Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[The-Technique]

It was actually neither MK nor IC that killed Brawl. The reason Brawl died was a.) the Melee community and b.) the release of smash 4.



I don't think Bayoneta's matchups are fleshed out enough yet to make a clear statement. We'll just have to see how it goes.

But Sheik [main] + Diddy [secondary] is pretty clearly the strongest known combination of main and secondary right now. The only matchup Sheik arguably loses is Mewtwo, who happens to have a dreadful tournament record against Diddy. Diddy's also easy enough to play to make him a good pocket character in general. And the few characters left that can give both of them serious trouble - Rosalina, Lucario and Sonic mainly - happen to be solidly covered by Cloud who is easy enough to play to be used as a tertiary character and still do fine with him. But that's just in case you don't like even matchups 'cause that's the worst thing you'll ever face with Sheik + Diddy.

I generally don't even take Cloud into serious consideration anymore because the character just doesn't work out solo and as I pointed out above he's easy enough to play that just about every combination of main and secondary character can be enhanced by a Cloud tertiary - even if only just to deal with Sonic and Rosalina, two notoriously awkward matchups to cover. There simply isn't any reason to not have a pocket Cloud ready even though I see him on the lower end of the top 10 more and more.

Is the whole "Cloud pocket" thing a meme now? Because you absolutely cannot succeed with an unrefined Cloud. This reminds me of when people were talking about Mr. R's "pocket" Cloud, one of his most played characters, and he had to show up in this thread to lay the smackdown on everyone. In fact all top players that have Cloud secondaries worth a damn have grinded the crap out of him. Easy to learn? Yeah. Viable as a tertiary character? **** no.

 

[Zult]

Is the whole "Cloud pocket" thing a meme now? Because you absolutely cannot succeed with an unrefined Cloud. This reminds me of when people were talking about Mr. R's "pocket" Cloud, one of his most played characters, and he had to show up in this thread to lay the smackdown on everyone. In fact all top players that have Cloud secondaries worth a damn have grinded the crap out of him. Easy to learn? Yeah. Viable as a tertiary character? **** no.

Probably because most people here are losing to local pocket Clouds from a guy that probably hasn't even dedicated a full day to him. So they think the top players also put little time into him, which is false.

Also curious what Mr. R post you're talking about. Can anyone link me?

 

[InfinitySoul]

An interesting concept by Gimr. Thoughts?

Sweet discovery from Gimr.

But he forgot AC landing (landing with the early Autocancel frames of an aerial) which is totally silent.

 

[ARGHETH]

Is the whole "Cloud pocket" thing a meme now? Because you absolutely cannot succeed with an unrefined Cloud. This reminds me of when people were talking about Mr. R's "pocket" Cloud, one of his most played characters, and he had to show up in this thread to lay the smackdown on everyone. In fact all top players that have Cloud secondaries worth a damn have grinded the crap out of him. Easy to learn? Yeah. Viable as a tertiary character? **** no.

Question: is anyone viable as a tertiary character?

 

[The-Technique]

Probably because most people here are losing to local pocket Clouds from a guy that probably hasn't even dedicated a full day to him. So they think the top players also put little time into him, which is false.

Also curious what Mr. R post you're talking about. Can anyone link me?

It's buried deep in this thread at this point, but the conversation revolved around how Mr. R switched off Sheik into Cloud versus Dabuz after losing 2 games in order to beat his Rosalina, and barely winning against his Olimar in game 5. I think the set was at The Big House 6, loser's bracket.

Question: is anyone viable as a tertiary character?

Nope.

 

[Routa]

Question: is anyone viable as a tertiary character?

I would say yes. We have seen this work. Some people have dedicated one character for one specific MU. I have seen people using a character (which they don't main or use against any other character according to the players) just against one character like for example Cloud, M2 or Bayonetta.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

Question: is anyone viable as a tertiary character?

