Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Lord Dio]

I just now realized the prediction for C1 is Komo vs Darkshad. Now that's going to be a very interesting fight.
If IceNinja can get the upsset over MVd....IceNinja vs Nairo would be awesome, I've seen Nairo do a Palu ditto on his stream but as far as I'm aware that's it...probably wrong in that regard, but it would definitely be worth watching.

 

[Emblem Lord]

He probably thought he was the best in theory and honestly a lot of stuff around him was that.

Not even the theory lines up.

It takes all of 5 minutes of playing with Ryu to realize how much his mobility holds him back.

Then 10 more minutes to realize he has no way of making the good characters do anything that they do not want to do.

 

[Das Koopa]

the floor fell out from under yoshi

13.5 points after nearly 2 months

 

[Fenny]

the floor fell out from under yoshi

13.5 points after nearly 2 months

Yoshi had a floor to begin with?

 

[Das Koopa]

he had the same "perceived upper tier" floor, like how Kirby has a perceived "mid tier/low mid tier floor" despite similarly being barren in accomplishments

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Spoiler: B.E.A.S.T. 7 (February 17th-19th) (Sweden) (304 Entrants) (Category 3)

1st:

eLevate | Mr. R ,
2nd:

pM | Cyve ,
3rd:

M
4th:

iStudying
5th:

BYOC | S1
5th:

DAT | KillerJawz
7th:

El_Pitika ,
7th:

Aperture
9th:

J. Miller
9th:

Glutonny
9th:

Robo~Luigi
9th:

Meru
13th:

Sim-Max ,
13th:

ZartZu
13th:

LoNg0uw
13th:

El_Bardo ,

Spoiler: Mega Smash Mondays 85 (February 13th) (Southern California) (105 Entrants) (Category 2)

1st: 6WX
2nd: NiTe
3rd: Charliedaking
4th: Eon
5th: Tweek
5th: tyroy
7th: Tyrant
7th: komorikiri ,

Sorry for being nitpicky but why is the more stacked tournament getting placed in the lower category? Does the number of entrants really make *that* much of a difference here?

 

[Trunks159]

Sorry for being nitpicky but why is the more stacked tournament getting placed in the lower category? Does the number of entrants really make *that* much of a difference here?

A difference of 200 entrants is pretty significant.

Also, Beast, while we can't tell because we don't watch a ton of European stuff, I'd guess Beast was at least as stacked as MSM.

 

[Deleted member]

Das Koopa

Xmas also used Shulk at Gator Gaming Winter Party.

 

[Luigi player]

I'd guess one of the reasons would be Tweek and Komo using secondaries.

Btw, MSM 86 was pretty hype lol.

MSM 86 (121 entrants?)
1. Zenyou
2. Elegant
3. MrConCon
4. IC
5. Charliedaking
5. Tyrant
7. Aarvark
7. AC
9. Nicko ?
9. K9 ?
9. Razo
9. NCJacobT ?
...
17. Rich Brown ??

I'm really wondering what Rich Brown is doing lately. Is he really just going Olimar?
The ones with "?"s I haven't seen on stream enough to know what characters they used, but those are the characters they normally use.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I'd guess one of the reasons would be Tweek and Komo using secondaries.

Btw, MSM 86 was pretty hype lol.

MSM 86 (121 entrants?)
1. Zenyou
2. Elegant
3. MrConCon
4. IC
5. Charliedaking
5. Tyrant
7. Aarvark
7. AC
9. Nicko ?
9. K9 ?
9. Razo
9. NCJacobT ?
...
17. Rich Brown ??

I'm really wondering what Rich Brown is doing lately. Is he really just going Olimar?
The ones with "?"s I haven't seen on stream enough to know what characters they used, but those are the characters they normally use.

Nicko went all shulk and I'm pretty sure rich went mewtwo

 

[blackghost]

Interesting Matchups from Frostbite 2017 pools (Brackets not up yet, just pools, this is my best guess):

D3: Salem probably makes it out easily,)

I don't know about that. Salem hasn't been placing as well recently. We will see.
Aread there any Luigi players going to frostbite? That character is rising fast in mind at least.

