it's probably a never ending science).

3. Falco
Falco has some shaky matchups against floaties (Peach, Puff, Climbers even) but dominates the rest of the cast easily. You can even argue he has even matchups with Marth and Fox (which is a solid case for a 1~3 character).
I think he requires less technical prowess than Fox and there might be some flowchart into a lot of his decisions, but nevertheless, he is definitely a top tier character.

A tier

4. Jigglypuff
Puff has a straight up simple game. How to apply her game when you have a low ground mobility character is where the magic is.
I REALLY don't think Puff vs Fox is that bad (Hungrybox has been known for playing safe in the past, although recently he has been turning it up)


5. Sheik
Sheik should be lower, but a lot of her game has been optimized by top players, even though there is a lot more to develop in the character

6. Captain Falcon
Falcon is better than people put him to be. Yes he has failures, yes he has bad defensive options. Yes he has some terrible matchups (hello Falco). He is also ****ing fast, he has amazing ledge options, tech chases are a thing and he has a lot of guaranteed stuff in the rest of the cast. Falcon has pretty much every tool a character needs to punish some characters 0 to death.
Don't listen to Falcon mains, they think their character is bad because they get baired out of the stage 10x by Fox and think that is a thing that only happens with bad characters (brotip : the entire cast eats bairs and get shine spiked lmao).

B tier

7-8 tie . Peach
I like Peach. I think she is one of the most fun characters to play as. All her mechanics, possibilities, risk-reward things, mix-ups.
But it's a fact that she is the kind of character that has a lot of limitations. She loses pretty much to the entire top 8 sauf ICs. You have to outplay some people so much that makes you wonder why you are not playing a top tier character.

Outside of her top tier matchups, she is overall solid and beats consistently every single character under her. Maybe she has an even matchup against YLink, but who cares lmao.

7-8 tie. Ice Climbers
I'm also a huge Climbers fan and I love playing them as my secondaries. Wobbling is a ***** and kinda breaks the punish game, which is fine, considering you have to play an almost perfectly to have the super punishes.
ICs even have decent matchups against some of the strongest characters in the game (Sheik, Falco and arguably Puff) and might wreck other ones that are lower than him (Pikachu and Yoshi are crying in a corner).

Fact is, ICs have a bunch of soft/hard counters to them. Wobbling is overpowered if Nana is alive and you can get the grab. It's really hard to grab some characters and the slight mistake is death. They also ****ing suck at edgeguarding.
Marth, YLink/Link give some trouble to them and Peach/Fox/Ganon/Falcon completely destroy them.
ICs are the definition of a polarized design and I feel this is the highest spot they can get in the list.

C tier - GRAY ZONE - I may know or not what I'm talking about

9. Pikachu
Axe is a good player and is probably the best representation Pikachu could get.
He pushed the limits of the character to the point where if one says Pika vs Fox is even I can almost agree (55-45 would be more accurate). Pikachu has amazing tools against 2 of the best characters in the game.

Then what is stopping him from joining the fray of the top 8 ?
Peach can literally sit down, crouch and wait Pikachu to press a button. Silly Kyle has a really good record against Axe and last time Armada played Axe, it showed how hard this can be.
ICs, Sheik, Marth and one could say Falcon also give some trouble to the rat.

10. Yoshi
aMSa is amazing and everybody is hyped up, but lets talk seriously.
Yoshi vs Marth is not that bad. aMSa developed a lot of stuff against spacies and each time he comes to NA, his kill count rises.

Thing is, Yoshi bad matchups pretty much expose the character. Peach, Sheik and even Falcon/ICs.
He might have solutions for some of them, but he shouldn't move further than this.


11. Samus
One could say she also has good matchups against Spacies, one could say she doesn't.
Reality is, aside from Samus players, nobody really understands the character.
She gets outclassed by Peach in many of the matchups (maybe not against Falco/Fox, but who would know) and gets destroyed by some characters where Peach wouldn't have as much of a problem (Falcon/Sheik1).


12. Luigi
Call out : Luigi mains can punish and techchase better. I think a hyper mobile character with good normals should have better representation. With that said, Fox, Falcon, Sheik, Marth and Falco apparently are really hard.

13. Doc
With Shroomed dropping the character for really good reasons, we can wonder, what the character still has to offer.
With a strong punish game on fast fallers, Doc kinda falls flat against floaties.
Marth, Sheik and Peach all seem to be a big threat to this character and without high level representation, this character might stay super underdeveloped.

___________________________________________________________________

/\ WARNING :
The game is considerably less fun if you play the characters listed below this line. Competition is all about winning but sometimes you wanna win on your means, I get it.
The characters I'm listing get heavily outclassed by others and you would probably enjoy the game more and even improve faster if you just pick a better character.
YOU WERE WARNED
____________________________________________________________________

D TIER

14-15 tie. Mario
Mario is everything that Doc wanted to be before joining the Med School and getting richer. Mario can recover better, Mario can angle his F-Smash and has a better reach, Mario is athletic enough he can wall jump, Mario cape feels more useful. Why Mario would be worse than Doc outside of an IQ contest ?

Mario can't kill for **** and his combo finisher is usually a super underwhelming Nair.
If you consider the character properties and matchups, he might be the best low/non-viable tiered character.

14-15 tie .Ganon

I played a lot with Kage and the only things that I can think when I play him are :
- Ganon sucks
- I'm getting heavily outplayed
- How the **** does he beat spacies lmao
Ganon gets pooped on by a lot of characters but his punish game is a straight forward punch into your face. 3~5 moves hit you and you are dead, simple stuff.
Getting those important hits is a grind, but overall the character is bad, don't deceive yourself.

15. Young Link
I might be thinking too little of YLink. Projectile spamming is a style of play that is not well developed in Melee ("because **** playing gay MAYLAY4lief **** brawl!1!!1" -DocuEVO random that plays a weekly once every 4 months).
He might actually be good against character with low vertical mobility.

Fact is, Sheik is a thing and he can't escape his fate against other characters in the cast (combo oriented ones like Falcon or Fox just poop on him).

His best use is probably at counterpicking.

16. Link
Same as above, but with better killing power and worse overall. I've seen SAUS play and I get impressed with new stuff every time. You can tell Link is not a really good character, but he has some cool **** going on

__________

I'm not putting numbers anymore here because :
- Not many people have discussed their matchups
- They might be countered or counter people in mid/low tiers, which would change their placement a bit
- They are bad and ranking the best of the worst is kinda meh


I'm still putting up in order of what I think can be better, but if you tell me X character doesn't deserve the 18th position or whatever I won't argue lol
__________

E TIER - Do you even have fun playing this game ?

Zelda
Zelda shouldn't even be here, as it is not fair for her to compare herself 75% of the cast. The possibility of changing to an actual viable character should take her out of the discussion.

Real talk, Zelda does well against ICs and might not be as bad against Peach in small stages. Might even be good against Samus, but who gives a ****, amirite ?

