Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Smog Frog]

i'd argue that bair is kinda mediocre in a vacuum. it's basically a slightly weaker knee/lightning kick for the advantage of having good sourspots. would characters with good(heck, even decent) air speed prefer having this bair over their current bair?

this isnt to say that aerials arent good. fair also has a rather generous combination of speed, range, power, and safety(though this isn't as safe as say fair, it still has the range to be safe by virtue of being too far away to punish) and it sends at a very horizontal angle(34 degrees! for reference, late dash attack launches at 40 degrees and nair launches at 40 degrees). in a vacuum it's almost a completely worse version of fair(in all of the power, speed, and safety departments, range is hard to tell the difference) but it isnt much worse and i'd definitely say that many other characters with good air speed would absolutely LOVE this fair.

also speaking of clawing attacks, jab is hands down best in the game. f4, has absolutely RIDICULOUS reach(it has a bigger reach than his fair), does 12% and can kill before 150% with a healthy amount of rage. and this is on a character with a very fast dash and a very short skid animation, so it's very easy for him to position himself into jab range. i'd say on top of his great sh aerials, oos options, flamethrower, and tilts that this character has a ground game that can go toe to toe with .*crowd gasps and looks at me in awe and shock*

 

[Illusion.]

Mewtwo is so scary now, i love it. On the subject of pokemon isnt greninja like top tier now? His gatekeeper is gone (or is much easier to deal with) and he has a exceptional MU spread as ive heard.

I'd argue low-high. We'll need more than just one recent result (BEAST 6) before putting him higher than that.

 

[Y2Kay]

Speaking of hydro pump. Is it possible to screw up bayonetta's dive kick with it?

I don't think so. But I can hydro pump the 2nd witch twist tho

 

[momochuu]

greninja players think they beat every character like brawl kirby players did

gren doesn't beat bayo or counter her. the MU is even. shadow sneak out of low percent combos isn't enough, and she can still hit him with higher percent kill setups or bully his shield because of his non existent oos game.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

and Rich Brown just took 4th at a SoCal tournament with solo Mewtwo. There's definitely a chance for him to snatch a high-tier spot now.

Hmm, and guess what character rich brown was defeated by?
Some how nicko's Shulk edged him out for the win. It only took him a year for Shulk to get results.
Mew2 will rise to great heights, and shulks will have to wait a bit sadly. But it's good that nicko is picking up nice placements.

 

[FullMoon]

We should see how well iStudying (and I think aMSa is going there too?) does at Pound so we can have at least some idea of just how well Greninja does in this new meta. All theory points towards there not being anything that should give him serious trouble now so he should be capable of going far, especially buffed.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I think I will use Mewtwo against Cloud for the time being as well. It seems quite even, and far less stressful than Diddy vs Cloud.

 

[ぱみゅ]

greninja players think they beat every character like brawl kirby players did

tbf even Smash 4 Kirby players are very optimistic for their matchups.
I'll take this chance to group Shulk's playerbase too.

 

[teddystalin]

Hmm, and guess what character rich brown was defeated by?
Some how nicko's Shulk edged him out for the win. It only took him a year for Shulk to get results.
Mew2 will rise to great heights, and shulks will have to wait a bit sadly. But it's good that nicko is picking up nice placements.

Except Rich Brown lost to K9 and Tyrant at the tournament Gheb was talking about. Nicko wasn't even there... On top of that, the last few times they've played, Nicko has either gone solo Cloud against Rich Brown or went Cloud after his Shulk lost.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Except Rich Brown lost to K9 and Tyrant at the tournament Gheb was talking about. Nicko wasn't even there... On top of that, the last few times they've played, Nicko has either gone solo Cloud against Rich Brown or went Cloud after his Shulk lost.

Hmm, nicko said he went solo Shulk in our Shulk discord chat. Maybe I mixed it up with a different one?
I remember nicko beating rich brown once.

tbf even Smash 4 Kirby players are very optimistic for their matchups.
I'll take this chance to group Shulk's playerbase too.

Nah, we lose to every high tier, and diddy and fox decimate us

 

[TDK]

Bruh that's Lancer Staff's trigger phrase

I honestly don't think he's a straight up upgrade.

This is funny, because he called Pit a straight up upgrade of Corrin.

Spoiler: meta prediction tier list

S:
A+:
A-:
B+: ( / )
B-:
C:
D:

Not including miss.
Continuing the 4br trend of a ridiculous amount of tiers.
I really don't know how to order anything below B+.

 

[Illusion.]

