Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[HoSmash4]

Ixis vs Sodrek at syndicate, 1-1 vs his fox, 1-0 vs his cloud in games

 

[DunnoBro]

Sonic vs Ganon is saved by the fact that Flame choke is really good vs Sonic because D-tilt follow up, good air choke follow ups plus a mediocre tech roll, it's still a very bad MU but not his worst.
If anything Ganon vs Bayonetta is up there, it's not Brawl tier unwinnable like prenerfs but it's still a huge struggle & it's easily his worst MU imo.

I'd definitely put Bayo v Ganon as worst in the game.

Despite perhaps having an overall better recovery, ganon's actually easier to edgeguard than mac's for her due to no hitbox recoveries and worse neutral/hurtbox.

She can just nair, witch twitst, dair... He can try trading with a falling uair/fair but at lower percents for her she can still cover him, and at higher percents for him he just dies.. Never seen his moves just beat hers consistently either.

DK, Dedede, at least don't get 0-death'd in unavoidable situations from as low percents as often as ganon v Bayo.

 

[PK Bash]

Gonna go ahead and say no, given Gackt 2-0'd Atelier recently, I just think Ness mains are terrified and lose their ability to play gem.

Ness is kind of ok vs Rosa onstage I guess? I think the biggest saving grace in this MU tbh is Rosa is one of the easiest characters in the game (probably easier than Greninja) to 2-frame with Yoyo and it kinda means she sucks offstage really really hard too. It's just you'll see Ness put in that position more often than her so it looks horrific.

I don't think Ness-Sheik is worse than Ness-Rosa, if it was I doubt S1 would have been able to even manage to take a game vs Mr R in one of their GF sets recently given how high calibre a player Mr R is. I'll have to look into it more tbh.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Mr. R was playing Bayonetta that time S1 beat him. EDIT he took a set of Bayo and a game off Sheik. My b.
You are absolutely right about the two-frame thing. People rave about Rosa's down B in this MU but completely ignore the fact that Ness can basically do the same thing to Rosa, she is pretty easy to hit with back of dsmash. FWIW a lot of people forget that when gimping Ness, Rosa has got to be accurate. If she GPs too close, the pulled PKT will hit Ness and he gets another up B. (this one can be helped by mu experience to be honest) If Ness recovers high Rosa is always at risk of getting hit by it with no stage to tech. And Ness is always at risk of getting gimped in basically every relevant MU and more, except like by Fox or someone.
Imo the biggest issues in this mu are: a) that Ness basically can't get out of any disadvantage state against Rosalina. Ness jumps, he takes a lot of % because his landing options are already bad and somehow even worse against Rosa(**** uair). Ness' nair isn't really breaking strings here like it can against something Fox utilts. He's just eating that damage. Missing a tech or getting a tech read can be death obnoxiously early and of course, he can't recover too well, or get off the ledge. Point b) is Rosa is winning neutral vs Ness more than vice versa. Ness has tools to deal with Luma but it's still very annoying. Ness has the rough combination of being quite slow with somewhat bad range, which makes it difficult to get around a smart Luma to get to Rosa. And then of course Ness needs to land nair, uair or grab in order to get anything get anything going. Aerials are risky in this mu and grab combos are nerfed when Luma is present. And when Luma is around, you can't mindgame the timing of your combo starter with SHFF or anything, you just gotta go for it before you get hit. Whilst this lets you condition reactions and all it's still not ideal. This means that for most of the match Ness is playing to maintain neutral, rather than go into advantage, until you kill Luma. Luckily Ness deals lots of damage when he does get in and Rosa dies early, so Ness has that going for him.
TL;DR the mu is not unwinnable at all, just uphill for Ness. He does ok until he loses neutral, which is not in his favour but definitely playable.
But hey, I'm just a random who isn't winning anything. If I said anything wrong, then please call me out. I rarely post but I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions about this mu because imo it's bad that we're this far in to the game's life and this mu perception has barely progressed.
EDIT FeelMeUp keeping in mind that I am prone to bias like anyone, off the top of my head I would say (not necessarily in order) Rosa, Sheik, Corrin, Sonic and Diddy. I'll explain these when Ness discussion rolls around again because I didn't see you until much later and we've moved on now. (Fwiw decent mus with Fox, Bayonetta and Mario are nice perks of Ness.)

