Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[[BROF]]

Ginko is doing some amazing stuff with Pacman at Sumabato.
He's so creative with the character at a level I have never seen before.

 

[Megamang]

After watching the slaughter, some of you should check out Kamemushi on youtube. See the gameplan he tries to execute, his skill with it, and why it falls apart vs shiek. Its really only needles which are a problem, but being punished to land with a zoning character, through ALL your tools... forces bad decisions.

EDIT: Obviously skill discrepancy plays a part, but komorikiri's sonic just slaughtered ikep's bayonetta on stream. It means something that he opts for Sonic over Cloud in this MU. It makes sense, the sonic confirms do damage to her comparable to her bnb (if you SDI them), his speed makes for a nice advantage, and his kill confirm from nair works really well since she is so light. Also, his throw game is strong, which is a boon. I could see the MU being something that brings Sonic back into higher levels of relevance in the metagame.

Another thing I notice, is that Sonic's run speed and spindash/dashgrab all work really well to actually punish Bayonetta for stacking up lag with her specials, which is not something most characters can boast.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Watching Sumbato..Lucas' grab does wonders vs Cloud when he autocancels his aerials, especially dair.

EDIT: And Earth went full time Corrin this tourney.. Pit is too honest to be a force to be reckoned with.

 

[[BROF]]

Is it safe to say that Taiheita might be the best Lucas right now?

 

[Megamang]

I really wish we got to see a game on battlefield vs shiek. Dying to needles, then repicking FD, is so... defeatest to me. Maybe he knows something I don't, but I think bigger blastzones are always worth it vs shiek, and I almost always take her to the biggest stage available when given the choice. Except I prefer platforms to FD style stages, since flatness breeds needleness.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Speaking of dying metas,. Nasubi quit so Wario in Japan is now officially dead, and in America he is on a coma. hasn't done anything significant in forever and negates his existence even more. And where is he ranked?:

D

Yeah, no, Wario is not better than Toon Link and Lucario.

Aye, I've went into this before but Wario really isn't good anymore. He may have been high tier at a much earlier point but with the removal of VI and characters around him getting buffed he's gotten progressively worse over time to the point where I honestly think he's about low mid tier in customless.

His matchups against top tiers are generally pretty bad. Sheik is about -2 without Rose Scent Waft. ZSS is a losing matchup for sure. Cloud is freaking TERRIBLE. Diddy, Fox and Mario all have solid advantages against Wario. The only good characters Wario does decently against right now are Rosalina, Villager and Sonic, out of which one is pretty much non-existant [Villager] and the other is becoming less popular [Sonic].
The whole swordfighter crew has been buffed [Marth, Ike, Shulk, Lucina] to the point where all of them are losing matchups, characters that used to be easy have been buffed and are not easy anymore [Robin, Bowser, DK, Kirby, Roy, ...] so Wario really doesn't have much of a niche anymore in the current meta. He doesn't even beat Ganondorf which is kinda telling.

 

[Megamang]

His old niche for me was Luma killing, but yea, he is no longer the best or even top 5 at that IMO.

I'd imagine a command grab, strong punish game (when waft is charged), heavy weight, and good aerial mobility keep him relevant vs Bayonetta? Or are her hitboxes basically like swords to him.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Is it safe to say that I think Lucas is a mid to mid-high tier character with literally no representation so he get stuffed as a super low tier?

 

[Nobie]

Re: Walking in Melee

Mang0 has actually said that walking is super underdeveloped in Melee.

 

[Megamang]

Yea, wavedashing is a great move to change your momentum and opens up a lot of options, but it is somewhat commital. Its basically like a way better initial dash that you can control the length of, has little lag, and can be done from basically any position... but it does have a set distance before you can act, and it is much harder to be exact, in the way that when you choose a distance, you can't stop short unless you do something else, whereas you can stop a walk at any point.


I walked a lot in melee, especially in advantage situations. You knock them on the ground? Walking at them was way more threatening that running at them, since you could d-smash at any moment, you can turn around if they try to roll behind, or you can go right into a run if they start moving away.

