Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Loota]

Lucario's matchups haven't generally been agreed upon at all, opinions fly all over the place. Only ZSS has generally been agreed to be a bad matchup (-1 or -2) and Cloud has also been theorized to be bad (Serge losing to Leo's Cloud strengthens the argument) but that's about it for the conseus. Fox looks like it could be bad too but honestly, there hasn't been much evidence to point into either direction in this game yet (though eveyone surely remembers Junebug killing Snow's Fox at 30% with Force Palm whee).

Nothing else feels like something that could be easily labeled bad but at the same time, it doesn't really feel like he truly wins against any of the top/high tiers. His moveset isn't really capable of shutting down characters, it's somewhat "plain" but still good (aura sphere is mad good on any standard though). It's all about the aura mechanic which in itself will bluntly overpower anyone bad at killing or lacking safe kill confirms but top/high tiers hardly have problems with those. Despite that, no character enjoys facing a high aura Lucario who can both play really safe and punish extremely hard on any mistake or commitment which makes virtually any matchup into a good one for the rest of his stock. I've said it before but It's often frustrating trying to translate aura into matchup numbers which makes his matchups somewhat "MKesque" as ~ Gheb ~ mentioned.

I have high hopes for the character though. The sheer number of options he has at any given situation makes it feel like there's always room to optimize and do better, smash aura ain't no joke.

 

[Y2Kay]

The competition at avalon is pretty free tbh. His placing at Beast VI will be a lot more representative. Some doesn't place consistently and doesn't have too many top level players under his belt. Not sure what wins Venia has yet so it remains to be seen.

Lucario's and Toon Link's results are better. Greninja's are ... OK

Don't ask me why Greninja is below somebody like ROB though.

Venia has beaten half the PRed players in New York. It's Vinnie, MikeKirby, some other folks. I can't remember.

I'm definitely interested to see how istudying does at BEAST tho.

His results aren't stellar, but they are noteworthy and shouldn't be ignored as much as they are.

 

[bc1910]

Greninja is in the wrong tier.

He should be between Peach and ROB. I 100% believe he is better than Peach in theory but Umeki's results are fairly consistent and better than Some's.

ROB is a solid character but I haven't seen him do much as of late. He's curiously absent from Japanese top 16s, where he's quite often a fixture. Wario is also solid but seems to have no presence at nationals in any country (what's Reflex up to these days?).

There is absolutely no justification for putting Greninja below Olimar.

Toon Link and Lucario have seen a results spike lately. I've been particularly impressed with Toon Link and I think you could justify moving all three (TL, Luke, Gren) above ROB. Greninja has had a consistent stream of results over the past few months. There are now multiple Greninjas placing well; even if you think Avalon is comparitively free (which it kinda isn't), a national's a national. Placing well there is better than not placing well there, however you try to spin it.

 

[Kofu]

Venia has beaten half the PRed players in New York. It's Vinnie, MikeKirby, some other folks. I can't remember.

I'm definitely interested to see how istudying does at BEAST tho.

His results aren't stellar, but they are noteworthy and shouldn't be ignored as much as they are.

My impression of Greninja is that he's a very solid character, mainly hindered by his poor frame data and partially by his bad standing grab and lack of autocancel low jump aerials. He hits hard, has good reach, has a flexible projectile, is ridiculously mobile, and has combos for days. He's a little tricky to get to flow right which is probably why good Greninja mains are rare.

He's also a much more substantial character than he was at release, with a better throw game and better pokes. Hydro Pump probably deserved to br nerfed, though, and USmash was likely for the best. Not sure about Water Shuriken since I'm uncertain how the release version and the current version compare.

 

[Yikarur]

Spain, Germany and Sweden have a ROB in their Top4. The german Rob (LoNg0uw) has set wins over cyve and Light (Sheik).
ROB is definitely an extremely dangarous character, because of his dthrow 50:50 that can kill you as early as 50% depending on the stage and at max rage. This character creates a lot of variance and has a very high upset potential for that reason.
I wouldn't rank him any lower as he is right now. He has some troublesome match-ups (Cloud is probably his worst) but they are not that bad and the character makes every match-up winnable because of his ridiculous dthrow upair situation. This is really consistent.
ROB doesn't seemed to be played much in japan and america but in europe he has really consistent results. Maybe they would patch that ridiculous 50:50 if it was known enough but his absence outside of europe is probably the reason this will stay forever.

