Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[TheGlove]

Any videos of this set yet? Just got back home a little while ago.

Yes, MVG is pretty quick in putting up there stream sets. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_dkX2_MJZeiYZImFN8AOvg/videos

Already some good matches for analysis, Mr. E and Dabuz played so that's some more Marth Vs Rosalina action.

We've got some interesting characters for tommorow. A Pacman, Wii Fit, Mewtwo, and Peach in top 32 losers.

Hyuga repping Toon LLink in winners

Two Pikachus both slated to fight Marios

 

[T4ylor]

Mmm a bowser named DGM lord mix won against The Reflex wonder and took fatality to game 5, he is now in loser finals, thoughts?

http://www.twitch.tv/sixfortyfive this is the stream

Mix is probably the best Bowser and this sort of thing isn't really uncommon for him. It also helps that he pockets like 10 characters that are actually good.

 

[Browny]

I'm willing to bet that both 9B and Tre|a will drop Ryu before they ever optimise him to a point where they can get top 4 at a national.

So, the first half of my prediction (Feb 17) is true and precisely 0 surprises were delivered when 9B finds himself doing better with $5.99 than he did with Ryu.

Anyone wanna make bets on when the second half will come true?

 

[Djent]

Trela has never gone for top tiers, though he isn't going to get top 4 anytime soon.

Ryu is overrated at this point. He has close to no chance of remaining in the top 5 on the next list.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Looking at the pools and bracket for Shots Fired 2

>Dio
Woah I thought he wasn't going to Shots fired 2

Edit: With Trela quitting for who knows how long, he has already "dropped" Ryu in a sense.

 

[Browny]

Trela has never gone for top tiers, though he isn't going to get top 4 anytime soon.

Ryu is overrated at this point. He has close to no chance of remaining in the top 5 on the next list.

Which is ironic considering that Trela himself went out and said that he uses Ryu because he is simply one of the best characters in the game.

http://smashboards.com/threads/viab...ive-impressions.410551/page-389#post-20401107

Read that post by him, its quite a rant though. Now look at Ryu today with 9B dropping him and now apparently Trela isnt playing anymore.

The character has been overrated since day 1, with people going mad about the character ever since Mr R LOST to ally with Ryu.

 

[Smog Frog]

i will be keeping my eye on:

Dabuz vs. MVG | Ryo

i have a strong hunch that beats (i thought this even before the recent patch). he has an incredibly easy time killing luma while attacking her shield safely, outranges the both of them, and he kills her very early. tomorrow's the big day for my theory.

also if my theory holds to be true, it would mean that has a positive matchup against 2 of the (very likely) top 5. does anyone else think he might creep his way into top 10 someday?

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Thing is, Dabuz is a really good player. I'm not sure if Ryo could take on Dabuz even if the MU is in Ike's favor.

 

[Djent]

>Dio
Woah I thought he wasn't going to Shots fired 2

Just so you know, this is XFire|Dio, not the Yoshi player (in case you or anyone else thought otherwise).

RE: , I don't think he'll ever be top 10, but a character who shares his mobility specs and absurd reach just might be.

 

[san.]

i will be keeping my eye on:

Dabuz vs. MVG | Ryo

i have a strong hunch that beats (i thought this even before the recent patch). he has an incredibly easy time killing luma while attacking her shield safely, outranges the both of them, and he kills her very early. tomorrow's the big day for my theory.

also if my theory holds to be true, it would mean that has a positive matchup against 2 of the (very likely) top 5. does anyone else think he might creep his way into top 10 someday?

Ike needs some better utility specials for that imo. I think Ike can kinda be like the perception of Ness with obvious strengths and weaknesses. Us Ike players really need to become consistent with more technical play like the Greninja players have been developing.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

I could see him make his way to at least bottom of high tier, but right now there just isn't a whole lot of Ike rep.

 

[Peppermint1201]

Mmm a bowser named DGM lord mix won against The Reflex wonder and took fatality to game 5, he is now in loser finals, thoughts?

http://www.twitch.tv/sixfortyfive this is the stream

Lord Mix isn't some random, he's PRed in Georgia and one of the better Bowser players as well as a prolific "wifi warrior." Bowser does have that potential to hit like a truck and take sets off of good players, but at the top-top level where combos are optimized and people make fewer and fewer mistakes Bowser suffers even more. Also, he has many abysmal top tier matchups (Although I could see Wario being decent or even favorable)

 

[Ffamran]

Which is ironic considering that Trela himself went out and said that he uses Ryu because he is simply one of the best characters in the game.

http://smashboards.com/threads/viab...ive-impressions.410551/page-389#post-20401107

Read that post by him, its quite a rant though. Now look at Ryu today with 9B dropping him and now apparently Trela isnt playing anymore.