Especially since fox/falco's utilts are ridiculous walls, I'd imagine walking away could benefit them greatly. Freedom of movement is such a great thing to give you options, we are still discovering optimal ways to move around the map after playing these games for so long.


Sumabato finals! Sonic vs Bayonetta, we get to test my thoughts on the MU! First match was a wash cause double gimps, but I feel like Sonic might be one of the best choices for Bayonetta. Spindash is relatively safe when it hits Witch Time, in the right situation. Not ideal, but better off than most characters.

Edit 2X, the Editor: Damn, he went cloud instead... after he won. Idk. Ive seen a lot of that today. Weird.

 

[juddy96]

Sumabato 8 Top 8

1) Komorikiri
2) 9B
3) Edge
4) Earth
5) Taiheita
5) Shimitake
7) Kamemushi
7) Gomamugitya

http://challonge.com/Sumabato8T

 

[MistressRemilia]

Is it safe to say that I think Lucas is a mid to mid-high tier character with literally no representation so he get stuffed as a super low tier?

No
Gotta stop being unrealistic, just wait for the significant results.
But if a character doesn't have those, he'll struggle to become anything. Every argument for Lucas being better than some of us think he is are flawed & artificial. Yes, he does have good combos for sure, but his neutral is nothing impressive, his disadvantage is quite frankly pretty reasonable. Matchups vs charas that matter are not good enough, he can do better than Ness in some, but if it isn't even to advantage, it's kind of worthless. When a character is literally the equivalent of NOTHING in the metagame, it's kind of normal that he's going down. ( See: Yoshi )
Nice 5th place at Sumabato tho.

 

[RonNewcomb]

Re: Link edgeguarding Cloud well, from a few pages ago:

Link's tether grab is invaluable for getting Cloud offstage to begin with. The Cloud and LM MUs are the only time when I use Link's side throws heavily.

Link's uair can also beat Cloud's dair if you position Link's head to not be beneath Cloud. Like, the swords almost don't touch each other. Hard to do because of air mobility differences of course, but it can be useful to put fear into Cloud.

Related question: Who can land hits with Light Pit's arrows consistently?

(Yes, I'm sure it's more than competitive strength, but I wanted to bring up a point.)

I could do that in Brawl, but not 4 for some reason. I really loved doing loop-de-loops with Brawl arrows, and miss it sorely.

 

[Megamang]

I feel like his neutral is well above average. He has the PK fire zoning which is a powerful wall, then if you make it through that he has zair, THEN he has pretty great normals and a solid jab/dtilt, the latter of which can trip and lead to a fsmash for a kill or heavy damage + a bad situation + you're back at stage 1 of breaking his zoning. The launch back he gets from PK Fire is really nice for his safety too, it even protects him from Witch Time. We saw having a punish game based on dash grab is really nice to have vs Cloud, and I'd be willing to bet it is really useful to have against Bayonetta. When she accrues lag and then falls and you have to guess between her aerial attack, simple landing, or Witch Time... unless you are Lucas, then you can run up and shield -> grab for a faster recovering grab that beats all options. Yes, even bair, because bair +special lag added together is punishable on shield, even though regular bair is safe.


Plus, having solid throws in each direction, a d-throw with the BEST frame advantage, and pretty solid ledge options is a nice combination.Get them offstage and you can chuck PK fires at them all day, if one hits you might even get a kill, and if they return fire to cover their return you can just get some heals. Speaking of which, the magnet can send the opponent at an ATROCIOUS angle, killing all but the best recoverers.

I think this all adds up to make his neutral/advantage worth talking about, especially now that his grab is better. Zair, dtilt, and jab are great boxing/CQC moves.

I saw Taiheita powershield a 3 jab combo from cloud from behind, then drop his shield and jab towards the ledge, knowing its hitbox is a little behind Lucas, and this pushed Cloud of the ledge. Speaking of Cloud, Lucas's dsmash is a move that is big enough to punish cloud with at least a trade, and not just die out to his hitbox.

