Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[YerTheBestAROUND]

So here's an idea. Let's talk stages. What do you think are character's best stages and why? Emphasis on explaining why.

Let's start with Sheik. Now, most people would say Smashville, and if pre-patch Sheik were still in the game I'd agree, but post patch I think it's definitely FD. Why? Because platforms mean you can avoid Sheik's pressure and combo starters, and the fair range nerf means that the Smashville combos are a lot harder to execute. But on FD that's not the case, and we can consistently see Sheik get at least 50% off of one combo starter simply because there's not a good way to avoid it. Just watch VoiD. You're move more likely to get fthrown or ftilted, so Sheik can just do what she wants and carry you across the stage, and if you manage to get out of the combos Sheik has control of the middle of the stage, so now you're fighting from the ledge, where Sheik wants you. FD seems like the place to avoid when you're fighting Sheik now, especially if you're a fast faller. Platforms definitely give you somewhere to hide and make it harder for Sheik to approach from above like she likes to.

 

[Y2Kay]

Sheik is fine the way she is, imo. The way they've changed her makes her more true to her archetype while keeping her top tier. Isn't that ideal? Slowing her down and giving her more power needlessly homogenizes the character. (Also you could just play Greninja if you want that kek).

excuse me???

greninja has slightly better mobility than sheik

 

[Blue Banana]

Big winners at CEO

I'm not sure if I'm just being pessimistic, but I don't know if Oli is a "big winner."

If we want to talk about CEO placings where the player has used almost exclusively Olimar, Myran got 33rd and Angbad got 25th. For a tournament of more than 900 entrants, I'd say that's pretty good for a relatively underused character, but if we're going by the conventions of this thread, then these placings don't count as they're outside top 16. Based on previous results in past tournaments, I'd say that Olimar can do well at high-level/large regional tournaments (ImHip @ 2GG, Shuton) but is only viable as a niche counterpick at top-level/major tournaments (Dabuz @ CEO).

Is it entirely because of lack of MU experience? It seems to depend on the region/circumstances. ImHip still did well at 2GG Mexico at 5th out of 400+ w/ a Duck Hunt co-main even though SoCal has some of the best Olimars there, yet Shuton got 2nd out of 200 at Umebara 22 entirely solo partially because outside of his home region and online, not a lot of people have experience in the MU. I didn't watch CEO, but if Dabuz counterpicked Abadango's MK with Olimar, then it might be because Olimar has around an even matchup going off on the MU charts by some top Olimar players. If I heard correctly that he counterpicked Oli against Anti, then it probably is based off of lack of MU experience.

 

[Shaya]

So someone suggested open-floor nerf discussion.
I'd suggest to stop / never start it in the first place.

There will likely be blood.

Oh but on Marth though, ftilt is really good, so is forward air. C-stick forward relentlessly is a little too good, but that doesn't make the character a poor design, it's just holding the hands of/making his game plan a bit easier than it should be (or has been in prior games). He's perfectly suited for a Smash4 high tier character though, just yet again people forget that all character's deserve the respect of match up knowledge to be able to overcome them, it's only now that he actually requires you to remember how to deal with big disjoints on retreating jumps with 30 frames of endlag+ into a secondary buffered disjoint attack with 20-30 frames of end lag (hint: Cloud does it better). It's not that hard on paper, they just made it harder than necessary to make him tick as a competent character.

Fox Up tilt and Dash Attack have the exact same issue in my mind, but are significantly stronger than Marth's "bread and butter". They have half the start up, half the end lag, and create twice the damage in a game; they're more difficult to deal with as a result.
tl;dr good characters have good things. Can you actually argue lack of counterplay ? Overtuned moves mean that the risk/reward completely overwhelm the counter play, and hence we should be able to observe binary interactions forced because of it. Power shielding is more than valid counter play (on things which are single hit and only have 1 or 2 use case timings). Moving to your advantage over 20-30 frames for free is significant counter play.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Whatever ends up happening within the tiers, potential future patches, or big tournament results...

I think we can all agree that Anti is the future of top level Smash 4.

And by this, I don't mean that Anti is now the best player.

What I mean is that Anti went through this tournament and unleashed slaughter on everyone in his path not just because he's amazing. A lot of people in top 8 were pretty damn amazing or better than him.

What Anti has over all the other gods of this metagame is his arsenal of characters, and if there was any shadow of a doubt that this is a counterpick meta, Anti just destroyed it. No other player in this tourney had the sheer amount of options at their disposal.

This is a counterpick meta. What's that? Nick Riddle is ******* all over me with his Bowser, who my Mario struggles against? Tough ****, because I've got a half decent ZSS in the back who straight up demolishes your heavyweight nonsense. Your Diddy is on point stuffing my aerials and punishing my Mario? I hope you like massive disjoints and meaty Dairs. Your Cloud is giving me trouble? W̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶e̶r̶p̶i̶c̶k̶ ̶o̶p̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶e̶a̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶u̶r̶v̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶p̶o̶c̶k̶e̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶u̶r̶p̶o̶s̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶'̶d̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶c̶u̶r̶r̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶s̶u̶p̶e̶r̶i̶o̶r̶ ̶p̶i̶c̶k̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶b̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶C̶l̶o̶u̶d̶

Uhh, I'll save that last part for tomorrow...

