Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Y2Kay]

I was watching ninja link vs venia and not one time did using sshh put him in the advantage. At best it reset to neutral and a a lot of the time ninjalink could have just punished him for it if he hadn't over extended. As for shrunkens, I can't see it being to abusive with the threat of a frame 7 dive kick.

Venia didn't know SSHC worked on Bayo's divekick. He didn't use it for that purpose a single time in their matches

 

[G. Stache]

G. Stache not sure about falcon MU luigi is dead meat offstage, fatality completely bodied Boss.

Falcon should be as good as dead offstage as well if the Luigi can cyclone gimp/Bair with good timing. Also, for what it's worth, I do think the player skill should be analyzed as well. I, personally, think that Fatality is a better player than Boss by quite a bit, but Luigi obviously has his weaknesses against Falcon regardless. I just think Falcon has more he needs to be worried about in this MU. Other than killing Falcon just as easily offstage, Luigi gets better combos, forces the approach, and capatilizes hard on Falcon's disadvantage state. Luigi, obviously, gets destroyed offstage as well, needs to watch Falcon's damage outputs and should be timing and spacing his moves well, or Falcon gets in and punishes with extremely good mobility and his silly dash grab. Just my take on it though. Could definitely see an argument for the MU being even.

 

[David Viran]

Venia didn't know SSHC worked on Bayo's divekick. He didn't use it for that purpose a single time in their matches

How does SSHC work then? I thought it only worked on moves that didn't put you into tumble but dive kick does even from zero. But I still think you underestimate how quickly bayo can act after specials.

 

[Ulevo]

Corrin and Bayonetta excluded, which characters seem to have the best match ups versus Sheik? What are people's thoughts on this.

 

[Y2Kay]

How does SSHC work then? I thought it only worked on moves that didn't put you into tumble but dive kick does even from zero. But I still think you underestimate how quickly bayo can act after specials.

He should be teleporting right behind her, or the opposite of her from when he activated it, but he isn't doing that tho.

Lemme see what he does once he realizes this works.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Corrin and Bayonetta excluded, which characters seem to have the best match ups versus Sheik? What are people's thoughts on this.

In terms of results, Diddy Kong, Mario, and ZSS generally seem to have a good win record vs most Sheik players.

 

[David Viran]

He should be teleporting right behind her, or the opposite of her from when he activated it, but he isn't doing that tho.

Lemme see what he does once he realizes this works.

That doesn't change the fact that greninja doesn't get frame advantage for using it due to the decent amount of cool down side b has. I'm just saying that I think you are overstating the effectiveness of this technique in this MU.

 

[hypersonicJD]

Corrin and Bayonetta excluded, which characters seem to have the best match ups versus Sheik? What are people's thoughts on this.

Sonic. Sonic for me is the moest even character with Sheik so far. He can rack-up damage so easy on Sheik since she is a fast faller, it's hard to gimp Sonic, it's easy to escape from a down throw up air or down throw vanish and he can kill Sheik faster.

But Sheik juggles Sonic with fairs, she has so many better approach options and is still a hard time. A Sonic main needs patience with needles and other attacks from Sheik. But for me it's evern. I don't know about you guys.

 

[Seagull Joe]

Besides what I said before and more: as far as I'm aware every top level Sonic but Seagull has a losing record against top level Ikes. And some have even started to lose games against mid level Ikes. And that was before the most recent patch.

Like if you took all of the top level Ike vs Sonic matches and tallied them up... its not even close really. You can theorize that Sonics play the MU wrong all you want, but until they actually prove as much, Ike has the advantage. A fairly concrete one at that. Sonic may have mobility, but he has no range. Ike mains have proven that massive disjointed range + no landing lag > Speed. Stage control means nothing when you're heavily gambling any time you have to try to approach Ike. Ike gets hit by a spin dash and he's taking 20-something percent. Ike grabs a spin dash and Sonic is taking 30-something percent.

And Ike's speed isn't terrible either. I'd also say Ike's edgeguarding > Sonic in the MU. Walk-off Fair outranges anything Sonic can try to throw back. Or just Eruption. Sonic has.... springs against aether. He can't do much against Quick Draw, and trying to use an aerial against aether is risking getting snagged and spike'd.

@A2ZOMG I played against a Marth as Ike in the last tournament I went to a few months ago. He kept trying to use Counter against my Aether. Don't think he landed it more than once the whole set, and the time it landed I still made it back. Meanwhile I hit his recovery with Eruption the one time I tried.

Counter is a problem, but its not a death sentence. Its most likely just going to tack on some extra damage if the Ike knows how to recover correctly. I also found the neutral game pretty darn easy to play out.

I think I'm the only one who plays the matchup right. I played Ryuga in friendlies at Genesis and went back and forth. If utilizes his Bair more-so than relying on spindash then he can actually box out.

Sonic. Sonic for me is the moest even character with Sheik so far. He can rack-up damage so easy on Sheik since she is a fast faller, it's hard to gimp Sonic, it's easy to escape from a down throw up air or down throw vanish and he can kill Sheik faster.

But Sheik juggles Sonic with fairs, she has so many better approach options and is still a hard time. A Sonic main needs patience with needles and other attacks from Sheik. But for me it's evern. I don't know about you guys.

There's a lot more to the matchup, but I also think it's even at best.

 

[Y2Kay]

That doesn't change the fact that greninja doesn't get frame advantage for using it due to the decent amount of cool down side b has. I'm just saying that I think you are overstating the effectiveness of this technique in this MU.

