Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[FeelMeUp]

Unwinnable typically implies equal skill level. Better players can win "unwinnable" MUs against lower level players.

this
i literally just said this, too.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

Leo defeated Vinnie (would mention Mr. R also, but he probably didn't know the MU), and Jbandrew beat Karna more than once and ANTi's Sheik at PAX Arena. On another related note, did Tyrant ever beat VoiD pre-patch?

That statement is wrong.

For the record, as sheik meta progressed during her pre-patch era, a lot of her MU vs nearly the entire cast was becoming more and more in her favor in varying degrees and she could approach MU's in many different ways which is why you would see some sheiks just decimate her opponent while others struggled, a character that truly dominated in pretty much every way you can think of. It just so happened the MK MU became quite clearly worse over time for MK. Not to mention the uair ladder vs sheik was very situational vs her. Also I still laughed out loud to the idea that sheik had a EVEN MU pre-patch.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I don't know if you guys remember. Or even realize.
But back when Mr. R lost to Leo people instantly said the MU was 6:4. For many many weeks/days they'd claim "MK beats Sheik yadda yadda." I even PICKED UP the character myself to lab the characters and found out something quite depressing. Iirc he could only dash attack uair string her at around 28% and needed to perfectly time the fastfall after the second uair or so. She could still DI into the top of his head at higher % so he'd miss shuttle loop on occasion.
As time went on people realized "wait, why are we approaching MK?" MU instantly went to garbage. 6:4 to 7:3 to eventually borderline 8:2 right before the patch came. Sheiks started needlecamping at the corner until MK hit 120 then killing him guaranteed off dthrow. Every time he'd approach he'd get grabbed or fair'd and take at least 20%. The only thing MK could do to convert was a bthrow dash attack DI mixup. Otherwise he couldn't challenge her offstage, outdamage her, combo her at all, etc.
It was as simple as sitting in the corner and pressing b/fairing until the % got to 120.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

Also plenty of MK mains have quite clearly said that MK vs Sheik was complete garbage, even Ito was going to drop MK due to being completely blown up vs Void Sheik, A.K.A getting a guaranteed kill confirm around 90-100% on Town And City and other shenanigans. He posted his reasons on the MK boards too.

 

[Y2Kay]

Having a bad top tier MU and having a virtually unwinnable top tier MU are two different things.

Saying what you will about MKLeo's skill, but his wins directly counter your argument. The MU is at worst 30:70, which is by definition still winnable.

 

[FeelMeUp]

yeah.
ask any player that used prepatch Sheik and/or MK
they'll correct that thought.
this is the classic example of a character matchup you probably don't understand well unless you've experienced how hopeless it actually is.

 

[Ulevo]

I do not think it was as bad as 7:3 but the Sheik Meta Knight match up is something you need to play on a razors edge in order to succeed in. This is not just due to the match up dynamics, but the nature of Sheik. Sheik forces a player to plan ahead since reacting to Sheik is virtually impossible, so without proper knowledge on where to position, how to punish without overextending, et cetera, it was very easy to lose unless played properly. Probably 6:4 in Sheik's favor pre-patch.

It was a mistake for people to assume on two sets that Meta Knight countered Sheik. Mr. R clearly was unfamiliar with the match up.

I would also like to mention how nonsense the X:X ratios are for assessing proper match up balance. A 7:3 ratio would dictate that players of equal skill would have the one player win 70 games out of 100 with the other winning 30. But this is not how it works in reality. At high levels, when it is really competitive, it is extremely difficult to win a 3:7 ratio, to a degree where it is unlikely that they would succeed in winning 30/100 games provided the one player did not suffer from fatigue. As an example, I would mark down Meta Knight versus Jigglypuff as 7:3-8:2, but if I were to play a 100 games versus a Jigglypuff close to my skill I would wager I would win close to 100% of them. This is why the +2 and -1 methods of addressing match up balance is better, but I digress.

 

[Y2Kay]

yeah.
ask any player that used prepatch Sheik and/or MK
they'll correct that thought.
this is the classic example of a character matchup you probably don't understand well unless you've experienced how hopeless it actually is.