 

[blackghost]

Ryu really isn't that good. I'm not just saying that because Trela under performed. Like, I don't think he's even top 10.

you cant say something like that without an actual explanation.
also while we are here please name 10 characters better than ryu.
on the topic of zero idk if it was the break, the injury, or the lack of confodnece but he was not good at all. i only saw the first set he lost but its hiw he lost that stuck out to me. calling zero the undisputed best is really pushing it now. he needs a great showing at evo at this rate and consodering who will be there im not sure hes in top 8.

 

[Nu~]

@LancerStaff
What about Pit is interesting to you. Genuinely curious because I think I may be missing something about him overall.

I find it odd that you despise Marth's gameplan but seem to really like Pit's, when I was under the impression that they kinda do similar things in nuetral (only with Pit having an oddly useless dtilt...) just pit has a better grab game and Marth has a more rewarding spacing game.

Is it that Pit has a tool for every situation in your eyes?

 

[Quantumpen]

People need to stop with this anti-ZeRo vomit. He's still the best player. His worst placing of all time is just short of top 8 at a super major. He just won a tourney last week, and before that he has been making it to grand finals at every event.

If you think he's going to be regularly getting owned by Prince Ramen types, you're out of your mind. An upset happened here, what top player hasn't been upset? Anyone else overall can claim results as strong as Zero since his return? Maybe Ally? I doubt that tbh.

Zero is still the only reasonable answer to the question "who is the best player." He's just not untouchable any more. Just because he can be taken out by other super strong players doesn't mean he's out of it.

 

[C0rvus]

you cant say something like that without an actual explanation.
also while we are here please name 10 characters better than ryu.
on the topic of zero idk if it was the break, the injury, or the lack of confodnece but he was not good at all. i only saw the first set he lost but its hiw he lost that stuck out to me. calling zero the undisputed best is really pushing it now. he needs a great showing at evo at this rate and consodering who will be there im not sure hes in top 8.

Fair enough, I'll try to elaborate. I think Ryu's neutral isn't good enough to be top tier, straight up. Neutral is super important, and Ryu does have some tools like a good dash grab, a fireball, and the threat of a very strong advantaged state, but his mobility is subpar, and he really can't force approaches. His advantage is very strong, maybe the best in the game in terms of reward in optimal circumstances (ie hitting level 3 Focus > conversion) and he kills mad early. Disadvantage is aight, his air accelerations means his really only has his double jump and Focus to mix up landing spots, so catching landings seems pretty effective against him.
His matchup spread I am largely ignorant to, but I know he loses to Mega Man, Villager, and probably Diddy, is even with Cloud and Mewtwo.

Characters better than Ryu:
and that's ten. I also think could all possibly be better than Ryu as well. He's around in power level, but perhaps we're getting too deep into my ill-informed theoretical tier list. Call me stupid or crazy, it's just the impression I get atm.

Edit: Also for the record, Anti didn't pull that Cloud out of his ass. He grinds multiple characters, and Cloud has been in his rotation for a whole now.

 

[Das Koopa]

Gah, posted this in the wrong thread. Here's the weekend results:

CEO 2016 (June 24th-26th) (Southeast) (906 Entrants) (Category 4)

Spoiler

1st: ANTi , , ,
2nd: Zinoto
3rd: Dabuz ,
4th: Abadango
5th: Hyuga
5th: Mr. R
7th: False ,
7th: Larry Lurr
9th: VoiD
9th: ZeRo
9th: NAKAT ,
9th: Saj
13th: Nietono
13th: Falln
13th: Scatt
13th: Wrath

TUS Tournmament 5 (June 25th) (Japan) (128 Entrants) (Category 1)

Spoiler

1st: YOC ,
2nd: Shu
3rd: KEN
4th: Takera
5th: Tsu-
5th: Gakuto
7th: Kisha ,
7th: Motsunabe
9th: Yotchan
9th: Pichi
9th: Pon
9th: Rotsuku
13th: Aiba
13th: Hikari
13th: Shoot
13th: Gurumia

Dream Match 2 (June 25th) (Chile) (92 Entrants) (Category 1)

Spoiler

1st: Harlonga
2nd: Phantom ,
3rd: FireHao
4th: Keen
5th: Fast!
5th: Merci
7th: Dertolo
7th: LinkEa
9th: Pelon
9th: Himura
9th: Spyro
9th: SB Necro
13th: Joajijeje
13th: Kazuki
13th: NT Godinez
13th: M(K) Hyuga ,

Push More Buttons (June 25th) (Midwest) (180 Entrants) (Category 1)

Spoiler

1st: Ned
2nd: Shinjoebi
3rd: Nite
4th: Bushi
5th: PowPow
5th: Naoto
7th: GanontheBeast
7th: Seth
9th: NameLess
9th: Triple R
9th: Moti
9th: MJG
13th: Sinnyboo242
13th: Yeti
13th: Sethlon
13th: Jibca

i'll count up in a bit

 

[meticulousboy]

So here's an idea. Let's talk stages. What do you think are character's best stages and why? Emphasis on explaining why.

