Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Das Koopa]

• When you reach the point where people are arguing over whether Roy and Bowser Jr. are "bottom" or not, everything has officially lost all meaning.

These two characters aren't comparable. Jr has a proven track record, Roy does not - discrediting the discussion on the basis of "that's just silly" doesn't do anybody any good. I can see where the idea of discussing lower-tiered characters becomes inane, but... there's nothing inherently ridiculous about calling Roy low/bottom when he has a very similar track record and doesn't have the excuse characters like Doc or Lucina do.

 

[Gawain]

Your last Roy argument was actually in the v2 thread back in October. Considering 1.1.4 happened I don't really think it's relevant now.

That's not the point I was making. The point I was making was that I had already attempted to make giant analytical posts on this topic, and they mostly go unread/ignored by people who disagree because people don't like having opposing evidence in an argument here, at least when it comes to the FE characters(for some reason)

Anyways, If anything, things have improved for Roy since then. Several bad matchups have been nerfed and he got modest buffs.

 

[Y2Kay]

...Is this a joke?

Even tho' Rich Brown dropped him, he still has Myran, GreenBeast, imHip and Angbad repping him still.

Nah. I was looking at the tournament results rankings and Olimar was bottom 10. I've only encountered a few in a competitive setting. I'm not saying he's worse than Roy, but he is one of the least played characters in the game. I'm accounting mid level tourneys too, where Roy is more common. I forget that the tournament rankings doesn't place more value on tourneys with stronger competition. It's an oversight on my part, but I'm still technically right

 

[Djmarcus44]

>gunner can juggle Metaknight well

I'm sorry, what

Also if sheik can't edgeguard MK what makes you think Gunner can, lmao. It's the other way around. How on earth does 1111 mid weight gunner ever get back to stage against an MK

As for Gunner's fair, I'm not concerned about the damage on that move at all. Having to jump to use it also opens you up to all kinda of nasty things.

Not to mention, Gunner has a grand total of 0 kill moves that are effective by any means. Even if you could get an MK up to high percentages simply shielding closes everything off to you.

Gunner's gundashing along with an up aerial that outranges all of Meta Knight's landing options (it also has long lasting hitboxes to cover an airdodge) allows Gunner to juggle Meta Knight. Gunner's charge blast is also good for sniping landings. In addition, Gunner's up tilt is a fast move with great disjoint for covering landings. While Meta Knight has great landing options, Gunner has the combination of burst mobility and priority to do a decent job of juggling Meta Knight.

As I said before, Gunner's flame pillar covers the ledge for at least 40 frames. The hitboxes last longer than the lag of the move, and this allows Gunner to cover a high recovery with fair or up air. While Gunner's edgeguarding isn't the deadliest, the ability to prevent opponents from grabbing the ledge for periods of time along with the great range of Gunner's fair and up air gives Gunner the ability to edgeguard the entire cast (Gunner may not be able to kill everyone with edgeguarding, but Gunner can rack up a good amount of damage from edgeguarding). Sheik may be a better edgeguarder than Gunner, but Gunner's tools are better suited to edgeguard Meta Knight. While Meta Knight also edgeguards Gunner pretty hard, Gunner can mix up his/her recovery by Gundashing to the stage.

As I said before, Mii Gunner's fair combos into other moves including charge blast (fair to charge blast is a kill setup at high percents). It is a very safe move to use against Meta Knight since it only has 12 frames of landing lag, and it is safe on perfect shielding (I have mentioned this before in my last post). While Gunner's combo game isn't that good, the character has enough ways to convert from winning the neutral to establish respect for Gunner's neutral.

This is very incorrect. Gunner actually has a nice amount of decently fast killing options. These options include, a frame 5 up tilt, a frame 8 dtilt, and a frame 9 down smash. Since Meta Knight is a light character, these options kill pretty early. In addition, Mii Gunner can kill from down throw or up throw to up air after a DI read. Gunner also has some killing setups and mixups that are listed in the mii gunner true combo and follow up thread. Gunner's killing issues are not from a lack of killing options, but they are from the fact that Gunner's killing options are not that strong.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Someone is gotta be Bottom 5 indeed, and really does fit the fill. He's got a slow and predictable projectile, he's combo food, no moves really link into each other, he cannot be on the defensive at all whilst his offense is lackluster, he's real laggy and not all too mobile outside of Side B and he pretty much has bad matchups all over the cast.

