Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Das Koopa]

Dang, okay. Guess I'll check myself then. Shockingly poor performance for someone who beat NickRiddle. Guess Bayo can make miracles happen.
Speaking of 5.99, this Seibrik set is depressing to watch. It's like watching the game die before my eyes somehow.

It'd be depressing but the Bayos are coming from Loser's Bracket.

 

[C0rvus]

The players in winners are better, so I hope that's how it goes. Void and Mr. R outclass Pink Fresh.
Dath doesn't know this matchup either, it seems. Maybe all the trash MVD and ESAM talk about this character is coming back to bite Florida in the ass.
Edit: He's adjusting. Cool. Should be a cool set, showing off a VERY uncommon MU.

 

[Strong-Arm]

Whats the general opinion of Charizard?

 

[Ffamran]

Things like this make me ask if Pacman was designed to be bad lol

Meanwhile, Samus's Ftilt...

I know right? Seriously.

What's worse is Samus' whole leg hurtbox is just poking out unprotected.

Great range, good poking tool... dumbest hitboxes to ever grace a person's eyes not to mention it has really, really weak sour-spots compared to Captain Falcon and ZSS's for... NO REASON. What really should be a good at worse move is a pretty terrible move because of stupid hitboxes. Why are there gaps in between!? You can actually hit with your toes to your knee and if need be for gameplay purposes, hit with your upper leg as well and body, but nope, somehow Samus's armored lower leg is made of paper and instead of the lower body being a hitbox for gameplay purposes, her other leg has a hitbox...

 

[Das Koopa]

Whats the general opinion of Charizard?

He'd be good if he had better air mobility/air speed is what his mains say. I think.

 

[C0rvus]

Whats the general opinion of Charizard?

He's awfully easy to juggle, doesn't have good enough reward to save his poor neutral and disadvantage, and has literally zero notable players. He's good in and out of shield, has one of the best jabs in the game, a solid kill throw, and he can sit on a lead with a pretty safe Flamethrower, and a number of armored moves. He's bottom 10, but mostly because SOMEONE has to be.

 

[juddy96]

The players in winners are better, so I hope that's how it goes. Void and Mr. R outclass Pink Fresh.
Dath doesn't know this matchup either, it seems. Maybe all the trash MVD and ESAM talk about this character is coming back to bite Florida in the ***.
Edit: He's adjusting. Cool. Should be a cool set, showing off a VERY uncommon MU.

This MU probably does happen a fair bit, because Croi, a Duck Hunt player, is #3 in the same region as Raziek

 

[ARISTOS]

Checkmate is super lol

Duck Hunt's lack of escape options really hurt him there

 

[C0rvus]

This MU probably does happen a fair bit, because Croi, a Duck Hunt player, is #3 in the same region as Raziek

How on earth did I forget that. And I've watched it a lot as well. Used to watch a ton of Nova Scotia smash 4 because of Raziek specifically. Cool to see it play out in another region.

 

[Kofu]

He's awfully easy to juggle, doesn't have good enough reward to save his poor neutral and disadvantage, and has literally zero notable players. He's good in and out of shield, has one of the best jabs in the game, a solid kill throw, and he can sit on a lead with a pretty safe Flamethrower, and a number of armored moves. He's bottom 10, but mostly because SOMEONE has to be.

I'd rather have the character rehauled to not require all the armored moves. He's usable but mainly because he has a bunch of cheesy attributes that allow him to make comebacks that are dumb, even by heavy standards.

 

[thehard]

This game is annoying. I keep thinking I can safely write off a character and then someone makes 'em look amazing

 

[Das Koopa]

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that VoiD and Mr. R are #4 and #5 right now. It's hard to say which is better.

 

[Yonder]

VoiD won both Low Tiers and Customs tournies.

Was that with M2? Sorry I just wanted to double check

Edit: answered my own question; that's awesome.

BTW Zero posted his high and mid tiers for whoever is interested, I haven't looked yet. Someone please post his list if possible for curiosity.

 

[C0rvus]

It was a low tier tournament. And a mid tier beat another mid tier in grand finals. Go figure.

 

[L9999]

This game is annoying. I keep thinking I can safely write off a character and then someone makes 'em look amazing

It's a game with 58 characters. The metagame is bound to be bipolar with the weaker characters. "is garbage" Top 8 placing..."is not bad" or "doesn't exist in America" DandyPenguin shows up and beats people " not bad", etc. Plus, people are just burning their energy to say their character is not low tier or bottom 10, but there has to be one, it's the only logical way.

 

[Charoite]

But mewtwo isn't midtier, maybe robin but a character with that mobility,power and good aerials is not mid tier.