Melee Roy vs Melee Sheik, not THAT'S a match up I'd call unwinnable.

I may not be a Metaknight expert, but I know enough about the MU to know that you're using the word "unwinnable" wrong.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I don't want to here unwinnable matchups in the context of another game when talking about Smash 4 anymore.
If I wanted to talk about Melee more I'd go on the Melee side of Smashboards.

 

[Y2Kay]

Look man, I'm just keeping things in perspective: Things could've been much, much, worse. Calling the MU unwinnable I think is a very drastic overstatement.

 

[T4ylor]

As someone who has exclusively gone Dedede and Zelda in tournament for this game thus far, saying pre-patch Sheik vs Metaknight is 80:20 (even 70:30) seems a bit off-base to me.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Zelda and DDD both have gimmicks that scare and work fairly well against Sheik.
MK did not.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

What actually makes the MK vs Sheik matchup so bad? I use MK quite a bit but I never actually got to fight any high level Sheik's and always assumed it was just Sheik's needles + fair vs MK's ground game

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I do not think it was as bad as 7:3 but the Sheik Meta Knight match up is something you need to play on a razors edge in order to succeed in. This is not just due to the match up dynamics, but the nature of Sheik. Sheik forces a player to plan ahead since reacting to Sheik is virtually impossible, so without proper knowledge on where to position, how to punish without overextending, et cetera, it was very easy to lose unless played properly. Probably 6:4 in Sheik's favor pre-patch.

It was a mistake for people to assume on two sets that Meta Knight countered Sheik. Mr. R clearly was unfamiliar with the match up.

I would also like to mention how nonsense the X:X ratios are for assessing proper match up balance. A 7:3 ratio would dictate that players of equal skill would have the one player win 70 games out of 100 with the other winning 30. But this is not how it works in reality. At high levels, when it is really competitive, it is extremely difficult to win a 3:7 ratio, to a degree where it is unlikely that they would succeed in winning 30/100 games provided the one player did not suffer from fatigue. As an example, I would mark down Meta Knight versus Jigglypuff as 7:3-8:2, but if I were to play a 100 games versus a Jigglypuff close to my skill I would wager I would win close to 100% of them. This is why the +2 and -1 methods of addressing match up balance is better, but I digress.

MU ratios are also considered to not only be equal skill, but very high level. Not to talk bad about you, but if the MK puff MU was 7:3 in MK's favor, then we see that puff player takin some Ws. If not, the MU is worse than 7:3 and is in the realm of 8:2 or worse.

Oh and I don't get what's wrong with using different games to get a point across.

 

[FeelMeUp]

MU ratios are also considered to not only be equal skill, but very high level. Not to talk bad about you, but if the MK puff MU was 7:3 in MK's favor, then we see that puff player takin some Ws. If not, the MU is worse than 7:3 and is in the realm of 8:2 or worse.

Oh and I don't get what's wrong with using different games to get a point across.

I'm normally fine with it, but I'm tired of people using the game where characters have more tools to invalidate its own roster in order to boost their own point.
We get it. Everyone that has ever watched Melee gets it. You don't need to explain that Sheik ****s on half of the roster. Everyone knows that.
Don't repeat it to try and support a point for Smash 4.

