Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Y2Kay]

People have already started asking me for tips on how to play Mewtwo.

These folks probably don't know what they're getting themselves into. Abadango makes playing Mewtwo look criminally easy.

Literally everything that @Nobie said lol

 

[NotLiquid]

Even though Aba made Mewtwo vs Mario work decisively I still feel like it's at best a 50/50 matchup. The matchup is entirely one of patience and I imagine Abadango realized this before Ally did. A luckily placed up smash would probably have cinched a match or two for Ally. Abadango clearly had to work more for safer hits, which granted wasn't a problem (biggest takeaway I got is that M2 definitely has one of the absolute best NAirs in the game right now).

But considering Abadango managed to get first at a major who's only notably absent top professional was ZeRo this is still an insanely good development for Mewtwo - and if not a positive development for that character, then it's a negative development for characters like ZSS and Sheik.

 

[ReroRero]

One thing I will note is that I never saw aba going for full charge Shadow ball.

Yeah even when he took a stock, he never charges it ? I wonder why.

Also Bair is not even used by him even though it's a great spacing tool. I think he has still room for improvement IMO

 

[Locke 06]

One thing I will note is that I never saw aba going for full charge Shadow ball. Too predictable maybe idk.

Similar to Lucarios, possibly, using it for movement is more valuable.

 

[Y2Kay]

Mewtwo's Nair was pretty bad pre patch.

then sakurai increased the hitbox sizes in 1.1.5 that changed everything

 

[Smog Frog]

i could def understand not fully charging it to keep it for b reverse charge. literally flying around all over the screen while invincible and invisible is something i would give up a fully charged shadow ball for.

 

[Jalil]

Yeah even when he took a stock, he never charges it ? I wonder why.

Also Bair is not even used by him even though it's a great spacing tool. I think he has still room for improvement IMO

Just sitting there and charging a shadow ball instinctively makes people want to stop you from charging and be more aggressive. Maybe hoping they'll overextend? Idk I don't play mewtwo but that's what I do with pac sometimes

 

[Broqan]

Mewtwo's Nair was pretty bad pre patch.

then sakurai increased the hitbox sizes in 1.1.5 that changed everything

When I saw nair beat Mario's up smash that one game I was speechless :O

 

[FullMoon]

To be fair the only reason I haven't started messing with Mewtwo myself is that I don't like the character himself =V

 

[C0rvus]

The threat of charging it can force approaches. You can also b-reverse the charge for a landing mixup. When it's fully charged, your opponent can see it coming. Shooting annoying uncharged shots is decent in neutral. There are a few reasons not to charge it all the way.

 

[Megamang]

I think when people say Mario is lacking on paper, they aren't putting the right things on the paper. He is fast as ****, and his aerials are adaptable (can be used at pretty much any point in his jump, allowing great mixups). His dodges are good enough, which means he can do stuff like SHAD -> nair -> Grab - > BnB combo when people are trying to wall him. Fireballs actually serve a nice purpose of fireballs, and the fact they plummet to the earth when they are used from high actually helps Ally land on numerous occasions, and they can be dropped on people recovering low to steal jumps. FLUDD takes some ingenuity to make useful in some MUs, and is just outright free punishment in others.

His normals are all good, with notably lackluster ground game, but... with a great dthrow that sets up aerial situations, the mixup of a Mario fishing your zoning for powershield punishes, or just coming in and grabbing you, serves as a good enough ground game to seamlessly transit into his air game.

He also isn't easy to gimp like some new chars, and is also pretty heavy. Bthrow is an ok stock cap, and since he survives stock caps better than most upper tier'd characters, he gets good use of his.

He does have flaws, but if he had range or disjoint he'd be an unbreakable god


And yea, what C0rvus said about the charging. When you have a full charged shadow ball, you only have one option. Keeping it charging, and you have 2 options at all times. Its a really strong tool since you basically just charge up a punish option in their face, with the ability to immediately fire from charge dissuading them from doing anything about your charge.

 

[Broqan]

Just sitting there and charging a shadow ball instinctively makes people want to stop you from charging and be more aggressive. Maybe hoping they'll overextend? Idk I don't play mewtwo but that's what I do with pac sometimes

Well I guess a bit of Abadangos pac-man has made it into his mewtwo.