 

[FeelMeUp]

information

No, man, you actually did fantastically. Would love to see more input like this in the future.
Do you have any thoughts on what his 5 worst matchups are?

 

[Das Koopa]

lol

Top 16 Weighted Top 10: (Sep. 1st-20th)
(102.2)
(84.5)
(83)
(82.5)
(80)
(64.5)
(54)
(52)
(49)
/(47)

Weekend stuff:

2GGT: Abadango Saga (SoCal) (Will be Category 3, for those asking)
The Proving Ground (Michigan)
Glitch 2 (Maryland)
Who's Your Pappy #4 (NorCal)
Smash @ York #11: The Return (Ontario)
Sumabato 13 (Japan)

 

[Fenny]

lol

Top 16 Weighted Top 10: (Sep. 1st-20th)
(102.2)
(84.5)
(83)
(82.5)
(80)
(64.5)
(54)
(52)
(49)
/(47)

Weekend stuff:

2GGT: Abadango Saga (SoCal) (Will be Category 3, for those asking)
The Proving Ground (Michigan)
Glitch 2 (Maryland)
Who's Your Pappy #4 (NorCal)
Smash @ York #11: The Return (Ontario)
Sumabato 13 (Japan)

I'm so confused lmao

 

[Pancracio17]

lol

Top 16 Weighted Top 10: (Sep. 1st-20th)
(102.2)
(84.5)
(83)
(82.5)
(80)
(64.5)
(54)
(52)
(49)
/(47)

Weekend stuff:

2GGT: Abadango Saga (SoCal) (Will be Category 3, for those asking)
The Proving Ground (Michigan)
Glitch 2 (Maryland)
Who's Your Pappy #4 (NorCal)
Smash @ York #11: The Return (Ontario)
Sumabato 13 (Japan)

Wtf happened

 

[Yikarur]

I think this game would be terrible to play if everyone would be as good as Salem with Bayonetta.

Mad hype to watch though. Salem is my new favorite player.. ironically.

 

[soniczx123]

I'm so confused lmao

I don't get it. What does this statistic entail?

 

[Fenny]

I don't get it. What does this statistic entail?

what do you mean?

 

[soniczx123]

what do you mean?

What do those numbers mean??

 

[Poisonous]

v and v are both feasibly unwinnable for the latter in both cases I'd say. If there's one thing that bothers me when people want to praise this game's balance it's that "there's no outright awful or blowout matchups in this game", but there definitely are.

I don't think Wario-Cloud is unwinnable by any means, I'd argue that Sonic or Bayo are actually rougher MUs. Wario has a couple of tools in the Cloud MU to combat him (Wario uair beats out Cloud's dair with proper spacing), and Wario has no reason to approach limit Cloud. DA or other lingering moves at ledge can force cloud to expend limit and I'd also argue that should the opponent have a lead, Wario has a harder time approaching Sonic than he does Cloud. Wario also has the tools to make snapping to the ledge annoying for Cloud, uptilt and uair both can beat out the going high option due to intangibility on Wario's head and hands and dash attack/dair can beat out the ledge snap option. The MU is in Cloud's favor pretty solidly ofc, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. I can think of many other characters who struggle more in the mu than Wario does (Kirby, Mac, Ike, Yoshi, etc). We haven't seen a case of a top Cloud playing a top Wario, so I don't know where the "Cloud mu is unwinnable" came from.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

What do those numbers mean??

That right there is Das Koopas results point system! The numbers represent the total of how many points each character has placed Ina top 13 I believe placing. Each placing is rewarded with different points depending on the category, such as Aba saga will be acategory 3, the 2nd highest ranking. This was probably a bad explaination but I think Das Koopa will provide you with more info

 

[Fatmanonice]

Heck, even a lot of mid and low tiers as well.

Almost every character in the game is "solid."

It's just they don't have dominating features.






That said, I'd like to bring up one talking point. Is vs the worst matchup in the game? I mean getting rid of any chance of recovering with one input is a fairly large problem.

I'd argue vs , vs /, and vs / are worse.