but, to the other guy:
needles reached most of fd so she could corner needle camp at a point where mk could threaten with nothing
shop rising fair scooped mk and he's a round fastfaller so he was more susceptible to easy fair combos than most other characters. also didn't have the data to get out of certain strings(no frame 3-4 escape option+fastfaller, yknow)
he has literally no aerial approach options that aren't beaten out by more needles, more fair, or just moving out of the way. he sticks to the ground all game.
if he gets grabbed he's taking 17-24% minimum at almost any %
if he gets grabbed at 100-120 he dies guaranteed(% depending on stage)
uair combos should never be happening vs sheik because DI out+being at the edge of the stage means he probably won't even get a single uair off. dash attack>fair or dthrow>nothing is what you'll often see on a ledgecamping sheik. hence why i said the only time he actually gets something started is the bthrow mixups IF he can get through her zone and successfully grab her.
one of the easiest characters to ledge trap. mk players almost always want to ledge jump because his other ledge options are mediocre and he can't jump aerial well off the ledge. shop nair at the edge by sheik covered what he wanted to do(roll or jump) perfectly almost every time, and if he got sniped by weak nair bouncing fish follows and kills him at 100-120.
MK "no neutral" meme is a real thing vs Sheik. If the Sheik doesn't want to approach and fall for the dumb baits that she should never be taking she doesn't ever commit to anything.
Imagine if your character had these properties:
no projectile
no way to combo sheik
no way to edgeguard a good sheik(even though you're one of the best edgeguarders in the game)
no way to reliably kill sheik aside from her ****ing up and getting hit by an fsmash on spotdodge, or something
no way to "get in on" a sheik dedicated to needlecamping
ate ridiculous amounts of damage every time you got hit or grabbed
constantly taking 7% from fullscreen needles and are now getting put in tumble every time the Sheik presses B twice when you hit 90-95
died at 120 off grabs consistently.
how is this matchup anything more than ass.
8:2 is nowhere near unreasonable. It is, by definition, a matchup where you literally do not get to play the game.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Well that's sort of depressing

The nerfs towards Sheik helped and the nerfs towards MK didn't really effect this specific MU that much I guess, maybe it will get better later on. You know, when 20MK rolls around and MK is sliding halfway across the stage on a whim, edgeguarding every character perfectly, dair camping when he gets the lead, and using lagless ledge getups into whatever the **** he wants

 

[FeelMeUp]

needle and fair nerfs help a LOT with MK getting in
dthrow nerf means he doesn't instadie off getting grabbed
however, MK can't just instakill her off dthrow or dash attack anymore
i'd say the tradeoff is in favour of Meta Knight though. Definitely isn't that garbage 8:2 anymore.
6:4(possibly slightly worse) sounds reasonable now.

 

[Rizen]

Zelda and DDD both have gimmicks that scare and work fairly well against Sheik.
MK did not.

The only way Zelda can scare Sheik is if she's afraid to acknowledge her feminine side. That MU's terrible.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I think this game likely has a few of unwinnable matchups, it's just a matter of optimizing and finetuning specific options as the metagame progresses. Personally I don't see a realistic way for Wario to beat Cloud or for Lucario to beat Mewtwo for instance. It's basically just a matter of figuring out which aerial Wario can do nothing about in a specific scenario and executing it right. To be fair though I'm sure those matchups are quite rare in smash 4.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

What bad matchups DOES Sheik have anyway? Never really known that

 

[mountain_tiger]

Speaking of rage I'll never be a fan of any sort of comeback mechanics. And I say this as a Ryu secondary in S4 who's won more games thanks to cheesy rage DPs then I'd like to admit.

If it's a comeback mechanic with zero strategy attached to it (e.g. Tekken 6's rage system, which is a straight 'deal more damage' mode), then I 1000% agree. That said, I'm a lot more tolerant of comeback mechanics that actually require player know-how in order to fully utilise them (Street Fighter 4's Ultras, Street Fighter 5's V-Triggers etc.)

Rage, however, I actually quite like, because it's not strictly a comeback mechanic. In practice, it's usually far more beneficial to whoever manages to clinch the first stock, especially if it's an early kill via something like a meteor smash or an awesome dodge roll read. On the flipside, you have characters like Zero Suit Samus who would generally rather not be in Rage, because it makes potential early kill moves like up B far less reliable.

In fact, Rage has actually, strangely enough, worked quite well as a balancing mechanic for the cast. In previous Smash games, bulky heavyweight characters were disadvantaged in general due to being huge targets for combos and struggling to avoid hits, while mobile lightweights were favoured in general due to their ability to combo opponents well, being able to avoid hits easily and often having superior edgeguarding ability.

Smash 4's Rage system tweaks that a little, because it's the heavyweights that benefit the most from the increased killpower, while lightweights not only don't benefit as much (due to dying earlier), they also potentially lose some of their combo ability as well, meaning they can't tack on as much damage from a successful hit. Couple that with the superior recoveries of Smash 4, and all of a sudden, the survivability of being a heavyweight becomes a lot more useful.

