Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Emblem Lord]

Do....do I own smashboards now?

 

[Yikarur]

I think in a game with so many characters there are barely "solo viable" characters.
"Solo viability" probablys ends after Top8 or something like that..

 

[Y2Kay]

Do....do I own smashboards now?

No. You own Emblem Boards.

 

[HeavyLobster]

With Corrin there I'd say thats a perfect visualisation of top and high tier. People obsess over having like, 10 tiers but the game way is more balanced than that.

If I may continue what you've started;





I honestly feel like mid tier could keep extending to include but I have to draw the line somewhere...

Zard really just isn't mid tier if you actually look at his top tier MUs. They might not be the worst, but when like 2/3rds of them are 4-6 or worse that doesn't cut it in a game with so many better chars.

 

[Tizio Random]

I think in a game with so many characters there are barely "solo viable" characters.
"Solo viability" probablys ends after Top8 or something like that..

This is what I was thinking in these last days.

The concept of "solo viability" in a game that should be perfectly balanced is more or less a paradox if you think it in a complete theoretical way.
Let's say that for balance sake every character has at least a losing match-up (like it should be). A player using the "best character" encounters another player with his same exact skill but he uses a character that counters his own.
Is that character not solo-viable just because of that match-up? If yes, no character is solo viable in the game. If no, everyone is.

Obviously there's more than that. This could only exist if we think that a game is perfectly balanced (which is almost impossible unless you have like 10 characters but this game has 58). But this was a thing I was wondering for a long time. Were should we draw the line of solo viability? I mean, for example, is solo viable when Rosalina players of the same skill exist?

 

[FallofBrawl]

Well what do we mean by solo viability? To win a major going only that character? I don't think it's possible in this game due to the sheer amounts of MU's, relative ease of picking up characters, and player comfort.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Well what do we mean by solo viability? To win a major going only that character? I don't think it's possible in this game due to the sheer amounts of MU's, relative ease of picking up characters, and player comfort.

And given the relatively small pool of people that can feasibly win a major in the first place, compared to the total pool of characters and taking into account the tendency for top level players to use top level characters, limiting it by such a metric turns a list of solo viable characters into simply a list of characters used by top level players.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

My rough mental line for solo viable (as in able to win a national tournament) is:

1) Can't have any MUs worse than 40-60

2) Can't more more than X MUs in the top tiers/upper half of high tier worse than 45-55. The X value I'm not 100% sure on. Certainly can't have more than half.

But that contradicts a bit another thing I believe: if you can reach top 8 at a national, you can win a national. MegaMan is the biggest outlier in that: before the most recent patch MegaMan reached top 8 at MLG. Lots of top names there and all of that. Sheik absolutely was a gatekeeper for him. So there is something else in the equation I'm not grasping for solo viable. He looks as if he shouldn't be, but I believe Scatt has proven that he can be. Barely, by the skin of his teeth, but its proven as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe there should realistically be multiple "levels" to solo viable. Like "easily solo viable" and "technically solo viable but very difficult".

 

[G. Stache]

EDIT: Didn't notice the date...aren't I a smart one?

 

[HeavyLobster]

My rough mental line for solo viable (as in able to win a national tournament) is:

1) Can't have any MUs worse than 40-60

2) Can't more more than X MUs in the top tiers/upper half of high tier worse than 45-55. The X value I'm not 100% sure on. Certainly can't have more than half.

But that contradicts a bit another thing I believe: if you can reach top 8 at a national, you can win a national. MegaMan is the biggest outlier in that: before the most recent patch MegaMan reached top 8 at MLG. Lots of top names there and all of that. Sheik absolutely was a gatekeeper for him. So there is something else in the equation I'm not grasping for solo viable. He looks as if he shouldn't be, but I believe Scatt has proven that he can be. Barely, by the skin of his teeth, but its proven as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe there should realistically be multiple "levels" to solo viable. Like "easily solo viable" and "technically solo viable but very difficult".

