Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Das Koopa]

how long till' people start sleeping on Bayo again

 

[Shady Shaymin]

However you feel about Bayo's tier placement right now, you can't deny that ESAM really put his money where his mouth was. SDI is viable and doable against this character and anyone (outside of super heavyweight/extreme fast-faller mains) who says otherwise is wrong.

 

[Sleek Media]

I still think belong in their own tier.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

However you feel about Bayo's tier placement right now, you can't deny that ESAM really put his money where his mouth was. SDI is viable and doable against this character and anyone (outside of super heavyweight/extreme fast-faller mains) who says otherwise is wrong.

I don't think there was too much doubt SDI was a viable option vs Bayo. ESAM really did get it just about flawlessly during the tournent.Not to take the achivement away from him it anything, but using a small, light and somewhat floaty character proabally did help with it

 

[TDK]

I can't image, ignore this.

 

[TDK]

Artistic Rendition of this weekend:

 

[Ziodyne 21]

had a somewhat underwhelming show at UGC . This has been the first tourney I have seen in a long tike where there were no Cloud's whatsoever in the top 8 and no Solo Cloud mains making the top 24

It seems that Cloud's ever constant success comes more from the very large amount of players using hIm as a secondary/pocket rather than achiving high placements as a solo main.

Wonder what could be the cause of the trend. Are people just starting to develop better counterplay or are his bad MU's really THAT bad? I don't think he really has a vs roadblock situation.

 

[Deleted member]

how long till' people start sleeping on Bayo again

I don't think Bayo's one of those characters who people sleep on. Characters like her get very good results. When have Sheik or Mario been slept on, for example?

 

[Deleted member]

had somewhat underwhelming show at UGC . This has been the first tourney I have seen in a long tike where there were no Cloud's whatsoever in the top 8 and no Solo Cloud mains making the top 24

It seems that Cloud's ever constant success comes more from the very large amount of players using hIm as a secondary/pocket rather than achiving high placements as a solo main.

To be completely fair, M2K did forfeit after losing to Pink Fresh.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Who all beat Leo? Was a little surprised to see him with that low of a placing. Not trying to John for him or anything, good job to those who beat him, but seeing all that he's been doing since he arrived in the US, playing friendlies for hours left and right, I wouldn't be surprised if he said he was a little worn out from it all. 'Course, 13th at a stacked tournament isn't something I'd call a bad placing anyway.

 

[Deleted member]

Who all beat Leo? Was a little surprised to see him with that low of a placing. Not trying to John for him or anything, good job to those who beat him, but seeing all that he's been doing since he arrived in the US, playing friendlies for hours left and right, I wouldn't be surprised if he said he was a little worn out from it all. 'Course, 13th at a stacked tournament isn't something I'd call a bad placing anyway.

Darkshad and Marss.

 

[TDK]

Darkshad and Marss.

Darkshad beat Leo?

...Dang. That's Larry and Leo in one tournament?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Soooo, what have we learned from this tournament?

Maybe less sleeping on Pika and Ryu, Bowser is a pretty good pocket character, Zero is still a complete monster, and Charizard can make it out of pools.

 

[ARISTOS]

Soooo, what have we learned from this tournament?

Maybe less sleeping on Pika and Ryu, Bowser is a pretty good pocket character, Zero is still a complete monster, and Charizard can make it out of pools.

Keep in mind that trends are more important than singular points in time.

The off-season is about to end so we should have a lot to talk about moving forward.

 

[TDK]

It'll be interesting to see how well these new developments hold up at ZeRo Saga (Though ESAM's not going to ZeRo Saga) and Genesis.

 

[Yonder]

Artistic Rendition of this weekend:
View attachment 121638

No kidding. That has been 5-6 Bowsers now, both solo and pockets placing in both locals and big scaled, stacked tournaments.

Dude can hold his own. My question is, is he the best super weight in this game? Because it's him or DK for sure, both of them are leagues above Zard and DDD.

