Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[MrGameguycolor]

I've been wondering something for a while.

So those of you who main mid or upper tiers or anyone not considered high tier, how often would you say commentators get your character all wrong? As in, how often do they act like you main plays differently than they actually do? Or expect them to pick stages that aren't actually good for them? Or if the player loses the set, how often do the commentators assume it must be a horrible or even invalidating matchup for them?

It happens with Robin all the damn time, and I have my theories as to why, but I'm wondering how often it happens for other characters.

I'm lucky to even find a commentated set with Dr. Mario.

Most recent videos I've seen behind the character have either the commentators praising B7Games's skill with the character, or sighing saying he should of picked someone else.

No in-between from the looks of it.

 

[Bowserboy3]

I don't think Rosa's turning animation will have much use, unlike a certain Z axis spotdodge

Yeah, it's a cool thing (cool if you're the Rosalina player I suppose ) but it's not something that would be what I would consider notable, or abusable, not like 's spotdodge, or even /'s airdodges.

Though it does finally make me realise why certain moves looked like they should have hit me when I've been playing as Rosalina. This has definitely happened to me a few times by chance. There was a time when I thought parts of her body had intangibility because I didn't get hit, but since we were able to view hitbox data etc I had to put it down to just me being silly.

At least I finally have a reason for it now, even if this is kinda niche in the longrun (think one of Shulk's taunts). Doesn't really make a huge deal but it's something to take note of I guess.

Though I wonder if there are any other characters that do this... I know Sonic kinda does a circle or something when he turns around but I doubt he goes into the z-axis.

This has me interested now...

 

[Frihetsanka]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB21P2adOEw

ZeRo has a new tier list.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

I've been wondering something for a while.

So those of you who main mid or upper tiers or anyone not considered high tier, how often would you say commentators get your character all wrong? As in, how often do they act like your main plays differently than they actually do? Or expect them to pick stages that aren't actually good for them? Or if the player loses the set, how often do the commentators assume it must be a horrible or even invalidating matchup for them?

It happens with Robin all the damn time, and I have my theories as to why, but I'm wondering how often it happens for other characters.

For Lucas I could say it happens a lot. Recently from Momocon, the commentators literally said something along the lines of "what can lucas even do!?!?" and "how does he get damage".To me that sounds like not knowing the character.

Other than that I usually hear commentators go on about PK Fire spam, in which they get tired/bored of commentating a Lucas match because they see so much PK Fire to where they start mocking it. Praising Lucas mains for bringing out "new" tech like Mekos using a ton of PK Freeze recently in his matches. In many older VODS before Mekos's recent performance, commentators would usually say "THAT was a misinput" or usually call it a bad move with a lot of endlag when they see PK Freeze. Even Dabuz was caught off guard in one of his analysis videos when he thought the move was a free punish.

Sometimes, commentators believe Lucas is just a boy who lives off of nair, into nair, into nair, into up air, and now call it a combo starter. They tend to look for that and mention it at the start of the games (props to the Lucas mains who are able to abuse that in bracket). Recently in the top 10 Lucas plays videos from Dragon Smash on Youtube, one of the commentators said that PK Freeze to PK Thunder was a true kill confirm and that made me delighted because it was so wrong and if people believed that it may make it easier to land that in bracket.

Here's my favorite wrong info about Lucas so far.


I've gotten off topic by just listing a lot of stuff they say wrong and was gonna keep on listing them (I'd love to do that in another post if anyone wants it).

Ok, first question: "As in, how often do they act like your main plays differently than they actually do?"

For commentators that I have seen they sometimes say we are a worse Ness, or see us either as a grappler or a zoner/keep away character. To my knowledge commentators still not say that our down throw to up air is true, they just usually say "that should be death".

Second: "Or expect them to pick stages that aren't actually good for them?"

Nobody has caught on to Lucas having Final Destination as one of his best stages if we are a Lucas that loves our footstool locks. All I can think of right now is just matchup opinions being carried over from Ness on other stages just being applied to Lucas in matches. If a commentator gets familiar with our kills then they may start to say that Town and City is a good stage for us sometimes. Oh and some commentators actually think Final Destination is bad for us. Or they would say we can just get away with PK Fire camping.

As for Battlefield and Dreamland, if they see us go for the footstool locks they will expect us to still be able to get the footstool locks with all the platforms in the way or assume Lucas up air is a carbon copy of Ness's and say that we can pressure the platforms really well.

As for Smashville sometimes I hear that the commentators have no clue what advantage it gives Lucas, actually you can apply this to all stages since I have heard this many times before in VODS. The matches usually start off with commentators saying "do we have any Lucases in our region?/there are only a few Lucas players in our region" or they just name the their local Lucas main if they have one.

I left off Lylat in part because I forgot about it but the commentators for Lucas either only comment on Lucas when he does something exciting, or mentioning the player who is using Lucas, or altogether ignore Lucas because they no nothing about him and only talk about their opponent. They just go with the flow and rarely mention Lucas besides letting it be known they know nothing or very little about him and start to compare him to Ness immediately.

