Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Strong-Arm]

I left for 2 days and all hell has broken lose in this thread. What happened? lol

 

[Shaya]

Man, I hate to disagree with Shaya on anything Brawl-related, but
the bolded bit is dubious. In his first year of playing , M2K didn't just lose to other top-of-the-top players like Ally and ADHD. He also lost to Ninjalink, Fiction, and Lain, plus Dojo and Tyrant beat him in the ditto. He was less consistent than ZeRo even when you consider that there were less tournaments at which he could screw up and no patches to curtail his character's strengths. And from 2010 onward not much changed in that regard. For instance, Apex 2013 wasn't just an upset because Salem won, other perennial killers like ESAM, ADHD, and DEHF went out before top 8 as well. I don't think Brawl really was all that consistent all things considered.

You're right, but every player you just listed to the exception of NinjaLink (maybe, he started the whole diddy is top tier craze) and Lain (again maybe, he pioneered ICs and was considered best in the world for years) were highly successful strong players in their regions and at a national level.
And I suppose entire history is a stretch, when the context I refer to is better applied to the established game.

And apex 2013 was full of lovely top level japanese players. The Apex the prior year which Larry won and most top Americans bustered out to buffering Olimar would've been a much better example (as he didn't replicate those results at home or again on the international stage).

I believe my point still stands.

 

[Mecakoto]

There are similarities in the aerial department specifically. As far as top tier charactesr go they tend to have aerials that:

1. Auto cancel
2. Have good hitboxes that can be used to approach or wall out opponents.
3. Are great for juggling/followups.

And if that's true then one can't argue Brawl's neutral is simple or autopilot because of great aerials while Smash 4's is not. That's my point. If you're going to call Brawl's neutral braindead due to aerials being too good, then Cloud alone puts Smash 4 in the same department.

Those are things that hold true for every game. Here's where you're wrong, since you were kind enough to make an attempt to explain yourself, even if you didn't actually give any examples:

Neutral focus among each of the 4 games is different. I didn't play 64 much, so I won't speak of it, but Melee is much more bait/punish > reward then Brawl or 4. Movement options, crouch cancel, very low landing lag across the board (due to L-Cancel), and generally strong reward enables it.

Brawl was option coverage in neutral/advantage for the most part. I mean, look at all the top tiers in this game. They cover a massive amount of things with 1-2 buttons. (Hello, Brawl Marth Nair) Because of the extremely high reward you get out of covering everything, the general safety of everything, the power of defensive options (especially spot dodge), and the general movement options, it becomes better to cover everything with safety/large hitboxes/etc then to bait/punish.

Smash 4 is focused on neutral in it's purest form. 4 has some good movement options, general safety among the top tiers, overall good speed (walk/run/fall/FF) data, but kinda meh hitboxes, oos options, landing options for most the cast, disadvantage options for most, and limited advantage once obtained for a chunk of the cast. It focuses on actually winning neutral, then resetting to semi-neutral and continuing. Smash 4 has a lot more interaction points, but less overall reward for winning AND for losing. While it's possible to have massive death strings in this game as well, it's few and far between.

I think that's why people are taking issue with you. They are all different in their own way. None are simple and all are deep. They are similar in that the neutral game in all games are similar. The focus in each neutral game between the 3 are different, and that's where the distinctions are. It's more nuanced then it's being made out to be.


Also, remember, that this is just my overall interpretation of the neutral games between the 3. I'm not very experienced in Brawl or 4. If there are errors or someone disagrees, so be it. The main point should be the same.

 

[L9999]

how the hell do you call a character like Cloud mid tier?

Fast safe aerials with low landing lag, limit charge, amazing mobility, great edgeguarding, great kill power, limit charge, good combo game, massive disjoint, limit charge, destroys most of the cast, limit charge, autocancel dair, everything about him just screams "broken" except for his recovery

I think he means that Cloud is the perfect pocket character for mid tier character players, not that Cloud is mid tier.

And from where did all this Brawl talk came from?

 

[Illuminose]

I think ZeRo's best character against Mario is still Sheik and that he just needs to tough that matchup out. ZeRo is very good at Sheik vs Mario, but it seems like he'll do well and then at some point he's behind, gets unconfident, loses his stock and then he's in a bad situation. Sheik Mario is definitely a better matchup than Diddy Mario on paper too.

