Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Mega-Spider]

FeelMeUp A lot of people play to win, and since Cloud's an easy pick because of how strong his options are, it's no wonder why he's a "just add water" component to most players. I kinda wish people would play more to learn than to win, that way we could potentially see more of what the rest of the cast is capable of instead of just seeing the same routine we see all the time with characters like Cloud. However, that's my idealistic mindset talking here.

Those who explore other options will end up being better players than those who are complacent with their character(s).

 

[Y2Kay]

Even if your playing to win, Cloud isn't always the best choice.

I'm personally no longer a fan of "pocket" Clouds. It's just too predictable. He puts in work as a true secondary or main. But most good players just defeat you anyway because everyone is experienced in the match up.

 

[verbatim]

So long as you're comfortable sticking w/ your main for Bayo Fox would probably make a better secondary for Mario than Cloud or Luigi.

: (covering for Mario's hard/annoying matchups)

: Fox wins
/: Fox probably wins?
: Fair footstool is very easy to land
: Fox probably wins?
//: Fox wins significantly

: Fox doesn't cover very well
: Fox doesn't cover very well
: You could go either character for this matchup

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Oh boy, this is going to be long...

@Guavo
@chaos11011
YerTheBestAROUND

Jamurai already explained the Falco match up.

Charizard has significant strengths against Doc & vice-verse.
Doc's neutral is very underrated since he can auto cancel his short-hop B-airs for spacing & he has pills which forces Charizard to approach. Doc's amazing frame data gives him the edge in defense, especially out-of-shield. Zard is easy combo food, through Doc shouldn't get greedy since Zard can amour with Rock Smash, Doc's kill power is similar to Zard's so it's not hard for either of them to get a kill & while it's difficult to edge-guard Zard, a well timed Cape or B-air can be enough to end Charizard's stock.
So IMO, the match comes down to who can outplay who.

DHD's zoning can be invalided by Doc's Cape. (No pun intended)
Unless DH has a can with them, it's very easy to edge guard them with Doc's B-air, D-air, Up-B or Tornado. Doc also doesn't have much trouble getting a KO on DH due to his fast frame data & kill-power, while DH struggles to get a KO without the use of a read.
This match up is by not means impossible for DH manly because they can escape Doc's combos, (Huh, there it is again) but they definitely have to work into order to get that edge over Doc in the match.

Anything Luigi can do Doc can do back, simple as that.

DK loses in neutral since he's forced to approach in which case Doc usually wins in defense, he's easy to combo off of, & it's easy to edge-guard him. However DK has Ding-Dong which is amazing for racking up damage & killing.

While Fox has a slightly better neutral & greater kill power, he's can be combo easily, light & Tornado eat through Fox's recovery options.

Falcon can combo, kill & edge-guard but so can Doc.

Aside from his disjoints, Pit & Pitto don't really have anything crazy they can use over Doc. But for reasons I've stated above they are not safe from Doc's edge-guarding ability.

I actually don't know much about the Greninja match-up, so that could change for Greninja favor.

Diddy's Neutral can be rival by Doc's. (Throw in everything I said about Doc's general strengths) However, Diddy's fast frame data & quick kill confirms are enough to win the match for him.

Marth, Lucina, Sonic, Rosalina, and Corrin are not impossible to win but they just bad enough to were playing Doc is awful idea. (Even then, can challenge some of their weakness)



*GASP* Man that was a mouthful.
Well I hoped I explained my reasons in a clear manner.













Can I get a gold star?

 

[Deleted member]

definitely can be pushed further than what we're seeing now. Character has an amazing dashdance and people honestly don't abuse his mobility in Limit enough, ****'s busted. Even if he may fall off in the future because of his recovery/disadvantage he'll always be a fundamentally strong character in this meta, definitely won't fall out of top 10 if you ask me.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Fox isn't a good character to secondary unless you play a character that has a similar neutral or punish game, in my opinion. The character either requires you to already be very good at the game or to dump a lot of time into him.
I think is one of the strongest duos in the entire game, for example, but that's mostly because they operate similarly in neutral and at the ledge so you're already decently equipped with the mentality needed for the other.

