Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[ARISTOS]

I think will be kept out of top 5 by Luma counterplay and .

Most people acknowledge the former, but I've seen less consensus on the latter. After Dabuz beat Abadango it seemed like people thought pocket MKs wouldn't pose as much of a threat to top-level Rosas anymore. But then ANTi won the pivotal 3rd game of winners finals by going MK. His actually looked slightly better than Aba's at this phase, but it was still far from perfect. If that's the the level of MK play that can hold her back, then man...Dabuz was right that she just isn't solo-viable.

Anyway, here's my take on the upper character groupings at this point, which is in the spirit of ~ Gheb ~ 's previous suggestion:

Spoiler: "Tier-list" of sorts

Both centralizing & solo-viable:

Centralizing, but can be CPed:

Non-centralizing but solo-viable:

Non-centralizing & can be CPed:

Must be this tall to High Tier:

EDIT: Moved Fox and M2 into different groupings.

I generally agree with this

... apart from Marth. While I think the character is strong, I think he pales in comparison both to the characters you've placed him with and in that general category.

False's Marth got pretty much destroyed almost everytime it was used in the later rounds of the tournament, and I think his MU's may not be that great towards the top of the cast, though someone more versed in Marth stuff can speak to that.

It may also just be that this is a weaker version of , and Brawl experts should know that MU like the back of their hand.

is a good counterpick IMO given that Luigi himself is not too complicated of a character vs the characters that might be used to reverse CP him (apart from probably)

 

[chaos11011]

I'm surprised that I'm seeing a lot of mentions of "solo viable" thrown around this thread. If Anti taught us anything this weekend, it's that the solo viable mentality will eventually end up as a negative. It isn't about who you main anymore, it's about the main's tools and what other characters you can use to compliment them. Sure, you could go an entire tournament repping X character, but why? I think that part of Anti's success is that the ability to counterpick goes far beyond counterpicking. It's changing your style, erasing the habits your opponent has discovered against X character and forcing them to find out new ones with Y character. In addition to that, the counterpicker will still have the opponent's habits on lock. Maybe the switch isn't because X character isn't working out or is bad at the match up, but you believe Y can punish the opponent's habits harder or even more consistently. Maybe throwing out a game to use something like Diddy against a Diddy main (Anti vs Zinoto Grand Finals) so you can refresh yourself with the character and their hitboxes, not only as an opponent, but what they want, before you go and switch to something better suited for the job. Maybe using a passive character to lure the opponent into that play style, taking a game off them, and then switching to an aggro character and mess up their game plan on the spot. Maybe switch back to a passive character and play more aggro with them when they're expecting the passiveness, like say a campy Shiek game one or a wall-based Dunk Hunt/ROB going for more string based strategies. The reverse could be applied too. Go aggro Pikachu game 1, switch to a secondary game 2, then overwhelm your opponent with a passive Pikachu game 3 and not only forcing them to remember how to fight your Pikachu, but making them have to pick up on different habits completely (and possibly switching back to aggro once they catch on).

Like, the reason why I believe solo viable characters will be a thing of the past is because, as previously mentioned, there's a distinct difference between Larry's Fox and say, VoiD's Fox. ZeRo's Diddy vs Zinoto's Diddy, etc. The more you leave yourself exposed against a player that knows how to adapt to you, the more habits they will able to exploit from you. I'm sure Dabuz has way more notes on solo/secondary players than say, all of Anti's very niche situational characters, and I think that's a huge reason why he was able to come on top over Dabuz.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Marth does get a bit more credit than he deserves recently. He is a solid character, not a good one ... I'd be surprised if Leo decided to stick with him as his main in the long run. MK is the better character and so is Cloud [duh]. Marth on the other hand isn't good enough to win him anything. He ain't better than high-mid tier.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Well you also said I was overrating Mewtwo when I said he was top 15 pre - POUND and look at where we are now

But for real though, what are MUs that "absolutely bad"? The only one left besides is and we haave counter data against this.

I also believe you definiton of characters that are "worth it" is way too strict. A group of 1 - 2 characters within the the top 25 of the roster can get you through a lot of tourneys and win you money with some knowledge and skill. You aren't suggesting to solo main the "worth it" chars, so a combination of a high or high mid character with a top tier secondary usually works.

He was overrated back then. The results didn't agree with what was being said. Jumping the gun is jumping the gun even if it ends up being proven correct later with additional data. You're doing the same with Mewtwo and his MUs now... particularly when only one player is able to reach that level still (Aba). Not enough data for the likes of DK and some of the other ones you dismissed. Takes more than one or two plays of the MU at the top level to call it. Sheik vs Cloud took many major/national tournaments and a lot more playouts of that MU before it was narrowed down. At the start it was "Sheik might win it" and then there was some back and forth as the results came in over months.

And I was talking about those going for money at national level tournaments. National level? You're absolutely choosing one of those two if you want to go solo. If you aren't willing to use one of those two, you're using a combination of 2-3 characters. But uh... you said I was "too strict" but then said exactly what I said for being what works.... You did see the character CP specific section where I said it wasn't the full list right? You can throw most mid tiers in there. A few like Peach (too technical) and Pits (too general and not really CPing anything) don't fit the bill but the others do.