 

[Shaya]

For ZeRo, his Sheik had issues killing and that needs to be worked on.
For his Diddy there were less safe choices taken, like forward air; and he didn't outgrab Ally with Diddy like he was doing consistently with Sheik. And dtilted getting dash in shielded occasionally too.

But I feel ZeRo played vastly better than in his recent tournaments otherwise. He's regaining confidence with competing at top level. Mario, Fox, Cloud (incidentally perhaps sleeper top 3 in some order; at least in terms of how strongly [over]tuned they are, only Ryu/Rosa have arguable alternative claims) are difficult for his main picks at the moment.
Mario just doesn't seem to die either.

 

[FeelMeUp]

They nerfed literally every single move ZeRo abused with Sheik to make her look busted.
The EXACT qualities of them, too.
He never really killed with anything aside from edgeguards(like 20%) and dthrow uair(80%) which is why he can't really kill anymore.
His combos weren't creative or optimized.
He wanted to camp and dominate people in neutral to constantly extend leads.
Now he can't do any of that anymore. He has to go for the 50% Sheik combos instead of the safe fthrow fair 24%/fthrow fish 19% ones.
He has to learn her intricate guaranteed and 50/50 kill setups instead of relying on grab2win.
He has to learn to play neutral using her tricky movement and fakeouts instead of making the game a big 50/50 in needles vs fair.
I don't think he should touch Sheik at all until all of the negative qualities are fixed.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Those are things that hold true for every game. Here's where you're wrong, since you were kind enough to make an attempt to explain yourself, even if you didn't actually give any examples:

Neutral focus among each of the 4 games is different. I didn't play 64 much, so I won't speak of it, but Melee is much more bait/punish > reward then Brawl or 4. Movement options, crouch cancel, very low landing lag across the board (due to L-Cancel), and generally strong reward enables it.

Brawl was option coverage in neutral/advantage for the most part. I mean, look at all the top tiers in this game. They cover a massive amount of things with 1-2 buttons. (Hello, Brawl Marth Nair) Because of the extremely high reward you get out of covering everything, the general safety of everything, the power of defensive options (especially spot dodge), and the general movement options, it becomes better to cover everything with safety/large hitboxes/etc then to bait/punish.

Smash 4 is focused on neutral in it's purest form. 4 has some good movement options, general safety among the top tiers, overall good speed (walk/run/fall/FF) data, but kinda meh hitboxes, oos options, landing options for most the cast, disadvantage options for most, and limited advantage once obtained for a chunk of the cast. It focuses on actually winning neutral, then resetting to semi-neutral and continuing. Smash 4 has a lot more interaction points, but less overall reward for winning AND for losing. While it's possible to have massive death strings in this game as well, it's few and far between.

I think that's why people are taking issue with you. They are all different in their own way. None are simple and all are deep. They are similar in that the neutral game in all games are similar. The focus in each neutral game between the 3 are different, and that's where the distinctions are. It's more nuanced then it's being made out to be.


Also, remember, that this is just my overall interpretation of the neutral games between the 3. I'm not very experienced in Brawl or 4. If there are errors or someone disagrees, so be it. The main point should be the same.

I agree that all the games have deep neutrals in their own way.

However, just because you like Smash 4 more does not mean it's neutral game is more "pure". That is absurd. I thought you were being objective until you said this and then went on to claim Smash 4 is about winning neutral as if the other games are not.

Also I maintain that Smash 4's neutral is very similar to Brawl. You talk about covering tons of options with a few moves. But Smash 4 definitely has it's fair share of characters that can bully and wall out most of the cast with great frame data and hitboxes as well. Look at Rosalina or Cloud. Or Sheik and Mario to a lesser extent.

 

[Minordeth]

If neutral was really the defining element of Smash 4, Dabuz would have taken a national a while back.

 

[FeelMeUp]

If neutral was really the defining element of Smash 4, Dabuz would have taken a national a while back.

if he didn't choose the character that makes his neutral garbage if his little helper dies, sure.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Nah. Dabuz just bet on the wrong pony. Or cosmic goddess in this case.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

For ZeRo, his Sheik had issues killing and that needs to be worked on.

To be fair doesn't EVERY Sheik, top player or otherwise struggle at killing now? Yesterday Void also lost to Nairo because he couldn't close out a stock. He lost game 5 which he was winning dominantly the whole time thanks to getting grabbed at 30 and rage.

I feel Sheik's lack of good kill options at decent percents means she can't be even top 3 in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if later on she's not even considered top 5 material.

