Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Ghostbone]

Any character can win a local. Any non bottom 5 character can win a regional. Don't fool yourself, this isn't Melee.
The appeal to Mario is that he doesn't have a ton of awful and polarizing matchups like, say, Fox.
He instead has a bunch of +1s and -1s that are all very manageable. Besides maybe Sonic.

I mean sure, I guess I should have clarified that I meant relevant tournaments. (relevant meaning that top level players are in attendance)

A character with a bunch of +1s and -1s isn't top tier, that character would be Pit, who sits fairly close to the middle of the tier list. Mario is not that character.

Yeah, you say this, but that's not the case at all.
Look at Yoshi. Over time his matchups have only gotten worse and now sit comfortably since counterplay for him is very fleshed out.
Look at Sheik and Bayo. After their respective patches people immediately said both lost to 10 characters or whatever and now that we see both of these characters are ****ing stupid there are very realistic arguments for them both having anywhere between 0-2 bad matchups.
This is not the case with Mario. His matchups have been the slowly degrading throughout the game's life, and the main changes are the ones that directly make some characters better(Sheik and Luigi) and others worse(Marth and DK) through patches.

Your examples don't really counter my point.
The Sheik/Bayo examples are illustrating exactly what I'm saying. Mario is at the same power level as those characters. You're the one trying to say that he loses to "10 characters or whatever", following the exact same pattern.
"His matchups have slowly been degrading"
Says who? lol

Mario has piss poor range, a mediocre projectile, and a full on grappler strategy. A gameplan centered around grabs means you yourself are at higher risk of being grabbed. That's just common sense. The character doesn't have great ledgetrapping or great horizontal combos. At this point you're just adding positives that aren't even there.

Mario's range is perfectly fine for his mobility specs, you can easily be safe on shield by crossing up and spacing well.

Brawl MK doesn't even have a projectile, a broken projectile isn't some prerequisite for being able to avoid grabs. Fireball is solid in their own way at covering Mario as he comes down. A mediocre projectile isn't a weakness, it's just not a huge strength.

You'll need to expand on what you mean by full on grappler strategy. Mario has extraordinary aerials, which lead into themselves, tilts/jabs and grabs (which is separate from going for grabs in neutral). It's not like he relies on dash grab (and specifically against Bowser/DK, you can play those matchups in a specific way at the % ranges where you'd die to their throw combos).
"The character doesn't have great horizontal combos"
That's completely dependent on where the opponent DIs. Mario bair strings are an entirely legit thing, and uair > nairs > more uairs moving horizontally across the stage also happens all the time, especially against fat characters.
And he does have great ledge trapping against superheavies lol, those characters are abysmal in that situation.

Furthermore, Mario is just better at getting grabs than those characters due to being able to easily condition them to shield and get stuff like empty landings > grab. While yes nothing in this game is without risk, Mario takes less risk than these characters to get even more reward than them.

Okay. But Mario does have plenty of weaknesses. The characters above him......namely, , have tools that flat out deny other characters their right to play in certain areas and outweigh their weaknesses.
If Bayo is put in any disadvantageous non-guaranteed situation, the character will probably just ignore it.
If Sheik puts you on the ledge or commits to keeping you at bay, she'll ignore what you're trying to do and usually keep you there.
If Sonic wants to tack on % and haul *** for the rest of the game, he'll ignore any attempts you make at getting the lead back and just widen the gap.
etc
Mario doesn't have things like this. Just being a "solid" character isn't good enough in a game like this. You have to have a Spin Dash. Needles. Shadow Ball. A Flip Jump....some really, really dumb moves with silly qualities that allow the character to straight up oppress whatever you want to do. Mario doesn't have anything like that.
Guy just grabs you and does a bunch of damage.
Characters without a bunch of bs attached to their kit are doomed to fall while the others will go up.
That's just how it works.

Ok straight away, I can tell you that most good characters have ways to deal with all these character's tools. If we're talking about mid tiers and such, Mario equally invalidates any character without good combo breaking tools, through consistent juggles and resets.