Now, there are a tiny handful of characters that happen to get massively screwed over by these mechanics (poor, poor Jigglypuff...), but on the whole it's had a surprisingly positive effect on cast balance as a whole.

I would also like to mention how nonsense the X:X ratios are for assessing proper match up balance. A 7:3 ratio would dictate that players of equal skill would have the one player win 70 games out of 100 with the other winning 30. But this is not how it works in reality. At high levels, when it is really competitive, it is extremely difficult to win a 3:7 ratio, to a degree where it is unlikely that they would succeed in winning 30/100 games provided the one player did not suffer from fatigue. As an example, I would mark down Meta Knight versus Jigglypuff as 7:3-8:2, but if I were to play a 100 games versus a Jigglypuff close to my skill I would wager I would win close to 100% of them. This is why the +2 and -1 methods of addressing match up balance is better, but I digress.

That's a fair enough opinion to have tbh.

The 60:40/70:30 etc. ratio system was always intended to be fairly arbitrary (a bit like the % damage system in Smash itself, really), but has led to massive amounts of confusion over the years, not just here but in fighting game forums as a whole.

As you pointed out here, depending on who you ask a 30:70 matchup could mean 'the losing side can still win but it's a massive struggle' or 'the losing side has no chance' or even 'the losing side can expect to win 30 fights out of 100'.

In many ways it's probably better to have brief word descriptions to sum up matchups instead, though I realise that would make direct comparisons much more difficult...

 

[Emblem Lord]

I am old school so to me 7:3 and beyond ALWAYS meant you BETTER have a counter pick ready unless you like seeing your character get destroyed.

 

[Fenny]

What bad matchups DOES Sheik have anyway? Never really known that

I think Mewtwo's unfavorable for her

His mobility is a match for hers, has an excellent reflector, combos her effectively, and his light weight is alleviated by the fact that Sheik struggles to kill, which makes rage Uthrow a ticking time bomb waiting to blow up in Sheik's face.

 

[Wintermelon43]

What bad matchups DOES Sheik have anyway? Never really known that

Is considered her worst matchup I think. Other characters slated to be one of Sheik's worst matchups are and I think . and a few others are generally considered even too, like the other ones I mentioned, but are never considered a disadvantage so I'm not sure that they count or not (Then again neither are a lot of the ones above considered a disadvantage most of the time)

 

[Nobie]

Just to clarify, I'm not saying you should just stick to your guns if your character has a bad match-up if you can find a better solution, but there might be a time due to counter picking or whatever where you'll have to play that match-up. In those cases, even if you're at a significant disadvantage, there's a difference between having only a narrow opportunity to win and just putting down your controller.

 

[HoSmash4]

What bad matchups DOES Sheik have anyway? Never really known that

Rage.

Strong qualities against Sheik include being a strong benefactor of rage, being able to escape disadvantage really well, and keeping up with Sheik in Neutral.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Sheik may or may not have a few slightly losing matchups but none of them are actually bad. She is the best character in the game, after all.

 

[420quickscoper]

I think Mewtwo's unfavorable for her

His mobility is a match for hers, has an excellent reflector, combos her effectively, and his light weight is alleviated by the fact that Sheik struggles to kill, which makes rage Uthrow a ticking time bomb waiting to blow up in Sheik's face.

I think the results show this, too. Abadango has a winning record against most, if not all, the top level Sheik players.

 

[|RK|]

I think this game likely has a few of unwinnable matchups, it's just a matter of optimizing and finetuning specific options as the metagame progresses. Personally I don't see a realistic way for Wario to beat Cloud or for Lucario to beat Mewtwo for instance. It's basically just a matter of figuring out which aerial Wario can do nothing about in a specific scenario and executing it right. To be fair though I'm sure those matchups are quite rare in smash 4.

