Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[ParanoidDrone]

If 99% of the people here were to spend a day on character discords then they would see. Sadly Shulk will remain obscure

I don't think Shulk is outright bad (I don't think any character in the game is outright bad anymore), but surely the investment/return ratio is a bit skewed towards the "investment" side of things, to put it lightly?

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I don't think Shulk is outright bad (I don't think any character in the game is outright bad anymore), but surely the investment/return ratio is a bit skewed towards the "investment" side of things, to put it lightly?

Yep that's right. He needs results to show the world. Not enough is being done with him

 

[sedrf]

So lets talk about everybody's favorite mechanic
Rage
So how do your mains benefit/deterred by rage.
My main generally benefits from the extra knock back and killing power especially with limit side b.

 

[TurboLink]

Why are people in such deniable about their main(s) being bad? I feel like I'm one of the only few people on this board who can admit that their main isn't that good.

 

[TheGlove]

There's Tea and Ginko in japan still doing work. Tea got top 8 recently and Ginko was just shy or top 8 at that nico nico qualifier( I think that was the one) and there's also Abadango's results from when he played pac which I don't think should be ignored cuz it's not like pacman has had changes since then. He actually might have had a harder time cuz that was before the nerfs of some top tiers.
I admit I even tho I play mm more than pac, I havent been keeping up with his results as much so I might be wrong on that. Either way pac has a better mu spread

I am genuinely curious what match ups with top tiers you feel Pac does better than megaman in

This is Scatts megaman match up chart released soon after the 1.1.5 patch dropped. I know basing match ups off of only top player opinion is not a logically sound thing to do, but this is only a reference.

Brief listings of Megaman Matchups with high tiers based on what Ive observed from the Mega community

Pika: usually labeled as a losing MU. Scatt got beat pretty Badly by Esam at TOXI, no other examles of this at high level that I have seen, but Pika seems to be able to disrespect Mega's zoning fairly effectively, wrack up damage quickly, and edge guard his recovery.
Bayo: I havent heard enough about this matchup or played it but Greward seems to not like it very much and Scatt also has it as bad.
Fox: This one has a lot of disagreement on how bad Mega loses this. I personally have trouble with fox, I usually just ditto them, but several Mega's have felt its not that terrible and Scatt had a really close set with Larry Lur although this cold be inexperince on Larry's side going into the match
Sheik: Losing MU but the jury is still out on if she is still a gate keeper.
Mario; considered a losing MU by most but how bad it is has been debated.
Rosa: even or slight disadvantage
Falcon: anywhere from even to one of his worst MUs.
Cloud: disadvantage to some degree
ZSS: even or slight disadvantage
Diddy slight advantage
Sonic Advantage
Metaknight: no worse than even many have given it at least a slight advantage to mega
Villager usually listed as advantageous though amount varies
Ness: I havent found a large amount of discussion on him yet so IDK
Ryu: even to advantage

This is Zage's Pac man MU chart. Again Im not advocating this as the true Pac MU chart but as a general guide
https://twitter.com/_ReturnTheSlab_/status/698060256815894528

A which I assume is Slight advantage: Ryu Diddy and MetaKnight. I can see this for similar reasons to why Mega does well. Falcon seems a little suspect but I wouldn't know.
B=even: Rosa same as mega, Sheik this is an important one and a MU where I do believe Pac does much better than mega. Sonic potentially a worse match than mega's
C slight disadvantage: ZSS, Ness, Fox, Villager and Pika. Potentially better Fox and Pika MU, same Zss MU, worse villager and ness MU. Again no sure on Mega's Ness MU so IDK
D distinct disadvantage Cloud Bayo Mario. Cloud and Mario are either worse or the same as Mega, Bayo is the same.

Overall spreads with a number of high tiers seem fairly similar

 

[ParanoidDrone]

So lets talk about everybody's favorite mechanic
Rage
So how do your mains benefit/deterred by rage.
My main generally benefits from the extra knock back and killing power especially with limit side b.

Well, Luma + rage = shenanigans, as countless gfys and oddshots can attest by now. Heavyweights in general benefit from it too, I guess.

Also, since Shulk is on the mind still, a heavily damaged Shulk in Smash mode benefits from both Smash and rage without much risk because he's already so hurt to begin with.

How does rage affect Bayonetta's combos, if at all?