I like Lucas =B

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I feel like cloud is gonna be the most hated character as time goes on.

 

[BunbUn129]

I feel like cloud is gonna be the most hated character as time goes on.

No character screams "pick up and play" as much and at the same time is a contender for 1st place in a major. I'm actually happy. Know why? Because people will finally start showing some respect to Sheik players. Playing Sheik isn't an auto-win, guys. She actually requires a bit of skill.

Edit: Cloud is now the new Little Mac of Smash Bros. Annoying onstage, hilarious offstage, hated everywhere.

 

[Tri Knight]

Cloud is now the new Little Mac of Smash Bros.

Except Cloud actually rewards you for using him.

 

[TurboLink]

It's just a weird situation because we're slowly getting a solid list of 5-7 characters that have no true counters: as the Three Queens, as inevitable top tiers, and getting more scary as time passes and still the promise of terrifying optimized play. Everyone below that kind of hits snags. are losing their edge and get checked by the strangest of characters and/or simply get outdone by the top tiers. Villager is a prime example of this. and even freakin' are fairly hard match ups. Even are kind of nail biters and yet he's still considered one of the better characters in the game. Ness and Mario are pretty much in the same boat. A bigger gap is definitely starting to develop between the top and high tiers.

Link is a hard matchup for Villager?

 

[Jalil]

After watching the slaughter, some of you should check out Kamemushi on youtube. See the gameplan he tries to execute, his skill with it, and why it falls apart vs shiek. Its really only needles which are a problem, but being punished to land with a zoning character, through ALL your tools... forces bad decisions.

EDIT: Obviously skill discrepancy plays a part, but komorikiri's sonic just slaughtered ikep's bayonetta on stream. It means something that he opts for Sonic over Cloud in this MU. It makes sense, the sonic confirms do damage to her comparable to her bnb (if you SDI them), his speed makes for a nice advantage, and his kill confirm from nair works really well since she is so light. Also, his throw game is strong, which is a boon. I could see the MU being something that brings Sonic back into higher levels of relevance in the metagame.

Another thing I notice, is that Sonic's run speed and spindash/dashgrab all work really well to actually punish Bayonetta for stacking up lag with her specials, which is not something most characters can boast.

What's kame's channel called?

 

[PK Gaming]

Watching Sumbato..Lucas' grab does wonders vs Cloud when he autocancels his aerials, especially dair.

EDIT: And Earth went full time Corrin this tourney.. Pit is too honest to be a force to be reckoned with.

I'm going to pull a reverse LancerStaff and say that Corrin is straight up a better version of Pit at the moment. They're obviously different characters, but they occupy a similar niche of being a "solid" choice in most match ups, and Corrin is outright better at it.

Oh, sweet, delicious irony.

 

[Jamurai]

Cloud isn't even that weak offstage, Little Mac is in a different league in terms of bad recoveries. Cloud's aerials are hard to challenge (Fair in particular is scary), and his Up-B is not that easy to punish either:

It covers him very well in front and a fair bit above, ie. where the opponent will be when they try to punish it on the ledge. The hitbox is huge compared to the sword, and is interpolated with the last frame so it should cover his entire front with a wall of red. If you're directly above him you can trade with a lot of stuff, but that's a fair commitment if you mistime your advance. If you do, you have to deal with Cloud's edgeguarding, which is nothing to sneeze at.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Do or DI Wii U singles should be coming up sometime soon, I think. Should be very interesting considering the top 6 seeded players [Nairo, Hyuga, Anti, dabuz, Tweek, Salem] all play different characters and with Angel Cortez and 6wx in attendance there's a chance that we'll see 9 unique characters in top 8 which would be hype af. Could also give us some more input on how top tiers fare against each other. If the bracket published on smash.gg is accurate/final then we'll likely see Tweek vs Salem at one point in winners at the very least.

