Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Mr. Johan]

When you fight a Mac that knows what he's doing, that's when it gets scary.

People don't "run into" his Smashes. They go in with an attack, and either eat an armored Smash or an unclankable Ftilt 1.

The biggest thing I took from this list is that despite all the hype Megaman got in recent weeks, he's still displaying ho-hum results. ffs, Robin's outranking him right now. What's up?

 

[meticulousboy]

The biggest thing that stands out to me, outside of being really low, on this one is . I've never found his theory that great (Having no air game and a problem getting around shields, for instance) and he seems really easy to gimp. Do people just keep running into smashes or something?

I am not so much the victim of running into his smash attacks anymore. Whenever I fight a Little Mac, I always switch to a Fire Emblem character that has Counter, usually Ike. That ought to teach Little Mac players to stop spamming smash attacks.

 

[ARGHETH]

The biggest thing I took from this list is that despite all the hype Megaman got in recent weeks, he's still displaying ho-hum results. ffs, Robin's outranking him right now. What's up?

To be fair, Robin's 26th. He's outranking a lot of characters.

 

[Nah]

On that note, unpopular opinion time. Sheik is underrated, and the data supports this.

Wait how is Sheik underrated? I thought basically everyone considered her a top 5 character?

 

[Appledees]

The biggest thing I took from this list is that despite all the hype Megaman got in recent weeks, he's still displaying ho-hum results. ffs, Robin's outranking him right now. What's up?

To be honest I think its cause Megaman has a really low player base at a high level compared to some of the characters around the high and even some mid tiers. Probably not a good excuse really but that's the only thing I can gather considering he only has two high level players that actually get far and even the its really infrequent.

Megaman's results always just came and went in the end but despite that he still does really well so I can see where he can seen as a high tier character but I can't see it just yet at the moment.

 

[TDK]

When you fight a Mac that knows what he's doing, that's when it gets scary.

People don't "run into" his Smashes. They go in with an attack, and either eat an armored Smash or an unclankable Ftilt 1.

The biggest thing I took from this list is that despite all the hype Megaman got in recent weeks, he's still displaying ho-hum results. ffs, Robin's outranking him right now. What's up?

it shouldn't be that difficult to outrange him, or run -> shield and punish, should it? I've had like no good mac experience.

 

[Mr. Johan]

If you want to attempt to outrange him close up, knowing full well he's got a Frame 1 Jab, a frame 4 Ftilt that can't be rebounded so he keeps going with the move after the attack, top tier rolls, pivot Utilts, and an intangible Side B that will blow through anything attack you do, be my guest.

 

[AxelVDP]

The biggest thing that stands out to me, outside of being really low, on this one is . I've never found his theory that great (Having no air game and a problem getting around shields, for instance) and he seems really easy to gimp. Do people just keep running into smashes or something?

the last sentence triggers me deeply

facts:
1) LittleMac has one of the best "defenses" in the game (NOT TO BE MISTAKEN as disadvantaged state, that one is pretty terrible), his awesome frame data is beefed up even more by the properties of most of his attacks
tilts (and jab) have the "trample property", meaning that they cannot clank with other hitboxes, so he won't suffer in extra lag when dealing with projectile clanking or when stuffing out other attacks
his uptilt is basically a big hitbox that doubles as a shield of sorts
his smashes have super armor (well this is pretty obvious but still-), meaning you can't be liberal in throwing attacks out
he also has a great traction so he won't be pushed away when you hit his shield, and his OOS option are pretty good:
f8 jab, f10dtilt, f11 ftilt and f4 upb (3+1 jumpsquat, also with invincibility on his startup) (his grab has pretty poor range and will probably miss even with his good traction)
having to approach a Mac with the lead is no easy task for a lot of the cast, actually
2) "he seems really easy to gimp", he is easier to gimp COMPARED to the rest of the cast, but this does NOT mean that everytime he goes offstage he will die, just go look at some good LittleMacs matches and notice just how many time they make it back onstage, the gimps are not that commonplace
It's true that the distance he can cover while recovering is abysmal, but he CAN mix up his recovery in lots of ways that most characters cannot cover with a single option (I already wrote a pretty detailed post in the past and tbh I can't be arsed to search for it, let alone rewrite it, sorry for that)
3) "problem getting around shields", this one is more matchup dependant
Mac has dtilt (-5 on shield drop) and down angled fsmash (-6 on shield drop and TONS of pushback)
characters with bad or short ranged oos options have a really hard time dealing with these moves
when Mac hits your shield you're put in a "frametrap" situation, if you drop your shield and throw out an attack (or jump) you will probably be hit by another downtilt/jab/something, if you roll away you lose your stage control (important against Mac) and can also be read and punished (spoiler: sideB is a great move for punishing stuff) and if you hold your shield you are putting yourself at risk of getting shield poked or worse (down angled fsmash destroys like over 60% of a shields health, add some previous dammage from dtilts and stuff and you are seriously at risk of a shield break)
also, making the opponent rely on his shield a lot opens mixup situations with his (usually bad) grab (and Mac's pummel + throws deal quite a bit of %)