Why are people in such deniable about their main(s) being bad? I feel like I'm one of the only few people on this board who can admit that their main isn't that good.

I think being considered "bottom tier" still holds a bit of a stigma that translates to "trash" or "not worth using" in many people's minds, even though the gap between top and bottom in 4 is much smaller than Melee or Brawl. (Not sure about 64 if only because the cast there is so small.) So when people argue that their main isn't bad or bottom tier, you can usually translate that in your head as "my main isn't so bad as to be literally impossible to win with".

 

[Pazzo.]

Completely unsurprised people are saying Mewtwo is Top 10 now.

Because for whatever reason, if you're not in that group, you can win a major. *eye roll*

 

[Zelder]

Why are people in such deniable about their main(s) being bad? I feel like I'm one of the only few people on this board who can admit that their main isn't that good.

Smash Brothers is unlike other fighters in that every character comes from a different series of video games (well except Playstation All Stars, but that game was booty). A lot of people don't necessarily pick their mains in Smash because of playstyle, but because of positive memories they have associated with the various series. This causes much, much more character loyalty than in other fighting games, and as a result, people are much more inclined to fight for the honor of their characters. Because if you're insulting Shulk, well you're also insulting Xenoblade Chronicles, my memories of that game, my nostalgia, etc. etc. etc. Feel free to sub out Shulk with anyone else for this argument, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Smash Brothers is unlike other fighters in that every character comes from a different series of video games (well except Playstation All Stars, but that game was booty). A lot of people don't necessarily pick their mains in Smash because of playstyle, but because of positive memories they have associated with the various series. This causes much, much more character loyalty than in other fighting games, and as a result, people are much more inclined to fight for the honor of their characters. Because if you're insulting Shulk, well you're also insulting Xenoblade Chronicles, my memories of that game, my nostalgia, etc. etc. etc. Feel free to sub out Shulk with anyone else for this argument, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.

I didn't think about this when writing my own reply, but it's true. Smash is a celebration of, what, 30+ years of Nintendo gaming history, with guest appearances by Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu, Cloud, basically select non-Nintendo but still *very* well known and much-loved gaming icons. The spectacle of it all is half the point of the series.

(Wow that was a massive run-on sentence.)

Come to think of it, are "low tier warriors" even a thing in Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Whatever, Guilty Gear, etc?

 

[Luco]

I'd put Ness around the bottom of top 15. He has consistently shown the ability to perform at a high level but most likely needs a secondary for Rosa/Villager. He's capable of winning a national provided you either have said secondary or manage to dodge top players of those two characters.

Why is Villager still considered a Ness counter? If people are still being shocked as to why Ness places so high it's probably because they think he has counters that he doesn't. Lol. Rosa, Corrin and Sheik (the latter less so now) are still the ones we need to be careful of at all levels of play. Sonic, Megaman (good timing, though I'm highly skeptical of a 60:40) and potentially Ike at intermediate levels as well. Of course other characters present challenges at different times and are potential evens but the claim that Villager even beats Ness, far less counters him like Rosa isn't supported by the available theory OR evidence.

Sorry, don't mean to call you specifically out on this, it's something a lot of people are saying but it just isn't true. Villager is great in neutral but Ness gets in and he just has slightly superior buttons, Nair is fantastic at this range and Ness's followups work really well on Villager. Villager can't really afford to whiff grab either. They both do damage to each other offstage, Villager obviously having the added benefit of being able to kill Ness as opposed to Ness just racking up percent.

I'm pretty sure no Ness or Villager mains feel like this MU is particularly slanted either, or at least the ones who actually play each other on a consistent basis who are the most important people to speak to.

I think in recent times I've started to become overly gripey about stuff that goes on here. I've noticed as a general trend I've lost a lot of my tendencies to dance around whatever it is I'm talking about but it's come at the cost of probably being more sassy and probably even meaner than I'd like. I'll probably take a cue and try to cut down this trend, whether that be by posting here less or merely dampening any authority I think I do or don't have is something we'll see. In the meantime, I'll focus a bit more on my play and see if I can diversify my experiences even more. Well, yeah.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Wow.
In no way did I say Shulk was good
He's the opposite of good
This is why I never post in this garbage excuse of a thread anyway

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Nothing has changed about her early kill setups. They work roughly 5% later and that's it, and Kirby is still one of the characters who very often dies to up b off the top when it doesn't fully connect.

