Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[valakmtnsmash4]

falco has been said to have a good matchup with mewtwo because alot of his tools can cover mewtwos landings and falco doesnt lose neutral AS HARD to mewtwo as other characters make him do. Well thats what the mewtwo and falco discord groups have come to an agreement on. But falco has no good matchups so i dunno :^)

 

[TurboLink]

On paper, yes. However, Tink can be surprising versatile. Keeping close to Mewtwo and playing just outside his range makes Tink much harder to reach to. Confusion can only coverage so much area and it isn't fast enough to reflect every bomb.

Confusion is also a commitment against tink. If the tink player knows that the Mewtwo wants to reflect every projectile they can bait it and land a Fair easily.

On paper Mewtwo destroys Tink but in reality it certainly isn't unwinnable. I'd say its 60:40 or maybe even 70:30 at top level but not unwinnable.

If you don't believe Tink can win go to Izaw's channel. His Link beat Aba's Mewtwo in a single game they played (not a set so not super credible, my point with this is if Link can win this matchup then Tink certainly can).

Link's range plays a fairly significant part in the Mewtwo matchup which is something Toon Link obviously lacks. Also, Mewtwo can catch bombs with his long-lasting short hop air dodge and possibly fair on landing to cover himself (Of course Toon Link could also run in and try to catch Mewtwo's landing with his tether grab). That's something to consider as well. If the Mewtwo player is playing on point and catching/reflecting Toon Link's bombs then Toon Link has to resort to his other options for kills. Boomerang is another option but it's even more reactable than Toon Link's bombs (Mewtwo can also use Shadows Balls to clank with Toon Link's boomerang). So that leaves his back throw, fair, and up air. Hopefully I'm not missing anything. Toon Link's close combat is also barely any better than Link's which means he is mostly playing in Mewtwo's down tilt range (The only move in Link's moveset on the ground that outranges Mewtwo's down tilt is his forward smash. That should tell you something.) Toon Link's side tilt also doesn't kill as well as Link's side tilt either. So no, do not assume that just because Izaw's Link didn't have as much trouble that Toon Link won't either. Of course this is all just theory/matchups on paper.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Ike even has a reliable way of getting the 2 frame window with Eruption. He should have no problem doing that on the likes of Fox Illusion or even Falcon Dive. If Ganondorf can catch it with his Dtilt, congratulations to him. But Ike has to release the button whereas Ganondorf has to time the button press. It's all about the ease.

Dude. Absolutely nobody is suggesting that Ike and Ganondorf are similar characters, or that Ike and Ganondorf have similar power levels.

Literally the only point of bringing Ganondorf up is to provide a counterpoint to your whole ridiculous "reads-based characters will go up on the tier list as the game ages" argument.

 

[RonNewcomb]

As for potential unwinnable matchups, I'd like to sign my name alongside Tink vs. Mewtwo. What exactly is Tink supposed to do against a character that can reflect the basis for his combos on reaction, outrange in the air with Fair, and outrange on the ground with Dtilt?

Bait n punish with bomb toss into sword. Get underneath and uair, utilt, usmash. Attempt dair spike at edge. Run. Hide. Block. Thank your lucky stars you're the heavy for once. It's rough.

 

[PK Gaming]

I'd like to see the Toon Link vs Mewtwo matchup play out at high level play before writing it off as impossible

My gut tells me it's not that bad for Toon Link, and Toon Link for sure does better against Mewtwo than Link

 

[meticulousboy]

Dude. Absolutely nobody is suggesting that Ike and Ganondorf are similar characters, or that Ike and Ganondorf have similar power levels.

Literally the only point of bringing Ganondorf up is to provide a counterpoint to your whole ridiculous "reads-based characters will go up on the tier list as the game ages" argument.

Ridiculous it shall stay. I said my view. And I think you put words in my mouth.

Moving on. What happened to the days when Roy was above Marth?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Just from thinking about it, I would think that Tink is going to spend alot of time Zairing and going for grabs.