 

[Zelder]

Wait, the Mario - Diddy match up is getting worse? What's that based on...observation, results, player chatter, top player match ups, what? I feel like the phrase "x's matchup with y is getting worse" keeps coming up in this thread, but I still don't know what anyone is referring to when they say that.

note: I'm not saying that it's impossible for a matchup to get more/less difficult as a character's meta advances, I just want people to elaborate on what they're arguing.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Wait, the Mario - Diddy match up is getting worse? What's that based on...observation, results, player chatter, top player match ups, what? I feel like the phrase "x's matchup with y is getting worse" keeps coming up in this thread, but I still don't know what anyone is referring to when they say that.

note: I'm not saying that it's impossible for a matchup to get more/less difficult as a character's meta advances, I just want people to elaborate on what they're saying.

There's strategies that the Diddy players(mostly ZeRo since we see him the most) are coming out with that top level Marios seem to have no answers for. So observation, results, and just looking at the character toolkit.

Bair spacing, less dtilts, constant air to air fights, no banana unless ledgetrapping(where banana on ledge with diddy facing away from it covers ALL options), emphasis on abusing Mario's tough time getting off ledge against Diddy, lots of grabs to kill, etc. When Diddy players don't really commit to anything and play more like Marth with a bunch of safe aerial pokes for mixups, confirms into more damage, and grabs Mario has a lot of trouble.
FLUDD doesn't help as much as it does vs banana Diddy. Cape doesn't help at all. Dash grab loses to the single/double bair mixup. Shield can be tomahawked over or bair'd around to eliminate the threat of Usmash.
Ever since ZeRo adopted this strategy a bit before Endgame he's been destroying every Mario he comes by with little to no effort.
Exception of course being Ally but that's more of a player vs player thing than the character's limitations.

 

[Y2Kay]

Fox should cover Mewtwo well. I'm on the fence as to whether Mewtwo loses or not, but he's definitely better at it than Mario.

 

[DunnoBro]

So long as you're comfortable sticking w/ your main for Bayo Fox would probably make a better secondary for Mario than Cloud or Luigi.

: (covering for Mario's hard/annoying matchups)

: Fox wins
/: Fox probably wins?
: Fair footstool is very easy to land
: Fox probably wins?
//: Fox wins significantly

: Fox doesn't cover very well
: Fox doesn't cover very well
: You could go either character for this matchup

Fox isn't that great vs peach and bowser. Is actually good vs m2 though.

However, while perhaps lazy cloud is still notably the best secondary for mario. Even his evenish but hard MUs like yoshi, lucario, and ryu become significantly easier.

Sonic, M2, Corrin, and Luigi are muuuuch harder and just about as relevant as diddy. Luigi doesn't help with those at all.

If it's redundant to list cloud as a good secondary, it's because he's just dumb and the metagame will likely degenerate into a DLCP if they continue to oppress flagship characters. That doesn't mean we should ignore optimal choices because they're redundant.

And ZeRo destroys pretty much any player not on his level if he knows the MU, mario or not. It's too soon to suggest this MU is getting worse, or even close to as bad as the m2/sonic/luigi mus.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Cloud being somebody's best secondary is, contrary to common believe, not a no-brainer. There are plenty of instances where Mewtwo, Luigi or Diddy Kong are better picks.

He's clearly the best secondary for Mario mains though.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Marth, Lucina, Sonic, Rosalina, and Corrin are not impossible to win but they just bad enough to were playing Doc is awful idea. (Even then, can challenge some of their weakness)

This is what I was thinking, it's just that 40:60 does not reflect that in my mind. 40:60 to me is a match up where it might be a bit difficult but you have most of your tools available to defeat your opponent, you don't have to switch characters you can just tough it out. Needing to switch due to the match up being awful suggests more along the lines of 30:70 or worse to me.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Fox isn't that great vs peach and bowser. Is actually good vs m2 though.

However, while perhaps lazy cloud is still notably the best secondary for mario. Even his evenish but hard MUs like yoshi, lucario, and ryu become significantly easier.

Sonic, M2, Corrin, and Luigi are muuuuch harder and just about as relevant as diddy. Luigi doesn't help with those at all.

If it's redundant to list cloud as a good secondary, it's because he's just dumb and the metagame will likely degenerate into a DLCP if they continue to oppress flagship characters. That doesn't mean we should ignore optimal choices because they're redundant.