Well it certainly helps. She got considerably nerfed which helps Kirby, and the MU was already heavily debated to be even or not. If anything the MU is just closer to even than before, but that doesn't mean its bad and Kirby certainly does better in the MU than most characters that people place around him.

Being anti-meta/a counterpick character makes you viable, and he has recently done better than a majority of characters in low-mid tier. He is at least low-mid tier, I can't see a way he is low tier when he clearly has been making his place in the meta.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Why is Villager still considered a Ness counter? If people are still being shocked as to why Ness places so high it's probably because they think he has counters that he doesn't. Lol. Rosa, Corrin and Sheik (the latter less so now) are still the ones we need to be careful of at all levels of play. Sonic, Megaman (good timing, though I'm highly skeptical of a 60:40) and potentially Ike at intermediate levels as well. Of course other characters present challenges at different times and are potential evens but the claim that Villager even beats Ness, far less counters him like Rosa isn't supported by the available theory OR evidence.

Sorry, don't mean to call you specifically out on this, it's something a lot of people are saying but it just isn't true. Villager is great in neutral but Ness gets in and he just has slightly superior buttons, Nair is fantastic at this range and Ness's followups work really well on Villager. Villager can't really afford to whiff grab either. They both do damage to each other offstage, Villager obviously having the added benefit of being able to kill Ness as opposed to Ness just racking up percent.

I'm pretty sure no Ness or Villager mains feel like this MU is particularly slanted either, or at least the ones who actually play each other on a consistent basis who are the most important people to speak to.

I guarantee it's because of using Pocket on PK Thunder. I don't know Villager well enough to say if their onstage interactions are even enough for the offstage gimps to swing the matchup in Villager's favor, but it seems like everyone and their mother gets hung up on how Ness is pretty easy to harass offstage.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I guarantee it's because of using Pocket on PK Thunder. I don't know Villager well enough to say if their onstage interactions are even enough for the offstage gimps to swing the matchup in Villager's favor, but it seems like everyone and their mother gets hung up on how Ness is pretty easy to harass offstage.

Also no one's ever seen the MU outside of FOW vs. Ranai.

 

[Ninety]

I said this before of Mewtwo and promptly ate crow at Pound, but I'm still skeptical about Greninja. I hear a looot of theorycrafting around him, but his results, while existent, don't live up to the hype. I'll withhold a final judgment till EVO, but for the moment I don't see him in top 20, let alone 15.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about Marth for a sec. He's gotten buff after buff, and Mr E and Pugwest among others have been placing decently with him. But then, a lot of his flaws remain unaddressed -- so-so frame data, no real rewards off grabs, average mobility, even his punishes aren't stellar. Posts like this or this or this or this go into more depth -- ignoring the petulant and condescending tone (and them being on Reddit, the horror), they do make good points about his tools and lack thereof. I honestly can't opine much myself about it, I just don't have enough knowledge of the character to confirm or deny what's said there, but there's enough for a discussion, I think.

So what do you think? Do you see Marth rising or falling in the tier lists, assuming no more buffs? Will he never be good until they give him back SH double fair, or do the buffs he's gotten make up for it to some degree? Marth is a character a lot of people are invested in in no small part to how good he was in Melee and Brawl, and there's a lot of disillusionment towards his 4 incarnation. Is he worth the time, in your opinion?

 

[Luco]

I guarantee it's because of using Pocket on PK Thunder. I don't know Villager well enough to say if their onstage interactions are even enough for the offstage gimps to swing the matchup in Villager's favor, but it seems like everyone and their mother gets hung up on how Ness is pretty easy to harass offstage.

I dunno man, it happens all the time. Of course, I don't think any character main is going to like where their character ends up on the vast majority of MU lists but man I'm tired of arguing that Ness is more than "PK THUNDER!" the character.

Also no one's ever seen the MU outside of FOW vs. Ranai.

I play with V online a lot but hopefully we'll get to play some more offline matches at BAM. I'd say there's probably at the very least intermediate level evidence out there for almost every MU in this game, considering the amount of mid, high and top level players there are for any given main and then all the MUs they play, even if just the ones they play on a frequent or semi-frequent basis. Obviously our limitations as a community to what we can find and what is actually recorded mean that we'll always be ever-improving our methods, but that's just the way data collection is I guess.

