Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Cereal Bawks]

His Corrin was pretty underwhelming this tourney, tbh, other than beating MVD. I wish he'd focus more on Ike, though, since he got new tools after the patch.

 

[G. Stache]

It is hilariously accurate to FF7 where you get beat up a lot and then LIMIT BREAK OH GOD comeback/momentum.

Etc. etc.

Is anyone going to argue with the idea of Top 10 Cloud now? I've been believing it since Week 2 or 3.

Y'know, I used to be hesitant to call him top 10. But his results, theory, and MU spread just say otherwise. I can't find any true reason for him to be not inside of the top 10. I dunno if he's top 5 material, as the one big weakness he has (recovery) is definitely exploitable to a point where it harms his viability, but I've been wrong before.

How do we feel about Bayonetta as of now, btw. I don't really have much of an opinion of her, but I'm sure some of you do.

One more thing, actually.

The only characters who can really pose a threat to his recovery due to the stupendous hitbox sizes are those with valid projectiles/super disjoints.
So his only real weakness is only applicable in probably at most, 10 match ups.

I'm inclined to beleive you, but there's at least one outlier to this. Not to bring up Luigi for the 13 millionth time, but cyclone gimping actually trades with Cloud's up b, sending Luigi up while getting a free dunk on Cloud. And I don't think Luigi's cyclone hitbox at his feet is very disjointed (could be wrong though. It's just that 'Luigi' and 'disjointed' are two words that never fit too well). I don't know if it takes a massive disjoint to challenge a recovering Cloud with

Also, I still don't see people really optimizing their edge guards at all. Which helps Cloud get back for free. If I had a nickel for every time I saw a missed edge guard opportunity against Cloud during tournament, then I'd have...actually only around 25 cents. But that's still 5 times a Cloud had his 'Achilles Heel' untouched. I just think that the more people optimize on Cloud's major weakness, the more bearable the Cloud MU will become for a good chunk of characters. Just theory craft, though. So take it as you will.

 

[Smog Frog]

players arent really that good compared to other characters players. like, the best dedicated main is 6wx and you'd be hard pressed to put him on the same level as m2k, nairo, ranai, dabuz etc.

also he has kill confirms. dj out of spindash->bair kills at like 120% center stage, earlier with rage. he can do spin charge/dash->uair/nair, and if you miss the windows for those they're conveniently right before his throws start killing.


and i disagree with him losing to more than 3 characters definitively. at this point you can only say he really loses to . the glorious thing about his mus is that he can be played so many different ways that who he loses to really depends on the player.

i think he's top 5. there are many characters in the general top 5 area you can call overrated(why hasnt anybody called these characters out yet?)

 

[Fatmanonice]

Interestingly nearly every tournament everywhere since 2016.

If it wasn't due to limit side-b, this character would not be winning / bringing things back as much as he has.
3-0 against 9B although just about everything came from SDs or limit side-b reversals/clear winning situations.

This. Limit Cross Slash is incredibly safe and an absolutely brutal punish. It doesn't help that it has a giant, lingering hitbox that basically covers the entire front of him either.

 

[Das Koopa]

i think he's top 5. there are many characters in the general top 5 area you can call overrated(why hasnt anybody called these characters out yet?)

because they constantly place Top 4, something that very few other characters that aren't Sheik can attest too

 

[Smog Frog]

probably because their players are godlike. who other than dabuz/nairo consistently get results with those characters?

 

[Das Koopa]

Mr. R beats Salem 3-2. Salem's out in 9th.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

So it looks like Ryo is leaning more into using Corrin, which is exciting.

I'm interested to see how far he takes the character.

He'll switch back to Ike given enough time.

New character hype. He mucks around with characters a lot.

 

[my_T]

probably because their players are godlike. who other than dabuz/nairo consistently get results with those characters?

^^^THIS!

the skill gap matters people

 

[Das Koopa]

probably because their players are godlike. who other than dabuz/nairo consistently get results with those characters?

Marss for ZSS

But the # by itself doesn't really matter. If the players can keep top 4ing with the characters, the characters have the capacity to consistently top 4. It'd be like saying Jigglypuff isn't top 5 in Melee just because Hungrybox is the only relevant Jiggs main.

 

[Wintermelon43]

probably because their players are godlike. who other than dabuz/nairo consistently get results with those characters?