Let's start with Sheik. Now, most people would say Smashville, and if pre-patch Sheik were still in the game I'd agree, but post patch I think it's definitely FD. Why? Because platforms mean you can avoid Sheik's pressure and combo starters, and the fair range nerf means that the Smashville combos are a lot harder to execute. But on FD that's not the case, and we can consistently see Sheik get at least 50% off of one combo starter simply because there's not a good way to avoid it. Just watch VoiD. You're move more likely to get fthrown or ftilted, so Sheik can just do what she wants and carry you across the stage, and if you manage to get out of the combos Sheik has control of the middle of the stage, so now you're fighting from the ledge, where Sheik wants you. FD seems like the place to avoid when you're fighting Sheik now, especially if you're a fast faller. Platforms definitely give you somewhere to hide and make it harder for Sheik to approach from above like she likes to.

probably shouldn't choose Battlefield because the large horizontal blast lines. It will make it harder to get what she wants with her Fair at high percents.

Anyways, as for, I think his best stage os Town & City. The low ceiling helps with getting stocks with his Shoryuken. Think of how even more premature KOs can result from Town & City.

I will do for the heck of it. Probably Smashville. Using the platform helps with Fair and Bair kills, maybe even Uair kills. The platform also helps Ike with his recovery because of easily one can gimp him.

 

[ぱみゅ]

There's a whole thread for characters' best and worst stages already (I'm not necessarily directing the discussion to be taken there, though it would be appreciated).

Anyway, if CEO taught me anything is that Cloud is the answer to everything nothing is granted in Smash 4. Top players can lose to matchup inexperience, playstyles can determine success more than what just the character selection does, and being able to switch characters and use them effectively is HUGE for this game.
idk, I really liked everything that happened and have high hopes for the future of this game. EVO better not let me down.

 

[DanGR]

Das Koopa I don't know your criteria for counting secondaries in your rankings, but Abadango used Pacman some against Zinoto, and also Metaknight versus Dabuz.

Larry used DK some against Abadango.
Void used Fox some against Abadango. (IIRC?)

---

I also wanted to note that in the top 16, 5/10 of the solo-character players used Diddy or Sheik. In the top 12, 4/6 solo-mained Diddy or Sheik. This really speaks to their viability as stand-alone characters.

 

[Y2Kay]

Void used Fox some against Abadango. (IIRC?)

yeah void did indeed use Fox. That's what the bracket says, at least.

 

[|RK|]

A thought: I think one defining characteristic of the top tiers is how easily they seem to lend themselves to different playstyles. VoiD's Fox showed a dominance against Abadango that Larry's didn't. ANTi can do better with his various secondaries than mains of those characters can sometimes, etc.

 

[HoSmash4]

Let's not forget the other top solo Mario placed 49th

 

[wedl!!]

sonic continues to fill top 16s. just business as usual.

 

[Luco]

Wait isn't Techei a commonly cited Gren? I think he drowned at CEO unfortunately, although Greninjas elsewhere were totally picking up the ropes over this past weekend.

And @Sleek Media Lucas' "40% combos" become a lot less intimdating when you realise Nair's SDI factor is literally that of Brawl's and you should be getting out of that string with less than 20% out of you every time he tries Nair x2 --> Uair.

Honestly I want Lucas to have Nair's SDI multiplier buffed so he's actually a scary character in neutral who doesn't just wall you out and gets moderate reward for high-ish risk options when he actually does want to commit.

 

[blackghost]

bayo best stages are lylat and i guess battlefield. more options mor eplaces to land on BF and on lylat she gets needles.
i dont really think this tournament was a big win for bayo. it was greta to see a bayo player do so well but a few things in the matches she won.
an sd from a very good diddy, false clearly didnt know about the b reversal on witch twsist which netted a free kill and lastly both esam and niento both got witch timed for free. niento made a poor decision to throw out his bannana then stand by its landing spot. that was an easy witch time, esam just flat out dared saj to witch time him and it cost him the match.
my point is bayo doesn't cause your opponent to make mistakes due to her pressure onstage or rushdown ability she simpy capitalizes heavily on matchup knowledge (or lack of it).

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Fair enough, I'll try to elaborate. I think Ryu's neutral isn't good enough to be top tier, straight up. Neutral is super important, and Ryu does have some tools like a good dash grab, a fireball, and the threat of a very strong advantaged state, but his mobility is subpar, and he really can't force approaches. His advantage is very strong, maybe the best in the game in terms of reward in optimal circumstances (ie hitting level 3 Focus > conversion) and he kills mad early. Disadvantage is aight, his air accelerations means his really only has his double jump and Focus to mix up landing spots, so catching landings seems pretty effective against him.
His matchup spread I am largely ignorant to, but I know he loses to Mega Man, Villager, and probably Diddy, is even with Cloud and Mewtwo.

Characters better than Ryu:
and that's ten. I also think could all possibly be better than Ryu as well. He's around in power level, but perhaps we're getting too deep into my ill-informed theoretical tier list. Call me stupid or crazy, it's just the impression I get atm.

Edit: Also for the record, Anti didn't pull that Cloud out of his ***. He grinds multiple characters, and Cloud has been in his rotation for a whole now.

I can't see why you say Ness and Mario are better than him when he can do everything they can do (aside from grab things) better, Ness in particular is starting to seem more and more like a midish character instead of the high tier that everyone thinks he is for god knows what reason

 

[Kofu]

Wait isn't Techei a commonly cited Gren? I think he drowned at CEO unfortunately, although Greninjas elsewhere were totally picking up the ropes over this past weekend.