I think I will use Mewtwo against Cloud for the time being as well. It seems quite even, and far less stressful than Diddy vs Cloud.

General consenus in the Mewtwo Discord is that Cloud is one of its worst MUs...

 

[fkacyan]

Things currently killing Smash 4:

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Too many patches
• Not enough patches
• 's design
  
• 's design
• Zero
  
• 's playstyle
  
• 's playstyle
  
• Rage

• vs
  
• vs anyone
• vs anyone
  
• Insufficient e-sports
• Too much e-sports
• Changes to
• Changes to
• Something Zero said
• Anything involving
  
• IDIOTS who insist on playing with 2 stocks
• MORONS who insist on playing with 3 stocks
• The lack of changes
• Female-only tournaments
• A lack of female-only tournaments
• Bad commentary
• Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook
• 
  
• Custom moves
• Abadango's character preference for the week
• Sakurai [ANYTHING]

Did I miss anything?

Sweet.

LET'S MOVE ON.

you missed the most important one: all the posts on this thread.

 

[Jalil]

Hmm, nicko said he went solo Shulk in our Shulk discord chat. Maybe I mixed it up with a different one?
I remember nicko beating rich brown once.


Nah, we lose to every high tier, and diddy and fox decimate us

I don't think we lose to rosa or cloud and the other top tier mu's are doable

 

[Radical Larry]

Cloud potentially has bad MUs against right now. Though as of now, I've not seen any tournament matches utilizing Samus at a professional level, the buffs she had would make me believe that she's more than capable of taking Cloud down. She has attacks that are significantly faster than Cloud's while coming out, while some are just faster overall, she has many attacks that can exploit Cloud's bad recovery, especially that of N-Air, B-Air, F-Air and her Bomb. She's also very easy to combo with as she can use her D-Throw or Dash Attack to setup into a plethora of attacks, both of them actually able to lead up into N-Air, F-Air and U-Air, and Dash Attack capable of hitting for a B-Air. Her U-Air is surprisingly effective in comboing and racking any necessary damage. Then she utilizes her projectiles, which need to be used strategically obviously, and they can benefit her in the long run.

She's also incredibly hard to kill and has phenomenal ledge-getups with her attacks, especially Z-Air and F-Air, which can keep opponents at bay or even knock them back to charge her Charge Shot.

The main problems she has against Cloud, however, are her being floaty, which while she can get away from combos more easily, she can't get back to the ground easily, leaving her vulnerable to U-Air strings. And to very highly exploit Cloud's bad recovery, she'd need to get a good D-Throw in on him to actually get a combo on him; her grab's the slowest in the game, yes, but the risk could be worth the reward. She also has no disjointed attack outside of her F-Smash, U-Smash, Z-Air and F-Air, which causes high problems for her since she might not be able to reach outside of those attacks and her F-Tilt and B-Air, which are her longest-ranged non-disjointed and non-projectile moves in the game. She also has slower mobility than Cloud, which might help him and hinder her.

But the fact of the matter is, both characters need to charge up for their powerful attacks, but Samus is more capable of even charging hers, since it takes much less time to charge than Limit.

But overall, Samus could turn out to be a problem for Cloud in this patch, but matches and tournament results between the two of them would be the determining factor. Samus may not get much results in tournaments, since she'll have a slow start, we could see more of what she could have in the future. I have high hopes, truly.

 

[Peppermint1201]

Basically, to perform well against her your character needs: good projectile zoning, safe poking game and able to threat her with grabs (good burst range and/or good positioning and/or reward).

ROB:

✓ Good projectile zoning
✓ Safe poking game
✓ Reward off of grab

...and yet he's in 'BAE should win some thought involved' tier. What gives?

 

[momochuu]

ROB:

✓ Good projectile zoning
✓ Safe poking game
✓ Reward off of grab

...and yet he's in 'BAE should win some thought involved' tier. What gives?

Terrible disadvantage state and exploitable recovery.

 

[Radical Larry]

Terrible disadvantage state and exploitable recovery.

ROB:

✓ Good projectile zoning
✓ Safe poking game
✓ Reward off of grab

...and yet he's in 'BAE should win some thought involved' tier. What gives?

High combo ability, high being-combo'd ability, big bulky body, heavy weight, disjoints, annoying projectiles, recovery that doesn't send him to helpless, high kill potential, easy-to-kill, unreliable reflector.

That's ROB in a nutshell.