The character has been overrated since day 1, with people going mad about the character ever since Mr R LOST to ally with Ryu.

Wow... It's been that long... O_O

Problem with Ryu is that out of all the characters in Smash is that he's mechanically the most demanding alongside Peach. For the reward, you get a great character to Peach's good character. That's the best bargain for a mechanically demanding character... Now, mechanically unusual which he's also a part of alongside Peach, you've got Bayonetta who like Ryu, is built to play like in her games which means a ton of combo options, Cloud, a meter character which Akuma will be like in Tekken 7, Jigglypuff and Little Mac sort of because of their heavily polarized game plans, Lucario's Aura, Mega Man who was made to feel like you're playing a Mega Man game, Olimar and Robin who deal with limited uses, Rosalina as the first puppeteer archetype, Shulk with his buffs and debuffs during combat, and kind of Yoshi because of his "different" jump and recovery. Out of those 13 characters, and I leave this to the readers, who are the most difficult to use. Peach and Ryu are already on that list because of their mechanical demands, but who else? I'm willing to bet that Bayonetta, Cloud, Jigglypuff, Little Mac, Lucario, Mega Man, Olimar, Robin, Rosalina, Shulk, and Yoshi are not on that list. They might feel weird like Mega Man does for some or they might require careful play like Little Mac to space properly - hello, boxer Marth - or keeping track of how many uses you have left like Olimar and Robin, but they are not characters with high demands for proper input. Rosalina's archetype is found in tons of games like MOBA, RPG, and other fighting games, but it's really about keeping track of two characters you control and your opponent(s) over anything different like different inputs, demand for precise inputs, etc. PAC-MAN doesn't count for any of this as the major "roadblock" is that you need know what Bonus Fruits do what, but otherwise, he doesn't have a use count, he doesn't have different inputs, and he doesn't really function any different from the other characters.

With Peach, Ryu, and Shulk, you are putting something like 150% effort to get the same reward as 55 other characters. In the case of Peach, you're putting 150% to get a mid-tier blob when you can put in 100% with Captain Falcon, the Pits, ROB, or Yoshi and get the same reward. With Shulk, you're putting in 150% and getting Dr. Mario, Kirby, and Samus-level rewards. Ryu? 150% for reward that Cloud, Fox, Mario, Meta Knight, Rosalina & Luma, Sheik, Sonic, and ZSS would get you.

Peach was high tier in Melee and mid tier in Brawl. She's likely to be mid tier in Smash 4 since she's good, but she's not that good nor is she getting any better. Melee you could chalk it up to the fact her Down Smash was stupid as all hell, Float helping out her good aerials in a game where aerials were really good, recoveries in general were crap while hers was good and Vegetables love gimping people, Vegetables themselves are good, and RNG goddess. In Brawl - I know nothing! -, she just couldn't kill and she wasn't oppressive unlike another fellow, dirtbag of a zoner who also had kill issues: Falco. Hit stun canceling just made this worse. In Smash 4? She's strong, she's got good aerials, and she can pressure shields with aerials which is a rarity in Smash 4 because of how aerials in general were nerfed and how in the beginning, shield stun wasn't as strong. That's it. She's also got throw setups, good moves in general, and she's just good, but she's not great. Is this a problem? Not really, except for people who want to see Peach have an arbitrarily good rank on the tier list. Point is that she's viable and in a game where viability is more generous. Game's not balanced - no game will or else it would be boring as **** or only had 1 character, so mirror matches galore -, but it's close.