 

[Solfiner]

Void is looking like the best Sheik other than ZeRo right now.

 

[Djent]

Spoiler: Glitch Top 8

1) VoiD holy 6-0
2) Mr.R
3) Pink Fresh
4) Dath
5) Dandy Penguin
5) Seibrik
7) Remzi
7) DC

 

[NairWizard]

Corrin is looking like a top/high tier character to me.

It's no coincidence that Ryuga, Ryo, and Earth are focusing on Corrin and taking breaks from their normal swordsman mains. Corrin probably has the best neutral game of the swordsmen minus Cloud with Limit, and the second best disadvantage too, right after Meta Knight.

You can go on all day long about her mobility problems, and it's true that some of her mobility parameters leave something to be desired, but neutral is all about the bubble of space that you threaten, more than your raw mobility stats. Corrin does well in neutral for the same reason that Villager manages to do pretty well in neutral despite subpar mobility, because his effective range thanks to f-air/b-air is enough to threaten areas where others might not be able to reach even with better mobility. And for all of Sheik's awesome mobility, if she didn't have Needles to threaten at long distances and to punish rollbacks on reaction then she would just simply put not be top tier.

For Corrin, the threat of Dragon Lunge and f-smash lead people right into the jaws of reverse DFS and n-air. With even a little bit of stage control, Corrin can lock you down at tipper range for her long-range moves and then set up a vertical wall of hitboxes using things like full hop f-air -> n-air (which just covers so. much. space.). She's also got an f6 mid-range answer to shield that sets up into a kill throw at high percents and a whole bunch of other stuff at mid percents. With all of that, you'd expect a pretty bad CQC game, but actually her jab is f5 and the transitions are actually faster than Cloud's (Corrin's jab1 to jab2 FAFs are 28s and 30, while Cloud's are 30 and 33, even though his jab is a frame faster on startup).

When your attacks in neutral are so good, you don't really need top-tier movement parameters to compete with top tiers, but Corrin actually does have quite a few neat movement tricks anyway: lunge, b-reverse DFS, b-air, and randomly the fastest dash to shield in the game (7 frames, 1 frame faster than Sheik's 8, iirc). When you consider her kit of random tools that adjust her threat-bubble, you see that Corrin is actually moving like a top tier for much of the match, just usually within a smaller radius of total movement.

And compared to other non-Cloud sword characters (or characters with similar range and disjoint), her raw mobility stats are mostly normal, anyway, rather than below average. Compared to Pit, she's got higher air, walk, and fall speeds, but lower run speed. Compared to Ike, she's got higher walk and fall speeds, the same run speed, and lower air speed. Compared to Meta Knight, she's got higher walk speed, similar air and fall speed, and lower run speed. Marth is a neat exception and has her beat in run, walk, and air speed, but has a tragically bad initial dash to shield animation that makes up for it.

So with normal movement stats + additional movement options, she's actually looking more mobile than the rest, rather than less.

In disadvantage, she has tools for landing that most swordsmen wish they had, like n-air, d-air, b-reverse, b-air, Lunge, and Counter--a variety of mixups to prevent her opponent from getting followups. That Counter alone sort of just invalidates all other swordsmen's disadvantage states, at least onstage (MK is better offstage). Corrin can even choose to not use the Counter all stock long, take some hits, and then punish you for a random overextension that leads into your stock loss at some point. Consider the difference between juggling a Mario at high percent and juggling a Luigi. With Mario you have nothing to be afraid of, even if his escape options are just as fast, so you might as well swing at him. With Luigi, if you get n-aired, you might die, so very often you just won't swing. Just the threat of that Counter can sometimes save Corrin in disadvantage.

The problem with her disadvantage is that her recovery is fallible, but what swordsman's recovery isn't, besides MK? You can challenge Marth's Dolphin Slash, do silly things to Aether, lolCloudsrecovery, and Pit's is not nearly as safe as some people want you to believe. Corrin's recovery has sufficient mixups thanks again to her reverses and stalls, and in several matchups I'd actually rather have Corrin's recovery than, say, Rosalina's.

Her biggest flaw seems to be that her airspeed sometimes prevents her from getting followups in advantage, especially off of her throws. Her f-air is a combo machine, up-air kills, Dragon Lunge followups are magical when they happen, etc., but sometimes you just can't land any of it. She definitely wishes that she had the easy-bake juggling of Ike or Cloud, but given the choice of a better neutral and better disadvantage vs. better general followups in advantage, I think the decision is obvious.