.

As someone who regularly plays in tournaments and has won several locals as him, I strongly disagree.

-The cannon is supposed to be situational. Yes, if you use it upfront, it is virtually useless but it's purpose is to use it when they're in a state of disadvantage. The cannon ball is interesting because, as it slows down, it sinks so, when used against people offstage, it can be used as a fading shot to edgeguard characters with average or worse recoveries, especially if they try to recover low. Another purpose of it is to manipulate movement when your opponent is in the disadvantage. The cannonball is a pretty powerful projectile and, thanks to it's heaviness, reflecting isn't that helpful. Off stage, you just want to avoid it unless you want to end up being ball tapped edgeguarded so you redirect your recovery plan. Bowser Jr, noticing this, can then try to set up a trap based on how they move.

-He does get comboed a lot but he can dish it out just as hard. In this last patch, 5 of the characters that combo him the hardest () got nerfed so these match ups (especially and ) are a lot more manageable. His landing options aren't that great but, unlike most of the heavy weights, he can actually recover high, has somewhat of an air stall, and has options for clearing the ground below him like the mecha koopa and abandon ship.

-No moves really link into each other? He has the best combos of any heavyweight in the game (aside from Ryu) and why he's considered a counter for most heavyweights. The cancelled clown cart itself leads into a ton of stuff. This can even link into aerials and the Ban Hammer at kill percents. Uair can link into itself until 50-60% for a good portion of the cast. Mecha koopa explosions have easy follow ups too because the "jump" has little knockback and hits your opponent just hard enough off the ground to hit them with an aerial of your choice or even fsmash or usmash. With the help of platforms, his combo game is even scarier as even moves like utilt and angled ftilt can help get strings started.

-Bowser Jr. can be defensive. His jab and grab suck but dtilt (quick with three individual hits) and ftilt (very quick with decent knockback) make up for this. Fsmash is very safe on shield and the end lag can be cancelled into any of his tilts. Thanks to the koopa kart, he can easily run away if too much pressure is being put on him. On the ledge, uair and fair can be used to make room and Bowser Jr is one of the few characters who can quickly go under stages to the other side with a little bit of practice. Beyond this, the mecha koopa can be used to set up traps and manipulate movement.

-Since the last patch, he's not that laggy. All his smash attacks had a decent amount of ending lag shaved off and, even before this, most of his aerials can be cancelled out of before hitting the ground if timed right. His most laggy move is still dsmash but most Bowser Jr players could have told you that it was situational to begin with anyways.

-The koopa kart is his main form of movement but it's reliable enough to make his mediocre run and walk irrelevant because it can easily be cancelled out of too. With the koopa kart, he's pretty much the most mobile heavyweight in the game aside from Wario's aerial mobility and Ryu's focus attack cancels.

-I'd argue that Bowser Jr now only has a few match ups that are total crap shots: . Overall, not terrible and when you compare this to the likes of Dedede or Ganon, you'll understand what I'm getting at and how he's definitely not bottom tier. I'd argue that he's maybe low mid tier or high low tier at worst.

 

[Tri Knight]

Not to be rude but am not seeing Bowser having an advantage over Ike. And Bowser also doesn't just lose matchups with -1, he gets -2'd by pretty much all of the Top Tiers. Captain Falcon and Link also definitely beat Bowser I feel. Even tho Bowser has been buffed, am just not seeing these things happening... At all. It probably holds a lot more water as a Bowser main, or if it's viewed from the prespective of a Bowser main. I like the optimism, but Bowser is still... Actually pretty bad.

Speaking, where can I find a template to make these? I'd be interessted in making a Diddy MU Chart. And I'd love to see charts from other Diddy mains, and charts from DK, Ike and Mewtwo would be interessting to.

That's two MU charts that say Bowser beats Link. How the hell is that even possible? I wouldn't even call it even. I won't even rant because of how ridiculous that sounds.

Now I feel like people are just handpicking with these lists...