But anyway, with this you're trying to imply that other characters can just almost universally apply some linear playstyle by spamming unfair stuff and succeed. That's not the case at all. You don't just win by spamming shadow ball or flip jump, except maybe against some really bad characters, and you don't need flip jump to succeed (and shadow ball is good but not even close to some auto win button).
So yea I guess Mario doesn't go +4 against bad characters with spin dash, but that's not at all relevant.
(and yes I understand you don't literally mean M2 just presses shadow ball and wins, but you're making these moves out to be way more important than they are)

A character can't be "too well rounded" which is essentially the point you're trying to make. If we want to talk specifically about matchups like Mario vs Fox, there are clear ways in which Mario abuses Fox's weaknesses much harder than vice versa. Matchups always go both ways, and all that's important is that Mario takes advantage of another character's weaknesses better than they can to his, that he can mitigate their strengths better than vice versa, etc.
You don't need to be a polarising character to be top tier, and Mario has many polarising strengths of his own anyway (There's no shortage of Mario "bs" around, with various 0 > deaths (with rage or not), true combos into fair spike, 50/50's into spikes, etc.).

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Mario is top tier because he doesn't have an abundance of problematic matchups, not the other way around.

Match ups change as the meta progresses. Mario is top tier right now, but will he always be? The meta game is changing, walling someone out is becoming much more potent and Mario is especially weak to that. Just because he didn't/currently doesn't have many bad match ups doesn't mean he won't ever.

 

[ARISTOS]

A character with a bunch of +1s and -1s isn't top tier, that character would be Pit, who sits fairly close to the middle of the tier list. Mario is not that character.

Are we sure that MU spread is actually like this?

I can see the MU against Mario for many characters being "Run away and wait"-his mixup game on shield is too potent and once he's hit you 30-40% or even death is not uncommon.

 

[Illusion.]

In reponse to the TBH6 pools post since it mentioned these two in predictions, neither Megafox nor shofu will be attending after all.

 

[DunnoBro]

He can also often drop past the ledge and double jump dair, covering every option except roll on stage which can be reacted to during the dair and punished with grab.

Like I said, their options are so bad he can over them but nair is a small hitbox that most good chars can just fair/uair if not avoid completely by standard/delayed jumping. And people usually fall out of dair that way and it's punishable on hit then, not to mention it has low range and priority too so attacks can stuff it too. Dair also only does like 3% this way and doesn't true combo into anything at higher, more crucial percents (Caaaaan set up for fair around 50-70 which is cool though)

I lab mario's ledge coverage extensively, like grabbing discord kids and forcing them to mix up return options off the ledge for me to try covering. He only covers multiple options with decent reward by getting somewhat risky.

I'm not underrating his ledgeplay at all, he has absolutely nothing comparable to sheik needles + boost grab, fox utilt, diddy fair + nana, bayo bair, or ryu tilts. It's just functional and worth doing, but that's all.

 

[Y2Kay]

I'd like to ask you and everyone in this thread a few things. Maybe that'll be the spark of discussion we need. Don't have to answer all the questions, but passing along this sort of information has to be amazing for the competitive community. If you're unsure on one of the questions, DO NOT answer it without saying you're uncertain.

• 3-5 good characters(top half of the cast) your main does well against?
• 5 bad/mediocre characters(bottom half of the cast) does your main do worse than expected or poorly against?
• What's your main's most optimal playing style and why?
• What area(s) could mains of your character improve in to push their meta further and make them be seen as a better individual on the roster?
• What matchups or strategies could stop your main from advancing in the meta?
• Good character to secondary/pocket with your main?
• A few little known facts about your main that people get caught up on? Tricks they have, things you shouldn't try to punish, etc

• -- Greninja's shurikens, Forward Air, and natural mobility in tandem wall Mario out pretty effectively and can deny many of his attempts to get in. Mario's air mobility and potential damage output keeps him threatening in the match up. Greninja's track record against Mario players (both aMSa and Some have beaten Ally, and Dark Aura often gives him a run for his money. Tasty Tofu has also beaten Tatsusuyo) I believe Greninja has a slight advantage.

• -- Another match up I think we win slightly. Greninja's has a small frame, virtually equal in mobility, and has tools like shuriken to pester her outside of grab range, and the ability to whiff punish them too. This match up has always been super easy for me. I have a weaker track record against Zelda mains than her lol

• -- I was actually super concerned that this would be a problematic match up in the future. Mewtwo, just like us, is a fast psuedo swordsman, with aggressive high reward zoning. However, his conversion are easier to acquire. But Greninja's track record is actually pretty good. iStud is even with Rich Brown, Dark Aura has beaten Death Horse, Tasty tofu has beaten Ginko, and Some has beaten Abadango. Greninja's short hop aerials are actually very potent at punishing Mewtwo's mid range spacing tools like shadow ball and down tilt. Teleport get's two framed by Down Air at the ledge, and rage Up throw kills him remarkably early. It's still even though.