Pichu
srsly, Pichu is not as bad as people think. Cross up nairs are good, he has good recovery and good normals over all.
Yes he is light, but again, all the low tiers have bad properties and I think Pichu's possibilities as a whole character are better than the rest and he can actually use his moves to put pressure on opponents and find windows to outplay people in a legit way.

Ness
Ness is not as bad as people want to put him to be. He has a good punish game compared to a lot of the characters in the cast. But 90% of the time, he loses to himself, as he has no reliable way to approach, his recovery sucks << and everything he does is unsafe on shield (and he has poor grab follow ups).

DK
Confirms on fast fallers (0-60 punishes with a reset at the end, which can lead to a stock), terrible shield, the definition of combo food, but with some cool jank.

Game&Watch
Gdubs is the fine line between complete garbo and what almost could've been a playable low tier character.
Terrible properties, good movement, good confirms, amazing offstage game and really good normals.

Mewtwo
I lied. Mewtwo is also the fine line between garbage and almost a decent character.
He has a giant roll, a fairly good recovery and his DJC **** can throw people off. His punish game is actually good and he can edgeguard offstage and not die unlike 90% of the low tiers.

But then that hurtbox on the tail happened and killed every single M2 main ever.

F TIER - Please don't main those characters if you love yourself

Bowser
Up-B OoS and Side B are the only things that Bowser has going for him.

Roy
Unfinished hitboxes, combo food, can't edgeguard, can't recover.
CC Dtilt is cool and would be better (as in, he wouldn't be extremely whack to play as) if he had decent followups to that lol

Kirby
Kirby is a joke character. You can mash out of his ****, he has no combos and 90% of the character is jank.
He has 5 jumps and his recovery is still garbage, I mean, wtf lol

He actually has an incredibly good matchup against Marth as far as low tiers against him go though lmao

 

[keymanb]

I didn't want to post this, but I needed to write about this somewhere so I can copypaste my opinion whenever this kind of discussion shows up in my locals, so imma do it now (can't sleep qq).
I could leave it in a .txt, but I guess writing all this to myself defeats the point of making people think about the game. It's also easier to leave it in the cloud than just copypasting it in every pc I use lol.

Mind that this reflects a mix of my opinions + current state of top level metagame.
I'm not good or super knowledgeable, but I'm cocky enough to think I'm right about a bunch of stuff.

Unless I'm super dooper extra wrong about some stuff, refrain from "correct me". This is more a personal thing that I want to leave posted than an actual subject that I wanna discuss aout.

S tier

1. Fox
Best matchup spread, TAS god, has a lot of good options and his only barrier is how long you can play him without having injuries.
One could say he is tied with Marth or Falco for first, but NEVER lower than this.

2. Marth
Marth is probably the actual best character in the game at human levels, but he requires players to understand the neutral/stage control game (in older games like Street Fighter, people are still figuring out stuff about this, it's probably a never ending science).

3. Falco
Falco has some shaky matchups against floaties (Peach, Puff, Climbers even) but dominates the rest of the cast easily. You can even argue he has even matchups with Marth and Fox (which is a solid case for a 1~3 character).
I think he requires less technical prowess than Fox and there might be some flowchart into a lot of his decisions, but nevertheless, he is definitely a top tier character.

A tier

4. Jigglypuff
Puff has a straight up simple game. How to apply her game when you have a low ground mobility character is where the magic is.
I REALLY don't think Puff vs Fox is that bad (Hungrybox has been known for playing safe in the past, although recently he has been turning it up)


5. Sheik
Sheik should be lower, but a lot of her game has been optimized by top players, even though there is a lot more to develop in the character

6. Captain Falcon
Falcon is better than people put him to be. Yes he has failures, yes he has bad defensive options. Yes he has some terrible matchups (hello Falco). He is also ****ing fast, he has amazing ledge options, tech chases are a thing and he has a lot of guaranteed stuff in the rest of the cast. Falcon has pretty much every tool a character needs to punish some characters 0 to death.
Don't listen to Falcon mains, they think their character is bad because they get baired out of the stage 10x by Fox and think that is a thing that only happens with bad characters (brotip : the entire cast eats bairs and get shine spiked lmao).

B tier

7-8 tie . Peach
I like Peach. I think she is one of the most fun characters to play as. All her mechanics, possibilities, risk-reward things, mix-ups.
But it's a fact that she is the kind of character that has a lot of limitations. She loses pretty much to the entire top 8 sauf ICs. You have to outplay some people so much that makes you wonder why you are not playing a top tier character.

Outside of her top tier matchups, she is overall solid and beats consistently every single character under her. Maybe she has an even matchup against YLink, but who cares lmao.

7-8 tie. Ice Climbers
I'm also a huge Climbers fan and I love playing them as my secondaries. Wobbling is a ***** and kinda breaks the punish game, which is fine, considering you have to play an almost perfectly to have the super punishes.
ICs even have decent matchups against some of the strongest characters in the game (Sheik, Falco and arguably Puff) and might wreck other ones that are lower than him (Pikachu and Yoshi are crying in a corner).

Fact is, ICs have a bunch of soft/hard counters to them. Wobbling is overpowered if Nana is alive and you can get the grab. It's really hard to grab some characters and the slight mistake is death. They also ****ing suck at edgeguarding.
Marth, YLink/Link give some trouble to them and Peach/Fox/Ganon/Falcon completely destroy them.
ICs are the definition of a polarized design and I feel this is the highest spot they can get in the list.

C tier - GRAY ZONE - I may know or not what I'm talking about

9. Pikachu
Axe is a good player and is probably the best representation Pikachu could get.
He pushed the limits of the character to the point where if one says Pika vs Fox is even I can almost agree (55-45 would be more accurate). Pikachu has amazing tools against 2 of the best characters in the game.

Then what is stopping him from joining the fray of the top 8 ?
Peach can literally sit down, crouch and wait Pikachu to press a button. Silly Kyle has a really good record against Axe and last time Armada played Axe, it showed how hard this can be.
ICs, Sheik, Marth and one could say Falcon also give some trouble to the rat.

10. Yoshi
aMSa is amazing and everybody is hyped up, but lets talk seriously.
Yoshi vs Marth is not that bad. aMSa developed a lot of stuff against spacies and each time he comes to NA, his kill count rises.

Thing is, Yoshi bad matchups pretty much expose the character. Peach, Sheik and even Falcon/ICs.
He might have solutions for some of them, but he shouldn't move further than this.


11. Samus
One could say she also has good matchups against Spacies, one could say she doesn't.
Reality is, aside from Samus players, nobody really understands the character.
She gets outclassed by Peach in many of the matchups (maybe not against Falco/Fox, but who would know) and gets destroyed by some characters where Peach wouldn't have as much of a problem (Falcon/Sheik1).


12. Luigi
Call out : Luigi mains can punish and techchase better. I think a hyper mobile character with good normals should have better representation. With that said, Fox, Falcon, Sheik, Marth and Falco apparently are really hard.