LittleMac is a lot deeper as a character than most people think
(sorry but I'm kind of tired so I'll stop here)

 

[Kofu]

Mac hits rather hard and while his immediate combo potential is hindered by his poor aerials, his fast run speed allows him to keep up the pressure.

Good Macs are scary, even if he can be a volatile character.

Additionally, theory seems to indicate that he can. Be counterpicked by stages well. How much is this backed up by practice?

 

[Ninety]

To be fair, Robin's 26th. He's outranking a lot of characters.

Robin just can't escape being smack-dab middle, can he?

Anyway, his placing does bring some interesting insight. Namely, Megaman has some high peaks with Kamemushi and Scatt, but like it's been said, his general placings outside of those are near nonexistent, and so his ranking is middling. Nevertheless, he's been getting a lot of hype due to the aforementioned high level results and some are even ranking him as a top 10 character as a matter of course.

On the other side of the spectrum, Robin hasn't had any major highs, but he's gotten a lot of decent-to-good placings at Cat 1 and 2 tournaments by a myriad of players -- obligatory Raziek and Dath, but also Jerm, Johan, Skorpio and so on. And so, despite no eyebrow-raising rankings, he has consistently remained a noteworth threat at a regional level. Granted, the same could be said of many low and mid tiers, but the results don't lie, and they place Robin in the upper half of the cast, at least.

Am I going anywhere with this? Not really. I just thought it was neat how Robin's low simmer ended up outweighing Mega Man's sharp but isolated bursts.

(Also, before I get too far ahead of myself, these results are using Das Koopa's methodology, which is not necessarily an accurate representation of the current meta, no offense intended of course. Not even the most diehard Robin fan is likely to pretend he's better than, say, Mewtwo.)

 

[LancerStaff]

Wait how is Sheik underrated? I thought basically everyone considered her a top 5 character?

She should be undisputably number 1 still. Data suggests she's currently being underrated, as absurd as it sounds.

 

[Nobie]

This is going to sound kind of counter-intuitive, but perhaps the more bad players there are of a character, when combined with a character being severely punished for making the wrong decisions, the more they can drag a character's ranking down (though it can also have an overall positive result).

I call it the Reverse Ganondorf.

Hypothetical Example 1: Mewtwo is a character with a very good toolkit, but is designed to suffer when making the wrong decision. Perhaps a lot of players were inspired by Abadango to pick up Mewtwo, only for them to get dunked on hard.

Hypothetical Example 2: Because all of the Little Macs that used to run around who weren't that good/relied on the character's polarized strengths instead of learning to overcome his extreme weaknesses, they were easy to exploit. Call it "Lesser FG Mac Syndrome." However, with fewer Macs playing, only the dedicated few who really want to push the character are at the wheel, and as others have mentioned a good Little Mac is scary for a lot of players.

 

[Jimbo_G]

The biggest thing I took from this list is that despite all the hype Megaman got in recent weeks, he's still displaying ho-hum results. ffs, Robin's outranking him right now. What's up?

I honestly think that's just a result of him just being a "meh" character. I love him to death, but there's just so much working against him that most other characters don't even have to consider. I don't think he's ever going to break the Mid-Tier ceiling, as much as we all want him to.

 

[Ulevo]

Mewtwo is not overrated, it is just that by playing with him you are essentially gambling until you reach a certain level of proficiency. He is really large and extremely light, meaning that the likelihood you lose a set in pools or in lower ends in the bracket as you climb due to an unforeseen play or mistake is much higher. This volatility makes him inconsistent to use, sort of like a reverse Little Mac, despite how good he is.

 

[Nu~]

I honestly think that's just a result of him just being a "meh" character. I love him to death, but there's just so much working against him that most other characters don't even have to consider. I don't think he's ever going to break the Mid-Tier ceiling, as much as we all want him to.

