Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Frihetsanka]

I never said that though . . .

Don't know how you messed that up man lol.

Huh, seems the quote function somehow messed up and I didn't notice. My bad. I was trying to quote E EternalFlare . I'll edit it.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Random question: who has the better Dtilt, Diddy or mewtwo?

I think within the context of each character's set of options they are pretty much ideal for both of them. If you swapped their dtilts, I don't think it'd be a beneficial bargain for either character. It's kind of like their respective fairs. Both are amazing but a character that can punish blocked stuff with banana toss -> dtilt -> whatever the **** he wants ... won't ask for a different fair, even if it was as amazing as Mewtwo's. Likewise, why would Mewtwo want to have Diddy's fair when his own dtilt is a perfectly sufficient tool to stonewall a good 95% of this game's approach options, grounded or aerial? He'd rather keep his own fair in that case because it precicely fills whatever few 'gaps' dtilt leaves - it kills, can be used out of an airdodge, during an aerial retreat et cetera.

tl;dr Mewtwo and Diddy both have incredible dtilts that also syncronize perfectly with their respective, incredible fairs. These options are perfect for them the way they are. Asking which one is better is just pointless.

Edit: Or in other words - Mewtwo is probably the only character in the game that wouldn't want Diddy's dtilt and vice versa.

 

[Das Koopa]

I have an idea of who 2 of the 3 characters are.
Also, will you be collecting data from the Road to Shine? I'm not sure if it'll fit given it's an online tournament (limited to Canadians and US Americans), but it has attracted a ton of people and notable names.

If I can decipher who used who, yeah. I entered as well.

 

[EternalFlare]

I think within the context of each character's set of options they are pretty much ideal for both of them. If you swapped their dtilts, I don't think it'd be a beneficial bargain for either character. It's kind of like their respective fairs. Both are amazing but a character that can punish blocked stuff with banana toss -> dtilt -> whatever the **** he wants ... won't ask for a different fair, even if it was as amazing as Mewtwo's. Likewise, why would Mewtwo want to have Diddy's fair when his own dtilt is a perfectly sufficient tool to stonewall a good 95% of this game's approach options, grounded or aerial? He'd rather keep his own fair in that case because it precicely fills whatever few 'gaps' dtilt leaves - it kills, can be used out of an airdodge, during an aerial retreat et cetera.

tl;dr Mewtwo and Diddy both have incredible dtilts that also syncronize perfectly with their respective, incredible fairs. These options are perfect for them the way they are. Asking which one is better is just pointless.

Edit: Or in other words - Mewtwo is probably the only character in the game that wouldn't want Diddy's dtilt and vice versa.

I don't know about that.

Diddy would probably be broken with Mewtwo's fair. His only limitation when it comes to offence is he can't kill early with aerials (outside of super high uairs+rage). Player's hate to be on the ground versus him because of banana and dtilt, they'd rather get hit by aerials all day, but if he could kill super early with a fair they'd be safe nowhere. And Mewtwo's fair can still be used to wall out and stuff approaches as well, that's not really exclusive to Diddy's current fair. In fact Mewtwo's fair is only -9 on block compared to Diddy's -19.

Similarly I think Mewtwo with Diddy's downtilt would only be better and at worse, just as good. He'd lose some range but would still able to do his regular combos off downtilt and it'd still function as a poke. But now he would also have the ability to true combo into his ridiculously strong up Smash. He'd still have Shadow Ball and his great grab to threaten with on the ground as well.

We have Das Koopa results thread for a reason. (Top 8 weighted results as of Aug 1st)

1) Sheik: 208
2) Diddy Kong: 192.5
3) Cloud: 175.5
4) Sonic: 133
5) Rosalina & Luma: 123.5
6) Mario: 111
7) Fox: 108.5
8) Zero Suit Samus: 98.5
9) Bayonetta: 74
10) Ryu 62.5
11) Toon Link: 59
12) Mewtwo 51

Edit: Greninja'd.

Does this factor in Japan? How much weight does this place on majors?

Because I don't see how Ryu is higher than Megaman, Villager or Mewtwo. Megaman significantly outplaced Ryu at both Ceo and Evo + has spectacular results in Japan. Villager is a similar story. And Mewtwo has won a major and placed in top 8s in multiple others. Meanwhile Ryu has had 0 top 8s at majors and has largely fallen off in Japan.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I don't know about that.

Diddy would probably be broken with Mewtwo's fair. His only limitation when it comes to offence is he can't kill early with aerials (outside of super high uairs+rage). Player's hate to be on the ground versus him because of banana and dtilt, they'd rather get hit by aerials all day, but if he could kill super early with a fair they'd be safe nowhere. And Mewtwo's fair can still be used to wall out and stuff approaches as well, that's not really exclusive to Diddy's current fair. In fact Mewtwo's fair is only -9 on block compared to Diddy's -19.

Similarly I think Mewtwo with Diddy's downtilt would only be better and at worse, just as good. He'd lose some range but would still able to do his regular combos off downtilt and it'd still function as a poke. But now he would also have the ability to true combo into his ridiculously strong up Smash. He'd still have Shadow Ball and his great grab to threaten with on the ground as well.



Does this factor in Japan? How much weight does this place on majors?

Because I don't see how Ryu is higher than Megaman, Villager or Mewtwo. Megaman significantly outplaced Ryu at both Ceo and Evo + has spectacular results in Japan. Villager is a similar story. And Mewtwo has won a major and placed in top 8s in multiple others. Meanwhile Ryu has had 0 top 8s at majors and has largely fallen off in Japan.