 

[RonNewcomb]

Bait n punish with bomb toss into sword. Get underneath and uair, utilt, usmash. Attempt dair spike at edge. Run. Hide. Block. Thank your lucky stars you're the heavy for once. It's rough.

I should add: pull a bomb and then toss arrow or boomerang to bait the reflector, then punish with bomb toss.

Also for those who don't know, Tink can DI his own dair. So do it slightly offstage so when his opponent DIs in, they still miss the stage.

Zair also has some range.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Moving on. What happened to the days when Roy was above Marth?

Well, the Roy hype died and Marth got some incredible buffs.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Apparently Kogarasuma (this person) made Top 32 at Shine and is a Lucina main. Sadly none of his matches were recorded, but did he actually use Lucina in them?

 

[Murlough]

Link's range plays a fairly significant part in the Mewtwo matchup which is something Toon Link obviously lacks. Also, Mewtwo can catch bombs with his long-lasting short hop air dodge and possibly fair on landing to cover himself (Of course Toon Link could also run in and try to catch Mewtwo's landing with his tether grab). That's something to consider as well. If the Mewtwo player is playing on point and catching/reflecting Toon Link's bombs then Toon Link has to resort to his other options for kills. Boomerang is another option but it's even more reactable than Toon Link's bombs (Mewtwo can also use Shadows Balls to clank with Toon Link's boomerang). So that leaves his back throw, fair, and up air. Hopefully I'm not missing anything. Toon Link's close combat is also barely any better than Link's which means he is mostly playing in Mewtwo's down tilt range (The only move in Link's moveset on the ground that outranges Mewtwo's down tilt is his forward smash. That should tell you something.) Toon Link's side tilt also doesn't kill as well as Link's side tilt either. So no, do not assume that just because Izaw's Link didn't have as much trouble that Toon Link won't either. Of course this is all just theory/matchups on paper.

I understand and thought of each of those points.

That was a pretty weak ending argument but I still stand by my points. The matchup sucks for Tink for sure but it is winnable.

 

[L9999]

Apparently Kogarasuma (this person) made Top 32 at Shine and is a Lucina main. Sadly none of his matches were recorded, but did he actually use Lucina in them?

I think his Twitter says it all. I hope he gets better and attends more stuff.

 

[MistressRemilia]

I'd like to see the Toon Link vs Mewtwo matchup play out at high level play before writing it off as impossible

My gut tells me it's not that bad for Toon Link, and Toon Link for sure does better against Mewtwo than Link

Guess it's your lucky day, this matchup happened in Shine 2016.
Z vs Xorn, in Top 32 of said event, annd guess what? Xorn 3-0d Z, with Toon Link.
I strongly believe this thought solely comes out of poor vizualisation of how the neutral would work: Toon Link is a much more dynamic character than some matchup seem to understand.

 

[C0rvus]

Re: Toon Link vs Mewtwo
Half an hour of footage of this MU is up on KillaJawz' channel. Him versus Yackabean, a top player in Scotland. This IS from February but it might be useful nonetheless. Both players kinda learn the matchup as they go, so maybe watch towards the end. It's not perfect by any means, but it's there. Only good footage I could find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKE3AzUGdSM

 

[Ffamran]

Hasn't Falco been said to have a good Bayo matchup or am I mistaken?

As Gamegenie said, it's bad. Pre-patch Bayonetta was definitely a -3 for Falco. Post-patch? Still -3. We're talking about a character fighting another character who has essentially does everything he does, but better and some more.

Someone to ask / watch with the most experience would possibly be Lada, but he's a ROB main. I say Lada since he commonly fights against Caculus. Remember that one player who was carried Bayonetta? Oh, wait. None of them exist. Another one might be Josue, but I don't know how often he fights Bayonetta players and I don't think he's a Falco main... Capt. or DK. Also Osiris, but last time he was mentioned here, he was shown ragequitting. I don't know if Keitaro has any extensive Bayonetta experience nor do I know if AC, Anragon, etc. have any.