 

[BunbUn129]

Marth does get a bit more credit than he deserves recently. He is a solid character, not a good one ... I'd be surprised if Leo decided to stick with him as his main in the long run. MK is the better character and so is Cloud [duh]. Marth on the other hand isn't good enough to win him anything. He ain't better than high-mid tier.

I'm honestly not too sure about MK being better than Marth anymore. MK is declining and his meta at the national-level seems to be headed towards a CP character for Rosalina, while Marth is getting better as time goes on while having the advantage of being more popular as a character. In terms of power level, imo they're the same now, either on the edge of the high-tier or at the top of the mid-tier; however I believe Marth doesn't take as much investment in time and effort to get results, while MK suffers from his difficulty of use without being able to justify it in terms of reward, and MK's design is more volatile while Marth's is more well-rounded overall.

Leo himself believes Marth is better than MK, and considering he knows these characters down to the smallest of nuances, I can't really disagree with that judgement.

Representation now is in Marth's favor: he has Pugwest, Mr. E, Leo, and False, all getting him results and wins. MK only has Ito now (who only attends locals); Tyrant only uses MK in certain MU's or when he hits a wall with Sheik, and AFAIK Leo hasn't done anything notable with the character since GOML.

 

[Y2Kay]

He was overrated back then. The results didn't agree with what was being said. Jumping the gun is jumping the gun even if it ends up being proven correct later with additional data. You're doing the same with Mewtwo and his MUs now... particularly when only one player is able to reach that level still (Aba). Not enough data for the likes of DK and some of the other ones you dismissed. Takes more than one or two plays of the MU at the top level to call it. Sheik vs Cloud took many major/national tournaments and a lot more playouts of that MU before it was narrowed down. At the start it was "Sheik might win it" and then there was some back and forth as the results came in over months.

Their was data to suggest Mewtwo was a high tier character back then. We had players like Hitaku, Blue, and Rich Brown drop good characters for Mewtwo and got considerably better results. Mew^2 a player that was okay with solo Mewtwo in Texas jump to number one on hs power rankings after the buffs.

There where plenty of warning signs that Mewtwo could have been "that" good. It's just not a lot of people where paying attention and let Mewtwo sneak up on them and run them over.

Mewtwo doesn't have a player as good as Abadango but he has plenty of good players that hold it down for him at a regional level. Mew^ 2, Hitaku, Katakiri, Rich Brown, Katakiri, 9B, Ginko, and others have shown up to do well at tournaments with Mewtwo. Already Mewtwo's quality of results is up there with the top 15 characters.

We do have data to support that DK isn't a losing Mewtwo match up. LoF Blue has beaten Vex, Mew^2 has beaten Mew2King's DK and took DKWill to game 5. Now with Aba's recent win over Larry Lurr's DK does in fact show a trend that Mewtwo doesn't struggle against DK.

 

[Ulevo]

I am still not buying this idea that CEO has demonstrated solo viability will be phased out in favor of a counter pick meta. A lot of high profile matches demonstrated just the opposite if you actually watched the matches, rather than looked at the results screen.

Abadango's Pac-Man was impressive the first game he pulled it out against Zinoto, then it failed him in game two when Zinoto adapted and understood when to hit the Hydrant after Abadango primed it. While it served him well for one game, he has more recent experience with Mewtwo and his games with Diddy Kong were relatively close. As other Mewtwo mains have mentioned in this thread already, he played the match up poorly, and there is a chance he would have had more time to adapt had he just stuck with Mewtwo. Anti using Meta Knight against Dabuz was a reasonably good decision, but that match was not unwinnable for Dabuz. He played sloppy, lost a lot of guaranteed punishes, and killed himself second stock. It was rather clear Anti was playing a fundamentals game and likely was not aiming for the ladder. I would wager he did not know the percents. On the flip side, the only reason Dabuz won against Anti's Meta Knight with Olimar was because he played a ground based game as opposed to air camping, which is simply match up inexperience. It was really apparent that Dabuz's Olimar was more an act of desperation than a means to win. I know he and others have mentioned Olimar wins the Diddy match up, but his Olimar is nowhere near as refined as his Rosalina, and again his Rosalina's losses were not by a land slide. Then we have Larry's Donkey Kong vs Abadango, which worked well for its first attempt given he won, but he nearly lost doing so and then got trashed on Dreamland.

All this tournament showed me was that if you pull out a pocket character rather than a legitimate main it is going to work for maybe a game before you get called out and scrapped.

 

[Vhaltz]

A big problem with using Luigi as a counterpick character at high level play is that he requires physical dedication. If you can't mash cyclone with Luigi your recovery options become severely limited and you're likely to die early to characters with decent edgeguarding. The only exception to this is if your character has a very severe Fox problem, Luigi should be a good pick then because Fox is rarely going to follow you offstage and the moment you force him out of his side B offstage he's 100% dead by cyclone gimp.

