Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[thehard]

Bayonetta must have the best anti-juggle stats in the game. Obviously Witch Time/Bat Within, but down angled ABK is a GREAT burst movement escape option and its travel time and landing lag make it essentially unpunishable. Then you have a second burst movement option in Witch Twist which is going to scoop up anyone trying to contest her too. And just for the hell of it she has long-lasting nair and ultra powerful dair to land unexpectedly. Salem and 9B made great use of her whole kit to weave around in the air like beautiful butterflies.

I have to say though that she underwhelmed me this time around, Witch Time wasn't dumb, ceiling death combos were far and few between, Cloud really made much more of a splash in singles and doubles.

 

[JediLink]

- Counters to represent the turn-based gameplay and turn-based battle animations

I don't think that's the reason. In fact, I'd say actively deflecting an incoming move instead of taking the hit seems like the opposite of turn-based gameplay.

See, Marth's moveset kind of reminds me of Captain Falcon's in that it's less of a representation of that character's games and more about building a character around a concept. Since Marth was the first pure sword wielder in the series, he was designed as a master fencer with an emphasis on skill and technique above all else. That's why he has a counter, shield breaker and dancing blade: none of them have anything to do with Fire Emblem, but of course you'd expect a master swordsman to be able to parry, break an opponent's guard, and let out a flurry of quick, controlled strikes.

As for why the rest of the FE characters have counters? Well, obviously Roy and Lucina are clones. For Ike, I'm not too sure. Maybe Sakurai wanted to give him some kind of similarity to Marth to make it more obvious they were from the same series, or maybe he just couldn't think of another down B. And of course, by the time Corrin came around there were already tons of characters who had counters for no reason so that was hardly a surprise.

 

[Bobert]

I don't think that's the reason. In fact, I'd say actively deflecting an incoming move instead of taking the hit seems like the opposite of turn-based gameplay.

See, Marth's moveset kind of reminds me of Captain Falcon's in that it's less of a representation of that character's games and more about building a character around a concept. Since Marth was the first pure sword wielder in the series, he was designed as a master fencer with an emphasis on skill and technique above all else. That's why he has a counter, shield breaker and dancing blade: none of them have anything to do with Fire Emblem, but of course you'd expect a master swordsman to be able to parry, break an opponent's guard, and let out a flurry of quick, controlled strikes.

As for why the rest of the FE characters have counters? Well, obviously Roy and Lucina are clones. For Ike, I'm not too sure. Maybe Sakurai wanted to give him some kind of similarity to Marth to make it more obvious they were from the same series, or maybe he just couldn't think of another down B. And of course, by the time Corrin came around there were already tons of characters who had counters for no reason so that was hardly a surprise.

Interviewer: In Smash, a lot of Fire Emblem characters have “counter” moves. Is there a reason behind that?

Sakurai: That comes directly from the Fire Emblem games. In Fire Emblem, first you have your attack phase, and then the enemy attacks. That pattern repeats itself, so to express the nature of those battles, I gave them counter moves…although Robin doesn’t have one (laughs). Robin doesn’t seem like a counterattack-type character to me.

Source: http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/12/13/sakurai-fe25/

 

[Mr. Johan]

Sm4sh Sonic is effectively Brawl Sonic with a slightly better kill throw, a standardized Dsmash, a faster Side B hop, an inexplicably worse aerial Spin Charge, and an inferior Uair. Once people start to treat him like they did 6 years ago, he becomes significantly easier to fight.

He's not like Mario where one of his main two issues was addressed.....well, it was addressed, but patches eventually killed the reason he could be Top 5 without patching up the other flaw in return.

Dunno why people still put him in top 5 now. Rosalina, Mario, Cloud, and Meta Knight clearly have shown to boast greater effectiveness. Maybe a misplaced idea that patch nerfs don't kill a character?

 

[bc1910]

You're ignoring the fact that the game mechanics are a lot kinder to Sonic this time around. The increased hitstun certainly makes up for his Uair being worse and it makes him more threatening as a whole.

 

[Diddy Kong]

My Top Tier character placements:

S:
A:
A-:

 

[Mr. Johan]

Hitstun changes don't apply to Sonic alone. Hell, he was one of like five characters in Brawl that could use what hitstun Brawl had to do things, with landing Uair into Utilt and other mixups from it, and Spin Dash to Bair KO at 140.

Mario benefits greatly from the hitstun in this game, but he also got a Dthrow and his air speed cranked up to match. Fox benefits from it with Usmash links, but also got a safer Side B along for the ride. Sonic used to have greater KO power to help out, buuuut that's gone now, and his landing troubles remain the same. He doesn't get much from engine changes here, at least not anymore.

 

[Vipermoon]

I don't think that's the reason. In fact, I'd say actively deflecting an incoming move instead of taking the hit seems like the opposite of turn-based gameplay.