Third question: "Or if the player loses the set, how often do the commentators assume it must be a horrible or even invalidating matchup for them?"

I'd say a lot. Ness Clone, Should've used Ness, Inferior Ness, Not good enough, and the big misconception whenever a Rosalina is in involved. Just copy and paste what you hear from the Ness vs Rosalina conversations to Lucas. They would say something like they knew Lucas would lose, and all Rosalina needs to do is just spam down b or get Lucas offstage. You could also apply this to VIllager players too.

If we lose on battlefield and smashville/town and city and have the misfortune of recovering below the ledge near the flat part with our PK Thunder. We we slide off the bottom of the ledge unable to grab the ledge and the commentators will question why we did not grab the ledge or why we did not buffer a second PK Thunder when none of those options are possible. They never take into account that the stage was the reason for the unfortunate self-destruct.


As for Shulk... too many commentators call the Arts wrong names (or do it on purpose just to trigger Shulk Discord) or just they don't know what the character does. They then get super excited every time a Vision happens.

Yeah, it's a cool thing (cool if you're the Rosalina player I suppose ) but it's not something that would be what I would consider notable, or abusable, not like 's spotdodge, or even /'s airdodges.

Though it does finally make me realise why certain moves looked like they should have hit me when I've been playing as Rosalina. This has definitely happened to me a few times by chance. There was a time when I thought parts of her body had intangibility because I didn't get hit, but since we were able to view hitbox data etc I had to put it down to just me being silly.

At least I finally have a reason for it now, even if this is kinda niche in the longrun (think one of Shulk's taunts). Doesn't really make a huge deal but it's something to take note of I guess.

Though I wonder if there are any other characters that do this... I know Sonic kinda does a circle or something when he turns around but I doubt he goes into the z-axis.

This has me interested now...

Speaking of Z Axis shenanigians, Lucas and Ness have this.

Also for Shulk, the Z Axis is with his Down Taunt, either his torse or his head goes into the Z axis along with one of legs when he steps in the background and tilts the Monado towards the ground.

EDIT: @MachoCheeze Just asked JeBB in Lucas DIscord and he said that used Lucas in a Lucas ditto round 1 and pulled out Lucas during game 3 vs Cosmos.

EDIT 2: Devour

EDIT 3: Man that Lucas sections was only 5 seconds long. All he said was untapped potential, Taiheita, combo potential, 3 kill throws including down throw up air (I call it 4 kill throws). He forgot to include PK Fire. Lucas has more than that to offer. I think it's really low representation when it comes to big tournies where many people are watching, US-wide. We only have Mekos and Kodystri in the spotlight.

 

[|RK|]

Interesting.

Bowser is a bit stronger than DK! This is @LarryLurr also has the same idea!

— 8LX / HIKARU (@HIKARU_ssbu) June 19, 2017

One of the things we go back and forth on here.

 

[blackghost]

Just a few thoughts after zeros video
So it's safe to say zero isn't considering results as much?
I thought most people thought dk and bowser weren't equals I thought dk was considered to be better?
I hate the phrase "randomly kill you" the only character that randomly kills you is literally game and watch. Luigi and lucario don't randomly kill you they just have exceptionally strong kill moves in certain situations.
I didn't watch his commentary on the top 2 I really doubt is agree

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Just a few thoughts after zeros video
So it's safe to say zero isn't considering results as much?
I thought most people thought dk and bowser weren't equals I thought dk was considered to be better?
I hate the phrase "randomly kill you" the only character that randomly kills you is literally game and watch. Luigi and lucario don't randomly kill you they just have exceptionally strong kill moves in certain situations.
I didn't watch his commentary on the top 2 I really doubt is agree

Well Luigi does have a random kill option with a geen Missle misfire. If we are talking really random what-are-the-chances kills. Peach can in the very rare occasion she pulls a Bomb-omb

 

[NotLiquid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB21P2adOEw

ZeRo has a new tier list.

For the people who don't have time to watch the whole video:

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Dr. Mario at 38th.

Sweet!
Although I'm not a fan of how he keeps focusing on Doc's negatives rather then his strengths such as Top 5 OoS options, good edgegaurding, stupid good moves like Bair + Up-Smash and D-Throw Fair Kill Confirm.

Still, 38th is a fairly accurate placing for him in my opinion.

 

[Bigbomb2]

I'm conflicted, my boys Link and Boozer at 24 and 15? Hype. But like, Corrin? Megaman? Greninja? I dunno I feel they should be higher than that. But hey, I'm no top player.

 

[Yonder]

For the people who don't have time to watch the whole video:

That is one hefty high tier. High tier strikes me as achieving above average results on a regular basis, having mostly positive mus, and able to tangle close to the top tiers. My high tier would start at Peach and end at Luigi if we were not moving around the order. Of course some are questionably low or tier (Zard high, Ness low, Robin high) but the cast really reflects as more mid tiers than high at the major events.

 

[ARGHETH]

And Corrin's bottom half now, apparently.

Hey, at least we might have the conversation from the other angle now.

Also, wtf Greninja

 

[Illusion.]