That's the first time I've heard of Mewtwo being a bad MU for Lucario, much less his worst. Usually Mario is considered to be his worst. Could you elaborate?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Mewtwo just completely covers Lucario on all fronts. Reliably kills him before he can go super-saiyan, retreating fair hardcounters reverse Aura Sphere shenanigans, dtilt beats every ground option Lucario has head-on except a high% force palm. Offstage is also a disaster once Mewtwo players realize how vulnerable Lucario is during recovery. Just going offstage and throwing a Shadow Ball into the stage can mess up Lucario badly. It's often argued that Mewtwo's main weakness is close range combat because his jab is slow and his grab isn't that good. Lucario cannot in any way capitalize on that though because his jab is even worse than Mewtwo's. It's my least favorite matchup to play by far.

Why Mario would be considered a bad matchup is beyond me though. Fox is way worse than Mario. And I personally think Mewtwo is worse still.

 

[Luigi player]

I don't think Mewtwo is really bad for Lucario. In theory, you might/could think "it kills early and outranges him". Seems pretty bad, but what the actual MU looks like is if Lucario plays well he can be hard to hit for Mewtwo, and once he's in a decent rage/aura percentage (which is before he's in KO-% for Mewtwo) Mewtwo has to be extremely careful. You cannot risk like any attack on Lucario and oftentimes (maybe it's just me) I find myself trading with my opponent, but not caring since I go for trades that are worth it... but against Lucario? No way. If you ever trade with him once he's like above 80 or 100 and Mewtwo is also at like 80 it just dies. So you can never go for anything like that again.

Having to play this carefully and without risks makes Mewtwos playstyle more predictable.
Mewtwos confusion is also not as good as it might seem against Lucarios Aura Sphere... "just throwing it out" is way too risky. And reacting to it seems kinda impossible in the range where it would be able to hit Lucario during his lag. The small hop of confusion also makes it worse most of the time since oftentimes if you could use it to land or something to avoid Lucarios spheres you just hop over them without reflecting (maybe even getting hit on the feet). Of course you could just use it in advance first to get rid of the hop, but eh, the confusion "hitbox" seems to stay in place where it came out, so you can't move downwards with it, so if the Lucario throws his Aurasphere right below Mewtwo it can be hard to avoid and extremely risky to try to reflect it.

Being on the ledge is also extremely scary against Lucario. Same with being juggled. Usually Mewtwo can just airdodge away and oftentimes your opponent might predict wrong on where you go. Sometimes they guess right and get a (oftentimes) weak hit in. Not with Lucario. If he has enough % (and it doesn't even have to be that much), he can just throw out some bairs to catch you and maybe he won't hit 3 times but when he does hit the 4th time Mewtwo can get KO'd at like 60 (of course Lucario is scary for most characters, but for Mewtwo even more so with its huge body, enough landing lag, aerial endinglag and floatiness to get hits in if he predicts correctly, and Mewtwos weight makes this even worse).

It's also surprisingly "difficult" to approach Lucario, even as Mewtwo (Shadow Ball "camping" doesn't seem to work too well - you don't want a rage+aura Lucario cornering you). If Lucario gets the stocklead by trading or reading his opponent, it can be really difficult to finally get that KO, since Lucario is kinda heavy (has good fallspeed) and hard to hit. You have to take risks, and if Lucario gets to punish them he will punish them hard.


- not saying the MU is bad for Mewtwo, just want to point out some things. I could see it being +1 for Mewtwo. If you want to fall for theory maybe +2, but I could definitly also see it as evenish.

As for tourney records, I know Abadango lost a set to one of the japanese Lucarios at a tourney not too long ago.

 

[|RK|]

Mewtwo just completely covers Lucario on all fronts. Reliably kills him before he can go super-saiyan, retreating fair hardcounters reverse Aura Sphere shenanigans, dtilt beats every ground option Lucario has head-on except a high% force palm. Offstage is also a disaster once Mewtwo players realize how vulnerable Lucario is during recovery. Just going offstage and throwing a Shadow Ball into the stage can mess up Lucario badly. It's often argued that Mewtwo's main weakness is close range combat because his jab is slow and his grab isn't that good. Lucario cannot in any way capitalize on that though because his jab is even worse than Mewtwo's. It's my least favorite matchup to play by far.