Hm?
Explain. There are many mega men on this board that believe he is at least a surefire high mid tier (a tiny radical minority goes as far as to say top tier)

 

[Ghostbone]

is strange. When you look at his toolkit, he's a top 10 character, but he's not a popular pick at tournaments, so a results-based list makes him a mid tier. Strange.

Unless your previous main got nerfed really hard (Like with Abadango and MK lol), you're not really going to have an incentive to switch mains to a newly buffed character unless they're very obviously better than your current main.
And if you're already playing a top 10 character, learning a new character from scratch isn't worth your time compared to playing the same character you've been playing for a year.

If release Mewtwo was as good as current Mewtwo, his popularity would reflect the power level of a top 10 character.

Cloud is exempt from this rule because he's one of the easiest characters to learn in the game, was completely broken in doubles on release with gave players an incentive to pick him up, and is arguably the best character in the game currently whereas mewtwo sits in some sort of 7th-11th range.

 

[Quappo]

Not trying to derail the current discussion, but just addressing a point from earlier:

I totally agree with Thinkaman that the underlying data violates too many underlying assumptions of the fits that I use, so this is totally not statistically sound, and the confidence intervals should not be interpreted literally, but I do think that fitting basic models to the usage vs results data could still be cool to look at, even as just a really crappy heuristic.

For example, here is a LOESS fit to the data and some arbitrary window around it:

Again, the fit curve and confidence window are meaningless, and shouldn't be taken seriously. But just looking at this as an aid to your eyeball test for trends, it really pulls out how Duck Hunt and Meta Knight really outperform their usage, and how similarly Corrin and Link stand out as negative outliers, underperforming their popularity.

I won't go over everything I do here, but if you're interested you can check out the series of tweets I put out right after finishing the plots: https://twitter.com/Quappo_/status/740338985776615424

 

[juddy96]

Felt like I should share this. It might not seem relevant, but many players that are on this list or have been on this list before have done great at tournaments. Japan's great internet allows their online community to really flourish.

Sumamate (Japanese Anther's essentially) Top 10 atm with their most used character, records, and points this ranking season

1) // 184-21, 2042 points
2) Ron 108-15, 2035 points
3) FILIP 222-128, 2023 points
4) Shuton 56-15, 2018 points
5) kept 52-13, 2009 points
6) SH 88-27, 1968 points
7) Mangalica 57-16, 1946 points
8) Esu 165-91, 1945 points
9) Earth 51-14, 1944 points
10) Masashi 64-21, 1943 points

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

https://twitter.com/EvilMrWizard/status/740349056409468928
Poll for miis to be legalized with custom moves at EVO

The mii community is flipping out! Team Free MIIS is winning!

 

[Floppeh]

1) // 184-21, 2042 points

I've never heard of this Little Mac player before. Does he attend tournaments, and is there any footage of him playing? I'm curious.

 

[Amadeus9]

Not trying to derail the current discussion, but just addressing a point from earlier:

I totally agree with Thinkaman that the underlying data violates too many underlying assumptions of the fits that I use, so this is totally not statistically sound, and the confidence intervals should not be interpreted literally, but I do think that fitting basic models to the usage vs results data could still be cool to look at, even as just a really crappy heuristic.

For example, here is a LOESS fit to the data and some arbitrary window around it:

Again, the fit curve and confidence window are meaningless, and shouldn't be taken seriously. But just looking at this as an aid to your eyeball test for trends, it really pulls out how Duck Hunt and Meta Knight really outperform their usage, and how similarly Corrin and Link stand out as negative outliers, underperforming their popularity.

I won't go over everything I do here, but if you're interested you can check out the series of tweets I put out right after finishing the plots: https://twitter.com/Quappo_/status/740338985776615424

I LOVE this graph. Seriously. Data is beautiful. A LOT could be said about the game atm just from this. Kind of redundant for me to say this, but really. We need more data like this. I'm kind of rambling but I think it would be so amazing for an official statistics team to exist for this game and compile stuff meaningfully lol. So much stuff like that I'd like to contribute to, but am too lazy/busy for ugh.

 

[juddy96]

I've never heard of this Little Mac player before. Does he attend tournaments, and is there any footage of him playing? I'm curious.

Japan's smash scene is full of mysteries, but that guy is probably the biggest one of all. Nobody knows what region he's from, he's never shown up to a tournament, his tag is literally two slashes, and yet he's on a 16 game winning streak and ranked above all of Japan's best players.