Luigi would generally be a very strong counterpick character since his worst matchups are not common secondaries. The other big problem is that unfortunately Cloud exists and matchup is kind of tough. Not the worst but using Luigi as a counterpick will bring out pocket Clouds and force you into a bad MU that you're unlikely to have a counterpick for.

I also agree that one isolated occurrence doesn't make the meta and it's best to wait until EVO before acting on any of these counterpick shenanigans.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

is not going anywhere when he have an atrocious MU along with a suspect and MU. Having a very bad MU with a common Top Tier character is literally horrible for Marth in his quest to become a "High Tier" character. Marth will forever be a shadow of a character he once was (Melee/Brawl) since I doubt Sakurai will make this character competent enough. (Salt)

 

[Shady Shaymin]

What do you guys think of these dual main pairings? I considered both matchup coverage and character trait synergy when putting these together.

Pairings:

Spoiler

Explanation:

Spoiler

Matchup wise sheik holds her own just fine and hardly loses anything, but having a secondary who can close stocks as easily as DK probably helps.

Diddy isn't fond of characters with good gimping potential or mid range zoning like megaman or Rosalina, so Mewtwo's good recovery and anti zoning tools help a lot. Mewtwo beats megaman and Rosalina, and definitely does well against luigi.

Fox and ike complement each other well because ike struggles less against shield due to disjoints and grab conversions. He's a lot heavier which helps with survivability, and he does well vs Rosalina and possibly mario.

Sonic...I am less informed about MU wise. I do know he struggles against rosa and can get gimped, which is why I put MK here.

Mario and Cloud. Bread and butter braindead duo right there. Cloud takes care of rosa, and pretty much everyone else bar sheik, who mario does fine against anyway.

If corrin works for ESAM then I don't see why marth wouldn't either.

ZSS has trouble against diddy and pikachu, who luigi does well against.

 

[meleebrawler]

I wouldn't say he's the least interesting character in the game by a long shot, but to me at least, his ability to blow through opponent's moves with his own always felt weirdly at odds with how he plays in Punch Out. In Punch Out you have to block or get out of the way when your opponent comes in with an attack, and then punish the opening they leave when they miss. If you try to challenge their moves with your own you will get bodied. In contrast, one of the most immediately noticeable traits of Smash 4 is his unique ability to take his opponent's moves head on and blast straight through them with a variety of super armored punches. I once saw someone suggest that plays more like a boss from Punch Out than like the actual Little Mac from Punch Out, and I think there's some merit to that.

That by itself isn't necessarily a criticism of Little Mac's design, since it's often not advisable or even workable for a character to play in Smash the same way they play in their home game, but I can't agree with the statement that feels true to his Punch Out self.

Punch-Out!! opponents never have super armour. Either they block, dodge, you just plain miss or you interrupt their attack and get a star. Dodging and countering is the normal way of going about things (hence his great rolls and hurtbox shifting during most attacks, and his... counter), but interrupting moves is an advanced and potentially powerful way too (hence jab and ftilt trampling moves with good timing, same with smash armour).

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

Can we talk about how good Pikachu can be if played top level? I can see the character being top 5, he goes relatively unoticed but then BOOM! Pikachu wins a major and everyone mains him

 

[ARGHETH]

Can we talk about how good Pikachu can be if played top level? I can see the character being top 5, he goes relatively unoticed but then BOOM! Pikachu wins a major and everyone mains him

Yeah...you're going to need to explain this. Around here, we generally see Pikachu as a good but not great character, with issues that prevent him from being top 5/10. There are at least 5 characters with better results and theory than him.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

Yeah...you're going to need to explain this. Around here, we generally see Pikachu as a good but not great character, with issues that prevent him from being top 5/10. There are at least 5 characters with better results and theory than him.

Ok, Pikachu has great comboes, great combo starters (utilt, grab, quick attack), kill confirms (fair upsmash when with rage, dtilt upsmash), and a grab that may lead to a kill if your opponent is not quick enough reacting (upthrow thunder). To mention a few things

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Ok, Pikachu has great comboes, great combo starters (utilt, grab, quick attack), kill confirms (fair upsmash when with rage, dtilt upsmash), and a grab that may lead to a kill if your opponent is not quick enough reacting (upthrow thunder). To mention a few things

Pika's combos are not great, they're decent. Low percent up tilt strings can do a lot but at mid percent his combos aren't really true. Fair upsmash is nowhere near as reliable as other popular kill confirms in the game because fair has pathetic range and can be stuffed out much more easily than, say, Diddy dtilt or ZSS down smash. Uthrow thunder can be true if you're m2k on reaction time with the rear tech but it is not reliable enough to be considered a kill confirm.

Pikachu has shortness and good ground mobility, okay matchups, and good frame data. But a lot of characters, in case you haven't noticed, also have this.

 

[L9999]

Online server maintainance going on right now. While it may mean nothing serious, always expect the worse.

 

[Djent]

I like Shady Shaymin's idea for a discussion topic.