 

[adom4]

Finally back from GDC. Random thoughts before I collapse:

• This patch was absolutely incredible. It was literally like, half of the exact changes on my dream list.
• Exactly my dream Sheik nerfs, exactly.
  • Yeah, the 50/50 really was the biggest issue, due to how it invalidated weaknesses in her design.
• Also my dream Ganon buffs; 15% ground wizkick for beating projectiles was my single favorite change in BBrawl.
• Also my dream MK changes, right down to the SDI ratio.
• The fact that we're debating who's the best is great. I guess I'd put my money on Cloud if I had to, but I feel like it could be any of
• The Cloud nerf to Limit Break manual charge-speed specifically is being mathematically underrated due to the fact that Cloud achieves Limit Charge on a linear offset. I'll post more on this later.
• Why is Mario being overlooked? It's a beautiful day for him, and he was already winning a ton at all levels just short of the tip-top.
• Further down, the abolition of dominant Sheik is disproportionately good imo for .
• The removal of extreme MK jank is disproportionately good for , though those matchups are probably still awful.
• Not sold on the Zelda buffs, but we'll see.
• Palutena on the other hand, I'm comfortable feeling pessimistic about.
• I'm still (relatively) bullish on Jigglypuff. Rest is just too good to ignore. SHAD Rest is way too good to ignore.
• I find myself increasingly apathetic towards (and irritated with) discussion of "bottom X" rankings.
• When you reach the point where people are arguing over whether Roy and Bowser Jr. are "bottom" or not, everything has officially lost all meaning.

The jab & wizkick buffs were something every Ganon main wanted, prepatch grounded wizkick was terribly undertuned & was used because it was his only way to chase rolls, and don't even get me started on how ****ty prepatch jab was.
The dash attack buff is also amazing, it feels much safer & you can follow up off of it even when sweetspotted at times, and even if it doesn't they are put in a horrible position.

 

[Gawain]

Nah. I was looking at the tournament results rankings and Olimar was bottom 10. I've only encountered a few in a competitive setting. I'm not saying he's worse than Roy, but he is one of the least played characters in the game. I'm accounting mid level tourneys too, where Roy is more common. I forget that the tournament rankings doesn't place more value on tourneys with stronger competition. It's an oversight on my part, but I'm still technically right

This is just a general problem with putting all your eggs in the one basket that is tournament representation. Some characters just aren't popular because what they do is better done or more easily done by other characters, so obviously they will have better results and a better perception among the proletariat as a result. Perfect example is Yuzu in UNIEL. Is pretty much just as good as the top characters but was perceived as low mid to mid tier by most because she was just way harder to play(so didn't place as frequently well due to requiring a more skilled user) and less popular among top players in tournaments. But the players who use her right beat the top players using easier characters often enough to throw a wrench in the mid tier theory.

What I'm saying is that mid level players have a tendency to overrate results. And with a game with around 5x the characters that UNIEL has, the issue is even more pronounced.

 

[C0rvus]

• I'm still (relatively) bullish on Jigglypuff. Rest is just too good to ignore. SHAD Rest is way too good to ignore.

This is something I find myself agreeing with. The list of things that Puff can punish with Rest on reaction is pretty damn long. Especially when you factor in powershielding. Everyone should be thankful we aren't working with Melee Rest.
Pound is also so close to being a stupid good move. In low to mid level, the number of shield breaks that move gets is staggering. I think a suitably ballsy and intelligent player could make some upsets happen with Puff in a way that no other character can.
+1 for Puff.

• I find myself increasingly apathetic towards (and irritated with) discussion of "bottom X" rankings.
• When you reach the point where people are arguing over whether Roy and Bowser Jr. are "bottom" or not, everything has officially lost all meaning.

Partially my fault, it is a kind of fruitless discussion. Still, the amount of disagreement about it tells us something about the game's balance (or that most of us don't know what we're talking about).

 

[Blobface]

I would definitely agree that picking a definite number 1 is really hard at this point.

But about Cloud, I find it really hard to believe that a character with such an abysmal recovery could manage the consistency to be a top threat. In a single game it might not matter, but over the course of a full tournament I was sure that he'd get cheesed at some point. Results don't lie though.

While it is true that many Smash 4 players have stuck to covering ledge options, I'd find it absurd to say that after months people still aren't exploiting this glaring weakness. Is Cloud's recovery simply not as bad as I thought or is Ganon just really good at edgeguarding him for some reason?

 

[Deleted member]

I would definitely agree that picking a definite number 1 is really hard at this point.

