Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Yikarur]

if Yoshi is a low tier (which I highly contest) the game really is in a great spot.

If an honest character is low tier I don't think that'll be an indicator for a game in a great spot 8)

 

[Game7a1]

I'm not sure if this will count for Das Koopa's results (a bit under 80 entrants), but here are the results from GUMS 11. I think I might be off on some characters since some players played many characters in bracket, and others didn't play on stream. Nonetheless, just know there were a lot of characters used.

GUMS 11 (77 Entrants) : https://smash.gg/tournament/gums-11/events/wii-u-singles/brackets/89774

1st Raffi-X
2nd Craftis
3rd XL-97
4th Glare
5th Koolaid
5th Ntarps
7th DM888
7th MattyG
9th Game7a1
9th Hark
9th Scot!
9th NibbyNibbyNub
13th PWNAGEPOLICE
13th Kero
13th Dreadfighter
13th LordXav1ver

 

[Illusion.]

I'm so happy for Aarrow. This is a pretty big placing for him, he's a great player and he's been improving so much. <3

Didn't Gnes also use and as well?

He didn't take a game with , and was just for the mid-low tiers side event.

 

[FullMoon]

Whoa so did iStudying beat Ally? That's pretty amazing.

 

[Yonder]

Breakout 7 (93 entrants) https://smash.gg/tournament/breakout-7/events/wii-u-singles/brackets

1st Rayquaza07
2nd Eureka
3rd Boobear
4th Linus
5th Smasher1001
5th King James
7th Ozone
7th LOE1
9th Runes
9th LouRich
9th Daybreak
9th Regralht
13th Meek
13th Komota
13th SETHsational
13th Kasper

There's literally been a different Bowser in the top 5 for the last 4-5 tournies posted.

Just something I found interesting.

 

[Deleted member]

There's literally been a different Bowser in the top 5 for the last 4-5 tournies posted.

Just something I found interesting.

That's because Bowser is good.

 

[FeelMeUp]

That's because Bowser is dumb

Fixed for accuracy.
Bowser's disadvantage is much MUCH better than people let on, though. Whirling Fortress, Bowser Bomb, and the fact that he gets combo'd like a borderline floaty(hell, IS he a floaty?) makes him take far less damage than his brethren.

 

[arbustopachon]

Bowser is pretty floaty at 1.39 fall speed. Having one of the highest gravities at 0.11 means he also takes increased vertical knockback making combos harder.

Zard also has pretty similar air physics, tho due to his much lower weight he is harder to combo and dies way earlier to vertical moves.

 

[HoSmash4]

ZSS punish game still absolutely disgusting

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I thought he was positive against every high level sheik but ZeRo?/QUOTE]

IIRC it was teddystalin who compiled ESAM's results vs Sheik a while ago. He had losing records against k9, Vinnie and Mr r.

 

[Sleek Media]

Fixed for accuracy.
Bowser's disadvantage is much MUCH better than people let on, though. Whirling Fortress, Bowser Bomb, and the fact that he gets combo'd like a borderline floaty(hell, IS he a floaty?) makes him take far less damage than his brethren.

Y'know, once in a while when I end up in 3DS FG hell, I come across this certain Bowser player. Japanese name, but the connection is strong. Skill-wise, he's above average, but there's one weird thing about him that I don't get. He ALWAYS jumps out of Mega Man's dThrow->fAir. I have no idea how he does it. It can't be lag, I've played him dozens of times, and land the combo on actually bad connections. Never had anyone do this back when I competed, and online, only puff can escape in a similar way at low % (but not 0).

 

[FeelMeUp]

I had the same thing happen to me while playing Bowsers before. Never understood why I couldn't fair string him out of Fthrow at 0 with Sheik, and to understand I ignored his weight and went to look at his fallspeed. Lo and behold, now you understand why it feels like you never do enough damage.

 

[HoSmash4]

1 Set doesnt decide anything obviously, but Esam is very good at surviving or Void will have to find better ways of killing him

 

[Deleted member]

Bowser's air physics are the main reason why Monado Purge (Shulk's 50/50 out of uthrow in Jump Art) doesn't work on him at any percent. Same for .