 

[Pazzo.]

I dunno man, it happens all the time. Of course, I don't think any character main is going to like where their character ends up on the vast majority of MU lists but man I'm tired of arguing that Ness is more than "PK THUNDER!" the character.

I suppose because it's Ness' biggest weakness in certain matchups, people cling to it like it's Ness' kryptonite.

 

[FullMoon]

From an outside perspective, Villager/Ness does seem to be a winning MU to the former, but I don't think it's more than a +1.

Villager messes up Ness bad in neutral, but Ness racks up damage and kills a lot easier than Villager, so all it takes is one opening and Ness can catch up to Villager very quickly.

I think most of Villager kills would come from edgeguarding but since he does have possibly the best edgeguarding kit in the game, it shouldn't be too hard for Villager to force Ness to use PK Thunder which is basically a death sentence. So Villager can still end up getting early stocks.

I feel like Villager should win but it's pretty volatile because Ness' comeback factor should really not be underestimated.

 

[Y2Kay]

I am genuinely curious what match ups with top tiers you feel Pac does better than megaman in

This is Scatts megaman match up chart released soon after the 1.1.5 patch dropped. I know basing match ups off of only top player opinion is not a logically sound thing to do, but this is only a reference.

Brief listings of Megaman Matchups with high tiers based on what Ive observed from the Mega community

Pika: usually labeled as a losing MU. Scatt got beat pretty Badly by Esam at TOXI, no other examles of this at high level that I have seen, but Pika seems to be able to disrespect Mega's zoning fairly effectively, wrack up damage quickly, and edge guard his recovery.
Bayo: I havent heard enough about this matchup or played it but Greward seems to not like it very much and Scatt also has it as bad.
Fox: This one has a lot of disagreement on how bad Mega loses this. I personally have trouble with fox, I usually just ditto them, but several Mega's have felt its not that terrible and Scatt had a really close set with Larry Lur although this cold be inexperince on Larry's side going into the match
Sheik: Losing MU but the jury is still out on if she is still a gate keeper.
Mario; considered a losing MU by most but how bad it is has been debated.
Rosa: even or slight disadvantage
Falcon: anywhere from even to one of his worst MUs.
Cloud: disadvantage to some degree
ZSS: even or slight disadvantage
Diddy slight advantage
Sonic Advantage
Metaknight: no worse than even many have given it at least a slight advantage to mega
Villager usually listed as advantageous though amount varies
Ness: I havent found a large amount of discussion on him yet so IDK
Ryu: even to advantage

This is Zage's Pac man MU chart. Again Im not advocating this as the true Pac MU chart but as a general guide
https://twitter.com/_ReturnTheSlab_/status/698060256815894528

A which I assume is Slight advantage: Ryu Diddy and MetaKnight. I can see this for similar reasons to why Mega does well. Falcon seems a little suspect but I wouldn't know.
B=even: Rosa same as mega, Sheik this is an important one and a MU where I do believe Pac does much better than mega. Sonic potentially a worse match than mega's
C slight disadvantage: ZSS, Ness, Fox, Villager and Pika. Potentially better Fox and Pika MU, same Zss MU, worse villager and ness MU. Again no sure on Mega's Ness MU so IDK
D distinct disadvantage Cloud Bayo Mario. Cloud and Mario are either worse or the same as Mega, Bayo is the same.

Overall spreads with a number of high tiers seem fairly similar

Greninja doesn't lose to Megaman....... I don't know what makes him think that

 

[Luco]

I suppose because it's Ness' biggest weakness in certain matchups, people cling to it like it's Ness' kryptonite.

Yeah, and like it's a totally legitimate weakness, I've definitely died from good edge-guarding by plenty of people but it's like it defines his every MU (some characters can't really deal with his DJ, but the first time I EVER heard an opposing character board talk about that was Greninja mains - props to them btw - and it rarely comes up these days too) or completely out-balances his actual strengths.

But like eh I probably seem pretty radically for this kid, but he is my (co)main and I'm pretty happy to talk about the areas he doesn't shine too brightly in MUs. Stuff like not having the poke options necessary to deal with Luigi (oh yeah I suck vs Luigi, most of my smash 4 tournament losses are to our #2 PR Luigi) or not being able to juggle ZSS like he can normally juggle most characters.