And @Sleek Media Lucas' "40% combos" become a lot less intimdating when you realise Nair's SDI factor is literally that of Brawl's and you should be getting out of that string with less than 20% out of you every time he tries Nair x2 --> Uair.

Honestly I want Lucas to have Nair's SDI multiplier buffed so he's actually a scary character in neutral who doesn't just wall you out and gets moderate reward for high-ish risk options when he actually does want to commit.

Ironically the SDI multiplier became a bigger deal when NAir's damage was buffed.

Oh but on Marth though, ftilt is really good, so is forward air. C-stick forward relentlessly is a little too good, but that doesn't make the character a poor design, it's just holding the hands of/making his game plan a bit easier than it should be (or has been in prior games).

I'm sorry Shaya, but what? Wasn't SH double FAir (along with less landing lag) a big part of what made Marth such a wall in Brawl? That's practically twice the C-Stick forward and more competent than what he has now for sure.

Dancing Blade/DTilt/NAir were a part of that too but you can't pretend like wasn't a huge component of his potency.

Source: I'm a Game & Watch main who got walled out by Marfs and got PTSD from it

 

[FullMoon]

Wait isn't Techei a commonly cited Gren? I think he drowned at CEO unfortunately, although Greninjas elsewhere were totally picking up the ropes over this past weekend.

Techei I believe was the most well known Greninja other than aMSa for a while, at least in NA, but compared to others like iStudying and Venia he's a bit lacking.

Not surprised at all that he drowned in pools, Greninja's representation in CEO was fairly weak compared to the level of the tournament.

 

[PK Gaming]

I like how nobody has not said a peep about even though he might be the reason Dabuz got 3rd in the first place.

Edit: Also s Preformence this weekend

It was cool seeing Dabuz back up his Olimar talk about by actually using him. I definitely want to see more.

And yeah, Toon Link's such a solid character. Hyuga getting 5th place with a solo Toon Link was quite the feat.

 

[bc1910]

I realise that was a joke but Greninja does have more similarities in the neutral to Sheik now that his Fair has less landing lag (no it's nothing like Sheik's Fair but it's safer than it was) and her needles have less range. He plays most like a hybrid of Sheik and ZSS.

Wait isn't Techei a commonly cited Gren? I think he drowned at CEO unfortunately, although Greninjas elsewhere were totally picking up the ropes over this past weekend.

And @Sleek Media Lucas' "40% combos" become a lot less intimdating when you realise Nair's SDI factor is literally that of Brawl's and you should be getting out of that string with less than 20% out of you every time he tries Nair x2 --> Uair.

Honestly I want Lucas to have Nair's SDI multiplier buffed so he's actually a scary character in neutral who doesn't just wall you out and gets moderate reward for high-ish risk options when he actually does want to commit.

Techei underperforms in general.

He's capable of pulling out some strong performances but anyone who pockets one of Greninja's bad MUs won't have much trouble against him.

Sadly at this stage Greninja probably has a bad MU against the top 6 characters.

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

Anti used his Cloud in Grand Finals, but also notice that he ONLY used it in Grand Finals in the Top 8.

Want to know why Anti's Mario had trouble vs. Zinoto? Because Zinoto's training partner is ALLY.

Being singularly focused on one quality isn't a bad design, so this talk of Marth being too one-note is kind of ridiculous. "All he has to do is space properly the entire match."

I actually love to participate in buff and nerf talks, but only when people aren't being super salty about it. Like what, now people are claiming Mewtwo shouldn't have kill throws, which is supposed to be one of its defining characteristics?

Like, here's what I'd say is the difference between fun and productive buff/nerf talk and whiny buff/nerf talk:

Fun: "Sonic is really good at running away, but maybe should be punished more for when he makes the wrong choice."
Whiny: "Sonic is dumb and runs away too much and it's not fair."

That's just my opinion, of course.

Actually, what I think is happening is 1) the standard complaining that happens whenever anyone wins a major (I bet if Pac-Man won a major people would be up in arms about how unfair his hydrant setups are) and 2) because CEO 2016 was upset city people have nothing familiar to latch onto, so they're pawing at anything to try and make sense of the world.

Just to clarify, Zinoto and Ally don't train together, but they have played many times in tournament.

 

[Shaya]

Ironically the SDI multiplier became a bigger deal when NAir's damage was buffed.


I'm sorry Shaya, but what? Wasn't SH double FAir (along with less landing lag) a big part of what made Marth such a wall in Brawl? That's practically twice the C-Stick forward and more competent than what he has now for sure.

Dancing Blade/DTilt/NAir were a part of that too but you can't pretend like wasn't a huge component of his potency.