 

[|RK|]

Sorry for being nitpicky but why is the more stacked tournament getting placed in the lower category? Does the number of entrants really make *that* much of a difference here?

I agree with this. And to add to that, I think it should always be skill level above entrant count. For one, an added 200 people = one or two extra low level matches for a top player. For the other, what would we do for the 2GGC Championship? That will have a low entrant count by default, but it'll probably be one of the strongest tournaments of the year. What if we had a Summit?

Entrant count is a poor way to judge tournament strength, IMO.

...But I digress, since I'd also never count a weekly like that. Many top players only go to them to practice and try out secondaries, so it makes sense to count them as lesser or not at all.

 

[Fenny]

I don't know about that. Salem hasn't been placing as well recently. We will see.
Aread there any Luigi players going to frostbite? That character is rising fast in mind at least.

HIs bracket tends to be harder than average

Like for Genesis. He was sent to losers by Elegant who's borked against Bayo, then lost to ZeRo 3-2. He'll defo make it out because he's proven that Rayquaza is free for him.

 

[Jaguar360]

Im honestly very curious about Some and how well he might do against zero. i can see him pulling it off.

Some hates fighting Diddy and the person he struggles to beat most in Japan is probably Nietono. :/ On the bright side, ZeRo hasn't fought a noteworthy Greninja in bracket since Stroder/Strozai took a game off him back in May at Mexico Saga and from his latest video, it seems that his Greninja knowledge is a little lacking, so it's possible. I'm not expecting an upset here though. If Some beats Icymist, I'm confident that he can top 32, though top 16 is a bit hard to see since he'll likely have to beat Kameme, Zinoto or MKLeo to do so in that timeline.

If he loses to Icymist, top 32's less likely since he'll likely have to fight Rayquaza and he doesn't like the Rosa matchup much, but I still think he's the slight favorite for that match. If he does manage to do it however, he has an easier path to top 16, having to fight probably the winner of Darkshad/Blacktwins to get 17th and one of Abadango (who he beat last time they played)/Mr. E (Greninja does well against Marth)/Captain Zack (tossup)/Kirihara (really bad matchup for Some).

 

[Illuminose]

I don't know about that. Salem hasn't been placing as well recently. We will see.
Aread there any Luigi players going to frostbite? That character is rising fast in mind at least.

- loses at Genesis to Elegant (who beats every Bayo) and ZeRo in a game 5, very close set
- loses at ZeRo Saga to Abadango and Dabuz
- loses at UGC to ESAM (who also beat Zack at the same tournament) and Kameme
- loses at Big House to Dabuz and Nairo

all other placements are 1st or 2nd place at stacked regionals with wins over top 10 players and more

salem has consistently shown that he only loses to players of a very high caliber. the chances of him losing to a player that is not absolute top level or ~top 30 with a matchup specialty is very low. he will not lose to rayquaza and he is not doing poorly, just running into difficult brackets (he just bopped pgr players with samus this weekend, lol). nairo didn't do bad at genesis - he lost to mr r and zero, what can you say. this is a game of brackets because there tends to be early upsets that significantly skew placements.

 

[TDK]

https://twitter.com/Kev2Puntos3/status/833756434173145089

So when do we ban Smashville? It's obviously an uncompetitive stage since there's an extremely rare glitch that causes people to fall through the stage, right? We should totally ban it!

 

[Dark_Ky]

sometimes I just cannot wrap my head around on how good the balance of this game is.

sure there are a few overtuned things (LCS, Luma etc.) and neglected lowtiers (Puff) that needed attention , but overall I couldnt have imagined it beeing this good coming from a developer, that never patched their games before.

I have played lots of FG and still do but I havent seen such competent observing, understanding and nerfing/buffing of their chars like Nintendo did with Smash 4 and with 58(!) chars on top of that. this deserves huge probs imo

while the SF community is losing their minds over Season 2, the Smash 4 communtiy has a very good game on their hands thx to this great balancing. I am very glad that Smash 4 is successful and hope it does even better in the future

 

[Luigi player]

I don't know about that. Salem hasn't been placing as well recently. We will see.
Aread there any Luigi players going to frostbite? That character is rising fast in mind at least.