See, Marth's moveset kind of reminds me of Captain Falcon's in that it's less of a representation of that character's games and more about building a character around a concept. Since Marth was the first pure sword wielder in the series, he was designed as a master fencer with an emphasis on skill and technique above all else. That's why he has a counter, shield breaker and dancing blade: none of them have anything to do with Fire Emblem, but of course you'd expect a master swordsman to be able to parry, break an opponent's guard, and let out a flurry of quick, controlled strikes.

As for why the rest of the FE characters have counters? Well, obviously Roy and Lucina are clones. For Ike, I'm not too sure. Maybe Sakurai wanted to give him some kind of similarity to Marth to make it more obvious they were from the same series, or maybe he just couldn't think of another down B. And of course, by the time Corrin came around there were already tons of characters who had counters for no reason so that was hardly a surprise.

Bobert thanks, I was going to reference the same interview

What would Marth's moveset look like otherwise? We have no clue. He just does a random stab in his games (even the critical hit is pretty much the same). Fire Emblem wasn't 3D (with more diverse attack animations) until Ike came along.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Bobert thanks, I was going to reference the same interview

What would Marth's moveset look like otherwise? We have no clue. He just does a random stab in his games (even the critical hit is pretty much the same). Fire Emblem wasn't 3D (with more diverse attack animations) until Ike came along.

Stating this, it was amazing to see how many of Ike's fighting animations from FE9 made it into Brawl Ike's moveset.

I believe Marth's moveset mostly took inspiration from the SNES games, especially FE4.

 

[BunbUn129]

I didn't say it was impossible. It's unreliable. Onstage KO's are way more prevalent. And gimping Cloud is not a very big achievement.

ESAM is a top-level player playing a mid-tier character.



Maybe there was a time when Pikachu was top 15, but there have been buffs to most of the mid tiers, against whom Pikachu historically did not do that well in the first place (just even matchups all around), and top tiers (against whom Pikachu has been toted to do well) have developed both better damage wracking and more kill setups/confirms, whereas Pikachu has gone nowhere (no up-throw Thunder is not real, stop saying it is).

He's probably somewhere between 20th and 30th in the cast, in my opinion.

About up throw thunder, I find it amusing how some are willing to argue it gives Pikachu good KO power. To land that KO "confirm," Pika needs to read DI, predict an air dodge/jump, AND space the thunder correctly to land the strong hitbox. That is NOT a reliable KO setup, it's ****ing easy to avoid it.

I don't know why people are so religious about uthrow thunder being "untrue". It is literally guaranteed on a DI read with RAR. It's more guaranteed than sheik's dthrow 50/50s.

Highlight: DI read.

A good KO confirm typically allows you to FOLLOW DI (ie react to DI). If you have to predict DI, it's not a reliable set up.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

> [] is starting to looking like the most plausible top 5 right now.

Spoiler: Explanations

Even in Zero's absence Sheik has the best results out of any character thanks to Mr r taking 1st at Beast VI and 2nd at Shots Fired 2. Add in Void's consistent top 3 results in one of the 3 strongest regions in the world and you don't need to say much more about this character. It's not looking like she has any losing matchups either. Still solidly #1.
ZSS still has a great winning record over Rosalina, has shown that she's capable of beating Cloud and the first few sets she's had against Bayonetta are slightly in her favor. Her representation is still strong and apart from Diddy Kong no character [yes, thi includes Pikachu] seems to outdo her head-on. It's likely that she'll remain at #2 for a while imo.
Rosalina may not keep her #3 spot though. Two of her noticeable winning matchups [Sonic and Mario] are steadily losing in significance while the already very popular Cloud seems to be a problematic matchup [dabuz initially struggled against M2K's Cloud at G3 and lost to Tweek now] and her record against ZSS is still poor. On the plus side, Rosalina players have managed to keep the Sheik matchup relatively even up until now. Based on that it's possible that her overall matchup spread may not be enough for top 3 but her very decent matchup against Sheik and her gatekeeping abilities will keep in her top 5.

Cloud already has a clear losing record against Sheik, especially against Mr r who has beaten the top 3 Cloud players Komorikiri, M2K and Tweek. Of course, being not very hard to pick up and super broken in doubles means that representation will never be an issue. Tweeks wins against Ranai, Anti and dabuz and M2K's wins against 6wx, 9B and close sets against Nairo and Mr r show that Cloud can handle a broad variety of matchups, including fellow top tier characters ZSS, Bayonetta and Rosalina.

Bayonetta's matchups are a lot more up in the air as of now but a top 5 placing at Shots Fired 5 by a player who has suffered from notorious inconsistencies ever since smash 4 came out is worth nothing, as are the close results against Sheik [Salem going 2-3 vs Ramin, 9B beinring k9], against Rosalina [9B vs dabuz] and the convincing 3-0 win by 9B against the best Villager in the world [against whom 9B has not taken a set before!]. It's also worth pointing out that Salem's 9th place is highly misleading as he lost against the two players that ended up taking the first two spots at the tournament. It's not a disappointing performance, it's just bad luck.