She's not better than Cloud or Meta Knight (because of how crazy those two are in advantage, mostly), but I'd definitely rank Corrin at least a tier or so higher than the likes of Ike, Pit, and Marth.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Corrin is looking like a top/high tier character to me.

It's no coincidence that Ryuga, Ryo, and Earth are focusing on Corrin and taking breaks from their normal swordsman mains.

Ryuga dropped Ike, and Ryo is dual maining Ike and Corrin (he used Ike a bunch in the last Smash Conference, so I wouldn't really call it "taking a break").

Also, Corrin and Ike have the same fall speed, btw.

 

[Das Koopa]

VoiD 6-0ing Mr. R seems pretty definitive.

He won all the singles tournies, too.

 

[Ffamran]

Her biggest flaw seems to be that her airspeed sometimes prevents her from getting followups in advantage, especially off of her throws. Her f-air is a combo machine, up-air kills, Dragon Lunge followups are magical when they happen, etc., but sometimes you just can't land any of it. She definitely wishes that she had the easy-bake juggling of Ike or Cloud, but given the choice of a better neutral and better disadvantage vs. better general followups in advantage, I think the decision is obvious.

Nitpick time! Corrin's air speed is average, but her air acceleration is low like Ike's... The same as Ike's. On the flipside, Bayonetta's air speed is barely below-average, but her air acceleration is above average... almost the same as Wii Fit Trainer's.

Edit: Followup to this.

Melee Samus's Ftilt hitboxes were this... Assuming Brawl had good hitboxes too considering it was said to be a good move for her... What the hell went wrong?

 

[[BROF]]

Being a Swordsman with a projectile already makes Corrin a better swordsman than most others. His side-B also has a ton of uses, especially on stages like Battlefield. If you ever face Corrin in Bracket, always ban Battlefield. The Side-B just warps all over the place due to the way it interacts with platforms (most likely unintended as the move is very buggy itself).
Corrin's recovery is extremely exploitable though, especially if you have good disjoints. Among the sword users, his is probably bottom.

If Corrin had actual combo throws he would be way too good. Kinda how Fox would be if he were to get a lot from his grabs. Now that would be scary.

 

[Charoite]

Corrin is looking like a top/high tier character to me.

And compared to other non-Cloud sword characters (or characters with similar range and disjoint), her raw mobility stats are mostly normal, anyway, rather than below average. Compared to Pit, she's got higher air, walk, and fall speeds, but lower run speed. Compared to Ike, she's got higher walk and fall speeds, the same run speed, and lower air speed. Compared to Meta Knight, she's got higher walk speed, similar air and fall speed, and lower run speed. Marth is a neat exception and has her beat in run, walk, and air speed, but has a tragically bad initial dash to shield animation that makes up for it.

So with normal movement stats + additional movement options, she's actually looking more mobile than the rest, rather than less.

This is the reason i dont understand when people say that corrin is bad because of their overall average mobility stats, these are things that balance corrin, if she released with better movements specs then she would juggle you to dead and would have stupid set ups into kill with neutral B, Side B, hell even counter and Up B would have kill setups.

Imaging a corrin with marth specs would be terrific.

 

[Illuminose]

In light of Void beating Mr R, before people start to insinuate things...

One of them can beat Dabuz and one of them gets demolished by Dabuz.

One of them has beaten Nairo and ANTi (both are 1-0 vs ESAM and get bodied by ZeRo).

One of them has been in grand finals and top 8 of multiple nationals.

Let's not mix up winning a ditto with who the better player is. Void still has a long way to go if he wants to call himself better than Mr R.

 

[Nysyr]

Realtalk: If we had hitbox visualizations for all of the characters soon after Smash 4 released, how much under/overtuned stuff might have actually gotten dealt with. Granted the Smash 4 devs have access to them, but I'm sure the complaints en-mass would have changed their minds on some things (PacMan grab, being a fine example).

 

[FallofBrawl]

So at Glitch we had:

Spoiler: Top 8 Glitch

1. VoiD
2. Mr. R
3. Pink Fresh
4. Dath
5. Dandy Penguin
5. Seibrik
7. DC
7. Remzi

And for the top 16 at Do or DI:

Spoiler: DO or DI Top 16

Nairo
Mr E
Hyuga
Anti (not sure if he's even used Mario)
Dabuz
6WX
Tweek
Salem

Losers:
Angel Cortes
Ling Ling
Pugwest
Frozen
Dugan
Raptor
Ribs
Gunblade

EDIT: Random Samus thoughts: her game revolves around her chargeshot, that why her ftilt and dsmash are so weird, I guess they were meant to set up tech chases with neutral b. Jab 1 also sets up for neutral b tech chase, as well as combo into fsmash when opponent isn't grounded at certain percents (I believe). That being said, I think the devs made one too many moves focus around her charge shot. If I were to choose a move to not set up tech chases into CS it'd be dsmash for sure.