Source: I'm a Game & Watch main who got walled out by Marfs and got PTSD from it

In Smash4, the range of fair and the amount of it's length which is tipper is a sizable amount more in both aspects than it was in Brawl. Honestly SHDF was not worth much and I've said that in this thread/to smash4primers many times now (and in the similar Brawl thread, except it was more common knowledge back then), because having 25+ frames to punish between the two is significant and any tournament player planning to overcome the marth matchup had to learn this dynamic.
Very few, if any, high level Marth used SHDF; it wasn't good. Full Hop Fair -> reacting landing with the second fair being auto cancelled or fast fallen though? That was actually good because most characters didn't have the mobility to dash and jump (he had like top 8ish aerial mobility? which he wouldn't reach within a SH; he also had top 10 fast fall speed) and throw out an aerial to punish him in time. Although he was still very susceptible to being covered on landing, because less range, less tipper hitbox, didn't cover below him that well and he had a non-standard laggier air dodge with the laggiest air dodge end lag tier (20 frames cooldown), and grab ranges were better on average as well (dash/walking to shield sliding forward was more prominent too).
Now full hop fair has the option of an difficult to trap air dodge afterwards into safe/long range landing aerials (baiting an air dodge from Marth after full hop fair used to be WINNING as he wasn't able to act before landing).

Also, Tipper hitboxes don't have the shield stun neutralized by hit lag modifiers anymore like they did in Brawl.
All Nerfs, buffs and engine changes considered, Marth's tipper fair is 1 frame less safe on block on landing than before - that's with it's landing lag doubled. Dtilt, nair (excl. AC), uair, jab, ftilt, etc are all safer on block in Smash4 than brawl - with more range on them to boot.

In other words, he is less powerful than his Brawl incarnation, but less competent? It was harder to be competent with him than now and he achieves (in terms of walling) much the same if not better in his optimal game plan than before. He's weaker to dodges and whiff punishes I guess?.

But yeah nair was godlike but very few people used the move over fairing except me... basically lol. Dancing blade was definitely a lot more bread and butter than it is now and significantly less safe too but serves it's purpose fine (we actually have a worthwhile jab now to compensate the loss of DB1 in neutral).

Oh yeah, I blew up crazy posts and their responses and may have forgotten to infract some people along the way.
Please forgive / don't make me want to double check.

 

[Radical Larry]

Gah, posted this in the wrong thread. Here's the weekend results:

CEO 2016 (June 24th-26th) (Southeast) (906 Entrants) (Category 4)

Spoiler

1st: ANTi , , ,
2nd: Zinoto
3rd: Dabuz ,
4th: Abadango
5th: Hyuga
5th: Mr. R
7th: False ,
7th: Larry Lurr
9th: VoiD
9th: ZeRo
9th: NAKAT ,
9th: Saj
13th: Nietono
13th: Falln
13th: Scatt
13th: Wrath

TUS Tournmament 5 (June 25th) (Japan) (128 Entrants) (Category 1)

Spoiler

1st: YOC ,
2nd: Shu
3rd: KEN
4th: Takera
5th: Tsu-
5th: Gakuto
7th: Kisha ,
7th: Motsunabe
9th: Yotchan
9th: Pichi
9th: Pon
9th: Rotsuku
13th: Aiba
13th: Hikari
13th: Shoot
13th: Gurumia

Dream Match 2 (June 25th) (Chile) (92 Entrants) (Category 1)

Spoiler

1st: Harlonga
2nd: Phantom ,
3rd: FireHao
4th: Keen
5th: Fast!
5th: Merci
7th: Dertolo
7th: LinkEa
9th: Pelon
9th: Himura
9th: Spyro
9th: SB Necro
13th: Joajijeje
13th: Kazuki
13th: NT Godinez
13th: M(K) Hyuga ,

Push More Buttons (June 25th) (Midwest) (180 Entrants) (Category 1)

Spoiler

1st: Ned
2nd: Shinjoebi
3rd: Nite
4th: Bushi
5th: PowPow
5th: Naoto
7th: GanontheBeast
7th: Seth
9th: NameLess
9th: Triple R
9th: Moti
9th: MJG
13th: Sinnyboo242
13th: Yeti
13th: Sethlon
13th: Jibca

i'll count up in a bit

Wow, these tournaments got a lot of work put into them, but there's no surprise in CEO's bracket of top 16. The only character coming remotely close to surprising is Mega Man, Then we get to the Japanese tournament where almost every top 16 slot has a high tier character...except for Pon's slot which has a supposed bottom tier character. Chile tournament, mention of Link, blah blah heard about it. Then there's the meaty Category 1 tournament which has a lot of surprises: Little Mac and Ganondorf in top 8, Bowser Jr. even in top 16 and we finally have rare evidence of Roy making top 16.

All and all, this looks like a good result this weekend at least, and these are just my opinions. I'm being real here, at least we get to see some good things this weekend. Still nothing here that says "let's make a second official tier list"; let's save that for another year or two later when we know what we're going to get ourselves into.

TL;DR Tournaments were exciting, tier lists better not be coming for a long while.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Anti used Mario 90%+ of the time, he had to switch to ZSS to advance against Nick Riddle, used MK and used Diddy Kong. But ofc it's Cloud who won this tournament, right? You guys are so silly. The best solo Cloud still got no further than 17th and in top 16 Cloud got outperformed by Sheik, Diddy, Rosalina and Fox, notably so. The only reason why Cloud got a spot at 1st place is because he is such a damn good secondary, which is exactly what I've been arguing in the first place. Solo-Cloud: fail to make top 16. Cloud-Secondary: wins the tournament. What does that tell us about Cloud?