Sure she arguably has the best neutral but the results show that doesn't matter if you can't close out stocks. Especially in a game with rage.

 

[Nu~]

They nerfed literally every single move ZeRo abused with Sheik to make her look busted.
The EXACT qualities of them, too.
He never really killed with anything aside from edgeguards(like 20%) and dthrow uair(80%) which is why he can't really kill anymore.
His combos weren't creative or optimized.
He wanted to camp and dominate people in neutral to constantly extend leads.
Now he can't do any of that anymore. He has to go for the 50% Sheik combos instead of the safe fthrow fair 24%/fthrow fish 19% ones.
He has to learn her intricate guaranteed and 50/50 kill setups instead of relying on grab2win.
He has to learn to play neutral using her tricky movement and fakeouts instead of making the game a big 50/50 in needles vs fair.
I don't think he should touch Sheik at all until all of the negative qualities are fixed.

^^^
THIIIIISSSSS

ZeRo is a phenomenal player, but his strengths didn't really lie in the realms of creativity (this is why I could never find his gameplay interesting) nor optimization.
He kinda just dominated you in nuetral with the most consistent, clear cut options and adapted to your habits.

 

[Mecakoto]

I agree that all the games have deep neutrals in their own way.

However, just because you like Smash 4 more does not mean it's neutral game is more "pure". That is absurd. I thought you were being objective until you said this and then went on to claim Smash 4 is about winning neutral as if the other games are not.

Also I maintain that Smash 4's neutral is very similar to Brawl. You talk about covering tons of options with a few moves. But Smash 4 definitely has it's fair share of characters that can bully and wall out most of the cast with great frame data and hitboxes as well. Look at Rosalina or Cloud. Or Sheik and Mario to a lesser extent.

I try to actually have a discussion with you, but you overlooked things, didn't actually respond to any points beyond "Nope, wrong," didn't explain why you disagreed, focused on specific points and disregarded the rest, and tried to back up your main point with the same sentence or 2 you've been saying for a few pages.

At least I tried. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, and walling out characters isn't the same as option converge. It's just walling out characters.

 

[paperchao]

how the hell do you call a character like Cloud mid tier?

Fast safe aerials with low landing lag, limit charge, amazing mobility, great edgeguarding, great kill power, limit charge, good combo game, massive disjoint, limit charge, destroys most of the cast, limit charge, autocancel dair, everything about him just screams "broken" except for his recovery

Oops, my wording is off, meant to say he's the best counterpick character for mid tiers. Nothing gets by this thread does it, lol

 

[Minordeth]

if he didn't choose the character that makes his neutral garbage if his little helper dies, sure.

Nah. Dabuz just bet on the wrong pony. Or cosmic goddess in this case.

Probably, smh. Pretty much wanted to point out his neutral is dope.

Also has somewhat to do with Smash 4 turning into Nintendo's version of King of Fighters. Get that stable of counter picks going, I guess.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

I try to actually have a discussion with you, but you overlooked things, didn't actually respond to any points beyond "Nope, wrong," didn't explain why you disagreed, focused on specific points and disregarded the rest, and tried to back up your main point with the same sentence or 2 you've been saying for a few pages.

At least I tried. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, and walling out characters isn't the same as option converge. It's just walling out characters.

You used Marth's nair as an example. In Brawl that's either used to keep characters out (stuff approaches basically) or as a decent kill option at higher percents (tippered). Be more specific about what you mean by option coverage then.

If you're referring to frame traps/psuedo frame traps for juggling/catching air dodges, then that definitely still exists in Smash 4 as well and more importantly, has nothing to do with neutral. Nor does edge guarding if that's what you are referring to.

 

[FeelMeUp]

To be fair doesn't EVERY Sheik, top player or otherwise struggle at killing now? Yesterday Void also lost to Nairo because he couldn't close out a stock. He lost game 5 which he was winning dominantly the whole time thanks to getting grabbed at 30 and rage.

I feel Sheik's lack of good kill options at decent percents means she can't be even top 3 in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if later on she's not even considered top 5 material.

Sure she arguably has the best neutral but the results show that doesn't matter if you can't close out stocks. Especially in a game with rage.