ZSS:Marrss, Choco, Nick Riddle

Rosalina:Rayquesa, Falln, Xaltis, Wilksy, Kirihara

 

[Smog Frog]

i'll concede marss for .

but i believe that lack of top 8 results(but wealth of top 16) is due to his players limitations, not the characters. if komorikiri used him more i guarantee he would have far more top 8 placements.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Just to explain the Cloud vs Villager match up:

-Camping in this match up is virtually useless. While with Palutena and Rosalina it becomes a stalemate, with Cloud it just allows him to charge his limit.

-Villager's close range options aren't great but Cloud has them in spades.

-Cloud's ftilt and dash attack can stop Lloid, even at point blank range.

-Villager's keep away game falls apart because of Cloud's ground and air speed.

-Cloud's nair trumps Villager's nair, his dair beats Villager's uair, and his uair beats Villager's dair.

-You can pocket blade beam but it's very opportunistic and most Cloud's will use the other limit options anyways.

-Cloud DGAF about Villager's ledge game and only cares about his offstage if he's coming after him. Cloud can also just run away and charge his limit anyways if you try to be stally.

As I said, it's extremely dumb.

 

[Djent]

Top 8 Character Spread:
×2.5
×2.0
×1.0
×1.0
×1.0
×0.5

 

[PK Gaming]

He'll switch back to Ike given enough time.

New character hype. He mucks around with characters a lot.

We'll see.

I think he's well past the new character hype stage, especially after he beat MVD.

 

[Das Koopa]

9B 3-0s Ranai

Top 8:

Mew2King vs. Nairo
Tweek vs. Dabuz

Mr. R. vs. Anti
9B vs. K9

 

[Charoite]

Maybe Ryo thinks corrin is better suited for him???or she is better against that matchups??, this corrin looks solid, and remember we have one month with the DLC characters, i doubt is character hype, why using corrin if you have a supposed better and more developed character on a stacked tournament??

Is evident that is a clearly contender to top 10 at minimum, these results are very consistent.

 

[my_T]

ZSS:Marrss, Choco, Nick Riddle

Rosalina:Rayquesa, Falln, Xaltis, Wilksy, Kirihara

Just pointing this specific player out as an example.

Falln's Rosaluma got 3 stocked by Ranai in crews. Ranai i believe only had 2 stocks and Rosa wins the match-up.

Ranai proceeds to lose to dabuz Rosaluma in losers finals

once again...skill gaps matter

 

[Y2Kay]

Mewtwo vs Villager feels like an even matchup based on how they compare on paper and from my personal experience.

That means that the better player will win, so Blue losing to Ranai, a player undeniably better than him does not necessarily disproves this

 

[C0rvus]

Just to explain the Cloud vs Villager match up:

-Camping in this match up is virtually useless. While with Palutena and Rosalina it becomes a stalemate, with Cloud it just allows him to charge his limit.

-Villager's close range options aren't great but Cloud has them in spades.

-Cloud's ftilt and dash attack can stop Lloid, even at point blank range.

-Villager's keep away game falls apart because of Cloud's ground and air speed.

-Cloud's nair trumps Villager's nair, his dair beats Villager's uair, and his uair beats Villager's dair.

-You can pocket blade beam but it's very opportunistic and most Cloud's will use the other limit options anyways.

-Cloud DGAF about Villager's ledge game and only cares about his offstage if he's coming after him. Cloud can also just run away and charge his limit anyways if you try to be stally.

As I said, it's extremely dumb.

Many of these points are moot. Don't camp him because it lets him charge Limit? He's going to get Limit. No matter what. You cannot let that stop you from executing your gameplan. What happens when he gets Limit, does the match end in his favor? No, he just gets faster and you have to respect Cross Slash. Also, Cloud's CQC isn't much better than Villager's. You can counterpoke the slide on reaction with SH dair. His ground game isn't incredible or anything, and Vilager's jab still applies the same good pressure as always.
And in what manner does Cloud not care about Villager's ledge game? He has no special ledge properties that I know of. And Villager has the tools to make him cry offstage.
What I'm saying is, I don't think it's that bad.

 

[NotLiquid]

ZSS:Marrss, Choco, Nick Riddle

Rosalina:Rayquesa, Falln, Xaltis, Wilksy, Kirihara

I don't think anyone disagrees that ZSS / Rosa are Top 3 but since this is all apropos the Sonic discussion are there any other characters that have a similar player representation / results ratio? Several singular mains of other characters having pushed better results consistently keep him away from Top 5 from what I feel but I think spread-wise there's much more credence from a quantity perspective that shows Sonic is somewhere in Top 10.