13. Doc
With Shroomed dropping the character for really good reasons, we can wonder, what the character still has to offer.
With a strong punish game on fast fallers, Doc kinda falls flat against floaties.
Marth, Sheik and Peach all seem to be a big threat to this character and without high level representation, this character might stay super underdeveloped.

___________________________________________________________________

/\ WARNING :
The game is considerably less fun if you play the characters listed below this line. Competition is all about winning but sometimes you wanna win on your means, I get it.
The characters I'm listing get heavily outclassed by others and you would probably enjoy the game more and even improve faster if you just pick a better character.
YOU WERE WARNED
____________________________________________________________________

D TIER

14-15 tie. Mario
Mario is everything that Doc wanted to be before joining the Med School and getting richer. Mario can recover better, Mario can angle his F-Smash and has a better reach, Mario is athletic enough he can wall jump, Mario cape feels more useful. Why Mario would be worse than Doc outside of an IQ contest ?

Mario can't kill for **** and his combo finisher is usually a super underwhelming Nair.
If you consider the character properties and matchups, he might be the best low/non-viable tiered character.

14-15 tie .Ganon

I played a lot with Kage and the only things that I can think when I play him are :
- Ganon sucks
- I'm getting heavily outplayed
- How the **** does he beat spacies lmao
Ganon gets pooped on by a lot of characters but his punish game is a straight forward punch into your face. 3~5 moves hit you and you are dead, simple stuff.
Getting those important hits is a grind, but overall the character is bad, don't deceive yourself.

15. Young Link
I might be thinking too little of YLink. Projectile spamming is a style of play that is not well developed in Melee ("because **** playing gay MAYLAY4lief **** brawl!1!!1" -DocuEVO random that plays a weekly once every 4 months).
He might actually be good against character with low vertical mobility.

Fact is, Sheik is a thing and he can't escape his fate against other characters in the cast (combo oriented ones like Falcon or Fox just poop on him).

His best use is probably at counterpicking.

16. Link
Same as above, but with better killing power and worse overall. I've seen SAUS play and I get impressed with new stuff every time. You can tell Link is not a really good character, but he has some cool **** going on

__________

I'm not putting numbers anymore here because :
- Not many people have discussed their matchups
- They might be countered or counter people in mid/low tiers, which would change their placement a bit
- They are bad and ranking the best of the worst is kinda meh


I'm still putting up in order of what I think can be better, but if you tell me X character doesn't deserve the 18th position or whatever I won't argue lol
__________

E TIER - Do you even have fun playing this game ?

Zelda
Zelda shouldn't even be here, as it is not fair for her to compare herself 75% of the cast. The possibility of changing to an actual viable character should take her out of the discussion.

Real talk, Zelda does well against ICs and might not be as bad against Peach in small stages. Might even be good against Samus, but who gives a ****, amirite ?

Pichu
srsly, Pichu is not as bad as people think. Cross up nairs are good, he has good recovery and good normals over all.
Yes he is light, but again, all the low tiers have bad properties and I think Pichu's possibilities as a whole character are better than the rest and he can actually use his moves to put pressure on opponents and find windows to outplay people in a legit way.

Ness
Ness is not as bad as people want to put him to be. He has a good punish game compared to a lot of the characters in the cast. But 90% of the time, he loses to himself, as he has no reliable way to approach, his recovery sucks << and everything he does is unsafe on shield (and he has poor grab follow ups).

DK
Confirms on fast fallers (0-60 punishes with a reset at the end, which can lead to a stock), terrible shield, the definition of combo food, but with some cool jank.

Game&Watch
Gdubs is the fine line between complete garbo and what almost could've been a playable low tier character.
Terrible properties, good movement, good confirms, amazing offstage game and really good normals.

Mewtwo
I lied. Mewtwo is also the fine line between garbage and almost a decent character.
He has a giant roll, a fairly good recovery and his DJC **** can throw people off. His punish game is actually good and he can edgeguard offstage and not die unlike 90% of the low tiers.

But then that hurtbox on the tail happened and killed every single M2 main ever.

F TIER - Please don't main those characters if you love yourself

Bowser
Up-B OoS and Side B are the only things that Bowser has going for him.

Roy
Unfinished hitboxes, combo food, can't edgeguard, can't recover.
CC Dtilt is cool and would be better (as in, he wouldn't be extremely whack to play as) if he had decent followups to that lol

Kirby
Kirby is a joke character. You can mash out of his ****, he has no combos and 90% of the character is jank.
He has 5 jumps and his recovery is still garbage, I mean, wtf lol

He actually has an incredibly good matchup against Marth as far as low tiers against him go though lmao

Ganon, needs to be higher.

 

[MTL Kyle]

Ganon, needs to be higher.

IMO Ganon has some glaring weaknesses and I don't think he is objectively better than the characters I listed.
A lot of his less bad matchups are stage dependent and let's not talk about FD.

His only good matchup above him are ICs and maybe Samus (cuz she dies heh) and I feel he just beats the characters under him because they manage to be more failed than Ganon.
I've also seen Kage lose to SAUS because Ganon can't deal with projectile camping on top platform very well.

 

[kingPiano]

IMO Ganon has some glaring weaknesses and I don't think he is objectively better than the characters I listed.
A lot of his less bad matchups are stage dependent and let's not talk about FD.

His only good matchup above him are ICs and maybe Samus (cuz she dies heh) and I feel he just beats the characters under him because they manage to be more failed than Ganon.
I've also seen Kage lose to SAUS because Ganon can't deal with projectile camping on top platform very well.

Well the problem here is that objectively Ganon mains have been able to get top rankings at nationals before and still do. Kage usually being in the top 10 and rarely dipping down to top 25, and when Bizzarro gets serious he also gets really good results. Kage is also known for beating Mango twice in a row when he was considered the best in the world and some of the matches were not even close. This is why people have a lot of respect for Kage and the character; it wasn't a lucky run either since he's performed consistently with Ganon for a while now, still does and so do others.

And that set with SAUS is pretty much inconsequential, it's like seeing Unknown get destroyed by DJN's Bowser and claiming that Fox should be low tier (same with Chillin and DP). Or seeing a Young Link beat Hungry Box or Fly Aminita and changing ICs and Puff's viability....there are always mid-low tiers that have deceptive MUs on top tiers. There has to repeated results if you are going to make such a strong change. Currently there is overwhelming evidence for Ganon to be where he is.

.

 

[MTL Kyle]

Well the problem here is that objectively Ganon mains have been able to get top rankings at nationals before and still do.
.

If by top rankings you mean top64, sure.
So did ScorpionMaster or Abate/Eddy Mexico with other characters.

They get those rankings because of their skills as players, not because their character is good.

Kage usually being in the top 10 and rarely dipping down to top 25, and when Bizzarro gets serious he also gets really good results.
.