The only thing Falco really has on Bayonetta is possibly the fastest punish on Bayonetta players auto-piloting with Witch Twist set-ups. Why do I say this? Bairs are generally good moves, so... Why are you letting Falco's back face you if you happen to drop your set-up? Yeah... That's pretty much it, though.

Falco has no such thing as a "good matchup".

Ha, you should see my MU spread for Falco. Makes Charizard, Robin, Samus, and Zelda look like Melee top tiers with their recently posted MU spreads.

falco has been said to have a good matchup with mewtwo because alot of his tools can cover mewtwos landings and falco doesnt lose neutral AS HARD to mewtwo as other characters make him do. Well thats what the mewtwo and falco discord groups have come to an agreement on. But falco has no good matchups so i dunno :^)

I can't see how Mewtwo who severely out-ranges, out-kills, and out-speeds Falco having trouble with him. If the Mewtwo Discord is in agreement with having trouble with Falco, then they're playing the game wrong. Not the MU, but the game.

There's some Falco vs. Mewtwo sets on YouTube; two sets of Zanryo vs. Mew² and and one set of Kato vs. Hitaku. It's how I learned Mewtwo's jab to Up Smash is a thing.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I'm actually curious.

Are there other notable Fox mains other than Larry Lurr?

He's the only one I can think of.

 

[MistressRemilia]

I'm actually curious.

Are there other notable Fox mains other than Larry Lurr?

He's the only one I can think of.

Fox's rep is kind of a similar case to Mewtwo, where one players carries the top of the top results, but there are regionals threats for Mewtwo a bit everywhere, only multiply it by x1000. There's Megafox, Yui, SH, Shogun, Sodrek, CharlieDaking, and many more that i probably forgot about but are here anyway.

 

[PK Gaming]

Guess it's your lucky day, this matchup happened in Shine 2016.
Z vs Xorn, in Top 32 of said event, annd guess what? Xorn 3-0d Z, with Toon Link.
I strongly believe this thought solely comes out of poor vizualisation of how the neutral would work: Toon Link is a much more dynamic character than some matchup seem to understand.

Yeah, I figured as much.

Hardcore theory crafting never really gets you anywhere, and it should go without saying, but Smash isn't simplistic enough to a point where you can easily break matchup's down into "moves."

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Pikachu and Robin are guaranteed top 5 at Shine. Not as stacked Evo, CEO, SSC etc. but still a major and pretty stacked nonetheless.

Also they ran BO5 for all of top 32 and it made a huge difference upset wise. Mr. E was up 2-1 vs Zero and Zero won 2 straight. Dyr was up 2-0 versus Larry and Larry won 3 straight. If this was most tournaments, they would have lost.

That's not to say there weren't upsets. Dath took out Mars and 6WX. Anti lost to Sparks and then LingLing.

Speaking of which I think Peach beats Mario. Ally has lost to Samsora twice and SlayerZ. Now Anti, the other top Mario in NA has also lost to a Peach. The way I see it, Mario loves fishing for grabs because the risk/reward is usually in his favour and he has the mobility to get them consistently. But Peach is one of the hardest characters to get any kind of grabs on thanks to floats. She easily has one of the best anti-grab neutrals.

 

[Murlough]

I'm going to say something that has urked me for a while.

Smash 4 players need to stop thinking matchups are super simple. In order to figure out who should win a matchup, other than hard, consistent data, players need to analyze every bit of each characters toolkit. How does one do better in the neutral? Who can kill earlier? Etc.

"Oh, well one character is projectile based and the other has a reflector so the reflecting character obviously wins"...this is wayyy too commonplace. Matchups are not that simple. I've talked to people in the Mewtwo sub forum about my matchup theories against certain zoners (villager, tink) and they shut me down saying I most suck to lose to them when I have a reflector.