But about Cloud, I find it really hard to believe that a character with such an abysmal recovery could manage the consistency to be a top threat. In a single game it might not matter, but over the course of a full tournament I was sure that he'd get cheesed at some point. Results don't lie though.

While it is true that many Smash 4 players have stuck to covering ledge options, I'd find it absurd to say that after months people still aren't exploiting this glaring weakness. Is Cloud's recovery simply not as bad as I thought or is Ganon just really good at edgeguarding him for some reason?

Characters can still be tournament viable threats even if they have a poor/exploitable recovery.

/

All of them are examples of this. Diddy's at least got somewhat better with the loss of edgehogging, but it's still rather predictable overall.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I would definitely agree that picking a definite number 1 is really hard at this point.

But about Cloud, I find it really hard to believe that a character with such an abysmal recovery could manage the consistency to be a top threat. In a single game it might not matter, but over the course of a full tournament I was sure that he'd get cheesed at some point. Results don't lie though.

While it is true that many Smash 4 players have stuck to covering ledge options, I'd find it absurd to say that after months people still aren't exploiting this glaring weakness. Is Cloud's recovery simply not as bad as I thought or is Ganon just really good at edgeguarding him for some reason?

The reason is simple: it's actually kind of hard to get Cloud off stage and keep him there in the first place. Pair this with his aerial mobility and how climhazzard has a very small window of being punished if done right by the ledge, you can see why this would be an issue.

 

[bc1910]

I enjoy this thread for being very informative for general info for smash 4, and I enjoy that people feel comfortable posting here, but the quality of the average post here has dropped. It is very apparent when a low/mid level player makes a post here, and while this thread is more than welcoming, it sorta becomes an issue when more and more low quality posts are made.

For example, there have been constant posts about Sheik and her placement after her nerfs. Thanks to the removal of her kill setup from grab, it seems that people have forgotten that her down throw 50/50 is not what made her the best character in the game. People seems to have forgotten about her overwhelming neutral game and advantage, her almost nonexistent disadvantaged state, and her numerous other kill setups, all bundled with some of the best mobility in the game. Many characters who lost to her before most likely STILL lose to her. If she loses to any character, that character is more than likely top tier anyway.

I thought this would be a thread to show what level of thinking needs to be used when evaluating MUs and the power of characters for high level play, hopefully leading mid level players such as myself to higher levels of play . But we can't become better players by clamoring for nerfs, complaining about top tiers, or feigning MU knowledge.

It is good when everyone feels free to share their opinion, but for this thread, it should be important that that opinion is well informed. Otherwise it's just really another Reddit thread.

I completely agree with the sentiment of your post. I don't agree on Sheik, however.

@Thinkaman hit the nail on the head - the 50/50 completely invalidated the weakness in her design.

Sheik is not supposed to be good at killing. Her design just screams it. So why she was ever given a completely safe 50/50 kill option off of a grab is beyond me. It was a massive, massive part of what made her the best in the game.

Sheik is a character who needs to stay in your face to get her required damage output to win at top level. Needle camping has its place, but she's unlikely to take sets with it. This made her quite volatile, for a #1 character (the same can be said of Cloud's disadvantage state, but I digress). What made this work in the past was that once she had dealt the damage required for her to kill (higher damage than most if not all other top tiers), she had a riskless kill option to keep going for on top of looking for Nair BF and BF edgeguards. There was just too much to worry about, and that has genuinely changed. She has a weakness, in that she has to carefully set up her KOs before she can achieve them. No more killing off random grabs in neutral.

No-one would deny that Sheik's not a top... 6. Yeah, gonna go with 6. Uh, blah blah... deny that Sheik's not a top 6 character. However, she is now non-trivially worse at something that you really don't want to be bad at. I agree that most of her strongly winning MUs will still be winning MUs, but many of her MUs got significantly harder. She had a smattering that were borderline even, which are the ones she really needs to worry about.

 

[Das Koopa]

I think #1 right now is probably whoever has the best matchup spread.

I admit Rosalina doesn't look #1 if Cloud and Meta Knight are losing matchups for her. Both are top 10 and have a lot of metagame presence.

 

[warionumbah2]

MK is none existent now.

 

[sedrf]

watching a sheik struggling too kill an olimar is hilarious and tragic.