 

[Peppermint1201]

High combo ability, high being-combo'd ability, big bulky body, heavy weight, disjoints, annoying projectiles, recovery that doesn't send him to helpless, high kill potential, easy-to-kill, unreliable reflector.

That's ROB in a nutshell.

Falco and the Pits have unreliable reflectors. ROB does not have a reflector. Technically speaking, yes. One of his moves can reflect projectiles. It is so bad at that, however, that ROB effectively can't.

 

[Zult]

This a response to a discussion happening a couple pages back about Bayonetta's dive kick on shield. If you are shielding that move, you're already doing it wrong. First of all, if a dive kick move does hit your shield it is punishiable. I have seen characters like Bowser punish me with an up air for it. It's punishable if you can react quickly enough. A second way to punish it would be to walk backwards and let them dive kick right in front of your face. Only 2 people I've fought have done this, and it makes doing dive kicks way more risky. If you anticipate a dive kick coming then walk or jump backwards and then punish them. And the third way to punish it would be to challenge it. Players like The Wall have been challenging my dive kick with smash attacks and it's a worthy trade. Shielding is not ideal, but even then you can punish it from hitting your shield if you're fast enough and if your character can do it (Don't know if your character can? Then lab it out. FIND WAYS!) You people are still conditioned into thinking shielding moves should equal a free punish. Have we forgotten the shield patch? Or were you told that shield would beat Bayonetta and that you should just stay in shield? Newsflash, Bayo players are finding ways to beat shield and poke safely. Now adapt to their adaptation. There are moves like ZSS' flip kick, Peach's side B, Sonic's neutral B, and Sheik's bouncing fish that do the exact same thing. People are saying it's not punishable, but has anyone actually labbed a way to punish it in the first place? Why are you even getting hit by that move in the first place? It should be easy to react to. If you hate dive kick that much then stop going to stages with few platforms. I.e. smashville, town and city, and FD.

Now for the up B known as witch twist. This thing is a noob destroyer. Meaning it is a tool that overwhelms noobs because they lack the fundamentals to beat it. It's the same reason why people hate Ness' backthrow. One mistake could equal death. But at high level play, people should not be doing unsafe moves on shield in the first place and getting hit with witch twist OOS. And like someone else said, using it nets you stage loss which is super important and can turn the tide of a match. And if someone is only running up to you and witch twisting then dive kicking back, then read that and punish it however you can. Obviously it may not be a hard punish, but a punish is still a punish. Also she has 20+ frames of landing lag whenever she does a special move. Some people literally watch me land after doing something crazy in the air when they could be punishing me because they respect Bayonetta too much which you should respect her, but not to the point where you let her get away with things for free.

Reading these past couple of pages actually saddens me quite a bit. For every one person I see adapt, I see 1000 more people just sit there and complain. Do we want to nerf every character to the point where Pit and Mario are the top characters to play because we refuse to learn match ups? People say they are trying to find ways, but are they really? Because these are things you could find out with just one or two hours of serious practice against Bayonetta. Outside of witch time (which already got nerfed for the better and is basically useless after the 1st and 2nd use) Bayonetta is in no way as powerful as some of you make her out to be. She is not even close to being overpowered to the point where she should be banned. Not. Even. Close.

 

[ぱみゅ]

ROB:

✓ Good projectile zoning
✓ Safe poking game
✓ Reward off of grab

...and yet he's in 'BAE should win some thought involved' tier. What gives?

Robot is a weird case.
He can camp Bayonetta, pretty hard even; contests her in both the air and the ground and he will fare well, even win trades.
BUT
ROB is very weak to juggling. It is no surprise that he has trouble landing, and his aerials, while meaty don't really alleviate that. Bayonetta will capitalize sooner or later, and we all know how much damage a single conversion from her is capable to do. In addition to that, ROB is a big target and it is easier to link her moves in a combo.

That is at least until I watched Ally's set literally 45 minutes ago, and ROB strangely popped out of Tyroy's combos.
IDK anymore.

 

[Radical Larry]

Falco and the Pits have unreliable reflectors. ROB does not have a reflector. Technically speaking, yes. One of his moves can reflect projectiles. It is so bad at that, however, that ROB effectively can't.

Falco has more of a reliable reflector due to that absurd range he has on it and how long it sticks out and how low the endlag is. People have to respect him if they're using projectile-based characters.

And about the endlag. Compare it to someone like ROB and the Pits. They don't even come close to reactivating that reflector. Falco has a reflector that's something you just can't laugh at.