-Wario has poor range and struggles with swords to begin with so Cloud's mobility and lack of landing lag make this match up wonderfully awful. Combine what made the Marth and Snake match ups suck in Brawl and you basically have Cloud.

-Dedede has to approach and, when you're one of the slowest characters in the game, you can see how this goes wrong very quickly. Also, being in the air at all in these match ups is just asking to be comboed. Don't even get me started if they decide to go full on camp.

-Bowser Jr gets his approach options and mecha koopa options shut down by these two with ease. Landing against either is also very difficult and being off stage at all against either is high risk because they can easily gimp you. I'd say Rosa's worse but Villager is still comically bad if they know what they're doing.

 

[Fenny]

What do those numbers mean??

Oooooh, the point system?

Basically, depending on where a character is placed in a tournament they net a certain amount of points. And the amount of points increases depending on the size of prestige of the tournament in question. For example, for tallying the weighted top 16 for a Category 1 tournament (like an unusually stacked Xanadu):

13th: 1 point
9th: 2 points
7th: 3 points

and so on, up until 1st where the character gets 8 points. Secondaries and pockets get half the regular amount of points allocated. As you go up in the categories (i.e. as the tournament in question gets bigger), the number of points gained per placing increases. In general:

Category 1: 1-8 points
Category 2: 3-10 points
Category 3: 5-12 points
Category 4: 9-16 points

All the points for each character are added up, which gives the total for a certain time span of tournaments. In unweighted tallies, secondaries/pockets gain the same number of points as mains for a placing (e.g. Mario, Cloud and ZSS (?) would all gain 16 points from ANTi winning CEO 2016, which was Category 4). I'm pretty sure the same point system applies for top 8, just that obviously 9th and below are excluded.

 

[SpeedyKP]

You have a lot of explaining to do.

It's very bad,but it's probably not the worst matchup.

Diddy Kong is really good, but he's not #1, he has trouble killing, while yes he does have kill confirms, they aren't until the higher percent's, the opponent is probably going to kill you before you kill them

 

[Fenny]

Diddy Kong is really good, but he's not #1, he has trouble killing, while yes he does have kill confirms, they aren't until the higher percent's, the opponent is probably going to kill you before you kill them

Unlikely.

The window for which Diddy's kill confirms work are very generous, and considering he has one of the best neutrals in the game he's probably gonna have more chances to kill you then you will him for the most part.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Diddy Kong is really good, but he's not #1, he has trouble killing, while yes he does have kill confirms, they aren't until the higher percent's, the opponent is probably going to kill you before you kill them

He has no troubles killing. He has some of the most consistent confirms in the entire game, killing around 130%, percents that pretty much every good character is going to kill around. Not to mention that these confirms are from his ultra safe dtilt, banana, and an up throw 50/50. Even if he's not landing these confirms, which he likely will, he's got banana, a good up tilt, banana, can still use dtilt to confirm into aerials, and banana.
This doesn't really seem like a character that struggles to kill to me, or even struggle to land his confirms.

 

[Megamang]

Diddy loses to MM and Olimar too much to be number 1 IMO. A character with very few losing MUs, and those being more manageable than the aforementioned, is the ideal number one.


All the previous smashes have this. Does this one? Its possible for a rotating system of best tournament character, where a counter character rises in prominence and brings the top down repeatedly.

Id argue its likely as roster size approaches 60, expecially with balance patching.


Edit: he struggles to kill if you have pikmin, a luma, or are solid metal with huge air accel and pellets.


That MU would be free for megaman if diddy didnt get monkey flip back for nothing. Imagine him trying to escape uair juggles, where a MF was committal and he'd have to recover with barrels if you read the flip with a bair. Mmmmm. If only.

 

[Ethan7]

is consistent at KO'ing, but his U-smash KOs at like 130% without rage (which I would say is pretty late). With rage, U-Smash KOs considerably earlier and you can sometimes get some charge in if you throw a banana to confirm.

Then you have F-smash which KOs much earlier if by the ledge (like 90% or something). Banana confirms nicely into F-smash if you are close when it hits them. D-tilt to shutter-step F-smash also works at certain percentages but it is kind of hard to perform.

He has three kill throws that kill quite late but they cover the areas on the stage nicely.

U-tilt is also a pretty cool kill move at high %s because it isn't very risky to throw out.

