2015 Community Tier List Discussion

[Radical Larry]

People have agreed and discussed about this for a long time, and now that there's been significant changes to the MU of the game, I present the thread of the 2015 Community Tier List Discussion for Super Smash Bros. Melee. It has been almost two years since the last tier list, so now we will create a new tier list based on the votes of the people once more.

Now I'm just the organizer of the discussion, as well as the one to organize the tier list once conclusions have been reached out. We will follow the very same rules as last time, and they are all as follows, quoted from @ Fortress | Sveet :

Spoiler

Personal Rules:

When you vote, your opinion is a reflection of your own experiences with the game. Each person should think of their own tier list and not be voting based on someone else's opinion.

It is taboo to judge someone based on their skill, but in this case it is a necessary evil. Regardless of what you put here, I will count your vote, though it may not be used in the calculation of the "official" result. I haven't followed the tournament scene very well, much less the individual region's scenes, so do your best to help me. Include as much information about your tournament experience as possible, such as:

• Top placings. Make sure to include this information:
  • Size of the tournament (number of entrants as well as the entry fee)
  • Notable players who attended
  • Who you actually beat and/or out placed
• Best tournament victories
• Players who you consider yourself to be of about even skill with. Include your tournament record with them, if known.
• Any players in your community who I could contact as a personal reference and/or to verify information provided.

Voting Rules:

Please follow these rules carefully and completely, I will not be able to count your vote at all if you do not. I understand if you disagree with ordering some characters or another facet of the tier list, but this isn't the place to make your argument. If you have any comments or criticisms, please PM me or post on my visitor wall.

• You must order all characters.
  • If you see two characters as tied, order them in any way you would prefer. I plan to emphasize tier placement over ordering in the compiled list, so do not get strung up over details this small.
• You must include all characters. Please double check you have them all (there are 26 characters in melee).
• Do not include tier divisions, simply list the characters in order (vertically). Tier divisions will be determined after voting is done. If you would like to include divisions for discussion purposes, simply put a blank line where you feel the division is.
• Each Person only gets one vote. If you vote twice I will count neither. Feel free to go back and edit your post any time before the deadline.
• You are not required to post an explanation behind your tier list, but it encouraged especially if you have unique placings. I will not be using this information in the tier list itself, but it would be very beneficial to the discussion around the lists.

Now, here's something I will add to this myself; no tier shall be clumped like the last Tier List, meaning that there will not be ~8 characters in one single tier this time, as there will be a set maximum of 5-6 characters per tier, and there will be a minimum of 2 characters per tier. This will even the spacing out and create a better environment for the list itself.

With all of this out of the way, shall there be a discussion? Remember to make the discussion as civil as possible, please. If need be for this to be locked, I'd understand it.

 

[Radical Larry]

Reserved for Tier List links and participants.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I'm glad someone is picking up the torch, but you shouldn't start this unless you understand what you're getting yourself into. The credibility of the list is solely determined by the methodology used and the people involved in the project. There is more to it than simply counting votes. Perhaps I am ignorant of your history, it has been a while since the new faces overwhelmed my memory banks, but it appears you are relatively new to the community (less than 1 year). I think it would be better if someone more established within the community was the one to go about this.

edit- If it is truly something people want to see (it has been nearly 2 years) I would be happy to restart the project for 2015. I still have all the vote counting code I wrote, it would a shame not to reuse it

 

[Massive]

We have access to more high level tourney data than ever before, shouldn't we make use of this to generate a descriptive tier list rather than one based on user opinion?

If the purpose of the tier list is to show which characters are most competitively viable in the current meta, wouldn't it make more sense to generate this from real data rather than an aggregate of opinions? I think so.

We have always placed characters based on their ideal or perceived potential, it would be refreshing (and telling of the limits of the scene's current ability) to see where they actually end up based on tournament placings.

 

[the muted smasher]

My only question for counting would can we not place some people. For instance I honestly can't say I'm educated enough for a placement on mario and yoshi. Part of that is lack of players or the fact that so few can really show what they have and in turn this isn't much of a counter meta.