Bayonetta, Sheik, M2, and Diddy all potentially have no losing matchups. The probelm is that they have to be played almost 100% perfect in some matchups to actually be winning matchups. Its a better idea to just pick up a secondary and save yourself the stress

 

[The-Technique]

Whoops, found it. Here is Mr. R's post from a few months ago:

Just so you know cloud is either my 2nd or 3rd most played character, so implying that it's a pocket cloud is quite frankly insulting.

It's true that secondary clouds have had some success in the past, but not only are you ignoring the failed attempts from numerous "pocket clouds", you're also forgetting that top players have had succes with other secondaries before. Some examples are

- Ally going rob vs tyroy's bayo and getting the reverse 3-0
-Nairo using doc against Esam or heck even his recent Lucina pick vs komo
-Larry going DK vs void and getting the reverse 3-0
-Anti's zss vs komo

There's prob quite a few more but you get my point.

And why is Leo's cloud being used as an example when the char is litterally one of his 3 mains and he's also proven to be more successful with his other characters.

The reason the cloud pick worked out so well is because cloud does well against Rosa (imo) and I recently came back from Japan where I practiced with kirihara's Rosa with my secondaries for literally 3 full days. On top of that I also think Lylat is one of clouds best stages ( komo agrees with me )

So yeah there were a lot of factors here not just "pocket cloud is too easy to be successful with"

Anyway back to tertiary characters, you actually need to refine the character in order to play a matchup optimally. You're still going to lose a "winning" matchup hard if your opponent has more experience in the matchup, on top of the experience they have playing their own character.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Abadango vs. Salem
Larry Lurr vs. Kameme
VoiD vs. Mr. E
Komorikiri vs. MKLeo

These are all sets we haven't seen in tournament yet, correct?

 

[HoSmash4]

Aba Salem happened at pre-big house local

 

[bc1910]

Bayonetta, Sheik, M2, and Diddy all potentially have no losing matchups. The probelm is that they have to be played almost 100% perfect in some matchups to actually be winning matchups. Its a better idea to just pick up a secondary and save yourself the stress

M2 almost definitely loses to Diddy.

 

[Jamurai]

Question: is anyone viable as a tertiary character?

Leo's MK is essentially a tertiary at this point, and (obviously) he does pretty well. With enough work you can have more than two characters tournament-ready.

Just look at ANTi , Kameme , etc.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Yeah, one player having three characters in his arsenal is, while not very common, still something we occasionally see at top level play. And guess what, Cloud is nearly always among these three characters. Leo uses him alongside Marth and MK, Anti uses him alongside Mario and ZSS and Mr r uses him alongside Sheik and Bayonetta. And all of them have at least one big win with Cloud too so all this talk about Cloud tertiary being a "meme" is frankly bullcrap.

 

[Fenny]

These are all sets we haven't seen in tournament yet, correct?

Salem double eliminated Aba at Little Big House

 

[Nobie]

This isn't concrete or anything, but the fact that Abadango was able to beat Anti's Diddy as well as some lesser Diddy mains with Mewtwo might show that, while Mewtwo has a losing record against Diddy Kong, it's not so big a gap that you can just have Diddy as a pocket or secondary character and expect to win.

In other words (maybe): Diddy Main > Mewtwo Main > Diddy Secondary

 

[MachoCheeze]

Another thing to note is that Wadi doesn't seem to struggle with Diddy as much as other Mewtwo do. He's kind of the pinnacle of defensive Mewtwo right now too so that may have something to do with it.

 

[HoSmash4]

Have Zinoto and Wadi played?

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Leo's MK is essentially a tertiary at this point, and (obviously) he does pretty well. With enough work you can have more than two characters tournament-ready.

Just look at ANTi , Kameme , etc.