Somebody like or is way easier to combo, especially since the latter has one of the fastest fall speeds in the game.

 

[Nah]

Y'know, once in a while when I end up in 3DS FG hell, I come across this certain Bowser player. Japanese name, but the connection is strong. Skill-wise, he's above average, but there's one weird thing about him that I don't get. He ALWAYS jumps out of Mega Man's dThrow->fAir. I have no idea how he does it. It can't be lag, I've played him dozens of times, and land the combo on actually bad connections. Never had anyone do this back when I competed, and online, only puff can escape in a similar way at low % (but not 0).

Basically his weight/fall speed combination is reason why you could never Dthrow-->Fair him. Being floaty/having a low fall speed is well-known to make one more difficult to combo, but there's also the fact that Mega Man's throws are all weight dependent. Bowser is the heaviest character in the game, so characters with weight dependent throws suffer massive endlag when throwing him.

It's the same reason why Bowser is the only character in the game that Robin's Checkmate will never true combo on.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I agree Yoshi sucks















because he has nothing broken about him outside of a 34% dair.
3 of his 4/5 (depends on Yoshi players opinion) worst Matchups in the game is diddy bayo cloud, so you can all be certain you won't see Yoshi have some breakthrough performance anytime soon.

 

[|RK|]

That's because Bowser is good.

This keeps showing me that so many characters just need a top level player for results, and that's it. Who expected any Bowser to go 3-0 over the second best Diddy in the world?

EDIT: Also, ESAM is dominant this weekend. Finally back to 2015 Z-Power mode.

 

[FeelMeUp]

and the "what if ESAM wins this...?" thoughts are popping into my head.
Don't make me feel this way

 

[Nathan Richardson]

As much as I hate explaining jokes , this Wendy discusion has to stop.

It was supposed to be a joke about Wendy being Bowser jr's worst skin (one of the worst in the game imo) and that's why he said that Bowser jr is even worse with the Wendy skin. Wendy isn't different from Bowser jr gameplay-wise.

Thank you. Btw has any junior/ koopaling player ever placed well in a tourney recently? I've been seeing a rise in players using mid to low-tier characters and placing with them.

 

[Wintermelon43]

This keeps showing me that so many characters just need a top level player for results, and that's it. Who expected any Bowser to go 3-0 over the second best Diddy in the world?

EDIT: Also, ESAM is dominant this weekend. Finally back to 2015 Z-Power mode.

Wait, what tournament?

 

[|RK|]

So this tournament VERY much makes me feel that a results focus for tiers is always going to blindside us. Darkshad's Ryu and Nairo's Bowser, specifically.

And I feel like that results focus permeates the entire community. We need to say "not enough data" for some characters and players and let it ride. Let it feel like it's unknown instead of a fact.

But, look at me getting ahead of myself

Wait, what tournament?

UGC's this weekend, my man! He beat VoiD, Salem, and CaptainZack.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Bowser's combination of weight, fall speed, and gravity give him a unique ability to break out of typical grab combos.

Robin's checkmate window decreases by 12% if the opponent DIs Dthrow correctly. Bowser's natural, he did not DI this throw, Checkmate window is 9% large. It's silly.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Mr. R getting smacked by ZeRo because he constantly forced openings and got blown back by classic ZeRo defense.
Switches to optimal passive "I don't need to do anything" Sheik play and almost reverse 3-0's him.
Unfortunately he ended up switching back to the old playstyle and got bodied again. Too many rolls, too many falling fairs, too much dashing and committing to shield, etc.
Good set though. If anyone wants to see what goes through my mind when I talk about Sheik, watch games 3 and 4 of that set.

 

[Deleted member]

This keeps showing me that so many characters just need a top level player for results, and that's it. Who expected any Bowser to go 3-0 over the second best Diddy in the world?

^

 

[Illusion.]

