Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[FeelMeUp]

If there's a banana on the ground Bayo can Witch Time off the lingering 'trip box' at any time and use WT's AoE properties to snare Diddy.

Yes......I know that....but this hinges on the idea that the Diddy committed first without an opening and stayed near the banana in the first place.

 

[Ethan7]

https://smashboards.com/threads/4br-tier-list-v2-0-followup.441975/
4BR Tier List v2.0 Followup is out.

 

[BSP]

*Not sure what solid sense's answer is, but for me it's Fludd. It pushes harder if the opponent is retreating, in the air(or empty hopping) in endlag, or in a special animation. (i.e not approaching)

Especially potent at higher percents (both you and them as it scales with rage) when there's more demand for safeness.

Not sure if you can call it a "good" answer, but it is his only safe, guaranteed way to deal with something like spaced zss or bayo bairs without calling out the mix-ups all across the stage.

I don't consider FLUDD a good answer because it's only great if the opponent jumps a lot while trying to poke Mario. It's better than nothing, but it's not that effective if the opponent stays grounded + walk/run from Mario when he comes in, as opposed to jumping. If they do so, they can react to FLUDD and block, and since Mario can't Breverse it, he has to be facing them for it to be a threat at all. If the opponent is jumping around a lot though, yes, they're going to lose stage control fast if Mario FLUDDs them for it.

Edit: I was watching you vs Pink Fresh from last Xanadu and he was essentially doing the same thing to you. Retreat a bit when you come in, then try to counter poke you once you extend.

@Aaron1997 yeah, I watched Abadango v Elegant and was disappointed. Not only did he take him to FD, but he didn't use the trampoline for ground control a single time, even after he hit a yellow trampoline and didn't get punished because Luigi is slow. He also got KO'd the same exact way he got KO'd against ANTi at Big House. IDK what he's doing with Pac-Man.

 

[KakuCP9]

Quick question what does "overtuned" mean and why would it mean that something needs to be nerfed. Can't it also mean that other characters just need to be buffed?

The concept of something being overtuned is both simple and complex. At its core, it means something is too strong and the simplest answer to it is to weaken it to bring it line with everything else. What actually falls under being overtuned is very tricky because there are a fair amount of factors that are looked at.

The simplest factor to look at is a tool a character uses and the risk/reward it yields. DK's dtilt is a good example as it's range, low recovery and the fact it can lead to a grab which can potentially lead to death at surprising early percents can a borderline abusive tool in the neutral game. However, the reason DK is not taking nationals is because his mobility is averge-ish so he lacks a way to force himself on other characters and his disadvantage state (how a character gets comboed and how it can escape positional disadvantage that leads to said combos) is very poor so overall, he's fine.

The second part is look at a character's overall toolkit and how potent it is as a whole. The reason Shaya and Dunnobro complain about Bayonetta is because a large chunk of her tools mix into something that is stronger than the rest of the cast in an obnoxious manner. Witch time is the first that comes to people's minds, a counter that can freeze an opponent in its range for an huge punish with fair amount less commitment than the average counter when whiffed can be rather frustrating for many to play against (also activates off Diddy's grounded banana. Filth). Another is the bat within mechanic where her dodges and even her witch time (which helps make it less committal) have certain period where hitting Bayo will result in her only taking half the damage and warping away from the opponent where at best, she escapes pressure and at worst, will punish you for activating it. Then comes her UpB that is both a strong combo extender, out of shield option and recovery tool that can beat any attempts to challenge it head on thanks to its start-up and large hitbox. There's probably other stuff I'm missing, but the take-away is that mixing many strong tools it what can make something overtuned.

However there is something else to look which can be the hardest to evaluate, the rest of the cast. Compared to Bayo, there's probably only a small handful of characters that match her safety and power, but nerfing her can be tricky since she was already nerfed a fair bit and you may risk taking the personality of the character if done haphazardly. So one may look to buff the rest of the cast to her level. Well its easier said than done. If you buff something too much or buff the wrong things about a character, you run the risk of making a character that lacks a coherent design and can feel unintuitive to play against. The more characters you buff, the more likely that can happen. Granted such things vary for person to person, eventually you can wind up with something that majority will frown apon. PM 3.0 Lucas is an example as in a attempt to match Melee Fox in power level, they gave him a discount shine that when combined with his recovery, wavedash, projectile and aerials made him a menace that many disliked. The only game I can think of where the characters are super strong and is still a coherent game is Guilty gear and that mostly to due a lot of sub-mechanics that Smash will never have due to it target audience.

TL:DR: Being overtuned is looking at a kit and how it stacks against other characters. You buff characters to match overtuned character, but you risk having a poorly designed character in process so its best to par back the overtuned char.