Spoiler: Conclusions

:

- vs ???
~ vs
+ vs
++ vs most other characters including good ones like and

Notes: Results vs Diddy Kong and Villager are massively distorted by Zero and Ranai respectively. Sonic seems to be a special case where results strongly contradict [and trump] theory.

Most important representatives: Zero, Mr r, Void, Edge, Shu;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Results vs Villager are distorted by Ranai who has a massive winning record against Choco, has beaten Marss and bodied Nairo in the Umebura FAT Crewbattle. There's a distince lack of representative results against Fox - strong Fox regions like SoCal, Texas or Germany have a relative lack of ZSS players and vice versa. I have no idea what her results or theory vs Ness look like.

Most important representatives: Nairo, Marss, Choco, NickRiddle;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Most of these except vs Bayonetta and Cloud are relatively well backed up by results.

Most important representatives: dabuz, Kirihara;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Almost entirely speculative except vs Sheik, ZSS and Villager.

Most important representatives: Tweek, Mew2King, Komorikiri, Nariyasu;


:

Most important representatives: Salem, 9B, Nyanko, + ???;

* have fallen out of favor as runner-ups for one reason or another.
* remains a mystery but Cloud and Bayonetta have already shown themselves to be problematic so a rise is incredly unlikely.
* have consistent results and so far proven that they're able to keep up with all the top 5 characters.
* have great results but seem to have borderline hard-counters [Sheik and Rosalina] that hold them back, the question is to what extent.

 

[BunbUn129]

> [] is starting to looking like the most plausible top 5 right now.

Spoiler: Explanations

Even in Zero's absence Sheik has the best results out of any character thanks to Mr r taking 1st at Beast VI and 2nd at Shots Fired 2. Add in Void's consistent top 3 results in one of the 3 strongest regions in the world and you don't need to say much more about this character. It's not looking like she has any losing matchups either. Still solidly #1.
ZSS still has a great winning record over Rosalina, has shown that she's capable of beating Cloud and the first few sets she's had against Bayonetta are slightly in her favor. Her representation is still strong and apart from Diddy Kong no character [yes, thi includes Pikachu] seems to outdo her head-on. It's likely that she'll remain at #2 for a while imo.
Rosalina may not keep her #3 spot though. Two of her noticeable winning matchups [Sonic and Mario] are steadily losing in significance while the already very popular Cloud seems to be a problematic matchup [dabuz initially struggled against M2K's Cloud at G3 and lost to Tweek now] and her record against ZSS is still poor. On the plus side, Rosalina players have managed to keep the Sheik matchup relatively even up until now. Based on that it's possible that her overall matchup spread may not be enough for top 3 but her very decent matchup against Sheik and her gatekeeping abilities will keep in her top 5.

Cloud already has a clear losing record against Sheik, especially against Mr r who has beaten the top 3 Cloud players Komorikiri, M2K and Tweek. Of course, being not very hard to pick up and super broken in doubles means that representation will never be an issue. Tweeks wins against Ranai, Anti and dabuz and M2K's wins against 6wx, 9B and close sets against Nairo and Mr r show that Cloud can handle a broad variety of matchups, including fellow top tier characters ZSS, Bayonetta and Rosalina.

Bayonetta's matchups are a lot more up in the air as of now but a top 5 placing at Shots Fired 5 by a player who has suffered from notorious inconsistencies ever since smash 4 came out is worth nothing, as are the close results against Sheik [Salem going 2-3 vs Ramin, 9B beinring k9], against Rosalina [9B vs dabuz] and the convincing 3-0 win by 9B against the best Villager in the world [against whom 9B has not taken a set before!]. It's also worth pointing out that Salem's 9th place is highly misleading as he lost against the two players that ended up taking the first two spots at the tournament. It's not a disappointing performance, it's just bad luck.

Spoiler: Conclusions

:

- vs ???
~ vs
+ vs
++ vs most other characters including good ones like and

Notes: Results vs Diddy Kong and Villager are massively distorted by Zero and Ranai respectively. Sonic seems to be a special case where results strongly contradict [and trump] theory.

Most important representatives: Zero, Mr r, Void, Edge, Shu;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Results vs Villager are distorted by Ranai who has a massive winning record against Choco, has beaten Marss and bodied Nairo in the Umebura FAT Crewbattle. There's a distince lack of representative results against Fox - strong Fox regions like SoCal, Texas or Germany have a relative lack of ZSS players and vice versa. I have no idea what her results or theory vs Ness look like.

Most important representatives: Nairo, Marss, Choco, NickRiddle;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Most of these except vs Bayonetta and Cloud are relatively well backed up by results.

