Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[TheGoodGuava]

ZeRo only 3 - 2 vs Mr. E, Jesus that fair string in the 4th set though

 

[TDK]

https://smashboards.com/threads/2gg...ad-zeros-runback-so-far.444100/#post-21583412

Here's a thread for it.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Well.....Looks like ZeRo Saga was made for him to be lifetime positive on every player he's ever gone up against.
Only equal now is Kame at 1-1 in sets iirc.

 

[|RK|]

On that note, I said it in the other thread but...

1) I see how Diddy loses to Mega Man
2) ZeRo is just too good
3) Wish I saw the end lmao

 

[TDK]

Well.....Looks like ZeRo Saga was made for him to be lifetime positive on every player he's ever gone up against.
Only equal now is Kame at 1-1 in sets iirc.

Kameme, Seagull, Day, and Prince Ramen are all 1-1.

 

[Das Koopa]

I don't think anybody really expected the Seagull/Ramen/Day sets to go anywhere. I mean yeah he has a set lead on them but I'm pretty sure he'd obliterate them in bracket if they met again. Ramen actually put up the most convincing game-to-game fight of the three which surprised me.

The only 3 people that didn't attend ZeRo's had definitive runbacks against since his loss (beat Concon with Sheik last week convincingly, 3-0'd Dabuz at TBH6, JV3'd Mew2King at Endgame and basically deleted him from Sm4sh in the process, etc.)

 

[The-Technique]

Prince Ramen definitely had one of the stronger showings in this event despite the 3-0. Never sleep on Palu, yo.

 

[KenMeister]

Ugh, I really do wish M2K would work on his neutral more and actually study MUs in and out so he's not getting himself corner-pressured so easily X_X. Having a great punish game with Cloud with not much else to substitute for it outside of conditioning can only get you so far.

 

[sleepy_Nex]

KenMeister

M2K still has meele so i don't think he will/can put time into smash4 like Zero does.

 

[KenMeister]

KenMeister

M2K still has meele so i don't think he will/can put time into smash4 like Zero does.

I wouldn't really say that when he spends days on his MVG channel streaming Sm4sh with other players, often sharing his knowledge with newer players or playing friendlies with other high level players.

 

[|RK|]

I wouldn't really say that when he spends days on his MVG channel streaming Sm4sh with other players, often sharing his knowledge with newer players or playing friendlies with other high level players.

He did admit the other day that his Sm4sh was falling behind because of all the time he put into Melee. On the other hand, his Melee has been crisp recently, so

 

[JustSomeScrub]

There has been a lot of talk about Bayonetta being the best character or at least top 3 recently. But she doesn't seem to have the results yet to justify that. Sure Salem has taken a set off most of the best players in NA. But even he has yet to have a breakout performance at a super major (I don't consider smaller events like Collision to be majors). At actual big majors he's drastically underperformed for the best player maining the supposed best character.

What makes Bayonetta especially strong and possibly better than every other character doesn't seem to be consistent. Sure she can 0-death but only during very specific scenarios and also assuming suboptimal SDI (Esam showed how much SDI can change the outcome in his recent set versus Salem).

Compare this to other top tiers like Diddy, Sonic, Mewtwo, Cloud, Sheik. What makes them strong are far more consistent tools. They don't rely on very situational "jank" to get the job done. In other words Bayonetta could 2 stock even the best of players provided she gets the exact situations she wants, but how often does that really happen? That's why I think she's overrated, people go crazy over a 0-death but ignore the several other times it didn't work out. Whereas characters with stronger neutrals and/or arguably more reliable kill setups are going to be a threat at all times.

It will be interesting to see how Salem does this weekend but I would not be surprised if he underperforms again.

 

[Emblem Lord]

It is not jank that makes her strong. The jank is just a distraction.

The 0 to death **** is not even what makes her so scary. It's not even real.

You downplay her like she is a weak char. She is probably 5 or 6th at WORST. Out of what? Near 60 characters?

Cut it out.

 

[Mrdiscount]

Bayo's Nair is scary tbh, It lingers out for so long and if you space it, It's basically unpunishable.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Soooooooooooooooooooooo


Just read that ZeRo basically bodied the tournament and everyone in there. With a ton of 3-0s.