 

[TDK]

Captain Zack made a Bayonetta MU chart.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Here is a followup to the Official Tier List.
Read it if you want. Alternatively, if you want to sleep tonight, don't.
Sorry but that "little" mistake that they corrected already made me feel extremely iffy about what was even discussed when the Tier List was being voted.
If little things such as "Marth has better shield safety than Lucina" and "Marth's counter has a tipper" are still allowed to slip on by like that in the BR, I am scared.

 

[Megamang]

Hmm, a character that gets blown up in neutral (Ryu) vs a character that competes pretty well (Mega) having the same MU ratio is suspect to me.


Ive always felt that once Bayos start WTing backwards to fall onto projectiles, mega will hurt. Then, when she optimizes her edgeguarding vs non hitbox characters, mega again will struggle. But this edgeguarding will hurt Ryu just as much, plus he has to worry about WTime screwing him offstage.


Metal blade goes thru all of bayos movement specials. Pellets keep her out hard, and if you confirm a pellet while moving towards and hit ftilt ftilt nair she can't get a WT out (or no one has successfully done this to me) so she cant dominate you for trying to zone her (poor poor olimar).


Anyways, a few people have said we'll have to talk about Olimar so... can we? What is it that demands discussion, i havent seen anything special. If he beats Diddy he'll get a niche, and i have a suspicion he does well vs fox but idk.

Dabuz said "that MU is actually surprisingly hard" vs my greninja on ladder a while back. Full hop fair + FCWS both seemed to pressure Oli without many options for retaliation. Nair pressure also worked well.

Personally i use greninja for anyone with a slow OoS grab option, since nair/fair/dtilt/jab mixups all work very very well.

Minus blu pikmin, nair gets them all off easily, quickly, and safely. He can also counter a pikmin stuck to him but who cares since he still gets punished for a successful counter while bayo counters a pikmin and gets a full charge smash and some tilts

 

[Das Koopa]

I will be using MSM 67. It has Abadango, Komorikiri, VoiD, K9, Tyrant, Rich Brown, Zenyou, Elegant, and a bunch of SoCal regulars, breaking 90 entrants. Definitely important.

I'll post the weekend scores later tonight.

 

[ARISTOS]

View attachment 118243
Captain Zack made a Bayonetta MU chart.

Funny enough I feel a lot of these MUs could get a lot worse for everybody else

 

[DE235]

The concept of something being overtuned is both simple and complex. At its core, it means something is too strong and the simplest answer to it is to weaken it to bring it line with everything else. What actually falls under being overtuned is very tricky because there are a fair amount of factors that are looked at.

The simplest factor to look at is a tool a character uses and the risk/reward it yields. DK's dtilt is a good example as it's range, low recovery and the fact it can lead to a grab which can potentially lead to death at surprising early percents can a borderline abusive tool in the neutral game. However, the reason DK is not taking nationals is because his mobility is averge-ish so he lacks a way to force himself on other characters and his disadvantage state (how a character gets comboed and how it can escape positional disadvantage that leads to said combos) is very poor so overall, he's fine.

The second part is look at a character's overall toolkit and how potent it is as a whole. The reason Shaya and Dunnobro complain about Bayonetta is because a large chunk of her tools mix into something that is stronger than the rest of the cast in an obnoxious manner. Witch time is the first that comes to people's minds, a counter that can freeze an opponent in its range for an huge punish with fair amount less commitment than the average counter when whiffed can be rather frustrating for many to play against (also activates off Diddy's grounded banana. Filth). Another is the bat within mechanic where her dodges and even her witch time (which helps make it less committal) have certain period where hitting Bayo will result in her only taking half the damage and warping away from the opponent where at best, she escapes pressure and at worst, will punish you for activating it. Then comes her UpB that is both a strong combo extender, out of shield option and recovery tool that can beat any attempts to challenge it head on thanks to its start-up and large hitbox. There's probably other stuff I'm missing, but the take-away is that mixing many strong tools it what can make something overtuned.

However there is something else to look which can be the hardest to evaluate, the rest of the cast. Compared to Bayo, there's probably only a small handful of characters that match her safety and power, but nerfing her can be tricky since she was already nerfed a fair bit and you may risk taking the personality of the character if done haphazardly. So one may look to buff the rest of the cast to her level. Well its easier said than done. If you buff something too much or buff the wrong things about a character, you run the risk of making a character that lacks a coherent design and can feel unintuitive to play against. The more characters you buff, the more likely that can happen. Granted such things vary for person to person, eventually you can wind up with something that majority will frown apon. PM 3.0 Lucas is an example as in a attempt to match Melee Fox in power level, they gave him a discount shine that when combined with his recovery, wavedash, projectile and aerials made him a menace that many disliked. The only game I can think of where the characters are super strong and is still a coherent game is Guilty gear and that mostly to due a lot of sub-mechanics that Smash will never have due to it target audience.