We can also possibly include Nario who also has used with pretty good sucess vs top level players

Dabuz has been using almost if not as much as as of late and has arguably doing better with the former at some tournaments

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Slightly late to the convo but:

Cloud isn't a "use him in the lab once and then you're set for the rest of your tournament life" character no. Is he the quickest secondary to pick up, with the best effort:results ratio for a secondary character? Probably. Is there any good reason to not have a pocket Cloud? Outside of being dedicated to a super complicated character that absolutely takes up all of your available lab time, or other life obligations leaving you with only enough lab time for one character period, not really. Pretty much everyone should be spending a bit of time every week in the lab with a pocket Cloud. Even if you never plan to seriously use him, he's a good "okay I'm seriously on tilt with my main atm, I need one game away from them to reboot" option.

 

[Deleted member]

Slightly late to the convo but:

Cloud isn't a "use him in the lab once and then you're set for the rest of your tournament life" character no. Is he the quickest secondary to pick up, with the best effort:results ratio for a secondary character? Probably. Is there any good reason to not have a pocket Cloud? Outside of being dedicated to a super complicated character that absolutely takes up all of your available lab time, or other life obligations leaving you with only enough lab time for one character period, not really. Pretty much everyone should be spending a bit of time every week in the lab with a pocket Cloud. Even if you never plan to seriously use him, he's a good "okay I'm seriously on tilt with my main atm, I need one game away from them to reboot" option.

This! Yes, Cloud is very good, but no one can study him overnight. You gotta learn his disjoints, his Limit advantages, how Cross Slash lets him stall in the air, etc. He's definitely a dependable pocket character.

 

[TDK]

Leo and NAKAT are the only people I can think of who Tri-main, with Leo going Marth > Cloud > MK and NAKAT going Fox > Ness > Pikachu.

 

[Deleted member]

Leo and NAKAT are the only people I can think of who Tri-main, with Leo going Marth > Cloud > MK and NAKAT going Fox > Ness > Pikachu.

NAKAT has dropped Pikachu though.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

M2 almost definitely loses to Diddy.

Rich Brown hurt my understanding of the diddy matchup, I'm not sure what to think of it now

Edit: that wasn't Rich Brown or I can't find the match

Another edit: it was wadi

 

[Fenny]

Slightly late to the convo but:

Cloud isn't a "use him in the lab once and then you're set for the rest of your tournament life" character no. Is he the quickest secondary to pick up, with the best effort:results ratio for a secondary character? Probably. Is there any good reason to not have a pocket Cloud? Outside of being dedicated to a super complicated character that absolutely takes up all of your available lab time, or other life obligations leaving you with only enough lab time for one character period, not really. Pretty much everyone should be spending a bit of time every week in the lab with a pocket Cloud. Even if you never plan to seriously use him, he's a good "okay I'm seriously on tilt with my main atm, I need one game away from them to reboot" option.

Really? Usually if that's the kind of Cloud someone trains, they're more likely than not gonna lose that game too

 

[Ziodyne 21]

There is no doubt Cloud has be come on the the most effective pocket characters in the game at top level play, but can the same thing be said about his solo viability?

I am not sure if a solo Cloud has one any Major (Or reasonably stacked competition) in quite a while. The closest I think was Tweek coming in second at Collision.
Yes Cloud has gotten many high placings in many tournaments. But it's been mostly by people who use him as a secondor and pocket character and those typically tend to place better than Solo Cloud's (at least in the past few months

Cloud will always be strong and a top 10 contender. But I don't think he can be ranked as high as the likes of and possibly who have shown to be able to win large tournments solo on a reasonably consistent basis

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

There is no doubt Cloud has be come on the the most effective pocket characters in the game at top level play, but can the same thing be said about his solo viability?