Yes it does, and a lot.

Thing is Ryu gets a lot more random results than people realize, while Mewtwo, Villager, and MegaMan don't really get any of those. Texas in particularly with Trela bringing in results a fair bit for Ryu there, more frequently than MegaMan and Scatt or Aba and Mewtwo. DJ Jack does similar work as well. It adds up after a while.

 

[EternalFlare]

Yes it does, and a lot.

Thing is Ryu gets a lot more random results than people realize, while Mewtwo, Villager, and MegaMan don't really get any of those. Texas in particularly with Trela bringing in results a fair bit for Ryu there, more frequently than MegaMan and Scatt or Aba and Mewtwo. DJ Jack does similar work as well. It adds up after a while.

Local Texas tournaments are not majors and I think characters that can place even top 16 consistently at the biggest events are much more significant. Plus I think locals that have players that actually place extremely high at majors regularly should hold more weight.

I mean no disrespect here but no one from Texas is a regular international threat outside of maybe Trela (which is still yet to be regularly seen really). In fact Trela recently called out his local community stating exactly this: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/4qy19a/trela_posted_this_to_his_local_fb_group/

Side Note: They have some of the best Project M players.

Of course Aba has less frequent results in the US, he only comes out to big events. Scatt alone might not have better results with Megaman overall, but Kamemushi definitely does (he's won some of the most stacked events in Japan + second at Evo, the most stacked Smash 4 tournament of all time by far). Ranai's inactivity is the only reason Villager is not higher. He used to be considered easily top 5 in Japan, got 3rd at Genesis and recently came back and got 5th Evo. That's way better than anything Ryu has ever done.

Ryu works better at lower levels where playstyles tend to be more aggressive and player's respect his options less instead of doing what is necessary to win because it's boring.

 

[Das Koopa]

Does this factor in Japan? How much weight does this place on majors?

Because I don't see how Ryu is higher than Megaman, Villager or Mewtwo. Megaman significantly outplaced Ryu at both Ceo and Evo + has spectacular results in Japan. Villager is a similar story. And Mewtwo has won a major and placed in top 8s in multiple others. Meanwhile Ryu has had 0 top 8s at majors and has largely fallen off in Japan.

It includes relevant Japanese tournies and provides a decent amount of weight for higher skill pools.

Ryu placements:

Spoiler

-DJ Jack, 2nd at CEO Prologue
-Trela, 1st at Come and Take it 3
-Apachai, 13th at 2GGT Mexico Saga
-Shel, 13th at Midwest Mayhem 3
-Trela, 1st at TGC8
-Haipe, 13th at TGC8
-Klein, 7th at Hail Smash III.
-AZ, 9th at Santa Fe Smash Fiesta 2
-Shel, 7th at Smash & Splash 2
-Aki, 7th at Sumabato 11
-Klein, 5th at Smash Factor Prelude
-Locus, 2nd at Emerald City III
-Secondary for False at CEO. (7th.)
-Takera, 4th at TUS Tournament 5
-Darkshad, 7th at WTFox 2.
-Secondary for Elexiao at Neokan Party 2 (5th.)
-OurOuzBek, 13th at Neokan Party 2.
-BelaC, 13th at Invasion 6.
-Darkshad, 7th at Midwest Mayhem 4.
-Renegade, 9th at Midwest Mayhem 4.
-Trela, 1st at Impact.
-Haipe, 9th at Impact.
-ExJORDANary, 9th at Breakout 4.
-Light, 9th at Los Angeles Fraud Fights.
-PR QT, 7th at Divine Intervention.
-Trela, 9th at EVO 2016.
-DJ Jack, 1st at VSGC July 21st.
-Patrino, 7th at PPT Summer 2.
-Xelim, 9th at Be Smash 2016.
-Klein, 13th at Smash Factor 5.
-AndresFn, 9th at Sonic Boom 2016.
-Venom, 7th at Nexus 2.
-Killion, 9th at Nexus 2.

The difference in point share is explained in my methodology, but AndresFn getting 9th at a Spain National gives Ryu 2 points vs. Ryu getting 10 points from Trela getting 9th at EVO.

Edit; This is for Top 16. I didn't see the Top 8 part, but the placements here pretty clearly illustrate why when you look at some of the results and attendees. Trela has won two Texas regionals where significant players were in attendance, Klein got 5th at Prelude having sent MKLeo into Losers, and Ryu has a general wealth of good placements in Florida and the Midwest.

 

[EternalFlare]

It includes relevant Japanese tournies and provides a decent amount of weight for higher skill pools.

Ryu placements:

Spoiler

-DJ Jack, 2nd at CEO Prologue
-Trela, 1st at Come and Take it 3
-Apachai, 13th at 2GGT Mexico Saga
-Shel, 13th at Midwest Mayhem 3
-Trela, 1st at TGC8
-Haipe, 13th at TGC8
-Klein, 7th at Hail Smash III.
-AZ, 9th at Santa Fe Smash Fiesta 2
-Shel, 7th at Smash & Splash 2
-Aki, 7th at Sumabato 11
-Klein, 5th at Smash Factor Prelude
-Locus, 2nd at Emerald City III
-Secondary for False at CEO. (7th.)
-Takera, 4th at TUS Tournament 5
-Darkshad, 7th at WTFox 2.
-Secondary for Elexiao at Neokan Party 2 (5th.)
-OurOuzBek, 13th at Neokan Party 2.
-BelaC, 13th at Invasion 6.
-Darkshad, 7th at Midwest Mayhem 4.
-Renegade, 9th at Midwest Mayhem 4.
-Trela, 1st at Impact.
-Haipe, 9th at Impact.
-ExJORDANary, 9th at Breakout 4.
-Light, 9th at Los Angeles Fraud Fights.
-PR QT, 7th at Divine Intervention.
-Trela, 9th at EVO 2016.
-DJ Jack, 1st at VSGC July 21st.
-Patrino, 7th at PPT Summer 2.
-Xelim, 9th at Be Smash 2016.
-Klein, 13th at Smash Factor 5.
-AndresFn, 9th at Sonic Boom 2016.
-Venom, 7th at Nexus 2.
-Killion, 9th at Nexus 2.