I find it much easier to retaliate after than MK and ZSS.

Regardless, SSHC nullifies her Kick n' Twist Combos, where other characters can take up a lot of damage from it.

litterally the only person on the roster that can force her to play that honestly.

 

[Ffamran]

Was curious about 1.1.4 Falco's Up Smash and how it stacked up with Wolf's considering they're similar in functionality..

Notes before reading any of this: for multi-hits, some of them have frame gaps, gaps where there is no hitbox until the next set of hits are called. Some moves don't have this or if they're very negligible like 1 to 3 frames, then they'll be denoted by an asterisk, *, e.g. a move has total 10 active frames, 4 on the first hit and 6 on the second, but it has a 2 frame gap, so the total active frames would be, in a multi-hit format, 4*6. If there's notable gaps, then parentheses, ( ), will be used to show the gap e.g. move has 6 active frames, 3 per hit, and a 10 frame gap, so it would be shown as 3(10)3. In the case of comparing data, regardless if it's "negligible" like a 4 frame gap, I'm just going to show it unless there is a 0 frame gap.

Spoiler: Not really relevant observations

Spoiler: Pheasant & Wolf

Hit 1

|Startup|Active|Damage|Angle|Base|Set|Growth
(Pre-1.1.4) |8|5|4%|110° / 110° / 130° / 220°|60 / 60 / 80 / 0|0 /0 / 0/ 15|25 / 25 / 30 / 100
(1.1.4) |7|5|4%|110° / 110° / 130° / 220°|70 / 70 / 70 / 0|0 / 0 / 0 / 15|18 / 18 / 18 / 100
|13|3|6%|100° / 100° / 115° / 115°|90|0|20

Hit 2

|Startup|Active|Damage|Angle|Base|Growth
(Pre-1.1.4) |13|12|12%|80°|30|98
(1.1.4) |12|12|12%|80°|31|104
|20|3|12%|90° / 361° / 361°|45 / 50 / 50|85 / 100 / 100

Notes: Frame gaps between Falco's Up Smash = 0 frames, Wolf's Up Smash = 4 frames; total damage = 16% Falco, 18% Wolf; total active frames = 17 frames, 5*12 Falco, 6 frames, 3(4)3 Wolf; total I-frames = 5 frames, 7-11 Falco, 0 frames, 0-0 Wolf.

Quick glance is they really did make it more like Wolf's. Easiest way to see this is the first hit's higher base knockback and lower growth in 1.1.4 allowing it cause a lot of hit stun and just enough knockback to not launch too far. In fact, with 1.1.4, Falco's growth is only 2 away from Wolf's. For base, it makes sense for Wolf's to be higher by 20 because his isn't a "continuous" hitbox. That being said, Falco's pretty much owns Wolf's in every way, but horizontal range, hit angle, total damage, and recovery - Wolf takes 22 frames to recover to Falco's 30. If Wolf had come back... I would expect some tweaking to his Up Smash, especially when you factor in the absurd amount of active frames Falco's has. Easiest way would be to make his legs and maybe upper body invincible.

On to more relevant things, considering the high growth on Falco's Up Smash hit 2 now... Compared with Fox, Kirby, Mii Brawler, Pikachu, and Yoshi's Up Smashes.

Spoiler: Up Smash Flip Kickers and Tail Flipper

|Startup|Active|Damage|Angle|Base|Growth
(Pre-1.1.4) |13|12|12%|80°|30|98
(1.1.4) |12|12|12%|80°|31|104
(Clean)|8|2|16% / 14%|80°|30|94
(Late)|10|2|11%|361°|10|100
(Clean)|14|1|15% / 14%|75°|32 / 30|103 / 96
(Late)|15|2|14% / 12%|88°|20|97
(Later)|17|3|12% / 11%|50°|10|51
(Clean)|8|4|14%|84°|32|93
(Late)|12|3|10%|84°|32|93
(Clean)|10|2|14% / 13%|87°|50|89
(Late)|12|2|11%|85°|30 / 10|90
(Later)|14|4|7%|80°|55|48
(Clean)|11|3|14%|75°|37|95
(Late)|14|3|12%|75°|37|95

Notes: total active frames = 4 Fox, 6 Kirby, 7 Mii Brawler, 8 Pikachu, 6 Yoshi. total I-frames = 9 frames, 1-9, Fox; frames, 6, 14-19 Kirby; 5 frames, 8-12 Mii Gunner, 0 frames; 0-0 Pikachu, 3 frames, 11-13 Yoshi.

What does this show? One, Falco's kill hit has absurd active frames compared to the others. If you consider that as a "late" hit, then it has not only high active frames, but really good knockback. If we assume Pikachu's Up Smash is disjointed because of his / her tail, then that means pretty much all flip kick and tail flip Up Smashes are safe during their "first" hit. Special note is that Fox's I-frames begins before his clean hit and Kirby's extends to all its active frames. In terms of kill power... Eh, that's going to be difficult, but I'm going to assume the gaps are much closer now with Fox and Kirby leading in ~110% to early 120%'s while everyone else will probably be around the +120% area in contrast to before 1.1.4 where Fox and Kirby lead in the ~110% to early 120%'s, Falco was behind in the ~130% to early 140%'s range, and everyone else was between them at ~120%. Basically, they're all closer together now. How they make use of them will be their defining natures.