TL:DR: Being overtuned is looking at a kit and how it stacks against other characters. You buff characters to match overtuned character, but you risk having a poorly designed character in process so its best to par back the overtuned char.

Thanks for the in depth reply.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

I really don't buy Greninja getting beaten by Bayonetta
He can run, not crawl, but run under Bullet Climax where Bayonetta has to choose a defensive option. This forces her to rely of bullet arts for her mid range game which is strong, but is not enough to keep Greninja from getting in and doing 40% conversions. His up close game is stronger than Bayonetta's allowing him to pressure her without her being able to really challenge him. He can also pressure her shield with fair, fsmash, nair, and shurikans without much fear of WT OoS.

In the disadvantage he can obviously SSHC out of things but that alone is punishable, doing it in combination with SDI however makes it much easier for Greninja to reset to the neutral than other characters. He can then resume playing a
patient neutral weaving in and out choosing when to go in and when to sit and throw shurikans

 

[DunnoBro]

Edit: I was watching you vs Pink Fresh from last Xanadu and he was essentially doing the same thing to you. Retreat a bit when you come in, then try to counter poke you once you extend.
.

Only reason it didn't work is stage control means nothing vs bayo since her disadvantage state is almost nonexistent =p

Also, mario can just cancel fludd into bair/usmash. You can't actually safely pressure mario charging fludd while facing away, and this is a bait I utilize. Charging fludd is effectively just holding shield. Can also just shield + jump fireball to turn around and create some frontal pressure. It isn't as big a commitment as you think if you know your options out of it. Mario has one of if not the quickest shield up frames of any shield cancellable move.

Overall though, as I said it doesn't solve all his issues and there's still outplaying needed to be done and I didn't do that vs pink.

I really don't buy Greninja getting beaten by Bayonetta

If they know the MU, he's super easy to witch time. Dair, nair, etc.

@ "Overtuned"

Generally the term is something I've seen used as 'potentially harmful to the game' in WOW and Smogon. Not necessarily "broken" as that's more of a general term that denotes a lot of other things, generally absolute superiority (like no losing mus) or obnoxious presence. Largely due to necessity of use/countering (Mega Kangaskhan, prepatch diddy, etc)

Most of the DLC and some top tiers are overtuned, but they have yet to provide any reason for us to think they're potentially harmful aside from Bayo. (Except perhaps m2)

A perfect example of overtuning would be Aegislash. While it had checks and obvious weaknesses, trying to take it on without utilizing those effectively resulted in having to deal with a lot of 50/50s due to king's shield that grossly benefited the aegislash player.

(King's shield is also veeeeery relateable to witch time though I didn't plan on that)

 

[Das Koopa]

MSM 67 recap:

Komorikiri cleanly runs through most of better!SoCal. Defeats Zenyou 2-0 with , defeats K9 3-1 with , defeats Rich Brown 3-1 with , and 3-0s VoiD with , later dominantly 3-0ing Nairo in a grudge/money match with . Several matches were close, but Komorikiri had a big clutch factor. His ledge pressure with Cloud is intense, and he took full advantage of using K9's Dream Land pick against him in game 4 of their set, using Uthrow > Uair to close out two stocks.

He set against Nairo was completely dominant until he had to clutch it out game 3. Not in bracket, but solid proof that Komo can win the matchup.


Abadango gets 5th, losing to Rich Brown (0-3) and VoiD (1-2). VoiD vs. Abadango was streamed on facebook, so I didn't get to see it, but Abadango went for games 1 & 2 against Rich and couldn't clutch it out, then he's absolutely dominated game 3 when he picks . Aba clearly doesn't like the mirror.

K9 and VoiD traded blows a lot. K9's is up 4 games in total (2-0 in Winners, 2-0 in Losers) before VoiD switches to and reverse 3-0s K9 to place him out at 4th.

Elegant puts up a valiant fight in a runback with Aba, but loses 1-2, and is eliminated by Tearbear in loser's bracket. I wasn't in for this, but Tyrant went out at 9th to Paper (???) and Elegant, meaning Elegant has now beaten Tyrant, VoiD, and Abadango. There's no question he's currently the best Luigi right now with Concon falling off and Ron's Luigi being unproven at the absolute top.

 

[Yikarur]

Mewtwo mirror is one of the dumbest things in this game.
Rich Brown almost got 2 stocked (in 3 Stocks) by a german Mewtwo at Syndicate but got the comeback. It escalates so quickly.

Where was that tournament streamed? I want to see that Komorikiri winning streak.

 

[Blue Banana]

Paper (???)

I'm really unsure of this, but I think I remember Paper being a player. I'm not sure if he changed mains or if I remembered the wrong person, so don't quote me on this.