Funnily enough Villager is one of the characters that's more likely to kill Ness once he's offstage because he has answers to varying different ways of recovering, but unlike someone such as Fox or MK he doesn't actually get Ness there as often. Which is weird. Ftilt is his only real semi-spike, stuff like Bthrow tends to send Ness vertically enough that it becomes a juggling problem and less of an edge-guarding problem. That might be why. I don't really know.

 

[Solfiner]

The problem with the mindset in most of this community regarding bad characters is that as soon as you say that they have some good tools/options you are automatically called an "apologist", you are in denial etc. That's not how it works, especially not in this game. Calling any character bad in this game is usually pretty farfetched anyways.

At the end of the day most of us are mid/low level players that only dedicate ourselves to a few characters. There really isn't a single person here that knows a lot about every character in the game, because there are just too many of them. That's also why I consider character placements on tier lists pretty negligible, it's more important to talk about what characters can/can't do instead of placing them on tier lists that are all vastly different from each other in terms of how big the gap between each character or tier is.

 

[Pazzo.]

Yeah, and like it's a totally legitimate weakness, I've definitely died from good edge-guarding by plenty of people but it's like it defines his every MU (some characters can't really deal with his DJ, but the first time I EVER heard an opposing character board talk about that was Greninja mains - props to them btw - and it rarely comes up these days too) or completely out-balances his actual strengths.

But like eh I probably seem pretty radically for this kid, but he is my (co)main and I'm pretty happy to talk about the areas he doesn't shine too brightly in MUs. Stuff like not having the poke options necessary to deal with Luigi (oh yeah I suck vs Luigi, most of my smash 4 tournament losses are to our #2 PR Luigi) or not being able to juggle ZSS like he can normally juggle most characters.

Funnily enough Villager is one of the characters that's more likely to kill Ness once he's offstage because he has answers to varying different ways of recovering, but unlike someone such as Fox or MK he doesn't actually get Ness there as often. Which is weird. Ftilt is his only real semi-spike, stuff like Bthrow tends to send Ness vertically enough that it becomes a juggling problem and less of an edge-guarding problem. That might be why. I don't really know.

I think a constant stream of meme-filled highlights showing Ness getting gimped (and not to mention the murderer that was FOW vs. Dabuz) doesn't help. A lot of characters seem to have a negative stigma attached to them for whatever reason.

They can't overlook stuff like Nair, Bair, B-throw, and Fair though. At least not rationally.

 

[Appledees]

Greninja doesn't lose to Megaman....... I don't know what makes him think that

To be fair Scatt probably has no actual experience with Greninja cause I don't think there any Greninjas around his state

I personally think the matchup is even considering I have a friend in which we play Grenijna vs Megaman alot. Its pretty damn even and really fun personally.

 

[Trunks159]

Any notable tournaments this week/month?

 

[teddystalin]

First of all, Mewtwo won a major, by a player ranked (#??, wiki tells me Abadango is #8) from Japan. ZeRo was notably absent, which may have changed the end result. Still, he was undefeated using mostly Mewtwo, with only a little bit of MK. Matchup inexperience may have been a factor. With all this taken into account, people remain skeptical of even listing him as a top 15 character.

Meanwhile, Villager got third at a major, by the player everybody was saying was ranked #1 in Japan. Matchup inexperience may have been a factor. With all this taken into account, he shot up the tier list, being ranked #11 on the first official tier list, and is still considered top 15 by pretty much every post I see, such as the ones on this page, even after the inclusion of Cloud and Bayonetta.

So my question is, why the big difference? As far as results go, particularly in Japan, how do Mewtwo and Villager compare right now? Is Ranai, or other Villagers, still winning tourneys frequently? Is Abadango, or other Mewtwos, winning tourneys frequently, especially after his recent massive buffs?

Is there really that much of a difference though? If we look at the last viability survey back in July, Villager was sitting just behind Wario (simpler times) as the 16th greatest threat in the game. This came just before Ranai's best run of results in the Japanese scene. After a fairly dominant latter half of 2015 from Ranai (culminating in Genesis 3), the first tier list put Villager at 11th. Other Villagers attracted pretty good but not great results during this time, but Ranai was obviously the most visible player and shaped public perception regarding the character the most.