For Ryu who is in a game where most characters aren't insanely demanding and in a game where fundamentals are highly-prized alongside hit and kill confirms, having the need to input a little bit more than another character who can get the same if not better reward makes the reward seem not as great compared to effort. At the same time, is Ryu (or Peach) oppressive in any way? Outside of his early kills which other characters also have claims to: Bayonetta, Bowser, Cloud, Captain Falcon at times, DK, Fox at times, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Little Mac, Marth, Meta Knight, Roy, Wario, even Zelda, and ZSS, it's not really a big deal. What separates them is confirms which means Captain Falcon - dodgy Knee setups -, Ganondorf, Jiggles, Little Mac, Marth, Roy, Wario - sort of -, and Zelda are out of the picture leaving Bayleef, Bowser, Cloud, DK, Fox, Meta Knight, and ZSS. Damn sure you're killing at similar percents, maybe in different areas of the screen, but still the same. Problem? They're doing that in "braindead" ways and they're all really fast in some ways, but mostly on the ground while Ryu's average everywhere, but air acceleration where he's terrible like Little Mac. In other words: he's not oppressive. He's probably the fairest of them all - hot Ryu available for DLC (in some time) for SFV - and it makes sense 'cause it's Ryu... Y'know, the honorable fighter? The guy trying to stay off the path of the Satsui no Hado? Screw it, I give up.

TL;DR: Peach and Ryu are good; Peach is mid-tier and Ryu's at least high tier. Are they great? No, but are they bad? Nope. Their problems is that they are demanding characters and when you want results fast and easy, you're looking at the wrong characters. They need dedicated players who love their characters and want to see them succeed as much as possible.

Also, Ally with his I'm going to play ZSS after Umebara FAT? and I'm playing Cloud after Genesis, but he drops back to Mario. Safe and sound considering Mario is a speedy jack of all trades - then you have the Pits being true jacks of all trades and not really excelling in anything... There's not really anything that's a problem outside of maybe kill options, but does that matter if you can avoid horrible situations off-stage with Cloud or the fact you have to learn a different character? Get-rich-quicks schemes, thy name is Mario. Hello, Nintendo and your nth Mario game. When's F-Zero?

Rude post: All characters except Sheik are overrated. I'm being serious by the way. Have a good day.

 

[Thinkaman]

Top 32 of Shots Fired 2 tomorrow

Winners

Liquid' Nairo vs. CT | Salem
SF | Hyuga vs. K9sbruce
9B vs. Ally
COG MVG | Mew2King vs. Circa | 6WX
ANTi vs. PG | ESAM
Ranai vs. Tweek
PG | MVD vs. LLL | Mr. R
Dabuz vs. MVG | Ryo

Losers

DTN8 | HoH_SuperGirlKels vs. SS | Mr. E
Devonator21 vs. Dark Wizzy
Seibrik vs. HE | Smash G0D
iQHQ | Ribs vs. HoH_Venom
C3PO vs. XFire | Dio
LoF | Blue vs. Nexus | Unknown
Ho3K | John Numbers vs. ATR | Xaltis
DA | Sinji vs. UG | Ling Ling

12 characters in winners, 21 total.

Yet no , nor recent darlings , nor .

 

[Nu~]

Excellent. Sinji is showing people that Pac-Man isn't gone.

I'm most interested in his performance.

Edit:
Perhaps my passion for the character will come back (and with it, my passion for sm4sh...)

 

[Charoite]

What?, how a character that does so much damage and can set up kills at 90 or less, not great? not being top 5 doesn't mean you are not a great character, the same with pikachu, and ryu is not hard to play, he takes time but he is not melee fox in terms of inputs.

 

[Sonicninja115]

Blue repping mewtwo! Although, it isn't looking good in the next match...

 

[Solfiner]

Shulk's reward goes from meh to fantastic when he switches to buster. 19% from one F-tilt. Also does really good shield damage.

 

[Charoite]

Blue repping mewtwo! Although, it isn't looking good in the next match...

Regardless i think this is the experience necessary for blue if he want to go to bigger tournaments, not only that we will see high level of play of vs that is very important to the mewtwo metagame.

 

[deepseadiva]

Pacman is gonna pepper that Peach to death.

Good to see her getting another high result though. I TOLD YALL ID BE BACK IN HERE WHEN THAT HAPPENED

 