 

[irokex13]

Let's take a moment to look at Cloud. While I'm glad that we're past the whole "Cloud hate" train, it seems as if he is a bit underrated at times. One thing that really stands out is the "just gimp him" belief that people seem to have about him. Now, don't get me wrong, his recovery is certainly one of his biggest weaknesses, but gimping Cloud is easier said than done. There are certainly characters that are able to threaten Cloud with their potent gimping abilities (), but from personal experience and viewing many high level Cloud matches, Cloud is mostly getting gimped when he makes a mistake offstage. He can actually cover himself very well, and the edge guarder usually has to make a good read to correctly gimp Cloud. His high recovery, ledge snap, and low recovery usually have to be covered differently (some characters may cover 2/3, but not all of them) and given that he has several options to assist his recovery, like stalling with Blade Beam (gives him drift and provides a big moving hitbox to cover him), Cross Slash (stops him momentum), charging Limit, and Cloud has threatening aerials that can ward off/kill attackers.


Surely, characters will optimize their edge guards against Cloud, but he still has was to optimize his recovery and mix up where he goes. Not only that, but it seems that an often glazed over fact is how potent Cloud is at edge guarding. Many characters that can threaten him offstage can also be threatened just as easily (ex). From my experiences, the only characters that I could not reliably edge guard are .


Combine that with his untapped ledge trapping game (he's actually really good at it) and he is a character that I fail to see dropping out of top tier. One could argue that he could "fall out of top 5", but with the way that the meta is shaping up, is there really that big of a difference between top 5 and top 11 in this game?

* are pretty much all national threats and are capable of dominating the rest of the cast (Ryu doesn't really dominate the cast and might be the "weakest" top tier, but his reward will always keep him relevant). I don't think it really matters who is truly #1 or #8 or #4 on the tier list, none of them are considerably stronger than the rest. Each top tier has at can say they lose to at least one of the others, while also beating/going even with the others.

Last note before I go back to permanent lurk status, vs isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Cloud gets rocked in disadvantage, but he can actually punish Sheik pretty harshly in her disadvantage as well. He can challenge her really well in neutral, and he actually has the ability to juggle and edge guard her (bair/reverse nair/LCS on Bouncing Fish, 2 frame dair/Limit Blade Beam on Vanish). Sheik can still edge guard him really well and her conversions in neutral are quite threatening, but it is at worst a 40:60 MU (45:55 at best for Cloud imo).

 

[NairWizard]

NairWizard While you're around, did you get a chance to watch either Ally vs Komorikiri or ANTi vs ZeRo from Abadango Saga?

I remember you saying that running from / walling out / etc. Mario constantly isn't feasible or something along those lines, but I'm not so sure. He doesn't seem to have a good answer to the opponent moving back whenever he tries to come in, then throwing out some hitbox he can't punish because of range or wait for him to extend -> counter poke because he has to put himself at risk to hit you in the first place (or mixing in walk / run up and grab because the Mario player is already trying to consider catching you for a retreat).

Don't get me wrong, Mario's still good because most of the cast can't actually do that consistently + he's a monster once he gets in with momentum, but I do feel like his approach or lack thereof is a flaw we can't gloss over. Compared to the other top tiers, his landing issues can be quite apparent sometimes too.

Let's actually look at the set of Ally vs. Komorikiri. I'll focus on Cloud since the Sonic lost.

Watching this set, it's evident to me that Cloud vs. Mario is not a match decided by Mario's inability to approach. Mario deals about as much damage once he gets in as he takes being kept out. As an example, at 6:04 Mario has taken a bunch of stray hits from Cloud and has gotten juggled a lot, but makes up the deficit in one conversion by taking Cloud from 17% to 79%.

What actually decide the result of these matches are reads in advantage. The first stock in the mentioned match is taken as a result of Ally's f-air overextension offstage, which Komo reads and responds to with a f-air spike. Next stock is decided by a brilliant Omnislash landing read.
The following match, Ally seals first stock with a normal b-air at 140 but then savagely nails the second stock at 68% with an f-smash read on an airdodge in advantage. These are the game deciders here. Whoever gets the read in advantage conversions wins. The player with the better situational awareness in advantage wins. Not the player playing the better neutral.

If there's a game that really supports your point, it's game 4 on Lylat. Mario gets walled out a whole lot here. But for most of this game, Ally isn't taking the gamble that Mario needs to take to get in. I'm talking about rolls and airdodges and calling out Cloud's dash with a grab. He does this in every other game consistently, but in this game he plays a little scared. There's only one powershield on Cloud b-airs in the whole game as far as I can see.