Most important representatives: dabuz, Kirihara;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Almost entirely speculative except vs Sheik, ZSS and Villager.

Most important representatives: Tweek, Mew2King, Komorikiri, Nariyasu;


:

Most important representatives: Salem, 9B, Nyanko, + ???;

* have fallen out of favor as runner-ups for one reason or another.
* remains a mystery but Cloud and Bayonetta have already shown themselves to be problematic so a rise is incredly unlikely.
* have consistent results and so far proven that they're able to keep up with all the top 5 characters.
* have great results but seem to have borderline hard-counters [Sheik and Rosalina] that hold them back, the question is to what extent.

I like how people are throwing Bayo in the top 5 even though it's still been a month. Yes, she's pretty dumb and is a great character, but I don't think we can go and call her one of the best just yet, even considering her results.

 

[DblCrest]

It's hard to stick with mid and low tier characters and the temptation to spontaneously drop them is always there. Why play Duck Hunt when Villager exists? Why play Shulk when you have Cloud? This is even more of a problem for people who choose to stay with characters who have a better counterpart. are worse than so it feels counter intuitive to stick with these characters and, in the grand scheme of things, it is but there is still that opportunity for discovery and being the best that you can be with that character. You may not walk away with a lot of tournaments but you still push the metagame and contribute to the community by developing characters and challenging different match ups. When people of exceptional talent do this, sometimes it creates "Low Tier Heroes" and the strong playing of one person can significantly change the views of a character of the fanbase or even inspire people to pick up the character

Was meaning to ask about this sooner but would you say a similar case would be and ? Or are their gameplans too different?

 

[BunbUn129]

Was meaning to ask about this sooner but would you say a similar case would be and ? Or are their gameplans too different?

MK and Kirby have the same general gameplan: baiting and punishing mistakes. MK just executes it much better. Look at every aspect: mobility, range, attack speed, KO power and setups, combos, edgeguarding and neutral, and Kirby is worse in every regard, and comes close only in attack speed and combos.

It's safe to say MK invalidates Kirby when it comes to character design.

 

[iVoltage]

> [] is starting to looking like the most plausible top 5 right now.

Spoiler: Explanations

Even in Zero's absence Sheik has the best results out of any character thanks to Mr r taking 1st at Beast VI and 2nd at Shots Fired 2. Add in Void's consistent top 3 results in one of the 3 strongest regions in the world and you don't need to say much more about this character. It's not looking like she has any losing matchups either. Still solidly #1.
ZSS still has a great winning record over Rosalina, has shown that she's capable of beating Cloud and the first few sets she's had against Bayonetta are slightly in her favor. Her representation is still strong and apart from Diddy Kong no character [yes, thi includes Pikachu] seems to outdo her head-on. It's likely that she'll remain at #2 for a while imo.
Rosalina may not keep her #3 spot though. Two of her noticeable winning matchups [Sonic and Mario] are steadily losing in significance while the already very popular Cloud seems to be a problematic matchup [dabuz initially struggled against M2K's Cloud at G3 and lost to Tweek now] and her record against ZSS is still poor. On the plus side, Rosalina players have managed to keep the Sheik matchup relatively even up until now. Based on that it's possible that her overall matchup spread may not be enough for top 3 but her very decent matchup against Sheik and her gatekeeping abilities will keep in her top 5.

Cloud already has a clear losing record against Sheik, especially against Mr r who has beaten the top 3 Cloud players Komorikiri, M2K and Tweek. Of course, being not very hard to pick up and super broken in doubles means that representation will never be an issue. Tweeks wins against Ranai, Anti and dabuz and M2K's wins against 6wx, 9B and close sets against Nairo and Mr r show that Cloud can handle a broad variety of matchups, including fellow top tier characters ZSS, Bayonetta and Rosalina.

Bayonetta's matchups are a lot more up in the air as of now but a top 5 placing at Shots Fired 5 by a player who has suffered from notorious inconsistencies ever since smash 4 came out is worth nothing, as are the close results against Sheik [Salem going 2-3 vs Ramin, 9B beinring k9], against Rosalina [9B vs dabuz] and the convincing 3-0 win by 9B against the best Villager in the world [against whom 9B has not taken a set before!]. It's also worth pointing out that Salem's 9th place is highly misleading as he lost against the two players that ended up taking the first two spots at the tournament. It's not a disappointing performance, it's just bad luck.

Spoiler: Conclusions

:

- vs ???
~ vs
+ vs
++ vs most other characters including good ones like and

Notes: Results vs Diddy Kong and Villager are massively distorted by Zero and Ranai respectively. Sonic seems to be a special case where results strongly contradict [and trump] theory.

Most important representatives: Zero, Mr r, Void, Edge, Shu;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Results vs Villager are distorted by Ranai who has a massive winning record against Choco, has beaten Marss and bodied Nairo in the Umebura FAT Crewbattle. There's a distince lack of representative results against Fox - strong Fox regions like SoCal, Texas or Germany have a relative lack of ZSS players and vice versa. I have no idea what her results or theory vs Ness look like.