And I think most can agree they don't have as detailed knowledge as they'd like

 

[Sir Bubbles]

I'm glad someone is picking up the torch, but you shouldn't start this unless you understand what you're getting yourself into. The credibility of the list is solely determined by the methodology used and the people involved in the project. There is more to it than simply counting votes. Perhaps I am ignorant of your history, it has been a while since the new faces overwhelmed my memory banks, but it appears you are relatively new to the community (less than 1 year). I think it would be better if someone more established within the community was the one to go about this.

edit- If it is truly something people want to see (it has been nearly 2 years) I would be happy to restart the project for 2015. I still have all the vote counting code I wrote, it would a shame not to reuse it

I'd actually like another community tier list

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Massive, voting lists and data lists are completely different and end at different results. Lists that use data tend to be skewed towards whoever happens to be getting #1 at nationals. Eg, when Mango won Genesis1 he single handedly took Puff to #2/#3 position in the Character Ranking List

 

[AirFair]

So it would be better to have a community list?

 

[Massive]

Massive, voting lists and data lists are completely different and end at different results. Lists that use data tend to be skewed towards whoever happens to be getting #1 at nationals. Eg, when Mango won Genesis1 he single handedly took Puff to #2/#3 position in the Character Ranking List

Interesting, I actually remember this list being posted, lol.

I rescind my comments then. Good luck!

 

[m0ll0y]

it would be cool to do a community tier list just to see what we come up with as whole ,like from our own personal experience with the game

 

[Snowbird]

The big tournament winners. (almost required to win major, or even place high)
tier 1:
tier 1.5:
Almost there.
tier 2:
The Borderliners.
tier 2.9:
Bad but better than everyone else
tier 3:
Everyone else
tier 4: no one worth using ever unless showing dominance

 

[AirFair]

Yo why is Puff above Marth? Is it just because of Hbox's tournament wins?

 

[CAUP]

Tier lists should be created from frame data and that's that. I'm thinking about making an equation to create a tier list but I'm not sure how to go about it. Tier lists are not subjective; characters are compilations of raw numbers.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

There is no new equations necessary. There are 3 methods of creating a "tier list"

1. Vote
2. Use tournament results
3. Use a matchup chart

None of these are inherently better than another, they all have flaws. What we (the smash community) normally call a Tier List is based on voting. #2 is called a Character Ranking List and #3 is simply called a Matchup Chart

 

[Radical Larry]

Okay, let me give some more information as to result into this:

@ Fortress | Sveet , I agree that a tier list like this is quite the challenge, and I am willing to uptake in this responsibility, and hopefully I can get a substantial amount of help from you of course; and if you'd like, we could team up together to generate a community-based tier list.

@ Massive , this is a good argument, however, tier lists have always been taken upon by opinions of Smashers and their votes, as well as the tournament results to coincide with their arguments and tier lists. Now, this is no different for this community tier list, as it not only comes from a person's personal opinion and voting, but also from tournaments of moderate to major in substantial performances.

@ the muted smasher , another valid argument. But again, this is a community based tier list that will count with the capabilities of the people and the tournament results for the characters.

@ CAUP , absolutely not. A tier list is the subject of debate over many people, and should not be reliant on frame data alone. A compilation of statistics and data, like I said above, has to coincide with tier list making.

I do thank those here for their support and arguments, and hopefully these have all been addressed in a reasonable and pleasing manner. However, we should sometime hurry up upon making tier lists and MU charts, as well as voting soon.

There is no new equations necessary. There are 3 methods of creating a "tier list"

1. Vote
2. Use tournament results
3. Use a matchup chart

None of these are inherently better than another, they all have flaws. What we (the smash community) normally call a Tier List is based on voting. #2 is called a Character Ranking List and #3 is simply called a Matchup Chart

I wouldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Crawfiish]

delted psl

 

[AirFair]

Gosh I can't think of which method would work the best.

 

[the muted smasher]

I place at events unless I'm hung over or high from to much red bull from lack of better wording.

But i know people who do well should have an option to not include someone they don't understand

 

[CAUP]

XD

I think it's pretty funny that people reacted negatively toward an idea which is unarguably the best way to do something just because they've never thought of it before.