Super silly. At least now there are some results backing up my thoughts.

tl;dr analyzing matchups requires you to actually analyze the two characters. A matchup is rarely super obvious.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Using reflectors is always a risk.
Mistime it by using it too early and too late and you're getting a big projectile at your face, often with some good 20ish% with it, and that's also assuming it doesn't just outright KO your sorry arse.
As Mario (vs. Mewtwo, for example), you need some serious nerve to, in less than a second, reposition, time the cape and smack a fully charged incoming Shadow Ball when you're at KO%. Of course - if the M2 reflects it, I hope you can spasm fast enough to reflect it a second time, or else you're definitely RIP.

 

[L9999]

Speaking of which I think Peach beats Mario. Ally has lost to Samsora twice and SlayerZ. Now Anti, the other top Mario in NA has also lost to a Peach. The way I see it, Mario loves fishing for grabs because the risk/reward is usually in his favour and he has the mobility to get them consistently. But Peach is one of the hardest characters to get any kind of grabs on thanks to floats. She easily has one of the best anti-grab neutrals.

Didn't Zenyou beat up Samsora a couple months back? Not saying Peach doesn't have anti-grab neutral, that is true since Melee.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Speaking of which I think Peach beats Mario. Ally has lost to Samsora twice and SlayerZ. Now Anti, the other top Mario in NA has also lost to a Peach. The way I see it, Mario loves fishing for grabs because the risk/reward is usually in his favour and he has the mobility to get them consistently. But Peach is one of the hardest characters to get any kind of grabs on thanks to floats. She easily has one of the best anti-grab neutrals.

Anti didn't use Mario at all that set. He went sheik + cloud

 

[Funen1]

I'm going to say something that has urked me for a while.

Smash 4 players need to stop thinking matchups are super simple. In order to figure out who should win a matchup, other than hard, consistent data, players need to analyze every bit of each characters toolkit. How does one do better in the neutral? Who can kill earlier? Etc.

"Oh, well one character is projectile based and the other has a reflector so the reflecting character obviously wins"...this is wayyy too commonplace. Matchups are not that simple. I've talked to people in the Mewtwo sub forum about my matchup theories against certain zoners (villager, tink) and they shut me down saying I most suck to lose to them when I have a reflector.

Super silly. At least now there are some results backing up my thoughts.

tl;dr analyzing matchups requires you to actually analyze the two characters. A matchup is rarely super obvious.

This can't be stressed enough. You know this is a problem when even Ness mains go around parroting how the Rosa matchup is unwinnable just because of Gravitational Pull (never mind that dedicated Ness and Rosa players are likely the only ones you'll find who dare say the matchup is any closer than 7:3 Rosa's favor), rather than looking into what moves can knock Luma around and when or how to edgeguard properly in the matchup. Admittedly it's not something that really surprises me since this is hardly specific to Smash 4 or even fighting games in general (as in, not wanting to learn more about something to really understand it and instead just rushing to a conclusion at that moment), but yeah, like you said, people gotta recognize there's much more at work than what they know and be willing to reserve judgment until they do in fact learn all that stuff (the process of which also isn't quite that simple itself, but you get the idea).

 

[L9999]

This can't be stressed enough. You know this is a problem when even Ness mains go around parroting how the Rosa matchup is unwinnable just because of Gravitational Pull (never mind that dedicated Ness and Rosa players are likely the only ones you'll find who dare say the matchup is any closer than 7:3 Rosa's favor), rather than looking into what moves can knock Luma around and when or how to edgeguard properly in the matchup. Admittedly it's not something that really surprises me since this is hardly specific to Smash 4 or even fighting games in general (as in, not wanting to learn more about something to really understand it and instead just rushing to a conclusion at that moment), but yeah, like you said, people gotta recognize there's much more at work than what they know and be willing to reserve judgment until they do in fact learn all that stuff (the process of which also isn't quite that simple itself, but you get the idea).