That is because they are good players, not because Ganon is a good character or anything.
Pretty much like when M2K busted out M2 against MacD (a matchup that M2 should lose by a lot).

Tier lists don't count the player factor and they are not supposed to.

Kage is also known for beating Mango twice in a row when he was considered the best in the world and some of the matches were not even close.
.

That set is controversial, but sure, a double W is a double W.
He beat him with Link in the next tournament though lol

And that set with SAUS is pretty much inconsequential
.

That set ? SAUS has taken multiple sets of Kage afaik.

Currently there is overwhelming evidence for Ganon to be where he is.
.

What is the overwhelming evidence ? Ganon performing at regions where there are no high level Ganon players ?

 

[kingPiano]

If by top rankings you mean top64, sure.
So did ScorpionMaster or Abate/Eddy Mexico with other characters.

They get those rankings because of their skills as players, not because their character is good.



That is because they are good players, not because Ganon is a good character or anything.
Pretty much like when M2K busted out M2 against MacD (a matchup that M2 should lose by a lot).

Tier lists don't count the player factor and they are not supposed to.



That set is controversial, but sure, a double W is a double W.
He beat him with Link in the next tournament though lol




That set ? SAUS has taken multiple sets of Kage afaik.




What is the overwhelming evidence ? Ganon performing at regions where there are no high level Ganon players ?

Every one of these points has absolutely no bearing on an actual tier list; they are misguided, misinformed, bad comparisons, and a lot of it is just heavily biased against Ganondorf (there also seems to be a general ignorance of the character). In time you will realize this.

Do just a few seconds of research: http://www.ssbwiki.com/Smasher:Kage
Look at the placings, at nationals....that's just a taste.

Also you are being extremely hypocritical with every point. For example: So a certain Link player can beat a certain Ganon player. Well then according to your logic it's 100% the player and not the characters at all, so nothing matters in any match ever :/ Your point you bring up is literally 0.00000001% of the tons and tons of results that you see Kage and other Ganondorfs get at nationals and regionals in the past and present. One player using a character and beating another player using a character doesn't all of a sudden change a tier list. This is all you seem to basing your placement of Ganon on.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Every one of these points has absolutely no bearing on an actual tier list; they are misguided, misinformed, bad comparisons, and a lot of it is just heavily biased against Ganondorf (there also seems to be a general ignorance of the character). In time you will realize this.

What are you blabbering about? He refuted all your points and you basically replied with "LALALALA *covers ears* I'm right because I say so LALALALALALA"

That is not how discussion works

 

[gmBottles]

Bowser
Up-B OoS and Side B are the only things that Bowser has going for him.

While I agree with this placement, you obviously have no idea about Bowser's gameplay lol

 

[MTL Kyle]

Dude trying to link me Kage when he is from my region and frequently attend tournaments that I host, oh wow LOL

While I agree with this placement, you obviously have no idea about Bowser's gameplay lol

Can you tell me more ? There are no local Bowsers and I fail to understand other good options of the character.

TBH, none of the babble about the characters aside from Ness (Vrud, a really good Ness and probably the best active one lives in Montreal) is something you should consider.
I thought I had written it somewhere, I guess not lol

 

[gmBottles]

Can you tell me more ? There are no local Bowsers and I fail to understand other good options of the character.

TBH, none of the babble about the characters aside from Ness (Vrud, a really good Ness and probably the best active one lives in Montreal) is something you should consider.
I thought I had written it somewhere, I guess not lol

I mostly just mean that that isn't all he has. His side b is actually pretty situational and hard to land, DJN just makes it look easy. I won't pretend Bowser has lots of options, because let's face it, he just doesn't. However, if you spent the whole game just upb-ing OoS and side b-ing you have no chance of winning. His fair is a pretty good move, especially for slapping people trying to recover. His reads are hella strong too with his smash attacks. His ftilt is a pretty decent spacing move that comes out surprisingly fast. And, just a little something a lot of people don't know, Fox can't up throw up air Bowser, as his second jump comes out fast and he can just jump out of it.

 

[kingPiano]

Dude trying to link me Kage when he is from my region and frequently attend tournaments that I host, oh wow LOL




Can you tell me more ? There are no local Bowsers and I fail to understand other good options of the character.

TBH, none of the babble about the characters aside from Ness (Vrud, a really good Ness and probably the best active one lives in Montreal) is something you should consider.
I thought I had written it somewhere, I guess not lol

Seems fairly obvious you have no clue who J$ is, I'd trust his opinion on Bowser a million times more than I would yours. It's not babble like what you might read and hear about concerning Ness he has actual experience with Bowser.

If you would care to respond to my actual post instead of ignoring my solid point.

"Also you are being extremely hypocritical with every point. For example: So a certain Link player can beat a certain Ganon player. Well then according to your own logic it's 100% the player and not the characters at all, so nothing matters in any match ever especially the one SAUS set you are dangling :/ Your point you bring up is literally 0.00000001% of the tons and tons of results that you see Kage and other Ganondorfs get at nationals and regionals in the past and present. One player using a character and beating another player using a character doesn't all of a sudden alter a tier list or character's placement. This is all you seem to basing your placement of Ganon on."

So then I'm curious MTL Kyle when does it become the character and not the player? When one Ness main beats some people at Evo and gets 385th? Or when Ganons time and time again show that they can beat top tier characters top ranked players on a national and regional level attaining top 10, top 25, top 50 results? Or does it only matter when it's characters you like? I think this is also reflected in your placement of Yoshi, one main....how does your OWN argument not apply about it being the player and not the character?

I'd like to also mention that Mr. Branondorf got 33rd at EVO 2014....with Ganon. Concerning SAUS and Kage, Kage has 3 stocked SAUS twice and beat him in more sets than SAUS has beat Kage. Again it's just bias; SAUS's Link is awesome and Link as a character is awesome, but I'm able to separate my feelings from the facts.

 

[Dolla Pills]

Yeah, like people aren't comfortable ranking Yoshi high on the tier list just because amsa places well, but Ganondorf has at least a couple notable players that consistently do quite well at large events. It's ignorant to say that all Ganon's success is due to player skill when there are multiple people that place well unlike Yoshi or Pikachu.

Personally, I think Ganon is a character that gets worse as people get better. However, his ability to effortlessly convert one or two solid reads into a stock as well as wall people out means that he will remain a relevant character.

I'd say more but it's my birthday today

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

People forget that V3ctorman made top 32 at a national with Yoshi long before anyone ever heard of aMSa

PS. Happy birthday Dolla Pills

 

[EddyBearr]

@ MTL Kyle Your tier list is largely within reason. I would say Sheik is definitely better than Puff, though. However, your E and F tiers are a bit of a disaster. DK is infinitely better than Pichu and Ness, with one of the strongest punish games in the game. G&W is far, far, better than Pichu and Ness as well. Same goes for Roy. Similarly, I strongly disagree with Kirby being the worst, but not many people know much about Kirby.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

People forget that V3ctorman made top 32 at a national with Yoshi long before anyone ever heard of aMSa

PS. Happy birthday Dolla Pills

At the same time people will not give you much attention unless you manage to keep doing it routinely.