 

[Y2Kay]

My impression of Greninja is that he's a very solid character, mainly hindered by his poor frame data and partially by his bad standing grab and lack of autocancel low jump aerials. He hits hard, has good reach, has a flexible projectile, is ridiculously mobile, and has combos for days. He's a little tricky to get to flow right which is probably why good Greninja mains are rare.

He's also a much more substantial character than he was at release, with a better throw game and better pokes. Hydro Pump probably deserved to br nerfed, though, and USmash was likely for the best. Not sure about Water Shuriken since I'm uncertain how the release version and the current version compare.

His frame data is more average than it is bad, but yeah you're pretty much right

Greninja is in the wrong tier.

He should be between Peach and ROB. I 100% believe he is better than Peach in theory but Umeki's results are fairly consistent and better than Some's.

ROB is a solid character but I haven't seen him do much as of late. He's curiously absent from Japanese top 16s, where he's quite often a fixture. Wario is also solid but seems to have no presence at nationals in any country (what's Reflex up to these days?).

There is absolutely no justification for putting Greninja below Olimar.

Toon Link and Lucario have seen a results spike lately. I've been particularly impressed with Toon Link and I think you could justify moving all three (TL, Luke, Gren) above ROB. Greninja has had a consistent stream of results over the past few months. There are now multiple Greninjas placing well; even if you think Avalon is comparitively free (which it kinda isn't), a national's a national. Placing well there is better than not placing well there, however you try to spin it.

Whole heartedly agree. To imply that those high tier characters are on an other level than him is kinda silly.

 

[Sonicninja115]

Greninja is in the wrong tier.

He should be between Peach and ROB. I 100% believe he is better than Peach in theory but Umeki's results are fairly consistent and better than Some's.

ROB is a solid character but I haven't seen him do much as of late. He's curiously absent from Japanese top 16s, where he's quite often a fixture. Wario is also solid but seems to have no presence at nationals in any country (what's Reflex up to these days?).

There is absolutely no justification for putting Greninja below Olimar.

Toon Link and Lucario have seen a results spike lately. I've been particularly impressed with Toon Link and I think you could justify moving all three (TL, Luke, Gren) above ROB. Greninja has had a consistent stream of results over the past few months. There are now multiple Greninjas placing well; even if you think Avalon is comparitively free (which it kinda isn't), a national's a national. Placing well there is better than not placing well there, however you try to spin it.

Reflex is playing Mewtwo.

Venia has beaten half the PRed players in New York. It's Vinnie, MikeKirby, some other folks. I can't remember.

I'm definitely interested to see how istudying does at BEAST tho.

His results aren't stellar, but they are noteworthy and shouldn't be ignored as much as they are.

(Replying to previous placement post)
Mewtwo does pretty good as well.
Blue regularly wins semi good weeklies and bi-weeklies. He places top 8 at KTAR's and has taken a set off of Nairo.
Mewsquared beats PR'ed members in Texas and has won the weekly tourney there. Also, he almost beat Esam, took him to game three and didn't get blown up.
Reflex won some tourney, I forget it's name.
Rich Brown is doing insanely well in SoCal, almost beating K9Bruce.
And there are at least ten other PR'ed Mewtwo's by the looks of the PR list.

However, some characters just get ignored...

 

[DavemanCozy]

Montreal has Holy with ROB, who had notable victories over Ally, Venom, Nakat and all of Ontario's current PR in the last year. I wouldn't say ROB is not represented. He did lose to Astro from Ontario at EGL last year, however, even though Holy ended up winning that tournament (including a victory over Ally). Astro is a Lucario player who got 5th at that tournament. People barely batted an eye at that though.

--

Gheb is spot on with what he said about Wario. He loses neutral to handful of characters in the game, he has awful reach that is somewhat complemented by good air speed but it's not enough to really save him. He has a few fast moves in neutral like D-tilt, F-air, N-air and Chomp, but they have poor reach. He has Luigi running speed as well which pretty much force him to jump around to get anywhere he wants fast. He's sort of in a similar boat as some of the characters mentioned here on how his matchups should be judged when considering the Waft, albeit it's not quite as good as Aura or ROB's 50/50, since Wario loses it after using it and has to charge it all over again. Waft is a very powerful move that takes a good chunk to charge, but is it ever a powerful game changer.

His only notable matchups that are somewhat decent are against Villager, Rosalina, and Ness. I'd say Wario even loses to characters that are significantly worse than him; aside from Shulk, I'd say Link, Falco, and even Ganon dump on Wario. This character has a very, very difficult time finding an in, so he's forced to play annoying and rely on his fart.