That MU is overrated. It sucks, but there is hope of winning it. MASA and Taranito if I recall correctly have taken games from top Rosa players who are better than them, like Kirihara, and Gackt 2-0d Atelier, and that guy is very good. Meanwhile FOW tries useless Falco and Shaky...has he played since January? Guess which Ness players bother trying.

 

[my_T]

Didn't Zenyou beat up Samsora a couple months back? Not saying Peach doesn't have anti-grab neutral, that is true since Melee.

Zenyou has also lost to Slayerz on two separate occasions

Anti didn't use Mario at all that set. He went sheik + cloud

This is just speculation but ANTi usually pulls out his secondaries whenever he runs into marios tough match-ups. Going by results of Peach vs Mario I'm not surprised by his decision to go sheik + cloud

 

[Ninety]

Well, the Roy hype died and Marth got some incredible buffs.

TBH I've long felt that Marth's rise has outstripped his buffs. His were very meaningful, yeah, but not to the extent of the likes of Mewtwo. When Mr E and Pugwest and MK Leo started taking names with Marth people were still hung up on the low tier stigma they had with them.

 

[TDK]

So, with getting notable placemetns at a secondary, is it safe to say he's out of bottom tier?

Additionally, solo just got 33rd at Shine. Take from that what you will, but that's extremely impressive.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Honestly I feel like Marth was just super under rated before the buffs and was never really low tier. His buffs were more than just quality of life buffs, they basically cleansed him of the low tier status that he started out with just because he wasn't Brawl Marth

Now if only people realized Lucina got buffs too...

Anywho, we have Esam in top 8 for the first time in a while. What happens if he wins though? Are we going to glorify Pikachu for having a player that can live up to the impossible standards theory has set for him and his players or are we going to still call him an overrated rat?

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I second it being overrated, it's still horrible and your honestly better off using a secondary in my opinion but I'm coming to find that Yo-Yo makes Rosalina recovering hell like she makes Ness trying to recover. It would be great to see some more recent high level Ness' play this MU more.

 

[Pazx]

OZHADOU NATIONALS TOP 8 FEATURING WAVEGUIDER, LUCO, GHOSTBONE, EXTRA IS STARTING RIIIIIIGHT NOW

COME WATCH

https://www.twitch.tv/sydneysmash

ALSO READ ABOUT IT HERE:

hey GANG i've been at work all day but i'm glad to see Luco has held down the fort (in more ways than one, WINNERS SEMIS AT THE BIGGEST SYDNEY TOURNAMENT EVER? POGCHAMP)

Top 8 Singles at OzHadou Nationals 14 (Sydney, Australia) starts at 6pm AEST (4am ET, 1am PT, 8am GMT i think). That is in roughly 10 minutes time.

>WATCH HERE<


Winners side:
Waveguider vs Extra
Revax vs Luco

Losers side:
Saucydancer vs Duon
Boozer vs Ghostbone

ELIMINATED:
9th Ignis
9th Seymour Butts
9th Quen
9th Scott

13th Linoone
13th Kira
13th Jdizzle
13th Vasi

17th Boundaries (DQ)
17th Orion
17th Scabe
17th Con
17th Joe
17th Nothing
17th MM
17th Andre

25th Killy (DQ)
25th Enny
25th cmk
25th Kristoph
25th Shaya
25th Jaice
25th Trojans
25th Jeese

Some secondaries possibly not accounted for.

TUNE IN.

edit: btw it's all 3 stock bo5 and the first seed is starting top 8 in losers so this might take awhile, if you're EU/NA tune in whenever you wake up

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Ha, you should see my MU spread for Falco. Makes Charizard, Robin, Samus, and Zelda look like Melee top tiers with their recently posted MU spreads.

I mean ...

Charizard has a great jab, can kill out of his awesome grab, has a dthrow -> fair combo, is as heavy as a bus full of fat people and has aerials that can outrange Cloud's. He has a way to consistently gimp Fox - Flamethrower beats side B and forces Fox to recover with upB, which Zard can dair him out of - and has shown himself to do well enough against Mewtwo and Cloud at the very least.