 

[Floppeh]

Japan's smash scene is full of mysteries, but that guy is probably the biggest one of all. Nobody knows what region he's from, he's never shown up to a tournament, his tag is literally two slashes, and yet he's on a 16 game winning streak and ranked above all of Japan's best players.

Well, I did some quick research and found some footage of him. If anyone wants to check it out, here is a video. You can find plenty of other videos through one's related to that one. They are all from online tournaments or matches from the looks of it.

 

[juddy96]

Well, I did some quick research and found some footage of him. If anyone wants to check it out, here is a video. You can find plenty of other videos through one's related to that one. They are all from online tournaments or matches from the looks of it.

Yeah I know he has a few online tournament matches on youtube, but he is a total mystery to many people. I wonder if he's in one of the "dead" regions in Japan like Shikoku

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/4n2lxp/free_miis_vote_yes/
M2k supports miis, only top player I've seen who supports them

 

[Jimbo_G]

Hm?
Explain. There are many mega men on this board that believe he is at least a surefire high mid tier (a tiny radical minority goes as far as to say top tier)

I'm not going to make a laundry list of his issues, but MM consistently fails to make top ranks in events. I believe it's ultimately a result of him not having enough consistent DPS and KO set-ups, and is over-reliant on gimp tactics and Rush jank to succeed.

I don't think he's a bad character. There are just so many other characters that are simply better than him. That's why he sits squarely in the middle and is constantly on the C-List of every major ranking discussion.

 

[C0rvus]

Oh good, this again. I guess it's been a while since the Mii thing has gone around. Don't we have a thread for that debate? Please don't re-start it here. It's really repetitive and we've all heard both sides before ad nauseam.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/4n2lxp/free_miis_vote_yes/
M2k supports miis, only top player I've seen who supports them

He is also being a savage to other top players lol.

But Guest XXXX miis are not broken. They are, like M2K said, worse than Mario and the top tiers. There is no reason they should not be allowed IMO.

 

[C0rvus]

Their viability has no bearing on their legality. Just want to make that clear.

 

[ARISTOS]

I LOVE this graph. Seriously. Data is beautiful. A LOT could be said about the game atm just from this. Kind of redundant for me to say this, but really. We need more data like this. I'm kind of rambling but I think it would be so amazing for an official statistics team to exist for this game and compile stuff meaningfully lol. So much stuff like that I'd like to contribute to, but am too lazy/busy for ugh.

I'd really like to get a sense of how characters rank throughout the tournament, instead of just final rankings of top 8/16/32.

Like character selection overall, who lost to who, and when certain characters lost. It could tell us a lot about popularity, MUs, whether certain characters are more taxing than others, etc. Maybe something I'll suggest to my local TO.

 

[Thinkaman]

Their viability has no bearing on their legality. Just want to make that clear.

I mean, if the Miis had any options that were broken or made them highly viable top tiers, this would undoubtedly be a different conversation.

That reality is so far removed from that possibility is not unfair to point out, even if it's not the be-all-end-all of the topic.

It also supplies the meager but non-zero relevance to Mii legality rules to this topic. The competitive viability of Miis is extremely based on whether or not they are legal to play. That said, anyone interested in discussing details of the rules or policy beyond that should do so in the appropriate threads.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Didn't mean to start a debate, just informing everyone of the possible mii legality at evo

 

[Jehtt]

I'm not going to make a laundry list of his issues, but MM consistently fails to make top ranks in events. I believe it's ultimately a result of him not having enough consistent DPS and KO set-ups, and is over-reliant on gimp tactics and Rush jank to succeed..

I always like to hear opinions that go against the norm, but this statement makes me think that perhaps you don't watch top Mega Mans play. I can't recall ever seeing someone like Kamemushi or Scatt win an important set with up b shenanigans, of all things. There's certainly an argument to be made for lacking consistent KO setups, but saying he's reliant on rush jank is just wrong.

Spoiler: On 'lack of kill setups'

I don't really think Mega Man lacks KO setups. He has a lot of kill confirms from throwing/z-dropping the Metal Blade which is a very safe action to take (z-drop is 1 frame with no lag). Kameme has demonstrated that the footstool death confirm has use in tournament, landing it multiple times per set on several occasions. Having a frame 4 bair that kills is immensely helpful too, since it can be used for very effective edge guarding and catching jumps. Plus, spot dodge up tilt is really good.
I suppose his "raw" kill options aren't great, with his smashes having a lot of lag and not killing as early as you'd want, but he's got a number of safe ways to potentially convert into a kill.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Additionally, theory seems to indicate that he can. Be counterpicked by stages well. How much is this backed up by practice?