Only LOE1 as a main I think. ZD sometimes uses Luigi too.
But yeah Luigi has been doing amazing lately. Even against his supposed "bad" MUs like Sheik. Last week I think Elegant beat Void again for example.

Makes it hard to say if his (top tier) bad MUs are even bad at all.

Imo Sheik was -1, while Bayo -1 or -2, and M2 also -1 or -2 (unsure for the last two). But it seems like Luigi could actually be okay against Bayonetta and people think it could be even. Lately I've been thinking Luigi vs M2 isn't as bad as first thought (once you get in on M2 you can really do work, but you need to read the airdodges and stuff. Mewtwo should have a hard time to land).
And Sheik might even be between 0 and -1.

Of course there are also the MUs people always said Luigi loses (though I don't think that's true but I don't have top lvl exp against them) like Megaman or Pacman.

Elegants MU chart might've not been as bad as some people thought (with only 6 losing MUs). When I made a MU chart for myself I also only had like 6 losing MUs (though different ones than Elegant).

It's great that Luigis potential is finally exposed really well in the US. He's likely on the rise on the tier list. I feel like it's possible for Luigi to be around 15th.

 

[sleepy_Nex]

Sorry for being nitpicky but why is the more stacked tournament getting placed in the lower category? Does the number of entrants really make *that* much of a difference here?

Just because there weren't any notable USA Players doesn't mean that the Tourney wasn't stacked. There were many Europiean top Players in attendance. Especially Cyve showed a really good performance at the tourney.
Beast was either Equally or more stacked than MSM as far as i see that.

And the entrance number should make a difference too btw. The more entrants the more possibility to make an error and not make it into Top16.
you have to fight more sets with more people attending.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I want to see Elegant or Concon not get washed by a ZeRo-style Sheik before making judgments about the MU being better than +2.

 

[Luigi player]

I want to see Elegant or Concon not get washed by a ZeRo-style Sheik before making judgments about the MU being better than +2.

I feel you. They still lose to Sheiks sometimes (Elegant against Trevonte at G4 or something?) and Zero kinda destroys. Luigis recovery is really bad and Bouncing Fish so great against it.

From my experience I also still feel it's a disadvantage and each hit Sheik gets is da bit devastating since she's easily putting you to the ledge and could kill from edgeguards whenever Luigi needs to use sideB or downB / lost his doublejump, but I don't think it can be ignored how well the Luigis are actually doing against Sheiks lately.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I feel you. They still lose to Sheiks sometimes (Elegant against Trevonte at G4 or something?) and Zero kinda destroys. Luigis recovery is really bad and Bouncing Fish so great against it.

From my experience I also still feel it's a disadvantage and each hit Sheik gets is da bit devastating since she's easily putting you to the ledge and could kill from edgeguards whenever Luigi needs to use sideB or downB / lost his doublejump, but I don't think it can be ignored how well the Luigis are actually doing against Sheiks lately.

No, yeah, I definitely agree with you. I've been seeing a lot of progress in the MU but it looks like some of the Sheiks still want to play their game instead of playing the matchup. ZeRo's the one that plays the matchup correctly, in my eyes.
k9 stubbornly refuses to needle and gets cyclone gimped/50% combo'd constantly.
VoiD spends too much time approaching, as he tries to force movement mixups that end up making him get tagged by stray hits or grabs.
ZeRo just.....camps. Makes the matchup look hopeless. Like Luigi has no real way to approach and should never be grabbing Sheik.

Edit: That being said, I don't remember ever seeing Mr. R playing a Luigi. Going to look for that soon after class.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Speaking of which, I can't remember the last time ZeRo has pulled Sheik out in such a large tournament.