 

[Ninety]

Remember when I said I was sceptical of Mewtwo's post-patch potential (you don't)? I'm eating my damned words and happy to. Perceived bottom 5 to near-solo winning a major. Forget the Ike treatment, Mewtwo is the most buffed character in the history of this game.

 

[BunbUn129]

EDIT: @ Above. Bayonetta can still open up her crazy combo tree from a grab, if you don't react perfectly, and even then you can't always avoid it (once thrown I mean). I feel Cloud has less room for optimization of punishments, since uairs basically the best thing you can land in 90% of situations.

Shes a character that i'm really glad she is light. M2 does well against her by the way, its nice having a 14% throw, command grab, and 25% projectile, and upwards kill throw (her weight betrays her here), but thats always M2's hand.

---

Also, Mewtwo's dtilt is an amazing tool. Great for little pokes, and when it doesn't combo into aerials anymore (which is a pretty high percent, or tip spacing + DI) it still sets up horrific setups for the opponent, like being fair'd near the ledge at high percent, run in U-smashed if you try to aerial, or simple dashgrab if you try and land for defensive situations. Nair is amazing, with lingering hitboxes that setup into all kinds of bad situations as we saw, and surprising ability to pressure in unique situations since it is really low lag.

Of course, his actual grab is mediocre at best, he can't super snag you with a dashgrab like a lot of characters. His disadvantage isn't great, once you get him away from stage control he has to kinda float around and try and get it back from a stray fair or something. A few wrong exchanges here and you die.

So... he is a well executed glass cannon. I love it!

Well, yeah, Bayonetta can still get her combos, but defensive play means she has to work much harder to get them started. Playing offensively means always committing, and you will get punished. People counter-played MK pre-patch by not committing, and camping at the ledge. It's similar to ZSS: the best way to avoid her punish game is to be defensive. The same general strategy is what works best against Bayonetta, and this is especially important considering she has two main combo starters.

It's simple: a lot of players cry about Bayo because they can't have the leisure of running in thoughtlessly. She becomes much less frightening when you stop throwing out unsafe moves and committing to stupid options. We need to take what we learnt from pre-patch MK and ZSS and apply that to Bayo. OTOH, Cloud has the mobility and range--and camping ability--to shut down most characters in neutral.

 

[Thinkaman]

Remember: Koolaid destroyed doubles at Pound with Pac-Man, and threw in a very compelling final game as Doc.

Mewtwo is not the only unexpected character placement this weekend.

 

[Y2Kay]

too bad Koolaid got DQed in singles RIP

 

[Emblem Lord]

Man guys I tell ya. This meta game...totally dominated by that DLC. No balance at all. Bayo carrying players that are garbage.

YUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!

 

[Y2Kay]

for the low low price of $3.99, YOU can win POUND too!

 

[BSP]

Remember: Koolaid destroyed doubles at Pound with Pac-Man, and threw in a very compelling final game as Doc.

Mewtwo is not the only unexpected character placement this weekend.

Like I said in the other thread, I didn't see any amazing Pac-Man stuff from Kool Aid, just solid play from a good player. I only saw his Pac-Man in GFs though, so I need to take a look at those other matches.

I don't think Pac-Man is great in teams, but my style is very trampoline heavy and patience based, which obviously won't work when your partner will get double teamed.

 

[RaptorTEC]

Spoiler: Pound 2016 Top 48 (513 entrants)

1st
Abadango

2nd
Ally

3rd
Marss

4th
Mr. R

5th
Tweek
VoiD

7th
Larry Lurr
Pink Fresh

9th
Dabuz
Hyuga
ESAM
K.I.D. Goggles

13th
ScAtt
Saj
NAKAT
K9

17th
Angel Cortes
Pugwest
False
SS
Xaltis
Raptor
Seagull Joe
MVD

25th
C3PO
Mister Eric
DJ Jack
Zenyou
Snow
James
iStudying
Jbandrew

33rd
Seibrik
AceStarThe3rd
ADHD
Craftis
Wizzrobe
Viceroy
Day
SETHsational
Boss
San
Mr.II
WaDiRob (don't know, somebody clarify)
Tension
Remzi
Richie Business
Riz

And by looking at all the characters used in top 48 alone:

x6 x5 x4 x4 x3 x3 x3 x2 x2 x2 x2 x2 x2 x2 x2 x1 x1 x1 x1 x1 x1 x1 x1 x1 x1x1 x1 x1 x1

You see there? That's 29 different characters, more than half the cast. That's amazing. Really great to see how the first big national after patch 1.1.5 turned out.