My Gawd. Can't wait for the uploads. It reminds me of the time when I used to go to sonichurricane.com and they would have matches from extremely fundamentally strong players to show examples of what to you should be doing. I think everyone should re-watch what happened, because for him to had 3-0 so many players, something deeeeeep must've been happening besides "oh ZeRo just wasn't approaching and they all were" or " it's just ZeRo" or " ZeRo played the optimal play style."

 

[Yikarur]

There is one thing wrong about that MU spread when it comes to Miis. Brawler looses heavily against Peach. Why? Brawler is grab the character and you know who can ignore grabs? Peach. How? Float. Float alone destroys Brawler's whole gameplan. Add to that her amazing Fair and her amazing edgeguarding game which make things even worse. I even remember Dapuffster saying that Peach is Brawler's worst MU.

Gee I sure bring up the Miis all the time... Now if you excuse mii (höhöö) I shall crawl into my Frii Mii cave and play with my Miitler until Miis are mentioned again.

The MU is about even. Probably slightly disadvantage. Just because gimmicks don't work anymore doesn't mean the MU sucks.
Brawlers juggling is pretty strrong and I think Peach is very easy to juggle. I've seen a lot of Brawlers to struggle with that MU but I've never had the problems. I even beat germans best peach with Brawler, while every other brawler gets wrecked by Peach so I guess they are playing the MU wrongly.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Bayonetta has a top 5 advantage/disadvantage but her neutral is pretty average, especially if shes compared to characters like Mewtwo, Sheik, and Diddy. If people learned to just shield Heal Slide and play less aggro she wouldn't be getting 50% combos every 20 seconds.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Tue, but she still has hitboxes that let her hang with sword characters. She would land less fat combos, but her hitboxes still mean alot of characters have to respect her buttons. Which is what is really silly about her. The hitboxes on nair, utilt, and especially bair are nothing short of nonsense.

 

[Jaguar360]

DAT Blastzone 17 (UK, 96 entrants)
https://smash.gg/tournament/dat-blastzone-17/events/wii-u-singles/brackets/88726

1. IxisNaugus
2. Afro Smash
3. Ho
4. Homika
5. Aperture
5. J Miller
7. Elexiao
7. SevereCalamari
9. Le Goat
9. PlasticPoptart
9. Lucretio
9. Skarfelt
13. FROG
13. PidgeY
13. SilentDoom
13. Luigimitsu

Great showing of Samus from Afro Smash, kinda disappointing showing from Elexiao losing to Aperture and J Miller, but not too bad of losses.

EDIT: Shoutout to Tetra-96's Twitter for the characters

 

[G. Stache]

Great showing of Samus from Afro Smash, kinda disappointing showing from Elexiao losing to Aperture and J Miller, but not too bad of losses

Wait, Elexiao, a Frog/Pac user, lost to J Miller's Luigi? That's a set I'd like to watch. Are there any links to the match? Also, as weird as it sounds, I don't actually think Luigimitsu uses Luigi. Could be wrong though.

 

[soniczx123]

Wait, Elexiao, a Frog/Pac user, lost to J Miller's Luigi? That's a set I'd like to watch. Are there any links to the match? Also, as weird as it sounds, I don't actually think Luigimitsu uses Luigi. Could be wrong though.

Luigimitsu is a Villager player.

 

[Mister M]

Frog mains corin
Luigimitsu mains villager
Aperture is actually very good
Phone posting sucks

 

[Jaguar360]

Wait, Elexiao, a Frog/Pac user, lost to J Miller's Luigi? That's a set I'd like to watch. Are there any links to the match? Also, as weird as it sounds, I don't actually think Luigimitsu uses Luigi. Could be wrong though.

It was off stream despite being top 8 unfortunately. It went to game 3.

 

[Bowserboy3]

Wait, Elexiao, a Frog/Pac user, lost to J Miller's Luigi? That's a set I'd like to watch. Are there any links to the match? Also, as weird as it sounds, I don't actually think Luigimitsu uses Luigi. Could be wrong though.

As far as I know, Luigimitsu does have a Luigi, but he does indeed main Villager.

 

[Megamang]

Villy's Jab/fair/nair are extremely frustrating when you have slow startup aerials. Offstage is also a real, constant risk.


