Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Baby_Sneak]

It is a good thing if they are too strong.

Balance is a never ending job.

You can keep a character together but still you can't always leave them alone at the top.

If they're legitimate and non-polarizing, it's worked wasted.

 

[Blobface]

It's hard to complain about this games balance when we've had 20-30 characters placing high at stacked tourneys. Bayonetta might be a problem, and Cloud is honestly pretty much fine. He could use a few tweaks, but the meta hardly depends on it. IMO, his extremely good results are more a symptom of his tools being easy to pick up while his weaknesses require a lot of skill to exploit (Edgeguarding him).

Das Koopa
Do you have data on what characters have appeared in top 16 at notable tourneys since 1.1.5?

 

[Fatmanonice]

Nerfing legitimate good characters is never a good thing though

Yes and no because I believe it's necessary if a character is only really good because of jank. As I said in my post earlier, Bayo's largely the last strong hold for jank in this game. Cloud and Rosa arguably have one move left that's out of whack while there's a lot of things that this applies to for Bayo. Cloud is also the last example of an overtuned character in this game (I'd argue Rosa too but that's just my personal bias since I think fighting her is like pouring raw egg yolks down your pants) so, honestly, the end goal isn't too far off, at least on the high end of things. Middle and below, that's a whole different can of worms and many people would argue that it's irrelevant at the highest level of play anyways.

 

[sedrf]

apparently pink was messing around and just scrimmed with tweek today

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

If they're legitimate and non-polarizing, it's worked wasted.

Always buffing and never nerfing doesn't get the job done and causes power creep.

This was a problem with Project M til 3.02 and is a problem with some games.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Yes and no because I believe it's necessary if a character is only really good because of jank. As I said in my post earlier, Bayo's largely the last strong hold for jank in this game. Cloud and Rosa arguably have one move left that's out of whack while there's a lot of things that this applies to for Bayo. Cloud is also the last example of an overtuned character in this game (I'd argue Rosa too but that's just my personal bias since I think fighting her is like pouring raw egg yolks down your pants) so, honestly, the end goal isn't too far off, at least on the high end of things. Middle and below, that's a whole different can of worms and many people would argue that it's irrelevant at the highest level of play anyways.

Nerfing a legitimate good character is like nerfing Mario or sonic in this game.


It's not worth it at all

Always buffing and never nerfing doesn't get the job done and causes power creep.

This was a problem with Project M til 3.02 and is a problem with some games.

This only happens if people tried to strive for perfect balance and are never satisfied. Idc what method you use for balance, your game will die if you overuse any of them to achieve perfect balance.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Always buffing and never nerfing doesn't get the job done and causes power creep.

This was a problem with Project M til 3.02 and is a problem with some games.

Funny enough they had this mentality when 3.6 beta came out and literally everyone I knew hated it. No character was fun anymore. Power creep is a legitimate problem but I really doubt that it applies to this game considering most buffs in Smash 4 are minor, subtle things (with a few exceptions)

I think this game has done plenty fine in striking that balanced line and I think 75-80% of the roster should stay as is going forward.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Nerfing a legitimate good character is like nerfing Mario or sonic in this game.


It's not worth it at all


This only happens if people tried to strive for perfect balance. Idc what method you use for balance, you're game will die if you overuse any of them to achieve perfect balance.

League of legends does this constantly.

You need both to make your game better. If you do one without the other, you lose uniqueness overtime and can create problems for other characters.

 

[Thinkaman]

Nothing elects less sympathy from me that character loyalists complaining about how sad it is to play their character in the top half of the roster.

Luigi takes the cake. Falln and Ito ranked Luigi 5th best in the game, above Sheik, Mario, and ZSS for crying out loud.