Matchup wise sheik holds her own just fine and hardly loses anything, but having a secondary who can close stocks as easily as DK probably helps.

Your theory is good, but I'm not sure this duo is great for individual matchups. Sheik may not lose to anyone outright, but you probably want someone who can cover Lucario, Mewtwo, and Sonic. I see DK doing fine against the former two but really struggling vs. the latter. Your best bet is honestly ZSS, who has a proven track record against Lucario/Sonic and is likely evenish with Mewtwo at least.

Diddy isn't fond of characters with good gimping potential or mid range zoning like megaman or Rosalina, so Mewtwo's good recovery and anti zoning tools help a lot. Mewtwo beats megaman and Rosalina, and definitely does well against luigi.

I know this pair was suggested by a well-regarded poster here, but I still have my doubts. I'd worry about Fox players once they've had more of a chance to play the Mewtwo matchup. Thing is, it's actually pretty tough to find someone who does better against both Fox and Rosa than Diddy does. If you definitely need an answer to midrange zoners, there's always Sheik, who cleanly beats Mega Man and (wo)manhandles Olimar as an added bonus.

Fox and ike complement each other well because ike struggles less against shield due to disjoints and grab conversions. He's a lot heavier which helps with survivability, and he does well vs Rosalina and possibly mario.

I'm not sure if Ike actually wins either of those matchups. When you say "does well vs. Rosalina and possibly Mario," I immediately think ZSS.

Sonic...I am less informed about MU wise. I do know he struggles against rosa and can get gimped, which is why I put MK here.

Sonic hates ZSS as well. Fortunately, MK does well against both. We all know about Rosa, but results indicate that he gives ZSS a fair bit of trouble even post-1.1.5. So yeah, I like this pairing a lot.

Mario and Cloud. Bread and butter braindead duo right there. Cloud takes care of rosa, and pretty much everyone else bar sheik, who mario does fine against anyway.

Ehh, Mario's acceptable vs. Sheik obviously, but it might still be in her favor slightly. I think you want a slightly stronger anti-Sheik pick who can also handle ZSS. Sadly those are in short supply, but really I think Mario does well enough in any matchup that you can just focus your effort into improving with him as opposed to counterpicking.

If corrin works for ESAM then I don't see why marth wouldn't either.

Marth is a more questionable pick against Ness, and then you also have MK and maybe Lucario to worry about. When I try and think of characters that can reliably answer all of those, only Ryu comes to mind.

ZSS has trouble against diddy and pikachu, who luigi does well against.

I like this one too; it's classic Dakpo. Though I might just use Mario or (as mentioned before) Fox. Alternatively, if you're of the mind that Sonic does OK vs. Pikachu (I think he does), you can use him for extra insurance against MK. Any Sonic pairing that can avoid playing the ditto is ideal.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Server maintenance is occurring right now. I really hope they aren't planning to drop a new patch, or at the very least if they are I hope they're only going to be buffing. We really don't need anymore nerfs at this point. I've really been liking 1.1.6 and hope it sticks around or at least that a potential 1.1.7 is similar to it. With that out of the way, back on topic.

Ok, Pikachu has great comboes, great combo starters (utilt, grab, quick attack), kill confirms (fair upsmash when with rage, dtilt upsmash), and a grab that may lead to a kill if your opponent is not quick enough reacting (upthrow thunder). To mention a few things

Oh god uthrow thunder... *triggered* Listen, we all know that uthrow thunder is very easy to DI. We also know that RAR Thunder is too inconsistent for humans as of right now. However, I have been seeing dthrow being used as a mix up to prevent people from DI-ing behind Pikachu which allows them to follow it up with jump > thunder.
While Pikachu discussion is usually rather crappy here, I think we can at least try to be civil and have an actual discussion on the character, but Shaya please please please please please stop it if it gets out of hand.

 

[TDK]

Can we please make "Pikachu Uthrow Thunder" a red topic?

 

[Yonder]

Server maintenance is occurring right now. I really hope they aren't planning to drop a new patch, or at the very least if they are I hope they're only going to be buffing. We really don't need anymore nerfs at this point. I've really been liking 1.1.6 and hope it sticks around or at least that a potential 1.1.7 is similar to it. With that out of the way, back on topic.
Oh god uthrow thunder... *triggered* Listen, we all know that uthrow thunder is very easy to DI. We also know that RAR Thunder is too inconsistent for humans as of right now. However, I have been seeing dthrow being used as a mix up to prevent people from DI-ing behind Pikachu which allows them to follow it up with jump > thunder.
While Pikachu discussion is usually rather crappy here, I think we can at least try to be civil and have an actual discussion on the character, but Shaya please please please please please stop it if it gets out of hand.

(Damn it I was JUST about to play FG)

Anyways there won't be a patch. I think at the very least if nerfs were to be filed it, it would take longer than...a day to do, they would probably take CEO into account more, no?

 

[Y2Kay]

We shouldn't ban Pikachu discussion.

Just because this thread can't handle having a constructive Pikachu discussion doesn't mean we should silence all Pikachu discussion. Everybody should be able to talk about their main's without any shame. That really isn't the case, however, and that has to change.