WaDiRob uses Mewtwo

 

[Deleted member]

WaDiRob uses Mewtwo

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[Smog Frog]

u sure about bein the hardest character in the game to hit?

abadango made look MIGHTY SLIPPERY today.

 

[thehard]

Reminder that there's a thread for this! http://smashboards.com/threads/banning-bayonetta-in-tournaments.433725/

 

[Y2Kay]

Man, I though we where gonna talk about Mewtwo.....

 

[ARISTOS]

Man, I though we where gonna talk about Mewtwo.....

Mewtwo is really good but I think finding consistent results with him might be difficult because of how quickly he can die.

Though unlike Fox his disadvantage state isn't actually bottom tier

 

[HeavyLobster]

Mewtwo is really good but I think finding consistent results with him might be difficult because of how quickly he can die.

Though unlike Fox his disadvantage state isn't actually bottom tier

His disadvantage isn't top tier either. He's got options but no "free reset/recovery" button like certain chars do.

 

[C0rvus]

Man, I though we where gonna talk about Mewtwo.....

Sure! Let's talk Mewtwo!

He is simultaneously among the best zoners and anti-zoners in the game. His footsies are very strong and require only three moves (down tilt, fair and shadow ball). He has the best airdodge in the game, the best teleport, the best fair, and the best tail. Basically, he ****s on my preferred character archetype and does their job better. Only thing keeping him out of top tier imo is his inherent inconsistency. He has a damn good MU spread but things can always go suddenly wrong for him. If it wasn't for his explosive kill potential, he'd be in a bad spot.

 

[Megamang]

The comparisons to brawl are being used to state something about community health and interest, and are totally viable in this context. Yes, we know the games were different. But often, the players are the same. I left brawl for a while in the middle, and im back for sm4sh. Im excited to see that it is becoming more and more balanced, and I can't believe people are considering leaving over Bayonetta... when recent history has clearly shown us that the dev team is willing to nerf polarizing, 'unfun' jank.


Anyways, about the rise of mewtwo.. I hope it doesn't happen, I have been secretly enjoying the character...

Did abadango avoid any notably hard matchups through bracket luck? Because M2 to me is an anti meta character. I find myself on the ladder thinking 'yes, Cloud!' and 'Oh no, palutena/Robin' more than I do with anyone else.

It makes sense, they have been taking kill confirms away from the most dominant characters, but the lower level characters have been receiving them. M2 likes games where he can't be killed at a set percent, because in those MUs he has a lot easier time killing than the enemy. Fair is an amazing tool for this reason, its like a super super shiek fair for a stock cap... except it starts killing so early near the ledge, its more like a kill option than a stock cap, but m2 stock caps so early with uthrow anyways... He is a great character, but I don't see that many people switching over. He is hard to wield against lots of middling characters. He makes an amazing secondary for this.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Didn't express myself correctly tbh, but ye, people want her banned because she's broken/unfair which makes them not interested into the game aka scene not growing.



Funny to have someone who registered in 2015 talking about Brawl lol. I was antiban for the majority of Brawl lifespan, Bayo is better than ICs or MK anyways. People will say it's too early until it's too late, but you just need to take a look at the character to see that it's completely busted, do you think new DI will appear overtime that will help escape her 0 to death combos? I don't think so.

Did this man just say Bayo is better then Brawl IC's and MK?

Is this real life?

Yo....i need a break guys. im done for awhile.

 

[wedl!!]

Did this man just say Bayo is better then Brawl IC's and MK?

Is this real life?

Yo....i need a break guys. im done for awhile.