 

[Rizen]

Cloud isn't even that weak offstage, Little Mac is in a different league in terms of bad recoveries. Cloud's aerials are hard to challenge (Fair in particular is scary), and his Up-B is not that easy to punish either:

It covers him very well in front and a fair bit above, ie. where the opponent will be when they try to punish it on the ledge. The hitbox is huge compared to the sword, and is interpolated with the last frame so it should cover his entire front with a wall of red. If you're directly above him you can trade with a lot of stuff, but that's a fair commitment if you mistime your advance. If you do, you have to deal with Cloud's edgeguarding, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Can you please link to those hitbubble pictures? Do they exist for every character?

 

[L9999]

Sumabato 8 Top 8

1) Komorikiri
2) 9B
3) Edge
4) Earth
5) Taiheita
5) Shimitake
7) Kamemushi
7) Gomamugitya

http://challonge.com/Sumabato8T

Didn't Komorikiri dropped Sonic? Also, Lucas and Pikachu actually doing something of worth.

 

[ReRaze]

Didn't Komorikiri dropped Sonic? Also, Lucas and Pikachu actually doing something of worth.

He used sonic but to be fair he didn't really....9B practically SD'd twice at very low percents and then Komorikiri switched back to Cloud.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I think the big thing about patient play as it pertains to Smash is that it has a huge amount of stigma around it, to the point that many newer players are being told that it is simply the "wrong" way to play. What are some of the new questions that players have when they come to Smash 4?

"How do I beat a spamming, rolling player?"
"I consider myself a rushdown player, how do I approach better?"

What is the common response on any Smash stream, Smash 4 or otherwise, when a slower-paced match is happening? ResidentSleepers all around.

Players are being taught that patience is a sin, and that they need to end things swiftly and with style.

Of course patient play exists across all Smash games. Melee has plenty of patience too even in non-floaty matchups, it just doesn't look that way. The issue with players being impatient or jumping the gun exists in other fighting games too, and that's why video tutorials are made to address people's understanding of things like "neutral" and "footsies."

However, what dawned upon me recently is the sheer difference in terms of how, say, the Street Fighter community's teachers approach these topics vs. how the Smash community's teachers have done so. False's short video on neutral is a good starting point for Smash players to be sure, but compare the following two videos:

This is Kira's guide to playing the neutral as Fox in Melee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7euwVDL_In4
It's mainly focused on techniques, what moves are good for what, the advanced techniques you can utilize to trick your opponents, and so on.

EDIT: This video from Kira is probably more appropriate for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5WLjB8qOTE

This is James Chen's guide to whiff punishing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Rgk1CiZJ0
It breaks down conceptually what whiff punishing is, what makes it so complex, and how you can get better at it. It sets the techniques aside and combines philosophy with practicality.

Why didn't I pick a similar video for Smash? BECAUSE THEY DON'T EXIST (aside from the aforementioned False video, which is brief but good for what it is). Why aren't there resources like these for Smash players? Why are they always so focused on technology, and not the thinking that goes into improving your decision-making?

There's just a fundamental difference in how Smashers are being taught to play their games, and while patience and neutral and all that good stuff are long-standing concepts of fighting games, I don't believe they're being communicated enough to Smash players.

So....much.....WIN!!!!

This is one of the main reasons I stopped posting in the ryu forums. There are so many threads about tech and none about how to even counter poke common approaches from other characters.

Ryus would often challenge me and i would obliterate them. They wouldn't understand why all their "combos" didn't get them the win against me.(more like strings because utilt into nair or aerial isn't real with proper SDI/DI except vs heavies.)

I would use basic reactionary play. Dsmash when I saw a bad button press. Shoryuken when they jump. Basics. Many were flabbergasted, but for me it's logic.

You trying to hit me with a footstool combo but you can't even jab correctly? Can't even block right?

LITERALLY trying to run before you can walk. And folks wonder why they hit a plateau.

Learn how to press buttons correctly fam. Work on tech once you get that down.

 

[Conda]

Except Cloud actually rewards you for using him.

Or rather, rewards you just for using him.

 

[BunbUn129]

So....much.....WIN!!!!