And ZeRo destroys pretty much any player not on his level if he knows the MU, mario or not. It's too soon to suggest this MU is getting worse, or even close to as bad as the m2/sonic/luigi mus.

I'm not saying it's a -2 or whatever. I still believe it's currently 55:45 but as time goes on things are looking worse and worse for Mario in the MU. General opinions going from 45:55 to a 55:45 in a matchup is always important.

 

[Floor]

Generally I don't say anything is worse than a 40:60. Most top players do this too, unless you are Vinnie. The game is pretty balanced and, with the exception of Sheik v Ganondorf, every character in every matchup can come up with one optimal game plan to try to execute. There's very few places where something is a 65:35 or worse. Sheik and a few other top tiers might have one or two with the bottom tiers. That's just about it

 

[Locke 06]

Generally I don't say anything is worse than a 40:60. Most top players do this too, unless you are Vinnie. The game is pretty balanced and, with the exception of Sheik v Ganondorf, every character in every matchup can come up with one optimal game plan to try to execute. There's very few places where something is a 65:35 or worse. Sheik and a few other top tiers might have one or two with the bottom tiers. That's just about it

False. There are plenty of awful matchups in this game.

 

[TDK]

Generally I don't say anything is worse than a 40:60. Most top players do this too, unless you are Vinnie. The game is pretty balanced and, with the exception of Sheik v Ganondorf, every character in every matchup can come up with one optimal game plan to try to execute. There's very few places where something is a 65:35 or worse. Sheik and a few other top tiers might have one or two with the bottom tiers. That's just about it

vs is arguably 80:20 or worse for Mac.
vs is at least 75-25 in Peach's favour.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Generally I don't say anything is worse than a 40:60. Most top players do this too, unless you are Vinnie. The game is pretty balanced and, with the exception of Sheik v Ganondorf, every character in every matchup can come up with one optimal game plan to try to execute. There's very few places where something is a 65:35 or worse. Sheik and a few other top tiers might have one or two with the bottom tiers. That's just about it

Yeah, no.

Cloud vs the majority of mid and low tiers.

 

[Deleted member]

KEN's Sonic MU chart.

This one is also pretty good, though I'm not seeing how Dedede isn't +3. Also the first Sonic I've seen to see thinking he has that large of an advantage over Ike. Could be attributed to the lack of Ike players in Japan.

 

[Floor]

Generally I don't say anything is worse than a 40:60. Most top players do this too, unless you are Vinnie. The game is pretty balanced and, with the exception of Sheik v Ganondorf, every character in every matchup can come up with one optimal game plan to try to execute. There's very few places where something is a 65:35 or worse. Sheik and a few other top tiers might have one or two with the bottom tiers. That's just about it

Quoting myself here to further explain

I mean really bad matchups certainly exist, I just don't think they are that prevalent. Smash 4 has 58 characters, each of which have 57 matchups. Divide that by 2 to discard duplicate match ups (Sheik v Little Mac and Little Mac v Sheik) and that's 1,653 unique matchups to analyze. I'm not going to go around stamping a number on it as to how many are worse than 60:40, but the bulk of them aren't worse than that. There are plenty of bad matchups in this game because there are a lot of possible matchups (1.6k). Maybe I wasn't very clear or maybe I'm wrong, ect, but I'm talking percents here. I'm not giving exact numbers, but like 80-85% of those aren't worse than 60:40 imo.

YerTheBestAROUND
Mid to Low tiers (and bottom) compose of I think 36 characters. The majority of them =~25. 25 I think is a bit much for Cloud. Cloud is great but he is exploitable, especially with all the matchup experience everyone has and the multiple ways you can gimp him (guaranteed stage spike, for one).

Like I said previously, the top tiers have a few that are worse than 60:40. But the bulk of the roster is within the 40:60 - 6-:40 range imo.

 

[Y2Kay]

I really wanna say there's no way Greninja is possibly even but Some's beaten him like 17 times already*, so I don't even know what to think of the match up anymore. Dark Aura double eliminating SGK doesn't make things any easier for me.

*ok it was more like 4 or 5 times but that's still mind boggling.

;

 

[Megamang]

Someone also said recently that fox isnt that bad anymore for greninja, but that goes against what I thought i knew and was supported by evidence and greninja's frame data/weaknesses... Y2Kay ?