• -- This match up doesn't have too much evidence, as the only thing we can go off of is Some's victory over Motsunabe's Ryu, and Dark Aura's victory over Venom. I believe Greninja beats Ryu because, in part, for the same reasons I believe we beat Mario. Greninja keeps Ryu out very well with Shurikens, Forward Air, and his mobility advantage. However, Ryu's anti airs are insanely good, so Neutral Airs are incredibly risky, especially at death percents.

• --I'm starting to think we slightly win this match up too. Greninja's psuedo swordsman archetype gives him the mobility edge over Marth, but he also has a projectile (which Marth obviously does not), and rivaling disjoint(s) of his own. Greninja additionaly has the ability to edge guard Marth with shurikens and hydro pump.

• -- Zard is the hardest of the heavyweights for Greninja to fight. Charizard's great ground speed is helps him dividends here. He has better disadvantage, being harder to juggle with rock smash and multiple mid air jumps and being harder to kill. The omnipresent threat of flare blitz can make it risky to throw shurikens. It's 55:45 at best. Some lists this match up as even though, which I could understand.

• -- Little Mac's better ground mobility and good frame data can make it difficulty to approach and risky to throw shurikens. It's harder for Greninja to initiate a juggle and maintain it compared to Fox in this MU for example, but Greninja's edgeguarding is much better in this match up. It's 60:40 at best, but I don't see it improving on either end.

• When you utilize his great mobility, strong projectile game, great disjoint, and good edge-guarding, you'll be using him as an offensive - oriented zoner. He can space out opponents with Forward Air and shurikens well. He may not be as good at zoning as perhaps Villager or Robin, what he has over them is great burst movement. You'll never have to worry about Robin pelting you with projectiles then zipping from one end of the stage to in your face. Combine that with his serious damage output and strong edge-guarding, you have a character that can threaten a large portion of the stage. Essentially what Greninja wants to do in a match is control space with his zoning tools. He wants to approach you and get in serious damage, but he wants to approach you on his terms, as several of his high reward attacks carry some notable risks.

• Asfor the future of the meta, I really want to see Greninja's learn to use their movement both aggressively and defensively. Greninja has the stats to weave his way around and away from attacks instead of shielding, which I find incredibly important since shielding puts you in a bad position and kills our momentum. I remember once where Venia and Coffee where analyzing their Greninja dittos, and the counted the amount of times they both shielded so Venia could make a point. Coffee shielded approximately 30 times in their match. Venia only shielded 3 times. It's little things like this that separate good Greninja players from great ones.
  
  I also would like to see Greninja players to flesh out their mix up game. Greninja's said mobility can have his mix ups catch more people off guard. For example,
  I've seen a lot of japanese greninja use down tilt shadow sneak, down throw shadow sneak mix ups, and have even seen them counter ledge trump attacks with shadow sneak mixups. Lab it out genin!
  
  I'm also getting tire of seeing Greninja mains so dependent on neutral air. That's a high risk high reward move that's difficult to master. You should NOT be using this move until you get a full understanding of Greninja's footsies play and have mastered his movement. But for some reason all these genin think that your skill with Greninja is determined by how good you are at foot stool combos! ◥θ益θ◤ノ ┻━┻

• Lastly, I'd like to for more Greninja mains to undestand their grounded game more. Too many greninja mains are dependent on Nair and Forward Air to generate an offense. When they have to face characters that command the space above them like Diddy Kong, they throw their arms up in frustration and say that Greninja loses the match up. Greninja's ground game is often overlooked, but it's still incredibly potent. Pivot Forward Tilt, shurikens, c bounced shurikens, and dash grab are all good options, and can be used to combat characters that can stuff Neutral Air.
  
  
• I think Greninja's good enough to survive any meta changes, but a rise in popularity for characters like Sonic would really suck.
• or works just fine for me.
• People fall for Air dodge traps way too much. You should DI all of Greninja's throws up and away. Don't underestimate Neutral Air's landing lag. I catch so many people with Nair Jab for dropping shield too soon

 

[Zelder]

I think people have a tendency to downplay Mario in this thread because, if you've play 5 consecutive games of Smash 4 (on For Glory, at a local, etc.), 2 of them will be against a Mario (the other 3 will be against Cloud). It's a reverse of the Olimar/Palutena/GnW obscure character problem. So everyone chimes in on the Mario match up, even if the extent of their Mario matchup knowledge is "guy who gets the initial uptilt string then falls apart immediately afterwards". I think that contributes to why everyone and their grandmother claims they go even with/beat Mario in this thread.