I need to get this off my chest:

He gets good results in regionals typically, mostly top 12s and a handful of top 8s, and is currently #16 on Das Koopa's ranking project. However, when a lot other big names go to a tournament, I noticed that his results suffer. iStudying is considered the best (or 2nd best, depending on who you ask) of the character at the moment, and he has traveled to North America a few times for a couple regionals and a couple nationals. Of the 4 times he has been here, he only managed to get top 16 once. The only time he got top 16 (7th) was just a regional with only a handful of recognized names, Midwest Mayhem 2 (234 entrants). At Pound, a relatively stacked major (513 entrants), he managed to get 25th place, which isn't entirely bad for a major, but I will touch up on that. At GOML 2016 (489 entrants), he placed 17th, again, not entirely bad for a major. Finally, UGC Smash Open (205 entrants), a stacked regional with top-level talent, he places 17th again. The wins on Ally and Ned are accomplishments and shouldn't be undermined, but here's my point: if the supposed (second) best of a character isn't placing as high as expected, barely making top 8 once at a regional, while not even making top 16 at another regional and the two majors he attended, that says something about the character.

Someone could defend this by saying something such as "he lost to and , two of our worst MUs, at Pound, so that's why he placed so low." But if you think about it, doesn't that make sense? Those two characters are very common top tier threats in the current meta; if they beat your character badly while also being as common as they are and preventing your character from achieving better results than expected, your character's viability is questionable. 25th at a major isn't bad, but it was drastically lower compared to his seed.

All too often I'm seeing people start to overrate this character, whether it be in the Discord itself or even in this thread, with MUs being the primary offender. Just to give an example take a look at this chart the whole Greninja Discord server created:

4 losing MUs? Even and , top tier threats, have more losing MUs than what is listed here and still achieve way better, more consistent results. With the lackluster results he has at majors, having a MU spread like this is just blatantly incorrect. Just hearing that makes me genuinely irritated. Barring APEX 2015, an entire metagame ago, has never placed top 8 or even top 16 at a major.

Venia managed 25th at Super Smash Con 2016 (1,272 entrants) which is superb, but that is just one result. To rise up in the tier list, he'll need to continue achieving results like that; to drop from the tier list, it could happen if other characters start achieving more consistent results at majors like I'm noticing. For now, let's stop overrating the guy, please.

 

[Wintermelon43]

So this tournament VERY much makes me feel that a results focus for tiers is always going to blindside us. Darkshad's Ryu and Nairo's Bowser, specifically.

And I feel like that results focus permeates the entire community. We need to say "not enough data" for some characters and players and let it ride. Let it feel like it's unknown instead of a fact.

But, look at me getting ahead of myself



UGC's this weekend, my man! He beat VoiD, Salem, and CaptainZack.

Wait WHAT?????????

Does Esam think this is 2015 or something?

Edit:Where's the bracket of this?

 

[teddystalin]

IIRC it was teddystalin who compiled ESAM's results vs Sheik a while ago. He had losing records against k9, Vinnie and Mr r.

This was all pre-1.1.6 records and I can't seem to find the document, but something to the effect of 60-75% of the major tournament losses of notable Pika mains were to Sheik. This was partly due to how common Sheik was pre-nerf, but most people seemed to be content to say the MU was close to even and instead obsess over losses to Mario and Peach. Post-nerf, that might be more accurate, but I don't think I'd ever believe someone claiming it's even now without overwhelming evidence to the contrary. A slight correction though: ESAM has a winning record against Vinnie, but a losing one against ZeRo (duh), Mr. R, K9, and False.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

I used to think beat because of offstage. Don't get me wrong; I still maintain that offstage is grimy for Fox against Sheik. However, watching Larry's sets against top Sheiks just brings to light how much Sheik's buttons completely screw with Fox's offense. What can Fox do to contest ftilt/nair/fair? All of Sheik's limbs are longer and her moves seem to just come out one frame too fast for Fox to deal with.

 

[Nu~]

So...what are Marth's options at the ledge against banana + diddy


Because that just looked unfair

 

[Sleek Media]

I used to think beat because of offstage. Don't get me wrong; I still maintain that offstage is grimy for Fox against Sheik. However, watching Larry's sets against top Sheiks just brings to light how much Sheik's buttons completely screw with Fox's offense. What can Fox do to contest ftilt/nair/fair? All of Sheik's limbs are longer and her moves seem to just come out one frame too fast for Fox to deal with.