A lot of it has to do with bracket draws and the like. If you're lucky enough to avoid top [insert bad MU here] through your bracket run it is possible for more marginally viable chars to do better than they should in theory. But in general such characters won't be able to consistently perform like that. So "easily solo viable" means no 40-60s or worse, and you're generally good to go regardless of draw. "Somewhat solo viable" means you have nothing worse than 40-60, and not too many of those, so you're not necessarily screwed by facing one of those MUs, but are likely to struggle should you have to slog through multiple such MUs. You don't necessarily need a great bracket, but will probably struggle should you get a substantially unfavorable one. "Marginally solo viable" means that you just basically need bracket luck to realistically perform well due to one or more strongly unfavorable MUs, but that you don't have enough of them to render the possibility of avoiding them virtually impossible, as would be the case for a low tier MU spread.

 

[Zelder]

So, maybe Zero was joking (he made the video very dramatic so it's not out of the question) but I think he just chose a new tournament main (and it isn't just solo diddy...for some reason). All power to him if he actually goes through with him

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XzjAduas5Lc&feature=youtu.be

Also: oh God why is my picture not Luigi!?

Is this some new high level double trolling technique on your part

 

[Y2Kay]

TBH I can't recognize anyone with these new avatars

 

[PK Gaming]

TBH I can't recognize anyone with these new avatars

I can't stop laughing over some of these avatar combinations.

"So Gheb's waifu is Camilla? I see, that makes perfect sense."

 

[Y2Kay]

I can't stop laughing over some of these avatar combinations

"So Gheb's waifu is Camilla? I see, that makes perfect sense"

@Trifroze and Gheb's are w/o a doubt the best ones.

They are the more serious posters here, it's weird seeing them with funny avatars.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

TBH I can't recognize anyone with these new avatars

It's refreshing, actually. Also a way to force everyone to read the content instead of looking at the person.

 

[G. Stache]

Is this some new high level double trolling technique on your part

To be honest, I have no idea anymore. Just recognized that it was April 1st, so now I have a feeling that I fell into a trap.

 

[sedrf]

I'm more sad that shulk devovled into a joke character

 

[Y2Kay]

It's refreshing, actually. Also a way to force everyone to read the content instead of looking at the person.

Who are you again?

 

[BunbUn129]

I don't know if this is an April Fools joke:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5MCjSLKUUE

For the lulz.

 

[wedl!!]

Nothing is true in this world of anarchy and memes

(somewhat more serious note: will never be good and it hurts)

 

[Y2Kay]

Guys, I think ESAM is serious:

I guess tomorrow when I'm not like HAHA APRIL FOOLS!!!1!ONE people will realize I'm being serious. Have fun not believing it for today 👌👍

— ESAM (@imESAM) April 1, 2016

 

[BunbUn129]

Guys, I think ESAM is serious:

I guess tomorrow when I'm not like HAHA APRIL FOOLS!!!1!ONE people will realize I'm being serious. Have fun not believing it for today 👌👍

— ESAM (@imESAM) April 1, 2016

It's just an elaborate scheme...

If it is true, though, would basically turn into another .

 

[TDK]

If it is true, though, would basically turn into another .

Everyone is another .

this is Emblemboards.

 

[BunbUn129]

Everyone is another .

this is Emblemboards.

Not really Roy.

 

[ReRaze]

@Trifroze and Gheb's are w/o a doubt the best ones.

They are the more serious posters here, it's weird seeing them with funny avatars.

Hahaha I thought the same thing at first too when I first saw Trifrozes avi, probably laughed more than what was reasonable

As for the solo viable talk. Why can't we just break it down into good picks and solo-viable picks
A good pick is someone who has strong enough pros to reward the player for playing him.
A character is solo viable as long as they don't have a difficult time against a common character in the meta.
e.g
- is a good pick but is not solo viable because alot of characters $&@* on his recovery. edit: I think Ness is a bad e.g but you get the idea
- is solo viable because he doesn't really lose hard to anyone but isn't particularly a good pick for tournament because doesn't have outstanding strengths like to abuse. You'd most likeley do better maining and a secondary to cover his weaknesses than you would solo maining
- is a good pick and is solo viable because, well at least from what I read, hear and see. Nobody cleanly beats him and he rewards his player with one of the strongest neutrals in the game.
- was a good pick but was not solo viable because used to be everywhere and hampered him. Now he is but still not as good a pick as the other top tiers as they give more reward for the same amount of viability more or less.