The difference in point share is explained in my methodology, but AndresFn getting 9th at a Spain National gives Ryu 2 points vs. Ryu getting 10 points from Trela getting 9th at EVO.

Edit; This is for Top 16. I didn't see the Top 8 part, but the placements here pretty clearly illustrate why when you look at some of the results and attendees. Trela has won two Texas regionals where significant players were in attendance, Klein got 5th at Prelude having sent MKLeo into Losers, and he has a general wealth of good placements in Florida and the Midwest.

Thanks for explaining.

However, you'll notice pretty much all these placings outside of Evo are at significantly less stacked tournaments. Ryu does seem to have a bigger presence at locals and regionals but at majors Mewtwo, Villager and Megaman have consistently performed better when their best players were in attendance. Obviously a completely fair comparison is not possible when Ranai and Kamemushi don't travel frequently.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Tier lists reflect all high levels of play, not just the internationals/majors. As long as there is a large pool of players + a good handful of at least recognizable names (which Das Koopa grabs with his results), it should be considered a reflection on the meta. His methodology is sound.

End of the day, both tier lists and overall result lists don't care about somebody's potential to travel. They only care about what has actually happened. If Aba suddenly say, broke his hand and had to stop completing for 4 months between recovery time and the time to get back up to par, Mewtwo's standings would heavily reflect that. As would a tier list most likely as it takes in the current metagame... and Mewtwo's current metagame in that situation would be weaker as Aba isn't there to keep pushing it forwards while the characters around him don't have that problem.

Obviously Mewtwo wouldn't fall off the face of the tier list back into low tier, but with bad timing he would take a justified drop compared to where he could be, because his metagame would have taken a small step back. Toon Link is legitimately facing that situation right now with what happened with Hyuga. Can say its not fair that Toon Link's best main can't complete in the US anymore but at the end of the day, that reflects in both the results and tier list.

Chances are close to 100% that when the next tier list comes out, it will be Mewtwo > Ryu > MegaMan. Ryu's regional level presence will be a big factor in that, because it does matter. Still top level worth.

 

[EternalFlare]

Tier lists reflect all high levels of play, not just the internationals/majors. As long as there is a large pool of players + a good handful of at least recognizable names (which Das Koopa grabs with his results), it should be considered a reflection on the meta. His methodology is sound.

End of the day, both tier lists and overall result lists don't care about somebody's potential to travel. They only care about what has actually happened. If Aba suddenly say, broke his hand and had to stop completing for 4 months between recovery time and the time to get back up to par, Mewtwo's standings would heavily reflect that. As would a tier list most likely as it takes in the current metagame... and Mewtwo's current metagame in that situation would be weaker as Aba isn't there to keep pushing it forwards while the characters around him don't have that problem.

Obviously Mewtwo wouldn't fall off the face of the tier list back into low tier, but with bad timing he would take a justified drop compared to where he could be, because his metagame would have taken a small step back. Toon Link is legitimately facing that situation right now with what happened with Hyuga. Can say its not fair that Toon Link's best main can't complete in the US anymore but at the end of the day, that reflects in both the results and tier list.

Chances are close to 100% that when the next tier list comes out, it will be Mewtwo > Ryu > MegaMan. Ryu's regional level presence will be a big factor in that, because it does matter. Still top level worth.

I'd have to disagree.

Tier lists are about character potential at the highest level, not popularity. And Megaman has performed much better at higher levels of play.

Otherwise Puff should be low tier in Melee. The character has little presence at regionals and literally all of the character's significant results are due to one player.

And Cloud in Smash 4 should be in a tier of his own if popularity matters more than peak (since so many players have pocket Clouds which is definitely reflected in the regional level as well) and he's notorious for seeming overpowered at mid levels of play and lower. But would you rank Cloud in a tier of his own? Probably not with the only justification being his lack of peak results at the biggest events.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Potential does not matter. Its not a quantifiable thing. There is no hard data behind it, just people arguing over their gut feelings which is unreliable.

By definition, a tier list is a snapshot of the current meta game. That's the keyword: "current". The metagame is also more than just internationals: regionals and even very large locals are all part of the metagame that's important to observe. Top level players still run into each other at those events. We avoid the "strictly popular" part by not counting tiny locals, that would absolutely skewer results. But if its large enough to have multiple recognizable names fight it out at the end? It counts. You can absolutely take information from those events, and those particular fights, and get relevant data out of them.

Results play a large factor in that, and they happen at that whole range of events. As does MU and tool analysis (which is why Ryu will be above MegaMan on top of the lightly better overall results. His tools are better overall as well, as is his MU spread). The later two is why its not strictly results, you can have wonky factors in results (like EVO's bad scheduling). Its also why you don't just look at character performance at internationals, they aren't immune to that factor. Nobody is going to deny that EVO had an effect on placings with how they handled things. But you can't quantify how much of an effect it had. You have to cast a larger net in order to minimize the impact those those issues on the tier list. Part of that net is a larger range of results looked at, another part is the tool and MU analysis as finicky/unknown as those two things can be at times.