Do I believe that? Hell no. But it takes way less suspension of disbelief than pretending that Luigi is Palutena and acting like we should start throwing buffs at the character ranked #16 on the last tier list, compiled before non-trivial nerfs to half the guys above him.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Funny enough they had this mentality when 3.6 beta came out and literally everyone I knew hated it. No character was fun anymore. Power creep is a legitimate problem but I really doubt that it applies to this game considering most buffs in Smash 4 are minor, subtle things (with a few exceptions)

I think this game has done plenty fine in striking that balanced line and I think 75-80% of the roster should stay as is going forward.

I know there is an realm of players that loved that patch.

Really it was only fun if you played the characters tailor made to fight Fox.

Otherwise it was awful for everyone else. Like legit not fun while having a lot of problems similar to what is wrong with Bayonetta right now.

Low risk, high reward and butt load of easy option selects while giving it to no one else. Might work if they gave it to everyone but this rarely if ever works.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Nothing elects less sympathy from me that character loyalists complaining about how sad it is to play their character in the top half of the roster.

Luigi takes the cake. Falln and Ito ranked Luigi 5th best in the game, above Sheik, Mario, and ZSS for crying out loud.

Do I believe that? Hell no. But it takes way less suspension of disbelief than pretending that Luigi is Palutena and acting like we should start throwing buffs at the character ranked #16 on the last tier list, before non-trivial nerfs to half the guys above him.

if I was to be honest I don't find him that good at all lol. I think he's still being overrated, no he's not Palutena but he's still super disappointing, not much is gonna change that. I think he was handled incredibly poorly, you'll have to pardon my vocalness on it. Regardless of the characters below him, not much is gonna change the fact that I believe this. I'm not here to garner sympathy, I'm here to speak my mind.

I still can't think of any justification to the change on his Dtilt, at all. That move was so good once upon a time.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

They nerfed Luigi's Dthrow because it literally did everything, Damage? Yup. Kill set-up? Yup. Beats shield and is threatening? Yup.

Same problem with Diddy Dthrow pre patch, it also did everything.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

League of legends does this constantly.

You need both to make your game better. If you do one without the other, you lose uniqueness overtime and can create problems for other characters.

There needs to be a satisfaction level. Even if you did both, when will you stop?

Nerfing the top and buffing the bottom isn't a catch-all action too. There are some specific cases where the bottom is truely awful and the top is legitimately good and visa versa.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Nerfing a legitimate good character is like nerfing Mario or sonic in this game.


It's not worth it at all

I don't disagree but Mario and Sonic don't get by on jank. They don't have cruise control 0-deaths or tactics that are virtually impossible for most of the cast to counter. Like I said earlier, most of the high tiers now have counterpicks and legitimate weaknesses. This is not what people have a problem with. You don't hear arguments for characters like Pikachu, Diddy, and Ness being polarizing but you definitely hear them for Bayo, Rosa, and Cloud. I feel like we've come a long way in this regard with arguably half the cast reasonably being able to rank in major tournaments and somewhere between 15-20% (depending on who you ask) actually able to win so the days of cutting down giants to level the playing field is almost completely behind us.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

There needs to be a satisfaction level. Even if you did both, when will you stop?

Nerfing the top and buffing the bottom isn't a catch-all action too. There are some specific cases where the bottom is truely awful and the top is legitimately good and visa versa.

They can be that while being healthy.

That doesn't mean leave then alone forever.

Satisfaction should be considered, I agree. Thankfully smash 4 hasn't done that and quite the opposite.

The issue I take from this though is the always buff and never nerf is that it can cause problems with balance, satisfaction and power creep.

If everyone played like Bayonetta or could do that, would that be smash or fun? I doubt it.

There is a satisfaction problem with her, she isn't fun to play against and it is frustrating how fast people can place with her in a short time.