So it's true, Mario does get walled out, and it is indeed a weakness. In order to get in, Mario needs to guess somewhat. He needs to roll, or try to anticipate-powershield a spacing aerial, or SHAD into n-air/d-air. But as long as he's right one out of every 3 guesses he can still win the match, and that's precisely what makes him so strong. You can't always call out his defensive mixups.

Zoning, while potent, is not nearly as powerful as it's made out to be sometimes. Rolls, airdodges, and powershielding are just too strong for that to be the case.

 

[Ghostbone]

I really don't buy Greninja getting beaten by Bayonetta
He can run, not crawl, but run under Bullet Climax where Bayonetta has to choose a defensive option. This forces her to rely of bullet arts for her mid range game which is strong, but is not enough to keep Greninja from getting in and doing 40% conversions. His up close game is stronger than Bayonetta's allowing him to pressure her without her being able to really challenge him. He can also pressure her shield with fair, fsmash, nair, and shurikans without much fear of WT OoS.

In the disadvantage he can obviously SSHC out of things but that alone is punishable, doing it in combination with SDI however makes it much easier for Greninja to reset to the neutral than other characters. He can then resume playing a
patient neutral weaving in and out choosing when to go in and when to sit and throw shurikans

Bullet climax doesn't need to be used in neutral, it's only there for certain tall characters/characters who like to jump a lot. Greninja being able to run under them doesn't matter a whole lot.

40% conversions is an exaggeration, most of greninja's stuff isn't true, requiring either a jump read or an air-dodge read. Bayo on the other hand has those sort of consistent punishes (of which some stuff greninja can side-b out, but that can easily be baited and puts greninja back at the beginning of a combo lol).

Greninja doesn't have options to threaten bayo's d-tilt or bair, so he's often forced into shielding a lot, which bayo can just grab him for (though her dash grab and grab reward are bad). That or he starts trying to roll through her constantly, which itself can be easily capitalized on. His recovery is also exploitable considering how much space bayo can cover with nair and up-b, while greninja doesn't have any way to edgeguard her back.

Greninja's neutral is worse, his conversions are worse, his advantage is worse. SSHC doesn't make up for that, and it's the only reason people ever put it in his favor to begin with.

 

[Bowserboy3]

Next stock is decided by a brilliant Omnislash landing read..

Criminy, I didn't realise Final Smashes were legal! I await the day when I see Giga Bowser taking a set.

(I haven't watched the whole set, but think you mean Limit Cross Slash )

But you are exactly right in what you said. The fact Ally was able to even the game back out like you mentioned was a great example.

 

[bc1910]

Dabuz said "that MU is actually surprisingly hard" vs my greninja on ladder a while back. Full hop fair + FCWS both seemed to pressure Oli without many options for retaliation. Nair pressure also worked well.

Personally i use greninja for anyone with a slow OoS grab option, since nair/fair/dtilt/jab mixups all work very very well.

Minus blu pikmin, nair gets them all off easily, quickly, and safely. He can also counter a pikmin stuck to him but who cares since he still gets punished for a successful counter while bayo counters a pikmin and gets a full charge smash and some tilts

For the reasons you've stated plus a couple of others (Oli is light + floaty with unspectacular options for hitting below him in the air, leaving him pretty vulnerable to early Usmash kills) Greninja should do very well in that MU. Pre-buff it was pretty difficult though; he needs the faster shurikens to compete at mid-range.

I really don't buy Greninja getting beaten by Bayonetta
He can run, not crawl, but run under Bullet Climax where Bayonetta has to choose a defensive option. This forces her to rely of bullet arts for her mid range game which is strong, but is not enough to keep Greninja from getting in and doing 40% conversions. His up close game is stronger than Bayonetta's allowing him to pressure her without her being able to really challenge him. He can also pressure her shield with fair, fsmash, nair, and shurikans without much fear of WT OoS.

In the disadvantage he can obviously SSHC out of things but that alone is punishable, doing it in combination with SDI however makes it much easier for Greninja to reset to the neutral than other characters. He can then resume playing a patient neutral weaving in and out choosing when to go in and when to sit and throw shurikans

Ghostbone already hit the nail on the head but to reiterate, Greninja doesn't have many answers to a lot of Bayo's typical tricks in neutral. His 40% conversions aren't consistent and require reads (Greninja is basically 50/50: The Character) so on average you'll be getting maybe 25% if you hit half your punishes (with the additional 5% coming from the initial combo starter, probably Uthrow). That is still generous; you are probably looking at something more like 15-20% on average.

His best bet is really to abuse shurikens, which actually does work quite well since getting hit with dABK doesn't lead to monstrous conversions any more.

SSHC is overrated in the MU but is still useful because it turns a lot of Bayo's would-be guaranteed damage combos into 50/50s. But yeah you get punished hard if SSHC gets read.