Same thing everyone else does. Grab dem ankles.

 

[FullMoon]

I need to get this off my chest:

He gets good results in regionals typically, mostly top 12s and a handful of top 8s, and is currently #16 on Das Koopa's ranking project. However, when a lot other big names go to a tournament, I noticed that his results suffer. iStudying is considered the best (or 2nd best, depending on who you ask) of the character at the moment, and he has traveled to North America a few times for a couple regionals and a couple nationals. Of the 4 times he has been here, he only managed to get top 16 once. The only time he got top 16 (7th) was just a regional with only a handful of recognized names, Midwest Mayhem 2 (234 entrants). At Pound, a relatively stacked major (513 entrants), he managed to get 25th place, which isn't entirely bad for a major, but I will touch up on that. At GOML 2016 (489 entrants), he placed 17th, again, not entirely bad for a major. Finally, UGC Smash Open (205 entrants), a stacked regional with top-level talent, he places 17th again. The wins on Ally and Ned are accomplishments and shouldn't be undermined, but here's my point: if the supposed (second) best of a character isn't placing as high as expected, barely making top 8 once at a regional, while not even making top 16 at another regional and the two majors he attended, that says something about the character.

Someone could defend this by saying something such as "he lost to and , two of our worst MUs, at Pound, so that's why he placed so low." But if you think about it, doesn't that make sense? Those two characters are very common top tier threats in the current meta; if they beat your character badly while also being as common as they are and preventing your character from achieving better results than expected, your character's viability is questionable. 25th at a major isn't bad, but it was drastically lower compared to his seed.

All too often I'm seeing people start to overrate this character, whether it be in the Discord itself or even in this thread, with MUs being the primary offender. Just to give an example take a look at this chart the whole Greninja Discord server created:

4 losing MUs? Even and , top tier threats, have more losing MUs than what is listed here and still achieve way better, more consistent results. With the lackluster results he has at majors, having a MU spread like this is just blatantly incorrect. Just hearing that makes me genuinely irritated. Barring APEX 2015, an entire metagame ago, has never placed top 8 or even top 16 at a major.

Venia managed 25th at Super Smash Con 2016 (1,272 entrants) which is superb, but that is just one result. To rise up in the tier list, he'll need to continue achieving results like that; to drop from the tier list, it could happen if other characters start achieving more consistent results at majors like I'm noticing. For now, let's stop overrating the guy, please.

I've been unsure of how to feel about Greninja's position for a while.

The character itself doesn't seem to have any huge, damning problems (bad OoS options and slow start-up on his key moves are the big ones) and actually has a lot of good things to them (amazing mobility, Water Shuriken, good damage racking combos, a kill throw, good range, etc).

I think the character itself is really good, but whenever he gets on the big stage he doesn't seem to make any big splashes outside of iStudy's performance at BEAST so there's obviously something I'm missing here. He feels like he has everything that could make him a high tier character but at the same time his results don't reflect that.

For now I'm just unsure about how good of a character Greninja really is in the meta, so I'll just keep playing him and watch how things develop.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

's neutral is lowkey ridiculous. If his speed and height alone weren't enough to make him scary in the neutral, his buttons are all just really good. He just doesn't actually get a lot off of them. If this character had real damage output or kill power on any of his aerials I think he'd be broken, for the latter especially in conjunction with quick attack. Hell, I'm convinced quick attack is the reason why all of his aerials have such low knockback.

Without those things, every pikachu match just looks like the pika player fighting an uphill battle, where the reward for pika is low and his room for error is equally low due to his weight.

 

[The-Technique]

The reverse 3-0 from Nairo against Mr. E....playing Bowser...

 

[ARGHETH]

We will probably be seeing Bowser in tournaments more now, which is nice.