 

[Ninety]

Maybe even a bit of Falcon syndrome. People see him being played a lot, which of course lends itself to a lot of mid-level players not doing so hot with him, and see their weaknesses being exploited. And then selectively forget about every top level result he gets. Honestly, I have to wonder if Mario's range has like ever been an actual detriment to his top level representation. Reading this thread you'd think that, say, Mewtwo can just dtilt and fair and make Mario useless.

 

[Deleted member]

I think people have a tendency to downplay Mario in this thread because, if you've play 5 consecutive games of Smash 4 (on For Glory, at a local, etc.), 2 of them will be against a Mario (the other 3 will be against Cloud). It's a reverse of the Olimar/Palutena/GnW obscure character problem. So everyone chimes in on the Mario match up, even if the extent of their Mario matchup knowledge is "guy who gets the initial uptilt string then falls apart immediately afterwards". I think that contributes to why everyone and their grandmother claims they go even with/beat Mario in this thread.

C'mon man, don't you know Shulk beats Mario just because he has a giant sword? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[Floor]

Greninja is interesting. He is really underrated, but still far from top tier in my opinion. He has a lot of potential and wins many matchups, but i think @Chainz. here might be over shooting just a little bit. I haven't followed the Greninja scene, so take this as it may, but I think -

• is even. Mario has a great bait and punish game and a fast neutral air to interupt combos while starting his own.
  
• Also even, for a similar reason. I've fought some talented Greninja mains (P2P Gibus) and I've found that my recovery and neutral air are effective in breaking combos. Greninja has range on his air attacks, which is usually annoying for us Marcina mains. However, Marcina also has tools like ftilt, uptilt, and fair and nair to keep us safe. Honestly, one of the harder parts is deciding who to play. Greninja can be played a few different wasys, either as a rushdown or a zoner, to name a few. Once you know your opponent, you can play Marth against the Shuriken heavy zoners and Lucina against the rushdowns. I would recommend more Greninja mains mix up their style; not too many do from what I've seen.

All in all Greninja wins many matchups, but, in my opinion, doesn't win against the top tiers.

 

[DunnoBro]

• -- Greninja's shurikens, Forward Air, and natural mobility in tandem wall Mario out pretty effectively and can deny many of his attempts to get in. Mario's air mobility and potential damage output keeps him threatening in the match up. Greninja's track record against Mario players (both aMSa and Some have beaten Ally, and Dark Aura often gives him a run for his money. Tasty Tofu has also beaten Tatsusuyo) I believe Greninja has a slight advantage.

It doesn't help greninja has the highest resistance to fludd in the game. I don't even think it's intentional like type resistance, he's just a fast faller + high air acceleration. The mario meta is largely turning to fludd to deal with getting walled/camped in many MUs but it just doesn't help vs greninja who can honestly land and run right into it for a grab often times. It only works when both are at high percents.

Mewtwo can just dtilt and fair and make Mario useless.

M2 is quickly becoming one of mario's worst MUs simply because of those though lol (Plus the pittance of a reward he gets off grab vs m2)

 

[Y2Kay]

I think people have a tendency to downplay Mario in this thread because, if you've play 5 consecutive games of Smash 4 (on For Glory, at a local, etc.), 2 of them will be against a Mario (the other 3 will be against Cloud). It's a reverse of the Olimar/Palutena/GnW obscure character problem. So everyone chimes in on the Mario match up, even if the extent of their Mario matchup knowledge is "guy who gets the initial uptilt string then falls apart immediately afterwards". I think that contributes to why everyone and their grandmother claims they go even with/beat Mario in this thread.

In my defense, Ally thinks Greninja is a bad match up for Mario too!

Compare the amount of game and watch, palutena, and greninja counter play to mario's and you could see why so many people would come to a conclusion like that.

 

[Ethan7]

Ally thinks Greninja is a bad match up for Mario too!

That's surprising.

 

[Y2Kay]

That's surprising.

It's true! After he was beaten by amsa, he also claimed to be beaten often by japan's greninja on his trip there. He was little too dramatic about how bad the matchup is, so I rounded it down to 55:45

Greninja is interesting. He is really underrated, but still far from top tier in my opinion. He has a lot of potential and wins many matchups, but i think @Chainz. here might be over shooting just a little bit. I haven't followed the Greninja scene, so take this as it may, but I think -

• is even. Mario has a great bait and punish game and a fast neutral air to interupt combos while starting his own.
  