Quite honestly the only reason I see him staying somewhat relevant is as an unorthodox counterpick to Rosalina; I see very few other characters in the mid-tier who can claim to have a decent matchup against her besides him. Personally: if it wasn't for that matchup being so bad for Fox, I probably would've already dropped Wario. But then again, there are other better characters who do well against Rosa and wouldn't leave you locked on Wario if the opponent counter-picks you.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Whole heartedly agree. To imply that those high tier characters are on an other level than him is kinda silly.

Like I said at the start of all of this, Mid Tier is kinda a crap shoot.

But like other people have been pointing out: almost every one of those characters has one person doing really well with them in one area. So it becomes really hard to stack them against each other. You could say Yoshi, Wario, Luigi all most likely need to drop, and that Ike + Greninja both need to rise but then it gets even more messy after that. What do you do with Toon Link? You could argue that ROB needs to drop but on the other hand Holy exists. How much should Scatt way in for MegaMan and should he go up because of it?

 

[LancerStaff]

Just a random thought... Pit's usually considered to lose to Sonic, but then people say Ike beats Sonic. Is it just because Ike hits harder, his jab being, well, his jab, or is there some other thing I'm missing?

 

[bc1910]

My impression of Greninja is that he's a very solid character, mainly hindered by his poor frame data and partially by his bad standing grab and lack of autocancel low jump aerials. He hits hard, has good reach, has a flexible projectile, is ridiculously mobile, and has combos for days. He's a little tricky to get to flow right which is probably why good Greninja mains are rare.

He's also a much more substantial character than he was at release, with a better throw game and better pokes. Hydro Pump probably deserved to br nerfed, though, and USmash was likely for the best. Not sure about Water Shuriken since I'm uncertain how the release version and the current version compare.

I'd say his main weakness is his terrible out of shield game, caused mostly by his awful standing grab as you said. His frame data isn't poor; he has three key moves (Nair, Fair and standing grab) that have too much startup and drag the average down. The frame data on his other normals, particularly his tilts and dash attack, is actually very good (DA's FAF is 33; MK's DA FAF is only one frame faster at 32).

Also, I don't think an autocancelling aerial would make much difference because the real issue is the lack of a rising aerial, same as ZSS. Obviously autocancels would be good but I don't think they'd be game changers.

With regard to release Greninja vs current Greninja, in the very simplest terms I'd say release Greninja was an above average character with four defining top tier traits - Usmash, Hydro Pump, mobility and shurikens. Current Greninja lacks two of those top tier traits, but is more solid overall due to having an actual poke (Ftilt), having a better throw game and benefitting from the mechanics changes to shield. I would say current Greninja is a GOOD character with two top tier traits - mobility and shurikens. And yes, I think shurikens in both forms are a top tier projectile.

 

[Linkshot]

I will agree with mid-tier being a crapshoot. It has always felt like a crapshoot to me. Isolated, these are some of the most balanced characters in the cast. Out of all of them, I'd say ROB is the most polar, having Diddy-like kill setups (ledge traps, dThrow 50/50, kill throw), but also having a very, very scary time against any character that can put the Gyro out of play (or worse: use the Gyro against ROB).

Spoiler: More inaccurate ROB rambling

ROB's neutral leaves a lot to be desired (it revolves almost entirely around Gyro traps and building damage with lasers) thanks to moves slower than Greninja's and range as weak as Wario. ROB seems to handle the top tiers fairly well (nothing is a blow-out, closest is Mario) but then there are weird low tiers that can threaten ROB's tourney life thanks to low-commitment reflectors and ability to challenge ROB's range, speed, and even power (looking at Falco and Palutena here, former of which seems to be on the rise, and noting how Mewtwo vs ROB went last night at Shockwave). Though, even those bouts seem to be evenly matched, just very high stress.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Just a random thought... Pit's usually considered to lose to Sonic, but then people say Ike beats Sonic. Is it just because Ike hits harder, his jab being, well, his jab, or is there some other thing I'm missing?

I can only talk about the Ike side of things but:

Ike has Bair and Fair: massive hard hitting aerials that can have zero landing lag. He also has Nair which is a massive aerial with minimal landing lag and leads into combos. Sonic can't do much to challenge these things well. If he's in the air and Ike has time to use these, his options are "air dodge", "spring away and hope not to get punished on the way down", and "get hit". If he's zipping forwards from spin dash he has even less options: he has to jump first and then go for one of the other options. He can't do much of his charging up spindash mindgames because of Ike's Dash Attack: hits too far, he's gambling with getting smacked in the face. So from various different points of time, Ike can punish spin dash.