Sheik has top 3 ledge trapping(sheik diddy fox in no order), the second/third best edgeguarding kit in the game, top 2 frame data and the best neutral. I dunno why everyone downplays this
Sheik players were so absorbed in her "haha dthrow i kill you" setups that they didn't realize you can literally just interact with the opponent, win the engagement or run away if there's danger(because she's so goddamn slippery and difficult to hit), trap them at the ledge for 40%/death, and bully them offstage infinitely.
If a character has a bad recovery she should be killing them for recovering low/horizontally almost every time.
She may struggle killing in the conventional sense of this game by not having some random guaranteed kill at 100, but she can hit you 3 times and kill you at 40 because you lost your jump/got needled and couldn't make it back or use one of her million guaranteed bouncing fish setups(fair, nair, needles, bair, fthrow, dthrow, bthrow.....you get the point) to kill you at 120-130.
The reason there's people considering things like Cloud being the best and Sheik NOT being the best is pretty simple:
Smash 4 players suck at edgeguarding.
She will only get better as people improve at it.

 

[paperchao]

Speaking of edgeguarding, how much could cloud be hurt with optimized edgeguarding being developed in the future? As he's sorta like ganondorf offstage where he has threatening hitboxes, but one foul trade means curtains for him.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Sheik has top 3 ledge trapping(sheik diddy fox in no order), the second/third best edgeguarding kit in the game, top 2 frame data and the best neutral. I dunno why everyone downplays this
Sheik players were so absorbed in her "haha dthrow i kill you" setups that they didn't realize you can literally just interact with the opponent, win the engagement or run away if there's danger(because she's so goddamn slippery and difficult to hit), trap them at the ledge for 40%/death, and bully them offstage infinitely.
If a character has a bad recovery she should be killing them for recovering low/horizontally almost every time.
She may struggle killing in the conventional sense of this game by not having some random guaranteed kill at 100, but she can hit you 3 times and kill you at 40 because you lost your jump/got needled and couldn't make it back or use one of her million guaranteed bouncing fish setups(fair, nair, needles, bair, fthrow, dthrow, bthrow.....you get the point) to kill you at 120-130.
The reason there's people considering things like Cloud being the best and Sheik NOT being the best is pretty simple:
Smash 4 players suck at edgeguarding.
She will only get better as people improve at it.

The problem is while Sheik is great at edge guarding, edge guarding more often than not doesn't lead to gimps into this game due to great recoveries and no ledge hogging. It's just not as rewarding as it was in previous games.

That is to say Sheik can hit someone offstage several times, even catch their double jump and chances are they are still coming back with good DI. Of course some recoveries are more exploitable than others. I can see her destroying Cloud for that reason but other top tiers are not that free to edge guarding.

And don't forget if you mess up while edge guarding they get back for free and now you've lost stage control. Not to mention good players are really good at being unpredictable with their recoveries.

All of this means Sheik CAN edge guard well but she can't rely on them for consistent kills. A Sheik player can't go into a set and expect to get all of her kills off edge guards.

Whereas a Diddy can realistically expect to downtilt/banana confirm for 4 stocks. A Rosalina can expect to get kills off jabs, up airs or up Smash. A ZSS can expect a bair in neutral to kill at decent percents. And so forth. These characters have other options obviously that are less consistent but they don't have to rely on them to win.

What reliable and consistent way does Sheik have of killing ? That's the question.

 

[blackghost]

^^^
THIIIIISSSSS

ZeRo is a phenomenal player, but his strengths didn't really lie in the realms of creativity (this is why I could never find his gameplay interesting) nor optimization.
He kinda just dominated you in nuetral with the most consistent, clear cut options and adapted to your habits.

is it fair to say that even tho zero continously places higher that his shiek lags behind void, mr. r, and k9? void is doing things i've never seen zero attempt.
zero is just better at neutral but overall zero was grab reliant and now his shiek looks like its trying to play a previous version of itself.
also i'll be upset if he runs to cloud but thats just my thoughts.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

is it fair to say that even tho zero continously places higher that his shiek lags behind void, mr. r, and k9? void is doing things i've never seen zero attempt.
zero is just better at neutral but overall zero was grab reliant and now his shiek looks like its trying to play a previous version of itself.
also i'll be upset if he runs to cloud but thats just my thoughts.

I think lately Zero's has been relying much more on Diddy than Sheik for his placings. So his results should be attributed towards Diddy, not Sheik.

 

[FeelMeUp]

The problem is while Sheik is great at edge guarding, edge guarding more often than not doesn't lead to gimps into this game due to great recoveries and no ledge hogging. It's just not as rewarding as it was in previous games.