I don't think buffing would ever solve this problem.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I don't disagree but Mario and Sonic don't get by on jank. They don't have cruise control 0-deaths or tactics that are virtually impossible for most of the cast to counter. Like I said earlier, most of the high tiers now have counterpicks and legitimate weaknesses. This is not what people have a problem with. You don't hear arguments for characters like Pikachu, Diddy, and Ness being polarizing but you definitely hear them for Bayo, Rosa, and Cloud. I feel like we've come a long way in this regard with arguably half the cast reasonably being able to rank in major tournaments and somewhere between 15-20% (depending on who you ask) actually able to win so the days of cutting down giants to level the playing field is almost completely behind us.

Sonic: spin dash
Mario: Upsmash, Utilt

Jank = cheese = gimmicky stuff you just have to know or respect. Every character in this game will have some type of cheese or Jank or w/e.

They can be that while being healthy.

That doesn't mean leave then alone forever.

Satisfaction should be considered, I agree. Thankfully smash 4 hasn't done that and quite the opposite.

The issue I take from this though is the always buff and never nerf is that it can cause problems with balance, satisfaction and power creep.

If everyone played like Bayonetta or could do that, would that be smash or fun? I doubt it.

There is a satisfaction problem with her, she isn't fun to play against and it is frustrating how fast people can place with her in a short time.

I don't think buffing would ever solve this problem.

Just buffing those that need it after reasonably nerfing bayo and cloud is all the game even remotely needs imo. After that we can leave the game alone Because there's nothing left to fix unless you want to nitpick at small details or something. Constantly changing the game balance is something MKXL and LoL does and are made fun of for weekly top tiers and such

And personally, if everyone could be as strong as bayo while bring unique, I would be all for it. That would be soo legit.

 

[sedrf]

Bayonetta is overrated as **** and ros/zss are more solid/consistent

 

[Fatmanonice]

I also believe that the developers are more concerned about functionality than true balance. I've gone on this rant a number of times in the past but think about how many characters were full blown herp-a-derp when the game first came out. Once again, were arguably broken and not in the good way. Things have improved since then to various degrees. Some characters have shot up the tier list because their basic concepts were realized while others simply had big problems addressed and are more held back by match ups than themselves. Marth arguably "feels" like how Marth should. Robin is no longer a special snowflake overwhelmingly hindered by his gimmicks. Things like that. Aside from (and arguably in my opinion because of his defunct smash attacks), the casts' concepts don't seem to betray them and they "work" as fighters, if that makes sense.

Add in: There are characters that could obviously be made better. and are two characters that particularly stick out in my mind but their improvements would come from their moves instead of reworking their concept. They "work" but they still kind of fall flat. Neither of them, however, need Mewtwo or Ike level overhauls to be more competent, in my opinion.

Yet another add in: If Mario's utilt/usmash and Sonic's spindash are "jank" then the term has lost all meaning because it absolutely rips open the doors for what would qualify as this. For example, if Mario's utilt is jank, so is Kirby's. If Sonic's spindash is jank, so is Bowser Jr's koopa kart. Neither are true. They're good but not "jank" good like Corrin's old counter surge or Shiek's old needles. I define jank as stuff that most or even the whole cast has little or no answer to and is extremely difficult or downright impossible to punish. Compare Mario's usmash to Cloud's Limit Break Cross Slash and there's a clear difference.

 

[sedrf]

Bayo is no where near as unhelathy to the meta game as sheik and rosa were. And people defended the two ,but ***** about bayo which is bs. Like bayo is rather stupid, but the fact she got more **** and people defended the pre patch version of the other two characters shows how shortsighted we can be.