Robin has a projectile that confirms into grab which in turns confirms into a kill at stupid percentages. That makes for a LOT of how awful a character Robin actually is all-around. A kill confirm is pretty much the single most important things to have in a game where you aim to kill your opponent. It's the same reason why an all-around ****ty character like DK can still perform well.

What does Falco have going for him that comes even close to that? I can't think of any truly redeeming traits that Falco has to offer. If his matchup spread was really worse than Zard's or Robin's I wouldn't be surprised in the least and the fact that Zero puts the character a whole tier above Little Mac, Link and Samus just confirms to me that his opinions are not to be taken serious.

 

[Nobie]

I think sometimes people look at Falco and just assume that because he has all these issues, it must mean everything about him is bad. Going back to the discussion of Falco vs. Bayonetta, it was stated that Falco has none of the qualities that Bayonetta dislikes, but that's not true. He has a good grab combo game, and he has kill throws (though they're pretty middle of the road as far as those go).

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

So a game and watch main named extra won an Aussie national. Beat ghost 3-2 in grand finals and 3-0 waveguider.

He's got a case for the best in Australia

 

[Pazx]

OzHadou Nationals 14 (Aussie national) results quoted below.

I think I saw someone mention recently there's a trick to avoiding G&W's toot toot ever killing, would anyone care to share it with literally the entirety of Australia? Anyway, this character is still underrated, pocket Cloud is still good, greninja sux, perhaps surprisingly good performances from Australia's Mewtwo's. Feel free to discuss in the Summer of Smash thread :]

POCKET CLOUD

FULL OHN RESULTS (some chars may be wrong I GUESS)

140 entrants, bracket HERE: https://smash.gg/tournament/ozhadou-nationals-14/brackets/16213/62753/202779

1. Extra (primarily gdubs)
2. NVO | Ghost ()
3. Luco (equal usage)
4. Revax
5. NVO | Waveguider ()
5. Saucydancer
7. Duon
7. Boozer

9th Ignis
9th Seymour Butts
9th Quen
9th Scott

13th Linoone
13th Kira
13th Jdizzle
13th Vasi

17th Boundaries (DQ)
17th Orion
17th Scabe
17th Con
17th Joe
17th Nothing
17th MM
17th Andre

25th Killy (DQ)
25th Enny
25th cmk
25th Kristoph
25th Shaya
25th Jaice
25th Trojans
25th Jeese

LIVIN LA VIDA @Luco

 

[Nairo]

Any character that excells at the transition between neutral and advantaged state fits Nairo's playstyle well ... ZSS, Fox, Bayonetta, Mewtwo ... the problem is that Fox actually has a disadvantaged state, something Nairo - having played MK in Brawl and ZSS in smash 4 - may not be quite used to. I don't think he'll use Fox for more than a secondary.

Late but did you imply that ZSS doesn't have any disadvantaged state(s) here? Wat!

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Late but did you imply that ZSS doesn't have any disadvantaged state(s) here? Wat!

I meant to say she has very good tools to avoid being abused when she's in a disadvantaged position, especially against juggles. Good aerial mobility, down B to escape all sorts of traps and a very good recovery. Her disadvantaged state is one of the best ones in the game I'd say.

 

[Trunks159]

Late but did you imply that ZSS doesn't have any disadvantaged state(s) here? Wat!

Is that such a strange thing to say?

 

[FamilyTeam]

Now if only people realized Lucina got buffs too...

Look at this place.
Some people here haven't even gotten over the fact they have the same range, do you expect people to notice she was buffed? Too much information to process, eh.
Then you have people such as ESAM that are really helping:

People in the community I hate talking to the most

-Lucina players
-Mii players

— ESAM (Stride Esports) (@imESAM) August 22, 2016

The stigma Lucina has is astounding.

 

[Zionaze]

Btw AC who i personally believe is the best falco won the 2ggt Breakthrough saga out of 432 players with Falco and Marth

His grandfinals match with falco made me want to vomit