 

[ARISTOS]

I like Shady Shaymin's idea for a discussion topic.
Your theory is good, but I'm not sure this duo is great for individual matchups. Sheik may not lose to anyone outright, but you probably want someone who can cover Lucario, Mewtwo, and Sonic. I see DK doing fine against the former two but really struggling vs. the latter. Your best bet is honestly ZSS, who has a proven track record against Lucario/Sonic and is likely evenish with Mewtwo at least.
I know this pair was suggested by a well-regarded poster here, but I still have my doubts. I'd worry about Fox players once they've had more of a chance to play the Mewtwo matchup. Thing is, it's actually pretty tough to find someone who does better against both Fox and Rosa than Diddy does. If you definitely need an answer to midrange zoners, there's always Sheik, who cleanly beats Mega Man and (wo)manhandles Olimar as an added bonus.
I'm not sure if Ike actually wins either of those matchups. When you say "does well vs. Rosalina and possibly Mario," I immediately think ZSS.
Sonic hates ZSS as well. Fortunately, MK does well against both. We all know about Rosa, but results indicate that he gives ZSS a fair bit of trouble even post-1.1.5. So yeah, I like this pairing a lot.
Ehh, Mario's acceptable vs. Sheik obviously, but it might still be in her favor slightly. I think you want a slightly stronger anti-Sheik pick who can also handle ZSS. Sadly those are in short supply, but really I think Mario does well enough in any matchup that you can just focus your effort into improving with him as opposed to counterpicking.
Marth is a more questionable pick against Ness, and then you also have MK and maybe Lucario to worry about. When I try and think of characters that can reliably answer all of those, only Ryu comes to mind.
I like this one too; it's classic Dakpo. Though I might just use Mario or (as mentioned before) Fox. Alternatively, if you're of the mind that Sonic does OK vs. Pikachu (I think he does), you can use him for extra insurance against MK. Any Sonic pairing that can avoid playing the ditto is ideal.

I like this.

Though it is important to note the relative difficulty of the character you're trying to secondary. For example, in the Fox-Ike pair, you have ZSS listed as a possible swap. That's fair, but ZSS is a relatively more difficult character to pick up; the time spent building up that dual main might be better spent toughing out a bad MU.

Another thing to note as well: are we sure we're picking out the best secondary? Are there areas where we could just replace the secondary with and end up the same/ be better off for it?

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Pikachu is still the poor man's Fox.

So much of Pika's gameplan (i.e. QA, jab-locks, combos, etc.) rely on one of two things: (a) opponent lacking of MU knowledge (dealing with QA for example), or (b) the opponent messing up (i.e. missing a tech leadin). Take Fox, his gameplan is much more about him NOT messing up.

While they generally share attributes such as speed, good frame data, relying on kill confirms, exploitable recoveries, being light, possibly struggling to kill, decent combo breakers, etc. at the end of the day, Fox just comes out on top. His confirms are more varied and reliable, he's faster, his projectile is better, he relies less on gimmicks (referring to QA shenanigans and crouching), his MU spread seems better, and we just know more about the character.
(And I hate to be the guy to bring bidou into the discussion, but I'm certain that bidou Fox is the best character bidou has to offer).

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

We shouldn't ban Pikachu discussion.

Just because this thread can't handle having a constructive Pikachu discussion doesn't mean we should silence all Pikachu discussion. Everybody should be able to talk about their main's without any shame. That really isn't the case, however, and that has to change.

While I agree with this for the most part, I think it is also important for people to talk about characters other than their main as well. I find nothing wrong with comparing things to the character you know bestIf all you talk about is your main I feel like you are limiting yourself to only understanding other character's moves compared to your own, rather than other characters compared to other characters. In fact, I'd kinda like to see the people who complain the most about other characters like Cloud, Rosa, Mario, etc to actually try out these characters they struggle against and see maybe why they struggle and what they can learn from it.

Spoiler: Bidou stuff

(And I hate to be the guy to bring bidou into the discussion, but I'm certain that bidou Fox is the best character bidou has to offer).

Really? 'cause I think it's Little Mac, but Fox certainly has good stuff going for him when it comes to Bidou as well.

 

[|RK|]

So, someone on Reddit thinks counterpicking might be important not because of the specific MU, but because of your opponent's tendencies. I think this is an interesting perspective, since people like ANTi show more success using counterpicks than some show with their mains. Do you think that this thought has some merit at the top level? Not picking characters because "this is a better MU," but because "I can do these things against this opponent"?

I think it's probably justified in a way, since even ANTi doesn't necessarily pick the best pick. He cycles through characters until one proves sufficient to beat his opponent - not just the character.

Thoughts?

 

[Shady Shaymin]

I like this.

Though it is important to note the relative difficulty of the character you're trying to secondary. For example, in the Fox-Ike pair, you have ZSS listed as a possible swap. That's fair, but ZSS is a relatively more difficult character to pick up; the time spent building up that dual main might be better spent toughing out a bad MU.