 

[Jamurai]

A character with very few losing MUs, and those being more manageable than the aforementioned, is the ideal number one.

I was under the impression that these MUs aren't horrible by virtue of Diddy simply being a better overall character than either of them, same with Luigi. Like -1 at worst. Is this wrong?

If it isn't, I'd say finding a few relatively uncommon mid tiers difficult as opposed to having a problem with at least one top tier (like... all other top tiers do) is in his favour for being #1 tbh. His consistency and matchup spread clinch it for me.

 

[TDK]

is still #1. I thought this was a given?

 

[adom4]

Diddy loses to MM and Olimar too much to be number 1 IMO. A character with very few losing MUs, and those being more manageable than the aforementioned, is the ideal number one.


All the previous smashes have this. Does this one? Its possible for a rotating system of best tournament character, where a counter character rises in prominence and brings the top down repeatedly.

Id argue its likely as roster size approaches 60, expecially with balance patching.


Edit: he struggles to kill if you have pikmin, a luma, or are solid metal with huge air accel and pellets.


That MU would be free for megaman if diddy didnt get monkey flip back for nothing. Imagine him trying to escape uair juggles, where a MF was committal and he'd have to recover with barrels if you read the flip with a bair. Mmmmm. If only.

If his worst MUs are to obscure characters like Mega man and Olimar then it makes him even more likely to be the best in the game.

 

[Ethan7]

is still #1. I thought this was a given?

If that was so they would be more top players putting her in #1. There is no consensus to who is the best character right now. I thought this was a given.

 

[Frihetsanka]

If that was so they would be more top players putting her in #1. There is no consensus to who is the best character right now. I thought this was a given.

Potential candidates, based on what various top players have said:



One of those 7 is probably the best character... Well, probably not PIkachu. So, yeah, you have a pretty good point about the lack of consensus.

 

[verbatim]

Diddy loses to MM and Olimar too much to be number 1 IMO. A character with very few losing MUs, and those being more manageable than the aforementioned, is the ideal number one.

You have to keep in meta game trends when talking about matchups.

Diddy Kong losing to two uncommon characters like Megaman and Olimar is significantly less important than say, Cloud losing to Sheik, or most low and mid tiers losing to the ever present Diddy and Cloud.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

Potential candidates, based on what various top players have said:



One of those 7 is probably the best character... Well, probably not PIkachu. So, yeah, you have a pretty good point about the lack of consensus.

More like probably not Pika, Ryu, or Cloud. The rest I could very well see being 1st. Now I'm surprised Rosa is not included in that list yet Ryu is. Last I checked the only topish player to say Ryu was the best was Zero back then, but now he thinks it's Rosa. It's not like I agree with zero at all with MK and Luma control being a thing. On another note, with the SoS threads being gone, would it be fine if Aba saga was discussed here, to the same extent as other tournaments in their respective week threads, or is something gonna be made?

 

[Frihetsanka]

More like probably not Pika, Ryu, or Cloud.

Probly not Ryu or Cloud either, no, but I could see someone making a strong case for them being #1. Pikachu not so much. Even then, Diddy, Sheik, Sonic, and Bayonetta all make the #1 spot somewhat uncertain, which is a good thing, I suppose.

 

[blackghost]

I think diddy will have problems moving forward but not because of a killing issue.
Ill use other elite characters in comparision: sonic,shiek, and Bayonetta. Diddy's issue moving forward is are there really that many different playstyles with the character? in comparison to some other top tiers diddy doesnt really vary his gameplay outside of some ledge setup and recovery pattern differences. neutral, grab followups, and bannana repeat. its gotten to the point with sonic i can tell which top level sonic is playing or which one a player is trying to imitate. Watch a sonic and you can tell do they play like SGK, 6wx, or the japanese player (sorry forgot his name), same with bayo regarding pink fresh, salem, or saj, and shiek we have defensive shieks, combo shieks (void), and edge gaurd specialist shiek (mr. R). With diddy the character seems very linear to me and long term it may effect his viability in high level play.

 

[Megamang]

Losing to mid tiers (olimar, not mega) isnt automatically better than losing slightly to top tiers. If anything, it should indicate deeper problems with the character.