Just think about it. CHARACTERS ARE MADE OF NUMBERS. By definition the optimal character can be found with math. That's why fox is considered the best- a one frame move. Also there is assuredly a relation ship between speed and hitbox size that could be calculated. I think it would be quite a project but it would create the true, unbiased tier list. Really, think about it for a little while

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

CAUP you might want to lay off the ganja my friend

 

[The Soap]

XD

I think it's pretty funny that people reacted negatively toward an idea which is unarguably the best way to do something just because they've never thought of it before.

Just think about it. CHARACTERS ARE MADE OF NUMBERS. By definition the optimal character can be found with math. That's why fox is considered the best- a one frame move. Also there is assuredly a relation ship between speed and hitbox size that could be calculated. I think it would be quite a project but it would create the true, unbiased tier list. Really, think about it for a little while

So Yoshi's #1 because of parry, right?

 

[CAUP]

Sveet, lol

Technically, yes, Yoshi is one of the best characters. If you want a list for humans, there are papers which model the deterioration of human reflexes over time which could be taken into account. Seriously, math would be the best way to do a tier list. It would not necessarily reflect what we see in tournaments but it would be accurate of the farthest reaches of the meta.

 

[Snowbird]

Seriously, math would be the best way to do a tier list. It would not necessarily reflect what we see in tournaments

so many things wrong with this

 

[CAUP]

When I talk about a tier list, I mean a definitive list of which characters can win, when both players are optimal, more matchups than others. If you think the metagame of 2015 is the optimal meta, well, you don't think that. Making a truly accurate tier list by looking at current results is ineffective. A perfect tier list is always right no matter who is winning. Just because in 2002 Link was considered OP does not mean he is. While it seems counterintuitive, the current meta game does not affect a perfect tier list.

Don't get me wrong, people should still use the current methods of getting a tier list, but I think new ways should be considered.

 

[Radical Larry]

When a discussion like this arises, there's bound to be that one sole person who tries to troll on everyone; please, @ CAUP , this is a legitimate discussion, and the usage of mathematics would be very unbalanced for the cast.

There are standards of which Sveet have said that would work well, albeit having flaws by themselves, of course. But together, they would tend to work well under circumstances. Anyways, I may need to state that if at all possible, we could head onto any MU discussion or voting. Under this post, there shall be nothing more than discussion, as well as voting.

Albeit I am most likely not to vote, ironically.

 

[CAUP]

Dude, I'm not trolling. THINK about what I'm saying. Can no one see the benefit of departing from a subjective rankings system? No one has said any legitimate reason why what I'm describing wouldn't work only in the last three or four rebuttals besides calling me a troll or mocking me or being sarcastic. No logical response has been given. I'm seriously surprised people don't get what I'm saying. :/ A lot of ignorance is being shown in this conversation.

I'll post my opinion of the tier list later.

Edit: Maybe I should make a separate post about this idea? I don't want this topic to be derailed.

Edit 2: Maybe I'm not being rhetorically effective. Let me break what I'm saying down.

In every game where winning and opponent elimination is the goal, there is inevitably an optimal strategy. The optimal strategy can be defined as the moves which increase your chance of winning by the highest amount. Almost no game is balanced perfectly. Even in chess,white has an advantage. In chop sticks, the second player, if he plays optimally, always wins. In connect four, the second player can always win if he plays perfectly.

How is an optimal strategy found? Every game can be mapped out. In a game of tic tax toe there are only so many options that can be on a board. The same with chess, connect four, and melee (keep in mind there are an absurd number of combinations for chess and melee so that the optimal strategy is difficult to find). If a computer has a perfect knowledge of all possible states in a system, it can find the best method to win.

So my idea is basically to figure out the optimal character to play melee with using math. Hax has described that at a perfect level fox is untouchable (I think I actually found an exception to this but that's another story). Why is fox so good? He has a move that beats out every other move, shine. That means he can counter almost every move in the game. The engine rewards certain properties of moves. It isn't an opinion that shine comes out on frame one and beats almost every move. These objective measurements are what a tier list, in my opinion should be based on. Not the aggregate wins and losses of characters.

Hopefully that makes more sense

Edit 3: Sorry if I came off as a jerk in my first posts. I was surprised people didn't immediately get what I meant which was stupid of me

Edit 4: I know I use "math" as a sort of magic cure all in this post but I have some ideas for specific equations

 

[the muted smasher]

You know if You're frame perfect with fox's shines you'll still get grabbed because of shield sdi...