Spoiler: Big Question and Even Bigger Statement

So, the question I have for you all, would any other character want Falco's current, 1.1.4 Up Smash? I could see Fox trading the more consistent, single-hit nature of his and slightly lower kill power for much higher active frames. Considering Fox has confirms into Up Smash and this would just be "the same move, but with different properties", it would be pretty insane. I could also see Captain Falcon wanting this, especially for its speed and the fact it's pretty similar to his Up Smash which also can hit people hanging at the ledge. With its anti-air nature, Samus could really make work of it into her combo game since it would be like hers if it hit lower, hit only twice, and was more "reliable" - I blame this on the hit angles on her Up Smash and not necessarily her Up Smash being bad if that makes any sense - while still being an anti-air. Also, Sonic would like this... and I blame this on them nerfing his a bit over than it should since Sonic's kills about 10% later than Falco's if I remember correctly.

This also of course comes with this bold statement: Falco has one of the best Up Smashes in the game. He might not be able to use it to its full potential, but on other characters or the move alone, is it one of the best or better Up Smashes in the game?

Also, for kicks, Sonic and Wolf's Uair and Up Smash compared. Similar animations; different moves.

Spoiler: Sonic Uair & Wolf Up Smash

Hit 1

|Startup|Active|Damage|Angle|Base|Set|Growth
|5|3|3%|100° / 100° / 118° / 118°|0|90 / 90 / 120 / 120|100
|13|3|6%|100° / 100° / 115° / 115°|90|0|20

Hit 2

|Startup|Active|Damage|Angle|Base|Growth
|14|2|6%|91°|66|82
|20|3|12%|90° / 361° / 361°|45 / 50 / 50|85 / 100 / 100

Notes on Sonic's Uair: Frame gaps between Sonic's Uair = 6 frames; total damage = 9%; total active frames = 5 frames, 3(6)2.

 

[C0rvus]

I find it much easier to retaliate after than MK and ZSS.

Regardless, SSHC nullifies her Kick n' Twist Combos, where other characters can take up a lot of damage from it.

litterally the only person on the roster that can force her to play that honestly.

Isn't this not technically true, since every character can SDI out of Witch Twist and DI away after getting hit with After Burner Kick?

 

[Y2Kay]

Isn't this not technically true, since you can SDI out of Witch Twist and DI away after getting hit with After Burner Kick?

Apparently it's impossible for people to learn how to SDI tho lol. It's very easy to SSHC out of witch twist compared to SDI apparently.Technically you are right; what if I changed it to this:

I find it much easier to retaliate after than MK and ZSS.

Regardless, SSHC nullifies her Kick n' Twist Combos, where other characters can take up a lot of damage from it.

litterally the only person on the roster that can force her to play that honestly with just an easy button press.

 

[ぱみゅ]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Another one of Abadango's lists.
I honestly have so much to say about it I have no idea where to start.

 

[ARGHETH]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Another one of Abadango's lists.
I honestly have so much to say about it I have no idea where to start.

Robin confirmed best FE character.
But seriously, I think Japan trying to make Ike a monster.
My main concern, though, is what's with the two B tiers and if one of them's supposed to be A- or something.

Edit: His reasoning for putting Robin so high is apparently Checkmate (Dthrow --> Uair)...

 

[DanGR]

You gotta presume he's gauging character potential/viability towards placing in top 3 or so and not necessarily relying on results to confirm any of his beliefs. In that case, I have no disagreements with tiers A+ and A aside from Lucario belonging in A tier. B and below honestly doesn't matter. They're never going to win a major anyways. You may as well rank them based purely on best to worst matchups against the top 4~ characters.

 

[UberMadman]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Another one of Abadango's lists.
I honestly have so much to say about it I have no idea where to start.

I'm getting increasingly tempted to create a donation drive to fly Ryo over to Japan...

 

[Zannabluke]

different regions/nations have different metagames?!?!? what is this sorcery?!?!?

 

[deepseadiva]

This game doesn't really have an S tier does it?

Yaaay

 

[HiNiTe]

Hmm, that tier list is certainly interesting, but not surprising. Japan's meta game is certainly different. Their stage list is much smaller, and their character choices reflect this. Cloud is very popular in doubles, almost a requirement. Meta Knight is extremely polarizing.

Though this does bring up a discussion for me as to 's an 's placements. Zero Suit Samus could be slightly overrated. Dabuz's amazing showing of his improvement of Rosalina shows greatly at Genesis 3, dominating Nairo. Kirihara also does very well in Japan with his Rosa. Rosalina's metagame has evolved to be more of a risk-taker, and it certainly pays off to be a bit more up-in-your-face and offensive with her, rather than completely defensive. ZSS and Rosa have equal showings at tourneys and nearly identical results as well, though.

There's also the mention of ZSS getting nerfed. Albeit, not a huge nerf, but still something anyway. Boost Kick kills, at least, 5% later on average, and the angle makes it even easier to DI on most stages. Rosalina simply got a one weight unit reduction, but she was already pathetically light to begin with.

So, what is everyone's thoughts on this matter? It's obviously no contest that Sheik is #1, but I feel that Rosa is #2 and ZSS is #3, if not slightly lower. Meta Knight could also be a force to dismantle the Ladies Club, or even Bayonetta with her very early popularity and tournament infiltration.

 

[Shaya]

ZSS has always lived on a knife's edge for balance, she wasn't secretly top 3 the entire history of the game. Nair going from not safe on shield to safe on shield changed things a lot, it allowed us as players to get away with things that aren't actually that good even better than we were previously (while Nairo was getting bopped by ZeRo; "oh man it sucks that our character needs nair to do anything but any nair on zero's shield is a shield drop dash reshield guaranteed", and that last tournament that happened with an old patch after the hit lag changes I knew Nairo would win the next time - he did). but her weaknesses have always been enough to make her look horrible as a character, and not in a match up basis like what you see Rosa do to Mario or Luigi, but as this universal "they get the match up" check box.