 

[Yikarur]

Sheik was generally looked at as a very skillful character with a very high learning curve and a really high ceiling. Same for Rosalina. You can't just pick up both and do well at top level play.
They say about Bayonetta that She carries her player and that you can pick her and beat better player with her.
Thats the differences. (If this is true or not is another story)

 

[Illuminose]

Luigi is fine. He still has a really good projectile for neutral and frame data/hitboxes overall. His jab is quick, has high mixup potential, and has a pretty damn good hitbox. His grab can still lead to huge combos, consistently 30ish on most of the cast and some bigger like 50ish combos on fast fallers. Luigi's damage output in general is actually pretty crazy, even on some his safest moves; you're taking like 10-14 damage for one hit and then any follow-ups after that will add up pretty fast. The frame data allows Luigi to perform multiple aerials in a short hop and w/ the cyclone mixup as well he has good abilities to mix it up in neutral. His foxtrot and perfect pivot are really good which makes movement pretty effective despite rather slow overall mobility. Cyclone spike is a crazy edgeguard. Luigi is fine for killing with a Mario usmash, bthrow, super strong bair, and some more gimmicky or ocassional kill options like dsmash, fsmash, and up b. Life is better with the Sheik nerfs; Rosa and Cloud are somewhat hard but he's a lot better vs Bayo than he ever was against Sheik. Also does generally well against characters like Diddy, Fox, Mario, Sonic, and Pikachu. I feel like Luigi is clearly a step behind the actual top tiers, but the line isn't big and he's an upper echelon high tier (though likely not the best one). My view is that Luigi has top tier traits with certain aspects that make some matchups hard.

Most of the Bayonetta hate has to do with the fact that she carries players, far more than Sheik did pre-patch. It's beyond the extent where all characters carry players to at least some extent and top tiers obviously bring results, more that Bayonetta can legitimately invalidate skill barriers because her kill combos are indiscriminate.

 

[Y2Kay]

The difference between sheik/rosa and bayonetta is that bayonetta has a very serious soft ban. Sheik and rosa players where at least partially respected for the skill it took to use them. Bayonetta players right now are hated SO bad right now. You can elicit any sympathy from the general smash community.

I haven't seen the community hate a character this much before. (I didn't really play brawl) Any video with a bayo doing well gets absolutely bombarded with dislikes.

 

[R3D3MON]

Luigi is fine. He still has a really good projectile for neutral and frame data/hitboxes overall...

Nice way to just list the positives and completely overlook his weaknesses. This is the same analysis as saying Ganon is fine because he hits like a truck and can abuse rage really well.

EDIT: Some of what you said is completely wrong btw. Luigi's fireball isn't a "really good projectile for neutral" since it is unsafe on hit and functions more as chip damage in the neutral. Fireball is good for frustrating opponents and occasional setups into grab or up smash, but not really a tool you can use freely unless your opponent has no MU experience against Luigi.

 

[Y2Kay]

Luigi damage output is good, but......there are so many characters that outrange, outcamp and outspeed him.

For example.........

His d throw combos on greninja are really fricking good. Luigi's frame data is better to. Why is this still a bad match up? Greninja's high mobility + Shurikens + Fair spacing allows him to dictate the whole pace of the match. Greninja gets to engage and disengage Luigi almost entirely on his terms.

His d throw combos at low percents are potent on Mewtwo. His light weight somewhat circumvents his killing issue. Mewtwo is also a bad matchup because Comfusion + Down Tilt completely invalidates Luigi's approaches. Mewtwo cares nothing about your fireballs. And his down tilt outranges every move in Luigi's kit. Another losing match up for Luigi.

 

[sedrf]

http://oddshot.tv/shot/firenationsmash-2016041031345130
Watching tgc and holy **** that jut happened

 

[Das Koopa]

here's a thing

Tournaments Used:
2GGT FOW Saga
Outfoxx'd
The Arena 2016
Pound 2016
Sumabato 9

Character composition by Top 16, Top 8, Top 4, and Winners:

Top 16:

Spoiler

Main:
Bayonetta: 7
Sheik: 6
Diddy Kong: 6
Cloud: 5
Fox: 5
Toon Link: 4
Zero Suit Samus: 4
Rosalina & Luma: 4
Mario: 3
Sonic: 3
Meta Knight: 2
Mewtwo: 2
Ness: 2
Ryu: 2
Donkey Kong: 2
Captain Falcon: 2
Little Mac: 2
Marth: 2
Samus: 2
Peach: 2
Pikachu: 1
Mr. Game & Watch: 1
Luigi: 1
Wario: 1
Pit: 1
Pac-Man: 1
Palutena: 1
Link: 1
Villager: 1
Lucario: 1
Mega Man: 1
Bowser: 1