 

[L9999]

VoiD 6-0ing Mr. R seems pretty definitive.

He won all the singles tournies, too.

Mr. R can never have a break, can't he? First Leo, then that stupid 7% death from Dabuz, then this....

Being a Swordsman with a projectile already makes Corrin a better swordsman than most others. His side-B also has a ton of uses, especially on stages like Battlefield. If you ever face Corrin in Bracket, always ban Battlefield. The Side-B just warps all over the place due to the way it interacts with platforms (most likely unintended as the move is very buggy itself).
Corrin's recovery is extremely exploitable though, especially if you have good disjoints. Among the sword users, his is probably bottom.

If Corrin had actual combo throws he would be way too good. Kinda how Fox would be if he were to get a lot from his grabs. Now that would be scary.

The thing with platforms you talk about is were she clips magically to one when trying to pin a character in the ground jumping?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Ryuga dropped Ike, and Ryo is dual maining Ike and Corrin (he used Ike a bunch in the last Smash Conference, so I wouldn't really call it "taking a break").

Also, Corrin and Ike have the same fall speed, btw.

Regi also seems to look for dropping Mr. Game and Watch for the Corn.

 

[Kofu]

Regi also seems to look for dropping Mr. Game and Watch for the Corn.

Such is the fate of players actually looking to be the best opposed to those looking to be the best with a particular character. Has he made his choice?

 

[Fatmanonice]

So this happened today at a local. A Little Mac won a 64 man tournament, no set losses. The man had quite possibly the best neutral I've seen in Smash to date. Had I not applied my neutral concepts, I would've been destroyed harder than I was.

I seriously think this might be the most slept on character in the game. He made the whole ****ty recovery thing irrelevant.

There is definitely a learning curve to fighting Little Mac. One of the biggest parts of this learning curve is learning to respect the character. Like Dedede, Link, and Roy, if you get it too much in your head that they're a bad character, you're going to get flattened and find yourself dying at 70% when you don't respect their space. "Little Mac doesn't do well against projectiles." Doesn't matter if he breaks your zoning. "Little Mac sucks offstage." Doesn't matter if you never get him there in the first place. "Just grab and throw him." You honestly don't think any Little Mac player worth their salt doesn't know what you have planned when you're sitting at the edge of the stage? Little Mac's weaknesses are pretty steep but his ground game is one of the best in the game so he's worth taking seriously. Top players don't have much issue with him because they understand his weaknesses but also understand he shouldn't be entirely blown off. If you lose to Mac, it may be because your opponent was pretty good and not because "you suck" just because you lost to a low tier. A Jigglypuff can beat a Sheik but it ultimately boils down to the players and match up knowledge.

 

[[BROF]]

Can anybody point me to Glitch VODs?

Also, is CEO the most proximate Supermajor for Smash 4?

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

We often say "There is no Melee Marth in this roster," i.e., no character with the capacity to be top tier has gone undiscovered. I don't think Mac is an exception at all, but I would say he's one of the most misused/misunderstood characters in the game, largely because of how he forces the player away from standard Smash tactics. Sol did a video recently on the Sheik matchup, and he said that you should never jump against Sheik in neutral or disadvantage. Ever.

How many other characters play the game without the use of aerials? Aerials are typically the character's most important setup and combo moves, and so attacking from the air becomes second nature. If you want to win as Mac, apparently, you have to break yourself of this habit. He's incredibly strange that way.

In a broad sense, I think players at the lower level see the speed and power Mac has, along with the armored Smash attacks, and think, "Get in and beat 'em down fast," which is probably wrong. Awful disadvantage and recovery mean: "You can't afford to screw up often. Play with extreme care." Incredibly fast and powerful attacks/interrupts (F-tilt in particular is bananas, at Frame 4, not to mention a Frame 1 jab!) point to a counter-punching character rather than a rushdown one. I've heard it said that optimal Falcon is a surprisingly defensive character; Mac seems even more extreme in that regard, by my reckoning.

I don't think that Mac is our sleeper top tier, but I'd say he has nowhere to go but up. Smash 4 is a neutral heavy game, and Mac's neutral is excellent. Combine that with good kill power, surprisingly efficient edge guards, and some savvy stage selection on the player's part, and we have the makings of a legitimate threat.

 

[Das Koopa]

Can anybody point me to Glitch VODs?