 

[Zelder]

What I find so fascinating about Smash 4 is that a huge, huge amount of characters have been shown to be capable of turning up in major tournaments. Characters out of the top tier...Mega Man, Toon Link, Bowser, etc. The character diversity in tournaments reminds me a lot of Ultra Street Fighter 4, just a huge amount of characters showing up.

Which I think makes the discussion in these threads kind of silly sometimes. We seem to be hellbent on figuring out who the best character is, and the unspoken narrative behind all our discussions is that eventually, the #1 character will emerge and destroy the game and everyone will play Bayonetta/Sheik/Diddy, much in the manner of Melee Fox or Brawl Metaknight. And we stay so focused on this idea, even as we watch as Bowser tear through a Marth, or a Pikachu put some boots on a Sheik. I honestly think Smash 4 will remain a game with high amounts of character diversity, thanks in part to a couple of factors (2 stocks, relative balance, rage, etc.)

Of course, I may just be an optimist and in a year I'll be looking back in tears at this post as EVO has 7 Bayonettas and a Sheik in top 8, who knows.

 

[|RK|]

What I find so fascinating about Smash 4 is that a huge, huge amount of characters have been shown to be capable of turning up in major tournaments. Characters out of the top tier...Mega Man, Toon Link, Bowser, etc. The character diversity in tournaments reminds me a lot of Ultra Street Fighter 4, just a huge amount of characters showing up.

Which I think makes the discussion in these threads kind of silly sometimes. We seem to be hellbent on figuring out who the best character is, and the unspoken narrative behind all our discussions is that eventually, the #1 character will emerge and destroy the game and everyone will play Bayonetta/Sheik/Diddy, much in the manner of Melee Fox or Brawl Metaknight. And we stay so focused on this idea, even as we watch as Bowser tear through a Marth, or a(n admittedly top tier) Pikachu put some boots on a top tier Sheik. I honestly think Smash 4 will remain a game with high amounts of character diversity, thanks in part to a couple of factors (2 stocks, relative balance, rage, etc.)

Of course, I may just be an optimist and in a year I'll be looking back in tears at this post as EVO has 7 Bayonettas and a Sheik in top 8, who knows.

To be fair, at the beginning we were able to say "every game started off like this!" But we're a couple years in and if anything, the character diversity has gotten BETTER. Maybe it's because we're the only Smash game that got balance patches, but I think at this point this game's diversity is very much a fact.

 

[Deleted member]

UGC Smash Open (Midwest | IL - 205 entrants)

1) ZeRo
2) Abadango
3) ESAM
4) Nairo
5) VoiD
5) Mr. E
7) Larry Lurr
7) CaptainZack
9) Marss
9) Mr.R
9) Ally
9) Darkshad
13) Kameme
13) ANTi
13) Ryuga
13) MKLeo
17) iStudying
17) Zinoto
17) Pink Fresh
17) Salem
17) Xzax
17) NAKAT
17) Samsora
17) dyr
25) Day
25) JJROCKETS
25) Ksev
25) K.I.D. Goggles
25) Pugwest
25) tyroy
25) Ned
25) Vinnie

Spoiler: Character Diversity

x5
x4
x4
x3
x3
x3
x2
x2
x2
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1
x1

 

[BSP]

I used to think beat because of offstage. Don't get me wrong; I still maintain that offstage is grimy for Fox against Sheik. However, watching Larry's sets against top Sheiks just brings to light how much Sheik's buttons completely screw with Fox's offense. What can Fox do to contest ftilt/nair/fair? All of Sheik's limbs are longer and her moves seem to just come out one frame too fast for Fox to deal with.

Fox can drop shield -> dash attack Sheik for ftilt on block, but he is pretty screwed once he gets hit by nearly anything.

Fair and Nair are lol, but that's for everyone.

 

[jespoke]

25) Day
25) JJROCKETS
25) Ksev
25) tyroy
25) K.I.D. Goggles
25) Pugwest
25) tyroy
25) Ned
25) Vinnie

tyroy getting very very 25th place

 

[|RK|]

I think this is pretty accurate as far as player skill goes:

https://twitter.com/C9AlIy/status/805581120234471424

You can't really rank anyone else that easily.