Trends in results are also important. Don't just look at the most recent results, look at standings at various months. Corrin had absolutely no relevant results for a long time, then had a massive spike for one month, and has dropped back off of the radar since then. In month 1 he had the results of a low tier/bottom of mid tier. Month 2 he had the results of a top 10 character. Month 3 he's looking more like upper part of mid tier because those Month 2 results still exist, just that other characters have passed him. You take all of that info, and then his tools (Dragon Lunge is silly, his mobility is crap to super simplify things) and his MU stuff (Loses to Diddy at least, several other top tiers as well. Beats Mario which is pretty important and lets him be a good counter pick) and add it up all together to see what you get (top area of mid tier character. If you ask people what they think of Corrin based strictly on "potential" aka "their gut" you'll see top 15s and even the occasional top 10. But his results and proven MU outlooks don't stack up to that, thus that "potential" is either way off base or is flat out wrong. Irrelevant in either case).

tl;dr version: Overall results prove so called "potential", with the help of tools and MU study. No results, no potential in the current metagame.

 

[Das Koopa]

Ryu's impact at a regional level is pretty important; No top 8 placements at super big tournies, but top 8 is an arbitrary metric with no inherent value. We could measure it by top 12, 6, 4, or 2. It's just a thing that springs up. I use Top 16 as a general standard since that's usually the lower limit for even finding who used who at tournies that aren't massive.

Keep in mind that Trela did get 9th, and 7th holds little more value that 9th does statistically. It's the difference of one set win. This should be noteworthy and valuable because a tournament as stacked as EVO forces players to contest other major players long before top 8. Trela defeated Mr. R. Why is this never brought up when examining top level results for Ryu? He has set wins over;

At regional level:
-Vinnie
-Larry Lurr
-VoiD
-Tyrant
-FOW
-Mr. E

At national level:
-ESAM
-Wrath
-Mr. R

EVO is extremely valuable due to the high skill pool because it's more likely for top players to face other top players, but some of Ryu's best results are at a regional level. While Fresh Saga isn't included in the 1.1.6 list since it happened prior, there's precedence for Ryu's results, and evidence to suggest that Ryu may have results similar to other strongly performing characters, like Villager, Mewtwo, Mega Man, etc.

 

[EternalFlare]

Potential does not matter. Its not a quantifiable thing. There is no hard data behind it, just people arguing over their gut feelings which is unreliable.

By definition, a tier list is a snapshot of the current meta game. That's the keyword: "current". The metagame is also more than just internationals: regionals and even very large locals are all part of the metagame that's important to observe. Top level players still run into each other at those events. We avoid the "strictly popular" part by not counting tiny locals, that would absolutely skewer results. But if its large enough to have multiple recognizable names fight it out at the end? It counts. You can absolutely take information from those events, and those particular fights, and get relevant data out of them.

Results play a large factor in that, and they happen at that whole range of events. As does MU and tool analysis (which is why Ryu will be above MegaMan on top of the lightly better overall results. His tools are better overall as well, as is his MU spread). The later two is why its not strictly results, you can have wonky factors in results (like EVO's bad scheduling). Its also why you don't just look at character performance at internationals, they aren't immune to that factor. Nobody is going to deny that EVO had an effect on placings with how they handled things. But you can't quantify how much of an effect it had. You have to cast a larger net in order to minimize the impact those those issues on the tier list. Part of that net is a larger range of results looked at, another part is the tool and MU analysis as finicky/unknown as those two things can be at times.

Trends in results are also important. Don't just look at the most recent results, look at standings at various months. Corrin had absolutely no relevant results for a long time, then had a massive spike for one month, and has dropped back off of the radar since then. In month 1 he had the results of a low tier/bottom of mid tier. Month 2 he had the results of a top 10 character. Month 3 he's looking more like upper part of mid tier because those Month 2 results still exist, just that other characters have passed him. You take all of that info, and then his tools (Dragon Lunge is silly, his mobility is crap to super simplify things) and his MU stuff (Loses to Diddy at least, several other top tiers as well. Beats Mario which is pretty important and lets him be a good counter pick) and add it up all together to see what you get (top area of mid tier character. If you ask people what they think of Corrin based strictly on "potential" aka "their gut" you'll see top 15s and even the occasional top 10. But his results and proven MU outlooks don't stack up to that, thus that "potential" is either way off base or is flat out wrong. Irrelevant in either case).

tl;dr version: Overall results prove so called "potential", with the help of tools and MU study. No results, no potential in the current metagame.

You misunderstood me. I'm not saying results don't matter, I'm saying results at the biggest tournaments matter much more than results at lesser tournaments.

Ryu does well in Texas. Texas has no national top level threats outside of Trela so your example simply does not work in this case. So why is how he does there relevant compared to say Japan? Which has 20+ top level players and has repeatedly done extremely well at US nationals despite not even all their best players being in attendance?

Even if you want to downplay Evo, Megaman still has better results than Ryu. Why are you ignoring what Kame has done with the character in Japan? You claim regionals/non-internationals are important if they have top level players in attendance correct? Then Japanese results definitely still count whereas Texas does not. In fact if you ignore Evo, Ryu's only decent placing at a national goes out the window so only hurts your argument.