 

[Illusion.]

is one of 's easier losing MUs.

I'm not convinced it's even though.

 

[Y2Kay]

is one of 's easier losing MUs.

I'm not convinced it's even though.

took the words right out of my mouth

You play Megafox regularly so you'd know better than I do. You did finally beat him though, right?

 

[DunnoBro]

I'm not saying it's a -2 or whatever. I still believe it's currently 55:45 but as time goes on things are looking worse and worse for Mario in the MU. General opinions going from 45:55 to a 55:45 in a matchup is always important.

I understand that, I was just remarking on the CP mentality. Diddy will never be as bad as other inherently bad mus that mario and luigi both share. I wouldn't even be surprised if the luigi mu got better from a similar philosophy.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

This is what I was thinking, it's just that 40:60 does not reflect that in my mind. 40:60 to me is a match up where it might be a bit difficult but you have most of your tools available to defeat your opponent, you don't have to switch characters you can just tough it out. Needing to switch due to the match up being awful suggests more along the lines of 30:70 or worse to me.

You got a good point.
Maybe move Sonic & Corrin down to 35:65 since they're by far Doc's weakest match ups. So switching is probably you best choice of action.
The others in 40:60 are still doable but harder.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I understand that, I was just remarking on the CP mentality. Diddy will never be as bad as other inherently bad mus that mario and luigi both share. I wouldn't even be surprised if the luigi mu got better from a similar philosophy.

Ehhhhh. I see where you're coming from, but the conversions Luigi gets from a grab at the edge along with the way his fireballs interact with both banana and banana-less Diddy may provide more resistance than it does with Mario. Him having really good forward facing aerials doesn't necessarily help Diddy, either.
As I'm sure you know, Diddy has considerably less to lose from getting grabbed by Mario at most %s while there's ALWAYS a major risk to having the wind knocked out of you by a Luigi's grab conversion.
Can't say I agree or disagree with you though. Feels like postpatch Luigi counterplay is mad underdeveloped everywhere besides SoCal so we'll have to see as time goes on.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Someone also said recently that fox isnt that bad anymore for greninja, but that goes against what I thought i knew and was supported by evidence and greninja's frame data/weaknesses... Y2Kay ?

was never considered a truly bad matchup for .

I always argued that it's even but I can see why Greninja players would think Fox wins ... just because Fox is a really dumb character in general. But I think if optimized the matchup could be exactly even for all we know.

 

[Illusion.]

took the words right out of my mouth

You play Megafox regularly so you'd know better than I do. You did finally beat him though, right?

Yeah, but that still makes my record against him like 1-38 lol

 

[FeelMeUp]

was never considered a truly bad matchup for .

I always argued that it's even but I can see why Greninja players would think Fox wins ... just because Fox is a really dumb character in general. But I think if optimized the matchup could be exactly even for all we know.

Not true at all.
were always the holy trinity of his bad MUs.
This is the first instance I've seen people suddenly decide to think of it as better than bad..

 

[Y2Kay]

Yeah, but that still makes my record against him like 1-38 lol

Hey it only took you 39 tries, that's not too bad LUL

was never considered a truly bad matchup for .

I always argued that it's even but I can see why Greninja players would think Fox wins ... just because Fox is a really dumb character in general. But I think if optimized the matchup could be exactly even for all we know.

hmm, I'm interested. What optimal Greninja play would make this MU even?

 

[Deleted member]

This is sorta unrelated to the current conversation, but I feel like talking about how I feel about Shulk's spread against high tiers. i'm gonna spoiler my thoughts below.

Spoiler: opeenions

notable deficit


These two are outright awful for Shulk, and even with Nicko's wins against Charliedaking and other SoCal Foxes in the past and in general being really good at the Fox MU, the matchup is absolutely hellish at top level. A secondary is absolutely required against them.

solid deficit


Shulk has his own tools in these matchups that keep from being as bad as the above characters, but they're painful nonetheless. They can be toughed out, namely Bayo and Sonic but it may as well lead to timing out or excessively patient, non-commital play.


slight deficit
(?)