Most important representatives: Nairo, Marss, Choco, NickRiddle;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Most of these except vs Bayonetta and Cloud are relatively well backed up by results.

Most important representatives: dabuz, Kirihara;


:

- vs
~ vs
+ vs

Notes: Almost entirely speculative except vs Sheik, ZSS and Villager.

Most important representatives: Tweek, Mew2King, Komorikiri, Nariyasu;


:

Most important representatives: Salem, 9B, Nyanko, + ???;

* have fallen out of favor as runner-ups for one reason or another.
* remains a mystery but Cloud and Bayonetta have already shown themselves to be problematic so a rise is incredly unlikely.
* have consistent results and so far proven that they're able to keep up with all the top 5 characters.
* have great results but seem to have borderline hard-counters [Sheik and Rosalina] that hold them back, the question is to what extent.

Im iffy on bayo, because like everyone else says daily here shes still really new. I can agree with this though, where would you put the characters that have fallen off a bit at on the tier list. (Pika, Sonic?) I personally think pika is always placed way too high but im not going to get into that. Mk and ness is a fair assesment, great characters but with one super bad mu. Though mk vs sheik isn't unwinable only because of early kills if you can hit it. I wouldnt count on it however, because you get thrown around like hot potato in that mu.

 

[NotLiquid]

It seems a bit weird to me to criticize posts positioning Bayonetta right now when speculative admission goes without saying in this thread. It's not as if Corrin has been making a splash and allowed previously inconsistent players to come out of their shells. Three weeks in and we're already seeing results that make it clear this is an incredibly important character. Whether that changes is another ballpark entirely and it's not like a new tier list is going to be made just yet. For now we play the cards we're dealt with.

 

[Flux0r]

Mfw I pick up a new character for specific matchups and people think I'm dropping pika pic.twitter.com/PzYjZ81Ars

— ESAM (Stride Esports) (@imESAM) March 7, 2016

ESAM is picking up a new secondary. I'll bet it's Cloud or Sheik, since everyone and their grandmother has one now.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I still think Sonic is extremely good.

Unlike what a lot of people think Sonic is actually not easy to play at all. He doesn't have any individually overtuned move like Fox has with uair. Instead he has a well-rounded, balanced moveset with lots of good moves that all need to be used wisely in a given moment. He still hardly loses any matchup, you just can't auto-pilot through stuff with him for free like you can with some other characters. You can't count on him to carry his players but a top level player can do just about everything with Sonic. He's still clearly top 10 in my book.

 

[Djent]

I gree with ~ Gheb ~ on basically everything except who I think remains about as relevant as before.

I'm slowly coming around to agree with @SolidSense; I don't think Pikachu belongs in A tier anymore. There is literally no reason at all to pick this character outside of loyalty. He doesn't win any notable matchups and loses quite a few. I suspect that at least one other Pokémon will end up better off than him in the lon run. Yeah, Lucario loses hard to Cloud and Greninja hates fighting Sheik, but Pika also has at least one -2 against a relevant character (see above). FWIW I also think he does pretty poorly against Sheik and MK, but am not ready to call either of those two "abysmal" yet. Mewtwo is a bit of a wild card; on paper his matchups are no better than Pika's but his recent buffs + actual ability to finish stocks make things harder to call than I'd like to admit.

In other completely coincidental news, I think I'll be finding a new main, though possibly one from the same series. Pika is tons of fun but the "potential" gotta fit in those buzzwords just isn't there.

 

[bc1910]

I think we're looking at this sort of arrangement with the top characters:

SS:
S:

A+:
A:[]
A-: []

B+: []
B: []

Bracketed characters are unordered. I feel like the entire B+ group can be reasonably argued above the Pits now.

I gree with ~ Gheb ~ on basically everything except who I think remains about as relevant as before.

I'm slowly coming around to agree with @SolidSense; I don't think Pikachu belongs in A tier anymore. There is literally no reason at all to pick this character outside of loyalty. He doesn't win any notable matchups and loses quite a few. I suspect that at least one other Pokémon will end up better off than him in the lon run. Yeah, Lucario loses hard to Cloud and Greninja hates fighting Sheik, but Pika also has at least one -2 against a relevant character (see above). FWIW I also think he does pretty poorly against Sheik and MK, but am not ready to call either of those two "abysmal" yet. Mewtwo is a bit of a wild card; on paper his matchups are no better than Pika's but his recent buffs + actual ability to finish stocks make things harder to call than I'd like to admit.

In other completely coincidental news, I think I'll be finding a new main, though possibly one from the same series. Pika is tons of fun but the "potential" gotta fit in those buzzwords just isn't there.

Come on man... join the frog army...