Ryu's impact at a regional level is pretty important; No top 8 placements at super big tournies, but top 8 is an arbitrary metric with no inherent value. We could measure it by top 12, 6, 4, or 2. It's just a thing that springs up. I use Top 16 as a general standard since that's usually the lower limit for even finding who used who at tournies that aren't massive.

Keep in mind that Trela did get 9th, and 7th holds little more value that 9th does statistically. It's the difference of one set win. This should be noteworthy and valuable because a tournament as stacked as EVO forces players to contest other major players long before top 8. Trela defeated Mr. R. Why is this never brought up when examining top level results for Ryu? He has set wins over;

At regional level:
-Vinnie
-Larry Lurr
-VoiD
-Tyrant
-FOW
-Mr. E

At national level:
-ESAM
-Wrath
-Mr. R

EVO is extremely valuable due to the high skill pool because it's more likely for top players to face other top players, but some of Ryu's best results are at a regional level. While Fresh Saga isn't included in the 1.1.6 list since it happened prior, there's precedence for Ryu's results, and evidence to suggest that Ryu may have results similar to other strongly performing characters, like Villager, Mewtwo, Mega Man, etc.

Megaman and Villager have similarly big wins, if not bigger including several players on your list as well as the likes of Ally and Zero. But they aren't ranked nearly as high.

Your reasoning is Ryu has better results at the regional level correct?

My question is WHY are regional results no matter how frequent, more relevant then what happens at the most stacked of tournaments. How can you place so much weight on Texas which only has 1 top level player (according to Trela himself)?

Kamemushi has beaten basically all of Japan multiple times. In a tournament with virtually all top American players in attendance, he outplaced all of them as well. Is that not much more significant? I mean even all of Ryu's results combined are nowhere near this good.

 

[Luco]

I don't see how Fox camps Ness with lasers at all. At full screen spamming lasers is a free heal for Ness so that's hardly going to convince him to approach. At mid range or closer it's too risky to throw out lasers given there's no way to make them lagless in this game.

Granted Fox can juggle Ness forever given he lacks of a momentum shift move like better characters have...that's probably the biggest issue with the matchup. Still I agree he does better versus Fox than other top tiers that can legitimately camp him or destroy his recovery.

Fox runs away, jumps, B-reverses a laser or two and then does nothing. You've taken 2 or 3%. He does this a few times when you don't predict it's coming and he's got you. Magnet can't be cancelled if it has nothing rto heal off, so it's impractical for a Ness to stand using Magnet all the time because fox can run right up to us and tap us on the shoulder in the middle of our end-lag. So it still ends up forcing us to approach. To a lesser extent this also happens with Pit.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Because frequency = consistency.

Consistency is huge. Consistency is frankly the thing that separates high tier from mid tier in this game because so many characters are perfectly usable at national level, even top 8able at a national level.

Regionals are big deals. Internationals are too volatile for anyone to be truly consistent at them. The first level you can argue for somebody to be consistent are nationals, which there still aren't many of throughout a year. Regionals however, can happen as frequently as once a month. They're the largest tournaments that can happen frequently. And if somebody or some character can contently do well at that level, that speaks volumes. Which is also why regionals are used to help with seeding for nationals and internationals. They have a direction impact on those types of tournaments, which is another thing that cannot be ignored.

I wouldn't put too much weight on Trela's claim that he's the only top level player in Texas. Egos are things that exist. Players like The Wall (arguably the best Yoshi in the world now), Jerm (Robin main who has started taking names more consistently), and MegaFox (Considered one of the best Fox mains in the world, just doesn't get to travel enough because he's pretty young, has torn it up within Texas) are all from Texas: all absolutely known names. Unless beating players like Trela himself, or Dabuz doesn't count.

Regionals matter. Have mattered for as long as results have mattered for SSB. We put more weight on nationals and majors when comparing individual tournaments for sure. But over the course of the year? Consistently placing in regionals may very well outweigh the handful of nationals and majors in terms of results.

 

[Nobie]

My question is WHY are regional results no matter how frequent, more relevant then what happens at the most stacked of tournaments. How can you place so much weight on Texas which only has 1 top level player (according to Trela himself)?

According to Das Koopa himself, stacked tournaments ARE weighted more heavily. Like he said, getting 9th at EVO is a bigger deal than getting 2nd at a Texas regional, and thus garners more points.

The issue is that there are approximately three major Mega Men (Kamemushi, Daiki, ScAtt) before, and comparatively many more Ryus running around. Though not a wholly reliable indicator, greater character usage will affect how well a character does overal in the rankings (the more of a character present at a tournament, the likelier they are to place highly, barring differences in skill).

Wasn't Mario like this for a while according to @Thinkaman? He had only really Ally as a top-level rep, but Mario could be found everywhere in locals, weeklies, and regionals, kicking ass and taking names. Sure, you could argue that those are weaker tournaments (and they are), but those results still factor into the landscape of Smash 4 tourney play. It just so happened that there were SO many high-placing Marios that even when you weighted harder tournaments Mario still came out towards the top (and still does!).

 

[EternalFlare]

Fox runs away, jumps, B-reverses a laser or two and then does nothing. You've taken 2 or 3%. He does this a few times when you don't predict it's coming and he's got you. Magnet can't be cancelled if it has nothing rto heal off, so it's impractical for a Ness to stand using Magnet all the time because fox can run right up to us and tap us on the shoulder in the middle of our end-lag. So it still ends up forcing us to approach. To a lesser extent this also happens with Pit.