 

[Y2Kay]

watching a sheik struggling too kill an olimar is hilarious and tragic.

nah man, just hilarious

 

[Megamang]

Speaking of Olimar, he is on stream now via Greenbeast at Midwest Madness (mayhem? one of the two). Curious how the MU has changed now that olimar can survive being grabbed.


If someone comes in with a one liner and calls you dumb, you can ignore them. I promise the good posters here don't think they 'gotcha'.

I'd like to see this long Roy post, because I really think he isn't good. I'm a believer in Bowser Jr, Ganon just got non-trivially better, a good jigglypuff can do something and is actually pretty threatening on the last stock, or as a character that can be gimped effectively.


You know what is really, really scary? A mewtwo with a Shadow Ball on deck. Much like pound, if your shield is even a little weaker, it cannot take the hit. Mewtwo is so fast now, he can really follow up on it. I don't think a shield can take a full Shadowball + dash attack if there is even a little pause, and I'd say fair would be a good shield pressure followup but it usually pokes anyways. It does a lot of damage before kill percentages, and at kill percentages it is really nice to have as a trump card for someone rolling away, or even trying to juggle you (You can often land and trade with their attempt to juggle, killing them). Its nice coming off the ledge too. And it is really really good at covering ledge getups. If you time it right, it can snag jumps. This encourages rolls in, which is terribly unsafe vs Mewtwo.

I'd say Shadow Ball is so good that it forces approaches in almost all Mewtwo's MUs. Even characters with reflectors or absorbers don't like him having a full one on deck, since it makes his ledgeguarding/disadvantage/offstage/advantage/neutral game much more scary. Much like Cloud, its nice to constantly be sneaking in charges, since mewtwo is nimble enough that he gets the chance frequently. Hell, his airdodge is so good that a lot of characters have legitimate trouble stopping mewtwo from getting full charged shadow ball one after the other, especially once they are at mid percent where a bthrow or fair sends them flying... which happens quite fast, since a single fair often leads to 30%+ (Fair dtilt fair is so good), dtilt leads to fair and is an amazing poke... I swear this character would be broken with either Megaman's grab range, or ZSS's jab, orrrr Mario's weight. He is damn good. For the first time, I don't feel like my character is holding me back, I feel I can optimize myself to start making waves. Is this what it means when someone says a character should click with your playstyle? I seem to know what im doing with M2 quickly, yet I also know the many ways I can improve.

I think he may not be quite as good as people are saying; these thoughts usually come up when I die way earlier than I anticipated, since he can't really break out of strings that well and is huge... but, it feels like I could do better. Dashing away means your tail can get hit, but a perfect pivot retreat doesn't have this problem and can lead to amazingly powerful smashes. Whenever I call a roll and hit a dash attack, I think I should have done a running usmash since it is an absurdly strong punish for the speed it can come out. When I try a rising aerial and get anti air'd from the ground, I see that a SHAD -> fair would have punished them, since they must have reacted to the jump and not the fair...

What im getting at, is the character really feels great. Maybe this great feel is why some of his mains keep saying he has all this hidden potential, while when you beat a mewtwo he feels like a weak cannon, when you are beholding the cannon you see nothing but possible success before you, limited only by your bad decision making.

Also, shadow-ball-in-hand mewtwo is one of the best edgeguarders, period. The fair or DJ -> dair mixup already kills absurdly early, but being able to punish fade aways while the recoil positions you to continue your edgeguard AND flat out beats stuff like cloud batting you away... Teleport has the movement ability of Quick Attack at platform stages, it just trades out the hitbox for not having a crazy bad hurtbox problem. This character is going places, if we as a main contigent can pull it off.

 

[Dre89]

When we say that TL has trouble with shield, it isn't just sitting there in shield and he dies. Its that a slow crawl towards him, using walking and shield, while still playing to your characters' strength, is a good approach in the MU. Bombs and boomerangs can hit it all you want, if you know the MU and your timings well, your shield is going to absorb 500% throughout the match, and that is a problem. It is overcomable, yes, but a tether grab is a weakness in that scenario. Greninja on the other hand doesn't care so much, since his dash grab gets him in a solid position. Mewtwo has the best reward from grab, but a significantly worse dash grab. Still, SHAD -> Fair -> dtilt is great shield pressure. The other day, a megaman dropped shield on my fair and u-tilted my dtilt for a kill sub 80%, that is a problem too, but again not something that cannot be played around. In fact, its a huge risk for megaman to do that, it just happened to pay off.