That is to say Sheik can hit someone offstage several times, even catch their double jump and chances are they are still coming back with good DI. Of course some recoveries are more exploitable than others. I can see her destroying Cloud for that reason but other top tiers are not that free to edge guarding.

And don't forget if you mess up while edge guarding they get back for free and now you've lost stage control. Not to mention good players are really good at being unpredictable with their recoveries.

All of this means Sheik CAN edge guard well but she can't rely on them for consistent kills. A Sheik player can't go into a set and expect to get all of her kills off edge guards.

Whereas a Diddy can realistically expect to downtilt/banana confirm for 4 stocks. A Rosalina can expect to get kills off jabs, up airs or up Smash. A ZSS can expect a bair in neutral to kill at decent percents. And so forth. These characters have other options obviously that are less consistent but they don't have to rely on them to win.

What reliable and consistent way does Sheik have of killing ? That's the question.

you're asking me what options she has that can be thrown out in hopes of getting a kill setup, but that isn't how Sheik works.
as long as the opponent is sub 150 she's able to find a kill out of every situation. ledge regrabs and 2 frames(dtilt usmash/vanish), throw 50/50's di traps and airdodge traps(literally every throw lmao), shield breaks and hard punishes on laggy moves(grenade tipper usmash), smashville specific stuff, tall character specific stuff, 50/50's out of fair, etc.
the issue, again, is that you have to know almost everything. one missed kill setup could cost you that stock because you may not get that exact opportunity back.

 

[C0rvus]

Is this JustSomeScrub guy another social experiment by Thinkaman? It's just too uncanny, I swear it's gotta be fake.

Anyway, it's crazy to think that Rosalina might not be good enough to win stuff. She still dominates a chunk of the roster pretty hard, but certain characters seem designed to crap on her. With the Cloud MU being pretty bad, and awful at mid level, and everyone being able to very easily pick up and play the king of sword characters... Kinda stinks to be a Rosa player at the moment. Top level Cloud vs Rosa seems more doable but definitely an uphill struggle.

 

[Trifroze]

One supposes a player can become better at killing with Sheik, but because it's an inherent weakness of the character, it can't be done without something being lost in return. She's either played safe at the cost of killing really late, or she takes risks and kills earlier when said risks work. Maybe it's a matter of preference more than anything.

a man wrote this message in all passive

 

[Shady Shaymin]

The more Cloud gameplay I watch, the more I think his limit cross slash desperately needs a nerf. Forget about the startup and the invincibility; that's ridiculous but I'll give it a pass because other moves have similar properties. Why does the move have such little endlag though? In the battlefield set of Ned vs Ally, we saw that move completely whiff, and Ally put himself in a position where against any other move like that, a punish would have been guaranteed. Instead, his attempt was power shielded, which effectively almost punished him for his failed punish. Who programmed this move? Did devs think his other kill options weren't good on paper? Ugh. Nothing about Cloud is bad enough to compensate for jank of that caliber. People want to cry about mario's usmash, diddy's dtilt, ryu's true shoryuken...nah. None of those moves are as bs as limit cross slash.

 

[Charoite]

Because it can't be spammed, so cloud needs to charge limit if it want to use again, not that justifies the move, but there is reasoning of why is too good.

 

[Ulevo]

Players are also not doing what M2K highlighted a while ago, and that's spot dodge the last hit of LCS, which actually makes the move punishable provided you are not too far or have burst options. It just takes a bit of practice honestly.

 

[Nu~]

Because it can't be spammed, so cloud needs to charge limit if it want to use again, not that justifies the move, but there is reasoning of why is too good.

What kinda nullifies that justification is the fact that he gets it back when getting hit, hitting people, AND by charging it.

You can easily break your limit up to 4 times a match on average because you get it by simply...playing the game.


Edit: this is by NO means meant to throw us back into the cloud complaining part of this thread's cycle. Just offering my thoughts on limit

 

[Strong-Arm]

Despite the fact that I think Cloud is fine as is, it really wouldnt surprise me if I saw him nerfed

 

[Rizen]

's a top tier for sure. I don't think he's broken enough to need nerfs but he is better than most of the cast. It kind of sucks for swordsmen like to have a frame 7 jab and jumpsquat as 'balancing mechanics' when Cloud has a cornucopia of stupidly good things going for him in range, frame data, mobility, power and limit (+ a projectile). But some characters are better; we're not going to have a game with every MU being 50/50. People need to accept it
With that said I wouldn't be against slight nerfs either.