Ike of course, also has his Jab, Pivot Grab (big one here: Ike wants grabs) and Dtilt for taking care of spin dash if Sonic gets even remotely predictable with its timing. And if he's hoping right over Ike he's still in range to get hit by a laundry list of moves.

And then of course, outside of a lucky Fsmash Sonic is really struggling to KO Ike. I've seen Ikes live up to 200% against Sonic on Smashville. Sonic is starting to be at high risk of dying at like.... 100%? 120%? And even before the last patch Ike could wrack up damage faster than Sonic in most cases because of damage wracked up from punishing spin dash with pivot grab. Now just landing a random Nair can lead into 35% damage.

Basically Sonic is forced to play a different game and significantly loses the KOing game while also losing the damage race. All of his speed doesn't mean much when there is nothing to punish. Obviously if Ike messes up it hurts a lot, which is what keeps it pretty reasonable for Sonic and why at mid level competition Sonic tends to win more. But once you hit the high/top range and the Ike knows how to keep himself safe, Sonic struggles.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Just a random thought... Pit's usually considered to lose to Sonic, but then people say Ike beats Sonic. Is it just because Ike hits harder, his jab being, well, his jab, or is there some other thing I'm missing?

I don't know why the Ike MU thread thinks they win against Sonic, maybe it's because a lot of mid-level Sonics have an addiction for using spindash which Ike is fairly good at stopping. I really don't see how Sonic loses tbh. Sonic has far better mobility and burst speed to outpace Ike in both offence and defence. Sonic overall keeps better stage control than Ike throughout the match. Offstage it gets a bit closer since both have the tools to edgeguard each other fairly well, but I'd say Sonic has the easier time doing this.

The matchup isn't free for Sonic since Ike can KO a lot earlier and Sonic can struggle to KO him, as well as Ike's damage output being significantly dangerous. But I don't see how he loses against a character that is notably slower than him in almost every aspect, especially when Sonic's character design let's him win by just playing bait and punish.

What I can believe though is Ike having a better overall matchup against Sonic than the Pits though, since he will be KOing earlier and building more damage off punishes.

 

[Jams.]

ROB is a solid character but I haven't seen him do much as of late. He's curiously absent from Japanese top 16s, where he's quite often a fixture. Wario is also solid but seems to have no presence at nationals in any country (what's Reflex up to these days?).

ROB hasn't had good results in Japan for months. His only good results were when OCEAN beat Edge (at a single elimination tournament) and when Ginko got 3rd with a ROB secondary. He's had much better results in Europe and NA recently.

His best recent results at significant events are probably from SaSSy, who got 17th at PAX Arena (going to game 5 with ESAM) and I believe 9th at TGC 6 (just inferred from the stream, results aren't out yet). Unless I missed a significant Spanish or German event, in which case I apologize.

Spain, Germany and Sweden have a ROB in their Top4. The german Rob (LoNg0uw) has set wins over cyve and Light (Sheik).
ROB is definitely an extremely dangarous character, because of his dthrow 50:50 that can kill you as early as 50% depending on the stage and at max rage. This character creates a lot of variance and has a very high upset potential for that reason.
I wouldn't rank him any lower as he is right now. He has some troublesome match-ups (Cloud is probably his worst) but they are not that bad and the character makes every match-up winnable because of his ridiculous dthrow upair situation. This is really consistent.
ROB doesn't seemed to be played much in japan and america but in europe he has really consistent results. Maybe they would patch that ridiculous 50:50 if it was known enough but his absence outside of europe is probably the reason this will stay forever.

The dthrow 50:50 is his saving grace in many of his bad MUs. His worst MUs (ZSS, Sheik) tend to also be characters most susceptible to beep boop, which can just randomly get you wins from a gigantic deficit.

I'm also curious why you believe Cloud is his worst MU. The top player in my region thinks ROB has a large advantage (despite playing neither character), and Mew2King also feels ROB beats Cloud based on the Smashboards article a while back. From personal experience, I feel it's a poor MU for ROB but not his worst.

Spoiler: More inaccurate ROB rambling

ROB's neutral leaves a lot to be desired (it revolves almost entirely around Gyro traps and building damage with lasers) thanks to moves slower than Greninja's and range as weak as Wario. ROB seems to handle the top tiers fairly well (nothing is a blow-out, closest is Mario) but then there are weird low tiers that can threaten ROB's tourney life thanks to low-commitment reflectors and ability to challenge ROB's range, speed, and even power (looking at Falco and Palutena here, former of which seems to be on the rise, and noting how Mewtwo vs ROB went last night at Shockwave). Though, even those bouts seem to be evenly matched, just very high stress.

