Man, were we crucifying Luigi again? Then let me be his defense or whatever so I can try to patch a few things up. Feel free to burn
me to the stake as well if I say something wrong. Also, I apologize in advance for the messy paragraphs. I can't write well on a phone. Especially when I'm this excited about the subject
. Anyways, let's get on with this.
I think I should first bring up that results-wise Luigi is similar to R.O.B, at least that's the case if we look at the results from 2016. They both do well pretty consistently at most levels of play. They just haven't gotten a huge breakthrough result. The thing is: Luigi seems to have a better top tier spread (at least, I've heard that R.O.B has trouble with it's Cloud, Diddy and Bayo MUs. And while ZSS is probably much better than before since ZSS nerfs were a thing, I can't see that MU suddenly becoming a winning MU. Please correct me if I'm mistaken in any of those MU's). Yet some of us seem to be nominating R.O.B for top 20 while calling Luigi a 'disappointment'. I can say that some of the losing MUs Luigi has are either not actually losing or not as bad as theory would show, including top tiers like Sheik and Rosa. For instance: During the week of Pound, there were two tournies where Luigi placed second in. J. Miller beat one of the best Samuses in Europe (forgot the name, sadly. I think it started with a J). And ConCon beat Falln's Rosa. Those are two MUs that Luigi supposedly loses decisively in. Though, in practice, Samus (if played optimally) isn't even a bad MU and Rosa, a character that's said to go 7-3 against Luigi, is still a losing MU...but not looking any worse than a 6-4 with a few results to show it (ConCon's recent win and Boss' 2-0 against a Rosa main called Frozen...though I'm not convinced that Frozen is a great Rosa main). Also, I think that I should explain that I personally get Toon Link practice every day with my brother. You know, another character that's said to cleanly beat Luigi. And while we're definitely not top players, we both agree that the Toon Link vs Luigi MU is very stage dependent (for instance, Luigi does well on battlefield, and Tink does well on FD). And that has to count for something, right? I mean, perhaps it doesn't, and I'll admit, Luigi in theory is a piece of **** character. But when he still has such a limited playerbase continuing to get solid results (at least top 16 at regionals, though J. Miller has had his fair share of top 3 placings, and we had a Luigi main that I still don't recognize named James who got top 32 at Pound...the same placing where iStudying got if memory serves) in practice Luigi doesn't turn out to be such a disappointment. Lack of results definitely isn't a reason why Luigi is bad. And his ****ty theory definitely isn't hampering some of the top Luigi mains if the can still get notable placings. In fact, I just gave to examples that undermine some of the theory that gets brought up all the time. I respect that people have their opinions on other characters, but I'd implore to look at Luigi's decent results and how they're still generally better than the rest of the mid tier gang that he's grouped with (Peach, Wario, Olimar, etc.).
I want to adress one specific point that gets hammered all the time: and that's the fact that Luigi has trouble with his approach. Well first...umm yeah, I can agree with that. But it's not like it's so huge that it makes him instantly 'disappointing'. His approach isn't DDD/Ganon/Kirby levels of ****. He has decent ground mobility (with a nice and slippery foxtrot), a good burst mobility option in the form of cyclone, and has fireballs. His ground speed is actually usable and his walk as good acceleration, allowing a good option for perfect shielding projectiles while constantly moving forward. His fireballs command space and are very spammable at mid range and can actually force some sort of approach if your if your opponent doesn't have a (good) projectile to ease off the pressure (looking at Ryu, Falcon, Marth and Ike as good examples). His cyclone is around the speed of Toon Link's dash and can be used to catch rolls, spot dodges, and some characters trying to run away if their dashes are too slow. It's also able to be used from the air to cut right through some projectiles and hit the opponent (for example: it's good for punishing Tink's boomerang and arrows if used too close). And yeah, I'll admit that Cyclone has quite a bit of end lag. But when people like ConCon have shown how to use it safely in creative ways, it shows that you can mitigate the end lag to the point where it's hard to punish.
Luigi's disadvantage state is also underrated in his thread. Nair, while not actually hitting a lot of the time, makes people respect Luigi and they always need to be aware that Luigi has a frame 3 Nair that can kill/set up for combos of his own. So it's more of a mental aspect. Retreating cyclone to offstage is a very unique way of getting away from danger. Using retreating cyclone but staying onstage is certainly still usable, but is more easily punished if the opponent doesn't stupidly drop their shield. B reverse fireball is also a good way to swing momentum and hopefully get away from the opponent while firing a fireball to maybe protect them from incoming harm (I want to test this out more, I admittedly don't use this enough. So I don't know if I'm over/underselling this technique. But it's certainly there. Other than that, you should also respect a Luigi's recovery if he's good at mixing up his recovery and can perform a Jumpless Cyclone. Luigi's individual recovery tools are linear, but have a lot of mix up potential and Jumpless cyclone can suddenly put you into the bad position offstage instead of Luigi (whether you're sent down for the gimp or sent up for the juggle situation). Luigi has a problem against disjointed edgeguarding, but he can also recover deeper than every character with a good edgeguarding game + a disjoint except for DDD, MK and possibly limit Cloud. So he can try to stall put a poorly timed recovery if he plays his cards right, and has access to a decent air dodge if it comes to that.
I won't touch up on Luigi's advantage because I think we all know that it's quite good, so I'll end it here (plus, my hand is going numb from typing this long, aren't I a wimp?). I don't mean to sound rude or condescending and I can see why some people find my main poorly designed/a bad character. But I'm just putting my opinion up with a few facts about Luigi to hopefully support my it. I honestly see Luigi around the 20th-22nd range if I'm being completely honest. And if you don't agree with me, then great. No, really, that's how we get the debates started. But feel free to respond to this in any way you feel is fit and let's have a conversation. And if I said anything blatantly untrue or a if I mentioned a few suspect statements, then call out on them so I won't make the same mistakes twice. But this is my take on Luigi as of now.