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I gree with ~ Gheb ~ on basically everything except who I think remains about as relevant as before.

I would like to hear your reasoning on that. My thought process is that Mario loses to all the characters I have placed in my top 5 so it should be easy to see why I think he'll drop noticeably.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

Diddy is top 10 for me right now but I think he needs more consistency to be considered top 5 with some of this new competition.

Loses to Sheik, Rosalina, Fox, and Pikachu. Mario and Luigi seem more even because of Diddy's better range and kill setups. Villager requires a lot of counter play but seems close to even as well.

Right now Diddy's theory is better than his results and he has more problem matchups than people seem to realize. Obvious top 10 though, he has a really good spread anyway and I can see him rising in the future for sure.

I'm confident he beats Bayonetta too which is looking like it will be important.

 

[Djent]

~ Gheb ~ RE: Mario

My impression was that he already lost to the character(s) in top 5 (certainly those in my post-Genesis list). He goes -1 against a number of good characters, but doesn't get countered by anyone. Even some who are arguably better overall seem to get stomped in at least one match. Mario is resilient because he doesn't really care who's above him; it's always a slight uphill journey but never a climb.

Do you think Cloud/Bayo are worse for him than Diddy/Ryu/Sonic?

 

[|RK|]

I want to see Bayo take 1st or 2nd at a major before I say she's top 5. The only characters we really see do that are Sheik, Diddy, ZSS, and Rosalina (ZeRo, Nairo, and Dabuz usually lol). I may be missing another character...

 

[FullMoon]

I gree with ~ Gheb ~ on basically everything except who I think remains about as relevant as before.

I'm slowly coming around to agree with @SolidSense; I don't think Pikachu belongs in A tier anymore. There is literally no reason at all to pick this character outside of loyalty. He doesn't win any notable matchups and loses quite a few. I suspect that at least one other Pokémon will end up better off than him in the lon run. Yeah, Lucario loses hard to Cloud and Greninja hates fighting Sheik, but Pika also has at least one -2 against a relevant character (see above). FWIW I also think he does pretty poorly against Sheik and MK, but am not ready to call either of those two "abysmal" yet. Mewtwo is a bit of a wild card; on paper his matchups are no better than Pika's but his recent buffs + actual ability to finish stocks make things harder to call than I'd like to admit.

In other completely coincidental news, I think I'll be finding a new main, though possibly one from the same series. Pika is tons of fun but the "potential" gotta fit in those buzzwords just isn't there.

Even if Pikachu proves to be underwhelming, I can't really see Greninja being above him. Having a -2 against Sheik is far worse than having a -2 against Mario, even if the plumber is still pretty popular. Greninja also doesn't have many notable wins against the better characters (he might beat Villager and at least in theory we should have an advantage against MK but there's not much proof of that) even though he doesn't do very poorly against any of them except Sheik.

I'm not too sure about Lucario, but that's mainly because I'm unfamiliar with his MUs. Who does he beat and who does he lose to?

 

[bc1910]

Having a single -2 is still better than having multiple -2s, as people are suggesting Pika has, no matter who it is against. Not to mention Pika also struggles in the "notable wins" department, most of his theoretical +1s and +2s have not panned out. Going even against most of the high tiers is hardly a bad thing anyway.

I'd list Mario as a notable +1 for Greninja. The theory is on his side for Villager, MK and maybe Bayo and Ryu, but we haven't seen these MUs play out. I think the theory is on his side for Ness but iStudy and S1-14 more or less go even.

Not to say Greninja is above Pika right now but if he ended up best Pokemon again, I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Djent]

IMO is even or -1 against Sheik, Rosa, Sonic, Diddy, MK, Mario, and Villager. Tougher (-2ish) MUs include Cloud and ZSS.

He probably roflstomps Pika. I suspect Ness, Fox, Ryu, and Bayonetta are all "-" but I'm not sure to what degree.

 

[BunbUn129]

I gree with ~ Gheb ~ on basically everything except who I think remains about as relevant as before.

I'm slowly coming around to agree with @SolidSense; I don't think Pikachu belongs in A tier anymore. There is literally no reason at all to pick this character outside of loyalty. He doesn't win any notable matchups and loses quite a few. I suspect that at least one other Pokémon will end up better off than him in the lon run. Yeah, Lucario loses hard to Cloud and Greninja hates fighting Sheik, but Pika also has at least one -2 against a relevant character (see above). FWIW I also think he does pretty poorly against Sheik and MK, but am not ready to call either of those two "abysmal" yet. Mewtwo is a bit of a wild card; on paper his matchups are no better than Pika's but his recent buffs + actual ability to finish stocks make things harder to call than I'd like to admit.

In other completely coincidental news, I think I'll be finding a new main, though possibly one from the same series. Pika is tons of fun but the "potential" gotta fit in those buzzwords just isn't there.