 

[Deleted member]

No kidding. That has been 5-6 Bowsers now, both solo and pockets placing in both locals and big scaled, stacked tournaments.

Dude can hold his own. My question is, is he the best super weight in this game? Because it's him or DK for sure, both of them are leagues above Zard and DDD.

Bowser has been hyped since Day 1. He MUST be the best superheavy if DK isn't better. Though, considering Bowser's good disadvantage state and general options compared to DK's, it's very likely (as much as I hate to admit it).

 

[Vyrnx]

We learned that uthrow thunder is nowhere near a meme. Esam took four stocks off Salem with it and was able to react to DI right pretty much 100% of the time throughout the tournament (which debunks the idea of it being a 33:33:33 guessing game for Pika). It'll be interesting to see if Esam can work out the percent ranges where it's a 50:50 and a when it's a true combo so that he has less of "uthrow opponent at 100% to thunder to opponent air dodges" and more of what he did to Captain Zack with uthrow thunder. If he can really master this (which he seems close to doing), it solves one of Pikachu's major issues.

It's a far cry from six months ago when Esam's best conversion off of throws at high percents was uthrow to a sad attempt at thunder ending with him accidentally side b-ing off the stage.

 

[Sleek Media]

had a somewhat underwhelming show at UGC . This has been the first tourney I have seen in a long tike where there were no Cloud's whatsoever in the top 8 and no Solo Cloud mains making the top 24

It seems that Cloud's ever constant success comes more from the very large amount of players using hIm as a secondary/pocket rather than achiving high placements as a solo main.

Wonder what could be the cause of the trend. Are people just starting to develop better counterplay or are his bad MU's really THAT bad? I don't think he really has a vs roadblock situation.

Gonna be controversial for a minute. I tell everyone not to play Cloud. I tell them that Cloud makes you a worse player. He is just so easy and so forgiving. I don't even know how to play Cloud, but I've helped a few people practice their MU, and I'm constantly stunned by how easy it is to put together a string of uAirs or kill off a single read. It spoils you. You don't get so many frame traps with other characters. You don't get to misspace in neutral so much or land with a lagless hitbox the size of New Jersey. Edgeguarding isn't as simple as limit CS/BB the ledge. Etcetera. We've talked about his crazy tools a million times, and I'm not going to list them all here.

The point is that I think Cloud trains you to make little mistakes. Little mistakes that seem invisible because he covers them up so well, but at the absolute highest level of play, where the absolute best characters are being played by the absolute best players, that **** doesn't slide, and the Cloud players finally find themselves facing a hard dose of reality - that Cloud isn't the best character, that he can't carry for every mistake, and that they have to rise to a level of play they are unaccustomed to because Cloud has limit cross slashed it out of them. I just think it's a shame that they can get away with it for so long.

 

[L9999]

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.

I think Greninja falls apart when people finally play. When discussion arises about most MUs with Greninja, it goes down in a robotic way. 1) Can I camp X with Shuriken? 2) Can I gimp Y with Hydro Pump? 3) Can I juggle Z's poor *** all day? 4) Can I Shadow Sneak out of killer multihits? And this way it looks like Greninja doesn't lose in any MU, but on practice that doesn't happen. This robotic analysis don't take in account that Shuriken camping can get predictable and eventually the opponent can be on his face and put up some pressure on Greninja. Also, maybe it is an istudying thing, but when he is on the edge or is landing he typically gets bodied, although that is a general thing in Smash 4, but some characters have this to the extremes:

No kidding. That has been 5-6 Bowsers now, both solo and pockets placing in both locals and big scaled, stacked tournaments.

Dude can hold his own. My question is, is he the best super weight in this game? Because it's him or DK for sure, both of them are leagues above Zard and DDD.

I don't think DK will live up to his hype much longer. His disadvantage stats are worse than Bowser and he isn't an scary rage tank with many options like Bowser.