Secondary:
Cloud: 2
Corrin: 2
Donkey Kong: 2
Bayonetta: 1
Mario: 1
Fox: 1
Lucas: 1
Pikachu: 1
Ike: 1
Robin: 1
Meta Knight: 1
Ness: 1
Diddy Kong: 1
Sonic: 1
Luigi: 1
Kirby: 1

Top 8:

Spoiler

Main:
Bayonetta: 6
Sheik: 4
Cloud: 4
Zero Suit Samus: 3
Mario: 3
Fox: 2
Toon Link: 2
Rosalina & Luma: 2
Sonic: 1
Meta Knight: 1
Mewtwo: 1
Ness: 1
Captain Falcon: 1
Diddy Kong: 1
Samus: 1
Mr. Game & Watch: 1
Wario: 1
Pit: 1
Pac-Man: 1
Donkey Kong: 1
Peach: 1

Secondary:
Cloud: 1
Bayonetta: 1
Mario: 1
Corrin: 1
Donkey Kong: 2
Lucas: 1
Meta Knight: 1
Ness: 1
Diddy Kong: 1
Sonic: 1
Luigi: 1

Top 4:

Spoiler

Main:
Zero Suit Samus: 2
Sheik: 2
Mario: 2
Cloud: 2
Bayonetta: 1
Rosalina & Luma: 1
Pit: 1
Mewtwo: 1
Diddy Kong: 1
Meta Knight: 1
Toon Link: 1
Mr. Game & Watch: 1
Fox: 1
Ness: 1
Captain Falcon: 1

Secondary:
Meta Knight: 1
Cloud: 1
Ness: 1
Corrin: 1
Donkey Kong: 1
Lucas: 1

Winners:

Spoiler

Zero Suit Samus: 1
Bayonetta: 1
Sheik: 1
Meta Knight/Cloud: 1
Mewtwo/Meta Knight: 1

Top 8 Data list, all tournies from 1.1.5-Sumabato 9: (Scored by 1-6 for regs, 3-8 for large regs, and 5-10 for majors. 7th = 1, 1st=6, etc.)

Spoiler

Bayonetta: 79.5
Sheik: 48
Mario: 46.5
Cloud: 46
Diddy Kong: 38
Ness: 33
Zero Suit Samus: 29.5
Meta Knight: 29
Rosalina: 28.5
Fox: 28
Mewtwo: 21
ROB: 20
Toon Link: 19.5
Luigi: 18.5
Sonic: 18
Corrin: 17
Mega Man: 16
Captain Falcon: 14.5
Wario: 12
Donkey Kong: 11
Pac-Man: 10.5
Greninja: 9
Olimar: 8.5
Mr. Game & Watch: 8
Peach: 7.5
Yoshi: 7
Pit: 7
Samus: 7
Ryu: 6
Lucas: 6
Bowser: 5.5
Lucario: 4
Ike: 3.5
Palutena: 3
Wii Fit Trainer: 2
Marth: 2
Pikachu: 2
Duck Hunt: 2
Jigglypuff: 1
Robin: 1
Mii Fighter: 1
Bowser Jr.: 1
Link: 1
Villager: 1

Next step, obviously, is to get the character composition of basic regionals and see how it meshes with the above data list and see how the composition compares to that of majors. This took me forever to compile so I'll do all that later but here's a bunch of data for people to use and stuff.

 

[Fatmanonice]

The difference between sheik/rosa and bayonetta is that bayonetta has a very serious soft ban. Sheik and rosa players where at least partially respected for the skill it took to use them. Bayonetta players right now are hated SO bad right now. You can elicit any sympathy from the general smash community.