[Halifax?]

~~~~~~~~~~

 

[FullMoon]

12 characters in winners, 21 total.

Yet no , nor recent darlings , nor .

Greninja's absence is not really surprising considering I don't think any notable Greninja players went there? I wasn't really following the tournament.

 

[UberMadman]

Even if Blue is immediately eliminated, it still means Mewtwo has had a better showing at this tourney than a large amount of characters previously chalked up to be better than him, including the chars Thinkaman listed, (, , , , , , , and .) That's pretty good. Though to be fair, I don't know how many notable players of these characters were actually in bracket.

 

[Thinkaman]

Greninja's absence is not really surprising considering I don't think any notable Greninja players went there? I wasn't really following the tournament.

I wasn't intending to draw conclusions about tiering from one event. I was just offering a summary of a single data point, which was more meant as an observation about the state of the game than anything else.

BTW, there are 4 s in the top 32, more than anyone else including . Can we cut the crap and ban this character yet?

 

[FallofBrawl]

Mewtwo vs Sheik kinda runs down to this:

Needles is good but Mewtwo can reflect them

Mewtwo phasing and good air speed messes up Sheik's 50/50s, it's not as reliable in this MU than in others

Sheik doesn't have to worry about getting into Melee Marth territory

Shadow ball is really important in catching techs, help close distance, shut down short hop play, and edgeguarding.

Sheik is at the best fall speed for Mewtwo to combo his weirder confirms like weak hit utilt into usmash

Sheik's smashes are all viable this MU

She can't really edgeguard Mewtwo well, his teleport, airdodge, aerials, and side b are hard to challenge.

 

[wedl!!]

Allow me to immortalize myself in one post

Everyone sleeps on Wii Fit and Mewtwo too much and sleeps with Peach too much

BTW, there are 4 s in the top 32, more than anyone else including . Can we cut the crap and ban this character yet?

This gives me a sensation of catharsis

 

[Man Li Gi]

Results from (a Midwest tourney that gets no love) House of Paign Series IX:
1. UR| Ned
2. E2C| Tyroy
3. GGA| JJRockets
4. GGA| Demitus
5. PHAM| Comm
5. TSW| Quilly
7. Waasabi
7. Man Li Gi

Important to note:
Ned beat Tyroy for the first time ever and beat Tyroy in a Sheik ditto

Comm, who rarely comes to events, strikes a 5th placing beating both myself and most of St. Louis PR.

Man Li Gi (myself) beat Chicago's top MK with DK in a 2-1 count with each game very volatile fashion.

I know no one truly cares for the Midwest scene but I just had to be the guy who reports it.

 

[thehard]

It's good to see Pac-Man at another American event again.

Does anyone know if Aba and Koolaid dropped him because they didn't think he was viable or only so they could play someone better?

I really think Pac has the tools to deal with every character well, he just has so many ways to pace the match and control space, I feel like you can't really counterpick him hard but he can't be used as a hard counterpick either? I don't think this character will ever be truly bad or obsoleted, his "super-middle" tier placement is a very agreeable spot. Maybe this is off-base, but I feel like he's only held back by the player's skill and tolerance for patient play.

As a side note, it's funny that Abadango changed from one of the characters most likely to time out to one of the characters most likely to end matches within a minute.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Wii Fit Trainer is just right above Shulk on the tier list. Also below Roy, Kirby, and Bowser Jr.

John Numbers and Rin just laughing at us right right now.

I've been harping on this since last summer... Oh look! Yet another decent run for a character that supposedly sucks but let's just go back to praying that Marth and Roy eventually become stand alone viable. *insert long winded fart here*

 

[ARGHETH]

Even if Blue is immediately eliminated, it still means Mewtwo has had a better showing at this tourney than a large amount of characters previously chalked up to be better than him, including the chars Thinkaman listed, (, , , , , , , and .) That's pretty good. Though to be fair, I don't know how many notable players of these characters were actually in bracket.

Assuming the search function on Chrome works and this has all the people participating, no particularly notable players of those characters were present, going by what I remember and their Wiki pages. I might be wrong, though...
(Among those I serched: Larry Lurr, Megafox, Acid, Fatality, Tearbear, DK Will, iStudying, Motsunabe, Serge, Mr. Concon, Reflex, Waymas, The Wall, and Raptor)

 

[Illusion.]

Greninja's absence is not really surprising considering I don't think any notable Greninja players went there? I wasn't really following the tournament.

Venia is the only notable one close to the area and he didn't go.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Just so you know, this is XFire|Dio, not the Yoshi player (in case you or anyone else thought otherwise).

RE: , I don't think he'll ever be top 10, but a character who shares his mobility specs and absurd reach just might be.

Yeah someone corrected me sadly.

 

[Das Koopa]

I'm gonna make a Q1 2016 results-based tier list after SF2 is done and find some way to score characters using Top 16s of every Major thusfar (Dismantle 2, KTAR XVI, Genesis 3, PAX Arena, BEAST 6, Shots Fired 2)