Another thing to note as well: are we sure we're picking out the best secondary? Are there areas where we could just replace the secondary with and end up the same/ be better off for it?

I definitely don't think that Cloud is always the best pick for a secondary. For characters who already have a sheik problem, Cloud wouldn't make much sense. Also, some characters have easily exploitable recoveries and want a secondary that can survive offstage better than cloud.

Cloud seems to be the best secondary for characters that don't close stocks easily, struggle against rosaluma/sonic, and have to approach a lot.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Hoo boy time to tell people again that general server maintenence =/ patch

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Spoiler: Bidou stuff

Really? 'cause I think it's Little Mac, but Fox certainly has good stuff going for him when it comes to Bidou as well.

Spoiler: Nothing important, just lame bidou talk

For all I know, you could be right, and to be completely honest, I really don't know who gets more out of bidou. Regardless, Fox and Mac are among the characters who benefit the most from it. With that said, at the end of the day, the characters' weaknesses are still there. Bidou won't save Mac while off stage or in the air, and bidou won't save Fox from having his recovery tampered with. Bidou will however make the characters have more tools and options to utilize. When I look at it, even if Mac does get more out of it, Fox is still the better character therefore (in my eyes) he is, "the best bidou has to offer". Of course it's a subjective statement and open to different interpretations.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Do people really believe Pikachu's recovery is exploitable?
I mean, I have seen, jabs and tilts stuffing Fox's Illusion, but I am yet to see anyone CONSISTENTLY punishing Quick Attack when used to recover.

 

[C0rvus]

So, someone on Reddit thinks counterpicking might be important not because of the specific MU, but because of your opponent's tendencies. I think this is an interesting perspective, since people like ANTi show more success using counterpicks than some show with their mains. Do you think that this thought has some merit at the top level? Not picking characters because "this is a better MU," but because "I can do these things against this opponent"?

I think it's probably justified in a way, since even ANTi doesn't necessarily pick the best pick. He cycles through characters until one proves sufficient to beat his opponent - not just the character.

Thoughts?

I am of a similar train of thought. Of course having matchups covered has its clear merits. In many cases you may be having a close set that you're losing, and being able to pull out a radically different character might give you the edge over your opponent. Whether they have to play differently and re-adapt, or it's a matchup they are not familiar with, secondaries are a valuable resource on a player-by-player basis. With a pocket, you may lack polish and your opponent can pick you apart in a game or two.

Learning and playing three characters at high/top level may very well wear you too thin, so I'm not saying that it's the future or anything, but it's one way to approach the game. I do think that solo maining will end up very strong; look at Zinoto's strong showing, and I bet Abadango could do just as well if not better by focusing solely on Mewtwo. For many characters this isn't really a great idea, though.

 

[Man Li Gi]

I can't tell why, but my post about post tourney crash has "mysteriously disappeared" *coughShayathehimpressed*. Anyway, I'm gonna say it, this post tourney crash wasn't as hard as the other ones. I can't tell if I'm happy or saddened. I can at least say I'm impressed

 

[JustSomeScrub]

That's my thing though. Why are people so afraid of putting in work with a character?

I personally enjoy playing characters that are deep and complex. I feel all are deep characters and I like discovering new things and labbing with them.

But a lot of people are scared of the notion of playing a difficult character. Why are people so scared to invest time with a character? Why do people trick themselves into believing that a character is too hard for them to main?

I'm not judging people for playing easier characters but this mindset where you doubt your own ability in smash isn't very healthy and hurts characters' metagames.

I've yet to see examples of people dropping characters they perceive as top tier because they are too hard to play.

Not sure how Mewtwo is difficult to play either. Free recovery, simply neutral game with a ridiculously good fair and tilts and super easy kills off up throw (prob the best kill throw in the game). Just because he has advanced tech doesn't mean he relies on it to win.

I agree with Greninja and Lucario but they aren't underused because they are difficult I'd argue. It's more like you'll get better and faster results with basic fundamnetals Diddy or Mario than super optimized Greninja.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Their was data to suggest Mewtwo was a high tier character back then. We had players like Hitaku, Blue, and Rich Brown drop good characters for Mewtwo and got considerably better results. Mew^2 a player that was okay with solo Mewtwo in Texas jump to number one on hs power rankings after the buffs.

There where plenty of warning signs that Mewtwo could have been "that" good. It's just not a lot of people where paying attention and let Mewtwo sneak up on them and run them over.

Mewtwo doesn't have a player as good as Abadango but he has plenty of good players that hold it down for him at a regional level. Mew^ 2, Hitaku, Katakiri, Rich Brown, Katakiri, 9B, Ginko, and others have shown up to do well at tournaments with Mewtwo. Already Mewtwo's quality of results is up there with the top 15 characters.

We do have data to support that DK isn't a losing Mewtwo match up. LoF Blue has beaten Vex, Mew^2 has beaten Mew2King's DK and took DKWill to game 5. Now with Aba's recent win over Larry Lurr's DK does in fact show a trend that Mewtwo doesn't struggle against DK.

