Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[NairWizard]

Bowser is so good. His world-ending pivot grab wrecks grapplers really hard, his huge limbs give swordies trouble, and his reward means that losing in neutral to small characters and zoners really doesn't matter at all. He's quite well-rounded as a character, unlike any of the other heavyweights.

The only matchups I wouldn't bring Bowser to are Sonic and ZSS, but I'd comfortably bring him to any other.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

I'd rather not go Bowser against DH or TL but that's just me

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Bayonetta seems like a matchup that I'd avoid as Bowser. Possibly Diddy Kong as well though I don't think that's a matchup we've ever actually seen played out.

 

[Fenny]

Bayonetta seems like a matchup that I'd avoid as Bowser. Possibly Diddy Kong as well though I don't think that's a matchup we've ever actually seen played out.

Bayo death combos him virtually for free but Bowser getting so much stuff off of grabs hurts a hell of a lot.

Bayo wins but it's definitely winnable for Bowser.

 

[NairWizard]

These guys don't seem bad for Bowser. They keep him out pretty hard, but they're small and have limited range on their normals. Once Bowser gets reasonably close the game's in his favor, he can wrack up a ton of damage on them with tilts and grabs.



Nairo's Bowser took the set against Zinoto's Diddy but lost to ZeRo's Diddy pretty hard. I remember LordMix saying that Bowser was +1 vs. Diddy. We all dismissed his opinion, but it might be an even matchup going off the sets. Bowser doesn't really get wrecked hard in disadvantage against Diddy, and his pivot grabs are pretty useful against Diddy's dash movement and reliance on shield.



True, this was an oversight. Probably a solid loss for him, but given the fact that Bowser's #1 damage tool (his grab) is immune to Witch Time, he can probably piece something together. Tons of characters I'd rather use against her though, over Bowser.

It also seems I forgot . Despite LordMix beating Vinnie, the matchup looks pretty bad in theory. How does Bowser land?

 

[Minordeth]

How does anyone land against Rosa, given that they aren't Sheik? The answer is carefully.

But really, Bowser's purported inability to land seems a bit overblown. He doesn't have anything foolproof, but he can mix up his landings through AC Koopa Klaw, Dair, Bowser Bomb, and retreating to the ledge.

Bayo seems like a bummer MU for him, but she is light, and his throw combos hit hard. His boxing game is also pretty solid. I'd rather not play the MU, but if your footsies/boxing game is good, and your grab game is solid, you could probably make it doable.

Speaking of his boxing, it's one of the main aspects that Nairo's Bowser neglects that could help it out a bit as other top players figure it out. Lord Mix is much better at using the whole kit, and it helps him out against players that are a step above him, like M2K and Ally.

 

[Goombo]

Another character that gives Bowser serious trouble is Robin.

Bowser is one of the few characters that doesn't have a good answer to arcfire in neutral let alone arcfire at the ledge.
Robin outzones and outspaces him easily and can pressure him prettty risk free with fairs diagonal upwards reaching hitbox in disadvantage.
Add Bowsers general weaknesses like his giant hurtbox which lets double/triple aerial combos work much longer than against average sized characters plus the fact that one nair offstage usually means death for Bowser and you have a pretty onesided looking matchup.

 

[FeelMeUp]

We clearly had no idea how this game worked back then. Merry Christmas TDK .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htXu0uUwQTo
FeelMeUp I was watching this casually and since I once heard Sheik could steamroll over Ryu...Is this Mr R being himself or something else? Ryu after all has the 55% clutch button.

Sheik steamrolling Ryu is definitely false.
Mr. R finally fixed his issues with never using needles or running away, which he did perfectly. But the problem is that he is still the worst top ~10 player at killing by far.
He has to deal with Rage more than any other player, meaning his mental fortitude is called into questioned unhealthily often. Missed a good deal of kill opportunities, made a few tech errors, dropped some edgeguards, and didn't choose the best stages. Against Ryu that's all it really takes to lose.
MU is still 55:45 Sheik favour, though, because Ryu has no realistic answer for catching Sheik on the bigger stages until she messes up(saw this in the FD game). +2 needles and BF make her have to deal with a lot less dumb Ryu stuff than 95% of the cast does.