I am not sure if a solo Cloud has one any Major (Or reasonably stacked competition) in quite a while. The closest I think was Tweek coming in second at Collision.
Yes Cloud has gotten many high placings in many tournaments. But it's been mostly by people who use him as a secondor and pocket character and those typically tend to place better than Solo Cloud's (at least in the past few months

Cloud will always be strong and a top 10 contender. But I don't think he can be ranked as high as the likes of and possibly who have shown to be able to win large tournments solo on a reasonably consistent basis

Except the only character that has really shown to win major tournaments is Diddy Kong, and to a lesser extent Mario. All Bayonetta has won that's close to a major is Collision, Sonic wins in Japan and England, the most relevant thing Mewtwo has won was Pound, which was in 1.1.5, right after Mewtwo got buffed and while ZeRo was out of commission. Many people in this thread, including myself, think Sheik is the best character and Sheik hasn't won anything in a while. These characters also have more consistent users, while Cloud pretty much only has Tweek, who doesn't show up to as many tournaments, and M2K who is almost guaranteed to drop out of the tournament entirely the second he gets put into loser bracket. Kinda hard to compare Cloud to the other characters with results when his dedicated mains rarely show up or drop out all the time. I mentioned Mario earlier and even that was because ZeRo was out of commission and trying to get back into the scene after being out for so long. Since then ZeRo's regained his dominance.

My point is, if we go by results alone, then Diddy Kong should be the only character separate from the others. It's not even Diddy Kong, it's ZeRo.

Also, who cares about solo-viability?

 

[Luigi player]

Rich Brown hurt my understanding of the diddy matchup, I'm not sure what to think of it now

Edit: that wasn't Rich Brown or I can't find the match

Another edit: it was wadi

Rich Brown played Zero last weekend at the invitational and their set was 2:3 (Zero won).

Only the last game was convincingly in Zeros favor.

I've always felt Mewtwo was actually good in the Diddy MU personally. Before that one tournament I had won in germany a whiiile ago and beat cyve I wasn't really confident with my Luigi and had it not gone well Mewtwo would've actually been my counterpick for the MU. I also told cyve later that I think Mewtwo is really good against Diddy, but we didn't have time to play the MU.

Imo Mewtwo can feel really safe against Diddy Kong. Dtilt to outrange Diddys ground options so you don't have to come too close to him to be hit by his own dtilts (just keep your distance if he has a banana), Shadow Ball to pressure (Diddy often has to approach, and even if he's trying to avoid Shadow Balls from a bit of a distance Mewtwo can follow up a charged SB since it'll eat shields to limit his options), and good KOing options. Diddys killmoves are pretty scary for Mewtwo, though.

I still haven't seen any Mewtwo trying to go ham on Diddys recovery (maybe WaDi does but I don't remember)... nair beats Diddys upB pretty much every time and then he could be as good as dead (especially if you manage to drag him down with it), and even if it would trade it wouldn't be much better for Diddy. Though it can be a bit difficult to get him offstage into these positions in the first place.

Rich Brown seemed to have a good idea of what to do, though. It's so weird to me seeing people flip out over Mewtwo beating Diddy (Zero), since it really doesn't feel like a bad MU to me at all. Abadango is really agressive in the MU for whatever reason. He doesn't try pressuring with charged Shadow Balls, only small ones and dashes in a lot. Even his combos only recently got better against Diddy. Mewtwo's have been pointing out Abadango not playing the MU correctly since the whole "Diddy beats Mewtwo hard"-train too.

Though I've read in this thread that Mewtwos are complaining about the super bad MU lately.. surprisingly to me, but not sure which ones those are.

Diddys fair walls can be annoying for Mewtwo, since it's so big. His kill-options are always scary, and even hoo-hah can work and KO Mewtwo sometimes, but overall Mewtwo does fine in the MU. Don't think it would be worse than -1.

Also lol@ Mewtwo or Diddy not having any losing MUs...... they don't lose any badly, though.

 

[Megamang]

How bad does mega beat Diddy?

My sets with local resident diddies are ok at best, losing record vs wasabi and winning vs the rest iirc... but its always way too close.

He needs to MF and RB in neutral tons... but those are great options, so that isnt so damning.


Why dair is so strong ill never know. My fledgling diddy uses AC dair in neutral as a shield pressure for its better damage, as well as better positional advantage if it hits.

 

[Luigi player]

How bad does mega beat Diddy?