Gonna be controversial for a minute. I tell everyone not to play Cloud. I tell them that Cloud makes you a worse player. He is just so easy and so forgiving. I don't even know how to play Cloud, but I've helped a few people practice their MU, and I'm constantly stunned by how easy it is to put together a string of uAirs or kill off a single read. It spoils you. You don't get so many frame traps with other characters. You don't get to misspace in neutral so much or land with a lagless hitbox the size of New Jersey. Edgeguarding isn't as simple as limit CS/BB the ledge. Etcetera. We've talked about his crazy tools a million times, and I'm not going to list them all here.

The point is that I think Cloud trains you to make little mistakes. Little mistakes that seem invisible because he covers them up so well, but at the absolute highest level of play, where the absolute best characters are being played by the absolute best players, that **** doesn't slide, and the Cloud players finally find themselves facing a hard dose of reality - that Cloud isn't the best character, that he can't carry for every mistake, and that they have to rise to a level of play they are unaccustomed to because Cloud has limit cross slashed it out of them. I just think it's a shame that they can get away with it for so long.

This is so anti-Cloud it is funny.
1) Why should you care about who other people play? If they like playing Cloud they have the right to play him until they don't like him anymore. If they like trivializing MUs it's their problem. People play this game for different motivations.
2) "The point is that I think Cloud trains you to make little mistakes." Using moves at inappropiate times is always punished and noticeable even if they are very good moves. You can't simply throw out Nair like a complete idiot and expect it to be safe. It looks easy in top level play/good players because they have the spacing coldly calculated in any attempt of punishment, and in this case, Nair's frame data and range allows for little punishment windows, but it is not 100% flawless.
3) "Worse player"and "Cloud players finally find themselves facing a hard dose of reality" Players can patch up their mistakes, and you talk like Cloud players can't learn or improve because "Claud iz so breinded." The hard dose of reality happens to everyone, nothing exclusive to Cloud players.

 

[blackghost]

I still think belong in their own tier.

not. even. close.
shieks weaknesses are well documented.
diddy is just an excellent character he isnt some unbeatable monster. zero may be but diddy himself isnt.
lastly bayo. esam continues to back up what he said. that number one. the second issue i see in all levels of bayo matches is people do not punish her at all. when she lands after using specials she is in north of 15 frames of lag in other wordslayers need to do actal punishes on her and not just auto grab her when she lands.
and lastly i watched istudying play captain zach. zach was sliding around with side b all set and istudying never effectively punished.
also the bayo mu gets a lot better when players stop getting hit with heel slde in general but that still hasnt happened yet.....

 

[Deleted member]

I don't think DK will live up to his hype much longer. His disadvantage stats are worse than Bowser and he isn't an scary rage tank with many options like Bowser

Makes me curious. If a new tier list comes out, how severe of a drop will DK suffer, since he's so inferior to Bowser?

 

[Mr. Johan]

15 frames of landing lag isn't really a lot when you have to consider that she can bust out a frame 4 UpB or a quick Side B at the last moment to throw off your punish. By the time you recognize that she's landed, half her landing lag is gone.

And if she's used up all her specials, you're either up in the air after a combo, or she's heading straight to the ledge to completely render the landing lag moot Bayo needs RCO lag

 

[The-Technique]

Another thing to note is that Bayos aren't always forced to land on stage either, they can just grab the ledge or land with an aerial.

 

[SaltyKracka]

15 frames of landing lag isn't really a lot when you have to consider that she can bust out a frame 4 UpB or a quick Side B at the last moment to throw off your punish. By the time you recognize that she's landed, half her landing lag is gone.

And if she's used up all her specials, you're either up in the air after a combo, or she's heading straight to the ledge to completely render the landing lag moot Bayo needs RCO lag

This is almost exactly what I was going to say on the subject.

And honesly, if there was ever a character that deserved to suffer RCO lag, it's Bayo.

 

[Sleek Media]

15 frames of landing lag isn't really a lot when you have to consider that she can bust out a frame 4 UpB or a quick Side B at the last moment to throw off your punish. By the time you recognize that she's landed, half her landing lag is gone.