Play w/ me in SF my man.

This scrub Cammy needs a teacher.

 

[Thinkaman]

I have a weak grasp on a lot of Bayo matchups (as do many, I expect)

Anyone have solid info on how the matchup plays out with:

?

 

[NairWizard]

Alright, let's see, since my hype's settled down a little bit from the other thread.

Megamang said it correctly. If you think Mario is "just average on paper" then you're putting the wrong things down on paper. The ability to use multiple combinations of aerials (and airdodge) out of a hop is criminally underrated; Mario is excellent at mixing up and crossing up, as well as dynamically adjusting the timing of his quick attacks to excel in any matchup. Additionally, he creates an interesting dynamic in death % situations because he has a stock cap b-throw as well as a good chance of ending your stock if he gets you into the air/to the ledge and traps you with a smash, which makes you want to spotdodge or roll against him, but spotdodging or rolling against a Mario who is running at you is pure up-smash bait and gets you murdered. He's pretty good at taking the stock for a character who is supposed to be bad at it. Other than range/disjoint, Mario doesn't have any issues, and as we saw today in Ally vs. Tweek, Mario can overcome range disparities with careful placement of hitboxes and walking spacing.

These were my thoughts about Mario several topics (and months) ago:

I think Mario has some misconceptions and preconceived biases associated with him.

The major thing is this idea that his stats are "average," or that he's a solid character who is good at everything but not great at anything. This was true in previous smash games: Mario was the everyman; his stats were perfectly average. But that's not the case in smash 4: airspeed is too big of a factor for it to be so (also his up-smash is amazing in this game and a dominant factor in his success). Mario was average when his airspeed was average and you could wall him out due to his limited range. But now the strategy of "just wall Mario out with hitboxes" doesn't quite work any more unless your name is Rosalina. Mario is not an everyman. He's an extreme. Extremely good at moving around and weaving and extremely good at combo'ing/stringing together hits, with extremely fast attacks (best average frame data in the game besides Luigi). Defensive options (besides airdodge to the ground) got much stronger going from Brawl to smash 4 (the best airdodges/rolls in Brawl are now just about average for smash4), and for a low-range, high-mobility character like Mario that matters a lot and highlights his extreme traits.

I've seen several character boards start out saying early on in the game's lifetime that "Mario should be an easy or even matchup" and end up shifting to "Wow, Mario is actually really hard, I don't know why I'm struggling, in theory we should win." A great example of a misconception coming unraveled with time.

Mario has come a long way from when the game first came out. His punish/combo game has been optimized over time. He used to be only d-throw to up-tilt chains at low % but now Mario just lightly touches some characters and they take 30-60 damage from elaborate strings. f-air has become a legitimate combo tool (d-air -> f-air for instance). All of his aerials and tilts now have uses (except f-tilt I guess). KO'ing is not a problem in most matchups just because of his weight and how easy it is to land f-smash or up-smash (and how safe it is to throw out these moves) on landings/empty hop baits, which are once again enabled by his airspeed.

Additionally, Mario's toughest matchups were nerfed over time, and that too in the way most beneficial to Mario. Mario lost hard to characters who didn't care so much about his weaving (because of decent weaving of their own) but had much higher reward/kill confirms: 1.0.4. Diddy, 1.0.6. (?) Sonic, 1.0.9 Luigi. But they were all nerfed, specifically in their KO power (which was the problem for Mario), and now at least two of these characters actually have some trouble vs. Mario (never mind Komorikiri vs. Ally for now) or at least consider him a "tougher end of" even matchup. If you take a look at the set that 6wx took off of Ally at Shots Fired, you'll notice that most if not all of the KOs that Sonic got came from b-throw. With b-throw's nerf, 6wx has been losing to Ally consistently and it's usually because Ally kills him first. Those kill power nerfs mattered a lot--Mario loves it when you let him play the Fishing For Rage Up-Smash game, and it shows in the results.