 

[Routa]

This thread sure has a very high % chance of going off topic. I understand that it is "April Fools" day, but can we leave that to other threads?

Anyways could we discuss the impact of a stage list to character viability and how much stage knowledge has a impact to the game?
Union (which is biggest finnish smash tournament) has been running a very "liberal" stagelist for a long time (13 stages). One thing in this tournament has caught my attention is how well 1 Little Mac has been doing. The thing that has caught my attention even more has been his very "moving" placing in the tournament. What might be the reason? The stagelist. So this leads to the question... How much "better" would a more "liberal" stagelist be and how would it impact the meta?

"Liberal" stagelist = a stagelist that contains stages like PS2 and Delfino Plaza. The amount of legal stages is greater than 7.

 

[Pancracio17]

So what about rosa with that cloud MU.
Edit: who is that, i wanted a waifu.

 

[bc1910]

I'm actually really angry to be stuck with Corrin because I loathe the character in this game.

Anyway, I'm not totally sold on Ness' solo viability but he does earn his spot high up because of a number of meaningful advantageous MUs. Solo viability rankings are rarely clear-cut in terms of tier lists but they still give you a good idea of character strength.

Ness should have a shot at winning any event where he can avoid Rosalina, and Rosalina isn't massively popular. It's not as crippling as Greninja's old Sheik MU for example.

 

[KTVX]

sigh
2ggt, outfoxx'd, ppt, bg2, mars, and the arena.
+tus because why not.

Spoiler: Top 8

Spoiler: Top 3

There. It's easy to say that the dominant characters aren't dominant by increasing the distance from the first place to distort the data. Of course that as you go down the bracket you'll find other characters aside of Bayonetta, Cloud ane Sheik, but we should be looking at the very best placings to see who's more consistent.

I'm still not sure exactly how this works because I'm getting more than the four Bayonettas from the original chart, but this new chart should prove that those three place significantly higher than most.

 

[DanGR]

I'd put only a handful of characters in the category "solo-viable- top 3 at the largest of international events".


(not ordered)

Yeah it's 'possible' for other characters to reach top 3, but I'd consider it a major upset/godly bracket luck, and not something at all likely to repeat any time soon. On the other hand these characters will repeatedly reach top 3 over and over and over, despite widespread matchup knowledge.

Outside of those, players will fight disadvantageous matchups left and right, and rely severely on secondaries.

 

[Solfiner]

Now I understand how Samus mains feel. People ****ting on your character while not even understanding the basic fundamentals of what they can do.

Would you guys even believe me if I told you that Shulk's Ftilt is as fast as Ike's yet has more range? Up tilt is also the same speed and is one of the best anti airs in the game (Seriously, the hitbox is ridiculous.) And I just know someone is going to bring up Cloud's Nair being faster, but the ANGLE it comes out at makes it hit A LOT later than frame 5 if he's approaching, seriously it's basic math people.

Oh and art activation makes Shulk invincible for 14 FRAMES.

Guess what? You can find most of this out when looking at his frame data. Do some of you just listen to "SHULK HAS AWFUL FRAME DATA!1!" and leave it at that? Do you want him to have Marth frame data and make him invalidate every single character that has a problem with range?

 

[LancerStaff]

So, what's everybody think of ESAM supposedly dropping Pikachu? Don't really know him so IDK if he'd ever even entertain the idea, and it's hard to tell if it's just convenient timing... If it's true, mostly I'm wondering who he'd pick. The only other character I've heard he played was Samus, and that's probably not happening.