My sets with local resident diddies are ok at best, losing record vs wasabi and winning vs the rest iirc... but its always way too close.

He needs to MF and RB in neutral tons... but those are great options, so that isnt so damning.


Why dair is so strong ill never know. My fledgling diddy uses AC dair in neutral as a shield pressure for its better damage, as well as better positional advantage if it hits.

Probably not bad at all, maybe 55:45 or +1 for Megaman, but I don't think it can be said for sure atm, since there weren't many times top Diddys had to face top Megamans (there's like only 2 MMs and one of them is kinda inconsistent..).

 

[Nu~]

Given how well it seems that diddy kong mains are adapting to the matchup (Zinoto's idea to use the rocketbarrels to backfire on mega man's pellets was awesome) I doubt it will be a major hassle for diddy kong in the future.


Unless of course, mega man mains develop a less passive style of play in the future.

 

[The-Technique]

Yeah, one player having three characters in his arsenal is, while not very common, still something we occasionally see at top level play. And guess what, Cloud is nearly always among these three characters. Leo uses him alongside Marth and MK, Anti uses him alongside Mario and ZSS and Mr r uses him alongside Sheik and Bayonetta. And all of them have at least one big win with Cloud too so all this talk about Cloud tertiary being a "meme" is frankly bullcrap.

I don't think anyone here read Mr. R's post, which is a shame because the points he made hold up truer than ever regarding "pocket Cloud".

Both ANTi's and MK Leo's Clouds, for example, they are NOT tertiary characters, they are co-mains, secondaries at worst (since ANTi and MK Leo depend more on Mario and Marth, respectively).

Leo's MK is essentially a tertiary at this point, and (obviously) he does pretty well. With enough work you can have more than two characters tournament-ready.

Just look at ANTi , Kameme , etc.

...and neither is MK Leo's Meta Knight. No one remember when he 3-0'd Mr. R's Sheik at Smash Factor 5, widely considered one of Meta Knight's worst matchup? You think a rusty, unpolished user could pull off a victory like that against a top player? Kind of insulting to Leo to simply call it his pocket.

Point is that top players that have succeeded with Cloud counterpicks all have devoted a great deal of time to mastering the character, not at all deserving of being labeled "pockets". Not only that but you also disregard the much more numerous instances of pocket Cloud failing than succeeding, in addition to the characters not named Cloud that have actually succeeded as secondaries.

 

[NairWizard]

About half of the really good characters in this game don't really have matchups that they can't win. It's close enough to even that you'll see upsets often enough.

The exceptions are who all struggle in at least one MU: Cloud's Sheik matchup, ZSS' Diddy matchup (in which you'll still see some upsets occasionally), and Rosalina's MK matchup are really atrocious, and Fox gets rocked in multiple matchups (Bayonetta/Sheik/Luigi, maybe Ryu).

Then you have who can win any matchup in the game. You only need to be a little better than your opponent to ensure a win, or just make a sharp read or two.

I would say is in that bucket too, doesn't really just get shut down by anyone.

Not that solo viability really means much with the game in its current state, but those are probably the most "solo viable" characters.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I don't think anyone here read Mr. R's post, which is a shame because the points he made hold up truer than ever regarding "pocket Cloud".

Both ANTi's and MK Leo's Clouds, for example, they are NOT tertiary characters, they are co-mains, secondaries at worst (since ANTi and MK Leo depend more on Mario and Marth, respectively).



...and neither is MK Leo's Meta Knight. No one remember when he 3-0'd Mr. R's Sheik at Smash Factor 5, widely considered one of Meta Knight's worst matchup? You think a rusty, unpolished user could pull off a victory like that against a top player? Kind of insulting to Leo to simply call it his pocket.

Point is that top players that have succeeded with Cloud counterpicks all have devoted a great deal of time to mastering the character, not at all deserving of being labeled "pockets". Not only that but you also disregard the much more numerous instances of pocket Cloud failing than succeeding, in addition to the characters not named Cloud that have actually succeeded as secondaries.