And it's much easier than mutlishining and even farther I'd say doing it as ics because on top of that You can light shield with nana then press the other shield to flip the shield de-synce and have her with a frame 6 dair oos on top of the sdi into a buffered grab.

But chu dat gets liek top 30 of over 1000 people and is one of the least techincal high level smashers out there

 

[m0ll0y]

So we established fox is currently the top tier , can move on to the other characters

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Personally, this game has been out for years. Having another tier list I do not think will change much. The only thing that would really change are people's perceptions about what is possible and not possible in this game. The characters never change except the pilots behind them.

 

[Radical Larry]

Again, there could be at least some alterations between characters, as Link and Young Link could rise up above both Mario and Luigi, for example. We've got to see this through at the least.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Honestly the biggest problem with this project getting off the ground is that it is mostly 2014 users who want to do it. More than ever there is a lot of old blood in the community, but I havent heard anyone from pre-2010 talk about needing a new tier list. Their opinions are the ones that really matter, nobody cares what stream-monsters think about the tier list.

Except for Yoshi's placing, the 2013 tier list is very accurate. The only thing to argue is placing among the tiers, and that is really pointless argument

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Honestly, the biggest problem with this project getting off the ground is that it is mostly 2014 users who want to do it. More than ever there is a lot of old blood in the community, but I havent heard anyone from pre-2010 talk about needing a new tier list. Their opinions are the ones that really matter, nobody cares what stream-monsters think about the tier list.

Except for Yoshi's placing, the 2013 tier list is very accurate. The only thing to argue is placing among the tiers, and that is really pointless argument

Ouch...
But, I think it is interesting that despite how players have changed over the years the list has remained rather unchanged since before 2006 I feel.

I suppose Yoshi might need better respect than given in the past, but from watching Amsa vs Mango I still sort of wonder how much of that is him as a player versus other attributes. From what I could tell it seemed as if Mango got hit by many things that he should have been able to avoid due to missed tech. There was very little tech chase in that set form what I could tell on Amsa's part. Mainly being able to get a reaction on those missed techs. Additionally, some punishes went poor such as there did not seem much of a lock down on those Uthrows from Fox. Either straight up missing the punish or it only relating to percent due to the armor on the jump. How many times did one get hit by drop through platform in shield. Or end up losing an exchange near the ledge by trying to challenge yoshi on the ledge.

From these interviews it seems as if much of Melee is learned from preparation rather than simply playing on the fly. Experience helps you adapt to new situations, but you still have to study and learn other aspects of the game as well to improve greatly. Its interesting to hear PP say I have little Marth vs Jiggs experience. That would be far more common to see match-up than Fox vs Yoshi I feel for any player. In which case, I am not really calling any Tier list placements for Yoshi to change unless there is an in flux of equally talented players playing Yoshi and going far or Amsa managing to maintain a good representation for more tournaments to come.

 

[dan smith]

yes a new tier list will ultimately just be a slight adjustment of the old one. i don't think that means it isn't worth doing though.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Well Yoshi has certain properties that have been overlooked for years due to their difficulty. His defensive attributes are legitimately the best in the game, and though his approach is really limited his punish game is great and he has no lack of KO moves.

Amsa isn't the only one around, though he is definitely the most famous at this point. Don't forget that Vectorman made top 32 at a national with Yoshi long before anyone knew Amsa's name.

But don't think I mean yoshi is a top8 character or anything. I just think he deserves to move from B tier to A tier (unviable to semi-viable)

 

[1MachGO]

I heard Melee it on me was planning on doing a tier list which will probably garner more support than this one.

TBH, I think the individual opinions of top players (i.e. Hax's tier list, M2K's tier list, etc.) are more interesting than the aggregate opinions from random forum users. At least in the case of multiple, authoritative tier lists, players can get multiple perspectives and make their own conclusions about the game.

An averaged tier list comprised from a bunch of random opinions is counter intuitive to individual decision making and extremely dubious as an empirical resource; especially when considering how legitimate of a claim we can make in regards to viability of any character outside Fox/Falco/Marth/Sheik/Puff/Peach/Falcon/ICs/Pikachu/Samus/Yoshi. I'm sorry, but does anyone think the AVERAGED opinion on Pichu's tier placement is either useful or accurate?