This is one of the main reasons I stopped posting in the ryu forums. There are so many threads about tech and none about how to even counter poke common approaches from other characters.

Ryus would often challenge me and i would obliterate them. They wouldn't understand why all their "combos" didn't get them the win against me.(more like strings because utilt into nair or aerial isn't real with proper SDI/DI except vs heavies.)

I would use basic reactionary play. Dsmash when I saw a bad button press. Shoryuken when they jump. Basics. Many were flabbergasted, but for me it's logic.

You trying to hit me with a footstool combo but you can't even jab correctly? Can't even block right?

LITERALLY trying to run before you can walk. And folks wonder why they hit a plateau.

Learn how to press buttons correctly fam. Work on tech once you get that down.

Essentially the same thing happens over in the Meta Knight forums. There are so many posts about uair combos, specific percents, optimal control schemes for it. Whatever they're talking about, it likely has something to do with up air combos. I even went as far as to open a post to compile the uair percents against the entire cast, and I was shocked to find that this existed:

Edit: 90:10because MK can 0-death her off dash attack without anything fancy. Take that with a grain of salt.

And you know what? Even though this picture was a thing, people are still asking for specific uair percents. I can only remember two posts where they actually talked about neutral, and many of the comments were hilariously shallow. The typical comment would be: "You have three options: dash attack, dash grab, and roll-in." And one person here and there would mention dance-trotting, usually in passing.

One thing I've seen Leo do is cross-up nairs, ie making an unsafe move relatively safe. Heck, some of the commenters wouldn't even mention something as basic as dair-poking. Rarely does someone mention mixing up a defensive playstyle where one punishes out of shield with an offensive playstyle characterized by burst options; ironically, MK is very good at doing this, with fast options in dair, d tilt, and dash attack. To be fair, this mentaility really isn't exclusive to the MK players, obviously (in fact, they tend to pay attention to neutral more than others, because it isn't MK's strong suit).

I mean, with regards to how you would dsmash those Ryu players, other MK's I've played against have a horrible tendency to run right into my fsmash. Yes, imagine a player running into a frame 24 move not once, but several times. Everyone seems to know MK's fsmash is an excellent baiting tool, and the fact that so many players, not just other MK's, have fallen into it demonstrates their mishandling of neutral. Granted, I've fallen prey to this mentality (who hasn't?), but getting hit by a telegraphed frame 24 fsmash when it could've been easily avoided is nearly an "unplug-the-controller" situation.

This poor understanding and disregard for playing neutral properly most likely comes from the fact that Melee is the go-to for competitive smash. In that game, you're always pressing buttons, you're always doing something. Because most people look up to Melee as the gold-class of the series, they come to Smash 4 trying to reenact Melee. To sum it up, rather than playing Smash 4 when playing Smash 4, a large number of players play Melee when they play Smash 4. There's this fallacy going around where "if you're not pressing a button, you're doing something wrong." Yeah, the new kitten we have can press buttons all day. Too bad it can't understand and calculate its own options and anticipate and understand its opponent's options. It isn't gonna be beating ZeRo any time soon.

Edit: sadly, this craze and over-dependence on MK's up air combo has led people who don't main the character to have a very one-dimensional understanding of Meta Knight's gameplan. Some people actually say MK is overrated because "his up air combo is the only thing he has." Yes, that's right, if you disregard his great frame data, good reach relative to his size, his other combo set-ups, excellent edge-guarding, strong disadvantage and recovery, and good KOing ability. We MK mains are in part responsible for making people think this character is "dash attack into up air."

 

[Y2Kay]

I'm going to pull a reverse LancerStaff and say that Corrin is straight up a better version of Pit at the moment. They're obviously different characters, but they occupy a similar niche of being a "solid" choice in most match ups, and Corrin is straight up better at it.

Oh, sweet, delicious irony.

I was about to say that I wondering if he's going Corrin just to spite lancer staff lol

Can you please link to those hitbubble pictures? Do they exist for every character?