Sooo... now that we know SDI is vastly improved when you're tiny/floaty, and bayo is a little weak to very strong neutrals... why is bayo so bad for villager? Cloud is cloud (i still think learning edgeguard sequences from stray hits would help tremendously but w.e) but honestly id have thought villy would shoot up in a m2/bayo kinda meta.

Still underrepped? I member panda bair beating JJ rockets. It was fantastic.

Zero seems to prefer MF grabs, especially in dubs... make you scared to shield -> abuse Diddy's absurd hitboxes for basic gameplan? He is also really quick at killing with dair or even offstage bair when the chance arises.


...

Komo electing to go sonic vs Dath, and it was super close. Interesting. Robin > Cloud, or just sonic > cloud when v Robin?

 

[ARGHETH]

Komo electing to go sonic vs Dath, and it was super close. Interesting. Robin > Cloud, or just sonic > cloud when v Robin?

He put both of them as 55:45 against Robin, so it might just be because Sonic's his main. Cloud would probably have been the better choice, given Dath's Sonic experience and the fact that Dath thinks Cloud is a harder MU for Robin.

 

[verbatim]

Komorikiri might not necessarily have known that Staticmanny and Dath play together a lot.


My assumption is that Komo knew that he himself didn't have much high level experience in the Robin matchup and chose to pick Sonic since Cloud is a lot more susceptible to making a mistake and losing a stock offstage (especially w/ arc fire).

 

[wedl!!]

Tue, but she still has hitboxes that let her hang with sword characters. She would land less fat combos, but her hitboxes still mean alot of characters have to respect her buttons. Which is what is really silly about her. The hitboxes on nair, utilt, and especially bair are nothing short of nonsense.

Plus she has suuuuuuper nice pokes overall, even the ones with reduced hitboxes (fair, dtilt)

LOOK at that dive kick. Orgasmic.

 

[Aaron1997]

ZeRo Saga is not the only thing going on right now.

Umebura BenQ ZOWIE cup

Notables

KEN (Yes he has a Pika now)
Earth
Choco
T
Tsu-
Brood/Raito/Tamushika
Fuwa
Some
Kuro
HIKARU
Umeki
Pichi
OCEAN
RAIN
Kept
Shu
Tosshi
Yuzu
Taranito
Pon
Dol
Rom

 

[Ziodyne 21]

lolz even not taking in Bayonettas potential for Jank . I mean what else does She Have? Oh yeah!

• Top Tier Advantage/Disadvantage State. I think only and can rival or exceed Bayo's
  
• Top Tier, Edgeguarding game, offstage game and recovery all of which are possibly bested by and possibly
• Among the best Punish games due to her combos and being able to get conversions off just about all of her normals, airiels and UP-B and Side-B specials
• Mixups and frametraps up the whazoo. Can sometimes be used when you can predict when the opponent will DI/SDI
• Witch Time, nuff said
• New tech and strategies are still being discovered for her. Such as this interesting little exploit that has been recently discovered.

Ok ,this is not saying Bayonetta does not have flaws, we all know she has quite a few of them Yes there is SDI, but unless Salem and all they many other top Bayo players start massively falling off at tournaments. , I do not see her dropping anywhere lower than top 10.

 

[JB333]

Reflect (FL, 69 entrants) https://smash.gg/tournament/reflect-4/events

1. Myran
2. Wormynugget
3. Cashmere
4. Rideae
5. PK kid
5. Akashic
7. T!T0
7. BlitzkinG

 

[BTVolta]

Reflect (FL, 69 entrants) https://smash.gg/tournament/reflect-4/events

there's a Tito in Florida that plays Diddy. That might be him. Blitzking Is a Mac

Komorikiri might not necessarily have known that Staticmanny and Dath play together a lot.

They don't really play a lot. Different cities and different sub regions. Dath's teammate is Trueblue however, so the breadth of his sonic experience does come from him.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

I agree Bayonetta is at least top 10, I'm merely pointing out she has nowhere near the results yet to justify top 3 considering she has yet to make a single top 8 appearance at a super major. Results wise the best DLC character has to go to either Cloud or Mewtwo.