Otherwise, I think aba is very temperamental with his tier placement. He's been using Robin lately I believe and I don't think he was rating her that highly before. Much higher rating of MK than anyone else over the longest period of time. And has seemingly had the download on Nairo/ZSS better than anyone else has (although the way dabuz played it was something grand too, just haven't seen it enough yet; all I could really fault nairo for in that G3 set was the lack of special usage).

Anyway, now that ZSS up-b doesn't kill centre stage on the ground early anymore (scaling example) and characters with weight based throws can be garnering an extra frame of hitstun on her; a bit of that overbearing edge has dissipated a little and the slowly-but-surely global-realisation-thing (it's honestly magic when you try to think about it) on how to better deal with top threats has come into effect for her.

(I'm not saying she isn't top 3 still.... but a lot more characters are showing they have just as much amazing rewards as she does on easily argued less restrictive kits: Cloud, Meta Knight, Rosa; and feasibly Bayo and Ryu too).

 

[HoSmash4]

Corrin and Bayonetta excluded, which characters seem to have the best match ups versus Sheik? What are people's thoughts on this.

Rosalina, Mario, Ryu, Lucario, Sonic and Diddy Kong are candidates but all have their own troubles vs Sheik.

 

[bc1910]

Greninja's scary low on that list. But I've seen Abadango rank him nearly top 15 before (17th I think) so I guess his opinions just fluctuate wildly. Ike's scary low as well.

Isn't Cloud one of Sheik's worst MUs? He's the only character who can kind of make her approach without the lead, due to limit.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Dang Abadango almost threw Yoshi out of top 30, that's pretty dang low even for my standards.

 

[Luigi player]

I love when Luigi gets brought into conversation. I get to actually talk about something I know
Rosa is his worst? Wasn't aware that his worst MU, by far, was around the 6-4 to 65-35 range. When Luigi plays most optimally, I have reason to believe that ZSS is his worst (all the notable Luigi players don't seem to have as much trouble with Sheik or Rosa as they do with ZSS). But honestly, I've explained this before: Luigi has very reliable ways to dispatch of Luma (the biggest threat in this MU) and once he does, the MU is only around the 6-4 range. Not awful at all (though still definitely an uphill battle). Also should be noted that Boss has 2-0ed a Rosa main called Frozen. So either Frozen is a horrible Rosa player who should ponder switching characters, or we all overrate the whole 'Luigi can't approach lololol'. Only one example, I know. But Boss' play with Luigi managed to completely overwhelm Frozen. So Luigi still has tools to compete with these 'horrible MU's. Villager isn't as huge of a disadvantage as you'd like to think, though I don't see much Luigi-Villager MU that happens on the same skill level (Ranai is above ConCon's level while MVG, or whoever that Villager main is, seems below ConCon's level). ConCon and LuigiPlayer have notable wins over impressive sheiks, so I feel as if everyone overrates how bad that MU is. Mega man, I won't conceal, is atrocious for us and so is Pacman. The two men **** on Luigi hard and are probably the two hardest MU's for him.

What do you mean 'suspect MU's'? For the record, Luigi has a lot of 'holy balls, this battle is ****ing annoying' MU's such as the Links, Samus, Falco, Zelda, etc. but he beats or goes even with almost everyone in that group (controversial statement: I think Luigi beats Samus. Luigi's just don't put in the time to learn the MU extensively. The only scary thing Samus has is the Charge Shot, which Luigi admittedly has no answers to.). Toon Link is the only one in that group (could certainly see an argument for Link winning, obviously) who seems to actually win against Luigi.

For the record: Luigi still beats (Dr.) Mario, Falcon, Fox, Pika, Diddy, and probably Bayonetta. And still goes even with Sonic, Ness, Yoshi and possibly Peach. Y'know, most of the common tournament characters and then some. Still probably the best pocket character in the game. For this reason, I still find him good. Great, even, to a certain extent.

Also, just realized how late this reply was...and how slapdash it seems, lol. If anyone feels like I wasn't clear or was incorrect about something, then feel free to question me.

Imo, Luigis MUs are something like this...

45:55
If you know how to play the MU and can jumpless cyclone Luigi does really well vs Sheik. Grabcombos are hard punishes that rack up % fast, jumpless cyclone makes Luigi able to recover pretty safely (otherwise it can be easy for Sheik to gimp him), jabs are a really quick and great punish move for small openings or just the boxing game. Needs to use bair and usmash to contest Sheiks fair, shield+grab can work too if she doesn't jab immediately or lands perfectly with the move, or if you powershield. Nair can sometimes get you ouf of fair strings or rapid jabs (need to DI the fairs away, jabs can sometimes work, sometimes not, but you should be able to SDI upwards to trade with nair if Sheik doesn't stop really early). etc etc

45:55
Is an annyoing MU for Luigi, because fireballs get eaten up super easily by zair and nair, which are her main zoning tools.
You kinda need to powershield her landing aerials to be able to get grabs against her, or get "lucky" with dodge reads if you manage to make her put up shield. It's scary to hang on the ledge against her and she can obviously always be super scary with grabs / uairs into upB. DownB is annoying too because of the intangibility and automatic footstool that grounds you out of any action which can easily lead to death when happening. Luigi also loses the jab boxing game against her because of her frame 1 jab... which is a pretty big deal. Usually Luigi wins this against pretty much everyone. On the plus side, though... if you manage to bait / dodge an attempted grab, you have one of the best punishes for that in the game, being grounded upB, which can kill her at like 55 with a tiny bit of rage. ZSS kinda needs her grabs, which is what makes this MU more towards even. You can always try to shield her landing aerials and play it safe to kinda force her to go for grabs which is when you can get really early kills if you time your dodge / guess right.