 

[chaos11011]

Damn. I'd like to congratulate You3 for not only getting 5th, but beating two Clouds who were seeded above him to get there, back to back. That match up is notoriously difficult. I force myself to play Sheik whenever I see one.

 

[verbatim]

Were either on stream?

 

[Bobalicious]

I think we should discuss Zelda. Although she is currently 3rd lowest, she has more results than her whole tier and some low tiers. She's been actually doing well in tournaments. Recently Purple Guy beat 8BitMan only using his Zelda. A Japanese Zelda, Onpu, even got Top 8 in a Japanese regional, Karisuma 11 which is a pretty big change. Ven and Fairess still gain results as well, especially Ven who beat Zenyou at Zero Saga. So what are your thoughts?

 

[The-Technique]

I always found Zelda to be underrated. One thing people tend to forget is that being bottom tier doesn't mean being unplayable garbage like in previous smash games.

Most of her normals have decent-ish frame data, but more importantly she's almost on Mario's league in terms of the reward she gets from landing even a single move, except Zelda has a lot more moves to kill with. If Zelda had meatier hit boxes on her moves and maybe a reworked f-air (give her a decent mid-range poke, please Sakurai) she'd be a solid mid tier.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Zelda is like my four most used character and I've always thought a lot higher of her than most. She is by no means a good character or even decent but she's not bottom tier trash. I personally think she's bottom 10 rather than bottom 3 as she is now.

She's got explosive kill power, down throw-up air kills Fox at like 75 or something absurd like that. That whole combo can be DI'd out of but Zelda can react and catch them with frame perfect movements. Of course her Fair and Bair are super strong but they are really hard to land without using D-tilt before hand and once Zelda and the opponent get high rage it's useless. Speaking of she has great tilts, up tilt combo extends off low percent down throw-nair. Ftlit kills, has decent range and I believe you can actually jab lock with it if you angle is downwards tho I've never gotten it so correct me if I'm wrong. D-tilt is a great poke and combo starter. Her Dair is also surprisingly great it's hitbox is a good size, even if you don't sweetspot You still put the foe in a really bad position right below you often allowing you to just Dair them again.

Her Down Special is also a fantastic move, its ledge and edge guard capabilities are great and if she could just charge and store the move she'd probably already be up a tier now. Her neutral special while punishable is a great get off me tool that makes jumping in on Zelda risky and over extension of combos a bad idea if they aren't true/frame tight. Up B is another reason why you should never jump in on Zelda with its absurd knockback but you can DI out of the second hit (which can be read so be careful) Side B is just plain bad tho sakurai pls

The main things holding her back is a lack of a spacing/approaching aerial (Nair isn't that great at approach since it's hit boxes are rather high and only in front of her hands as she spins until the last frame), her really poor mobility (Ledge canceled Up B's are rather risky and stage dependent but are really good at helping her maneuver if your good with it) overal lack of a neutral game and rage, rage can really screw her over as it messes with most of kill confirms making them much harder if not impossible to land if your able to survive into higher percentage against Zelda or she's at a really high percentage she's gonna have a harder timing killing you.

Overall if I think any Bottom tier will get out of Bottom tier first it's Zelda. Sorry for all the random thoughts spewed everywhere I enjoy talking about the character lol.

 

[TDK]

https://twitter.com/2GGaming/status/813101074852610048

https://twitter.com/ImTLTC/status/812988688380690433

TLTC hasn't dropped Palu yet, but he will be bringing a secondary.

 

[blackghost]

bowser bayo is a lot closer than many people think same with bayo dk. she is very vulnerable to grab combos and even when those stop beong true with her airdodge so horrific she cant easily get out. also witch time isnt much oc a yhreat off a ground combo becsuse its beat to risk witch time when jumping at a bayo in the air.
im pretty sure bayo dies to bowser and dk throw combos at roughly 75 percent depending on the stage. thats very doable.

 

[Fenny]

Bowser has an easier time with Bayo than DK easily imo. Bowser just has better buttons overall - command grab, neutral B can help halt Heel Slide, his Up B comes out quicker on the ground than DK's iirc and of course has his grab conversions for damage racking and kill confirming. Also find him ever so slightly harder to gimp and if you don't combo convert kills on him then he'll literally never die, and max rage Bowser kills Bayo hilariously early.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

DK gets ****ing destroyed by Bayonetta, Bowser at least has a chance

 

[Deleted member]

Accidental post. Please delete.