There should be one for every character

 

[nannerham]

Essentially the same thing happens over in the Meta Knight forums. There are so many posts about uair combos, specific percents, optimal control schemes for it. Whatever they're talking about, it likely has something to do with up air combos. I even went as far as to open a post to compile the uair percents against the entire cast, and I was shocked to find that this existed:
View attachment 99928

I find it interesting that lucario isn't on that list, does his weight/FF speed make the uair death combo hard or was he forgotten accidentally?

 

[BunbUn129]

I find it interesting that lucario isn't on that list, does his weight/FF speed make the uair death combo hard or was he forgotten accidentally?

Didn't notice. Guess he was forgotten. This was before Bayo and Corrin, that's why they aren't there.

Lucario would fall into the same range as Cloud, same falling speed, 1 weight difference.

 

[Jamurai]

Can you please link to those hitbubble pictures? Do they exist for every character?

@Furil (the god) is currently working on making them for every character, some are complete (like Cloud and MK) but work is still in progress. You can find the threads about them stickied (usually) in character boards where they have been done.

I find it interesting that lucario isn't on that list, does his weight/FF speed make the uair death combo hard or was he forgotten accidentally?

I'm the creator of that % list (the source is my guide), Lucario and some other characters are missing, cause they are new or got weight/gravity changes. Should be updated soon.

 

[Vipermoon]

A compilation was just created and is currently located right here in the competitive forum (but it probably should be in the academy sub-forum)

Edit: moved to the smash academy like predicted

 

[Peppermint1201]

Despite Taiheita's performance at Sumabato, I am still convinced Lucas is garbage. Besides, this is Lucas' only good result like ever.

Results aside, Lucas is bad in theory and we already know this. Grab is bad, profit off of grab is meh unless youre a footstool master, reliant on sweetspots, nair is easily SDI-able, pk fire is mediocre and he has no other long-range options, doesn't win any relevant matchups, yadda yadda yadda.


EDIT: Removed the stuff comparing results that Juddy proved was stupid.

 

[meleebrawler]

Despite Taiheita's performance at Sumabato, I am still convinced Lucas is garbage. I mean, Taiheita tied with Shimitake, who got last place in his Round 2 pool at Genesis. Shimitake, GimR, and Shofu got the same placing. Some decent players got that placing as well, such as Wizzrobe, Sol, Espy, Aphro, and Keitaro, but it still isn't very impressive. Besides, this is Lucas' only good result like ever.

Results aside, Lucas is bad in theory and we already know this. Grab is bad, profit off of grab is meh unless youre a footstool master, reliant on sweetspots, nair is easily SDI-able, pk fire is mediocre and he has no other long-range options, doesn't win any relevant matchups, yadda yadda yadda.

This begs the question, which is more indicative of a poor character: a dearth of any results period, or some good results in a sea of poor ones?

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

Well, guess I'll put my money where my mouth is and collect some hard data, to serve as an example.

I.

Let's take a look at the Smashboards tournament ranking results (by character) for events from Feb 1st - Now:

Several interesting things jump out, but let's break it down.

II.

The percentages are the % of players (of that character) who placed at the corresponding levels. In theory, this should be a similar spread for characters of all skill levels, if we assume that that players are themselves automatically filtering for tiers and only playing their best character(s).

In more advanced theory, we'd expect to see a slight tilt for higher-tier characters having higher percentages, merely because the most competitive "spike" mindset players (who win more as a group) will gravitate towards them.

We see important exceptions to this trend:

We all know that has a top-level problem, but according to the data and suffer similar fates in the aggregate smash community. Yes, iStudying and Ranai have made their few wins pretty big ones, but the general trend within this period still stands.

Always just short.​

and are disproportionately played by people who perform really well with them. ROB is actually just, really strongly performing period.

Shockingly (to me), wins relatively rarely for the pool of players that play her; she's more popular with the broader smash community than we (I?) assumed.

I've long said that feminine characters (including Jiggs), extreme heavyweights, and specifically all have abnormally high character loyalty such that they are played disproportionately by experienced mains only.