Why Mario would be considered a bad matchup is beyond me though. Fox is way worse than Mario. And I personally think Mewtwo is worse still.

Thank you for the explanation!

From what I've seen of Astro's MU chart, Mario and Fox are both up there at -2. I think the main Mario reasoning is just that Lucario has no way to keep him off. Mario's buttons are straight up superior.

 

[Y2Kay]

I don't think Mewtwo match up is unwinnable for Lucario. If the Mewtwo player is careless just one time, he's dead. I'm hesitant to call the Match up 60:40 because of this, but that's where the match up looks around.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Thank you for the explanation!

From what I've seen of Astro's MU chart, Mario and Fox are both up there at -2. I think the main Mario reasoning is just that Lucario has no way to keep him off. Mario's buttons are straight up superior.

I have no idea who Astro is.

 

[|RK|]

I have no idea who Astro is.

From my understanding, he's one of the upper level Lucario players. I forget what region he's in.

 

[san.]

He's from the Toronto area, southern Ontario.

 

[MezzoMe]

Is considered her worst matchup I think. Other characters slated to be one of Sheik's worst matchups are and I think . and a few others are generally considered even too, like the other ones I mentioned, but are never considered a disadvantage so I'm not sure that they count or not (Then again neither are a lot of the ones above considered a disadvantage most of the time)

What is supposed to make the Rosa match-up that bad?
All I can think is if Rosa throws an Uair out of her ass and kills her out of her juggling or a Dair to snap her going for the ledge, but she is likely rather mash Uair to combo her and abuse her high falling speed, before Rosa actually gets enough rage and damage on Sheik for the aerial to be lethal, compared to Mewtwo that dies to random Jab3s and Uairs at nearly any percent I wouldn't say it's enough of a factor by itself

 

[FeelMeUp]

Sheik vs Rosa is even. Maybe 55:45 Sheik favour at best. She doesn't lose though. I think I explained this a few pages back.
She's 55:45 over Mario/Kirby, probably 55:45 or 6:4 on Lucario, 45:55 on Mewtwo, and dead even with Diddy.
The closest thing to a bad matchup after Mewtwo is Sonic, imo.
Her matchups change depending on what kind of Sheik you play. Passive Sheik only loses slightly to M2 while aggressive Sheik gets destroyed. Passive campy Sheik beats Ryu while aggressive Sheik loses.
etc.

Edit: btw, as a Sheik player I think that rage is the only thing balancing this character. I loathe comeback mechanics and it's artificially pulling her closer to the rest of the cast

 

[|RK|]

Sheik vs Rosa is even. Maybe 55:45 Sheik favour at best. She doesn't lose though. I think I explained this a few pages back.
She's 55:45 over Mario/Kirby, probably 55:45 or 6:4 on Lucario, 45:55 on Mewtwo, and dead even with Diddy.
The closest thing to a bad matchup after Mewtwo is Sonic, imo.
Her matchups change depending on what kind of Sheik you play. Passive Sheik only loses slightly to M2 while aggressive Sheik gets destroyed. Passive campy Sheik beats Ryu while aggressive Sheik loses.
etc.

Edit: btw, as a Sheik player I think that rage is the only thing balancing this character. I loathe comeback mechanics and it's artificially pulling her closer to the rest of the cast

What do you think about the Mac matchup? Sol just took out K9, and according to him, he thinks it's even or slightly in Mac's favor. It helps that he apparently hasn't lost that MU in a year.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Sol is absolutely amazing at playing the MU, but I think that there are issues Mac really cannot get over. Ban FD/Lylat and he's getting camped no matter what. Mac always has to play your game, and the only time he can abuse early kills is by your shield being broken for not knowing the setups(dtilt fsmash) or you panicking and rushing into a Mac with KO punch.
Idk, I've 3 stocked every Mac I've played in tourney so far but I have yet to play one with an equal skill level to mine. I'll need to hold off on that and give a more educated response later.
PP utilt is insane, though.