 

[Shaya]

There are more options to go for and better punishes were available that weren't taken.
In contrast ZeRo's punishes were significantly improved on with Diddy.
Vanish traps nor down tilt set ups were attempted. Needle things is a maybe type of addition as well. Unsafe actions that had enough time for smash attack punishes but went with the staple's instead. That tendency was a huge issue a week ago against Larry that as I said he's patched up with diddy significantly, just needs to put that focus onto Sheik.

But w/e, why am I dropping notes like these to the general public, lol.

Also Cloud is the most relevant character in the cast atm. In a meta where we're not sure who is best, it's easier to say the character's which are strong and consistent (a nicer way of saying easy) are best.
That same logic puts Mario towards the top as well.

I will have no frets in saying Cloud is #1 atm and we're wasting time thinking otherwise (time spent figuring out if someone else could be better still through development not guessing).

.

 

[FallofBrawl]

I don;t know if my memory is off but can't roll be buffered between Cloud's 2nd and last hit of limit cross slash to get in position for a punish?

 

[HeavyLobster]

Is this JustSomeScrub guy another social experiment by Thinkaman? It's just too uncanny, I swear it's gotta be fake.

Anyway, it's crazy to think that Rosalina might not be good enough to win stuff. She still dominates a chunk of the roster pretty hard, but certain characters seem designed to crap on her. With the Cloud MU being pretty bad, and awful at mid level, and everyone being able to very easily pick up and play the king of sword characters... Kinda stinks to be a Rosa player at the moment. Top level Cloud vs Rosa seems more doable but definitely an uphill struggle.

She might not be good enough to win on her own. Considering that we might be headed for a CP meta, that may not be all that unusual or crippling. She can definitely win stuff with a good secondary for a couple of MUs.

 

[LancerStaff]

I don;t know if my memory is off but can't roll be buffered between Cloud's 2nd and last hit of limit cross slash to get in position for a punish?

I believe Shaya said you could shield drop > buffer shield for a free perfect shield.

 

[bc1910]

Diddy Kong is actual #1 at the moment I'd say. If we're talking strong and consistent. Cloud a likely #2, though the meta makes him seem higher. Note that we're still barely seeing Cloud players win stuff.

Diddy gets guaranteed 20-30% conversions at low percent and guaranteed kill confirms at high percent, all off very simple and safe neutral options. This is a combination that literally every other character in the cast can only dream of (Bayo and arguably Sheik had this combination before their respective nerfs).

Cloud can be a big walling *******, but his recovery weakness and lack of guaranteed setups make him less consistent than Diddy.

Diddy is probably not as easy as Cloud, but I'm not sure "easy" can be directly appropriated to "strong and consistent". A little work with Diddy will take you further.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Where would you guys rank Mario at this point? Mario mains tend to downplay him but what glaring weaknesses does he really have? He has great damage output everytime he gets in, a great neutral game and a recovery that's extremely hard to interrupt.

In theory he should struggle at killing to make up for these strengths but in reality even top players run into his Smash attacks all the time and fail to punish them so I just don't see it. Mario's up Smash is probably the best Smash attack in the game period. Fast startup, invincible on the head, low cooldown, great hitbox, good KO potential.

And Mario has had fantastic results lately and not just with Ally. Anti recently beat Zero with him when failing to do so with the likes of Sheik and Rosa. In Japan he places extremely well as well.

And let's not forget the top tiers getting constantly nerfed has helped him a ton.

All of these things don't suggest he's merely top 15 to me. More like top 8.

 

[HoSmash4]

Mario simply does well vs , and seems to be hit and miss vs . Thats all we're learning from Anti and Ally.

 

[Zannabluke]

mario only succeds with smart high-level players, such as ally and anti

low/mid-level marios are gonna get struggle with him because of his lack of reliable kill setups (dthrow to fair doesn't count)

 

[JustSomeScrub]

mario only succeds with smart high-level players, such as ally and anti

low/mid-level marios are gonna get struggle with him because of his lack of reliable kill setups (dthrow to fair doesn't count)

If fishing for kills with Mario at top level works (which it totally does, see any Anti or Ally match), it's definitely going to work at mid level.

Also tier lists are about character potential at the highest level not what your average player does with them. Otherwise by that logic Rosalina isn't top 5 as only one player gets top results with her.