 

[Sonicninja115]

@Ghostbone Pikachu has a True combo off of grab. Uthrow-RAR Thunder. It kills and is inescapable. RAR Thunder to the right covers middle and right, while RAR thunder to the left covers middle and left. Esam is still learning it, and thus messes it up a lot. But it is still a safe and guaranteed kill with a small prediction, or even reaction.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Rolling and spotdodging Bayonetta's divekick works for most characters, but not Rosalina because she can still hit and bounce off of Luma. Same applies to Bouncing Fish and Flip Jump. She has to physically move out of the way to get a whiff punish, and her large frame works against her there.

Challenging with utilt/usmash/uair may be worth trying depending on what you're trying to challenge. Her halos are hugely disjointed and her head is intangible for usmash. Playing with Luma desynced can also be worth experimenting with, but most players will try to take advantage and smack it around. But that's a punish for you, so...

 

[Sonicninja115]

General consenus in the Mewtwo Discord is that Cloud is one of its worst MUs...

Are you saying that Cloud beats Mewtwo? And the discord group agrees? I need to have a discussion with them. It is pretty obvious from high level sets and theory that Mewtwo wins. And even in my own experience I have had the same consensus.

 

[PK Gaming]

So what's Corrin's matchup spread like? Or rather, what's there that warrants a top 15 placement?

It's hard to say at the moment, but like Pit she doesn't really lose to anyone. She has decent matchups against pretty much all of Top and High tier.

She doesn't really body anyone though.

 

[|RK|]

Nah, we lose to every high tier, and diddy and fox decimate us

We go even with or beat Fox.

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

I really wonder how Kirbys Shiek and ZSS MUs are now, very curious enough.....

 

[Hazzuh]

I really wonder how Kirbys Shiek and ZSS MUs are now, very curious enough.....

ZSS can still do this sort of stuff. (4:30 if the timestamp doesn't work)

 

[DungeonMaster]

Cloud potentially has bad MUs against right now.

My opinion is not universal, I have never had a problem with Cloud. I can understand how other matchups Cloud is dominant, but he's too linear, gets nothing off of grabs, Samus falls out of his cross slash, his f-smash, and can challenge his d-air off-angle. He's practically little mac offstage and Samus recovers for free against him, the opposite is not true.

Samus is actually since patch a *good* character. Everything for me changed once we realized z-air true combos into dash attack and z-air true combos into itself tell you how to use the crouch cancelled jab options.
Check out the complete Samus combo thread for my video guide, sadly it landed on youtube mere hours before the patch changed many aspects, but it's still 95% valid. I will update to 1.15 at some point shortly.
This character was strong on paper before the patch, now she's strong in practice, it really helped. Very complex, requires a lot of dedication, not pick-up-and-play.

 

[Rizen]

ZSS can still do this sort of stuff. (4:30 if the timestamp doesn't work)

Many not-so-good character MUs look okay until the opponent realizes they can run away and cheese you, lol.

 

[Strong-Arm]

To bring up the discussion over 's jab a page back, his jab is ridiculous. Not only is the move fast but it has amazing range and great damage output. Not only that but its an amazing mixup/hold your ground move. The first two hits can lead into a grab mixup (we all know how great Zards grab game is now) and you can lead into it from dtilt. On that subject Zards dtilt is also godlike, and not enough people use it. Its relatively safe on shield and can be comboed into Jab stuff. Jab can also lead into bair and other air related stuff. Fair is ok, at first I thought it was godlike but its not. Its still very good against some characters and Zard can wall people out but Bair is the true hero of his air kit. IMO Zard is best played as a "hold your ground" type of character. Zard is this weird creature that I feel the community hasnt really figured out yet and I also think he is the hardest character to improve with right now due to simply lack of information. There arent any notable zards yet and I hope that is changed soon. This patch did so much for him.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

Why do people thinks so low of Pikachu? He has the potential to be top 3, only issue Pikachu has is his lack of representation. He has an excellente recovery, tons of comboes, a great neutral with sh dair, fair, quick attack, fh nair, and even pp fsmash works do to its range, he also can make good gimps, and uthrow thunder has like a 33.33% of landing, that is a great pseudo kill combo, imo if more top level players played Pikachu he would be as effective as ZSS or Sheik are now

 

[Halifax?]