I believe M2 is not far behind Greninja at all. Greninja is barely barely behind pikachu, perhaps over time he will be better. M2 is better, not vs, but in the metagame, than CF. In my opinion. M2 does surprisingly well vs characters near the top, where CF has huge problems and just takes it out on mid/low tiers brutally.

Tether grab is technically an advantage in that scenario because the range allows you to punish shielding from further away. The problem is that the reward is so low given the risk of whiffing. A throw plus a pummel is like 9% with no reliable follow ups.

 

[G. Stache]

The difference is when Luigi lost his kill confirm off grab, his kill methods became "fish for a smash or wait till 150%+", with the latter also being worse than before due to weaker damage racking at higher percents.

Sheik is less threatening when she grabs you at kill percent, but she can still weak nair>BF your ledge options, needle>BF you offstage, uair you off ftilts...even if her throw 50/50s are gone, her grabs still put you in the air and she takes much less risk going for a uair than Luigi did going for Cyclone. Worst case scenario she safely chips you to 180% until ftilt or fair kill, just like before.

Very late response, but just a daily reminder that Luigi has kill confirms off of his Nair too. It's just that getting the weak hit of Nair in neutral can be hard...like really hard. So smash attacks are the easy way out. And why any Luigi would want to go for a raw cyclone in the first place is beyond me. Just fish for a strong Nair at that point once the opponent comes into range (though I guess that's besides the point). Also, cyclone gimping was always more overpowered than prepatch d throw in certain MU's. Depending on your mashing skills, cyclone gimping is a solid way to end a stock and is probably one of the best edgeguarding options in the game.

As for Sheik, she's really been given the nerf hammer on her killing. Nair into BF is fine and all. But such a simple kill confirm is also going to see counterplay in the end, at least that's my feeling. Obviously the nerf was a universally healthy thing for this game, but I just can't see Sheik having much rep anymore. She seems way too taxing to play for any mid to low level player wanting to pick her up as a secondary. And most high level players would probably go for a pocket Cloud or something since he's practically free to just pick up for MU's you dislike or feel uncomfortable with (not trying to **** on others by saying that. Don't have a problem with people using good and easy-to-use characters at all: I used Pre Patch Luigi). It's great that Sheik still has devoted mains like Void on the case. But if Sheik goes on a similar decline like Luigi did, then good character or not: she's going to fall from grace pretty hard. Nobody tends to want to use a character that has a huge problem killing. Lest we see Duck Hunt or Pac Man get a bit more love.

Honest question: where the hell is ZSS in our eyes? The only ZSS main that I listened to said that ZSS got Luigi'd pretty hard. And everybody seems hesitant to put ZSS in top tier at this point. What's the view on her and does she still have a strong presence?

 

[bc1910]

I think ZSS is still top 5. I have her 4th on a post I'm preparing.

Others have said she's been butchered, though. Some say worse than Sheik. I'm not really seeing it since all the same crap seems to work on platformed stages, but I guess she's quite a bit worse on FD/SV. Nair losing some range is quite a big hit to her neutral, and if she fails to kill you before ~100% she's really gonna struggle because of how far you can DI her Dthrow now.

 

[Megamang]

Dre89 I disagree. The tether isn't the problem, per se, but it is the fact the first active frame on the dashgrab is frame 14, and that it has horrendous end lag. f14 isn't 'reactable', but when you add the time you have to add to get into grab range and start the grab, it is realistic to frequently avoid the grab. Your reaction time is at its best when you are only looking for one thing, and when you shield against tink all you have to fear is the grab. And even if he grabs, it doesn't do much unless you are at kill percent. 7 damage is actually pretty below average for the cast. While you will get some grabs in, the risk/reward is really against you because a spotdodge -> punish is more than likely going to do way more than 7%. For example, if I spotdodge a grab as Megaman, I'll walk up and utilt for a meaty 17% and a kill if you are ~80%, earlier with rage and not at battlefield.

