Huh? This just isn't true. Falcons still place well at locals across the world and even the largest regional tournaments, such as S2J getting 4th at BAM7, among other examples. Yes, I understand that Wobbles got 2nd at Evo 2013 and Fly got 2nd at Press Start, but overall, Falcons have absolutely placed better than ICs. Also, Falcon has a pretty strong MU against ICs.
At majors since 2013 (Apex x3, Evo x2, MLG, TBH4)
2nd:
(Evo 2013)
7th:
(Apex 2013)
(Evo 2014)
9th:
13th:
17th:
25 / 29th:
Total top 32:
x15 ;
x14
It's comparable until you look at IC's getting 2nd, though there's something funny about that monopoly on getting 13th.
Apex 2015 in particular, as the most recent Major:
9th
Nintendude
17th:
Fly Amanita ;
S2J
25th:
Chu Dat
At regionals or small nationals this year: (Paragon, INY, Sandstorm, GOML, Press Start, Super Nebs 3*)
*
Super Nebs 3 was intentionally saturated with Falcons, giving Falcon an extra Jeapie @ 7th and maybe Wizzrobe @ 5th.
*
Locals, outside of perhaps very saturated ones in SoCal, NorCal, or Florida, shouldn't really be looked at -- Kirby wins locals pretty often in MN, but this doesn't necessarily mean Kirby is better than Mario, who doesn't win locals anywhere
*
BAM is not a regional or small national given the playerbase. There were only 7 players who weren't from Oceania there -- it was basically a SoCal local.
2nd:
3rd:
5th:
7th:
Falcon would have an edge in regionals or small nationals this year as long as you don't discredit Jeapie being flown in. If you do discredit that, then I'd say it's roughly even.
So overall, IC's have done better than Falcon at majors since 2013, have done about comparably to Falcon at large regionals in 2015, and did far better than Falcon at Apex 2015. I think it's pretty clear IC's place better.
--
Falcon beats IC's, sure. IC's beat Sheik. Sheik beats Falcon.
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Pikachu is indeed pretty awful against spacies. Axe thinks the matchups are quite bad -- the Pika boards think the matchups are quite bad.