40:60
Not too much experience in this MU, but it definitely feels uphill a little. Maybe I need more experience, but if Luigi is in the air above her he kinda has to go down to the sides (mostly to the ledge), because it's so easy for her to react to anything Luigi can do in the air. And even if you manage to almost get back to the ground, if she's grounded her usmash just beats everything and sets up for more juggles. Getting rid of Luma is easy, but you have to be really careful about it because you don't want to get punished for it and get hit away while she stalls for time for Luma to come back. Luigi is pretty good at edgeguarding her once he manages to get her offstage. When she's onstage (in neutral) she seems to have an advantage because of Luma, and her juggling is pretty adventagous too. If she doesn't space her uair so that the halo hits Luigi he can just clank Lumas hits out with nair, though.

45:55 maybe?
Never felt this MU was too hard for Luigi. It can be annoying of course, it's scary having to recover against the bowling ball which you always have to keep in mind... not to mention it's really scary onstage too. Reading rolls, "trading" hits with it (you hit Villager while he let's go off the ball which then hits you)... it's kinda stupid, but somehow works sometimes. The tree and Lyoid rocket (which you can just fireball most of the time, though) might be more annoying then the sling shots, but they add up. If you know the Villager MU you should always think about shielding when fair / bair could hit you. It's an annoying MU, but not that difficult, imo.

~45:55?
Not really sure. I've played against a few Toon Links on wifi which was a horrible experience since it felt like it's impossible to catch them with anything. Had offline friendlies too and it felt like 45:55. You like always have to chase him down while trying to avoid his annoying projectiles. And even if you don't trade with ****ing annoying bombs (which beat out fireballs) he then throws out an aerial which kinda outranges / -prioritizes (=is more disjointed) Luigis moves... Yesterday I've noticed that it works really well to predict his jumps away. Doesn't feel worse than 45:55 to me, but it's annoying for sure.

~50:50
Have experience in the MU both ways (playing as and vs Sonic). Boss and Seagull also go back and forth it seems. Annoying MU for both characters. It can be hard for Luigi to chase down Sonic, but Sonic doesn't have a too easy time approaching (fireballs also force Sonic do something if he's trying to charge a spindash). Sonics bair can be really good for edgeguarding Luigi, but he really has to watch out to not trade too much and to not get grabbed. If he's in the air after spindash and he doesn't manage to hit Luigi he must be careful on how to land, because Luigi can catch him if he guesses correctly. Overall KOing seems to be much easier for Luigi.

~50:50 or 55:45
From the matches that I saw for this MU (Larry vs ESAM, Concon vs JWEST), I've never thought of the MU being too difficult. It kinda felt that way in Larry vs ESAM, but Larry super likely didn't know the MU at all, and his Luigi was more like intuitive and abusing his streanghts, not knowing too much how to deal with some weird MUs... iirc he fell pray to Samus' Zair, getting hit soo often from it, while never trying to duck or expecting the move. After watching Concon vs JWEST it actually made me think of the MU even better for Luigi. He got away with gimmicks that Concon likely didn't know about and if you watch them and understand what's happening you clearly see that Concon was always in control, then got gimmick'd and got KO'd first, then JWEST managed to rack up % well, but when CC finally KO'd him back he managed to even get the lead back super fast. What Luigi fears and definitely doesn't like in this MU is the Charge Shot. On Smashville Samus could even go on the platform to charge it kinda safely because Luigi is so slow to follow. And while the Charge Shot is scary, it feels like it's the only thing that could make you think the MU would not be in his favor, but it's not enough, imo.

~50:50
I don't know why people think this MU is still really good or free for Luigi. It's one of the MU I hate the most. Luigis loses the jab boxing game, because Falcon outranges. That's like the only MU besides ZSS where this happens, and it's terrible for him. His jabs easily catch rolls or attempted grabs or any approach that isn't like fair / bair / (downB?). You can pressure with fireballs but eh.. it doesn't help that much. Falcon completely overwhelms Luigi when he finds an opening where Luigi isn't protected by a fireball with his stupidly good runspeed & dashgrab, where he gets some free uair juggles. The fireball guessing game where you hope Falcon dashes into them is kinda the neutral. Luigi can attempt to jab / jump against a dashgrab attempt, but both can be beaten out because it's just way too fast. Jump is always risky if he manages to hit you because of his great uair and even bair. Being offstage can be scary for Luigi too. Luigi really struggles to get close to this character and if CF gets in he can rack up good %s and gets a free juggle situation off it. If Luigi manages to get in he will get some nice % as well, and if you guess right when having Falcon offstage it's a gimp. Juggle-landing reads or even boxing "reads" from CF can also get him some early fsmash KOs, since he leans so much back before executing it.