• Also even, for a similar reason. I've fought some talented Greninja mains (P2P Gibus) and I've found that my recovery and neutral air are effective in breaking combos. Greninja has range on his air attacks, which is usually annoying for us Marcina mains. However, Marcina also has tools like ftilt, uptilt, and fair and nair to keep us safe. Honestly, one of the harder parts is deciding who to play. Greninja can be played a few different wasys, either as a rushdown or a zoner, to name a few. Once you know your opponent, you can play Marth against the Shuriken heavy zoners and Lucina against the rushdowns. I would recommend more Greninja mains mix up their style; not too many do from what I've seen.

All in all Greninja wins many matchups, but, in my opinion, doesn't win against the top tiers.

Greninja's neutral is faster than Mario's all around. and Greninja doesn't have issues juggling him.

Greninja shouldn't engage those neutral tools tbh. That's what shurikens and and running away is for. Watch Venia vs Mr. E and Some vs Fuwa to get what I mean.

 

[meticulousboy]

I wonder what Ike's MU spread looks like. I am not good at guessing his positive matchups or his even ones. Does Ike have an advantage against Luigi, out of curiosity?

 

[Megamang]

Gren also has an awesome grab. Dash grab is huge, standing grab is big with a small recovery (5 less than mario).

His ground tools also have surprisingly good range. Jab and ftilt come to mind, but dtilt is a little bigger than the animation suggests.

Dtilt opens up some mixups.

I agree his ground game is the future of his meta.

Ive been working on punishes for up and away DI. Im thinking FLUDD style HP usage. SH HP towards then down and away shows promise at pushing them offstage after dthrow or untechable ftilt.

 

[|RK|]

I think people have a tendency to downplay Mario in this thread because, if you've play 5 consecutive games of Smash 4 (on For Glory, at a local, etc.), 2 of them will be against a Mario (the other 3 will be against Cloud). It's a reverse of the Olimar/Palutena/GnW obscure character problem. So everyone chimes in on the Mario match up, even if the extent of their Mario matchup knowledge is "guy who gets the initial uptilt string then falls apart immediately afterwards". I think that contributes to why everyone and their grandmother claims they go even with/beat Mario in this thread.

I really just go off the word of experienced Mario mains + what I see. I routinely hear Sonic is an issue, as well as Luigi, as well as Peach, as well as Bowser, as well as DK, as well as Corrin (but I can see how Mario's mobility can help him there), as well as a number of other characters. Much of what I see from him involves pure player skill - opening people up for grabs or upsmashes - that lower level players can't hope to replicate. For as much tech and 50/50s we talk about, the highest placing Marios generally use their raw skill to create opportunities. Ally (as previously mentioned) is amazing at seeing opportunities, and ANTi is amazing at creating opportunities out of bad situations. Who better to carry the plumber to the top? The most technical/combo-heavy Mario - Zenyou - is amazing, but not quite on their level. It's why ZeRo said he doesn't have a Mario problem - he had a problem with how Ally and ANTi specifically played the character. Mario himself is much tamer than others think, IMO.

(As an aside, both of my characters lose to Mario)

 

[ARISTOS]

It's explained in the video, but you essentially have 11 frames from when his recovery becomes vulnerable until when he can grab the ledge

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I wonder what Ike's MU spread looks like. I am not good at guessing his positive matchups or his even ones. Does Ike have an advantage against Luigi, out of curiosity?

I'd believe so. Large range + high push back vs low traction + lowish range + lower mobility = Luigi is having a problem getting in. And an Ike I haven't heard of before recently beat Mr.ConCon though I know he's no longer the top Luigi.

Very over simplification there but, from the few times I've seen this MU that's a pretty accurate summary. If Luigi gets in he's dealing a lot of damage quickly, but he's struggling a lot to get in. And while he can mix up his recovery a lot... its all kinda slow and Eruption bait.

For his MU spread: take 80% of the cast, chuck them into the 45-55 to 55-45 range. Ike does not have much outside of that window on either side of the bar. His range, raw power, and throw combos gives him a lot of advantages, his overall slow attack speed and sub-par recovery hold him back a fair bit. I ain't the best person to make a full MU chart for him, I'd have a lot in the "don't know" category but from what I've seen/heard, that's basically what it boils down to. You play your "fundamentals + grabs" gameplay for most MUs, and most MUs end up in that spread. So while he's perfect capable of doing well at even a national level, he's going to struggle climbing that high because 1) no easy mode MUs 2) Sheik and Diddy are among his worst MUs. Thats an obvious issue.