 

[[BROF]]

I can see Ryo sticking with Corrin for the Sheik matchup since Ike/Sheik is extremely bad for Ike. -2 the least.
Corrin can at least contest Sheik aerial game with her faster aerial. Ike's niche of brutal range loses hard to Sheik insane speed. She already outframes most of the cast, but that gap is too huge with Ike.

 

[Wintermelon43]

I don't think anyone disagrees that ZSS / Rosa are Top 3 but since this is all apropos the Sonic discussion are there any other characters that have a similar player representation / results ratio? Several singular mains of other characters having pushed better results consistently keep him away from Top 5 from what I feel but I think spread-wise there's much more credence from a quantity perspective that shows Sonic is somewhere in Top 10.

Mario. Mario has Ally, Anti, and Zenyou. A few less than those other two, but still close. The players are closer in skill, but the best is a little worse than Nairo and Dabuz

Diddy kong also fits. ZeRo co-maining him, Zinoto, MVD, Angel Cortes, and C-3PO all use him, and that's just some. He has slightly more good players, but the skill is less apart from ZeRo and Zinoto.

 

[David Viran]

I can't tell if Nairo has gotten worse or if everybody else has just closed the gap. It's pretty clear that K9 would've taken the set if he didn't SD in Game 5.

Hmm. I know nairo has said before that the sheik MU is more about the player than the MU. And after MLG every sheik he's faced ,on stream after MLG, has taken him to last game. About 4 of varying skill level from shu to a no ranked from his region and all of them it happens to be players that nairo has never played before bar rain (who he actually beat solidly). He seems to be better against players he's familiar with at least in this MU.

Edit: Just remebered that vinnie was one of those sheiks. I don't think he had faced him since vinnie went to socal and got a lot better which was a big gap between when they played. Not to mention vinnie had gotten a lot better. But that's just my theory.

 

[Ffamran]

Anyway, as the meta & patches happened, i was thinking about character viability & realied that Falco is probably around the Bottom 15 or something. Like, the character doesn't have much representation, his neutral is pretty awful, advantage state is probably the best thing & redeeming quality of the character, he has both strong b&b for combos, versatility & strong mixups that may lead into Falco getting a **** ton of % on you very quick, disadvantage state is also pretty damn bad.
What do you guys all think of Falco rn?

Poor man's Bayonetta and Ryu. When Smash 4 gets a GOTY, definitive, whatever edition that packs all the DLC in, then he's going to be even worse than a poor man's Bayonetta and Ryu. You want a vertical presence and air combos? Bayonetta. Edgeguarding? Bayonetta. High combo potential? Bayonetta and Ryu. High damage per hit? Bayonetta and Ryu. Ability to setup or combo with a spike Dair? Bayonetta and Ryu. Projectile that can cause hit stun and challenge and control space from afar? Bayonetta and Ryu. Good close-range pokes? Ryu. High benefit from walking? Maybe Bayonetta and definitely Ryu. Fundamental-based gameplay? Ryu. Street Fighter style gameplay? Ryu.

The only thing Falco has over them is having a reflect that can act as a transcendent poke, throw setups, a higher jump, faster walk speed at 1.28 to Bayonetta's 0.90 and Ryu's 0.75, a higher air acceleration at 0.09 starting in patch ~1.1.1 to Bayonetta's 0.085 and Ryu's abysmal 0.025, and barely higher fall speed at 1.8 to Bayonetta's 1.77 and Ryu's 1.6.

For reps, check here: http://smashboards.com/threads/great-fox-hangar-ace-pilot-list.429118/. Most of them people probably never heard of or seen because most people don't really stream. It's almost always California, Japan, MD/VA, Dallas, Texas (Tourney Locator), and Tristate that people end up watching.

Falco's advantage isn't that good; it's heavily DI dependent past mid-percents making it mediocre at best with proper DI. Those Fair to Fair early kills are situational, positional, and pipe dreams compared to Bayonetta, Meta Knight, and ZSS's ladders or Fox and Ryu's kill confirms.

Falco's real redeeming quality is his frame data which is among the best considering its speed, power, and outside of some outliers - Blaster -, average recovery and landing lag. Falco's up there with Cloud, Robin?, and Ryu for overall sheer speed and power. Maybe even Ganondorf can count outside of massive outliers like his Utilt and Warlock Punch. Seriously, imagine Ganondorf's frame data on Captain Falcon or even someone around Kirby and Ike's speed. Prepare to scream bloody murder.