If 2% or less pellets wall him out, then what can he do vs pika at the ledge with tjolts and a not-insignificant chance to die at each bthrow?

Fwiw, the way pellets hurt him id think a needle campy shiek is a problem. His simple and effective vortex is a very solid gameplan, but is it going to keep optimizing like shiek or pika? (Watch ESAM's channel for recent pika optimizations, fox is looking very dead to jab locks).


My point wasnt that he has 2 losing MUs. Its the degree of him losing.

Vs me sitting there jabbing, he has to make a pretty hard guess... and all these guesses lose to pivot ftilt anyways. Id imagine olimar is brutal.


And its painful for him when his usmash is weak AND others get much stronger confirms off his banana. If i even let the banana in play (pellets are an easy and effective tool to almost always negate the nanner) my banana utilt/dsmash are wayyyy stronger... and since he isnt killing me for a while since im heavy, rage helps me much more.

And yea, he can play back...but counterplay exists in a much stronger way than, say, shiek. Dont get hit with fair/nair/grab/ftilt or you take 50% and end up at the ledge. And at the ledge, the math is very strongly against you.

Who does shiek lose to, if she is willing to play each MU optimally?

 

[Ethan7]

Potential candidates, based on what various top players have said:



One of those 7 is probably the best character... Well, probably not PIkachu. So, yeah, you have a pretty good point about the lack of consensus.

Esam put Pikachu in top 4 on his list (I didn't here of him making a new one). He shouldn't be a contender anyways.
Who says he is the best? ZeRo puts him at #3.
Who puts her at #1? Mr. R puts her in top 3. Pink Fresh thinks high of her.
Do people still put him in #1?

ZeRo put her in #1. Why isn't she included?

 

[NegaNixx]

I've been wondering lately, what's Pikachu's Meta looking like right now, MU wise? Have any advancements been made to mitigate the killing problem? Have people started implementing quick attack more usefully. I saw ESAM get 2nd at Shine but I'm not quite sure what he did different than before because Pikachu just tends to fly under my personal radar. I know he loses to Mario. I don't know much else.

 

[verbatim]

Who does shiek lose to, if she is willing to play each MU optimally?

Anyone that wins neutral half of the time. People like to throw out the idea of Sheik requiring "perfection" to play at an optimal level, but that applies to every character. If you need to play _______ top tier very well to succeed at a top level and you need to play Sheik immaculately at top level in order to succeed, then that speaks against Sheik.

Megaman and Olimar are specifically scary to Diddy Kong because they have ways to keep him out AND ways to kill him early. Olimar can get a blue grab or a purple anything, Megaman has an amazing back air and ways to confirm into it.

Sheik and Pikachu don't have those things. Sheik has needle camping and Pikachu has edgeguarding, but ultimately Diddy Kong can wall out Pikachu better than vise versa and neither character is killing him anywhere nearly as he kills them without edgeguarding, whereas Olimar and Megaman can.

I've been wondering lately, what's Pikachu's Meta looking like right now, MU wise? Have any advancements been made to mitigate the killing problem? Have people started implementing quick attack more usefully. I saw ESAM get 2nd at Shine but I'm not quite sure what he did different than before because Pikachu just tends to fly under my personal radar. I know he loses to Mario. I don't know much else.

Larry Lurr and Anti, who both would probably have beaten him, got knocked into losers by fellow Florida players, who Esam then beat. Dath then beat everyone in losers that could have threatened Esam (Larry again and 6WX).

 

[chaos11011]

Duck Hunt vs Cloud is also a really bad match up. Cloud's massive disjoints, especially the way his Dash Attack is designed, eats up every one of our projectiles. Not that playing the range game is viable to begin with, seeing as if we don't approach, he gets limit. Boxing with him is also pretty tough. UAir juggling is especially tough because unlike a lot of other characters, we can't explode the Can on ourselves to reset the pressure (we have the same issue against Rosalina, in which her U Air is arguably stronger in the DH match up than her Gravitational Pull is)

 

[meticulousboy]

Man. Roy is so underrated at this point in time. I feel like people underestimate his fall speed. That fall speed actually helps him to fast fall and continue Up Air juggling and other moves that carry the opponent offstage and deal about, oh, IDK, 62% damage.
Let's not forget that his Jab is comparable to Diddy Kong's Dtilt. Both moves challenge the opponent's next response to slight shield pressure.