I figure I'll use pre-patch tournies since this wasn't exactly a Diddy Nerf-level patch

 

[ARISTOS]

sleeps with Peach too much

But who wouldn't want to sleep with her?

If the Peach gets past the Pac-Man it'll be super hype. Will it happen is a whole nother question

 

[C0rvus]

Definitely hype for Sinji in top 32. Pac-Man needs some love and some rep. Such a dynamic and interesting character. Seeing him among the cream of the crop definitely lifts my appreciation for this game.

 

[bc1910]

There were no good Greninja players present and possibly no Greninja players full stop. His lack of placement can't be held against him if he didn't even have a chance. He's never been popular in the US.

Same goes for DK probably, unless Will was in attendance?

That said it's positive to see people surprised that Greninja (among others) didn't make top 32 when before he would have been totally ignored.

What's more interesting is an appearance from Pac-Man, and Ryu's top players dropping him.

 

[ARGHETH]

There were no good Greninja players present and possibly no Greninja players full stop. His lack of placement can't be held against him if he didn't even have a chance. He's never been popular in the US.

Same goes for DK probably, unless Will was in attendance?

No one Thinkaman listed had any notable players attending, as far as I could tell. No one listed on DK's Wiki was there, including Will.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Can people please stop saying Peach has no results? SlayerZ got 7th at Paragon and 17th at Genesis. Umeki has also done stuff in Japan.

http://www.twitch.tv/mvg_league/v/52580871

2:27:50

When is the top 32 starting?

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

This is so cool, Ling Ling and his Peach is awesome, I have faith in this guy, let's see how far he goes(I bet quite far) and who may be his toughest challenge.

Either way, great to see more Peach play, this character is great and has what it takes to be a threat in the right hands.

 

[Browny]

Problem with Ryu is that out of all the characters in Smash is that he's mechanically the most demanding alongside Peach.

*snip*

This is the same thing as brawl, as you indeed mentioned in your post. I went into significant detail about this a few years ago and Peach was an example I used and fits perfectly with your description here

http://smashboards.com/threads/marg...el-vs-perfect-play-and-bad-characters.302972/

My argument is that if a character is so mechanically demanding to the point that no human can reliably play the character at maximum efficiency, then they can't be rated on potential. There is literally no reason why I cant say that a mechanically perfect Samus is top tier, just no one is capable of using her to that level yet apparently Ryu is a special case.

Ryus inputs arent hard, his combos are pure muscle memory (you can do them with your eyes closed). Yes he does take more effort to play than Mario for example, thats obvious. But at no time does that make him a good character. That essay I wrote is long but it talks about that in depth, high difficulty with high reward in a character does not make them good. Reliability is what matters, reliability to win matches and matchups that matter.

Personally, I believe Ryu is very overrated because he cant force you to do anything. When he gets in, its disgusting what he can do and focus attack is absurdly good. However, you can predict and react to his linear approaches, his mixups on approach are bad, projectile is weak and hes slow.

The best characters in this game force the enemy to play on their terms. They dictate the pace of the match and there's nothing you can do about it. No character can force Rosalina to be aggressive, what can the majority of the cast do to stop limit break charging and playing in a permanent state of fear vs MK makes people do dumb decisions. Ryu is too slow and lacks proper defensive tools to dictate how any top tiers dismantle his gameplan.

I am not remotely suprised, and 100% expected that those two players would stop using Ryu. They are both very smart, very technical players that excelled with complex characters because of how far they could push them. Ryu has a big fat hard limit on how far he can be pushed and its because he quite simply doesnt have many options in neutral. Defensive Ryu relies on bair and hadoken which are trounced by anyone with a projectile and attacking Ryu just doesnt have the speed or range to reliably get in and start his devastating punishes.

Those two players would have been very frustrated in how they feel they should be doing better, they know they can push the character far and they have the intelligence to do it but they got caught out when other characters run circles around them or put up such a strong defensive wall that you cant get in. Its like, if someone found a way for Ryu to reliably get in then he would be unstoppable but for 5 or so months its been the same old story of Ryu players getting walled out so hard that him being able to KO early is the only thing keeping him viable in the first place.

I think Ryu is good of course, but I think he is below

and shares similar viability to

With poor representation in japan and europe and NA's #1 Ryu player apparently on hiatus as his other prominent secondaries have mostly returned to their normal mains resulting in his results tanking hard, there is no way Ryu desers a spot in the top 12 of the cast.