 

[Sempai]

How have QWOPs results been?

 

[kingPiano]

Well V3ctorman also used Falco throughout that tournament...

And no one has forgotten, most people even know that AmSa was inspired by people like V3ctorman and Lil Fumi. He always gives them credit in his interviews. Maybe the new doc kids generation don't know, but really I think we all can agree that matters little.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

At the same time people will not give you much attention unless you manage to keep doing it routinely.

The continued attention of the majority is hardly relevant. Vman made a ton of waves back in the day, and really helped show people that Yoshi is viable as a competitive character. Whose fault is it when people weren't ready a short time later aMSa came onto the scene with an even more refined Yoshi?

This is simply my refutation that there has only been one Yoshi to do what aMSa has done. Of course he has the most success, but him doing well wasn't a surprise to all of us.

 

[V3ctorMan]

=)

aMSa is the man.

I used Falco round one of the tourney except for one match. The next two rounds I went all yoshi. Aziz motivated me after I took a game off him and after beating Azen both with Yoshi.

I lost to DJ and Kels both good, fun, close games.

Afterwards, I disappeared for a bit. I came back around 2013 pretty washed up since it had been a few years.

Apex 2013, I lost early in r2, EVO 2013 was likely the worst I've ever played in my career.

Apex 2014 I actually placed 25th? 33rd? I beat Redd, losing to m2k and Harriet.
aMSa just happened to get 9th so MOST people don't know honestly haha which is fine. =)
To this day even the PM Scene thought he was the yoshi that made pm bracket. It doesn't really bother me being over looked or forgotten.

My last tourney was EVO 2014.

fun times were had. =)

Basically I'm on/off. Sadly during these tournies were the only time I played/practiced like ever... I was the only player in my small town, with no car and with AZs scene being a 3 hour drive away from me. The struggle =/

I obviously can't say what could've been if I was in a better situation, but with my only practice being the actual tournies themselves, I can't or won't complain too much. =) I had fun, and held my own kinda lol

I've finally moved to Phoenix so I'm in an area where smash can actually happen since it's more than just me now..

I'm old though..and washed up more but you'll see me time and time again. .Its now my job to watch everyone else become amazing. =) I'll just make sure I keep axe in shape, and watch you all become amazing. <3

Sveet: thanks, I Haven't seen my own eggstinction video in years... the memories =)
Been to busy watching the world. <3

Stay amazing everyone ^^

 

[MTL Kyle]

@ MTL Kyle Your tier list is largely within reason. I would say Sheik is definitely better than Puff, though. However, your E and F tiers are a bit of a disaster. DK is infinitely better than Pichu and Ness, with one of the strongest punish games in the game. G&W is far, far, better than Pichu and Ness as well. Same goes for Roy. Similarly, I strongly disagree with Kirby being the worst, but not many people know much about Kirby.

I mean, just from matchups of Top 8
Sheik wins : Falcon, Peach, Marth
Puff wins : Sheik, Peach, one could argue Falcon, Falco and ICs.

Sheik obviously eviscerates everything that is not top 8.
Puff vs YLink obviously is won by Puff, but the matchup can be shaky in certain stages.

I guess Puff vs Fox is clearly ****tier than Sheik vs Fox and that should be taken in count and Pikachu vs Puff is something that we don't know thoroughly .

I still think that Jigglypuff is the better character and probably more consistent than Sheik, but that enters in the matter of theorycrafting and probably personal reasons.

______________________

With the important things said I would like to quote a pretty important :
"I'm still putting up in order of what I think can be better, but if you tell me X character doesn't deserve the 18th position or whatever I won't argue lol"

I could sit down and theorycraft and probably write more reasonable babbles and probably rank the characters better based on top tier matchups vs matchups against themselves and reach a logical conclusion about stuff. But I truly think it's not worth my time at all. I might do it for the low tier hero friends though, but as of now, naaaaah.

Kirby is probably not the absolute worst character in the game just because his matchup against one of the top tiers is not super terrible, because he has a ****load of edgeguarding setups on him, which should be counted (but it never was or I wasn't aware that it was counted as an important factor) as a plus.

Seems fairly obvious you have no clue who J$ is, I'd trust his opinion on Bowser a million times more than I would yours.

I don't have any clue who J$ is, but sincerely ? I would trust him more than I would trust myself about Bowser too. You know why ? Because I'm a grown up and I know how to argue, criticize and have a debate. I know how to recognize when I'm wrong and when I might be wrong and I'm open to hear everything he says. I'm open to learning and I'm happy he answered me.

He taught me some stuff and my opinion of Bowser remains unchanged, but more clear, thanks to him

If you would care to respond to my actual post instead of ignoring my solid point.

I don't have to when your objective is to climb the "condescending posts" ladder.

I feel I'm being personally attacked for no reason (unless if you consider Ganon your waifu. If you here are to defend him/her/zhe/they/shim, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt the Dark Lord/Lady/Lody feelings) and I don't trust your capacity in arguing . I also doubt we are going to trade/share knowledge or even finish the discussion with anything other than "I'm kingPiano and I'm right and you have to abide to my opinion".

I rather invest my time in discussing with other people.

Have a nice day.

I mostly just mean that that isn't all he has. His side b is actually pretty situational and hard to land, DJN just makes it look easy. I won't pretend Bowser has lots of options, because let's face it, he just doesn't. However, if you spent the whole game just upb-ing OoS and side b-ing you have no chance of winning. His fair is a pretty good move, especially for slapping people trying to recover. His reads are hella strong too with his smash attacks. His ftilt is a pretty decent spacing move that comes out surprisingly fast. And, just a little something a lot of people don't know, Fox can't up throw up air Bowser, as his second jump comes out fast and he can just jump out of it.

What I meant by side B being good is that it's probably the only useful command grab in the game (Yoshi's is kinda meh) and I've seen decent uses of it (shoutouts to monsieur Hendrick for that!). Adding a mixup to an aerial approach (Aerial [loses to shield cuz lol framedata] or Air Grab [beats early shield] or Empty Hop + MixUp) is pretty good IMO.

Overusing your options is not a good gameplan (after the 35th UpB OoS, they might try to learn how to play against it) so I understand what you are saying. All the other options they can be considered good but in the big picture I don't think they matter that much outside of the microcosm of Bowser's less ****ty matchups.

I would probably have to compare good options of each characters and applications in certain matchups to reach a reasonable conclusion of what the order of the low tiers actually is.

I would probably factor in stuff that people did not consider in past tiers (or considered and I didn't pay attention cuz I was a skurb when I first started playing and paying attention to the list), but I think the whole project of coming up with a reasonable full list with my opinion would take too much time.