Anyway top 48 for 2GGT: Zero saga has been decided:
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/5ixig0/2ggt_zero_saga_top_48_singles/

As Smash 4's meta progresses as the poster noted, unfortunately we are seeing high/top tiers dominate more and more. We aren't really seeing upsets from low-mid characters any more on a regular basis. At least not in NA, Japan is a different story for whatever reason.

To quote the OP:
"Top tier dominance has occurred once again with eight Diddys appearing in the top 48 along with five Sheiks, Clouds and Bayonettas . Will any of these four characters take this stacked up tourney?"

 

[Megamang]

23/48 isnt too absurd. Ill check the rest of the spread tho.


Super, super stacked tournaments are also usually more top tier heavy, for a few reasons.

When Dath is knocked into losers bracket in a game 5 last hit situation, and it was friggin komorikiri that had to do it, i feel the plight of the mid tier is doing ok.


...


Mr optimal, KEN, picked up a pikachu? Anyone have a quote why, or perhaps just a guess? My guess would be, Sonics worst MUs are what... Cloud, Megaman? Diddy? Fox? Pika starts to look like a great choice when those are your obstacles IMO.

 

[BTVolta]

As Smash 4's meta progresses as the poster noted, unfortunately we are seeing high/top tiers dominate more and more. We aren't really seeing upsets from low-mid characters any more on a regular basis. At least not in NA, Japan is a different story for whatever reason.

This is the natural progression of a fighting game. Weak characters will fall short and sink while strong characters rise. Occasional top showings will happen but ultimately top and high tier characters will prove to dominate the game as a whole at top level play.

I want to suspect Japan's overall playstyle might lend to lower tiered characters doing better over there than in the west, but I have no data to really show any signs that this is actually true. This thought only really came to me after watching Kameme vs Fatality where he opted to go sheik and lost. He never really went offstage and only relied on ledge trapping him and 2-framing him with down tilt. The first time he went off he lost his stock and that game, so I feel like he might not have too much familiarity with going offstage Vs. Falcon and that's one of the factors that makes the MU so hard for Falcon. In general he played pretty safe, but I wonder if he was pressing his advantage hard enough throughout the set to make falcon cry when he had him in disadvantage(landing, shielding offstage, Etc).

This is all just conjecture really and it seems kinda silly to think safe play leads to being more susceptible to unknown characters, but just a thought I had. Japan's ruleset would probably be more suspect for lesser known characters doing well(Bo1 pools, restrictive stage list(?), 2 stock)

 

[The-Technique]

Komorikiri might not necessarily have known that Staticmanny and Dath play together a lot.


My assumption is that Komo knew that he himself didn't have much high level experience in the Robin matchup and chose to pick Sonic since Cloud is a lot more susceptible to making a mistake and losing a stock offstage (especially w/ arc fire).

Indeed. There's less room to make mistakes using Cloud compared to Sonic, especially against Robin who can cover ledge options very well, and is one of the few characters that don't have to fully respect Limit Charge (oh thanks for the breathing room, lemme charge my Arcthunder...)

 

[|RK|]

I really appreciate this analyst desk. That insight into the Dabuz/Tyrant MU was interesting. For those that weren't watching, they said that Tyrant admitted he would have lost if Dabuz went Rosa instead of Olimar. Tyrant lost to the Rosa in his region (sorry, I forget the tag... falln?) 3-1 before. And though Dabuz likes to counterpick Olimar for comfort, MK still beats Olimar as well. I think Dabuz might just have a block against MK, tbh. It's not like MK vs Rosa is a good MU by any means, but if other Rosas are doing it, then the best Rosa in the world should be able to do it too. At LEAST until he gets to Mr. R, Komo, Leo, etc.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

This is the natural progression of a fighting game. Weak characters will fall short and sink while strong characters rise. Occasional top showings will happen but ultimately top and high tier characters will prove to dominate the game as a whole at top level play.

I want to suspect Japan's overall playstyle might lend to lower tiered characters doing better over there than in the west, but I have no data to really show any signs that this is actually true. This thought only really came to me after watching Kameme vs Fatality where he opted to go sheik and lost. He never really went offstage and only relied on ledge trapping him and 2-framing him with down tilt. The first time he went off he lost his stock and that game, so I feel like he might not have too much familiarity with going offstage Vs. Falcon and that's one of the factors that makes the MU so hard for Falcon. In general he played pretty safe, but I wonder if he was pressing his advantage hard enough throughout the set to make falcon cry when he had him in disadvantage(landing, shielding offstage, Etc).