How many sets/games has DK won against Mewtwo? Need the full story, not just one side. Mew^2 lost to DKWill as you said yourself, what other ones are there?

I uh, also think you're underestimating how many characters can "claim" that "our data suggests we're high tier". Silly common claim. My whole argument back then was that 1 tournament win =/= insta-high tier because their had been blips for other characters near that level. People were clamouring for top 10 based on one result for crying out loud. My argument was "I'll believe it when that quality of results is repeated", it was eventually repeated and I agreed that Mewtwo is somewhere in high tier.

People are far to quick to jump the gun. If a character is actually good it has to be proven over a long stretch of time for the data to be significant. I'm talking a good 2-3 months not "we had a good 2-4 weeks high tier plz". Which is rampant particularly in this topic. And yes Mewtwo fell into that back then, jumping the gun is jumping the gun. As you admitted yourself a lot of people weren't paying attention to Mewtwo and he suck up on them: that's exactly why the data wasn't strong enough back then: there had been basically zero time to develop counterplay in terms of being aware that Mewtwo was a threat.

Even nowadays while people know Mewtwo is good... not a common character and Mewtwo is not a character you learn how to fight against in one set. Like with any MU you need multiple points of data: you need the same two players fighting each other multiple times and you need lots of different people involved in one particular MU before you can truly call it.

Mewtwo vs DK might be trending that way (depends on how many wins are on the DK side, and how recently), but more data is needed. Its not there yet. This game in general is too volatile/inconstant still because its still fairly new and still getting massive patches. You need lots of repeated results before you can say anything about a character period. Could it end up being that Mewtwo has 2 40-60s and then like 20 45-55 to 55-45 MUs? Sure. But it will be quite a while before we can say that.

 

[Man Li Gi]

I feel like, since I'm the residential DK main, I could and will chip in. I will do that, but later on.

 

[Y2Kay]

How many sets/games has DK won against Mewtwo? Need the full story, not just one side. Mew^2 lost to DKWill as you said yourself, what other ones are there?

I uh, also think you're underestimating how many characters can "claim" that "our data suggests we're high tier". Silly common claim. My whole argument back then was that 1 tournament win =/= insta-high tier because their had been blips for other characters near that level. People were clamouring for top 10 based on one result for crying out loud. My argument was "I'll believe it when that quality of results is repeated", it was eventually repeated and I agreed that Mewtwo is somewhere in high tier.

People are far to quick to jump the gun. If a character is actually good it has to be proven over a long stretch of time for the data to be significant. I'm talking a good 2-3 months not "we had a good 2-4 weeks high tier plz". Which is rampant particularly in this topic. And yes Mewtwo fell into that back then, jumping the gun is jumping the gun. As you admitted yourself a lot of people weren't paying attention to Mewtwo and he suck up on them: that's exactly why the data wasn't strong enough back then: there had been basically zero time to develop counterplay in terms of being aware that Mewtwo was a threat.

Even nowadays while people know Mewtwo is good... not a common character and Mewtwo is not a character you learn how to fight against in one set. Like with any MU you need multiple points of data: you need the same two players fighting each other multiple times and you need lots of different people involved in one particular MU before you can truly call it.

Mewtwo vs DK might be trending that way (depends on how many wins are on the DK side, and how recently), but more data is needed. Its not there yet. This game in general is too volatile/inconstant still because its still fairly new and still getting massive patches. You need lots of repeated results before you can say anything about a character period. Could it end up being that Mewtwo has 2 40-60s and then like 20 45-55 to 55-45 MUs? Sure. But it will be quite a while before we can say that.

Well, none of the other non - high tiers have ever had a break out win like that. Mewtwo one a national tournament. He beat K9, Void, Marss, and Ally to do so. It may have been one result, but it was a damn GOOD one.

Vex and Blue have gone back and forth for a few tournaments a couple months ago. Not much activity since then.

 

[Nu~]

Never got to talk about pacman..
Eh, don't really have much to say this time.

...

Except that hyper aggressive pacman play with a focus on sheild pressure maaaay be his new meta: https://vine.co/v/5uwXmWKUdZu

This and pacman mains are starting to dive deeper into his normals.
Uair is safe when spaced on sheild and I discovered that it can lead to this: https://vine.co/v/5B9Fq76U2TD

Also, Dtilt is really good. It has an okay disjoint, is safe on sheild, AND leads into stuff like this: https://vine.co/v/iD5pJLUL92Y


Yay for theory yet stagnant results~

 

[zzmorg82]

So, someone on Reddit thinks counterpicking might be important not because of the specific MU, but because of your opponent's tendencies. I think this is an interesting perspective, since people like ANTi show more success using counterpicks than some show with their mains. Do you think that this thought has some merit at the top level? Not picking characters because "this is a better MU," but because "I can do these things against this opponent"?

I think it's probably justified in a way, since even ANTi doesn't necessarily pick the best pick. He cycles through characters until one proves sufficient to beat his opponent - not just the character.

Thoughts?