 

[Dolla Pills]

I mean, just from matchups of Top 8
Sheik wins : Falcon, Peach, Marth
Puff wins : Sheik, Peach, one could argue Falcon, Falco and ICs.

Sheik obviously eviscerates everything that is not top 8.
Puff vs YLink obviously is won by Puff, but the matchup can be shaky in certain stages.

I guess Puff vs Fox is clearly ****tier than Sheik vs Fox and that should be taken in count and Pikachu vs Puff is something that we don't know thoroughly .

I still think that Jigglypuff is the better character and probably more consistent than Sheik, but that enters in the matter of theorycrafting and probably personal reasons.

______________________

With the important things said I would like to quote a pretty important :
"I'm still putting up in order of what I think can be better, but if you tell me X character doesn't deserve the 18th position or whatever I won't argue lol"

I could sit down and theorycraft and probably write more reasonable babbles and probably rank the characters better based on top tier matchups vs matchups against themselves and reach a logical conclusion about stuff. But I truly think it's not worth my time at all. I might do it for the low tier hero friends though, but as of now, naaaaah.

Kirby is probably not the absolute worst character in the game just because his matchup against one of the top tiers is not super terrible, because he has a ****load of edgeguarding setups on him, which should be counted (but it never was or I wasn't aware that it was counted as an important factor) as a plus.



I don't have any clue who J$ is, but sincerely ? I would trust him more than I would trust myself about Bowser too. You know why ? Because I'm a grown up and I know how to argue, criticize and have a debate. I know how to recognize when I'm wrong and when I might be wrong and I'm open to hear everything he says. I'm open to learning and I'm happy he answered me.

He taught me some stuff and my opinion of Bowser remains unchanged, but more clear, thanks to him



I don't have to when your objective is to climb the "condescending posts" ladder.

I feel I'm being personally attacked for no reason (unless if you consider Ganon your waifu. If you here are to defend him/her/zhe/they/shim, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt the Dark Lord/Lady/Lody feelings) and I don't trust your capacity in arguing . I also doubt we are going to trade/share knowledge or even finish the discussion with anything other than "I'm kingPiano and I'm right and you have to abide to my opinion".

I rather invest my time in discussing with other people.

Have a nice day.




What I meant by side B being good is that it's probably the only useful command grab in the game (Yoshi's is kinda meh) and I've seen decent uses of it (shoutouts to monsieur Hendrick for that!). Adding a mixup to an aerial approach (Aerial [loses to shield cuz lol framedata] or Air Grab [beats early shield] or Empty Hop + MixUp) is pretty good IMO.

Overusing your options is not a good gameplan (after the 35th UpB OoS, they might try to learn how to play against it) so I understand what you are saying. All the other options they can be considered good but in the big picture I don't think they matter that much outside of the microcosm of Bowser's less ****ty matchups.

I would probably have to compare good options of each characters and applications in certain matchups to reach a reasonable conclusion of what the order of the low tiers actually is.

I would probably factor in stuff that people did not consider in past tiers (or considered and I didn't pay attention cuz I was a skurb when I first started playing and paying attention to the list), but I think the whole project of coming up with a reasonable full list with my opinion would take too much time.

God bless you

 

[EddyBearr]

I mean, just from matchups of Top 8
Sheik wins : Falcon, Peach, Marth
Puff wins : Sheik, Peach, one could argue Falcon, Falco and ICs.

Sheik obviously eviscerates everything that is not top 8.
Puff vs YLink obviously is won by Puff, but the matchup can be shaky in certain stages.

I guess Puff vs Fox is clearly ****tier than Sheik vs Fox and that should be taken in count and Pikachu vs Puff is something that we don't know thoroughly .

I still think that Jigglypuff is the better character and probably more consistent than Sheik, but that enters in the matter of theorycrafting and probably personal reasons.

Vs Fox: Sheik has a small disadvantage, but Puff has a large disadvantage
Vs Falco: It's about comparable -- both are around even-ish.
Vs Sheik: I still think Puff beats Sheik, but more people tend to view it as even-ish now.
Vs Marth: Sheik has an advantage here, Puff is around even
Vs Puff: see Sheik
Vs Peach: Puff probably beats Peach harder
Vs Falcon: Sheik clearly wins, Puff probably has an advantage
Vs IC's: Both appear to be at a small disadvantage. IC's-Puff often gets touted as IC's favored, but the matchup is rarely discussed.

Vs Doc: Sheik has a clear edge over Puff
Vs YL: It seems obvious to most YL players that the matchup is about even -- definitely not "Puff obviously wins".

So in the long haul..

Puff has a huge disadvantage against Fox
Puff might have a small advantage on Sheik -- Sheik might have a small advantage on Marth (trades off imo)
Puff gets a boost with Puff/Peach, Sheik neutralizes much of it with Falcon.
Sheik regains "tie" disregarding Fox with 9-26 (Doc/YL) rarities.

Thus all that really should be looked at for Puff vs Sheik in terms of tier lists is how the Fox matchup goes.

 

[Sempai]

Sheik obviously eviscerates everything that is not top 8.

But is the evisceration imminent?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

As someone who has recently spent a lot of time playing YL, I think he has a slight favor over puff depending on the stage. YL's game is based around exploiting his superior mobility to compliment his projectile game. Anyone he has a mobility advantage on (eg, Peach, Ganon) is a favored matchup, at least on paper.

Since I'm already on the topic, I will say that YL is underrated and probably doesn't belong in the low tier. His matchup spread is better than Ganon's at least. He has three terrible/unwinnable matchups in Fox, Falco and Sheik. Marth is difficult but a little easier than the other 3. His next hardest match-up is Falcon, but I don't think its very bad: 55-45 or 60-40 at worst. YL has a slight favor on everyone floaty and/or slow (Peach, Puff, ICs, Ganon, Samus, Luigi). He doesn't hard counter any important characters, but on paper he has a lot of matchups that are even or slightly in his favor.

 

[MTL Kyle]

But is the evisceration imminent?

I fail to get the reference.

He doesn't hard counter any important characters, but on paper he has a lot of matchups that are even or slightly in his favor.

Yeah, I think Young Link is probably the only character in the game that has counter picking value, as his game style and core mechanics revolve in ****ing up floaties.

Thus all that really should be looked at for Puff vs Sheik in terms of tier lists is how the Fox matchup goes.

I agree with you in that point.

I mean, Sheik has better representation but Puff also has higher placings, thus being more relevant in the current meta, as there is one top player developing new strats and succeeding.

As of now, I feel Puff ease on this top 8 focused meta makes Sheik 9th~25th good matchups kinda useless.
Thinking better I should've tied them even though I think Puff is better.

Today Hbox vs Plup was interesting, I will probably rewatch the set.

God bless you

why ?

 

[Dolla Pills]

why ?

For refusing to engage in petty arguments

 

[atara]

Okay, so -- I suck. This is all developed from watching streams and VODs and such.

1. Fox

2. Marth - 50% vs. Fox. People have described him as a counter, but Foxes beat Marths as often as Marths beat Foxes, and it's heavily dependent on the stage.