Characters that are feasibly winnable for Shulk but they all have certain things that abuse his disadvantage state badly if he takes up the wrong gameplan/makes a vital mistake.

even or slight deficit


Similar to above, but tournament records for Shulk against these characters have been alright as of far. Nicko always tends to go extremely even or nearly beat Rich Brown whenever they encounter and Tremendo Dude beat DJ Jack at a recent VSGC weekly, Shulk can exploit the former's approaching weakness rather well and can effectively zone him out but gets absolutely torn a new one in disadvantage, patience is an absolute must in that matchup.

slight advantage


wrote a thing over here about it

idk


what it says on the tin. MK v Shulk is rarely ever seen at any level and I lack experience against proficient MK players. Ditto for Lucario. Corrin is another weird one, Shulk lacks a quick punish to pin and hates getting up at the ledge against him, but has a field day with Corrin offstage and the character has one of the highest Purge ranges. Not like a 50/50 makes or breaks the matchup but it's something. if I were gonna put him anywhere it'd be in solid deficit, though other Shulks think it's a better matchup than that.

 

[Laken64]

This is sorta unrelated to the current conversation, but I feel like talking about how I feel about Shulk's spread against high tiers. i'm gonna spoiler my thoughts below.

Spoiler: opeenions

notable deficit


These two are outright awful for Shulk, and even with Nicko's wins against Charliedaking and other SoCal Foxes in the past and in general being really good at the Fox MU, the matchup is absolutely hellish at top level. A secondary is absolutely required against them.

solid deficit


Shulk has his own tools in these matchups that keep from being as bad as the above characters, but they're painful nonetheless. They can be toughed out, namely Bayo and Sonic but it may as well lead to timing out or excessively patient, non-commital play.


slight deficit
(?)

Characters that are feasibly winnable for Shulk but they all have certain things that abuse his disadvantage state badly if he takes up the wrong gameplan/makes a vital mistake.

even or slight deficit


Similar to above, but tournament records for Shulk against these characters have been alright as of far. Nicko always tends to go extremely even or nearly beat Rich Brown whenever they encounter and Tremendo Dude beat DJ Jack at a recent VSGC weekly, Shulk can exploit the former's approaching weakness rather well and can effectively zone him out but gets absolutely torn a new one in disadvantage, patience is an absolute must in that matchup.

slight advantage


wrote a thing over here about it

idk


what it says on the tin. MK v Shulk is rarely ever seen at any level and I lack experience against proficient MK players. Ditto for Lucario. Corrin is another weird one, Shulk lacks a quick punish to pin and hates getting up at the ledge against him, but has a field day with Corrin offstage and the character has one of the highest Purge ranges. Not like a 50/50 makes or breaks the matchup but it's something. if I were gonna put him anywhere it'd be in solid deficit, though other Shulks think it's a better matchup than that.

I saw a good video of what vs looks like with all of Shulks tools used efficiently:

very close set between them what would you say Shulk player did right and wrong in the MU and how do you personally go about it @←/feel?

 

[Ulevo]

This is sorta unrelated to the current conversation, but I feel like talking about how I feel about Shulk's spread against high tiers. i'm gonna spoiler my thoughts below.

Spoiler: opeenions

notable deficit


These two are outright awful for Shulk, and even with Nicko's wins against Charliedaking and other SoCal Foxes in the past and in general being really good at the Fox MU, the matchup is absolutely hellish at top level. A secondary is absolutely required against them.

solid deficit


Shulk has his own tools in these matchups that keep from being as bad as the above characters, but they're painful nonetheless. They can be toughed out, namely Bayo and Sonic but it may as well lead to timing out or excessively patient, non-commital play.


slight deficit
(?)

Characters that are feasibly winnable for Shulk but they all have certain things that abuse his disadvantage state badly if he takes up the wrong gameplan/makes a vital mistake.

even or slight deficit


Similar to above, but tournament records for Shulk against these characters have been alright as of far. Nicko always tends to go extremely even or nearly beat Rich Brown whenever they encounter and Tremendo Dude beat DJ Jack at a recent VSGC weekly, Shulk can exploit the former's approaching weakness rather well and can effectively zone him out but gets absolutely torn a new one in disadvantage, patience is an absolute must in that matchup.

slight advantage


wrote a thing over here about it

idk


what it says on the tin. MK v Shulk is rarely ever seen at any level and I lack experience against proficient MK players. Ditto for Lucario. Corrin is another weird one, Shulk lacks a quick punish to pin and hates getting up at the ledge against him, but has a field day with Corrin offstage and the character has one of the highest Purge ranges. Not like a 50/50 makes or breaks the matchup but it's something. if I were gonna put him anywhere it'd be in solid deficit, though other Shulks think it's a better matchup than that.