 

[TDK]

Speaking of which, I can't remember the last time ZeRo has pulled Sheik out in such a large tournament.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT7Wh8hUJtM

 

[jet56]

https://twitter.com/Kev2Puntos3/status/833756434173145089

So when do we ban Smashville? It's obviously an uncompetitive stage since there's an extremely rare glitch that causes people to fall through the stage, right? We should totally ban it!

please don't tease me. I already have an amazing stage list for my character, if we banned smashville, i would actually die of joy. No but seriously, i get it. Its pretty dumb to get rid of stages based on very rare occurrences of a glitch happening on said stage.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Since it's "mid to late February" and the next version of the tier list is coming out in this time (and rip this thread as well ), are there any predictions for this new tier list?

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Since it's "mid to late February" and the next version of the tier list is coming out in this time (and rip this thread as well ;-, are there any predictions for this new tier list?

going up and going down are almost a given
(yes I know Ness and Ryu have gotten some fairly good results and wins near the end of 2016 and at the start of this year, but their overall performance from the entire year have been lackluster considering where they currently are on the latest list)

I predict may also rise up a bit as well

May be in danger of falling down to as well. Especially now with Dabuz dropping her

 

[Rizen]

Since it's "mid to late February" and the next version of the tier list is coming out in this time (and rip this thread as well ;-, are there any predictions for this new tier list?

Starting at the top and going down: up to top 3, to top tier, down to somewhere in high tier, to high tier, down a little to mid tier, up, up, stays about the same but is joined there by Bowser at the top of mid, up slightly, down to mid-mid tier, all down slightly due to the power creep of above characters now they're closer to the following bunch, up slightly climbing to the top of low tier or low mid tier, down maybe to low tier.

Edit, based off the current tier list.

 

[InfinitySoul]

Charizard should at least move from Bottom tier to last of low tier.

Because unlike the rest of bottom tier he showed himself worth on a few points

 

[Myollnir]

Since it's "mid to late February" and the next version of the tier list is coming out in this time (and rip this thread as well ), are there any predictions for this new tier list?

Up (at least +4) :

Up (slightly) :

Down (slightly) :

Down (at least -4) :

Obviously characters like Mario Fox etc will drop by -1 because of Bayonetta but I don't account for that.

 

[|RK|]

Kirby will probably break into bottom 10, and I won't even be upset. I believe he can be (much) higher than where he is, but no one has done anything with him since the last tier list.

 

[L9999]

Kirby will probably break into bottom 10, and I won't even be upset. I believe he can be (much) higher than where he is, but no one has done anything with him since the last tier list.

Since you are the Kirby source of this thread, do you know who mains him? People say MikeKirby but I have not heard a thing from him since the custom moves fiasco.

 

[Bowserboy3]

I don't see why will be going down by huge deals honestly, not when Locus and Trela have had their influence in the past couple of months. I think what these two have done over the past couple of months will be enough to keep Ryu stagnant. The only things that will cause Ryu to "drop" will be the rise of a few characters below him, namely (and potentially based on how the voters voted on her), and . If he drops into "high tier", so be it, but he's currently 9th, and I don't see why he deserves to drop, say, any lower than around 13th.

Whether or not it's right or wrong, that's what I feel.

I do feel like is going to get the short end of the stick, if just because people are going to ride off of "Dabuz has dropped Rosalina". I don't see any reason why Rosalina can't be top tier either. One of the lowest top tiers mind, certainly not 4th, but still top tier.

This is the main problem, in that we don't know how large the top tier will be. Between the first and second official tier lists, the top tier was expanded. Even the term "top tier" varies by top player too; some players consider merely 8 characters top tier, while others (ZeRo) consider 14 characters top tier.

I'm fine with calling around 12/13 characters top tier.

So in no order, I'd say these are the characters that could be realistically classed as a "top tier" character:


Of those, the only ones I would call even slightly debatable would be and , who would sit at the top of high tier respectively at worst.

And yes, I am from the belief, like ZeRo, that Lucina is fair enough to be ranked beside or at least extremely close to Marth. Though Marth is still theoretically the better character to invest time into, her lack of a tipper does not affect her ability or MU spread for the worse. Her MU spread is still virtually identical to Marth's.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

I am supremely doubtful of Lucina being top tier mainly due to her lacking results and strict inferiority. Assuming you have the "playing to win" mindset, what exactly compels you to pick this character over what it's an inferior clone of?