If you consider Mario's matchup spread in a vacuum you might not be impressed, but look at it in comparison to that of other characters and you'll see that it's actually one of the best in the game. He has the tools to succeed in even matchups that he theoretically loses and so it's difficult to say that Mario loses any matchup more than 45:55. For instance it's commonly agreed by Marios that Rosalina is his worst matchup but Mario has so many tools in this matchup that I've seen several Rosalinas claim that it's ether even or one of Rosalina's more difficult matchups. Just compare how Mario does vs. Rosalina to how Diddy does vs. Rosalina: Mario has a much easier time KOing thanks to up-smash, gets gimped a lot less because his up-b is so good, has b-throw and dash attack to get rid of Luma, and can instant-death Rosalina at any time using Cape if she flubs her recovery angle.

Every time I see Mario vs. Sheik it looks like an even matchup, except when it's Ally vs. ZeRo, but Ally seems much worse than Anti at avoiding Sheik's KO setups, especially out of d-throw, so I think this might be a player-specific problem. ZSS mains have claimed on their board before that Mario is one of their harder matchups (I've even seen Shaya say it's ZSS' hardest), so at the worst I can see an even matchup here, though the recent buffs may have turned the tides. Sonic is probably even or close to it (we don't know where the matchup actually lands in the range of values provided by Komorikiri for Sonic's matchups; it may be closer to 50:50 than 45:55 for all we know). I don't buy that Ryu is a bad matchup for Mario; I think Marios just need to stop up-smashing the falling focus attack (even d-smash with the double hit is a better choice). Ally was playing the MU vs. Trela significantly better than he played the MU vs. 9B even though 9B is probably the better Ryu. Ryu has one of the worst airdodges in the game, and he has trouble reversing his aerial momentum, so as long as Mario maximizes his punishes and plays a safe, almost campy game like Ally was doing against Trela in some of the matches then Mario should be fine.

Greninja is listed as a difficult matchup for Mario in @HeroMystic 's list, and I've thought the same before, but Greninja mains have often said that Mario wins due to his up-tilt chains/combos and weaving/pressure, so here's yet another example of how Mario's "worst MUs" are not actually bad MUs but probably just "annoyingly even with some properties that Mario doesn't like." Oh no. How horrible. Poor Mario. He actually has to try.

Meanwhile if you take the MU spread of any other character besides Sheik (and perhaps postpatch ZSS) you'll find several difficult matchups. Sonic probably loses to ZSS, Sheik, and Rosalina at least, and Ike is looking like a hard MU as well. ZSS has some issues (historically) with Pikachu, Ness, Diddy, Mario (?), and Sheik, so that's at least 5. Rosalina struggles with ZSS and has troublesome Falcon, Pikachu, MK, Wario, and Marth (?) matchups at the least.

Then if you look at Mario's good matchups he is the hardest or 2nd hardest matchup for several characters: Pikachu, Wario, Megaman (paging Locke 06 ), Olimar (probably after Sheik), etc. I've seen Shaya suggest that Mario is one of Marth's worst matchups before the Marth buffs and @san. suggest that Mario is Ike's hardest matchup before the Ike buffs. I've seen Fox (who is supposedly better than Mario) also struggle with Mario for what it's worth, though the matchup may be even regardless. Ally vs. Larry looked extremely difficult for Larry, at least.

Mario's matchup spread is pretty ridiculous and with tools like a frame 2 jab, frame 3 n-air, small size, medium weight, a b-throw that kills, strings, invincible up-smash, FLUDD, high mobility on the ground (initial dash) and in the air, a frame 4 jumpsquat, Cape, a projectile, and a hard-to-gimp up-b, there's no character in the game who can say that Mario is an "easy" matchup and several characters who can say that Mario is a hard matchup. On top of that, Mario has a healthy amount of representation and succeeds on numerous levels with players like Zenyou, Ally, Anti, etc.

I don't know about guaranteed top 5 because there are so many good characters floating around up there, but to say that Mario is not even in the running is a little extreme. There are solid arguments to be made in his favor.

The narrative's evolved a little since then. Bayonetta and Cloud have emerged as difficult matchups, and possibly Corrin as well. But on the other hand, Sheik and ZSS suffered nerfs, so Mario's overall position hasn't changed much. He will always be relevant and good.