I definitely agree it's a terrible idea to try to predict projectiles with Ness's down B.

But you can heal off long distance lasers on reaction, there's no predicting involved. And at ranges where lasers not possible to react to easily, they are not safe to throw out. Fox can certainly try it but it's just as risky for him if not more so as he has to worry about dash grab punishes both directly or catching his landings after the laser.

If you want to out camp or zone out Ness basically every other top tier does a better job of it. As Ness I'd much rather face a Fox any-day then a campy Sheik or Sonic.

Because frequency = consistency.

Consistency is huge. Consistency is frankly the thing that separates high tier from mid tier in this game because so many characters are perfectly usable at national level, even top 8able at a national level.

Regionals are big deals. Internationals are too volatile for anyone to be truly consistent at them. The first level you can argue for somebody to be consistent are nationals, which there still aren't many of throughout a year. Regionals however, can happen as frequently as once a month. They're the largest tournaments that can happen frequently. And if somebody or some character can contently do well at that level, that speaks volumes. Which is also why regionals are used to help with seeding for nationals and internationals. They have a direction impact on those types of tournaments, which is another thing that cannot be ignored.

I wouldn't put too much weight on Trela's claim that he's the only top level player in Texas. Egos are things that exist. Players like The Wall (arguably the best Yoshi in the world now), Jerm (Robin main who has started taking names more consistently), and MegaFox (Considered one of the best Fox mains in the world, just doesn't get to travel enough because he's pretty young, has torn it up within Texas) are all from Texas: all absolutely known names. Unless beating players like Trela himself, or Dabuz doesn't count.

Regionals matter. Have mattered for as long as results have mattered for SSB. We put more weight on nationals and majors when comparing individual tournaments for sure. But over the course of the year? Consistently placing in regionals may very well outweigh the handful of nationals and majors in terms of results.

Kamemushi is more consistent then any Ryu by far especially remarkable considering he's from an infinitely more stacked region. People act like Evo was an outlier when it's just not true.

Also there are definitely consistent players and characters are majors. Ryu just isn't one of them.

 

[Luco]

I definitely agree it's a terrible idea to try to predict projectiles with Ness's down B.

But you can heal off long distance lasers on reaction, there's no predicting involved. And at ranges where lasers not possible to react to easily, they are not safe to throw out. Fox can certainly try it but it's just as risky for him if not more so as he has to worry about dash grab punishes both directly or catching his landings after the laser.

If you want to out camp or zone out Ness basically every other top tier does a better job of it. As Ness I'd much rather face a Fox any-day then a campy Sheik or Sonic.

I agree that I'd much rather face a campy Fox - but let's be real, given Ness' start-up time on magnet and the speed at which Fox throws out a laser, no that is not feasably reactable if he only throws out one or two, you can only predict. Try it against a competent Fox (there's a billion of them in my country, so I can tell you with confidence), it's not a viable strategy.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I definitely agree it's a terrible idea to try to predict projectiles with Ness's down B.

But you can heal off long distance lasers on reaction, there's no predicting involved. And at ranges where lasers not possible to react to easily, they are not safe to throw out. Fox can certainly try it but it's just as risky for him if not more so as he has to worry about dash grab punishes both directly or catching his landings after the laser.

If you want to out camp or zone out Ness basically every other top tier does a better job of it. As Ness I'd much rather face a Fox any-day then a campy Sheik or Sonic.



Kamemushi is more consistent then any Ryu by far especially remarkable considering he's from an infinitely more stacked region. People act like Evo was an outlier when it's just not true.

Also there are definitely consistent players and characters are majors. Ryu just isn't one of them.

Aside from the MUs we have already agreed are awful for Ness(Cloud, Sheik, Rosa) what character can camp him while boasting a punish game as good as Fox's?
and what does Fox have to fear from Ness at mid range....?

 

[0mega_Nebula_1]

There are still so many people who I know that think Scatt still had the best Megaman despite that title clearly belonging to Kamemushi.

 

[EternalFlare]

I agree that I'd much rather face a campy Fox - but let's be real, given Ness' start-up time on magnet and the speed at which Fox throws out a laser, no that is not feasably reactable if he only throws out one or two, you can only predict. Try it against a competent Fox (there's a billion of them in my country, so I can tell you with confidence), it's not a viable strategy.

Are we talking about full screen lasers? You have tons of time to react to those. I've always been able to do it and I have an average reaction time at best. The point being here that it's hardly something that can force Ness to approach if he doesn't want to. I'll happily heal all day.

I agree it's not possible when he's at mid range but the tradeoff is hardly in Fox's favour to throw out lasers at punishable ranges. If it lands he only gets 2-3 percent and regardless of if it lands or not, if the Ness reads it and dash grabs, he's likely taking around 20 percent.

Aside from the MUs we have already agreed are awful for Ness(Cloud, Sheik, Rosa) what character can camp him while boasting a punish game as good as Fox's?
and what does Fox have to fear from Ness at mid range....?

Diddy Kong. He can out camp Ness fairly easily and punishes bad approaches better than most. Ness doesn't have a good projectile, disjoints or great mobility, you need one of these things to get in on Diddy. Offstage Ness has to worry about his dair as well as the semi-spike on his side B.

Sonic as well. His punish game isn't as good but his insane mobility is so rough for Ness, he's forced to over commit and make hard reads to stand a chance. Plus his spring is a solid answer to Ness's recovery.

Fox has to respect dash grabs from Ness which can come at any time at mid range especially at kill percents making lasers at that range quite risky.