3. Falco - 53% vs Fox, 45% vs Marth. No, seriously, Falcos probably beat Foxes more reliably than any other character. Mango vs. Leffen, PPMD vs Mango at SKTAR3, Westballz has an awesome record vs. Mango (as records-vs-Mango go) and Armada went Peach against him at Sandstorm, etc. On the other hand, Marth chaingrabs him really hard, and Zhu wanted to quit Falco because of this matchup.

4. Puff. 45% vs Fox, 50% vs Marth, 47% vs Falco. Hungrybox says it all.

5. Shiek. 45% vs Fox, 55% vs Marth, 47% vs Falco, 47% vs Puff. Shiek has better matchups vs. low tiers than anyone else in the game, but I'm ignoring all of those matchups entirely because they don't mean anything in tournament play. Shieks haven't won tournaments in a long time and don't place very high anymore, except for Mew2King. But really it's the bad Fox matchup that keeps her from going further.

--- all of the characters below this line have at least one hard-counter; none of the characters above do ---

6. Peach. 45% vs Fox, 50% vs Marth, 53% vs. Falco, 40% vs Puff, 50% vs Shiek. Armada's record speaks for itself, as does the fact that he played Young Link against Hungrybox for two years.

7. Pikachu. 50% vs Fox, 50% vs Marth, 47% vs. Falco, 47% vs. Puff, 47% vs. Shiek, 40% vs. Peach. Pikachu has big trouble with Peach and floaties in general, but seriously the only other way to explain Axe's tournament results is to assume he's just way, way better than everyone else; he's been around for years and he beats Mang0 and Mew2King sometimes (and has taken a set off of each this year), and it's hard to believe they don't know the matchup. Contrast aMSa. SDI out of Shiek's chaingrab is necessary for the matchup to be winnable, so maybe the rating should be lower. Not sure about the Marth matchup because Axe almost never plays against high-level Marths, with Mew2King favoring Shiek and PPMD favoring Falco, but Pikachu is fast and doesn't get chaingrabbed. He is about as technical as Fox, which means that most of the people who could play Pikachu at a tournament level will just play Fox, so we rarely see Pikachus.

8. ICs. 45% vs Fox, 47% vs Marth, 45% vs Falco, 50% vs Puff, 53% vs Shiek, 40% vs Peach, 60% vs Pikachu. ICs almost never beat a good Fox, and really never beat a good Peach. An extremely good matchup against Pikachu doesn't outweigh Pika's better matchups against high tiers.

9. CF. 45% vs Fox, 47% vs Marth, 40% vs Falco, 50% vs Puff, 45% vs Shiek, 53% vs Peach, 47% vs Pikachu, 50% vs ICs. Captain Falcon has the highest run speed in the game, but he has a lot of trouble with anyone who can react faster than he does. Everybody loves Falcon, and Hax and Mango have both pushed him pretty hard at tournament level. It's hard to believe there's undiscovered potential laying around.

No other characters are viable at tournament level -- or, therefore, worth considering. Sorry, Samus mains.

 

[john!]

Okay, so -- I suck. This is all developed from watching streams and VODs and such.

don't worry that's like 90% of these lists anyway

 

[MTL Kyle]

Okay, so -- I suck. This is all developed from watching streams and VODs and such.

No other characters are viable at tournament level -- or, therefore, worth considering. Sorry, Samus mains.

Actual information get skewed by character representation at the top level.

You didn't mention Yoshi also, which usually places higher than Pikachu, for example.

don't worry that's like 90% of these lists anyway

Pretty much, I wish there was a section on your profile which could show how active you are in the community or something. It would kinda filter some opinions in discussions.

 

[That1Roy]

I didn't want to post this, but I needed to write about this somewhere so I can copypaste my opinion whenever this kind of discussion shows up in my locals, so imma do it now (can't sleep qq).
I could leave it in a .txt, but I guess writing all this to myself defeats the point of making people think about the game. It's also easier to leave it in the cloud than just copypasting it in every pc I use lol.

Mind that this reflects a mix of my opinions + current state of top level metagame.
I'm not good or super knowledgeable, but I'm cocky enough to think I'm right about a bunch of stuff.

Unless I'm super dooper extra wrong about some stuff, refrain from "correct me". This is more a personal thing that I want to leave posted than an actual subject that I wanna discuss aout.

S tier

1. Fox
Best matchup spread, TAS god, has a lot of good options and his only barrier is how long you can play him without having injuries.
One could say he is tied with Marth or Falco for first, but NEVER lower than this.

2. Marth
Marth is probably the actual best character in the game at human levels, but he requires players to understand the neutral/stage control game (in older games like Street Fighter, people are still figuring out stuff about this, it's probably a never ending science).

3. Falco
Falco has some shaky matchups against floaties (Peach, Puff, Climbers even) but dominates the rest of the cast easily. You can even argue he has even matchups with Marth and Fox (which is a solid case for a 1~3 character).
I think he requires less technical prowess than Fox and there might be some flowchart into a lot of his decisions, but nevertheless, he is definitely a top tier character.

A tier

4. Jigglypuff
Puff has a straight up simple game. How to apply her game when you have a low ground mobility character is where the magic is.
I REALLY don't think Puff vs Fox is that bad (Hungrybox has been known for playing safe in the past, although recently he has been turning it up)


5. Sheik
Sheik should be lower, but a lot of her game has been optimized by top players, even though there is a lot more to develop in the character

6. Captain Falcon
Falcon is better than people put him to be. Yes he has failures, yes he has bad defensive options. Yes he has some terrible matchups (hello Falco). He is also ****ing fast, he has amazing ledge options, tech chases are a thing and he has a lot of guaranteed stuff in the rest of the cast. Falcon has pretty much every tool a character needs to punish some characters 0 to death.
Don't listen to Falcon mains, they think their character is bad because they get baired out of the stage 10x by Fox and think that is a thing that only happens with bad characters (brotip : the entire cast eats bairs and get shine spiked lmao).

B tier

7-8 tie . Peach
I like Peach. I think she is one of the most fun characters to play as. All her mechanics, possibilities, risk-reward things, mix-ups.
But it's a fact that she is the kind of character that has a lot of limitations. She loses pretty much to the entire top 8 sauf ICs. You have to outplay some people so much that makes you wonder why you are not playing a top tier character.

Outside of her top tier matchups, she is overall solid and beats consistently every single character under her. Maybe she has an even matchup against YLink, but who cares lmao.

7-8 tie. Ice Climbers
I'm also a huge Climbers fan and I love playing them as my secondaries. Wobbling is a ***** and kinda breaks the punish game, which is fine, considering you have to play an almost perfectly to have the super punishes.
ICs even have decent matchups against some of the strongest characters in the game (Sheik, Falco and arguably Puff) and might wreck other ones that are lower than him (Pikachu and Yoshi are crying in a corner).