Someone mentioned a couple pages back how Ryu's game plan, especially neutral, is different, more like Street Fighter, and that playing Street Fighter would benefit Smash players in general. I honestly believe that Falco players are one of the best candidates for switching to Ryu. They might not find learning the inputs of Ryu easy, but I think they would find Ryu's neutral similar as Falco relies on playing close-range footsies and purely, what should be basic for all, movement options for neutral game. The question is would they switch? That question has many reasons for why they would or wouldn't.

Know who also had a lacking neutral and disadvantage, but had excellent advantage state once he got in to the point that players picked him up and figured him out in minutes?

Only difference here is that instead of Fireballs, this guy's got better traction, disjoint, and the best dash -> shield in the game to get the grabs to start his stuff. And an autocancel Side B to get out of juggles and recover seamlessly that the plumber wished he had.

Ike? Traction? Check. Disjoint? Check. Dash to shield? Check. Auto-cancel Quick Draw? Check.

ESAM is a top-level player playing a mid-tier character.

This becomes interesting when you consider ESAM's "Do You Want to Win? Be Honest." video. Question is does ESAM want to be the best player or the best Pikachu player? He's already got one down, but with him deciding to use Samus and Yoshi as backups in tournaments, you could say he's got neither or wants to be both.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Many of these points are moot. Don't camp him because it lets him charge Limit? He's going to get Limit. No matter what. You cannot let that stop you from executing your gameplan. What happens when he gets Limit, does the match end in his favor? No, he just gets faster and you have to respect Cross Slash. Also, Cloud's CQC isn't much better than Villager's. You can counterpoke the slide on reaction with SH dair. His ground game isn't incredible or anything, and Vilager's jab still applies the same good pressure as always.
And in what manner does Cloud not care about Villager's ledge game? He has no special ledge properties that I know of. And Villager has the tools to make him cry offstage.
What I'm saying is, I don't think it's that bad.

As I said, camping doesn't work against Cloud because of his ground and aerial mobility options. For a character with no reflector, he blows off Villager's camping options very easily because nair, ftilt, uair, fair, uair, dair, *gasps for air* blade beam, fsmash, and usmash will clash with them if they hit his sword. As today made even more evident, dtilt doesn't come out very often and Cloud really has no pressure to approach anyways. Villager's best close quarters option against Cloud is ftilt because jab doesn't knock him far away enough and, with Cloud's range, he can easily retaliate with his jab, ftilt, and even his specials and nair's trumped by just about everything Cloud has. As for offstage, have fun getting him off stage to begin with. If you can get him offstage early, it's probably because they were being impatient and tried to rush you down, which Cloud doesn't have to do in this match up. There's really no pressure on him because Villager is slow as balls and can easily bat him away with a ton of options anyways thanks to Villager's crap range on the ground and laughably bad shield grab. No, it's pretty bad if the Cloud isn't super aggressive or tries to play them like Captain Falcon.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Hmm. I know nairo has said before that the sheik MU is more about the player than the MU. And after MLG every sheik he's faced ,on stream after MLG, has taken him to last game. About 4 of varying skill level from shu to a no ranked from his region and all of them it happens to be players that nairo has never played before bar rain (who he actually beat solidly). He seems to be better against players he's familiar with at least in this MU.

Nairo always does worse aganist players or characters he's not familar with. *cough* Hyuga vs. Nairo *cough*

 

[NotLiquid]

Mario. Mario has Ally, Anti, and Zenyou. A few less than those other two, but still close. The players are closer in skill, but the best is a little worse than Nairo and Dabuz

Diddy kong also fits. ZeRo co-maining him, Zinoto, MVD, Angel Cortes, and C-3PO all use him, and that's just some. He has slightly more good players, but the skill is less apart from ZeRo and Zinoto.

Mario was pretty much the first character that came to mind with that, yeah. I'm still convinced that character is Top 5 since that's a character that's been proven to go toe-to-toe with the Top 3. I feel like if any character is showing a surge in terms of results / players it's definitely Cloud, even setting aside Doubles domination. Diddy Kong is funny cause I feel like, more than even Sonic, that's a character that seems to have a bunch of results in spite of some clear limitations.

I feel like all of the aforementioned characters can kind of fit into the Top 10 mold though really even with the 5.99 trend exact placement is becoming somewhat nebulous.