I haven't seen the community hate a character this much before. (I didn't really play brawl) Any video with a bayo doing well gets absolutely bombarded with dislikes.

Brawl Metaknight was more hated. Discussions about bans went on for years just because the character had everything. Mash together this game's Cloud (overtuned) and Bayo (jankosaurus rex) and you'd basically have Brawl Metaknight. Some people even joke that hatred for Brawl Metaknight alone was 50% of what inspired Project M to be made.

Sheik was generally looked at as a very skillful character with a very high learning curve and a really high ceiling. Same for Rosalina. You can't just pick up both and do well at top level play.
They say about Bayonetta that She carries her player and that you can pick her and beat better player with her.
Thats the differences. (If this is true or not is another story)

I feel like it is true. I talked about this the other day but Pink Fresh, Saj, Ninjalink, Salem, Aerolink, and now Riot have pole vaulted in success since picking up Bayo. All are great players but they're also notably midlevel players and yet are now beating some of the best players in the world. As other people have said, the soft ban on her is anything but a well kept secret among high level players.

 

[meleebrawler]

Luigi.

His shtick has always been being the goofier, clumsier, yet surprisingly strong in the right hands bro. His superior jumping and sometimes greater speed make him great for professionals, but less experienced players despise the inertia in the air and slipperiness on the ground he exhibits in platformers. And this holds true in Smash, minus the air inertia replaced by a lack of mobility.

Unlike in platformers, the obstacles Luigi faces in Smash aren't static and quite adaptable, making it harder to justify the difficulty in using him over Mario. But the reward is still there in his damage.

 

[Das Koopa]

ESAM's out at TGC7 before top 4 apparently?

 

[Yikarur]

Pink Fresh, Salem and Ninjalink have been super known high level players. I think it's not fair to blame it on the character if they switched from a non-top tier to a top tier and get results or if they just really decided to play this game seriously with Bayonetta, because they didn't have a character they like before.
I think it's just natural. Those are very experienced players with a lot of smash experience.
Everyone gets carried by their character and if you played a worse character before it's the expected outcome to place better if you switch to a top tier.

 

[sedrf]

MVd just 2-0d esam after being sent to losers by aero link.
esam lost map 2 on lylat....

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Brawl Metaknight was more hated. Discussions about bans went on for years just because the character had everything. Mash together this game's Cloud (overtuned) and Bayo (jankosaurus rex) and you'd basically have Brawl Metaknight. Some people even joke that hatred for Brawl Metaknight alone was 50% of what inspired Project M to be made.

I...thought this was obvious? I always figured a major impetus for modding Brawl to start with was that people decided the balance was a hot mess and realized they could do something about it.

EDIT: Regarding Bayonetta carrying players, I want to remind people how Tweek was doing surprisingly okay but nothing spectacular as Bowser Jr., then he picked up Cloud and suddenly started taking names left and right.

I don't know offhand who Salem and Ninjalink used to rep, but I know Pink Fresh was a top Lucas in the Brawl days (and maybe PM too?), so he's hardly a nobody. Assuming he stuck with Lucas between his DLC drop and Bayonetta's release, I can't say I'm too surprised to see a similar situation develop.

 

[S_B]

What do you mean by excellent? Sitting in the high end of mid-tier? Man I was happy the character could finally be good in smash game, but nope.

He's a character that's extremely dangerous in the right hands but loses to some of the top tiers who still need to be toned down a bit.

And ideally, "_________ is extremely dangerous in the right hands." should describe every single character in SSB4 (and largely does describe most of the cast).