But muh wifu!​

I've also suggested in private that this has a radical warping effect on win-rates relative to tier strength--and we see that here. All of those characters exhibit abnormally high Top 16 or Top 8 placement rates relative to the number of players using them--ESPECIALLY and , who may be even more dominant at lower level play than we suspected.

Curiously is included in this pattern while is not, which is an important lesson about gender identity and assumptions.

III.

Returning to the top of the rankings, we see some surprising results. We can get a general placement score by combining the top 16/8/1 placements, weighted significantly towards the latter. We can see that 5/6ths of the entire cast falls within one standard deviation of the average score, with all the outliers being on the top.

The elephant in the room is that is king, and a whole boatload of people are both playing and winning with at all levels of play. Looking back historically, this was no February fluke; Mario has been popular (and unlike Falcon, winning) everywhere for a long time.

Zero might not be worried about them, but this is currently the most typical Grand Finals in Smash 4.​

What's striking is just how much stronger performing these two characters were over this period, about an entire standard deviation each above the others. In fact, if you were to turn this into a results list, it might look pretty shocking:

TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
SS:
S:
A+:
A-:
B+:
B-:
C+:

NOT TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
C-:
D+:
E+:
E-:

Note: I didn't include the Miis, because we (as a community) don't play with them much. (So there isn't enough data to submit for analysis.)

IV.

Now, I already here you protesting: Results don't automatically equal tiers.

Wait, who said anything about tier lists? I never said tier list. You said tier list!​

Results are reality, tiers are theory--an expectation of future reality at a given level of play. The problem is that defining that level of play is hard, and almost everyone ends up overshooting.

We like to say that a tier list is exclusively supposed to measure "top-level play", but what exactly is top level play? Is it just Zero?

THE OFFICIAL TOP LEVEL SMASH 4 TIER LIST
Zero Tier:
Not-Zero Tier: Everyone Else.

A tier list may be top-level, but even top-level should be a considerable range.

​

What if we limit our results data to just the top 500 ranked players? That's a really small pool of the millions of players that play Smash, but it turns out that the overwhelming majority of the results in our rankings already come from those players. In fact, I originally intended to run two separate sets of data (all players and top 500 only), but there was no point since the results were the same. (Since it was the same data!)

In other words, the temptation to attribute this list to the mouth-breathing For Glory masses doesn't fly. Smashboards' ranking methodology isn't perfect and the data is often incomplete, but it should be fairly representative for the questions we are asking.

Results indeed aren't the same as tiers, but whenever they are at odds, the burden of explanation always falls on theory rather than reality. Results are never wrong, and can never be truly dismissed.

V.

To anyone who has been around competitive gaming long enough, it shouldn't be a surprise that the reality of which characters are actually winning the most has poor correlation with the echo chamber that is public opinion.







My shenanigans aside, this is a prime moment to reflect on both how limited the bounds of our own discussion are relative to the broader smash community and how we treat new users who offer us new perspectives. (Even if those new users are just a-hole moderators in thinly-veiled disguise.)

Why did a new user posting this information (albeit with minimal context) yield vitriol, reports, and zero likes? Why did the posts like mine poking fun at a new user get a whole bunch of likes?

Why is it that I can sit here typing all this out in advance, knowing with 100% certainty that this is exactly how it's going to go down?

Thanks for the internet points, suckas!​

Yes, we're all cool Internet nerds who are great at video games, and God only knows I will take the prize for smug know-it-all who takes his wit too far. But we have got to cultivate a community that is not merely tolerant, but willing to engage with fresh faces (and the often... unconventional ideas they bring to the table).

"Git gud" is not a viable path to the future of Smash, even in the survival-of-the-fittest jungle that is the CCI thread.

Btw, my lawyers want me to remind everyone that alternate accounts are against the Global Rules of Smashboards and are considered major Terms of Service violations and grounds for banning.

VI.

Anyway, where were we? Ah, right:



Please discuss anything you think is out of place!