 

[FeelMeUp]

both diddy and sonic's punish games are worse than Fox's.
Theirs are just more consistent in that they'll get nearly the same amount of % every time.

 

[EternalFlare]

both diddy and sonic's punish games are worse than Fox's.
Theirs are just more consistent in that they'll get nearly the same amount of % every time.

Fox can potentially get more off juggles but Diddy and Sonic will always get solid damage off of getting in once.

In other words if Diddy and Fox both got in on Ness 3 times, Diddy will consistently do solid damage each time. Fox could potentially do more and potentially less, it all depends on how the 50/50s went as he's juggling Ness (fast fall air dodge or not etc.).

Diddy Kong's kill confirms are a lot more practical than the ones Fox has which tend to be slow and telegraphed (full hop dair, soft nair etc).

Overall I agree Fox probably punishes Ness harder than these two due to his inability to shift aerial momentum and Fox's great juggle game. But Diddy/Sonics neutral is tougher to deal with for Ness.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Fox can potentially get more off juggles but Diddy and Sonic will always get solid damage off of getting in once.

In other words if Diddy and Fox both got in on Ness 3 times, Diddy will consistently do solid damage each time. Fox could potentially do more and potentially less, it all depends on how the 50/50s went as he's juggling Ness (fast fall air dodge or not etc.).

Diddy Kong's kill confirms are a lot more practical than the ones Fox has which tend to be slow and telegraphed (full hop dair, soft nair etc).

Overall I agree Fox probably punishes Ness harder due to his inability to shift aerial momentum and Fox's great juggle game. But Diddy's neutral is tougher to deal with for Ness.

I can agree with the 2 last points if that's what you wanted me to take from this. I would never contest the idea of diddy's neutral being harder to break than fox's. Fox's neutral is nowhere near as good as diddy's.
What I was trying to say is that if a Ness whiffs, say, an fsmash(it's hypothetical) you'd much rather be Fox than Diddy or Sonic. At any %, really.

 

[EternalFlare]

I can agree with the 2 last points if that's what you wanted me to take from this. I would never contest the idea of diddy's neutral being harder to break than fox's. Fox's neutral is nowhere near as good as diddy's.
What I was trying to say is that if a Ness whiffs, say, an fsmash(it's hypothetical) you'd much rather be Fox than Diddy or Sonic. At any %, really.

Overall definitely.

But if Ness whiffed an Fsmash near (but not right next to) the ledge, I'd rather be Diddy with a banana. I can glide toss forward into a semi-charged Fsmash which can kill earlier than Fox's up Smash next to the ledge.

 

[my_T]

Wasn't Mario like this for a while according to @Thinkaman? He had only really Ally as a top-level rep, but Mario could be found everywhere in locals, weeklies, and regionals, kicking *** and taking names. Sure, you could argue that those are weaker tournaments (and they are), but those results still factor into the landscape of Smash 4 tourney play. It just so happened that there were SO many high-placing Marios that even when you weighted harder tournaments Mario still came out towards the top (and still does!).

If we're trying to figure out how good a character really is, why would lesser skilled/stacked tournies be taken into consideration?

All this really tells me is that certain characters are easier or harder to use at lower levels of play. Mario's performance seems to get worse (not by a lot) as you approach top level play. I'm assuming characters like megaman and sheiks performance probably drops off a good bit at lower levels of play while at top level these characters perform quite well.

A good example of this would be Tekken. Characters like the capos (eddy, christie, tigger) Law, or King are regarded more highly at lower levels of play where as at top level they are not regarded so high (especially King). On the other hand you have the Mishima's that don't perform as well at lower levels of play but at top level they're pretty godlike.

and another thing about results; they're hardly worth anything unless it's top player vs top player in a long set (3/5 minimum). Raw placings hardly matter, you don't see the big picture like bracket run, skill gap, characters in attendance, why players use the character(s) that they use, etc.

 

[verbatim]

If we're trying to figure out how good a character really is, why would lesser skilled/stacked tournies be taken into consideration?

All this really tells me is that certain characters are easier or harder to use at lower levels of play. Mario's performance seems to get worse (not by a lot) as you approach top level play. I'm assuming characters like megaman and sheiks performance probably drops off a good bit at lower levels of play while at top level these characters perform quite well.

Because a Socal super regional isn't a "Lower level of play".

IMO tierlists should be indicative of a character's overall results. If I go to x regional/national/major, it's in my direct interest as a player to spend more time preparing for the Mario matchup than it is the Megaman matchup, because they are a significantly more likely threat for me to run into.

 

[blackghost]

and Mr. R posts his current tier list, once again we see Marth as a top 15 character

https://twitter.com/Mr_RSmash/status/760709372406296576

Spoiler

Other notable things are Bayo, Lucas, Lucina, Link (?), and Falcon (?)

I suppose Link can come from him frequently playing Izaw and him playing Link himself, theres also Lucina generally being very close to Marth on the tier list but I'm not sure about everyone else

bayonetta needs to get down from there. the character looks grrat when your opponent is unfamiliar (as most players are) but just basing on what i hear from commentators players are still woefully ignorant about what she can do and what her gameplan is. i'm not going to really acknowledge the "potential" argument no majors and the biggest tournemnt she has won featured zero elite diddys, no dabuz, no clouds, and three aggro shieks. it was a dream bracket. pink fresh said on his stream that she is around 10 to 12. i have no doubt she can rise but thats not the current state of her.