 

[Big-Cat]

Now I understand how Samus mains feel. People ****ting on your character while not even understanding the basic fundamentals of what they can do.

Would you guys even believe me if I told you that Shulk's Ftilt is as fast as Ike's yet has more range? Up tilt is also the same speed and is one of the best anti airs in the game (Seriously, the hitbox is ridiculous.) And I just know someone is going to bring up Cloud's Nair being faster, but the ANGLE it comes out at makes it hit A LOT later than frame 5 if he's approaching, seriously it's basic math people.

Oh and art activation makes Shulk invincible for 14 FRAMES.

Guess what? You can find most of this out when looking at his frame data. Do some of you just listen to "SHULK HAS AWFUL FRAME DATA!1!" and leave it at that? Do you want him to have Marth frame data and make him invalidate every single character that has a problem with range?

It just means that a lot of players not have a narrow idea of how to play Smash, but they do no research of their own. It's rather sickening really.

 

[Illuminose]

So, what's everybody think of ESAM supposedly dropping Pikachu? Don't really know him so IDK if he'd ever even entertain the idea, and it's hard to tell if it's just convenient timing... If it's true, mostly I'm wondering who he'd pick. The only other character I've heard he played was Samus, and that's probably not happening.

it's april fool's day

those are my comprehensive thoughts

e: why did I have to be a roy main ._.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

You know what, I would be fine if we kept Emblemboards after April Fools.

Also there's no way ESAM is dropping Pikachu. He's too Pikachu biased for that to be true.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Is actually a Mid Tier ? With all those people saying he reached the High Tier, I don't know what to think anymore.

Time will tell. I think a lot of people are still flopping around with joy after Mew^2 beat Mew2King and then was before the buffs of the last patch. Mewtwo has the tools to be intimidating: great tilts, great throw follow ups, stupid range, a ton of kill options including the second most reliable kill throw in the game, arguably the most reliable reflector in the game, scary ground speed, etc. His aerial movement and recovery are still kind of awkward, he's still a giant target, and he's still laughably light so we'll see where he goes. Personally, I think he'll run into snags in the future, especially with Ike and DK being helped by the recent patches by seeing many of their worst match ups being declawed. There's a lot of characters that could arguably make the jump to high tier by the next tier list with being the most agreed upon while people being on the fence about arguments made for .

 

[juddy96]

So, what's everybody think of ESAM supposedly dropping Pikachu? Don't really know him so IDK if he'd ever even entertain the idea, and it's hard to tell if it's just convenient timing... If it's true, mostly I'm wondering who he'd pick. The only other character I've heard he played was Samus, and that's probably not happening.

He has a Corrin as well that he picked up for the Mario MU

 

[Nah]

So, what's everybody think of ESAM supposedly dropping Pikachu? Don't really know him so IDK if he'd ever even entertain the idea, and it's hard to tell if it's just convenient timing... If it's true, mostly I'm wondering who he'd pick. The only other character I've heard he played was Samus, and that's probably not happening.

It's kind of hard to see him actually completely drop Pikachu after he's seemed to think so highly of the character for so long. I have no idea who he'd go for to replace Pikachu either (wouldn't be surprised if it would be since those seem to be the ones people are picking up these days). If he is in fact serious about dropping him he probably should've waited a day before announcing that....nobody believes anything said on April 1st.

 

[Fatmanonice]

ESAM has been a giant Pikachu fanboy for 8 years so I'm highly skeptical. He has a Samus and he has a Yoshi but high level players virtually never switch to significantly worse characters. I don't believe Zero either for the same reason and we all know that Zero isn't that kind of player. He may think Shulk has a ton of potential but his past actions show that he doesn't like to take risks with his character selections and there's no way he'd jump to a proposed low tier and deliberately sabotage his typical tournament placings.

 

[teddystalin]

ESAM just revealed it's a hoax. The first letter of each sentence in the video spells out "APRIL FOOLS".


Wasn't going to post anything today because of this stupid Nowi avatar but here we are