...please.

Honestly, we should give up on trying to make some singular, master tier list. I've suggested this before, and I'll suggest it again, we should figure out a meaningful way to collect high level data and average results. We then present this data as cold hard fact, encourage discussion in regards to theoretical viability and meta regarding those facts, and ADMIT we can't accurately estimate the viability of random *** underdeveloped characters like Ness and Zelda.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Well Yoshi has certain properties that have been overlooked for years due to their difficulty. His defensive attributes are legitimately the best in the game, and though his approach is really limited his punish game is great and he has no lack of KO moves.

Amsa isn't the only one around, though he is definitely the most famous at this point. Don't forget that Vectorman made top 32 at a national with Yoshi long before anyone knew Amsa's name.

But don't think I mean yoshi is a top8 character or anything. I just think he deserves to move from B tier to A tier (unviable to semi-viable)

Oh, yeah, if you mean improving above say Mario/Young Link on the 2013 list, then I could see something like that.

I am not privy to that tournament exactly, but from the idea of national that sounds like many players and not enough time to pit everyone against each other. In which case, you can make bracket depending upon the difficulty of your pool or depending upon your bracket. Amsa's position is unique and significant to me because of how far he got. Its not simply getting out of pools and into bracket, but legitimately getting past many well know players from the past. Fly, SFAT, Zhu, and Lucky. That to me signifies the ability of the character to compete.

However, I want to see how well it continues when people take the time to see how they might try to get around Yoshi if they have issues with him. Unfortunately, something like that takes time to adapt too. Leffen certainly seems in it to stay as a top tier threat while someone like M2K who has been around since 2006 seems to be getting caught up too.

 

[Tship]

I'd like to mention that Reddit compiled a community tier list right after Apex:

/r/smashbros/comments/2utscb/results_from_the_february_2015_rsmashbros_tier/

I've been playing smash competitively on and off since 2006. I don't think there's any need for a new tier list. Coming back to the game recently, not much has changed. Probably since about 2010, the tier list has been fairly consistent and the need for new ones has become less and less. 2013s list is great for the forseeable future and as already mentioned, the only character out of place and in a completely incorrect tier is Yoshi.

Instead of a new tier list, we should probably sit down and discuss which characters have the most potential to improve in their respective metas. This list would give the community an idea of which characters are underdeveloped and are awaiting someone like aMSa to come along and bring to fruition. Again, as mentioned earlier, some of the advanced tech for Yoshi has been known for some time but deemed too difficult. Which other characters require an extreme skillset to play to their maximum potential?

And we need to do this with facts and data.

To reiterate what was said above:

"Honestly, we should give up on trying to make some singular, master tier list. I've suggested this before, and I'll suggest it again, we should figure out a meaningful way to collect high level data and average results. We then present this data as cold hard fact, encourage discussion in regards to theoretical viability and meta regarding those facts, and ADMIT we can't accurately estimate the viability of random *** underdeveloped characters like Ness and Zelda."

 

[-Philip Coast Philip-]

just want to add here

you want to look at the point of having a tier list:

1. define which character is actually the best
2. define which character is currently the best

if you want #1, you can base it more off frame and hitbox data. it might be surprising who comes out on top actually (inb4samus huehue).

we actually already know #2 is limited, but we're ok with that, because it doesn't really matter too much in the end, except for debates and what not.

for that matter, i'd rather just hear the opinions of the top players and find a list i side with the most, instead of having a definitive list based on community votes or tournament placings even - i would only trust the opinions of 3 or 4 players tops anyway. (mango, armada... hax? someone like that)

 

[Nessafile]

this thread giving me mad blue balls

 

[Spak]

hax?

Just sayin' I don't think any top player's tier list is going to be perfect and unbiased. I actually disagree a LOT with this tier list (Falcon is too low and shouldn't have moved from last tier list, Yoshi shouldn't be above Doc, Sheik should be higher than Jiggs, Pikachu should be in front of Samus, Doc is viable, Young Link is too low and is viable, Roy should be in front of Zelda and maybe G&W, and Link should be above DK, and Gannon is viable), but that is also based off of my personal opinion and thus would be as unreliable as Hax's.