Of course, you can't win the game in the shield, and toon link is decent at plinking away at the edge of your shield anyways, which wears it down and can hurt you if you go for other options... But in a fighting game situation, when you don't threaten their block as much as the other characters around your level, and threaten it less than the top tiers... well, you have to make up for it in other ways. Tink has great kill confirms, good damage racking, a disjoint, a small frame, and a really nice kill throw... but, he has to work around shield more than many. I feel that Hyuga is very skilled, but he was noticeably having trouble when people learned to stay in shield, rather than shield -> roll or other OOS option.

This is a trap I found myself falling into with gameplay, and its true against many others than TL. Shielding, then quickly realizing you aren't in a great place and trying to roll or spotdodge or jump out and aerial often got me killed, since they would be planning a smash to pressure my shield and suddenly they hit me... Just sitting in the shield and taking your grab punishment is an ok choice, especially against members of the cast that don't do much from grabs, such as toon link. When you add the fact he doesn't have a reasonable tomahawk ability, and that if you do powershield his shield pressure you can usually punish, if not make up some ground, it makes for a meaningful weakness we aren't seeing exploited fully at top level play.

If we see Hyuga vs Zero, I'd bet we get really used to the pinging powershield sound by the end of the set, is all im sayin.

 

[Djent]

TBH I don't see in a worse position matchup-wise; in fact she might be better off. She definitely loses to Diddy and Cloud now, but she arguably did already and neither is close to unwinnable. Sheik was nerfed harder and does worse in the MU than before, and Pikachu is likely still around even on account of her new nair hitbox. Unfortunately, Rosa is probably close to even now as well (ZSS loses neutral like always, but still edges Rosa out in terms of reward...just less so). Another positive is that she might actually beat MK (he no longer gets better reward + nair change hooray). Does she actually lose to anyone new, though? I'm hard pressed to think of candidates (Mario maybe?). She's in a better position than Sheik for sure.

 

[Megamang]

To anyone new? I'd say villager has traditionally given her trouble. Greninja might be worse now, with his better fair being a great tool, and a faster DA never hurts. It was considered close to even or even before her Boost Kick nerf, and she has had her damage output hurt since then, and not having a solid kill confirm at high percentages hurts against a character that can camp her out. Perhaps plasma whip will find some usage in that MU now, but somehow I doubt it. Greninja gets so much lower than it seems like he would just looking at him. But it makes sense, being a frog and a ninja, since both like to get low he can basically sink into nothingness... Then dtilt usmash you at 70 and you die, or grab you and you might die, or just throw annoying ass shurikans at you, or just fsmash raw when he feels he can beat you, which is nice against ZSS's kinda meh ground game.

 

[Djent]

Hirosuma 3 is live on SHI-Gaming, with a few top-level players in attendance.

Spoiler: Players

Ron
9B
Kie
ikep
Atelier
Shimitake
Ri-ma
Nasubi
FILIP

EDIT: Pools!

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

You can fight Falcon with fundamentals. I make it a general rule to rush on anyone fast than me. What you're looking at is strictly the advantage state here. Question is how often does Falcon get that against a smart Bowser?

You run up.
And you grab.
And you do what you want.


Bowser's giant, you're not going to be able to avoid Falcon's grab, dash attack, nair, falling uair, or bair forever. You're going to get hit, and Falcon will combo your giant frame hard. Rushing in on Falcon with Bowser is just putting yourself right where he wants you: right next to him where he can get whatever he wants.

 

[Y2Kay]

Greninja has always given ZSS issues, for a few reasons. Greninja's shadow sneak hit stun cancel lets him escape her forward smash and boost kick, which are important killing tools for her. He's small, so her short hop game isn't as effective. He's pretty quick so he can get in fast for punishing stuff like a whiffed grab. He also can use shuriken to pester her and keep her from getting too close.

It's probably an even matchup then and now, but I usually do very well against ZSS mains. It's hard to tell since no one really knows the greninja match up. ZSS mains have varying opinions on it, but most agree that Greninja is a real nuisance for her.

If I remember correctly, @Trifroze suggested it may be in greninja's favor now. I'm not sure if that is still his stance though.

 

[Big-Cat]

You run up.
And you grab.
And you do what you want.


Bowser's giant, you're not going to be able to avoid Falcon's grab, dash attack, nair, falling uair, or bair forever. You're going to get hit, and Falcon will combo your giant frame hard. Rushing in on Falcon with Bowser is just putting yourself right where he wants you: right next to him where he can get whatever he wants.

Sorry that was supposed to be NOT rush against someone faster than me.