As for Mewtwo, he was placed at 36th on the first tier list. This was after his most significant round of buffs. But public perception was changing pre-Abadango: Mewtwo made 23rd on the reddit-voted tier list after his second wave of buffs. On this forum people were already listing him as a possible/probable top 20 threat. And after Aba's win at Pound, is anyone saying Mewtwo is not a top 20 character? Nah. While there's been some pushback to top 15 here, that's increasingly a consensus opinion (see: another controversial tier list from the mouths of the hoi polloi).

Essentially, I don't think there's a big difference.. The main one between each character's jump is that Villager's standout performance is backed by a history of good results in a strong region, while Mewtwo's strong result is propped up more by post-buff theory and a number of results in smaller regions. People find results easier to swallow because they're easier to defend. And while you're looking for more from them, there isn't much: Ranai has been on hiatus since Shots Fired and Aba has only been to two tournaments total since the MK nerfs. No one can say if either is winning with any degree of frequency.

Also no one's ever seen the MU outside of FOW vs. Ranai.

Though everyone should totally watch SS vs FOW; it's fantastic. FWIW I think Villager wins but it definitely isn't free. Hilarious gimps are rarer than people think and Ness just hits so damn hard when he finally gets in. I've switched to Corrin when I play my training partner's Ness nowadays.

 

[Pazzo.]

The problem with the mindset in most of this community regarding bad characters is that as soon as you say that they have some good tools/options you are automatically called an "apologist", you are in denial etc. That's not how it works, especially not in this game. Calling any character bad in this game is usually pretty farfetched anyways.

At the end of the day most of us are mid/low level players that only dedicate ourselves to a few characters. There really isn't a single person here that knows a lot about every character in the game, because there are just too many of them. That's also why I consider character placements on tier lists pretty negligible, it's more important to talk about what characters can/can't do instead of placing them on tier lists that are all vastly different from each other in terms of how big the gap between each character or tier is.

That's what threads like this are for anyway. Amassing opinions and information to enrich our competitive experience.

Hopefully we can also get some sort of report on the decisions made in the BR, so we can deliberate amongst ourselves how sound the offical tiers really are.

 

[FullMoon]

To be fair Scatt probably has no actual experience with Greninja cause I don't think there any Greninjas around his state

I personally think the matchup is even considering I have a friend in which we play Grenijna vs Megaman alot. Its pretty damn even and really fun personally.

Wouldn't he have placed Greninja in the "lack of MU exp" category then?

For that matter, I do agree that the MU is even, it's been a long time since I played against a Mega tho.

 

[Y2Kay]

The Community's Understanding of Mewtwo in a Nutshell:

November:

Mewtwo is too light to be good. Please buff him, Masahiro Sakurai!

January :

Okay, Mewtwo is good, but he's too light to be really good

Present Day:

Oh my god, Mewtwo is really good? But He's the 2nd lightest in the game? This can't be possible, please nerf him, Masahiro Sakurai!

not picking on anyone in particular . . .

 

[Djmarcus44]

I am genuinely curious what match ups with top tiers you feel Pac does better than megaman in

This is Scatts megaman match up chart released soon after the 1.1.5 patch dropped. I know basing match ups off of only top player opinion is not a logically sound thing to do, but this is only a reference.

Brief listings of Megaman Matchups with high tiers based on what Ive observed from the Mega community

Pika: usually labeled as a losing MU. Scatt got beat pretty Badly by Esam at TOXI, no other examles of this at high level that I have seen, but Pika seems to be able to disrespect Mega's zoning fairly effectively, wrack up damage quickly, and edge guard his recovery.
Bayo: I havent heard enough about this matchup or played it but Greward seems to not like it very much and Scatt also has it as bad.
Fox: This one has a lot of disagreement on how bad Mega loses this. I personally have trouble with fox, I usually just ditto them, but several Mega's have felt its not that terrible and Scatt had a really close set with Larry Lur although this cold be inexperince on Larry's side going into the match
Sheik: Losing MU but the jury is still out on if she is still a gate keeper.
Mario; considered a losing MU by most but how bad it is has been debated.
Rosa: even or slight disadvantage
Falcon: anywhere from even to one of his worst MUs.
Cloud: disadvantage to some degree
ZSS: even or slight disadvantage
Diddy slight advantage
Sonic Advantage
Metaknight: no worse than even many have given it at least a slight advantage to mega
Villager usually listed as advantageous though amount varies
Ness: I havent found a large amount of discussion on him yet so IDK
Ryu: even to advantage