 

[Greward]

I don't think anyone disagrees that ZSS / Rosa are Top 3

bayonetta and cloud could take zss/rosa spot in not much time
and sheik's

 

[Nobie]

This might sound odd, but I feel like Cloud and Bayonetta give the top tiers of this game a taste of what it's like to be a mid or low tier.

A lot of the best characters have the ability to just run roughshod over certain game states, or just have tools so good that they can just get out of things easily that lesser characters have to try and avoid entirely. For example, having a safe combo breaker nair is just a huge boon to a lot of upper tier characters, but Witch Time brings them down to mortal level. You can't just throw out that nair as a safety precaution, you have to sometimes decide, just like a lot of the other characters, to just get the hell away. I almost feel like a lot of top players aren't used to having their reliable tools be not so reliable, and it's knocking them for a loop.

Whether this means Cloud and Bayo are S tier... remains to be seen.

 

[TurboLink]

Nairo always does worse aganist players or characters he's not familar with. *cough* Hyuga vs. Nairo *cough*

Nairo ran into so much **** in that match and didn't go with the flow.

 

[Mario766]

Just for a FYI

Ike's dash shield isn't super amazing, it's like in the 2nd group behind the super gifted.

 

[shrooby]

Nairo always does worse aganist players or characters he's not familar with. *cough* Hyuga vs. Nairo *cough*

Player unfamiliarity wasn't an issue against K9 because Nairo frequently stays at Sky William's house. I'm sure they're familiar with each other.
K9 is just really good and gave him a run for his money, until in true K9-fashion he went Buster Monado.

 

[Das Koopa]

Tweek is a monster.

He was held back by Jr. all along lol.

 

[NotLiquid]

Tweek is a monster.

He was held back by Jr. all along lol.

"Some day when I'm bigger, I wanna fight that Mario again"

 

[Shaya]

Limit Side-B is better than most character's final smashes, lol.

As much as I enjoy playing this character [now], seeing every kill from every Cloud always being limit side-b, and the sheer fact it nearly always works... [unless of course you jump into his up air]
It's not a matter of reads, it's a move that just requires a feel from anything or a single weak hit (as it beats air dodges cleanly) and you may have just scored yourself a stock, and if it doesn't work, no worries, no lag.

I don't know if there's ever been a more overpowered move in any smash game tbqh. Tornado decides games, as does Shine... but neither purely win in every situation like this thing does...
It's shown to be significantly more relevant than witch time has been thus far, at least.

 

[Ffamran]

Unrelated to all of this, someone made a hitbox thingie for ZSS: http://smashboards.com/threads/zero-suit-samus-hitbox-visualization.432596/! Oh, and the user also has ones for Jigglypuff, Pikachu, and Wii Fit Trainer. Some of them might look off because of how the characters are animated in the games. For example, I'm pretty sure Jigglypuff's limbs stretch during most of her attacks. We're getting closer to having hitbox viewers for everyone... Prepare yourself for those evil disjoints.

 

[san.]

Just for a FYI

Ike's dash shield isn't super amazing, it's like in the 2nd group behind the super gifted.

Wait, that post was talking about Ike? I was wondering who else had an autocancelled side-B..

Limit Side-B is better than most character's final smashes, lol.

As much as I enjoy playing this character [now], seeing every kill from every Cloud always being limit side-b, and the sheer fact it nearly always works...
It's not a matter of reads, it's a move that just requires a feel from anything or a single weak hit (as it beats air dodges cleanly) and you may have just scored yourself a stock, and if it doesn't work, no worries, no lag.

I don't know if there's ever been a more overpowered move in any smash game tbqh. Tornado decides games, as does Shine... but neither purely win in every situation like this thing does...
It's shown to be significantly more relevant than witch time has been thus far, at least.

Yeah, probably, second to grab of course =p

 

[Mario766]

It shouldn't be referring to Ike, as Ike's advantage state isn't THAT good.

Neither is Ike's dash to shield game. Side-B isn't really a good get-out-of-juggles option either sooooo

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Maybe Ryo thinks corrin is better suited for him???or she is better against that matchups??, this corrin looks solid, and remember we have one month with the DLC characters, i doubt is character hype, why using corrin if you have a supposed better and more developed character on a stacked tournament??

Ryo kind of implied he still liked Ike better in a tweet. Either way, I don't think he's going to be dropping either of them. He said he's dual maining.