Ok while I agree that Cloud does not take"no" skill or effort to use at top level play. No one can argue that he is relatively easy to pick up and quickly get handle on all his fundamentails.
There has got to be a reason why Leo, Anti, and many others use Cloud as a Secondaries and instead of say Sheik who IS likely a superior character to Cloud

There is a clear diffence in ratio between the amount of skill and time dedication needed in order to be able to be fully optimized for top level play.

Finally of course a Cloud used by players of thier calibur will be FAR superior to the typical Cloud Scrub you can find on FG. Even if Cloud isn't the most used character of all of those professional players

 

[TDK]

Ok while I agree that Cloud does not take"no" skill or effort to use at top level play. No one can argue that he is relatively easy to pick up and quickly get handle on all his fundamentails.
There has got to be a reason why both Leo, Anti, Komo and many others use Cloud as a Secondary instead of say Sheik who IS likely a superior character to Cloud

There is a clear diffrene in ratio between the amount of skill and time dedication needed in order to be able to be fully optimized for top level play.

Calling Komo's Cloud a secondary is just insulting him.

 

[The-Technique]

Ok while I agree that Cloud does not take"no" skill or effort to use at top level play. No one can argue that he is relatively easy to pick up and quickly get handle on all his fundamentails.
There has got to be a reason why both Leo, Anti' Zero and many others use Cloud as a Secondary instead of say Sheik who IS likely a superior character to Cloud

There is a clear diffrene in ratio between the amount of skill and time dedication needed in order to be able to be fully optimized for top level play.

Finally of course a Cloud used by players of thier calibur will be superior to the typical Cloud Scrub you can find on FG. Even if Cloud isn't the most used character of all of those professional players

No one can deny that Cloud is a great secondary, but that's the thing, secondaries are still characters that have a great deal of practice dedicated to them. The whole pocket "X" thing is just a meme.

Calling Komo's Cloud a secondary is just insulting him.

Indeed, Komo plays way more Cloud than he does Sonic or any other character.

 

[verbatim]

This isn't concrete or anything, but the fact that Abadango was able to beat Anti's Diddy as well as some lesser Diddy mains with Mewtwo might show that, while Mewtwo has a losing record against Diddy Kong, it's not so big a gap that you can just have Diddy as a pocket or secondary character and expect to win.

In other words (maybe): Diddy Main > Mewtwo Main > Diddy Secondary

A top player playing a top tier character isn't necessarily a "noteable" representation of their character. You could make the argument that AnTi is a notable zss/cloud/mario/maybemk because of his noteable wins with them, but that doesn't necessarily make him a "notable" with every other top tier. The only two times I saw his Diddy Kong he lost against Abadango and WaDi. His Rosalina also lost to FOW's Ness, who lost to Vinnie's Rosalina immediately afterwards.

 

[Nu~]

Calling Komo's Cloud a secondary is just insulting him.

Well, if you look at it another way it could be a compliment as well.

"Komo is such an excellent player that he only needs his secondary to get all the results that he does"


Doesn't make the statement any less false though.

 

[L9999]

Well, if you look at it another way it could be a compliment as well.

"Komo is such an excellent player that he only needs his secondary to get all the results that he does"


Doesn't make the statement any less false though.

It is insulting in the way that Cloud is currently giving Komo the most results and the most popularity. I bet that it is because of him Cloud is voted #1/#2 in Japan because Komo wrecks everyone with Cloud. And he used to be that with Sonic, who Komo still plays.

 

[meticulousboy]

I'm so lazy that I don't feel like catching up, but what exactly is being discussed right now?

By the way, I thought Lucario also goes even with Sheik.

 

[FeelMeUp]

The characters with legitimate arguments for going even with Sheik in a 2 stock 1 ban environment are . Some of these, like ZSS Peach and Bowser, require you to reach a bit.
Lucario doesn't really fit. He certainly loses.