Though I wouldn't say Bayo's neutral is much better than Greninja's (again I think his neutral is underrated in general). He can still make life difficult for her with his projectile, speed and threat of hard punishes even though they're not fully consistent. He's also a ***** to kill if he can avoid a Roofie combo or WT. Whilst it's true he has no answer to Bair, he also has no reason to get hit by it. Edgeguarding is probably her best bet.

On the surface I would think this MU is even or slightly in Bayo's favour. It's close-ish but I don't see it being in Greninja's favour at this point.

Only thing I would disagree with DunnoBro is that Greninja is not easy to Witch Time, or at least doesn't have to be. His dashgrab and pivot grab are stellar whilst his standing grab is actually quite good for grabbing Bayo's outstretched limbs. If you run at her with Fair/Nair and stuff then yes you will get WT'd all day because their numbers aren't good enough, but that isn't how he should play the neutral or push an advantage against Bayo.

 

[Deleted member]

Sorry if it seems like I'm intruding on this conversation, but I wanted to share something.

Here's a document of Shulk's tournament results up until now, @valakmtnsmash4 assisted me in creating this. Just wanted somewhere to chronicle the performances of various Shulk players since most people don't know about how he tends to perform.

 

[DunnoBro]

Only thing I would disagree with DunnoBro is that Greninja is not easy to Witch Time, or at least doesn't have to be. His dashgrab and pivot grab are stellar whilst his standing grab is actually quite good for grabbing Bayo's outstretched limbs. If you run at her with Fair/Nair and stuff then yes you will get WT'd all day because their numbers aren't good enough, but that isn't how he should play the neutral or push an advantage against Bayo.

Well I shouldn't have said "easy" as if it's somehow controllable for the bayo, but certain neutral tools of his do make it more of a threat than other chars. I just know when looking at potential counters for prepatch bayo, all examples of this mu had greninja's nair and dairs getting witch timed all over. I suppose the meta evolved since then, though.

 

[Goombo]

Many characters that can threaten him offstage can also be threatened just as easily (ex).

How does Cloud edgeguard Marth?

Spoiler

And the next question would be, how in the world does Cloud come anywhere close to making Marths offstage life hell like Marth does to him?

 

[bc1910]

Well I shouldn't have said "easy" as if it's somehow controllable for the bayo, but certain neutral tools of his do make it more of a threat than other chars. I just know when looking at potential counters for prepatch bayo, all examples of this mu had greninja's nair and dairs getting witch timed all over. I suppose the meta evolved since then, though.

Yeah I see where you're coming from. I would say that Dairs shouldn't be getting WT'd since he shouldn't be using it too much (at all) outside of guaranteed footstool setups or as a Hail Mary landing option, but WT definitely does affect his use of Nair. I think he has to be wary of WT but it's not horribly limiting for him. It would be if his grab or throw game were worse, for sure (or if he still had the old shurikens).

 

[Deleted member]

How does Cloud edgeguard Marth?

Spoiler

And the next question would be, how in the world does Cloud come anywhere close to making Marths offstage life hell like Marth does to him?

Nair is a really good semispike actually. It's weird that I don't see many Clouds go for it, most of the time it's bair/ledge trump bair which M2K especially likes. Cloud really can't afford to go too deep though for obvious reasons.

 

[DunnoBro]

Cloud's probably the best edge/ledgeguarder in the game. (Combined, not individually)

While he can't go too deep, he can make damn sure you don't go too high and demand you grab that ledge with nair/bair/cross slash all covering the space around the ledge very effectively.

Vs Marth, I foresee a lot of forced low recoveries meaning punished by dair or more notably limit cross slash on the 2-frame.

 

[Goombo]

Nair is a really good semispike actually. It's weird that I don't see many Clouds go for it, most of the time it's bair/ledge trump bair which M2K especially likes. Cloud really can't afford to go too deep though for obvious reasons.

Yeah, but Marth can recover deep without problems. So what is Cloud supposed to do against it?

 

[Bowserboy3]

Yeah, but Marth can recover deep without problems. So what is Cloud supposed to do against it?

Even against characters with strong off stage games, Marth's Dolphin Slash alone can be enough to make players think twice about going off stage to attempt an edgeguard. It's ability to easily cause stage spikes due to it's sheer speed, angle, and low hitlag (which makes it surprisingly hard to tech), make it a quite threatening recovery move if you get hit by it; even the weaker end hits are quite threatening due to the aforementioned traits.

Take Mr E vs Pink Fresh at Glitch for example. Pink managed to land the occasional move off stage and edgeguard Mr E a few times, but Marth's average fall speed and air speed allow him to recover quite easily to be vertical to the ledge on most occasions, just by fending off Pink with aerials or airdodges, and with his double jump still in tact, Marth can get surprisingly a lot of distance, quickly. What's more, the ledge snap is incredibly forgiving, in the fact that sometimes it looks like you are a characters length away from the ledge at the height of the move, and Marth can still snap the ledge, something Mr E manages to do in said set, which the commentators point out.