Zelda could definitely rise up some. I don't know her combos (or hell, most of anyone's combos), but I've seen what's been done with her occasionally, and she is too good for bottom tier, maybe somewhere in low tier.

Also, DK's weaknesses are being exaggerated again. DK vs. Bayo isn't hopeless for DK. UpB has small super armor frames on startup, so it cancels Heel Slide IIRC.

EDIT: That last post was an accident and I can't delete it.

 

[TDK]

For what it's worth, Salem nearly lost in pools to an Olimar/DK at TBH6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghny9xco4iI

 

[ぱみゅ]

Zelda may rise if Stepdash makes her Dthrow>Uair guaranteed (it currently is usually not).
If it doesn't, she'll still have a horrible neutral, horrible disadvantage and horrible grab to get her out of the bottom tier.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

TDK That wasn't a near loss, Salem **** on Krow in game 1 and 3

Zelda may rise if Stepdash makes her Dthrow>Uair guaranteed (it currently is usually not).
If it doesn't, she'll still have a horrible neutral, horrible disadvantage and horrible grab to get her out of the bottom tier.

I can't wait for stepdashing to get used more, the 20MK dream could become a reality

 

[TDK]

Link can step dash into a Bombslide to Link (hehe) Bomb to Forward Smash on light fastfallers from halfway across the stage.

 

[Ethan7]

Everything is in order except S tier

These are getting harder to make each time

Please keep in mind that this is my opinion! pic.twitter.com/9UPZYk580C

— BKROG | Ramin (@Mr_RSmash) December 25, 2016

Mr. R made a tier list. Very interesting seeing at 12th place after NairWizard saying his opinions on him.

 

[Nah]

Very interesting seeing at 12th place after NairWizard saying his opinions on him.

eh not really

after Nairo's performance with Bowser its the usual **** where everyone is suddenly saying that a character is actually high tier

later that'll all die down probably

the more truly curious thing is Doc and Pac being placed lower than Ganondorf and Zelda, and Ike lower than Bowser Jr

 

[Deleted member]

Another day, another tier list by a top player with highly controversial opinions. Pass.

I'll say that Bowser is definitely better than DK at this point though.

 

[blackghost]

wait so bowser is better than ryu, villager, pikachu corrin and METAKNIGHT lol. im done.
im also starting to look at the bayo universally top 3 argument now. when she avarages a placement outside top 8 the results dont match the theory craft.

 

[bc1910]

Everything is in order except S tier

These are getting harder to make each time

Please keep in mind that this is my opinion! pic.twitter.com/9UPZYk580C

— BKROG | Ramin (@Mr_RSmash) December 25, 2016

Mr. R made a tier list. Very interesting seeing at 12th place after NairWizard saying his opinions on him.

Top player does well with a mid-tier and people jump on the top 15 bandwagon.

Snore.

At least he got the top 11 right.

 

[Peppermint1201]

Top player does well with a mid-tier and people jump on the top 15 bandwagon.

Snore.

At least he got the top 11 right.

Tell me about it. I refuse to believe a character with worse aerials than Mac in disadvantage is better than Villager or Ryu or Pikachu.

 

[Y2Kay]

I don't know how Bowser is a whole tier better than Megaman, Greninja, and Metaknight but okay Ramin.

 

[Deleted member]

Bowser is overrated according to that list. As much as I support and defend the super heavies, Bowser is not top 15. Stop with the character exaggerations.

 

[L9999]

Everything is in order except S tier

These are getting harder to make each time

Please keep in mind that this is my opinion! pic.twitter.com/9UPZYk580C

— BKROG | Ramin (@Mr_RSmash) December 25, 2016

Mr. R made a tier list. Very interesting seeing at 12th place after NairWizard saying his opinions on him.

While everyone here is too busy with the Bowser hype, I read through the comment section in which Mr R explained some placings:
"Pac-Man has no grab"
"Ike hasn't done anything in a long time"
"Tweek Jr is too good"
"But the tipper" for you know who.
"Roy is underrated"

For what I am concerned, the top 11 is alright (and I kid you not, some people are still stuck in mid tier Marth era). I think Mr R. is underrating Meta Knight and overrating Lucario's clutch factor. Ike and Pac-Man have fallen a bit but not to be along trash like DDD or Ganon. Robin IMO is worthy of C tier more than unsuccessful stumps like Yoshi.