This is a thorough and impressive ruse, but I think we've all missed the most important point it raises: Lucina players are, apparently, not waifu warriors.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Shimitake's high placing is the result of two things: a.) an upset win against Earth in WR1 and b.) Japan seeding being somewhat random. He "only" beat Earth and Kie to make it that far [both matchups being pretty good for Pikachu I'd assume]. Taiheita on the other hand legitimately had an impressive performance beating Atelier's Rosalina, Shogun's Fox, Sigma's Toon Link, Kie's Peach and Kamemushi's Cloud/Mega Man.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Despite Taiheita's performance at Sumabato, I am still convinced Lucas is garbage. I mean, Taiheita tied with Shimitake, who got last place in his Round 2 pool at Genesis. Shimitake, GimR, and Shofu got the same placing. Some decent players got that placing as well, such as Wizzrobe, Sol, Espy, Aphro, and Keitaro, but it still isn't very impressive. Besides, this is Lucas' only good result like ever.

Results aside, Lucas is bad in theory and we already know this. Grab is bad, profit off of grab is meh unless youre a footstool master, reliant on sweetspots, nair is easily SDI-able, pk fire is mediocre and he has no other long-range options, doesn't win any relevant matchups, yadda yadda yadda.

Lucas is actually pretty good in theory. He has high tier theory, but low tier results so we put him in mid, stating "He has potential to be high tier"

Actual grab is bad, but it has been buffed to not destroy the move (Like Link), profot off of grab is a TON, down throw has a ton of neutral air and other combos, and back and up throws are some of the best kill throws, Pk Fire is pretty good to get people away from you, he has z-air and Pk Fire for long range options, he has great edgeguarding due to down smash, he kills early due to smashes and kill throws, great smashes, great aierals, good range.

As for matchups, i'm pretty sure he DOES win a notable matchup but I forget what it is. There are muitiple top tier matchups, such as Rosalina and Villager, that Lucas does better in than Ness though.

 

[Ffamran]

I feel like cloud is gonna be the most hated character as time goes on.

Doesn't this apply to all characters in all fighting games? Some are just hated less; some are just hated more. Still kind of ironic that Cloud's the one bringing despair and not Sephiroth... Sephiroth for Smash 5 as an OP monster that 0:100 everyone, but goes 1:99 with Cloud.

This poor understanding and disregard for playing neutral properly most likely comes from the fact that Melee is the go-to for competitive smash. In that game, you're always pressing buttons, you're always doing something. Because most people look up to Melee as the gold-class of the series, they come to Smash 4 trying to reenact Melee. To sum it up, rather than playing Smash 4 when playing Smash 4, a large number of players play Melee when they play Smash 4. There's this fallacy going around where "if you're not pressing a button, you're doing something wrong." Yeah, the new kitten we have can press buttons all day. Too bad it can't understand and calculate its own options and anticipate and understand its opponent's options. It isn't gonna be beating ZeRo any time soon.

Most newbies just don't understand jack. There's a reason why button-mashing happens at low-level play in all fighting games and games like it such as hack 'n' slash games. Whether or not they grow out of it depends on them. So, it's not just Melee; it's pretty much all fighting games to even all games. Melee just happens to be the most popular competitive Smash, but even then, in Smash 4, you've seen players try for combos and setups not understanding a damn thing about it e.g. Sheik's D-throw to Vanish doesn't really work at low percents or even failing Diddy and Luigi's D-throw setups in the pre-patch days. I've got bored of playing on the 3DS and FG, so I decided to spam one single move in each match or do absolutely nothing, but move around. You'd be surprised to see people, the average players, completely lost trying to figure out a player just spamming Captain Falcon's Utilt, Fox's Phantasm, or standing in place with rapid jabs. It's really pathetic and this need to win, self-affirmation, and memetic culture doesn't help.

 

[juddy96]

He used sonic but to be fair he didn't really....9B practically SD'd twice at very low percents and then Komorikiri switched back to Cloud.

He also 2-0'd ikep's Bayo with Sonic.