 

[Strong-Arm]

Call me crazy but Charizard might give Sheik a h*** of a time now. Sheik has to fish for kills against him and even tho she can spend the first 30 seconds or so of a stock just racking up an insane amount of damage, that just fills zards rage, who is probably one of the scariest characters in the game with rage. Zard is really hard to gimp if he plays it smart and he can escape fair, ftilt combos with up ( which can kill surprisingly early ) the weight decrease buff hurts Sheik here a ton now. Sheik can still apply a huge amount of pressure but at the same time the needle range hurts her too as it just makes zards flare blitz even scarier. Sheik will have to rely on smash reads, vanish, or BF. Zard just has to hit her a few times and can start killing around 40-50 range with Flare Blitz mixups. While the MU isnt totally in zards favor its closer to even now imo.
(im not the best at explaining things so I hope this isnt too confusing)

On another note, its sad when Zard has more throw mixups than sheik.

 

[Smog Frog]

, a grappling character, having more throw mixups than , a speedy anti-zoner/rushdown, is standard grappler design. it was sadder the other way around.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Sorry that was supposed to be NOT rush against someone faster than me.

That's good.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on why you believe the Marth MU is even for Bowser. I'm not doubting you, personally I feel like it's a bit in Marth's advantage but not by much. Care to share?

 

[Big-Cat]

That's good.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on why you believe the Marth MU is even for Bowser. I'm not doubting you, personally I feel like it's a bit in Marth's advantage but not by much. Care to share?

It may very well be a slight advantage, but I would say Marth's tipper can put him at a disadvantage should Bowser read the aerials and run in and shield an incoming aerial for massive damage. Neutral game though, I'd say Marth has the advantage.

 

[sedrf]

the matachup between sheik and olimar still sucks.
But rage is mor elikely to come up since sheik struggles to kill things.



also mjg somehow took a game off of mr r and almost turned around game 3.

 

[Das Koopa]

Ally beat Greenbeast but it seems as though we have another Olimar in Top 16

I kind of wish they let Olimar keep 6 Pikmin. Top 8 at Midwest Mayhem coming up.

 

[Y2Kay]

I kind of wish they let Olimar keep 6 Pikmin.

I kinda don't

 

[Nobie]

Mewtwo is actually so fast now that it's throwing off my timing on a lot of things.

I will literally whiff grabs and pivot f-tilts because Mewtwo is way over THERE instead of where I expect him to be.

 

[Y2Kay]

Mewtwo is actually so fast now that it's throwing off my timing on a lot of things.

I will literally whiff grabs and pivot f-tilts because Mewtwo is way over THERE instead of where I expect him to be.

I haven't been experiencing the growing pains as much since I also main , but I would get why it would throw you off.

 

[R3D3MON]

Very late response, but just a daily reminder that Luigi has kill confirms off of his Nair too. It's just that getting the weak hit of Nair in neutral can be hard...like really hard. So smash attacks are the easy way out. And why any Luigi would want to go for a raw cyclone in the first place is beyond me. Just fish for a strong Nair at that point once the opponent comes into range (though I guess that's besides the point). Also, cyclone gimping was always more overpowered than prepatch d throw in certain MU's. Depending on your mashing skills, cyclone gimping is a solid way to end a stock and is probably one of the best edgeguarding options in the game.

From what I understand kill confirms off a nair is very limited in viability due to specific % range and airdodging. Also it is heavily dependent on DI because with proper DI nair > bair doesn't work if the opponent is sent in front of Luigi.

Also I think Lavani was talking about Cyclone reads from d-throw at higher percents. Basically Luigi trying to pull of a sheik 50/50 with D-throw now most likely results in death, as shown in various Con Con and DMG James matches. Cyclone gimping really is the way to go.

 

[Nobie]

I haven't been experiencing the growing pains as much since I also main , but I would get why it would throw you off.

Don't even get me started on the magical sliding up smash! Sometimes it's great but other times...

 

[Das Koopa]

Ally seems to think R.O.B has a good matchup against Bayonetta. Down 0-2 with Mario, switches to R.O.B, wins two games via a decisive two stocks. Tyroy switches off to Meta Knight for Game 5.

Edit: Annnd Ally reverse 3-0's Tyroy very convincingly with R.O.B. Games 3-5 weren't even close.