And if she's used up all her specials, you're either up in the air after a combo, or she's heading straight to the ledge to completely render the landing lag moot Bayo needs RCO lag

There's also the whole "frames in shield" thing since she isn't coming down without a hitbox. Fifteen frames is a joke for all the mixups she has.

 

[|RK|]

This is almost exactly what I was going to say on the subject.

And honesly, if there was ever a character that deserved to suffer RCO lag, it's Bayo.

I'd agree. Not to nerf her again or anything, but landing lag was her major intended weakness. If it doesn't stack, not really a point IMO.

 

[Das Koopa]

I think this will be the base I will use for scoring players:

example

PINK FRESH

Scores by category:

C4: 33rd, 49th, 17th, 33rd = 33
C3: 17th, 17th, 1st, 7th = 10.5 + 25% from C4 > 13.1
C2: 2nd, 4th, 9th, 17th = 8 + 50% from C4 > 12

Total average placement: 19.3

ABADANGO

Scores by category:

C4: 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th = 6.25
C3: 1st, 13th, 2nd, 13th = 7.25 + 25% from C4 > 9.1
C2: 9th, 3rd, 33rd, 5th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 3rd = 6 + 50% from C4 > 9

Total average placement: 8.1

(Kanto Invitational counted as Category 2 for the sake of rankings)

Obviously the final data set will be more detailed but this is just a quick example, and this isn't the only thing I'll use. I'll also be using set histories by integrating some sort of scoring/points system with this and basing points scored off the average placement. Main issue is differing tourney attendance between players, but that's part of the point of averaging placements.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

When it comes to heavyweights...

I feel Bowser and Zard will both rise by a lot. Both are getting good results as of late and the results are somewhat consistent.

DK will probably stay around the same spot.

Dedede and Ganon will remain bottom tier but Dedede could sneak his way into low.

 

[bc1910]

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.

No-one with half a brain would deny that Greninja is a "good" character, but the repeated stumbles at top level show that he's probably not a "great" character.

His problem ultimately lies in the fact that he has lots of strong attributes and not many weaknesses but lacks a truly polarising strength. Cloud's Limit, Diddy's Banana game, Bayo's everything, Sheik's everything, you won't find any suffocating strengths on Greninja and that's where he falls down compared to the top tiers.

I also increasingly feel he doesn't have the juice when it comes to frame data. Good-but-not-great isn't good enough in a meta filled with stuff like Sheik's Fair and the generally excellent OoS options of top tier.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Gonna be controversial for a minute. I tell everyone not to play Cloud. I tell them that Cloud makes you a worse player. He is just so easy and so forgiving. I don't even know how to play Cloud, but I've helped a few people practice their MU, and I'm constantly stunned by how easy it is to put together a string of uAirs or kill off a single read. It spoils you. You don't get so many frame traps with other characters. You don't get to misspace in neutral so much or land with a lagless hitbox the size of New Jersey. Edgeguarding isn't as simple as limit CS/BB the ledge. Etcetera. We've talked about his crazy tools a million times, and I'm not going to list them all here.

The point is that I think Cloud trains you to make little mistakes. Little mistakes that seem invisible because he covers them up so well, but at the absolute highest level of play, where the absolute best characters are being played by the absolute best players, that **** doesn't slide, and the Cloud players finally find themselves facing a hard dose of reality - that Cloud isn't the best character, that he can't carry for every mistake, and that they have to rise to a level of play they are unaccustomed to because Cloud has limit cross slashed it out of them. I just think it's a shame that they can get away with it for so long.

This post actually confounds me. You know what Cloud teaches you to play that most other top tiers don't? Two states of the game:
Disadvantage and recovery. Both of these with Cloud require actual learning and actual practice, things that characters like Sheik and ZSS can get out of vastly easier Cloud does not have an easy time with at all. Recovery I shouldn't even have to explain, Cloud requires more than just basic recovery mixups and it's become pretty apparent you actually have to try to get back to the stage with the numerous amounts of ways to **** with him offstage that NO OTHER CHARACTER IN THE GAME HAS TO WORRY ABOUT (INCLUDING untechable BS tho this doesn't happen very often.)