Fact is, ICs have a bunch of soft/hard counters to them. Wobbling is overpowered if Nana is alive and you can get the grab. It's really hard to grab some characters and the slight mistake is death. They also ****ing suck at edgeguarding.
Marth, YLink/Link give some trouble to them and Peach/Fox/Ganon/Falcon completely destroy them.
ICs are the definition of a polarized design and I feel this is the highest spot they can get in the list.

C tier - GRAY ZONE - I may know or not what I'm talking about

9. Pikachu
Axe is a good player and is probably the best representation Pikachu could get.
He pushed the limits of the character to the point where if one says Pika vs Fox is even I can almost agree (55-45 would be more accurate). Pikachu has amazing tools against 2 of the best characters in the game.

Then what is stopping him from joining the fray of the top 8 ?
Peach can literally sit down, crouch and wait Pikachu to press a button. Silly Kyle has a really good record against Axe and last time Armada played Axe, it showed how hard this can be.
ICs, Sheik, Marth and one could say Falcon also give some trouble to the rat.

10. Yoshi
aMSa is amazing and everybody is hyped up, but lets talk seriously.
Yoshi vs Marth is not that bad. aMSa developed a lot of stuff against spacies and each time he comes to NA, his kill count rises.

Thing is, Yoshi bad matchups pretty much expose the character. Peach, Sheik and even Falcon/ICs.
He might have solutions for some of them, but he shouldn't move further than this.


11. Samus
One could say she also has good matchups against Spacies, one could say she doesn't.
Reality is, aside from Samus players, nobody really understands the character.
She gets outclassed by Peach in many of the matchups (maybe not against Falco/Fox, but who would know) and gets destroyed by some characters where Peach wouldn't have as much of a problem (Falcon/Sheik1).


12. Luigi
Call out : Luigi mains can punish and techchase better. I think a hyper mobile character with good normals should have better representation. With that said, Fox, Falcon, Sheik, Marth and Falco apparently are really hard.

13. Doc
With Shroomed dropping the character for really good reasons, we can wonder, what the character still has to offer.
With a strong punish game on fast fallers, Doc kinda falls flat against floaties.
Marth, Sheik and Peach all seem to be a big threat to this character and without high level representation, this character might stay super underdeveloped.

___________________________________________________________________

/\ WARNING :
The game is considerably less fun if you play the characters listed below this line. Competition is all about winning but sometimes you wanna win on your means, I get it.
The characters I'm listing get heavily outclassed by others and you would probably enjoy the game more and even improve faster if you just pick a better character.
YOU WERE WARNED
____________________________________________________________________

D TIER

14-15 tie. Mario
Mario is everything that Doc wanted to be before joining the Med School and getting richer. Mario can recover better, Mario can angle his F-Smash and has a better reach, Mario is athletic enough he can wall jump, Mario cape feels more useful. Why Mario would be worse than Doc outside of an IQ contest ?

Mario can't kill for **** and his combo finisher is usually a super underwhelming Nair.
If you consider the character properties and matchups, he might be the best low/non-viable tiered character.

14-15 tie .Ganon

I played a lot with Kage and the only things that I can think when I play him are :
- Ganon sucks
- I'm getting heavily outplayed
- How the **** does he beat spacies lmao
Ganon gets pooped on by a lot of characters but his punish game is a straight forward punch into your face. 3~5 moves hit you and you are dead, simple stuff.
Getting those important hits is a grind, but overall the character is bad, don't deceive yourself.

15. Young Link
I might be thinking too little of YLink. Projectile spamming is a style of play that is not well developed in Melee ("because **** playing gay MAYLAY4lief **** brawl!1!!1" -DocuEVO random that plays a weekly once every 4 months).
He might actually be good against character with low vertical mobility.

Fact is, Sheik is a thing and he can't escape his fate against other characters in the cast (combo oriented ones like Falcon or Fox just poop on him).

His best use is probably at counterpicking.

16. Link
Same as above, but with better killing power and worse overall. I've seen SAUS play and I get impressed with new stuff every time. You can tell Link is not a really good character, but he has some cool **** going on

__________

I'm not putting numbers anymore here because :
- Not many people have discussed their matchups
- They might be countered or counter people in mid/low tiers, which would change their placement a bit
- They are bad and ranking the best of the worst is kinda meh


I'm still putting up in order of what I think can be better, but if you tell me X character doesn't deserve the 18th position or whatever I won't argue lol
__________

E TIER - Do you even have fun playing this game ?

Zelda
Zelda shouldn't even be here, as it is not fair for her to compare herself 75% of the cast. The possibility of changing to an actual viable character should take her out of the discussion.

Real talk, Zelda does well against ICs and might not be as bad against Peach in small stages. Might even be good against Samus, but who gives a ****, amirite ?

Pichu
srsly, Pichu is not as bad as people think. Cross up nairs are good, he has good recovery and good normals over all.
Yes he is light, but again, all the low tiers have bad properties and I think Pichu's possibilities as a whole character are better than the rest and he can actually use his moves to put pressure on opponents and find windows to outplay people in a legit way.

Ness
Ness is not as bad as people want to put him to be. He has a good punish game compared to a lot of the characters in the cast. But 90% of the time, he loses to himself, as he has no reliable way to approach, his recovery sucks << and everything he does is unsafe on shield (and he has poor grab follow ups).

DK
Confirms on fast fallers (0-60 punishes with a reset at the end, which can lead to a stock), terrible shield, the definition of combo food, but with some cool jank.

Game&Watch
Gdubs is the fine line between complete garbo and what almost could've been a playable low tier character.
Terrible properties, good movement, good confirms, amazing offstage game and really good normals.

Mewtwo
I lied. Mewtwo is also the fine line between garbage and almost a decent character.
He has a giant roll, a fairly good recovery and his DJC **** can throw people off. His punish game is actually good and he can edgeguard offstage and not die unlike 90% of the low tiers.

But then that hurtbox on the tail happened and killed every single M2 main ever.

F TIER - Please don't main those characters if you love yourself

Bowser
Up-B OoS and Side B are the only things that Bowser has going for him.

Roy
Unfinished hitboxes, combo food, can't edgeguard, can't recover.
CC Dtilt is cool and would be better (as in, he wouldn't be extremely whack to play as) if he had decent followups to that lol

Kirby
Kirby is a joke character. You can mash out of his ****, he has no combos and 90% of the character is jank.
He has 5 jumps and his recovery is still garbage, I mean, wtf lol

He actually has an incredibly good matchup against Marth as far as low tiers against him go though lmao

in my opinion i think should A tier

 

[MTL Kyle]

in my opinion i think should A tier

Maaaaan, Ness is bad :|

 

[EddyBearr]

Thank goodness Ness is bad. Awful, disgusting character who should have never been put in any game.

@ MTL Kyle This is the section of the site that reveals how active players are in the community.
http://smashboards.com/rankings/mtl-kyle.262909/user?id=2