I am pretty experienced in the Shulk match up. I would say it's 5:5 - 6:4 in Meta Knight's favor. Optimized, probably 6:4. Shulk is a very easy juggle target and gets laddered rather consistently. He has problems in neutral against fast dash in's into shield. There is also of course the off stage game.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Mid to Low tiers (and bottom) compose of I think 36 characters. The majority of them =~25. 25 I think is a bit much for Cloud. Cloud is great but he is exploitable, especially with all the matchup experience everyone has and the multiple ways you can gimp him (guaranteed stage spike, for one).

You have to get past Cloud's insane neutral and actually get him off stage, something only Sheik is very reliable at doing. Most characters struggle with Cloud's incredibly safe, massively disjointed aerials and his god-like mobility. Then he also just happens to be one of if not the best juggler in the game. There are very few characters that go even with Cloud, and less that can even say that they beat him. The only Mid-Bottom tiers that I think Cloud goes even with are Lucas, Samus, Shulk, and Charizard. Then he even beats Lucario, Corrin(?), Villager, Meta Knight, Mario, Sonic, and likely Rosa in the high and top tiers. He's top tier for a reason.

 

[Deleted member]

I saw a good video of what vs looks like with all of Shulks tools used efficiently:

very close set between them what would you say Shulk player did right and wrong in the MU and how do you personally go about it @←/feel?

Scarhi did all the right things in the matchup, honestly. His movement (notice how he used his movement in Speed Art to intimidate quiK and and be able to crack down on him to exploit his openings), spacing and punish game were all on point, and he only commited to something against ZSS when he needed to. Using MALLC is pretty important in the matchup due to how strong ZSS's whiff punish game is (frame 4 up B @_@, although Shield Art can allow you to escape it proper with good DI like in the set). He was also very smart of staying out of disadvantage with Buster, not a lot of Shulks are able to do that proficiently.

Scarhi and Nicko are the Shulks I study the most, so I look after how they play and tend to listen to their advice when they discuss about matchups in the Shulk Discord.

You have to get past Cloud's insane neutral and actually get him off stage, something only Sheik is very reliable at doing. Most characters struggle with Cloud's incredibly safe, massively disjointed aerials and his god-like mobility. Then he also just happens to be one of if not the best juggler in the game. There are very few characters that go even with Cloud, and less that can even say that they beat him. The only Mid-Bottom tiers that I think Cloud goes even with are Lucas, Samus, Shulk, and Charizard. Then he even beats Lucario, Corrin(?), Villager, Meta Knight, Mario, Sonic, and likely Rosa in the high and top tiers. He's top tier for a reason.

I'm curious, why do you think Shulk goes even with Cloud? It's an opinion I see a lot of Shulk mains share and I can't find myself to agree with it.

 

[FullMoon]

was never considered a truly bad matchup for .

I always argued that it's even but I can see why Greninja players would think Fox wins

This doesn't really contribute to the discussion but I'm gonna have to call BS on this one bro.

Greninja doesn't go even with Fox. Give it some time until counterplay envolves.

I think Greninja has staying power to keep his spot at high-mid tier, I just don't think he's really even with Fox. Not that it matters a whole lot.

Ya can't fool my memory for incredibly trivial stuff.

how the hell did I remember this

bless you search function

 

[Y2Kay]

This doesn't really contribute to the discussion but I'm gonna have to call BS on this one bro.




Ya can't fool my memory for incredibly trivial stuff.

how the hell did I remember this

bless you search function

LOL you remembered it too? I remember when I first suggested Fox might be even post - BEAST VI he shot that down real quick.

But I will say Greninja's match up chart is kind of a mess. I'm not really sure who we lose to anymore or how badly.

I'm decently confident that we at least lose too

are constantly cycling between slightly losing to even for me.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

I'm curious, why do you think Shulk goes even with Cloud? It's an opinion I see a lot of Shulk mains share and I can't find myself to agree with it.