This is Zage's Pac man MU chart. Again Im not advocating this as the true Pac MU chart but as a general guide
https://twitter.com/_ReturnTheSlab_/status/698060256815894528

A which I assume is Slight advantage: Ryu Diddy and MetaKnight. I can see this for similar reasons to why Mega does well. Falcon seems a little suspect but I wouldn't know.
B=even: Rosa same as mega, Sheik this is an important one and a MU where I do believe Pac does much better than mega. Sonic potentially a worse match than mega's
C slight disadvantage: ZSS, Ness, Fox, Villager and Pika. Potentially better Fox and Pika MU, same Zss MU, worse villager and ness MU. Again no sure on Mega's Ness MU so IDK
D distinct disadvantage Cloud Bayo Mario. Cloud and Mario are either worse or the same as Mega, Bayo is the same.

Overall spreads with a number of high tiers seem fairly similar

Gunner definitely beats Pac-Man. The midrange pressure that Gunner can apply with shorthop fair along with the fact that reflector can mess up many of Pac-Man's traps gives Gunner the advantage in this matchup. In addition, Gunner has an easier time killing in this matchup than Pac-Man due to his/her heavier weight and faster kill options. This is also backed up by the fact that KV Flama double two stocked GSR Josi in tournament play.

 

[Das Koopa]

You can't say ganon has 'no results' when there's ganons in a ton of different region's PRs. Vex & GTB dominated their region with ganon, Opana is starting to make waves in NY, Ray Kalm does well in a very tough region, Adom got 33rd at Beast, etc.

I'll redefine it - Ganondorf has no relevant results, in relation to nearly every other member of the cast.

 

[Pazzo.]

I'll redefine it - Ganondorf has no relevant results, in relation to nearly every other member of the cast.

I was going to try and claim they're not entirely irrelevant, but I'll capitulate to this view .

What do we classify as relevant results anyway?

 

[Jalil]

Yeah some people overrate their mains cuz of nostalgia, attachment and all that but you gotta take into consideration that you only have surface level knowledge on certain characters. Unless you main them, their strengths and exactly how crippling their weaknesses are may not be apparent on that level.

TheGlove I'll answer ur question later when I got time to put ma thoughts together

 

[Peppermint1201]

The Community's Understanding of Mewtwo in a Nutshell:

November:

Mewtwo is too light to be good. Please buff him, Masahiro Sakurai!

January :

Okay, Mewtwo is good, but he's too light to be really good

Present Day:

Oh my god, Mewtwo is really good? But He's the 2nd lightest in the game? This can't be possible, please nerf him, Masahiro Sakurai!

No matter how you slice it, Mewtwo's light weight is still a fundamental problem and everyone knows it. I would still say that Mewtwo isn't "really good" due to, in part, his weight. Mewtwo may seem good in the vacuum of "amount of 1st place finishes" but when it comes to "amount of strong finishes" he's still lacking and it's presumptuous to call him top 10 already.

 

[Nekoo]

The Community's Understanding of Mewtwo in a Nutshell:

November:

Mewtwo is too light to be good. Please buff him, Masahiro Sakurai!

January :

Okay, Mewtwo is good, but he's too light to be really good

Present Day:

Oh my god, Mewtwo is really good? But He's the 2nd lightest in the game? This can't be possible, please nerf him, Masahiro Sakurai!

not picking on anyone in particular . . .

>For some people a character isn't good if he didn't win a Major.
>He can win whatever local , regional.
>But they only care about a major.
>Then everyone will play this character
>Then his metagame will developpe
>Then he get his free-High/Top tiers pass, people change their mind. He's dabest
>People complain about his strengh and ask a nerf
>Repeat with another character

 

[Peppermint1201]

>For some people a character isn't good if he didn't win a Major.
>He can win whatever local , regional.
>But they only care about a major.

you're making it sound like this is unreasonable but it's pretty justified. besides, plenty of attention is paid to the rare cases when a previously-presumed-bad character wins a regional.

 

[Nekoo]

you're making it sound like this is unreasonable but it's pretty justified. besides, plenty of attention is paid to the rare cases when a previously-presumed-bad character wins a regional.