~55:45, maybe 60:40?
Luigi likely has the advantage here, not sure by how much though. It's definitely not a free MU though, and you have to play really cautiously as both characters. When any of them have momentum they'll likely rack up a nice junk of %. Though for Luigi it's more guaranteed. Fireballs catch sideB grab attempts nicely, which is really nice. It'll also slow down the kick so you'll be safe to shield in time. DownB gimps on Diddys upB can work really well, but Diddy can maneuver around Luigis hits kinda consistently if Luigi tries to go for them too early. And since Diddys upB is so fast and can be charged for a while it can be difficult to catch him. Maybe if you do it close to the ledge it works better, but eh not sure. Diddys fair can be annoying, but Luigi can duck under it or just shield (-grab) it if he gets close enough.

45:55?
I've played the MU a little bit, and it's annoying, because you have to get near Megaman through his lemons SOMEHOW. Megaman is easy combofood if you manage to do so, though. Doesn't feel like a terrible MU to me, to be honest. A tiny bit uphill until you get in, something like that.

I also think cloud be even, him camping Luigi out is annoying. Boxing game also isn't free against Pika because of his surprising super safe grabs and... dtilt!? ESAM also doesn't think of Luigi as a bad MU anymore.
could also be as close as 55:45. Luigi definitely gimps him super easily once he's offstage, but onstage and with all the juggles / combo- and fast moves it can be a bit struggling against him.
The jab "fix" for Fox definitely helped him a lot against characters that could've gotten out of his jab-"infinite" with frame 3 moves and stuff, because now it links super realiable into the finisher (it's too fast to get out of).
is also not in Luigis advantage, imo. It could even be Yoshis advantage. Nothing more than 55:45 for Yoshi. It could also very well be even, though (you defnitely need to know how to SDI his dair for that...). It's so hard to catch Yoshi in the air because of eggs protecting him and him having a much faster airspeed than Luigi.
As for , who was also mentioned as a bad MU... I can't see it. Pacman is annoying to catch for sure, but I can't imagine it being bad.


As you can see, I'm not dishing out bad ratios easily and see MUs as close to even a lot.

Luigi, imo, has many even / close to even MUs. Some are really annoying, some are more easy to deal with, but both of these scenarious don't have to mean the MU is less even.
Luigi can do really well, but he can also lose.

 

[thehard]

Rosa is likely Luigi's worst MU over Sheik, yeah. (I agree with ZSS as 2nd too)

Adding on, her floatiness and built-in combo breaker makes it hard to do the damage racking Luigi is normally good at/makes him hesitate more so you can regain stage control. She doesn't have reason to fear fireballs either, Luma eats those.

Sheik's falling speed is what hurts her most in the matchup. And honestly I do think her own poor damage output is part of what gives the other girls the edge, rage Luigi smashes/bthrow are scary, whereas the others find it easier to kill him quick. Also Cyclones to catch the Vanish 2-frame are real

ConCon beat Vinnie at G3. It's just not the hopeless matchup it's made out to be.

 

[bc1910]

Pretty sure Luigi's Sheik MU is worse than 45:55. This is from viewing high level play and not from my own experience (which would indeed suggest it's around 45:55 or even). It's nowhere near hopeless but I think there's more evidence for it to be 40:60.

Mega Man seems worse than 45:55 as well. I agree he doesn't actually lose to the low tiers like Samus and Link though. They're more "annoying" than bad, a bit like most characters' MUs with Pac-Man until you learn to play around his gimmicks.

Luigi's MUs with the higher tiers just seem like a bit of an uphill struggle for the most part since his grab nerf.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Matchup analysis time #1: Sheik

Spoiler: Part 1

]A lot of Sheik's matchup outcomes are fairly well established due to the high amount of tournament results she has against huge part of the cast. I'm only looking into the matchups that I subjectively deem 'relevant' for the metagame because that's how I roll. Sheik is the best character in the game and the character currently considered #2 by most is ZSS so that's the matchup we should look into first. ZSS is often mentioned among the characters that have a good shot at going even or close to it with Sheik but if you take a careful look at tournament results you'll find that there's no empirical basis for such a claim. In fact, over the course of the last year ZSS has performed poorly against Sheik quite consistently. Nairo may have gotten close a couple of times but in the end he "only" managed to beat Zero once. He also has losses against Mr r who is agreed to be not quite on Nairo's level and these are the results of the best ZSS player. Once you start to add in Choco's results things start to look quite obviously in Sheik's favor: Choco has next to no relevant wins against Sheik except Vinnie but a ton of losses to Rain and Shu. So what people think might be a close matchup is actually a solid +1 for Sheik with potential to even become +2 in the future. This actually matches theorycraft by which ZSS gets outneutraled to the point where Sheik has a considerably easier time to make use of her strong advantaged position. ZSS needs to be able to keep up in neutral in order to make use of her murderous advantaged state [this part is amplified by the fact that ZSS historically struggles against Diddy who has a similarly powerful neutral game as Sheik] and Sheik just won't allow that. I think the main reason people aren't aware of how solidly Sheik wins this matchup is the lack of mid-level ZSS play. If we had more of that we'd likely see ZSS get exposed a ton more. The other character who has totally wrongfully been labaled as potentially even with Sheik is, of course, Pikachu. I won't even go too much into detail on that one, the fact that no Pikachu -including ESAM- has a single relevant win against Sheik should speak for itself. Pikachu may have a good neutral game and a very good disadvantaged state but he doesn't have the tools to get the reward he needs to keep up in the advantaged position.