Going to correct some of this. Nair is really slow, but fair is frame 6, has fairly good range, and can convert into more fairs, dtilt, grab, or gyro (though nothing is guaranteed except fair -> fair at mid %). Dtilt is frame 3, has decent range, and can be used quickly out of a run due to IGC. I'm not sure what the comparisons to Greninja and Wario are based off of.

On the other hand, his MU spread with top tiers is awful (he arguably loses to all of them, lol).

 

[TTTTTsd]

I don't want to talk extensively about Cloud vs. Wario but in my experience.....

in my mind and on paper it sounds absolutely awful. Someone camping out Wario of all people with a sword and high mobility is just cruelty.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Cloud murders Wario in the worst way possible.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Wario vs Cloud is the same as Brawl Marth vs Wario but remove grab release and replace it with having better zone breaking tools, a projectile, insane mobility when in limit, and not giving a **** about any of Warios tools in general except for Bike and Waft. And then having the tools to stop Bike and having a chargable waft of your own.

Ugliness.

 

[NegaNixx]

That Match Up sounds utterly horrendous. Cloud looks like he'll get at least Double the amount of Nukes as Wario... Combined with the spacing... Game and projectile... Like... It sounds on paper ZSS vs DK Bad.

 

[BTVolta]

I don't know why the Ike MU thread thinks they win against Sonic, maybe it's because a lot of mid-level Sonics have an addiction for using spindash which Ike is fairly good at stopping.

Ryo having a winning record on Manny put the thought in our head. Beating 6WX at MLG helped solidified it.
Ryo vs 6WX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrjSmBWK_uI
Ryo vs Heero(staticmanny)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P-N0tsZI7U
I believe most sonics, if not all, agree Ike wins the match up.

 

[Bobert]

I don't play Sonic nor do I play Ike, but why does Ike win the Sonic MU?

 

[Spinosaurus]

Reflex is playing Mewtwo.

In the side. He still largely uses Wario, and won a recent big local in Atlanta with him the past week.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I think wario goes even with shulk, maybe wario has the upper hand with his airspeed but with Mallc and his monado arts shulk could do some damage, but shulk isn't the greatest

 

[Nobie]

I'm kind of happy that SOMEONE thinks their character has trouble with Mewtwo because everyone and their mom thinks their character beats Mewtwo if not outright wrecks em. I think it's a product of being a glass cannon character.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I'm kind of happy that SOMEONE thinks their character has trouble with Mewtwo because everyone and their mom thinks their character beats Mewtwo if not outright wrecks em. I think it's a product of being a glass cannon character.

That's true, M2 has good tools against a lot of characters

 

[Cereal Bawks]

I don't play Sonic nor do I play Ike, but why does Ike win the Sonic MU?

Nidtendofreak explained that just a few posts up --> http://smashboards.com/threads/4br-...tive-impressions.429826/page-41#post-20869863

 

[Linkshot]

I'm kind of happy that SOMEONE thinks their character has trouble with Mewtwo because everyone and their mom thinks their character beats Mewtwo if not outright wrecks em. I think it's a product of being a glass cannon character.

I don't recall having to face a Mewtwo yet but, as a Palu, I can see being afraid. Mewtwo's Jab probably beats my everything in CQC and links into a kill. I probably don't have an answer to spaced dTilt on shield. When trying to land, I either eat uSmash for not warping (or counter the multihit for 2% and a reset to neutral), or eat Shadow Ball for warping. I'd have to ward Mewtwo away with fAir if I want to corner him, and while bAir would protect me, I have to do it pre-emptively, which means I'm retreating and cornering myself.

 

[Zannabluke]

In the side. He still largely uses Wario, and won a recent big local in Atlanta with him the past week.

yup, it was a 128 man tournament and he beat many notable players such as fatality, scatt and rango

 

[Djent]

Aside from doing well vs. Sheik, almost certainly beats Pikachu. Everything people say about why he does well vs. Sheik? Yeah, that all applies similarly, if not more so, to his fellow Pokemon. He probably does well vs. Mario too (though Kami tends to lose that MU a lot, not sure what's up with that). I agree with ~ Gheb ~ that ZSS is a problem; Motsunabe couldn't handle Choco at all and the theory checks out. But this character has very winnable MUs against two of the top three characters in the game.

can definitely hang with both Sheik and ZSS. I don't know how his Rosa MU looks (probably...bad) but 2/3 is better than virtually all of B-tier can boast. This character also has high-profile wins against Diddy, Sonic, MK, Ryu, and Fox(?), so those are all arguably manageable as well. TBH I don't see any one thing holding this character back, so much as a bunch of little things. But that's true of a lot of other characters currently ranked in the top 10/15. Which brings me to my point:

Matchup-wise, Lucario and Toon Link more strongly resemble the characters in A- tier than the ones in B/B+. This, in conjunction with impressive results in multiple regions across the world, suggests to me that they are in fact A-tier characters. TBH I'm beginning to think that both characters are more solo-viable than Ness (who we saw get thrashed yet again by one of Japan's revolving-door-Rosas last night), although he may still outshine them by having less bad MUs overall. Hell, even Pikachu might have a worse chance of getting "stopped cold" in some bad MU (Mario, possibly Sheik/MK by the looks of things).

 

[Y2Kay]

I'm kind of happy that SOMEONE thinks their character has trouble with Mewtwo because everyone and their mom thinks their character beats Mewtwo if not outright wrecks em. I think it's a product of being a glass cannon character.

I was almost done being triggered about Greninja stigmas and now we move to my other main's stigma. I'm gonna need to chill after this.

I've been labbing Mewtwo a lot on the side to see what match ups he does reasonably well, and he actually has a few high and mid tier characters he does well against.



In my opinion is a close matchup too. I'll go into more detail if anyone cares.

But even now people are STILL reluctant to admit their main may have to fear or struggle with his options.

Disscussing Mewtwo's Match Ups in a Nutshell!

Me: Mewtwo has great mobility, a good spacing game, two kill throws, and a very scary projectile

Guy: Sure, but Mewtwo dies at like 60% from a fully charged f-smash, so 70:30 in our main's favor

Me: ಠ_ಠ

People let Mewtwo's weight cloud their perception of his of his overall strength. Mewtwo's has a lot of redeeming qualities that I mentioned above.

The bright side is that this completely works to my benefit, but having an ignorant community isn't much fun at all. It's rather annoying actually.

I just want to harp on about how great these buffs are. His high damage combos now link together much better with reduced landing lag on his aerials, and the mobility buff gave him another advantage over the zoners he gave decent trouble pre patch.

With his mobility, Shadow ball, and a command grab, he one of the best, bar Villager, at keeping items away from his opponent, as he can pressure shields fairly well with his specials.

 

[warionumbah2]

Tink actually has poor results vs mks.

Leo vs hyuga is a no brainer.
Ito is 2-0 over zan, ito does not practice this MU while zan does.
S2H also does well vs zan, the last time they played s2h won.
Hayoto did poorly against abadango

Tink has 2 notable wins over relevant mks, that one time hyuga beat leo (at least 2 patches ago before dcape rco was fixed) but leo won the tournament, then zan beating aba then losing to ito right after.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I don't have time, sorry for entering this conversation like that. But real quick...

Last patch, for sure Marth loses to Ike at something like a 60 40. Every aerial Ike did against Marth was safe and every move, including Dtilt, Marth just couldn't play the disjoint game with. When Marth gets up close Jab will usually stuff his approach. If you shield you get grabbed and while you don't have a grab game at all against Ike (because weight dependent throws and Ike is heavy), he has a great one against you. I don't know why, for some reason Marth is easy to combo. He has a low gravity rating so you would think that he doesn't take much hitstun... yet he has a very large window for MK's death combo, for Dr. Mario's Dthrow Fair and for Ike's Uthrow Fair and landing Nair stuff.

This patch, any buff Marth got pretty much gets nullified by Ike's 1.5 units bigger and stronger Fair for this MU. However, this is my opinion because I don't have any experience for the 1.1.4 MU.

What you say against edgeguarding is too simplified. Ike's do a lot to avoid getting gimped. Marth can theoretically cover every option pretty well but in no way is this guaranteed. Also, you forget about Eruption which is pretty easy to land against Marth, even when he Fspecial stalls.

You were right that Marth does pretty well against the other FE reps. He did slightly lose to Robin last patch thanks to Robin's damage output, Levin aerials, and kill set-ups. This patch, there is no way that's true. Marth's buffs directly help him against Robin.

Marth's ground moves outrange Ike D-tilt (and Jab for that matter) so I don't even know why you brought that one up. Ike F-tilt is sorta annoying retreating given it's one of the best anti-airs in the game by far, but overall Ike actually can't play a lot of his ground game against Marth willy nilly when he's kinda tall and Marth outspeeds him by no small margin both in frame and ground speed. I have no idea why you think differently. Ike kinda obviously loses neutral against Marth, and considering how hard he gets edgeguarded, it's actually a big deal.