I don't know how Bowser is a whole tier better than Megaman, Greninja, and Metaknight but okay Ramin.

He explained to some random that Bowser could employ Up Throw Bair in the future to trivialize MUs. I personally think it is silly, especially since we are talking about Bowser, but opinions are opinions.

 

[Deleted member]

When did Yoshi fall from "great" to "unsuccessful"? Please explain.

 

[L9999]

When did Yoshi fall from "great" to "unsuccessful"? Please explain.

Yoshi players almost never beat anyone worth mentioning. In big tournaments they get picked off early. This creates an effect in which no one cares about Yoshi. Yoshi also suffers from being shut down by a shielding opponent, as his command grab was nerfed in 3DS and his grab being mostly lame. Yoshi's kill options are not great either, so you can survive for a while until you mess up nearby. His Cloud MU is bleach.

 

[blackghost]

not sure yoshi was ever great. yoshi is an anomaly. his frame data is absurdly good but he never demonstrated sucess within the meta. im no yoshi expert but it looks like that looking in

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Honestly, is there any point of bringing up Top players personal tier list here when 90% of the responses are complaints about certain characters placings rather than productive discussion?

 

[SaltyKracka]

Honestly, is there any point of bringing up Top players personal tier list here when 90% of the responses are complaints about certain characters placings rather than productive discussion?

There's not much productive to discuss about stupid tier lists.

It's why I would support them being a red topic.

 

[L9999]

not sure yoshi was ever great. yoshi is an anomaly. his frame data is absurdly good but he never demonstrated sucess within the meta. im no yoshi expert but it looks like that looking in

Yoshi was overhyped since fighting him in 3DS online was (and still is) a pain in the arse, and he got some nerfs for that.

Honestly, is there any point of bringing up Top players personal tier list here when 90% of the responses are complaints about certain characters placings rather than productive discussion?

It is an insight on the competitive impressions of the people that build the metagame. No one is omniscient to know every placing just because, so we should be more respectful of their sillier opinions since they might not know. When they exagerate like the Bowser hype we have the right to criticize it, and thanks to Twitter we can have some* communication. All that builds what the Smash 4 community thinks of the metagame. Another thing to consider is that the official tier lists IIRC are an averaging of personal tier lists made by the voters in question, so this "terrible anathemas that waste our time" play part on the official tier list we end up criticizing.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Oof not saying anything because I was at a place with no wi-fi so couldn't get on, besides which this list is completely out of my league. Pass.

 

[Vyrnx]

A thing I've been noticing, there's a lot of talk about the Japanese scene and its lack of consistency, but two things are very consistent:

-Shuton has only not gotten top 4 at three tournaments ever.
-And has maintained a fairly high level of results in Japan throughout all of 2016.

A couple takeaways from this--a couple months ago, there were some posts about how the sudden burst of Olimar results would die down--but in fact there was no sudden burst of Olimar results (Shuton has been one of the most consistent Japanese player in 2016), all that people were noticing was the increased usage of the character by Dabuz. And also what we all knew, that the non Japanese meta for Duck Hunt is still severely lagging. We tend to get to his recovery issue in discussions and stop there. My biggest question mark with DH is that he doesn't have a particular power player who always places well. He just has three good players who are individually inconsistent but add up to a lot of top eights for the character. Taiheita, other than the tournament yesterday, also has overall consistently good results.

Outside of a few things, I find Mr. R's tier list very agreeable. His placement of Roy in particular, as I also feel the character is underrated. His placements of Ike, Samus, and Shulk are things I can get behind as well.

 

[Rizen]

not sure yoshi was ever great. yoshi is an anomaly. his frame data is absurdly good but he never demonstrated sucess within the meta. im no yoshi expert but it looks like that looking in

would be scary if he had better hitbubbles. Marcina got huge buffs on arching slashes and Pit was left with the short end of the sword.

What is 's big weakness(es) that keeps him from succeeding? I feel like he's in the same boat as the Pits; pretty good but gets overshadowed by high tiers who have crazy things going for them.

This is my take on him.

Also poor , bottom 3 on Mr.R's list.



What do you guys think about ? I never hear much about him. Who are his top players?