Thinkaman said ages ago that he readily enjoys going to Battlefield with Mac since it gives him more opportunities to land. I have to agree with him.

Being able to platform camp a Mac can only take you so far, especially if the lead is not particularly wide, and even moreso if Mac's got the lead. Mac's got an immediate UpB that covers vertical distance from the ground very quickly, so you're not reacting to that; are you prepared to be holding the shield or spamming spotdodge while he sharks underneath you? That's a dwindling shield or vulnerable frames Mac can catch you with.

Plus I think rising Nair to landing KO punch on platforms is a frame trap due to the shield drop you must do to avoid the punch, because the platform is small enough for the punch to catch anyway. So not even defensive options other than other invincible UpBs are safe when he's got KO punch on standby.

Duck Hunt is an unfortunate stage for Mac, but that's getting banned anyway. Smashville can give some players a bit of relief when near the edges, but that platform's coming back. T&C turns into FD part of the time. Lylat gimps Mac as well as any other character with precise angle recoveries. Dreamland is Battlefield again. I think Mac's good on the stage front.

 

[Y2Kay]

Venia beat Mr. E 2-1 at Xanadu.

He's currently in winners finals now

 

[Dre89]

Can someone explain to me how Bayonetta has a bad neutral? Her neutral is better than like 2/3rds of the cast lmao

Her shorthop game/Bullet Climax/Twist/Dtilt are things quite a few characters would die for

It's not bad at all, some Bayos are just entitled AF. Her disadvantage is also so good that it's basically just an extension of her neutral.

It's like how some of them complain that dABK is 'useless' now just because it doesn't combo into anything. That's the entitlement now, saying that a safe burst tool is useless if it doesn't yield massive reward.

Most characters would kill for a second aerial sideb that is completely free. She effectively has 4 different sidebs and people complain that one of them doesn't combo like the other three sidebs do. DABK still has lots of mobility utility and threatens at an angle most characters can't.

 

[FullMoon]

And Venia beats Mr. E 2-1 again.

Marth vs Greninja looking pretty even, frog's damage racking is really good, Venia had the lead most of the time.

 

[Y2Kay]

Venia double eliminates Mr. E and gets the bracket reset on Pink Fresh at Xanadu.

If you want to see a good greninja not named iStudying . . . now's the time.

Venia 4-0's Pink Fresh and win the damn tourney! That's my boy!

 

[Jams.]

Thinkaman said ages ago that he readily enjoys going to Battlefield with Mac since it gives him more opportunities to land. I have to agree with him.

Being able to platform camp a Mac can only take you so far, especially if the lead is not particularly wide, and even moreso if Mac's got the lead. Mac's got an immediate UpB that covers vertical distance from the ground very quickly, so you're not reacting to that; are you prepared to be holding the shield or spamming spotdodge while he sharks underneath you? That's a dwindling shield or vulnerable frames Mac can catch you with.

Plus I think rising Nair to landing KO punch on platforms is a frame trap due to the shield drop you must do to avoid the punch, because the platform is small enough for the punch to catch anyway. So not even defensive options other than other invincible UpBs are safe when he's got KO punch on standby.

Duck Hunt is an unfortunate stage for Mac, but that's getting banned anyway. Smashville can give some players a bit of relief when near the edges, but that platform's coming back. T&C turns into FD part of the time. Lylat gimps Mac as well as any other character with precise angle recoveries. Dreamland is Battlefield again. I think Mac's good on the stage front.

Personally, I think Smashville is his worst stage. There's almost no situation where Mac has good risk/reward for approaching someone standing on the platform, and he can't shark it with usmash without perfect spacing. Once the platform is offstage, Mac can't pressure it at all. The platform offers free resets for the opponent and lets them engage Mac on their terms. Alphicans will always ban this stage and for good reason (don't watch the whole game if you want to retain your sanity).

Dreamland is also non-negligibly worse for Mac than Battlefield, because the platforms are higher. Usmashing through the platforms is much more difficult, which makes the lower platforms more useful as a reset tool.

Personally, I'd say Mac's stages go something like:
Really bad
Smashville, Duck Hunt

Bad
Dreamland

OK
Battlefield, Lylat

Good
FD, T&C

Only the really bad stages present problems for him IMO.

 

[FullMoon]

And he did the bracket reset and didn't drop a single game against Pink Fresh in GFs

You go, Venia.