Rosalina and Fox are well established +1 advantages for Sheik. There are millions of results to back it up. In both characters cases it's pretty much the same thing too: a numbee top level wins against each other with Sheik edging out through the sheer quantity of wins she has over both characters. There's not a whole lot to discuss here.
Sonic is the character that has proven his ability to beat Sheik time and time again. Seagull beating the drastically more skilled Zero is the most notable example but there's also stuff like 6wx and KEN beating Rain. The main reason why results aren't totally in Sonic's favor are Komorikiri's losses againt Edge but the results are strong and consistent enough to back up the claim that Sonic vs Sheik is likely even.

Spoiler: Part 2

Other matchups don't have that much backing up via tournament results so I'd label them as "not well-established" as opposed to the matchup analyzed in part 1. The strongest character we haven't looked into yet is Diddy Kong. Mostly due to Zero opting to use Diddy against Sheik over the dittos the results in this matchup are relatively even. Outside of that MVD's win against Mr r is the only notable win Diddy has. Sheik players reliably win this matchup in Japan and mid-level play sort of shows that the match is rather in Sheik's favor, slightly so.
Time has proven that MK isn't quite able to keep up here, Abadango's loss against Nietono this week being the most recent example. Whether it gets better or worse remains to be seen, a +1 is probably what we're looking at now but a +2 for Sheik is not out of the question I guess.
Mario and Villager both have very solid results against Sheik, almost even ones in fact, but of course they're carried almost exclusively by one player. Both of them do very well against Zero however and they have great results against other Sheik players. It's particularly remarkable in Mario's case who on paper loses to Sheik in all three states. At least Villager has an amazing disadvantaged state and his neutral is very unorthodox and hard to grasp so it's kind of understandable how he'd do well against Sheik. Mario though does better against Sheik than theory would imply.
Cloud and Ness have no wins against Sheik that I know of recently but quite a few losses. Between +1 and +2 Sheik favor seems plausibel. Ryu has no relevant results against Sheik. I'm including Luario because of recent hype and because his results against Sheik are pretty even [but also very few]

Conclusions:


* Matchup numbers thoroughly backed up by results:

+1, potentially +2:
solidly +1:
evenish:


* Matchup numbers that are kind of up in the air to various degrees:

+1, potentially +2:
Floating between 0 and +1:
evenish:
???:


Looking at what we have so far it surprises me to see how reluctant people are to draw the obvious comparison between S4!Sheik and Brawl!MK. A lot of it probably has to do with people being ignorant about Brawl in general but at the end of Brawl's lifespan MK had about 3 characters that he had even results with [ICs, Fox and Falco] which is a similar number that we're looking at now regarding Sheik. Their strenghts are also similar if you compare their neutral, advantaged and disadvantaged states so they're a lot closer than people are willing to admit right now [then again, MK was never as broken as some people made it seem so I'm not worried about smash 4 at all]. The main difference is that Brawl had a #2 character that was almost equally broken as MK whereas ZSS seems to be largely #2 due to process of elimination. That is something I may go into detail on at a later point but ZSS' matchups aren't even close to comparable to Sheik's. They probably shouldn't be in the same tier either, at least if we go mostly by results.

 

[san.]

Robin confirmed best FE character.
But seriously, I think Japan trying to make Ike a monster.
My main concern, though, is what's with the two B tiers and if one of them's supposed to be A- or something.

Edit: His reasoning for putting Robin so high is apparently Checkmate (Dthrow --> Uair)...

Ike still has these problems:

• Fair overloading his kit
• Utilt having worse frame data than some up smashes
• Nair and uair having unnecessarily poor startup, especially nair
  
• Bair having unnecessarily poor FAF
• Terrible smash attacks
• Specials are serviceable, but aren't anywhere near top tier except for maybe eruption.

These are just the basic properties of his moves, not going into any more details. His gameplan is still solid, trying to hit with a bunch of possible combo starters and kill moves while occasionally spacing with aerials, jabs, and tilts. Only the fair buffed helped the neutral game noticeably well. It's enough to be quite good in my opinion since he still has quite a few top 5-10 moves individually, but a different perspective could paint a more negative view depending on where you're looking.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

Ike still has these problems:

• Fair overloading his kit
• Utilt having worse frame data than some up smashes
• Nair and uair having unnecessarily poor startup, especially nair
  
• Bair having unnecessarily poor FAF
• Terrible smash attacks
• Specials are serviceable, but aren't anywhere near top tier except for maybe eruption.

These are just the basic properties of his moves, not going into any more details. His gameplan is still solid, trying to hit with a bunch of possible combo starters and kill moves while occasionally spacing with aerials, jabs, and tilts. Only the fair buffed helped the neutral game noticeably well. It's enough to be quite good in my opinion since he still has quite a few top 5-10 moves individually, but a different perspective could paint a more negative light depending on where you're looking.

Please elaborate on fAir, what do you mean by overloading?
Also don't you think that the uAir startup is justified in regards to both power and duration?

 

[san.]

Please elaborate on fAir, what do you mean by overloading?
Also don't you think that the uAir startup is justified in regards to both power and duration?

Everything combos into fair, but it also acts as a move for spacing and a kill move. Fair acts as an uair, fair, and even dair at times. Ike combos so well mostly because fair exists.

Uair is 13 frames, but it only deals 11 damage and the range is only mediocre to decent since it shifts from back->front->back. It's just a bit awkward to use. It's like a uair version of Cloud's fair.

My list was actually shorter than I thought it would be. It's not like I think Ike is all that bad even though I'm familiar with most of his weaknesses. Looking at only parts of something could lead to disastrous results/understanding.

 

[HoSmash4]

Lucario will always be a threat to Sheik for a few reasons. This is one of the reasons.