Theory-wise, the Pika-MK matchup is slightly in MK's favor (55-45). However, results are telling us it's probably worse for Pika. Tyrant beat ESAM at 2GG (yeah, that was a while ago, but these two characters haven't received any changes so the set is still relevant), and Jband beat ESAM at PAX more recently. Notably, in both these sets, ESAM was actually outplaying them. He was winning most of the neutral interactions, and did a decent job of taking stocks--but that's the thing, even though he was overall outplaying them in neutral, he still lost. If Character A wins neutral more often, but Character B still wins the match in the end, that suggests the MU is in favor of Character B (MK in this case).

Pikachu struggles to edgeguard MK, and MK can easily live till 150% in this MU. With max rage, MK's combos start killing Pika at ZERO. That nearly happened in the last match between Jband and ESAM, with Jband winning even though he had a 100% deficit (he hit ESAM at 13% and took him off the top). With Pika's ****ty KO power, MK's early death setups, and MK being able to survive with heavy rage, this matchup is possibly hell for Pikachu. I'd say it's 60-40, but it might even be 70-30 if ESAM keeps losing to MK's.

Now, granted, Pika has one major plus in this MU, and that's his neutral game. But he still has to win neutral more often to win, while MK threatens taking a stock off of a single opening.

 

[bc1910]

I would think Lucario vs Bayonetta is extremely volatile, due to the latter's tendency to swing wildly between killing at either 20% or 180%.

 

[juddy96]

Mfw I pick up a new character for specific matchups and people think I'm dropping pika pic.twitter.com/PzYjZ81Ars

— ESAM (Stride Esports) (@imESAM) March 7, 2016

ESAM is picking up a new secondary. I'll bet it's Cloud or Sheik, since everyone and their grandmother has one now.

He actually said earlier in his timeline that it's Corrin.

 

[Nobie]

Not to make excuses for ESAM, but he's mentioned that one of his concerns is that he lacks consistent practice and high-quality practice partners due to where he lives and goes to school. I'm willing to bet that in ESAM's mind that all of the seeming faults Pikachu possesses can for the most part be overcome with matchup experience.

Kill confirms are obviously better than having to get a read in, but I've felt for a while now that Smash players are often pretty averse to risk, and that the idea of the "read" is almost in this magical territory that some might even call impractical unless you are so much better than your opponent that you can dominate them. Not all players are like this, of course. Nairo's practically built an empire off of risk-taking. However, I'm remembering all of the early theory for Smash 4 that the ledge mechanics would make people afraid to go out and edgeguard, or even currently with all the talk that Pikachu needing to take chances is going to ultimately hold him back.

I posted Juicebox's guide to footsies a while back (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQQCan5oo90), and he emphasized the idea that to truly play neutral you're going to have to put yourself at risk, because it's partly a matter of messing with the opponent's expectations, and sometimes in your attempt to out-think them you pick the wrong answer and get hit for it. This happens to the best of the best, too. Kazunoko, using Yun, beat Daigo (Evil Ryu) at Capcom Cup 2015 because he was just able to get in Daigo's head more often than the other way around, and Daigo is certainly not the easiest person to mind game.

I could see Pikachu in a similar position as Yun, who gets rated on tier lists as very good but not great. Pikachu likely has the tools to take championships, but it requires you to pressure the opponent in good but not failsafe ways where you exploit the small quirks that pop up in their play which you've learned from either past fights against them or during the match.

That all being said, I think Bayonetta's Witch Time makes risk-averse players even more afraid to take risks because of how ridiculously potent it is. Or rather, what I should be saying is that a lot of things that players thought were risk-free are now wrought with danger, and it's something people are going to have to get used to if they want to win.

 

[juddy96]

Also, sad days for , Komorikiri has officially dropped him. https://twitter.com/SS_S_C_B/status/706814923939008512

 

[HoSmash4]

Results since Cloud's release:

Top 16 placements:

Top 8 placements:

Top 1 placements:

This results chart doesnt add weight to stronger regions, but it's showing that cloud is outdoing mario in terms of 'easy pick and play and get decent placements'. Also it's showing that in terms of winning tournaments not taking into account the region level, Cloud is supreme and very popular.

In terms of the top level Cloud's achievements:
Dominating Top 8 doubles, although not Brawl MK yet.
3rd/5th at Shots Fired (Beating 6WX, Anti, 9B, Ranai, Dabuz)
Losses 2-3 to Nairo, Zero, Mr R and Esam
Komorikiri's first wins over Ranai (Might be wrong. Yep i was wrong)
Win over Nairo (Tweek Cloud)
Winning Tampa Never Sleeps (M2K)
One solo main cloud in Beast 6 top 16 (Hazemoky) and two cloud secondaries used (Mr.R/Sodrek)
17th at Genesis (Komorikiri)
Several Japanese wins over top players
I'm probably missing a few other results but point stands the only character clearly posting better results than Cloud is... Sheik.