Marth does eat certain combos due to his height much like other human-sized characters, that much is common knowledge if you ask me. Ike does big damage out of throw -> F-air, but it's unlikely to actually KO confirm in a real game due to Rage. More importantly, the reward Marth gets from setting up edgeguards is arguably greater than that when it's extremely realistic, and in several situations guaranteed for Marth to secure the KO from it even at low percents

I also have no idea how you believe Eruption is easy to land against Marth's Up-B, which safely sharks the ledge and basically travels its full distance faster than the release startup of Eruption (F-special stalling if anything makes it easier for Ike to hit you, not that he will given how impractically difficult it is in actual practice). That, sounds like major theorycraft frankly. As someone who predominantly mains Ganon and Doc, I've heavily labbed edgeguarding situations generally speaking. And I do believe I can simplify edgeguarding terms to the ones I have because edgeguarding actually is pretty cut and dry, even against good players given there's only a limited number of ways you can fundamentally mix up options offstage. Ike's only option to not instantly die is in fact recovering high, when everything he does below the stage can be reacted to by ledgedrop counter.

I would argue I generally have much better recovery mixups than most competitive players and consider myself super creative offstage. And I say with full confidence that recovering low as Ike against a Marth or Lucina that knows the matchup is an instant death sentence, simply by playing the correct flowchart.

Playing a character on the side, and then saying any character who can ledge-drop counter is a counter to ike/Roy is absurd.

In SoCal, there's a player named Oki who mains MK and seconds Roy. He's been considered for PR in the past, and generally beats me solidly.

Playing his Roy as Ike, I've beaten him in that matchup more than he's beaten me simply because Roy's options offstage are way too limited for him to survive Counter edgeguard in most situations, and his other primary alternative which is recovering high with Blazer is also both limited, not particularly hard to cover or anti-condition, and heavily punishable. This is on top of Roy actually having enough of a loss of range compared to Ike (and worse frame data than Marth) that it affects him pretty negatively in neutral.

 

[Fatmanonice]

In the time span of this game, usually characters that are meant to get worse with time are typically described as "annoying."

I just wanna add on to this and say got THREE top 8 placings at big tournaments this weekend.

- Venia got 4th at nebolous (the one with Anti)
- istudying got 3rd at Avalon U-II
- Some got something in top 8 at Umebura(?)

Will people ignore these results anyway?

Yes.

Will people continue to say greninja has no results?

Also Yes.

Hey, but that's the messed up cycle that is 's life.

Welcome to 's world. Ranking even before her enormous buff dump in the summer but most people are still stuck on "her hitboxes are weird so she sucks."

I saw someone talking about the ROB vs Cloud match up. Cloud has great juggling options against ROB and ROB's big body makes for a giant target for some of Cloud's full swing attacks like fair, nair, and usmash. On the flip side though, ROB has ledge traps and the idle top can stop a lot of Cloud's attacks. There's also ROB's edge guarding abilities and how he has numerous methods to hard punish characters that don't snap the ledge. This all being said, it does sound pretty bad on paper.

 

[bc1910]

Like I said at the start of all of this, Mid Tier is kinda a crap shoot.

But like other people have been pointing out: almost every one of those characters has one person doing really well with them in one area. So it becomes really hard to stack them against each other. You could say Yoshi, Wario, Luigi all most likely need to drop, and that Ike + Greninja both need to rise but then it gets even more messy after that. What do you do with Toon Link? You could argue that ROB needs to drop but on the other hand Holy exists. How much should Scatt way in for MegaMan and should he go up because of it?

This is definitely an interesting debate. The order that people place the mid tiers obviously varies wildly between players. Indeed, the graph that was posted showing the standard deviation of characters' voted placements in the BR list showed that the mid tiers had the largest variance of any group.

I think the characters in the top 13 on the BR's list are accurate. My personal opinion is that (in no order) the Pits, Falcon, Peach, Lucario, Greninja, Ike and Toon Link follow on to round out the top 20. These seven characters are the "B" tiers, skating the line between high tier and mid tier. ROB, Luigi and Wario follow on; they aren't significantly worse and could all be considered high tiers, but I think there's a growing discrepancy between those three and the results/MU theory of the characters above them. Luigi and ROB seem to have a fair amount of -2 MUs, while Wario's results and number of winning MUs are suspect.

I've left Yoshi out because I don't know much about his results and I genuinely have no idea where to place him any more.

 

[Y2Kay]

Matchup spread is super iffy to me.