 

[meleebrawler]

Maybe even a bit of Falcon syndrome. People see him being played a lot, which of course lends itself to a lot of mid-level players not doing so hot with him, and see their weaknesses being exploited. And then selectively forget about every top level result he gets. Honestly, I have to wonder if Mario's range has like ever been an actual detriment to his top level representation. Reading this thread you'd think that, say, Mewtwo can just dtilt and fair and make Mario useless.

Well, it also doesn't help that Mario's biggest troubles in the past (mainly ) did in fact come from (good) sword characters.

 

[The-Technique]

Do Mario mains not see Sonic as a horridly disadvantageous matchup? Everyone must have seen Momocon and how Ally lost to Wrath (not even a top 5 Sonic) every match as Mario and being forced to CP with Cloud to beat him in bracket. I still maintain that Mario is one of the most overrated top tiers in the game, possibly moreso than Cloud. His mediocre mobility, poor range, and a lack frontal hitbox coverage means he can't safely approach or force approaches to the extent that top tiers are usually able to like Sheik and Diddy.

 

[NairWizard]

Mario is an option-rich character with several easily accessible (i.e. fast) choices in any given situation with overtuned reward on these options, but only if your conversions are good. Those who underestimate Mario probably don't realize how much damage he actually gets in when he gets in. Players like Anti and Ally can maximize the gains they make on their advantage state and make Mario look very strong.

To play Mario you also have to understand that you will lose neutral sometimes, maybe a lot of times, but that your weight and advantage state will make up for any deficit you suffer from getting walled out for a while. Thus, you need to commit to making educated guesses in neutral, because guessing is in Mario's favor in almost every matchup.

This usually means that the first time you play someone, your Mario will perform worse against that person, but will get better with each successive game, because your guesses will improve with time. A commentator once said that Ally only loses games, not sets, to Marth--part of that is on Ally, but part of that is because that's just how Mario plays. He needs those mini-reads, but his advantage game makes it all work out.

To compare, Pikachu is a character with a better neutral game and disadvantage than Mario who is also a significantly worse character, because his advantage is so much poorer against any character he can't edgeguard easily. The conversions in advantage matter just as much as neutral or disadvantage.

Finally, Mario's mobility is a lot better than people give it credit for because of his drift speed in the air and his lagless aerials that allow him to cross up shields as well as stuff other options with their sheer speed. His jab, foxtrot, dashgrab, and shield (up-smash OOS) give him more than enough ground play to back up that airplay. FLUDD and Cape enrich and round out Mario's gameplay and give him mixups.

He's very good, guys, we've been saying it for years, even with the likes of prenerf Diddy, Sonic, Sheik, and Luigi running about.

 

[The-Technique]

There's no denying that Mario is a great character, one of the best in Smash 4 even, but there's good reason why we only see Anti and Ally in top 8 repping Mario in major tournaments, and not always as a solo pick either. It's because Mario depends on reads and mind games to reap the reward of his amazing punish game, and even still taking stocks with Mario comes down to reading opponents falling into his Up smash, a move that isn't safe on shield and has very few ways of setting up besides late n-air (which is also unsafe and high commitment).

It's the main reason why whenever Mario encounters someone that can outbox him (Fox) out space him (Cloud, ZSS, Peach) or time him out (Sonic) it almost never goes well for him.

Keep in mind Mario only became relevant after all the nerfs to ZSS, Sheik, Diddy, and more recently Cloud and Bayonetta. Back then at one point Ally considered dropping Mario all together, tweeting that he "failed him for the last time".

 

[Megamang]

Mario also benefits a ton from rage.

Dying to bthrow before 100 hurts, but its not the only thing. FLUDD gets scary... uair conversions get insane. Dthrow goes from good combo throw to near best. A solid Mario, who knows his rage specific options, gets deadlier until he is dead.

And no good forward facing options kinda makes sense, but... bair... is good. Its a little slower to turnaround, but bair uair stuff is insane. Nair also works with drift, and for **** range it gets great frame data.

And offstage, fair isnt a blind spot. Its a death spot at 50, including with trades. And combos into fair death... well, its a damn good move and certainly makes him different to play with no fair spacing, but... he aint DK.


Oh, and cape. Cape works as a good frontal coverage, again leading to death offstage. Getting caped is immediately threatening, does good shield damage with decent range, and has a semi useful hover.

So yea... he aint DK.

 

[ARISTOS]

Keep in mind Mario only became relevant after all the nerfs to ZSS, Sheik, Diddy, and more recently Cloud and Bayonetta. Back then at one point Ally considered dropping Mario all together, tweeting that he "failed him for the last time".