It could work in certain situations , but overall it seems like a gamble IMO. You cycle through characters until you find the one fit to beat your opponent, but you're down 0-2 in a set and your opponnet has 3 games to adapt to your counterpick while your gameplay has to be on point to make a comeback.

In a serious setting, I doubt your opponent would say, "I don't know how to handle characters with projectiles." or "I'm not a fan of characters who have disjointed hitboxes." in front of you before a tournament match. If anything, I'm more on board with having good knowledge of 2-3 characters that have a good matchup spread across the cast and going through them agaisnt certain matchups.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Where do you guys think Sheik now stands?

I honestly don't think she's top 5 material anymore. She simply struggles way too much at killing compared to actual top 5 contenders now that her easy 50/50s are gone . It doesn't matter how good your neutral is if you can't close out stocks and every top Sheik these days seem to struggle at this (it's not uncommon to see opponents living to 180+). And after the 1.1.5 fair nerfs I'd argue her neutral is overrated anyway.

And looking at her recent results, at the most stacked majors (CEO, GOML) she hasn't performed that well. She has had a few reps sure, but nothing to suggest she's one of the absolute best characters anymore.

 

[Nobie]

I've yet to see examples of people dropping characters they perceive as top tier because they are too hard to play.

Not sure how Mewtwo is difficult to play either. Free recovery, simply neutral game with a ridiculously good fair and tilts and super easy kills off up throw (prob the best kill throw in the game). Just because he has advanced tech doesn't mean he relies on it to win.

I agree with Greninja and Lucario but they aren't underused because they are difficult I'd argue. It's more like you'll get better and faster results with basic fundamnetals Diddy or Mario than super optimized Greninja.

Mewtwo has difficult tech, but tech isn't the thing that makes Mewtwo difficult to use.

If all you see is Mewtwo succeeding in neutral, you're only getting half the story. You're seeing its nice range, you're seeing d-tilt, you're seeing Shadow Ball's low cooldown, and the ability to answer just about everything provided you're not too close to your opponent.

What you're not getting, then, is that all of Mewtwo's tools in neutral have clear weaknesses. D-tilt loses to short hop. F-tilt and U-tilt are good but not that good. Fair is really really good for a fair, but it can be beaten out by quicker attacks or superior disjoints.

"What does this matter if Mewtwo's attacks are so good?" It's because Mewtwo's a glass cannon. I know that's obvious at this point, it's the most commonly said thing about Mewtwo, but I still think people sometimes don't get the ramifications of this.

Mewtwo has a strong neutral, but pays the price dearly for making the wrong decision. The most vital resource in any Mewtwo matchup is not health or how charged your Shadow Ball is, it's FEAR. Mewtwo wants to instill fear in the opponent, but Mewtwo players can easily start playing scared and lose control of the game within a few seconds because of how fragile Mewtwo is.

Think of it like YOLO mode in DIvekick. It's a special gem that gives you a massive boost to all your stats, except instead of taking 5 hits to lose a match, you only need to get hit once. Sure, you have the superior character with the superior stats, but do you feel confident you can last 500% longer than your opponent?

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Mewtwo has difficult tech, but tech isn't the thing that makes Mewtwo difficult to use.

If all you see is Mewtwo succeeding in neutral, you're only getting half the story. You're seeing its nice range, you're seeing d-tilt, you're seeing Shadow Ball's low cooldown, and the ability to answer just about everything provided you're not too close to your opponent.

What you're not getting, then, is that all of Mewtwo's tools in neutral have clear weaknesses. D-tilt loses to short hop. F-tilt and U-
tilt are good but not that good. Fair is really really good for a fair, but it can be beaten out by quicker attacks or superior disjoints.

"What does this matter if Mewtwo's attacks are so good?" It's because Mewtwo's a glass cannon. I know that's obvious at this point, it's the most commonly said thing about Mewtwo, but I still think people sometimes don't get the ramifications of this.

Mewtwo has a strong neutral, but pays the price dearly for making the wrong decision. The most vital resource in any Mewtwo matchup is not health or how charged your Shadow Ball is, it's FEAR. Mewtwo wants to instill fear in the opponent, but Mewtwo players can easily start playing scared and lose control of the game within a few seconds because of how fragile Mewtwo is.

Think of it like YOLO mode in DIvekick. It's a special gem that gives you a massive boost to all your stats, except instead of taking 5 hits to lose a match, you only need to get hit once. Sure, you have the superior character with the superior stats, but do you feel confident you can last 500% longer than your opponent?

Fair enough. Mewtwo is the second lightest character afaik.

With that said, low health/glass cannon characters have historically been some of the strongest in fighting games.

Some notable examples:

Brawl MK -- one of the lightest characters in the game, still the best
SF4 Akuma -- tied for lowest health bar in the game, but due to plethora of great options was considered one of the best through out all iterations of the game
Melee Falco -- not exactly light but is almost always finished if he's hit just once while offstage so is very much a glass cannon

My point being if you give a character enough good options, a lower than normal health bar is usually not enough to keep them in check. Not that I'm suggesting Mewtwo is on the level of the above examples but I do think he's likely top 10 material.