Not only does he struggles with top tiers like , his match ups against his fellow high tiers like aren't good either. He also has some questionable match ups against low tiers, like

He should still be top 25, but I personally think he's not top 15. Maybe top 20?

There are just so many people who outspeed, outrange, and outcamp him for him to warrant such high placements in tier lists.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I'm probably one of five people who will never really get the competitive appeal of Peach or Lucario. I don't feel like that they're too far different from how they were in Brawl, characters that were perpetually overrated because people swore up and down that they'd tear the high tiers a new one once they were fully optimized but that day never came thanks to low support and questionable top/high tier match ups.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

Luigi is quite honestly, bad. Not only does he loses to all 3 of the S tiers (Rosa being by far his worst) he also loses to villager, mega man, greninja, and others. His advantage that he REALLY had before he got butchered was his positive MU's over otherwise known as common tournament threats hence why everyone rated him in top 10 even top 5 although Luigi was counter-pickable. He had guaranteed kills off of grabs which very few characters have and thus people ignored his bad MU's with Sheik, Rosa, Mega Man, Villager and other soft counters and claimed he was in the realm of top 5. Of course we were still in 1.08 where a decent amount of characters did poorly against top/high tiers. Current has a lot of "suspect" MU's.

 

[LancerStaff]

I was almost done being triggered about Greninja stigmas and now we move to my other main's stigma. I'm gonna need to chill after this.

I've been labbing Mewtwo a lot on the side to see what match ups he does reasonably well, and he actually has a few high and mid tier characters he does well against.



In my opinion is a close matchup too. I'll go into more detail if anyone cares.

But even now people are STILL reluctant to admit their main may have to fear or struggle with his options.

Disscussing Mewtwo's Match Ups in a Nutshell!

Me: Mewtwo has great mobility, a good spacing game, two kill throws, and a very scary projectile

Guy: Sure, but Mewtwo dies at like 60% from a fully charged f-smash, so 70:30 in our main's favor

Me: ಠ_ಠ

People let Mewtwo's weight cloud their perception of his of his overall strength. Mewtwo's has a lot of redeeming qualities that I mentioned above.

The bright side is that this completely works to my benefit, but having an ignorant community isn't much fun at all. It's rather annoying actually.

I just want to harp on about how great these buffs are. His high damage combos now link together much better with reduced landing lag on his aerials, and the mobility buff gave him another advantage over the zoners he gave decent trouble pre patch.

With his mobility, Shadow ball, and a command grab, he one of the best, bar Villager, at keeping items away from his opponent, as he can pressure shields fairly well with his specials.

I'm having a hard time imagining how Mewtwo does well against Pit.

Pit's a zone breaker like Mewtwo, but Mewtwo can't shut down arrows like he can other projectiles nor can he scare him out of reflecting because of GO's unique break animation. Throwing out a SB at anything but max range can be a risky proposition because if Mewtwo's too close then he can end up not being able to spam Confusion fast enough, and remember GOs don't stop momentum like most reflectors.

Mewtwo can't afford to throw out anything punishable because Pit's f6 Usmash is... Frame 6 and still powerful. Mewtwo's tallness makes it easy to land compared to most characters. Pit's Uair further exasperates his disadvantage problems and awkward tumble. Arrows quite significantly cut down on charging opportunities after somebody's launched. Pit's range on his attacks keep Mewtwo's powerful but shorter ranged attacks at bay, and Pit's superior disjoint means he can muscle through Mewtwo's longer ranged moves like Bair and his tilts.

I'm going to ask you what Mewtwo's advantages are in the matchup, because from my point of view I'm not seeing any big ones...

I'm probably one of five people who will never really get the competitive appeal of Peach or Lucario. I don't feel like that they're too far different from how they were in Brawl, characters that were perpetually overrated because people swore up and down that they'd tear the high tiers a new one once they were fully optimized but that day never came thanks to low support and questionable top/high tier match ups.

Lucario's practically a completely different character now... Lost a ton of good aspects and it all got put to Aura. Peach meanwhile I don't think lost much, if anything in the transition to SSB4.

 

[Megamang]

From what i understand, peach has a luigi-esque problem with zoning as she lacks any powerful zone breaking moves or even manuevers. Megaman seems to win the MU handily in my experience, though i have lost to skilled peaches. Which seems to be a stereotype of the character, dedicated and skilled mains, throughout all the games i see her in.

Though i hope she doesnt become a new ICs, centralized around landing that infinite. Anyone know who else suffers from that from a grab?

 

[PK Gaming]

So CosmicCosmos ran a train through a weekly with Corrin

It's early, but his matches do a goodish job of showing what the character is capable of