I guess i should have added a '''/s''' or a sarcasm neon sign post since it's to answer the recent discussion of ''Mewtwo High tier? / Bayo Top tiers / Is pikachu truly high tiers?''

I mean we're on a game that is near perfectly balanced that those discussion will always going in circle. Where there the same pro than cons.

 

[my_T]

Match-ups are relative. Who says that "Ness MU spread isn't the best among top tiers" ?
Tbh deciding match-up ratios is one of the most arbitrary things fighting games have. If Fow, Shaky and Nakat make it into the Top Cut at every great tournament they attend, then apparantly Ness MUs are better than people give him credit for. The excuse that follows from this statement is obviously "They are such great players" but I see a clear consistency here. One of europe's best players is playing Ness and the premier US Ness' are all topping regulary. I don't think Ness is super top tier or anything but the consistency gives him the right to be considered Top10.

want to talk about and consistency? lets talk about ness and consistency.

First off, dont group NAKAT with FOW, and Shaky. I don't think NAKAT has ever been a solo ness main unlike FOW and Shaky; this is a very important in regards to this particular discussion. It's hard to take NAKATS results into consideration being that he uses pikachu and fox quite a bit, especially when it comes to ness's bad match-ups. Also, in terms of skill level, NAKAT is not on the level of FOW and Shaky. Even with two really good secondaries he still doesn't place as well as FOW/Shaky. Fow has gotten top 8 at every major he has attended and is consistent. Shaky's placings are very similar to Fows and is also consistent; both of them going solo ness.

PLAYER SKILL MATTERS

As for ness's consistency. While Fow/Shaky place very well consistently, neither of these players have ever convincingly taken a set off of a top level sheik (Zero, Void), zss (Nairo), rosa (Dabuz), villager (Ranai), or mario (Ally, Anti). Feel free to look this up for yourself

Before you bring up Nakats victory in WF over Nairo at Smash The Record, Nairo pretty much gave away half of the winners finals set and proceeded to destroy Nakats ness in grand finals. Fow beat Anti at Pax 2016 with Anti SD'ing with mario in the last match and got pineappled by Lylat in another match.

Also, ness has more than a handful of losing match-ups; some worse than others (sheik, rosa, mario, sonic, G & W, corrin, MK, cloud, bayo, pits, marth, villager, shulk)

ness is good but he ain't top 10. He just has a little too much going against him. He's somewhere around 15 at best

 

[sedrf]

ESAM released his video on pikachu's matchups that are even or slight advantages

 

[Pazzo.]

ESAM released his video on pikachu's matchups that are even or slight advantages

Wait, he put Sonic in Pikachu's favor?

Come on ESAM.

EDIT: Looking at that "advantage" list, he has both Meta Knight AND Ryu.

 

[Das Koopa]

I was going to try and claim they're not entirely irrelevant, but I'll capitulate to this view .

What do we classify as relevant results anyway?

Let's look at it like this - at a larger scale, where the meta is best defined by larger regionals, majors, and supermajors (or smaller regionals in good regions) what relevance do regions like Pennsylvania and Minnesota have? If we're willing to accept that certain regions are very plainly better than others, you can't say that if a Zelda continuously wins Alaskan weeklies that Zelda is somehow "Not bottom 5 because ZeldaMaster is so damn good".

If ZeldaMaster in this hypothetical went on to get 49th at a supermajor, then we could say that "oh hey, Zelda isn't so bad after all" because a bottom tier placed higher than a bottom tier has any right placing in a highly competitive environment. This is EXACTLY why I'm skeptical that a character like Dedede is bottom tier, for instance. If you had told me "Big D is so good, proves Dedede isn't that bad" before Paragon or GENESIS, I would've been skeptical, but then he actually made a placement from a fairly no-name region and made an impact.

Put simply - I think these results from Ganondorf's aren't relevant in the grand scheme of things because the regions they represent aren't noteworthy on a national level, but I will very happily rescind my skepticism if these Ganondorfs ever take seemingly abnormally high placements at big tournaments.

Like, I don't mean to be "elitist", but the reason we identify certain regions as stronger is because those regions tend to do well in bigger tournies. We know Japan is incredibly good not just because of its own environment, but because Japanese players come to America and can wreck (Ranai taking ZeRo to game 5 and Abadango winning a Major with what people generally thought was a mid-tier) in tested environments.