That was at a point in the game where those characters not only did as much or more damage per conversion but also had confirms into kills earlier than USmash.

That's not the case anymore.

 

[TDK]

That was at a point in the game where those characters not only did as much or more damage per conversion but also had confirms into kills earlier than USmash.

That's not the case anymore.

You're missing the point there.

 

[The-Technique]

That was at a point in the game where those characters not only did as much or more damage per conversion but also had confirms into kills earlier than USmash.

That's not the case anymore.

That's true, but the reason I included that bit was mainly in response to this thing below, in reference to the previous meta of "I grab you and take your stock, gg no re", back before the top tiers were nerfed

He's very good, guys, we've been saying it for years, even with the likes of prenerf Diddy, Sonic, Sheik, and Luigi running about.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Fox has probably the deepest meta of any top tier right now. His strengths lie not in a single oppressive tool that singlehandedly invalidates some matchups (Sheik needles, Diddy fair), or broken reward (Bayo/Mario), but in the sheer amount of options he has at any given moment.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Fox is a ridiculous character who, like in melee, is a nearly unstoppable force when played perfectly. He only has like 2 legitimately bad matchups in Rosa and Sheik and mayyyybe another one in Luigi. Other than that though he has everything he needs to win any matchup in the game

 

[RonNewcomb]

Alright, i'll give this a shot. For now i'm only going to answer the first question and provide 4 matchups in the top half of the cast (going by the 4BR tier list here) that i feel like G&W performs well in.

(snip)


Lastly, i'm going to list Mario, which might be a bit more controversial. For a while i've felt that G&W performs pretty well in this matchup honestly for a few reasons. To start things off, i'll talk about one thing that's often talked about when talking about Mario's weaknesses, and that's his lack of range and limited amount of approach options, which can give him a bit of trouble getting in and make him struggle against disjointed hitboxes a little bit. G&W happens to possess a pretty nice amount of disjointed, lingering hitboxes in his kit, that he can use in the neutral withsome degree of safety, including Jab, Fair, and Bair. Alongside these disjointed hitboxes, G&W also has his monster of an Up Smash, which can easily tank through Mario's aerial approach options, reliably KO Mario below 100%, and even start combos on him at low percentages while also being very difficult to punish due to its low cooldown. Because of this combination, i've found that G&W is actually capable of walling Mario out pretty effectively. When Mario *does* get in, i've found that G&W is capable of mitigating the reward he gets off of a throw quite a bit, at least compared to other characters. G&W is a pretty light and floaty character with a pretty small hurtbox, which means he doesn't get comboed as hard as say, Cloud to begin with, and alongside that, he has the ability to Up B out of anything that isn't guaranteed because of a combination of an extremely quick (frame 2) windbox, and a somewhat fast to start period of intangibility (frame 5-13), in fact, the windbox comes out so quickly that G&W is actually capable of punishing Mario's Dair on hit if he doesn't have enough rage to make it link correctly! Mario is still able to get some good damage on G&W from his combos, but he's going to have to stick with combos that are completely guaranteed, and he's not going to get as much reward as he would on a lot of other characters. Meanwhile, G&W doesn't have too shabby of an advantage state himself, he can reliably start combos and strings with a decent portion of his moveset, he can juggle Mario effectively as well, and Toot Toot is capable of KOing Mario below 100% without rage. Mario has tools to escape some strings in Nair and Up B, but the former is capable of being Up Smashed in some situations if read and the latter is significantly riskier than G&W's Up B imo due to the fact that it leaves Mario helpless after use, unlike G&W's Up B, because of this, i feel like G&W is capable of keeping up with Mario when it comes to damage racking. All in all, i've always felt like G&W has the tools to compete with Mario, but idk, maybe that's just me.

I keep G&W as a pocket character, and agree with you even including the Mario MU. You didn't mention d-tilt to screw with aerial approaches, or on-hit to send Mario off-stage at a flat (ha) angle. Or G&W's incredible aerial weaving. Or that the middle hits of his bair, when trading hits with Mario's up-B, spike. (That half-bair spike is a godsend vs Corrin.) Or pivot f-tilt as a reliable anti-air. Even his projectile isn't too bad in a particular situation.

FWIW I play mostly Link and some Marth, so I know what bad and decent Mario MUs feel like. G&W is sometimes easier than Marth because G&W has less of a disadvantage state than Marth, with better edgeguarding, safer smashes, and the threat of bucket. By contrast Link has a miserable time despite his disjoint because of what happens when he whiffs that big o' chunk of metal. There's no aerial weaving with Link...