Similar reasons as to why I think Shulk goes even with Falcon. Shield art can actually make it rather hard for Cloud to kill Shulk. Shulk has a good up tilt to juggle Cloud with, as he can kind of struggle to land when dair or nair aren't able to just keep other characters from being near him. It's already very good with perfect pivoting, I would love to see someone utilize it with step dashing. Jump allows Shulk to compete with Cloud's air speed while also having good amounts of range to back him up, something Mario lacks for example. Monado arts are like mini Limit boosts, they allow Shulk to temporarily throw a wrench in Cloud's plan and not allow him to just play his game. And as was the case for Falcon, smash art should just not be used.

Cloud's much better at ledge trapping Shulk and covering a high recovery than Falcon is however which can be problem for Shulk. Can't say I'd recommend the Air Slash 2 mix up in this match up either due to Cloud's disjointed dair and the slow start up of the second hit allowing Cloud to use any other aerial or ftilt as well.

Shulk can exploit a lot of Cloud's weaknesses better than most character but is so full of his own weaknesses that Cloud can also exploit that hold him back. I can see Cloud having a slight advantage, but I think it's close enough to call even.

 

[Deleted member]

Similar reasons as to why I think Shulk goes even with Falcon. Shield art can actually make it rather hard for Cloud to kill Shulk. Shulk has a good up tilt to juggle Cloud with, as he can kind of struggle to land when dair or nair aren't able to just keep other characters from being near him. It's already very good with perfect pivoting, I would love to see someone utilize it with step dashing. Jump allows Shulk to compete with Cloud's air speed while also having good amounts of range to back him up, something Mario lacks for example. Monado arts are like mini Limit boosts, they allow Shulk to temporarily throw a wrench in Cloud's plan and not allow him to just play his game. And as was the case for Falcon, smash art should just not be used.

Cloud's much better at ledge trapping Shulk and covering a high recovery than Falcon is however which can be problem for Shulk. Can't say I'd recommend the Air Slash 2 mix up in this match up either due to Cloud's disjointed dair and the slow start up of the second hit allowing Cloud to use any other aerial or ftilt as well.

Shulk can exploit a lot of Cloud's weaknesses better than most character but is so full of his own weaknesses that Cloud can also exploit that hold him back. I can see Cloud having a slight advantage, but I think it's close enough to call even.

Fair enough.

In coincidental news:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Shulk Round Robin is confirmed at 2GGT: ZeRo Saga. Nicko and Soronie are confirmed to attend, and possibly Tremendo Dude and others.

 

[NairWizard]

-Mario doesn't lose to Marth or Cloud, imo. Those are pretty even matchups. We've discussed why before, but Mario's reward once he gets in on the swordies is high enough for games to swing either way very easily.

-The Luigi MU looks to be in Mario's favor or even, I can't see Mario losing it. Watching Ally's campy play vs. Luigis solidifies this for me.

-Mario vs. Rosalina has gotten better over time. Not a losing matchup at this point from all observable angles.

-The Diddy MU is highly volatile and I think ZeRo vs. non-Ally Marios is just a player skill thing, but I could see Diddy winning very slightly with extreme camping. It's very slight though, if anything. Mario's CQC is just too good vs. Diddy's options to really call it solidly in Diddy's favor.

-Mario vs. Mewtwo also feels like a slight loss once Marios start to actually abuse Mewtwo's height and minor weaknesses (like ledge options). It is worse than the Diddy MU for sure, though.

-Mario vs. Sonic used to be one of Sonic's tougher MUs and then skewed toward Sonic's favor once Sonics started to camp. When Marios realize that they can reverse-camp if they get the lead it'll skew back, but it probably won't ever fall completely out of Sonic's favor.

-Mario vs. Corrin feels like ripping your own teeth out sometimes, so I wouldn't be surprised if remains negative forever, but Mario does have some tools for the MU that are underdeveloped.

These 3 ( ) are probably Mario's bad MUs, with (which I have no experience or opinion on, because I haven't played a really good Peach ever) trailing behind by a bit, probably trending toward even.


People have outdated opinions on Fox's matchup spread, too. He doesn't wreck Charizard or Bowser or Greninja lol. Sometimes I think people are posting on the basis of memes floating around from months ago. The game's developed, the meta's evolved. Fox doesn't obliterate half the cast any more; many of his matchups are even now.