 

[|RK|]

I don't think Wario-Cloud is unwinnable by any means, I'd argue that Sonic or Bayo are actually rougher MUs. Wario has a couple of tools in the Cloud MU to combat him (Wario uair beats out Cloud's dair with proper spacing), and Wario has no reason to approach limit Cloud. DA or other lingering moves at ledge can force cloud to expend limit and I'd also argue that should the opponent have a lead, Wario has a harder time approaching Sonic than he does Cloud. Wario also has the tools to make snapping to the ledge annoying for Cloud, uptilt and uair both can beat out the going high option due to intangibility on Wario's head and hands and dash attack/dair can beat out the ledge snap option. The MU is in Cloud's favor pretty solidly ofc, but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. I can think of many other characters who struggle more in the mu than Wario does (Kirby, Mac, Ike, Yoshi, etc). We haven't seen a case of a top Cloud playing a top Wario, so I don't know where the "Cloud mu is unwinnable" came from.

This is actually the part where I'm going to seem like a crazy person, but I don't think Kirby vs Cloud is *that* bad. Kirby loses for sure, but it's not awful. Kirby usually wants to stay grounded anyways, and the air is where Cloud's disjoints are the largest. Everything else on the ground is super-manageable due to Kirby's great grounded frame data (and utilt remains an amazing anti-air), and poor spacing on anything can be punished by Kirby's great grab game. He kills Kirby very early, but really - who doesn't he kill early? Offstage is extremely advantageous for Kirby, since he can afford to go pretty deep for the edgeguard and get rid of Cloud's limit or outright take his stock. The two biggest issues for Kirby in this MU, IMO are nair (very quick, very good range, autocancels out of a shorthop) and Limit Cloud's general mobility. Because if Kirby has to chase Cloud on a stage with platforms, it can turn very sour, very quickly. At the same time, Limit Cloud is prone to eating a LOT of damage, so at early percents it barely matters (MikeKirby lets Cloud players charge limit at the beginning of the game - I've taken to doing the same because - why put yourself on the back foot that early?).

In most cases, I actually find it quite manageable. Blade beam also makes gimping Cloud noticeably easier, too. Of course, if you choose to jump at Cloud for some reason, you can enjoy getting destroyed for the entire match.

 

[Mega-Spider]

This is actually the part where I'm going to seem like a crazy person, but I don't think Kirby vs Cloud is *that* bad. Kirby loses for sure, but it's not awful. Kirby usually wants to stay grounded anyways, and the air is where Cloud's disjoints are the largest. Everything else on the ground is super-manageable due to Kirby's great grounded frame data (and utilt remains an amazing anti-air), and poor spacing on anything can be punished by Kirby's great grab game. He kills Kirby very early, but really - who doesn't he kill early? Offstage is extremely advantageous for Kirby, since he can afford to go pretty deep for the edgeguard and get rid of Cloud's limit or outright take his stock. The two biggest issues for Kirby in this MU, IMO are nair (very quick, very good range, autocancels out of a shorthop) and Limit Cloud's general mobility. Because if Kirby has to chase Cloud on a stage with platforms, it can turn very sour, very quickly. At the same time, Limit Cloud is prone to eating a LOT of damage, so at early percents it barely matters (MikeKirby lets Cloud players charge limit at the beginning of the game - I've taken to doing the same because - why put yourself on the back foot that early?).

In most cases, I actually find it quite manageable. Blade beam also makes gimping Cloud noticeably easier, too. Of course, if you choose to jump at Cloud for some reason, you can enjoy getting destroyed for the entire match.

I did have some suspicion about Kirby needing to be completely grounded in this MU in order to achieve some level of success against Cloud. Kirby hates disjoints of all kinds, and considering that Cloud's aerials are incredibly disjointed, being in the air is the last place you want to be in when fighting Cloud. It's like the Fox MU in that you never want to be above Fox because he can U-Air you.

It's like the Mario MU for me. It's manageable, but one place can screw you up, sometimes horribly. In Mario's case, it's being off stage when he's on stage. For Cloud, it's jumping. Also, despite D-Air being a good move, never use in neutral or to approach Cloud. You'll pay for it.