And who was the Mario player that Soronie's Shulk defeated at... Genesis? There was 1 second left on the clock...

 

[ARISTOS]

That's true, but the reason I included that bit was mainly in response to this thing below, in reference to the previous meta of "I grab you and take your stock, gg no re", back before the top tiers were nerfed

my b, I got you

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Fox has probably the deepest meta of any top tier right now. His strengths lie not in a single oppressive tool that singlehandedly invalidates some matchups (Sheik needles, Diddy fair), or broken reward (Bayo/Mario), but in the sheer amount of options he has at any given moment.

Fox's everything is oppressive versus most of the cast. He has some of the best buttons in the game. His up tilt stands out the most to me however. That move is ridiculously amazing. If doing up tilt didn't stop his slide, perfect pivot up tilt would be even more insane of an option.

Up air's pretty crazy too though.

 

[Megamang]

Fox puts you in positions that are high risk no reward. Whether you dodge that uair or not, it doesnt really change his gameplan.


If you can get down.... then youre one of the lucky ones with a good chance at the MU.

Im looking for a shiek/fox cover myself. M2 comes to mind. Even m2, who blocks him out very well, takes massive juggle damage if anything goes slightly wrong.

And i agree he will see both better comboing and better combos in the future. Back hit pivot ftilt to utilt lets him combo from a full run, and looks dope too.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Fox puts you in positions that are high risk no reward. Whether you dodge that uair or not, it doesnt really change his gameplan.


If you can get down.... then youre one of the lucky ones with a good chance at the MU.

Im looking for a shiek/fox cover myself. M2 comes to mind. Even m2, who blocks him out very well, takes massive juggle damage if anything goes slightly wrong.

And i agree he will see both better comboing and better combos in the future. Back hit pivot ftilt to utilt lets him combo from a full run, and looks dope too.

and it does a ****load of damage, at ~30 on Sheik you can get a ftilt > utilt > up air > up air which is ~60% and puts in at kill percent for pivot ftilt > up smash

 

[FeelMeUp]

Fox puts you in positions that are high risk no reward. Whether you dodge that uair or not, it doesnt really change his gameplan.


If you can get down.... then youre one of the lucky ones with a good chance at the MU.

Im looking for a shiek/fox cover myself. M2 comes to mind. Even m2, who blocks him out very well, takes massive juggle damage if anything goes slightly wrong.

And i agree he will see both better comboing and better combos in the future. Back hit pivot ftilt to utilt lets him combo from a full run, and looks dope too.

diddy goes even with sheik and is roughly even with fox.
try that. diddy takes care of mario as well.
FeelMeUp opinion: Fox is practically broken on DL.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

FeelMeUp opinion: Fox is practically broken on DL.

I thought that was just a known fact ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[The-Technique]

Imagine if the meta developed to the point where Fox became the best character, yet again. You know what they say, the more things change...

 

[HoSmash4]

Imagine if the meta developed to the point where Fox became the best character, yet again. You know what they say, the more things change...

Not with that disadvantage state.

 

[Deleted member]

Does anyone else here feel like could rise in the future?

The character has been slowly rising out of the ashes lately in terms of results, and I think he could make a small case for rising up once people like Sharpy start attending more stuff consistently. Even when you look at his toolkit it's much better than the other characters he was lumped in with on the 4BR list (). He still has a disjointed, fast frame 4 jab that can lead into grabs, a good grab/throw game (dthrow is a decent low-to-mid percent combo throw, bthrow and fthrow do good damage and are decent at killing, uthrow is a great kill throw on platform stages and is even more scary with Rage even if the 70° angle makes it more susceptible to DI than it should), decent grounded mobility, good anti-airs in utilt and usmash and Fly is so good for covering ledge options.

Though this post is not meant to just put his moves all in a vaccuum, nobody likes reading that. Zard's advantage state is strong, and unlike the bottom tiers he has the mobility and frame data advantage over them along with being able to effectively space/pressure. He does have an ehhh neutral along with a bad disadvantage state that will keep him in low tier, but I don't think the character is gutter trash like he's viewed as on the official list.

 

[Radical Larry]

Can someone please explain why Captain Falcon is still seen as a "good" character in this game? And I don't want answers like "mobility", "throws", "KO power" or "combo potential and frame data", because I know those will be the obvious answers alongside "good" MUs. I want good, detailed answers that should justify why he belongs in top 20, let alone top 30.