I think this is the hazard of relying too heavily on results. There are only 8 spots in top 8 (duh), and only 1 person can ever win a given tournament. Given that the top placements tend to go to specific players (Zero, Nairo, Dabuz, etc.), then relying on results biases a list towards those players' mains. Hence theory.
This is also why rarely-seen characters making a splash into top X (iStudying w/ Greninja, Abadango w/ Mewtwo, Hyuga (?) w/ Toon Link) are such a big deal, because it represents a breaking of that status quo.
This is the only thing that is correct.
If some infinitesimally small change in the wind back in November 2014 made the top 3 players decide to solo main diddy, robin and olimar I would be fairly confident that the consensus of sheik, zss and rosalina being the undeniable top 3 characters (pre 1.1.5) would be shaken and those mid tiers would be perceived much higher. It literally takes one top level player to change how everyone sees things.
As a 100% defender of results determining tier lists advocate, I accept the bias of top players mains can and will affect the tier lists and in some ways, it could be dramatic.
On the other hand, favouring theory is literally putting weight in that which has little or no evidence. You have two situations, accept one method which is prone to bias but has concrete, verifiable proof of a characters viability or allow influence from another method which is less prone to powerful bias however lacks evidence.
Where does one draw the line? Should results be taken 100%, should it be a 70:30 split, 50:50?
I've said it before but I solidly believe that when looking at results, the results of the #1 player must be looked at entirely separately from literally everyone else as an outlier, but an outlier that is given weight by quantitatively looking at how far they are above the average player. Doing this will allow us to put a number on just how much one top player has an influence over a single character and through doing this, the results:theory ratio can approach 100:0.
If we look at Rosalina, everyone knows she is a national threat able to beat the top player of every character in the world. Is Dabuz an anomaly and should we discredit his results like some people discredit Abadango as being a case of 'the player won pound, not the character?' Well that's an easy answer, of course not because without Dabuz, Rosalina is still placing high in many regions. What this means is that ultimately, the theory of her being top tier is completely clear to the point that it doesnt even matter if her theory says she is top tier or not, the results can not be argued.
Now look at Mewtwo. Same question, is Abadango an anomaly? This is a little trickier because Mewtwo doesnt have such a wide variety of high level results as the likes of say, Diddy. If you remove abadango from the equation Mewtwo is still performing quite well in a few regions taking 1st, 2nd places in 80+ entrant tournaments but its not top tier worthy. At the highest level, Mewtwo has proven himself as capable as diddy. At the mid level though he is a bit behind, lacking the sheer volume of tournament wins that diddy has and theres A LOT of them.
At top level, there isnt enough evidence to conclude that Mewtwo is on the level of diddy. At mid level, same story. What Mewtwo has is nothing more than a textbook definition of what I would call a high tier, lets say top 15 character because we can conclude there isnt enough to put him in the upper echelon of characters but what there IS enough of, is sufficient evidence to put him above around 40 other characters because relativity is important!
Time to bash on Pikachu again, comparing him to diddy and Mewtwo at the same time. Pikachu lacks top level success that diddy has. Pikachu lacks mid-level success that both characters have. Pikachu does however have consistent, long-running success at top level through esam, more than what Mewtwo has. We must consider outliers though so if we remove esam, zero and abadango from the equation we have diddy with the most top level representation and mewtwo/pikachu both languishing far behind without anywhere near enough evidence to separate the two. At mid level though, diddy absolutely trounces mewtwo who in turn, has far more than pikachu. By every measure, esam is an outlier. But we can give weight to outliers and we should.
The 'theory' revolving around how good high tier characters that aren't demonstrably obvious top tiers, is more of a question of 'how far is the top level player of this character above the rest of the players' and how can we quantify their results in terms of player skill vs character viability.
This is not an easy question to answer. What matters though is that at NO TIME, should anyone discredit any evidence whatsoever. All results (or lack thereof) must be accounted for. Having extensive evidence is usually impossible due to top player main bias, so theory does have its place. There is nothing wrong with using theory but placing less weight on results because of bias is making no attempt to explain why the results dont match the theory and there most definitely is a point where people credit the players, more than the characters to a point that is quite simply willfully ignoring evidence to support your own character bias.
I firmly believe that Abadango has NOT shown himself to be such a significant higher level than the next best Mewtwo mains in order to call him an outlier. His placing is more similar to what Rosalina has where although she doesnt have many, there are a number of Rosalina mains out there #1 PR'd in their region. These two are dissimilar to diddy who has zounds of top and mid level success. The gap between Abadango and richbrown/mew^2/blue is a perfectly normal gap that a high tier character would have.
To accurately judge Mewtwo, we need to find other characters with comparable top level results and account for how far their best player is above the rest.
In doing so, I would say the following characters have proven themselves to be above Mewtwo, the theory is valid and there is sufficient evidence to counter their lack of top level success due to the simple bias of not having a top level rep.
While sharing a similar viability to
where one could argue if any of the top-level mainers of these 5 characters + Mewtwo switched to a new main, the results would drop off dramatically at the highest level.