I find it funny how Sheik mains refused to spill the beans on vs Sheik MU knowledge before 1.1.5, and now everybody + their dog spreads counterplay to their main so they aren't unfairly nerfed

 

[Nocally]

Why do people thinks so low of Pikachu? He has the potential to be top 3, only issue Pikachu has is his lack of representation. He has an excellente recovery, tons of comboes, a great neutral with sh dair, fair, quick attack, fh nair, and even pp fsmash works do to its range, he also can make good gimps, and uthrow thunder has like a 33.33% of landing, that is a great pseudo kill combo, imo if more top level players played Pikachu he would be as effective as ZSS or Sheik are now

Too little reward for a lot of work. Pikachu has some overall good match-ups against the cast, but it is hard to reach the level of consistency where Pika´s low weight and low kill power (strength of the moves) is not hindering him. Pikachu doesn´t invalidate a lot of the cast, which means they can go toe to toe with him. It all adds up to what people believe to be ( and rightfully so) an underwhelming character when put alongside some of the other top/high tiers.

(just my thoughts though)

 

[Radical Larry]

My opinion is not universal, I have never had a problem with Cloud. I can understand how other matchups Cloud is dominant, but he's too linear, gets nothing off of grabs, Samus falls out of his cross slash, his f-smash, and can challenge his d-air off-angle. He's practically little mac offstage and Samus recovers for free against him, the opposite is not true.

Samus is actually since patch a *good* character. Everything for me changed once we realized z-air true combos into dash attack and z-air true combos into itself tell you how to use the crouch cancelled jab options.
Check out the complete Samus combo thread for my video guide, sadly it landed on youtube mere hours before the patch changed many aspects, but it's still 95% valid. I will update to 1.15 at some point shortly.
This character was strong on paper before the patch, now she's strong in practice, it really helped. Very complex, requires a lot of dedication, not pick-up-and-play.

You are very quite on point about a lot of this, and I'm actually willing to use the Z-Air into Dash Attack combo. I'll even further it and Z-Air > DA > U-Air/F-Air for some increased damage.

 

[|RK|]

I find it funny how Sheik mains refused to spill the beans on vs Sheik MU knowledge before 1.1.5, and now everybody + their dog spreads counterplay to their main so they aren't unfairly nerfed

I thought it was funny that we finally saw an MK uair percentage chart after MK was nerfed.

 

[BunbUn129]

I thought it was funny that we finally saw an MK uair percentage chart after MK was nerfed.

Did someone make a new chart?

Regardless, results are looking bright for MK. Tyrant beating K9 and Void across 3 straight sets has fully restored the hopes of many MK mains. A player like Tyrant demonstrates that one janky KO set-up does not make a character. Even though he landed the full ladder at least 4 times during the whole tournament, he shows that MK can dominate a match and win convincingly off neutral and edge-guarding. A lot of people are now getting over the misconception and circlejerking that MK has a "poor neutral game," because 1) the toning down of the ladder forces us to play neutral properly, and 2) MK's neutral game is no longer completely overshadowed by Sheik's.

MK's hardest MU was Sheik (arguably 8-2 and AT BEST 6-4 pre-patch), and now that simply no longer seems to be the case. As of now, MK's worst MU is considered to be Diddy (6-4), which is a fortunate replacement to the previous bull**** Sheik had.

Is MK worse than 1.1.4? Surely. But the question is: by how much? If we keep on seeing players like Tyrant taking #1 over players like Void, MK will almost definitely remain a top 10 character.

 

[Illusion.]

Are you saying that Cloud beats Mewtwo? And the discord group agrees? I need to have a discussion with them. It is pretty obvious from high level sets and theory that Mewtwo wins. And even in my own experience I have had the same consensus.

That's what they said, yeah.

 

[Radical Larry]

I'd like to think that we're getting closer and closer to having a pure balance within this game. Whilst we still have threats that are significant, like Bayonetta and Rosalina, every character seems to be getting closer and closer together, with the exception of Jigglypuff, the joke character.

Ganondorf, for example, thanks to the nerfs to top tiers and his buffs, is no longer, in theory, a bottom tier, and would be considered a low tier at the least, but still in bottom 15. Samus, on the other hand, is significantly better. If Cloud is considered the best character in the game (which shouldn't be the case), then Samus would theoretically be very high on the tier list since she has a positive MU against him. But of course, the results may differ from this due to the lack of good Samus reps, for example, and that many top tiers are still going to be used in recent tournaments; but time will tell.

So I think the devs are doing the right things and making the game significantly healthier for everyone...unless you're a Puff player, then you're SOL. As of now, the tier list should have, at least, no more than 5 placements, if not lower. And like the paragraph before, only time will tell (I've been saying that a lot), and maybe the next update will balance characters out to the most significant change.