With this, it's generally very safe, and the optimal way for Marth to recover, unless you are playing a select few characters, like Villager, when you have to rely on his "magnet hands" a fair bit.

Cloud doesn't really have a whole lot he can do to counter this recovery style.

His ledge play is a different story, but actually countering Marth's recovery like this is usually very hard and rare for Cloud.

 

[verbatim]

characters that are able to threaten Cloud with their potent gimping abilities (), but from personal experience and viewing many high level Cloud matches, Cloud is mostly getting gimped when he makes a mistake offstage. He can actually cover himself very well, and the edge guarder usually has to make a good read to correctly gimp Cloud. His high recovery, ledge snap, and low recovery usually have to be covered differently (some characters may cover 2/3, but not all of them) and given that he has several options to assist his recovery, like stalling with Blade Beam (gives him drift and provides a big moving hitbox to cover him), Cross Slash (stops him momentum), charging Limit, and Cloud has threatening aerials that can ward off/kill attackers.

This is a good argument, but I think that it can be refined further. There are a lot of mid and low tiers like
() who ONLY dodge having a 20-80 matchup against Cloud because they are all uncharacteristically good at edgeguarding for how "good" they are. The reason they still have bad to horrible matchups against Cloud is because none of them can consistently transition from neutral into advantage into getting Cloud offstage consistently.

Of the cast, I think a better question is who can reliably force Cloud offstage in neutral and THEN get the edgeguard. Right now, I would say that the of the characters that do "well" or close to even against Cloud.

(watch Nientono vs M2K): Do very well against Cloud in neutral, generally by walling him out and using early kill techniques to keep him from limit camping.

/: Do very well at converting advantage into putting Cloud offstage AND edgeguarding him.

: Are pretty good but not amazing in all of these. As always, there's not a lot of competitive data on Pit, but it should be worth noting that Earth has a ridiculously positive track record against the best Clouds in America.

: Does exceptionally well in all of these traits, which is why I think that she does the best of the cast against Cloud. Maybe Bayonetta or Megaman also belong in this column, TBH I'm not the most knowledgeable on either of them.


As an added comment

: Are all probably -1 or -2 against Cloud, but they also have ridiculous punish games against him that allow them to at least partially negate the worst parts of the matchup.

 

[Y2Kay]

Greninja brings a lot more to the table than just SSHC in the bayonetta match up.

Gren can maintain a safe space with shurikens and speed. He really just needs to disengage her until she commits to something he can punish.

Bayo's back air being safe is kind of a moot point. Back Air get's whiff punished by Forward Air (Venia does this repeatedly to PF in their matches)

Greninja should be shielding very rarely anyway. A lot of greninjas lose because they play scared and shield any aggresive approach that comes their way, when he just as easily can run or jump away.

This MU should be even. It's never been hard for me.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Pokemon takes much less skill than Smash

Off topic, but I'd say it takes a different kind of skill, not necessarily less. Prediction (reading essentially), while important in Smash, is much more important in Pokemon, for example.

* are pretty much all national threats and are capable of dominating the rest of the cast (Ryu doesn't really dominate the cast and might be the "weakest" top tier, but his reward will always keep him relevant). I don't think it really matters who is truly #1 or #8 or #4 on the tier list, none of them are considerably stronger than the rest. Each top tier has at can say they lose to at least one of the others, while also beating/going even with the others.

It's getting to the point where I'm finding Marth more threatening than Ryu.

How does Cloud edgeguard Marth?

Spoiler

And the next question would be, how in the world does Cloud come anywhere close to making Marths offstage life hell like Marth does to him?

Nair and dair are pretty good, as well as LCS or LBB right at the ledge (LBB is such an underused option!) There aren't a lot of ways for Marth to mix up his recovery. Going high with Dolphin slash is rarely a good idea (Last game of Mr. E vs Tweek at Glitch 2 is a good example of when it's a good option though), leaving only horizontal spacing mix ups by abusing Marth's gigantic magnet hands and using dancing blade to stall for time.

Not a big problem for Cloud though because he does well onstage vs Marth and that's where he tends to kill more often.

 

[BSP]

Response

I generally agree with what you said.

DunnoBro ok. We seem to be on the same page. FLUDD helps, but it isn't an instant solution to the problem.

Nu~ verbatim I don't see how Pac-Man destroys Cloud offstage, unless the latter has expended his jump and must go to the ledge. Am I missing something?