@williamsga555 like I said earlier, it's not really a matter of solo-viability right now. Sheik and Diddy are obviously solo-viable but in the current state of the metagame it's always better to have a good pocket character whether it's one that covers tons of matchups [Cloud, Mewtwo] or that catches people off-guard [Olimar].

@Djent I think Mario is still too 'easily' beatable for a big part of the cast to be a top 5 character. Starting from around Luigi's spot down to Doctor Mario [who is pretty overrated right now and got outbuffed by other characters quite a bit] Mario just has a lot of even matchups. It's not terribly likely for Mario to run into any of those but it's still something worth considering. Mario also still does quite poorly against Rosalina and he has slightly unfavorable results against Sonic and ZSS imo. Lastly, Rosalina players seem to have 'overcome' the Cloud matchups convincingly enough to push Rosie back into competition for a spot among the top 5, alongside Sheik, Diddy, Cloud and Fox. I also think Sheik might be the best character in the game after all, rather than Diddy Kong.

 

[aεrgiα]

I mean, his Diddy still could be the best in the world. Zinoto is his only competition right now really, and though he is performing better right now, it remains to be seen if ZeRo just have a problem vs. Larry and Ally or if his Diddy really is worse overall. I'm not counting ZeRo out just yet.

His Sheik, however, has clearly dipped in my eyes. Mr. R is almost inarguably the best Sheik in the world at the moment, followed by VoiD.

to be fair, nietono could have a shot too, i was really impressed by his play this weekend and if he isnt quite up there yet then i think he definitely will be soon at the rate hes improving, that being said zinoto has been impressing for quite a while now. as for zero, he may well still be the best diddy, but to me it seems like hes picked up a few habits since his hiatus, or at least i never noticed them before, especially in regards to side b :/

will agree on his sheik having dropped, though i wouldnt say its "inarguable" that mr r is the best sheik atm, i think void has a very good shot at that title too though at the moment i would give it to mr.r by a slight margin

 

[Das Koopa]

I decided to go back to counting characters that won games even if the player doesn't win the whole set, but with the "no pools-only" rule accounted to prevent sandbagging from getting rewarded

Updated scores, weighted

Spoiler

Sheik: 223
Diddy Kong: 216
Cloud: 182
Fox: 134.5
Sonic: 128
Mario: 124.5
Rosalina & Luma: 115.5
Zero Suit Samus: 99.5
Bayonetta: 83.5
Meta Knight: 73
Ryu: 63.5
Marth: 59.5
Peach: 53
Corrin: 52
Ness: 50
Captain Falcon: 48.5
Pikachu: 48
Toon Link: 43.5
Greninja: 42.5
Mewtwo: 42
R.O.B: 42
Donkey Kong: 41.5
Yoshi: 36
Lucario: 33.5
Bowser: 33
Luigi: 32
Villager: 30
Little Mac: 29
Duck Hunt: 26.5
Pit: 24
Mega Man: 23.5
Olimar: 22
Ike: 21.5
Robin: 21
Lucas: 19
Pac-Man: 17.5
Wario: 16
Link: 15
King Dedede: 13
Wii Fit Trainer: 9
Bowser Jr.: 9
Mr. Game & Watch: 9
Palutena: 8
Kirby: 7
Shulk: 5
Ganondorf: 5
Mii Brawler: 4
Falco: 2.5
Zelda: 2
Lucina: 2
Samus: 1.5
Roy: 1

I'll be posting my monthly graphs before July 1st.

 

[Kofu]

In Smash4, the range of fair and the amount of it's length which is tipper is a sizable amount more in both aspects than it was in Brawl. Honestly SHDF was not worth much and I've said that in this thread/to smash4primers many times now (and in the similar Brawl thread, except it was more common knowledge back then), because having 25+ frames to punish between the two is significant and any tournament player planning to overcome the marth matchup had to learn this dynamic.
Very few, if any, high level Marth used SHDF; it wasn't good. Full Hop Fair -> reacting landing with the second fair being auto cancelled or fast fallen though? That was actually good because most characters didn't have the mobility to dash and jump (he had like top 8ish aerial mobility? which he wouldn't reach within a SH; he also had top 10 fast fall speed) and throw out an aerial to punish him in time. Although he was still very susceptible to being covered on landing, because less range, less tipper hitbox, didn't cover below him that well and he had a non-standard laggier air dodge with the laggiest air dodge end lag tier (20 frames cooldown), and grab ranges were better on average as well (dash/walking to shield sliding forward was more prominent too).
Now full hop fair has the option of an difficult to trap air dodge afterwards into safe/long range landing aerials (baiting an air dodge from Marth after full hop fair used to be WINNING as he wasn't able to act before landing).

Also, Tipper hitboxes don't have the shield stun neutralized by hit lag modifiers anymore like they did in Brawl.
All Nerfs, buffs and engine changes considered, Marth's tipper fair is 1 frame less safe on block on landing than before - that's with it's landing lag doubled. Dtilt, nair (excl. AC), uair, jab, ftilt, etc are all safer on block in Smash4 than brawl - with more range on them to boot.

In other words, he is less powerful than his Brawl incarnation, but less competent? It was harder to be competent with him than now and he achieves (in terms of walling) much the same if not better in his optimal game plan than before. He's weaker to dodges and whiff punishes I guess?.