 

[Megamang]

Tons of people are realizing "wow, its not as bad as we thought" once they stop running into aerials, stop murdering themselves in a futile attempt to stop limit, and start powershielding, abusing his ground game, and abusing his offstage game to rack damage and get kills as a side effect instead of ruining all their progress getting ledge drop jump uair'd.

Cloud is solid, but i think we now see he isnt the unstoppable metagame force we feared. Though he has really stunted doubles growth IMO


Pika has fair footstool, fair usmash with rage, and jab lock confirms. Bidou appears to MAYBE make uthrow thunder guaranteed, so we will see on that. Pikas grab game isnt particularly great (note i said grab, not throw). Much like Mario and Wario and others with meh range, youre better off contesting their approach than playing rps with your shield.

Mega does not beat diddy due to a solid kill game. Bair is amazing, but when people learn the MU they avoid that entire area. Also he can fair and almost always stop the bair before the killing blow. If mega had a good kill confirm he'd be broken.

Yea, metal blade confirms to bair. But you have to commit to the bair, and you can get stunted on hard with rising fair from diddy, which will catch the blade and hit you, then youll get hit with your own blade again cause fair AC'd.

 

[Luco]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Mr. R was playing Bayonetta that time S1 beat him.
You are absolutely right about the two-frame thing. People rave about Rosa's down B in this MU but completely ignore the fact that Ness can basically do the same thing to Rosa, she is pretty easy to hit with back of dsmash. FWIW a lot of people forget that when gimping Ness, Rosa has got to be accurate. If she GPs too close, the pulled PKT will hit Ness and he gets another up B. (this one can be helped by mu experience to be honest) If Ness recovers high Rosa is always at risk of getting hit by it with no stage to tech. And Ness is always at risk of getting gimped in basically every relevant MU and more, except like by Fox or someone.
Imo the biggest issues in this mu are: a) that Ness basically can't get out of any disadvantage state against Rosalina. Ness jumps, he takes a lot of % because his landing options are already bad and somehow even worse against Rosa(**** uair). Ness' nair isn't really breaking strings here like it can against something Fox utilts. He's just eating that damage. Missing a tech or getting a tech read can be death obnoxiously early and of course, he can't recover too well, or get off the ledge. Point b) is Rosa is winning neutral vs Ness more than vice versa. Ness has tools to deal with Luma but it's still very annoying. Ness has the rough combination of being quite slow with somewhat bad range, which makes it difficult to get around a smart Luma to get to Rosa. And then of course Ness needs to land nair, uair or grab in order to get anything get anything going. Aerials are risky in this mu and grab combos are nerfed when Luma is present. And when Luma is around, you can't mindgame the timing of your combo starter with SHFF or anything, you just gotta go for it before you get hit. Whilst this lets you condition reactions and all it's still not ideal. This means that for most of the match Ness is playing to maintain neutral, rather than go into advantage, until you kill Luma. Luckily Ness deals lots of damage when he does get in and Rosa dies early, so Ness has that going for him.
TL;DR the mu is not unwinnable at all, just uphill for Ness. He does ok until he loses neutral, which is not in his favour but definitely playable.
But hey, I'm just a random who isn't winning anything. If I said anything wrong, then please call me out. I rarely post but I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions about this mu because imo it's bad that we're this far in to the game's life and this mu perception has barely progressed.

You are my favourite person. Thanks for this, this is lovely. <3

In regards to S1 v Mr R, set 1 was Ness vs Bayonetta which S1 won, then in set 2 Mr R switched to Sheik, where S1 won one game to Mr R's three.

I used to think Sheik was the easy #1 candidate, but the more I see the more I feel the nerf hit her hard (at least right now, who knows where her future meta will take her). Mr R and VoiD still get great results but hardly anything I'd consider dominating enough to make Sheik a clear #1. The problem is this applies to most if not all of our top tier and it applies worldwide, most scenes have dominant players as opposed to dominant characters right now and that shows in the diversity of characters in PRs and results everywhere (top 8's / 16's tend to be really really varied).

 

[freeziebeatz]

Another voted match up chart for all of you too discuss. This one had a smaller sample pool than usual but that's okay