This post is like if someone said "Don't play Sheik because she has too many strings off of certain buttons and she also has no landing lag. She SPOILS players because her conversions are too good!"

Complacency makes you a worse player whether you play Cloud, Mario, Sheik, Diddy, Bayonetta, ANY ****ING TOP TIER or even any low tier! This statement is not mutually exclusive to Cloud nor should it be. A lack of willingness to learn being attributed to Cloud players as a blanket statement is something I guess I should've expected from this thread given the stigma around the character, but come on. This post's mentality is so backwards, it's well-intentioned but it applies to basically every good character in the game for vastly different reasons.

 

[Piipp]

Soooo, what have we learned from this tournament?

Maybe less sleeping on Pika and Ryu, Bowser is a pretty good pocket character, Zero is still a complete monster, and Charizard can make it out of pools.

To be fair, 6WX did get DQ'd from his pool. Not sure if he just didn't show up or what but, not taking away from Chuck Nasty, I'm sure 6WX not playing was a factor for him making it out.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Gonna be controversial for a minute. I tell everyone not to play Cloud. I tell them that Cloud makes you a worse player. He is just so easy and so forgiving. I don't even know how to play Cloud, but I've helped a few people practice their MU, and I'm constantly stunned by how easy it is to put together a string of uAirs or kill off a single read. It spoils you. You don't get so many frame traps with other characters. You don't get to misspace in neutral so much or land with a lagless hitbox the size of New Jersey. Edgeguarding isn't as simple as limit CS/BB the ledge. Etcetera. We've talked about his crazy tools a million times, and I'm not going to list them all here.

The point is that I think Cloud trains you to make little mistakes. Little mistakes that seem invisible because he covers them up so well, but at the absolute highest level of play, where the absolute best characters are being played by the absolute best players, that **** doesn't slide, and the Cloud players finally find themselves facing a hard dose of reality - that Cloud isn't the best character, that he can't carry for every mistake, and that they have to rise to a level of play they are unaccustomed to because Cloud has limit cross slashed it out of them. I just think it's a shame that they can get away with it for so long.

Cloud is just a good character; he does not hand out free wins (noobs love to aerial right into someone's shield, only to get OOSed real quick). Cloud can actually teach you patience (with incentives like limit, your abusable recovery, punishable approaching aerials, etc..).

Thats like saying people shouldn't start off on Mario, because he could just throw out Usmash and get kills for when he can feel an opponent out, his gameplan is just as easy to execute, and his conventions doesn't take much effort. Every character has their bull bull, and that's why when you become proficient with one character, that you should pick up another to learn new things from. Nobody can really learn the game in one character.

The more I read this, the more it just looks like," don't play a good character", to newer players.


EDIT: gee, I'm late as all get out lol lemme go back to lurkin'

 

[blackghost]

15 frames of landing lag isn't really a lot when you have to consider that she can bust out a frame 4 UpB or a quick Side B at the last moment to throw off your punish. By the time you recognize that she's landed, half her landing lag is gone.

And if she's used up all her specials, you're either up in the air after a combo, or she's heading straight to the ledge to completely render the landing lag moot Bayo needs RCO lag

15 frames is the bare minimum. she often has a lot more. but my main point is when you get those chances to punish her you shouldnt be grabbing her when she is landing you should be doing more significant damage or a combo unless you are playing like a dk or bowser.
when playing her its your job to keep track of what options she has used and exploit her for it especially on stage like FD or dh, or town and city especially when the stage is flat. if you are slow to recognize what she has used thats on you.
and what do you mean a "quick" heel slide? if you are both on the gorund there is no reason to be hit with raw heel slide.