But yeah nair was godlike but very few people used the move over fairing except me... basically lol. Dancing blade was definitely a lot more bread and butter than it is now and significantly less safe too but serves it's purpose fine (we actually have a worthwhile jab now to compensate the loss of DB1 in neutral).

Oh yeah, I blew up crazy posts and their responses and may have forgotten to infract some people along the way.
Please forgive / don't make me want to double check.

Fair (ha) enough, I didn't get as in-depth with Brawl's mechanics as I have with Smash 4 and didn't realize how substantial the size increases were for the move. And apparently my scrub status blinded me to how ineffective SH double FAir was.

I'm still not convinced that FAir is a far superior option than in Brawl, though. It has worse duration which is pretty big, and you said yourself that a vast majority of his moves are safer on block than in Brawl. FAir's certainly a big part of his walling/punishing game and is probably the easiest but, assuming you're telling the truth, his moves in general are safer on shield (although not necessarily on whiff).

 

[Fenny]

bayo best stages are lylat and i guess battlefield. more options mor eplaces to land on BF and on lylat she gets needles.
i dont really think this tournament was a big win for bayo. it was greta to see a bayo player do so well but a few things in the matches she won.
an sd from a very good diddy, false clearly didnt know about the b reversal on witch twsist which netted a free kill and lastly both esam and niento both got witch timed for free. niento made a poor decision to throw out his bannana then stand by its landing spot. that was an easy witch time, esam just flat out dared saj to witch time him and it cost him the match.
my point is bayo doesn't cause your opponent to make mistakes due to her pressure onstage or rushdown ability she simpy capitalizes heavily on matchup knowledge (or lack of it).

The thing is, compare Saj's use of Witch Time to Pink Fresh's. Saj's use of it, imo, was far better than Pink's. Because while Pink used it on prediction or as a landing option, which meant he could get baited out pretty easily, Saj solely used it on reaction, at times where he KNEW it would activate. Not only is punishing a WTime on reaction borderline impossible for the most part because of the AOE and momentary invincibility frames + Bat Within buffer, but with Saj's usage of it it allowed Bayo to shut down approach options from Diddy and Pika that usually body the average Bayo player. And he used it a LOT, because he seems to be the only person who remembers that WTime replenishes with time and the opponent's damage. Look at that last game with ESAM. After literally using it twice at once, do you really think ESAM saw a WTime as long as that final one coming? You can't really shout MU inexperience at him when he routinely beat Bayo pre-patch and was seemingly the only damn person besides Dath who knew how to SDI out of her combos. It's a lot harder to say 'he was just giving out Witch Times!' when Saj was utilising it only in sure-connect situations.

Saj's opponents slipped, sure, but he primarily got that far because he played the neutral better, capitalised on weaknesses and used Bayo's Witch Time excellently. I'm proud of the guy, people have been sleeping on him for long enough.

 

[Trifroze]

Yeah, it's looking more and more like Diddy, Sheik, Cloud and Fox have something the rest don't, whether it's more consistent players or tools. It's easy to criticize other players from the sidelines, but you have to point out how Nairo and ESAM for example still like to hold towards the opponent whether they have momentum or not (and this really hurts to see sometimes), and Trela spaghetti'd pretty hard as well.

I don't see how Rosalina will ultimately stay amazing when counterplay against Luma develops further since there's still a lot of room for it (as well as not airdodging against her uairs when there's no need for that). Her recovery kind of sucks and getting off the ledge pretty much requires her to jump and mix up airdodge if she doesn't want Luma to get automatically bopped. And she still airdodges for free so much. AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa

ZSS is probably too inconsistent, you'll want a character who can barely but consistently beat their opponent rather than a character who sometimes destroys the opponent and sometimes can't do anything. It doesn't matter whether you destroy someone or beat them barely, but it matters how often you can win at all (although endurance factor is still a thing). Mainly though ZSS struggles because Diddy exists.

I don't see the Mario, Mewtwo or Sonic hype either. Mewtwo has literally 1 person truly repping him while still needing secondaries, Mario loses most top tier matchups judging by pretty much everything (although they're all close to even) and Sonic never does truly well anywhere and has an effective yet very simple gameplan.

 

[verbatim]

I wouldn't finalize opinions on Sonic until EVO, Komorikiri and KEN are both attending.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Trifroze

You make it sound like ZSS would make an excellent counterpick character. Lacks consistent tools or a stellar matchup spread, but has extreme strengths and dominates in some matchups.

 

[Shaya]

Fair (ha) enough, I didn't get as in-depth with Brawl's mechanics as I have with Smash 4 and didn't realize how substantial the size increases were for the move. And apparently my scrub status blinded me to how ineffective SH double FAir was.

I'm still not convinced that FAir is a far superior option than in Brawl, though. It has worse duration which is pretty big, and you said yourself that a vast majority of his moves are safer on block than in Brawl. FAir's certainly a big part of his walling/punishing game and is probably the easiest but, assuming you're telling the truth, his moves in general are safer on shield (although not necessarily on whiff).