 

[Tizio Random]

GimR just posted a predicted tier list of the future of Sm4sh

Where I think Smash 4 is going to be in one or two years pic.twitter.com/bB471FFG8M

— GimR (@VGBC_GimR) September 27, 2016

What do you think? IMHO I would believe this. Some things could (and should) be discussed, tho

 

[Nu~]

I generally agree with what you said.

DunnoBro ok. We seem to be on the same page. FLUDD helps, but it isn't an instant solution to the problem.

Nu~ verbatim I don't see how Pac-Man destroys Cloud offstage, unless the latter has expended his jump and must go to the ledge. Am I missing something?

Orange alone is cruel to cloud. Quick charge time, relatively quick, can bounce it off the wall to cover the diagonal angle...

You can also just go out and fair him repeatedly since he can't escape it without air dodging (and falling too low to recover). If he jumps he's totally screwed

 

[Megamang]

After putting a good amount of time into the character, id like to introduce you to the "greninja rule".

If a greninja player comes on stream and you think "oh, ive never heard that name", there is a 95% chance that person only knows SSHC or footstool setups. They will proceed to flounder aimlessly in 2 of the 3 states, the commentator will say something wrong that greninja (read, that player) 'struggles with', 3 greninja players watching lose a year of their life due to stress levels elevating rapidly, then a 2-0 and a handshake completes the ritual.


Something ive noticed about the frog that is quite cool... his s.grab FAF is really solid. You see mario do grab to jab to punish spotdodge or backrolls at the ledge, greninja has the same option with more range and less recovery on the grab.

But less guaranteed damage from the grab

 

[JayE]

Off topic, but I'd say it takes a different kind of skill, not necessarily less. Prediction (reading essentially), while important in Smash, is much more important in Pokemon, for example.

Well I agree it takes a different kind of skill, because its a different game. The only things in Pokemon that really take skill are predicting, like you said, and team building. Thats what I think. Thats what many competitive Pokemon battlers such as Shofu will say that.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

GimR just posted a predicted tier list of the future of Sm4sh

Where I think Smash 4 is going to be in one or two years pic.twitter.com/bB471FFG8M

— GimR (@VGBC_GimR) September 27, 2016

What do you think? IMHO I would believe this. Some things could (and should) be discussed, tho

The idea is good. The individual placings though? Not sure about that, a lot of it seems off.

Corrin solo-viable? Peach solo-viable? "Viable with a good bracket" is too broad a definition and probably needs to be redefined if you want to tackle a chart like this seriously. It's also too hard to tell apart where "solo viable with a good bracket" ends and "dual main viable" begins.

I think it's important to give thorough explanations in this case as well because you can't really cite results if you're trying to predict what's going to happen in the future. I, for one, do not believe that Mario and Cloud are going to be "above the rest" in a year or two.

But it's probably a more fruitful approach than a conventionlar tier list.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

GimR just posted a predicted tier list of the future of Sm4sh

Where I think Smash 4 is going to be in one or two years pic.twitter.com/bB471FFG8M

— GimR (@VGBC_GimR) September 27, 2016

What do you think? IMHO I would believe this. Some things could (and should) be discussed, tho

I do appreciate that he had a spot for characters he didn't know about.

The meta could be very different a few years down the line. I'm glad he's not just throwing characters under the bus.

 

[sups48]

Well I agree it takes a different kind of skill, because its a different game. The only things in Pokemon that really take skill are predicting, like you said, and team building. Thats what I think. Thats what many competitive Pokemon battlers such as Shofu will say that.

Team building, Predicting, and knowledge of the game probably goes with out saying but its super important if you only know whats in Ubers, OU, and UU your going to get destroyed. Just like in smash(smash 4 specifically) But unlike smash your going to get punished so much harder for not knowing obscure pokemon.

Back to Smash bros.

How the hell is pit not solo viable.

 

[ARISTOS]

GimR just posted a predicted tier list of the future of Sm4sh

Where I think Smash 4 is going to be in one or two years pic.twitter.com/bB471FFG8M

— GimR (@VGBC_GimR) September 27, 2016

What do you think? IMHO I would believe this. Some things could (and should) be discussed, tho

I think better characterization of the different categories & making an argument for how the game will develop would be useful before embarking on this.

Once we've solidified the above, then you can begin to characterize characters based on that framework. Until you've done that though, it comes across as an opinion not really rooted in anything.

If GIMR has any explanations for his choices+what he considered the criteria for each category it'd be great to hear.

Well I agree it takes a different kind of skill, because its a different game. The only things in Pokemon that really take skill are predicting, like you said, and team building. Thats what I think. Thats what many competitive Pokemon battlers such as Shofu will say that.

Risk management is also a hugely important part of the game. Everyone knows what the threats are and their checks, so how do you control you team to take out key threats while keeping yours safe? Deciding on when to hold onto a piece, when to let go, setting up teams to prevent sweeps, etc.