Sheik has missed all her 50/50s on lucario and not they dont work and lucario has max rage and sheik is at 50%.
They're both at kill %.
150% vs 50%.

Lets list the kill options of each character:

Lucario:
Aura sphere
Force palm
Fsmash
Uthrow to uair (works at certain %)
Bair
ASC into upsmash/bair
All except fsmash are really safe in neutral
Sheik
Bouncing Fish
Vanish
Sweet spot fair at the ledge
Bair (offstage)
Fresh strong nair
Fsmash (if they dont fall out)
Up smash
Raw vanish and BF are both unsafe, fair only kills if you force the ledge/ situation on lucario.
Fresh strong nair, off a offstage airdodge read
Upsmash and fsmash are very unsafe.
Edgeguarding lucario is very hard. So offstage bair wont be that efective.

Damn this situation sucks for sheik.

 

[Nobie]

Looking at what we have so far it surprises me to see how reluctant people are to draw the obvious comparison between S4!Sheik and Brawl!MK. A lot of it probably has to do with people being ignorant about Brawl in general but at the end of Brawl's lifespan MK had about 3 characters that he had even results with [ICs, Fox and Falco] which is a similar number that we're looking at now regarding Sheik. Their strenghts are also similar if you compare their neutral, advantaged and disadvantaged states so they're a lot closer than people are willing to admit right now [then again, MK was never as broken as some people made it seem so I'm not worried about smash 4 at all]. The main difference is that Brawl had a #2 character that was almost equally broken as MK whereas ZSS seems to be largely #2 due to process of elimination. That is something I may go into detail on at a later point but ZSS' matchups aren't even close to comparable to Sheik's. They probably shouldn't be in the same tier either, at least if we go mostly by results.

I think the only real way they're comparable is that they're the best, and that they're good at everything more or less. However, where the comparison falls apart is HOW good they are at everything.

I'm not a super Brawl expert but:

-Sheik does not have any exterior rules put into place because of some ridiculous tactics (ledge grab limit). Part of this is because of the new mechanics of the game itself, but still.
-Though this might change, Sheik has not been the impetus for removing any stages, not even Sheikville. In fact, some people still like to take her there. If any characters have been cause for the removal of once-legal stages, it's Rosalina, Meta Knight, ZSS, even to some extent DK due to low ceilings.
-Sheik can run away and camp with needles, but she can't glide through the air almost indefinitely OUT OF A KILL MOVE, switch sides, etc. etc. She's good at running away, but 1) there are characters better at it 2) the mechanics of the game limit how effective that really is
-I know all you care about is the upper portions of the tier list, but I think that's a mistake when trying to rate a top character's dominance. Compare Brawl MK vs. Brawl Ganondorf to Smash 4 Sheik vs. Smash 4 Ganondorf. Both are rough matchups but one is considered virtually unwinnable and the other is just quite bad.

 

[Mario766]

I've always thought that Ike was weird at times. His attacks honestly do lower damage than they would seem for their speed. Jab got neutered hard, down from doing 16 to 11, slower and has worse FAF. Most of his moves lowered in damage to make them combo better *at least now that we're in this patch they do* so he still hits hard but not as hard as Brawl. N-Air is frame 12 and only does 10 damage, the move lingers but the hitboxes change position unlike a sex kick, though it'll do more damage if it does hit. F-Air is frame 12 and does 13 damage, that's good. It's a very big hitbox that makes people respect Ike's space more now that it hits for 13 and kills earlier. B-Air is fantastic, SH ACs, 14 damage, frame 7. The only problem with it is it likes to whiff on low opponents, but that's a small problem. Up-Air lasts forever, but only does 11 damage, making it really only there for an air dodge read, the BKB buff on it helped things but the reward on getting an up-air at low percents doesn't make it worth using, you may as well get a N-Air, 1 percent less damage but you get a better position for juggles. Staling N-Air also makes it better for doing N-Air F-Air/U-Air at kill percents.

The developers probably thought that Ragnell being such a long sword meant Ike shouldn't do the damage of a heavy, but he still has zero combo breakers and has to pretty much take damage when they get in, which is a big issue for the character and is limiting him against characters who have good zone breaking/strings.

 

[Y2Kay]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Greninja....in low tier?

I'm official done folks. I tried.

 

[Mario766]

Welcome to Japan being influenced by purely Japan.

Hence why Cloud is top tier, Lucario is in high tier due to his latest results, Dark Pit/Pit being in high tier due to Japan rep, Robin being B tier makes me laugh insanely loud, same with Mewtwo, Corrin is probably underrated, and Ike being C tier makes me wish we had more patches.


Top tier Ike would be a thing.

Oh

Duck Hunt lower-mid tier too.

Yup, Japan.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

ngtl: If that's close to Japans thinking in general, it does a looooooot to explain mid tier's weirdness. As several Japanese players had votes on our list.

 

[bc1910]

It would definitely explain why Ike and Greninja have been dragged down so far from their rightful positions, and why Olimar is too high.

 

[UberMadman]

What I'm curious about, though, is how close is Abadango's personal tier list to popular opinion? Every time he posts one we take a look at it and question the Japanese metagame, but it's not like ESAM's tier list is reflective of our metagame that well, as his opinion is quite different on a lot of characters than most people's. For all we know, a lot of top Japanese players may disagree very strongly with Abadango's placements of a lot of characters.

 

[Radical Larry]

Anyone want to give me the visual version of Abadango's list?
I can't get the link to work.