 

[my_T]

Because a Socal super regional isn't a "Lower level of play".

First off, I didn't say anything about Socal specifically, I was talking about results from all over the world. And even in Socal there are still varying levels of skill throughout, everybody in Socal ain't top level.

IMO tierlists should be indicative of a character's overall results. If I go to x regional/national/major, it's in my direct interest as a player to spend more time preparing for the Mario matchup than it is the Megaman matchup, because they are a significantly more likely threat for me to run into.

Every match-up is important. This kind of mindset will just get you blown up in bracket because you ran into some character(s) that you dont have enough experience with. You never know what character you're going to run into. IMO losing match-ups require more attention than any other regardless of how popular the character may be

and the point i was trying to make about megaman and sheik is that they perform worse and in some cases have less rep at lower levels of play because they require a great deal of skill to use efficiently. Their performance at lower levels is deceptive of how good they really are

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Hmm I haven't been active here and in the competitive scene for a bit, and often times I witness the stigma that underlooked characters/ low tiers cannot win any relevant match ups and lose every single one pretty solidly without looking at said underlooked characters strengths in that matchup amd pointing out one flaw of them that makes the high/top tier automatically win. I dunno, I've been seeing this a lot lately, or maybe it's just me.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Has anyone explored the idea of a timeout Pika?

 

[Nocally]

Has anyone explored the idea of a timeout Pika?

It's a gruesome experience for everyone involved, both for the players and the spectators.

 

[Das Koopa]

Has anyone explored the idea of a timeout Pika?

can we not open pandora's box

 

[soniczx123]

How would a timeout Pikachu work??

 

[meleebrawler]

How would a timeout Pikachu work??

Pretend you're playing 64 on the large Hyrule Castle with an invincible Quick Attack.

 

[HoSmash4]

Timeout Pikachu would work like Timeout sonic, but the difference is one is faster and one's core move has invincibility frames whilst the other doesnt. (Never mind one move making their hurtbox smaller whilst the other move makes their hurtbox bigger)

Timeout Pikachu works though.

 

[TriTails]

I've always believed that 'timing out' playstyle is better off morphing itself to 'get a lead then play a zoning game to force mistakes that you can capitalize on since they are now approaching you'.

Maybe it won't really work if you play light characters and/or you're at high percents, but I think it'd work much better for others than having to run away for like 3-5 minutes. Fatigue man.

 

[verbatim]

Every match-up is important. This kind of mindset will just get you blown up in bracket because you ran into some character(s) that you dont have enough experience with. You never know what character you're going to run into. IMO losing match-ups require more attention than any other regardless of how popular the character may be

I never said that you could ignore certain matchups. If I'm going to compete it is in my best interest to spend more time on the Sheik/Cloud/Bayo matchups than it is the Megaman matchup.

and the point i was trying to make about megaman and sheik is that they perform worse and in some cases have less rep at lower levels of play because they require a great deal of skill to use efficiently. Their performance at lower levels is deceptive of how good they really are

There are two Megaman players in the entire world that can feasibly make it into top 64 at an international tournament. That's more than most characters, but if I somehow wind up in top 64 at Smashcon, chances are I'm going to be playing a Diddy Kong or a Mario or a Cloud, because they are more represented at the top 64 level.

 

[Luco]

Are we talking about full screen lasers? You have tons of time to react to those. I've always been able to do it and I have an average reaction time at best. The point being here that it's hardly something that can force Ness to approach if he doesn't want to. I'll happily heal all day.

I agree it's not possible when he's at mid range but the tradeoff is hardly in Fox's favour to throw out lasers at punishable ranges. If it lands he only gets 2-3 percent and regardless of if it lands or not, if the Ness reads it and dash grabs, he's likely taking around 20 percent.



Diddy Kong. He can out camp Ness fairly easily and punishes bad approaches better than most. Ness doesn't have a good projectile, disjoints or great mobility, you need one of these things to get in on Diddy. Offstage Ness has to worry about his dair as well as the semi-spike on his side B.

Sonic as well. His punish game isn't as good but his insane mobility is so rough for Ness, he's forced to over commit and make hard reads to stand a chance. Plus his spring is a solid answer to Ness's recovery.

Fox has to respect dash grabs from Ness which can come at any time at mid range especially at kill percents making lasers at that range quite risky.

In a full game where you have everything to worry about, I promise it's anticipation you're talking about here. But mid-range is only really punishable through DA, which doesn't always work if (again) you don't anticipate it.

Diddy isn't that bad for Ness, that MU has a few extra dimensions you've omitted, such as OoS and offstage. OoS is very slightly in Diddy's favour, but not by so much it actually affects anything (the chances you're both going to aerial OoS at the exact same time is slim to say the least) and Ness' Nair is all-encompassing great. Offstage also goes really hard to Ness, like if Diddy is forced to use upB at all unless he's right next to the ledge he should be pretty dead (PKT tailwhip poops on that attempt). If Ness gets the banana his reward off a grab is comparable, and killing goes to Ness as well.

Ness Sonic is bad though. Ixis is such a roadblock for S1 and this is the reason why. So glad I have Lucas for this MU LOL.

 

[DanGR]

I recorded this video a little while back. Don't take the gameplay too seriously. It's just a proof of concept, demonstrating the relative speed of Ganondorf compared to Pikachu's quick attack.

Seems to work on Battlefield, Smashville, Town & City, Lylat, and some Omegas.

I'll add that it gets ESAM past that personally pesky Peach matchup (among a couple others) if he chose to implement this...
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