Once the high tiers have been tweaked some more, this game will be in a very good spot, balance-wise. We may even start to see an era where there's no "best character" and we have a hard time deciding what matchups each character actually wins or loses.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Lower Powerlevel is boring. The game's powerlevel is already really low overall. They should just buff everyone at this point that needs buffs and maybe fix 1-2 mediocre things about good but not good enough characters.
There is nothing more amazing than exploring new stuff thanks to frame data buffs. I want those at least once.. (buff Yoshis ftilt pls )

Someone ****ing understands.

Why do you people want a game full of WEAKLINGS?!

 

[Djent]

Not that surprising. does fine in neutral vs. and can kill him earlier if he can avoid getting knocked far offstage (in which case he dies). Matchup is pretty close (and MVD used to beat ESAM more often than the reverse).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

He's a character that's extremely dangerous in the right hands but loses to some of the top tiers who still need to be toned down a bit.

And ideally, "_________ is extremely dangerous in the right hands." should describe every single character in SSB4 (and largely does describe most of the cast).

Once the high tiers have been tweaked some more, this game will be in a very good spot, balance-wise. We may even start to see an era where there's no "best character" and we have a hard time deciding what matchups each character actually wins or loses.

I'd say even Zelda, Jigglypuff, Dedede, etc. can tear you a new one if you get complacent or just aren't familiar with what they can do. (e.g. if you've been living under a rock and don't know about Zelda's elevator) Of course, managing to stay a threat even after the opponent knows what you can do and respects your main options is the tricky part.

EDIT:

Someone ****ing understands.

Why do you people want a game full of WEAKLINGS?!

I don't think anyone wants the cast to be nerfed en masse down to Zelda's level, and certainly half the cast doesn't deserve that anyway on account of being below the average. But it's a question of effort invested for results gained. Nerfing, say, the top 3 characters (let's assume that's Bayonetta/Cloud/Rosalina for the sake of this example) and buffing the bottom 3 (uh...Jigglypuff, Dedede, and Duck Hunt?) is focusing on 6 characters total. If they took a "buff all the things" approach, they'd have to change a lot more characters than that. Even if they only looked at the bottom half of the cast, that's 29 characters. (26 if you ignore Miis.)

If I were a game dev, I'd much rather worry about 6 characters instead of 29.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Where did the claim that bayo was soft banned at the top level come from and where was the proof?

 

[Y2Kay]

I personally hate the "bayo carries players" argument. I just feel like it discredits the player's work into the character.

I know Ninjalink. The guys has a mind built for Smash. If you listen to him talk about the game you can tell he is capable. He has always gotten respectable results in his region, but can't really travel far away to play the big names. Calling him a mid level player is really under rating him, and this probably goes along with the several of the other big bayo main's as well.

 

[Blobface]

here's a thing

Tournaments Used:
2GGT FOW Saga
Outfoxx'd
The Arena 2016
Pound 2016
Sumabato 9

Character composition by Top 16, Top 8, Top 4, and Winners:

Top 16:

Spoiler

Main:
Bayonetta: 7
Sheik: 6
Diddy Kong: 6
Cloud: 5
Fox: 5
Toon Link: 4
Zero Suit Samus: 4
Rosalina & Luma: 4
Mario: 3
Sonic: 3
Meta Knight: 2
Mewtwo: 2
Ness: 2
Ryu: 2
Donkey Kong: 2
Captain Falcon: 2
Little Mac: 2
Marth: 2
Samus: 2
Peach: 2
Pikachu: 1
Mr. Game & Watch: 1
Luigi: 1
Wario: 1
Pit: 1
Pac-Man: 1
Palutena: 1
Link: 1
Villager: 1
Lucario: 1
Mega Man: 1
Bowser: 1

Secondary:
Cloud: 2
Corrin: 2
Donkey Kong: 2
Bayonetta: 1
Mario: 1
Fox: 1
Lucas: 1
Pikachu: 1
Ike: 1
Robin: 1
Meta Knight: 1
Ness: 1
Diddy Kong: 1
Sonic: 1
Luigi: 1
Kirby: 1

Top 8:

Spoiler

Main:
Bayonetta: 6
Sheik: 4
Cloud: 4
Zero Suit Samus: 3
Mario: 3
Fox: 2
Toon Link: 2
Rosalina & Luma: 2
Sonic: 1
Meta Knight: 1
Mewtwo: 1
Ness: 1
Captain Falcon: 1
Diddy Kong: 1
Samus: 1
Mr. Game & Watch: 1
Wario: 1
Pit: 1
Pac-Man: 1
Donkey Kong: 1
Peach: 1

Secondary:
Cloud: 1
Bayonetta: 1
Mario: 1
Corrin: 1
Donkey Kong: 2
Lucas: 1
Meta Knight: 1
Ness: 1
Diddy Kong: 1
Sonic: 1
Luigi: 1

Top 4:

Spoiler

Main:
Zero Suit Samus: 2
Sheik: 2
Mario: 2
Cloud: 2
Bayonetta: 1
Rosalina & Luma: 1
Pit: 1
Mewtwo: 1
Diddy Kong: 1
Meta Knight: 1
Toon Link: 1
Mr. Game & Watch: 1
Fox: 1
Ness: 1
Captain Falcon: 1

Secondary:
Meta Knight: 1
Cloud: 1
Ness: 1
Corrin: 1
Donkey Kong: 1
Lucas: 1

Winners:

Spoiler

Zero Suit Samus: 1
Bayonetta: 1
Sheik: 1
Meta Knight/Cloud: 1
Mewtwo/Meta Knight: 1

Top 8 Data list, all tournies from 1.1.5-Sumabato 9: (Scored by 1-6 for regs, 3-8 for large regs, and 5-10 for majors. 7th = 1, 1st=6, etc.)

Spoiler

Bayonetta: 79.5
Sheik: 48
Mario: 46.5
Cloud: 46
Diddy Kong: 38
Ness: 33
Zero Suit Samus: 29.5
Meta Knight: 29
Rosalina: 28.5
Fox: 28
Mewtwo: 21
ROB: 20
Toon Link: 19.5
Luigi: 18.5
Sonic: 18
Corrin: 17
Mega Man: 16
Captain Falcon: 14.5
Wario: 12
Donkey Kong: 11
Pac-Man: 10.5
Greninja: 9
Olimar: 8.5
Mr. Game & Watch: 8
Peach: 7.5
Yoshi: 7
Pit: 7
Samus: 7
Ryu: 6
Lucas: 6
Bowser: 5.5
Lucario: 4
Ike: 3.5
Palutena: 3
Wii Fit Trainer: 2
Marth: 2
Pikachu: 2
Duck Hunt: 2
Jigglypuff: 1
Robin: 1
Mii Fighter: 1
Bowser Jr.: 1
Link: 1
Villager: 1

Next step, obviously, is to get the character composition of basic regionals and see how it meshes with the above data list and see how the composition compares to that of majors. This took me forever to compile so I'll do all that later but here's a bunch of data for people to use and stuff.

Thanks!

That's 32 different characters in top 16, 21 in top 8, 15 in top 4, and 6 different characters winning with Meta Knight (not by himself) being the only repeat.

 

[L9999]

I...thought this was obvious? I always figured a major impetus for modding Brawl to start with was that people decided the balance was a hot mess and realized they could do something about it.

EDIT: Regarding Bayonetta carrying players, I want to remind people how Tweek was doing surprisingly okay but nothing spectacular as Bowser Jr., then he picked up Cloud and suddenly started taking names left and right.

I don't know offhand who Salem and Ninjalink used to rep, but I know Pink Fresh was a top Lucas in the Brawl days (and maybe PM too?), so he's hardly a nobody. Assuming he stuck with Lucas between his DLC drop and Bayonetta's release, I can't say I'm too surprised to see a similar situation develop.

Salem played Lucina and got 25 at EVO. Ninjalink used to play Megaman. But that was way too long ago.