 

[MistressRemilia]

I don't see why will be going down by huge deals honestly, not when Locus and Trela have had their influence in the past couple of months. I think what these two have done over the past couple of months will be enough to keep Ryu stagnant. The only things that will cause Ryu to "drop" will be the rise of a few characters below him, namely (and potentially based on how the voters voted on her), and . If he drops into "high tier", so be it, but he's currently 9th, and I don't see why he deserves to drop, say, any lower than around 13th.

Whether or not it's right or wrong, that's what I feel.

I do feel like is going to get the short end of the stick, if just because people are going to ride off of "Dabuz has dropped Rosalina". I don't see any reason why Rosalina can't be top tier either. One of the lowest top tiers mind, certainly not 4th, but still top tier.

This is the main problem, in that we don't know how large the top tier will be. Between the first and second official tier lists, the top tier was expanded. Even the term "top tier" varies by top player too; some players consider merely 8 characters top tier, while others (ZeRo) consider 14 characters top tier.

I'm fine with calling around 12/13 characters top tier.

So in no order, I'd say these are the characters that could be realistically classed as a "top tier" character:


Of those, the only ones I would call even slightly debatable would be and , who would sit at the top of high tier respectively at worst.

And yes, I am from the belief, like ZeRo, that Lucina is fair enough to be ranked beside or at least extremely close to Marth. Though Marth is still theoretically the better character to invest time into, her lack of a tipper does not affect her ability or MU spread for the worse. Her MU spread is still virtually identical to Marth's.

It kind of doesn't help when your character has yet to be able to break into Top 8 of a major ( Good results from Trela & Locus yes, but not top tier results either , that'd be such a large overstatement ) and for good reasons:
I think it's been mentionned enough times but Ryu's matchup spread is a*s. This character's ways of breaking into the higher scales of a major is only by abusing most players' overextensive nature. Aside from that, the character is usually losing to most top tier he's facing, as well as being the character with by far the hugest upset potential out there, when most high tiers & zoners hapen to have an even matchup at the very least. It's very clear that Ryu's future will only worsen over time, as people adapt to the many characters of this game: Ryu isn't exactly an hard character to figure out, but the choking factor that comes from his clutch factor is quite big. For the time being, Ryu may or may not be able to clutch out some fights ( Not all of them even, the character still sucks against Rosalina, against Diddy, against the better zoners a la Villager & Megaman, and so on ) , but i'm almost certain the Top side of players will sooner or later adapt to this character & his limiations.

So yeah, Tl;Dr, I do not see how Ryu should be featured anywhere near The Top 11/12 characters of this game. ( Clones & Miis should be unranked entirely imo, even Doc. The amount of people who can share their opinion rightfully about the character is way too small for them to be featured in any list )

 

[NairWizard]

I am supremely doubtful of Lucina being top tier mainly due to her lacking results and strict inferiority. Assuming you have the "playing to win" mindset, what exactly compels you to pick this character over what it's an inferior clone of?

This isn't how tiering works. Marth being top tier and also better than Lucina has no bearing on whether or not Lucina is top tier or indeed better than any other character herself.


"Marth is better than Falcon,
and Marth is better than Lucina,
therefore Falcon is better than Lucina"

is just straight up bad logic.

 

[Illuminose]

i really don't think zss is as great as people claim, simply if we look at the character's matchups. most importantly zss loses to the top 4 characters in the game solidly, those being some combination of bayonetta, cloud, diddy kong, and sheik.

is noted for controlling the neutral against zss, punishing her unsafe commitments and making it difficult to play neutral with forward air stuffing typical jump approaches from zss. it's typically difficult for zss to approach and find kills as well without exposing herself to kill options like up tilt and banana by nature, forcing zss to play a careful battle of attrition in certain scenarios that rarely works in her favor because she doesn't have the neutral game to do so. granted. if zss can outspace diddy and work in her punishes, especially edgeguard, she can succeed, but this is very difficult to do against a character that can easily stuff all of those options. this matchup is typically seen as the absolute worst one for zss to play, even causing nairo to pick different characters in recent scenarios. there have been glimmers of hope with marss beating zinoto and a game 5 set of zero vs nairo at genesis, but i still 40-60 (-2) is a fair judgment here.