 

[Mr. Johan]

That "quick Side B" was referring to After Burner Kick, since I framed the sentence around punishing her landing.

For many characters, grabbing or Dash Attacking is all they're going to be able to do. They can't go and charge a Smash attack, even for accounting a Witch Time and holding the charge, Bayonetta's got a stall and fall with unreasonably huge power attached to it and the quakebox it also has to threaten your timing as well as your stock. They can't meet her halfway in the air and start aerial strings, that's either getting Witch Time'd, burst ABKd, or beat out by her naturally large aerials, or she's ABKing in the other direction and getting out of there, or she's UpBing you.

DAing or grabbing is low-reward, but it's also low-risk. And with Bayonetta's "you made a read but got Witch Time'd in time" kit, you're going to be low-risk, despite how much you want that bigger punish.

 

[Sleek Media]

Thats like saying people shouldn't start off on Mario

Actually, Mario is the high tier I recommend to people who what to improve as a player. Mario doesn't carry. At all. He has actual weaknesses that cannot be negated by simply recovering high or camping limit. His neutral is very good, but you can't just hit buttons. You have to learn mixups. You have to learn to get around better range and spacing. You have to learn to recover. You have to learn to read for a kill. You have to learn to read DI for many combos. You have to learn the nuances of stage control. You have to learn to deal with bad MUs. Most importantly, your fundamentals have to be AMAZING to actually get anywhere with the character. There is no crutch - no bouncing fish, no abk, no lcs, no banana, no dragon fang or quick attack. There is no autopilot "put out these big optimized hitboxes and hope someone runs into them". You're not working with a very limited set of great tools that lets you ignore some of your other moves or even some aspect of the game. Every move Mario has is useful in different ways, and you learn to put variety in your gameplan. Finally, Mario isn't a top performer at low-mid level. It's easy for him to get overwhelmed by a lot of characters with lower skill floors. You will quickly be made aware of any deficiencies in your play.

Mario trains you to be a beast. If you can win with Mario, you can win with many characters. Those fundamentals give you a huge start on Fox, Diddy, Falcon, Bowser, etc. If you can win with Cloud, you can win with...Cloud. His strengths aren't applicable to any other character. Maybe kinda sorta Mewtwo?

 

[HoSmash4]

His problem ultimately lies in the fact that he has lots of strong attributes and not many weaknesses but lacks a truly polarising strength. Cloud's Limit, Diddy's Banana game, Bayo's everything, Sheik's everything, you won't find any suffocating strengths on Greninja and that's where he falls down compared to the top tiers.

Diddys everything*

 

[SaltyKracka]

pretty apparent you actually have to try to get back to the stage with the numerous amounts of ways to **** with him offstage that NO OTHER CHARACTER IN THE GAME HAS TO WORRY ABOUT (INCLUDING untechable BS tho this doesn't happen very often.)

:BULL****!

There is no autopilot "put out these big optimized hitboxes and hope someone runs into them".

...Are you bloody kidding me? What the hell are usmash, bair, and dair if not exactly that?

 

[my_T]

Never understood why so many think that Mario is easy to use. Perhaps execution wise he's kinda easy. Nobody ever explains why they feel he's easy to use though.

His neutral isn't nearly as dominant as the other top tiers (though ZSS's isn't that great either) nor is his disadvantage. If he was really as easy to use as so many have said I would expect to see more success with him as a secondary but I haven't seen it yet.

any explanations?

 

[SaltyKracka]

Never understood why so many think that Mario is easy to use. Perhaps execution wise he's kinda easy. Nobody ever explains why they feel he's easy to use though.

His neutral isn't nearly as dominant as the other top tiers (though ZSS's isn't that great either) nor is his disadvantage. If he was really as easy to use as so many have said I would expect to see more success with him as a secondary but I haven't seen it yet.

any explanations?

Consistent 50-60% combos for basically free, a recovery that is hard as all hell to intercept, and the sheer stupidity that is upsmash make for a character that is easy to flowchart.