 

[juddy96]

Results since Cloud's release:

Komorikiri beat Ranai with Mii Brawler back in the day a couple times.

 

[NotLiquid]

Also, sad days for , Komorikiri has officially dropped him. https://twitter.com/SS_S_C_B/status/706814923939008512

):

Him and 6WX were my personal heroes back when I still mained him.

 

[L9999]

Also, sad days for , Komorikiri has officially dropped him. https://twitter.com/SS_S_C_B/status/706814923939008512

I KNEW IT! Komorikiri was totally dropping him. Sanic meta is now on life support I guess.

 

[juddy96]

I KNEW IT! Komorikiri was totally dropping him. Sanic meta is now on life support I guess.

At the very top level yes, but Sonic is still one of the most popular characters at a local/regional level, and Japan still has like 5 good Sonics, their new best one being KEN, who gets top 8 from time to time.

 

[ARISTOS]

Also, sad days for , Komorikiri has officially dropped him. https://twitter.com/SS_S_C_B/status/706814923939008512

Sensed this was coming.

Sonic is still a very strong character, but he's had all his easy buttons removed while certain other newly added character have similar reward for much easier buttons.

Results since Cloud's release:

Top 16 placements:

Top 8 placements:

Top 1 placements:

This results chart doesnt add weight to stronger regions, but it's showing that cloud is outdoing mario in terms of 'easy pick and play and get decent placements'. Also it's showing that in terms of winning tournaments not taking into account the region level, Cloud is supreme and very popular.

I'm probably missing a few other results but point stands the only character clearly posting better results than Cloud is... Sheik.

It's important to remember that the raw numbers don't tell the whole story.

But yep, I can see many people either maining or secondaring in the weeks to come, which will likely in turn force people into either picking up in order to deal. Cloud ****s on about 95% of the cast pressing very simple buttons.

This is the last time I'm gonna rant about Cloud, I swear

 

[Jaguar360]

Having a single -2 is still better than having multiple -2s, as people are suggesting Pika has, no matter who it is against. Not to mention Pika also struggles in the "notable wins" department, most of his theoretical +1s and +2s have not panned out. Going even against most of the high tiers is hardly a bad thing anyway.

I'd list Mario as a notable +1 for Greninja. The theory is on his side for Villager, MK and maybe Bayo and Ryu, but we haven't seen these MUs play out. I think the theory is on his side for Ness but iStudy and S1-14 more or less go even.

Not to say Greninja is above Pika right now but if he ended up best Pokemon again, I wouldn't be surprised.

Who is a -2 for Pika except for Mario though? Certainly not Sheik, probably not Luigi, not Villager (ESAM losing to Ranai does not suggest that; Ranai is amazing and the matchup's about even), and Ness doesn't seem quite bad enough to be -2, though I find that matchup to be the most arguable.

I think people are jumping the gun calling Pikachu a mid tier character all of a sudden. I can understand a drop to around where Ness and Villager are, and perhaps can accept Lucario being above him since Lucario's insane, but a character of Pika's calibur should not be falling below that. Pikachu still boasts a superb neutral, one of the best burst mobility moves in the game, if not the best, top 5 edgeguarding, a stellar recovery, one of the better matchups against Sheik and what is still a great matchup spread despite losing hard to a common character like Mario.

This isn't another Yoshi situation. Yoshi's results have always been middling and people had been calling him top tier since the game came out before he or anyone else really got the chance to do anything. Not to mention that he's been notorious for being annoying online. Yoshi's still a strong character with his mobility, Egg Lay, eggs, versatility, etc., but I've never felt that he was particularly amazing or much better than Greninja during my days of co-maining and secondarying him. Pikachu has always felt like a top tier and ESAM and NAKAT have shown us glimpses of that, if I dare say it, "potential" on more than a couple occasions.

Also Sonic shouldn't be dropping much, if at all. The nerfs may keep from top 5, especially with our new DLC friends competing for those slots now, but let's remember all those 1st and 2nd place national placements from KEN and Komorikiri in Japan and Sonic pretty much consistently making it to Top 16 at American nationals with 6WX and Heero/Manny, with the occasional appearance from Seagull Joe. Sonic barely has killing issues like some have been saying. Kill throws are still kill throws and Sonic has three of them, even if back throw is as overtuned as it was before. His f-smash is still amazing with its range and low endlag and kills very well in spite of the nerf. His spin dash KO confirms (to B-air and U-air -> Spring U-air) still exist and his edgeguards with spring, b-air and f-air can also net him kills pretty well. Then you have the mobility, Spin Dash mixups, Spring Jump -> D-air out of juggles, etc. that everyone should know. Easily top 11 and in the higher end of the 6-10 range imo.

 

[Jalil]

If sheik is what stops greninja from being solo viable then that mu should be atleast a -3 along with megamans sheik mu because -2 is still doable.