Also, is CEO the most proximate Supermajor for Smash 4?

maybe Pound 6 depending on the attendees list

Otherwise, yeah.

 

[Axel311]

Speaking of doing things, i saw JAG's Wario get bodied by Ryo's Ike. I don'y know how bad the matchup is, but it was really sad to watch that Wario

Reflex's Wario beat Ryo's Ike in a best of 5 set at top 8 MLG not too long ago. It's not a bad matchup for Wario, even or slightly in Ike's favor at best. Wario has the frame data/mobility/offstage advantage even though he is outranged. And of course the waft wildcard.

 

[thehard]

I gotta say how much I love the "new generation" disrupting the old Brawl guard dominance in this game. VoiD, Tweek, Marss and others are quickly leveling up and future majors are looking to be quite the ride because of it.

 

[Fatmanonice]

We often say "There is no Melee Marth in this roster," i.e., no character with the capacity to be top tier has gone undiscovered. I don't think Mac is an exception at all, but I would say he's one of the most misused/misunderstood characters in the game, largely because of how he forces the player away from standard Smash tactics. Sol did a video recently on the Sheik matchup, and he said that you should never jump against Sheik in neutral or disadvantage. Ever.

How many other characters play the game without the use of aerials? Aerials are typically the character's most important setup and combo moves, and so attacking from the air becomes second nature. If you want to win as Mac, apparently, you have to break yourself of this habit. He's incredibly strange that way.

In a broad sense, I think players at the lower level see the speed and power Mac has, along with the armored Smash attacks, and think, "Get in and beat 'em down fast," which is probably wrong. Awful disadvantage and recovery mean: "You can't afford to screw up often. Play with extreme care." Incredibly fast and powerful attacks/interrupts (F-tilt in particular is bananas, at Frame 4, not to mention a Frame 1 jab!) point to a counter-punching character rather than a rushdown one. I've heard it said that optimal Falcon is a surprisingly defensive character; Mac seems even more extreme in that regard, by my reckoning.

I don't think that Mac is our sleeper top tier, but I'd say he has nowhere to go but up. Smash 4 is a neutral heavy game, and Mac's neutral is excellent. Combine that with good kill power, surprisingly efficient edge guards, and some savvy stage selection on the player's part, and we have the makings of a legitimate threat.

I agree with this to a point because him moving up really does depend on people understanding the concepts you described but, of course, this is easier said than done. Peach, Pac-man, and Megaman are great examples of this. Characters people have lauded them as scary good on paper under the theory of optimization but they have steep learning curves and play very differently from the rest of the cast. As someone who watched Peach and Lucario get repeatedly hyped up in the Brawl days, I can confirm that sometimes "tomorrow never comes" because the characters are too complicated with rewards only coming if players are borderline perfect with them at the top level or significantly better than their opponents at the lower levels.

Little Mac's learning curve doesn't come from his moveset itself but rather fundamentals like spacing and patience. Most people are miserably impatient with him but I can't blame them. The character curb stomps bad players and even gives terrible players themselves a little taste of victory. On the top of Mount Crap, Little Mac is king and that's why, even with how often he's lambasted and dismissed at the top level, he's still really popular and his appearance at tournaments dwarfs many characters that are significantly better than him. Up against good players, however, he's kind of a joke and not many people have been able to get that much mileage with him because he plays very differently on a fundamental level than the rest of the cast. If Smash was a traditional fighter, Mac would be terrifying but because Smash heavily involves aerial and offstage clashes, he often comes up short so to optimize Mac, you'd have to play him more like a traditional fighting game character than anyone else which is a HUGE mental adjustment to make when nobody else in the cast has the number of limitations that Mac has.

 

[JediLink]

She's also got an f6 mid-range answer to shield that sets up into a kill throw at high percents and a whole bunch of other stuff at mid percents.

Sorry but could you explain what you're referring to here?

 

[ARGHETH]

Sorry but could you explain what you're referring to here?

Actually, I'm curious too. Corrin doesn't have many F6 moves; the only ones I can see are Nair and the backwards kick of Dragon Lunge. (His SH's also f6, but I'm guessing that's not it).

 

[NairWizard]

I was talking about her side-b. Saying that it's frame 6 is probably a little confusing considering that's only the pin hitbox from behind.

Actually rereading it that whole sentence is confusing, but basically if your opponent is shielding a lot, side-b is a pretty good option against most of the cast. And it can kill if it hits (starting at 105+? I think) on anticipated shield drop.

edit: @Xacer below, there's a list somewhere on the Corrin forum of characters who can't punish the kick on shield at max spacing, iirc it's a pretty substantial number of characters/most of the cast