 

[sedrf]

to you people:
Anyway bayo is dumb af and really strong.
people who wan to ban bayo are stupid and probably hyprocrites or nerver played any of the other smash games to know true imbalance.
People who make memes about bayo not being as good is as worse as the people previoulsy mentioned.
X person main x broken character therefore they can'r complain about broken charcter y.
Stop it.
Don't pull that blatant trash here.
Also spain for the love of god just calm down. Maybe you guys need to just sit down learn the mu and just wait for things to improve.
Bayo isn't hilde from sc4 ,brawl mk or anyother imbalance crap brought on by dumb game balancers.

Mewtwo fans should be happy your character did well, but also notice the kirby fans to.
Also the sheik nerf was the greatest thing to happen to this game since the diddy nerfs and the removal of vectoring/shield nerfs

 

[Marcbri]

I have a weak grasp on a lot of Bayo matchups (as do many, I expect)

Anyone have solid info on how the matchup plays out with:

?

Pretty hard for Robin, played it quite a lot. You can't really charge thunder due to Bayo's NeutralB, Bayo can sideb you on reaction if you use thunder/fire spells, bat within can help her escape dthrow to Uair and Bayo's Nair/Dair will destroy all of Robin's attempts to recover. Robin can't approach her at all either so she's pretty much doomed. Good news is that you can outrange most of her moves with Fair/Jab but she can opt to camp you out.

Played Brawl at top level for 6 years btw, played Falco vs ICs and it didn't feel half as hopeless as you have a gameplan: avoiding a grab (not 7 moves that all lead to death) and desynch Nana.

 

[sedrf]

I have a weak grasp on a lot of Bayo matchups (as do many, I expect)

Anyone have solid info on how the matchup plays out with:

?

All I know is that robin seems bad against bayo for the smae reason he's against zss.
Jiggs could potentiaolly be good ,but she has the problem of being jiggs.
the rest is idk or really fragile

 

[ARGHETH]

I have a weak grasp on a lot of Bayo matchups (as do many, I expect)

Anyone have solid info on how the matchup plays out with:

?

Pretty much the only high level Bayo-Robin games I can think of have been Pink Fresh vs. Dath at Glitch (1-1)...
@Dathx ?

 

[NotLiquid]

Anyways, about the rise of mewtwo.. I hope it doesn't happen, I have been secretly enjoying the character...

Did abadango avoid any notably hard matchups through bracket luck? Because M2 to me is an anti meta character. I find myself on the ladder thinking 'yes, Cloud!' and 'Oh no, palutena/Robin' more than I do with anyone else.

It makes sense, they have been taking kill confirms away from the most dominant characters, but the lower level characters have been receiving them. M2 likes games where he can't be killed at a set percent, because in those MUs he has a lot easier time killing than the enemy. Fair is an amazing tool for this reason, its like a super super shiek fair for a stock cap... except it starts killing so early near the ledge, its more like a kill option than a stock cap, but m2 stock caps so early with uthrow anyways... He is a great character, but I don't see that many people switching over. He is hard to wield against lots of middling characters. He makes an amazing secondary for this.

I'm actually kind of curious about how Abadango's M2 would stack up against Dabuz and Rosalina, if only because I'm curious how M2 deals with Dabuz blocking people out. That said very few of the regular old guard played on point this tournament. Even though that's a matchup I'd have liked to see it's been such a confusing weekend for all of these players.

 

[Smog Frog]

what the hell are ACTUAL 0-deaths, anyways? they seem to be more like 20-deaths. not unlike prepatch .

actually, is A LOT like prepatch . i'm surprised people didn't rail on him as hard as they are railing on right now.

 

[BunbUn129]

what the hell are ACTUAL 0-deaths, anyways? they seem to be more like 20-deaths. not unlike prepatch .

actually, is A LOT like prepatch . i'm surprised people didn't rail on him as hard as they are railing on right now.

People didn't rail on him as hard because of the "he's much worse than in Brawl" mindset. Also, it took a lot of time for him to become fully relevant in competitive play. And MK doesn't have something as cheesy as Witch Time .

Also DLC.

 

[sedrf]

people here did rail on mk,but yeah.