This is all just conjecture really and it seems kinda silly to think safe play leads to being more susceptible to unknown characters, but just a thought I had. Japan's ruleset would probably be more suspect for lesser known characters doing well(Bo1 pools, restrictive stage list(?), 2 stock)

Yes but everyone hailed Smash 4 as being so much better balanced than previous Smash games, it's slowly but surely looking like this isn't really the case. Top 8s at majors tend to be almost exclusively top tier characters and doubles have been Cloud fests for a while now.

As for Japan, I think they are more willing to explore lesser developed characters rather than going straight to top tier the minute their mains fail them. And if Duckhunt is banned in Japan and iirc it is, that would definitely play a role as lower tiered characters are more susceptible to getting camped out. So yeah the stagelist probably plays a role.

Japan isn't known for having the best Sheiks and that was just a pocket from Kame, that probably was the reason for his hesitance of pressing advantage when he should have/could have. Also I consider Falcon to be high tier. He's had very solid placings at majors (and in Japan) and the Sheik matchup might not be that bad for him especially when you factor in rage and the humongous raw kill range differences.

 

[|RK|]

Yes but everyone hailed Smash 4 as being so much better balanced than previous Smash games, it's slowly but surely looking like this isn't really the case. Top 8s at majors tend to be almost exclusively top tier characters and doubles have been Cloud fests for a while now.

As for Japan, I think they are more willing to explore lesser developed characters rather than going straight to top tier the minute their mains fail them. And if Duckhunt is banned in Japan and iirc it is, that would definitely play a role as lower tiered characters are more susceptible to getting camped out. So yeah the stagelist probably plays a role.

Japan isn't known for having the best Sheiks and that was just a pocket from Kame, that probably was the reason for his hesitance of pressing advantage when he should have/could have. Also I consider Falcon to be high tier. He's had very solid placings at majors (and in Japan) and the Sheik matchup might not be that bad for him especially when you factor in rage and the humongous raw kill range differences.

For starters, winners side is much more tame. Second, there's a bunch of the top 50 players here, and they play top tiers. They're not going to be upset by Joe random just because they play a mid tier - they need the skill as well. There are few to no players that play mid tiers or lower that also have a high skill level. This is a natural result of the top players getting better. And for the most part, the players serious about getting better will also be using top tiers. Larry's Fox will still lose to mid/high level players that use Kirby... but those same players aren't going to make it to him at a major.

In summary - top players play top tiers. As the top players get stronger, there will be less upsets. You basically need an Abadango if you want a mid-tier in top 8.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

In other news Esam lost today to a GnW in round 1 pools...who went 0-2 immediately after beating him. In other words the only person the player managed to beat before getting eliminated was Esam lol. Poor Esam. He seems to get Smash 4ed harder than anyone else.

And what is it with GnW players causing upsets only to never be heard from again? Ally, Void and now Esam have all lost now to relatively unknown GnWs who didn't do anything notable afterwards as far as I know.

For starters, winners side is much more tame. Second, there's a bunch of the top 50 players here, and they play top tiers. They're not going to be upset by Joe random just because they play a mid tier - they need the skill as well. There are few to no players that play mid tiers or lower that also have a high skill level. This is a natural result of the top players getting better. And for the most part, the players serious about getting better will also be using top tiers. Larry's Fox will still lose to mid/high level players that use Kirby... but those same players aren't going to make it to him at a major.

In summary - top players play top tiers. As the top players get stronger, there will be less upsets. You basically need an Abadango if you want a mid-tier in top 8.

You are missing the point. If Smash 4's tier gap is truly significantly smaller than in previous games, top players shouldn't be limited to picking top tiers to succeed at the highest level.

Ever heard of Ultra Street Fighter 4? Mid tier character players would regularly make top 8s, sometimes even win huge events for the game. THAT's what a balanced game actually looks like.

In Smash 4 it might happen once a blue moon. But more often than not top 8 of any given national is exclusively top tiers with maybe one or two high tiers sneaking in but that's about it.

Doubles is worse. I can think of only one major in recent times that wasn't won by a team including Cloud. Most of the time grand finals consist of teams with at least one Cloud on both sides.