is another character that controls neutral against zss. when you look at the past, nairo has truly gotten away with murder against sheik. in his last encounters against mr r and void, we saw the severity of this matchup take form, the overwhelming neutral of sheik and punishes for making mistakes creating huge difficulty for zss in getting anything started. although this is a matchup where zss can definitely cheese her way through in some cases, the issue is that starting anything to get there is so hard to the point where you cannot consistently win based on earlier kills and punishes. 40-60 (-2)

is a newer character to be talked about for bad matchups that zss has, but it really shouldn't be too surprising. the example of the matchup that probably sticks in the heads of some people is nairo vs salem from big house, which simply was not a good representation of the matchup. zss can destroy any character if they air dodge into a grab on the platform repeatedly - that doesn't really mean anything. in terms of results, we can look at the dominating win salem had over nairo in their last encounter and his overall positive record between their encounters (2-1). captain zack also beat marss at genesis as another example, and though he did lose to nairo at ugc i would simply argue that nairo is a better player that zack. the other relevant example of this matchup is in japan where 9b recently took 2 sets from choco in 2 separate tournaments (choco hasn't played any other top bayo, same with 9b for zss). the issue here is that bayo actually has a better punish game than bayo, which is difficult to deal with because the entire idea of zss is that she loses neutral but outpunishes her opponent. in this matchup, zss both loses neutral and has a worse punish game, and can't really edgeguard bayonetta. her approaches can literally be punished by death and she's vulnerable to witch time because her grab is so bad and she relies a lot on aerials in neutral. this matchup is at least -1 if not -2 as well, a sentiment i have seen floating around in general.

zero suit used to be one of those characters that did great against cloud. for the longest time, nairo just didn't lose to cloud. then, toward the latter half of 2016, a dramatic shift occurred. tweek started beating nairo and marss with cloud, forcing the nairo switch to bowser. leo started beating marss with cloud. komo beat nairo with cloud. and as the narrative of this matchup at top level play changed, people began to realize that theory of this matchup was being put into action, and now the common opinion is that zss loses this matchup. while zss can get early kills sometimes, cloud can get consistent early kills. cloud can even outspace zss aerials with his massive, safe aerials, aerials that she has trouble getting around and punishing. cloud wins neutral by a decent amount and can consistently secure stocks at either early or at least reasonable percents. this is another at least -1 matchup.

this doesn't even cover other matchups zss has been demonstrated to lose or is generally considered to have slight losses in, primarily including ,, , and . it should also be noted that zss beats no top tier characters. loses to the top 4 characters and at least one other top 10 character, as well as 3 other characters that fit within the top 15/20. just for ease of making my point, zss beats maybe 1-2 characters in the top/high tiers of the tier list in the op of this thread. the only relevant characters she dominates these days are heavies. you can't make nebulous theoretical statements about how zss must be top 10 because of her busted down b, because it doesn't matter what your 'busted' traits are when you don't have the matchup spread to back that up. i could easily see not just bayo/sheik/cloud/diddy/sonic/mewtwo/fox/mario/marth/lucina/rosa (not in order) above zss, but also characters like corrin, pikachu, and meta knight, which have easily defensible matchup spreads that are simply better than what zss offers. zss doesn't have the neutral game to compete with some of these top characters, nor to dominate much of the cast, and isn't even more consistent with her "jank" given what other top tiers have developed at this point. zss is not what she used to be and claiming so at this point is ignorant of the point to which her matchups and the metagame as a whole have evolved.

 

[my_T]

it should also be noted that zss beats no top tier characters

she beats mario

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ryu does not beat ZSS. Please cut this **** out guys.

 

[Das Koopa]

https://www.twitch.tv/teamdxcx

http://challonge.com/GGSW21

Pre-Frostbite weekly ft. Japan shredding everybody. Will be used.

I'll talk more about the categorization of stuff in a bit. I have plans (tm)