As long as the caveat that it's the tippers only, it's hard not to be true.
Hit lag modifiers eating up shield advantage is no longer a thing, and shield stun was less than what we have now.
Obviously his sour spot hits are a lot worse off than in Brawl, (i.e. -3 on block, vs -7 for tipper; now the flub is -9), and there's no silly dolphin slash with frame 1 invincibility to cheese people with (note: I cheesed people with that move, as did many, it was beautiful).
Marth not spacing well with a landing aerial always had that 50/50 of the opponent holding shield (or spot dodging) or getting punished for an oos option like grab (truly truly beautiful).
To specify with magic-maths, 14% disjoint increase between Brawl Fair/buffed S4 Fair.

And far superior option to Brawl fair? Nah, not trying to say that. Frame 4 start up, auto canceled (oh god do I miss you sexy auto cancel), less landing lag, more damage, etc
ACing fair automatically trumps the diversity of options currently available - more range and easier sweet spotting don't quite live up to that (at least in my heart, for all intents clearly outspacing MK may have been overall better thing for viability than an auto cancel).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I don't see how Rosalina will ultimately stay amazing when counterplay against Luma develops further since there's still a lot of room for it (as well as not airdodging against her uairs when there's no need for that). Her recovery kind of sucks and getting off the ledge pretty much requires her to jump and mix up airdodge if she doesn't want Luma to get automatically bopped. And she still airdodges for free so much. AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa

It's true that anti-Luma play has basically nowhere to go but up. (Random aside: Luma seems to be less resistant to knockback as it takes damage, just like the regular characters.) But regarding her recovery, something I've been trying to practice is using Launch Star early to go high, then making Luma do an aerial as I fall to intercept the punish. Luma can do any aerial except bair this way.

(An extra-fancy thing to do is uthrow/usmash/utilt/whatever, then Launch Star straight up and finish them with Luma's uair at the peak, but that's super hard to space right and strictly for style points. I also don't think you can combo into it with anything, so...yeah. Impractical.)

I wonder if Rosalina is better served as an anti-player pick instead of an anti-character pick. She's one of the most defensive, wall-y characters in the game and most people don't enjoy fighting that. Lack of enjoyment = frustration and frustration = mistakes. She's also got one of the best risk/reward ratios in the game when edgeguarding if only because she can make Luma do it for her. Not even talking about ledge traps here, I mean just firing Luma offstage and letting it be an obstacle.

 

[Jaguar360]

Let's not forget the other top solo Mario placed 49th

But he lost to Zenyou, another solo Mario (who placed 33rd).

Yeah, it's looking more and more like Diddy, Sheik, Cloud and Fox have something the rest don't, whether it's more consistent players or tools. It's easy to criticize other players from the sidelines, but you have to point out how Nairo and ESAM for example still like to hold towards the opponent whether they have momentum or not (and this really hurts to see sometimes), and Trela spaghetti'd pretty hard as well.

I don't see how Rosalina will ultimately stay amazing when counterplay against Luma develops further since there's still a lot of room for it (as well as not airdodging against her uairs when there's no need for that). Her recovery kind of sucks and getting off the ledge pretty much requires her to jump and mix up airdodge if she doesn't want Luma to get automatically bopped. And she still airdodges for free so much. AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa

ZSS is probably too inconsistent, you'll want a character who can barely but consistently beat their opponent rather than a character who sometimes destroys the opponent and sometimes can't do anything. It doesn't matter whether you destroy someone or beat them barely, but it matters how often you can win at all (although endurance factor is still a thing). Mainly though ZSS struggles because Diddy exists.

I don't see the Mario, Mewtwo or Sonic hype either. Mewtwo has literally 1 person truly repping him while still needing secondaries, Mario loses most top tier matchups judging by pretty much everything (although they're all close to even) and Sonic never does truly well anywhere and has an effective yet very simple gameplan.

Well in Mewtwo's case, the only time Abadango really had to bring out a secondary was with Pacman aganist Zinoto. His Mewtwo probably would have fared better against Dabuz's Rosalina and Olimar than his Meta Knight. And I know that you meant super top representative when you meant that he has one person truly repping him, but when Rich Brown gets 25th at a tournament of this caliber, it's pretty clear that Mewtwo's a great character.

And then with Sonic, two Sonic users just won Japan's two most recent big tournaments and KEN also managed to get 3rd at one of those two. Sonic's mains in the US may not be getting those super high placings sans-Wrath, but 4 Sonics in top 64 and 2 in top 32 at CEO is still really good for the character. This weekend is more positive for him than anything I think.

 

[Quantumpen]

Mewtwo's difficult to use, but I think he's a pretty strong contender for a solo viable character. He really doesn't have any bad matchups and he has a strong matchup spread against the top tiers. He beats Sheik/Fox (and probably ZSS), is even with Mario/Cloud/Rosa, and possibly loses to Diddy (Though I think this is more Aba losing to Zinoto/Zero and not knowing the Diddy matchup because he's much less of a thing in Japan)

Abadango never uses secondaries except against Diddy and Rosa. Mewtwo is easily even or better with Rosa, but MK destroys her so why not pull out the MK if you have it? Didn't go so hot for him this time, he might go Mewtwo next time.

Aba has an issue with the Diddy match-up. He himself admits this. He struggles against top Diddy's with any of his characters.

 

[verbatim]

Diddy wins against M2 and MK, the only time Abadango played Pacman the entire set against Zinoto he won.