...

There's way too much I have a problem with here.

 

[ARGHETH]

Also, here's another version. The characters in the same group are considered to be similar, with their specific placings not mattering.
(found on Reddit)

 

[ぱみゅ]

So my Diddy counter-post was eaten by an apparent Security problem with the site.

But the main point is that Edge at Sumabato applied a strategy similar to ZeRo's with great success (he absolutely decimated 9B). And he didn't even set his banana properly.
And looking for an early bair kill on youtube I realized ZeRo uses it as a pressure tool where the opponent can't react to Bair and forces a situation of them either attacking or blocking. Bair itself will be safe on block, and Diddy can move around attacks and even Monkey Flip against shields.

The character has a lot of future.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I doo not think there was any argument Diddy WOULD NOT ever be a strong force in the current meta

Sure many playere have been disovering some small cracks and Diddy's armor and players have gotten better at exploiting the few weakness Diddy does have.
But Diddy is still pretty ridiculous overall and is still a top 5 character for sure

 

[TDK]

I think the Link placement is pretty accurate, at least. My big problem is ZeRo seemingly completely ignored the fact that Link can do all of Tink's confirms out of Bombs, too, just a little harder to land due to his slower mobility. The biggest difference between the two is that Link trades mobility (Also ZeRo got this right, Link's mobility is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be) for a powerful grab game, which is a big deal since shielding against Tink is pretty safe unless you're nearing Bthrow percents.

Also what is that Game & Watch placement

 

[Yonder]

I think the Link placement is pretty accurate, at least. My big problem is ZeRo seemingly completely ignored the fact that Link can do all of Tink's confirms out of Bombs, too, just a little harder to land due to his slower mobility. The biggest difference between the two is that Link trades mobility (Also ZeRo got this right, Link's mobility is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be) for a powerful grab game, which is a big deal since shielding against Tink is pretty safe unless you're nearing Bthrow percents.

Also what is that Game & Watch placement

Watch is weird. He's basically the only lower tier character that consistently places at most big events (Duck Hunt might be the other as of recent) Watch has been placing by Regi in the top 16 of most majors since EVO 2015. He also has good results when other Watch mains participate, Extra for example getting 1st solo a while back at a 200+ tourney.

I ain't saying Watch is high tier or anything...but he has potential. He's very fluid mobility wise with disjoints and a great recovery. And gimmicky wind boxes that sometimes help with unexpected kills.

But his KO power isn't reliant sides u smash. If he had Brawl's kill power? Easy upper high tier. But unlike Mewtwo, he doesn't have ferocious kill power to compensate for weight issues.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

For the people who don't have time to watch the whole video:

I think ZeRo may have confused Link with Greninja

Putting Ike and Roy that low is insulting, Ike is about as good as Corrin and Roy is honestly bordering high tier

 

[|RK|]

I would suggest watching or skimming the video BTW. ZeRo does it in a weird way where individual placings matter a lot less. He talks through groups of characters that he feels are close.

For example, Charizard and Greninja are part of the same group IIRC. Also, I'd like to see Sharpy come out more. He seems to get consistently roadblocked by Bayo. He got to get one game of friendlies in vs Zack @ CEO, but they shut down the stations right after. I hope he can find more practice for that MU.

 

[MistressRemilia]

I think the Link placement is pretty accurate, at least. My big problem is ZeRo seemingly completely ignored the fact that Link can do all of Tink's confirms out of Bombs, too, just a little harder to land due to his slower mobility. The biggest difference between the two is that Link trades mobility (Also ZeRo got this right, Link's mobility is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be) for a powerful grab game, which is a big deal since shielding against Tink is pretty safe unless you're nearing Bthrow percents.

Also what is that Game & Watch placement

Quite frankly, this is the ideal Game&Watch is attempting to reach through better results, better peaks, but his playerbase isn't quite strong enough for such a feat right now, many things need to be implemented to diversify the character's neutral game and play around his air speed, or the odd safety of his smashes. We've seen bits of this coming from the better G&W players ( Namely Koss, Regi, Songn & Extra ) but confidence in these options is still lacking, which is understandable because they're rather awkward & differ from the rest of the cast. Despite all of this, Game&Watch has a bunch of wins on good players going for him & these existing kind of show the ability that this character has to take games & sets from anyone who gets just a little bit careless, because Game&Watch is a serious threat who's good at almost every kind of advantage state out there, whether it's juggling characters or making their landing hard, threatening their edgeguards, damage output coming from his insane combo game which, when optimized ( which isn't hard ) should be racking up about 30+% at Low%, 20+% at Mid% along with the ability to kill confirm everyone in the cast (This isn't considering the specifics which can easily raise the amount i've shared: this is the minimum amount of % good G&Ws should be racking up consistently off of throws & UpSmash which is also a combo starter, believe it or not).

But enough talking about the character's optimization of an already overwhelming advantage & neutral that can be improved & has generally underrated values ( G&W's platform pressure is absolutely amazing, his ground game is underrated with an excellent foxtrot, an amazing jab 1 and respectable jab combo, a dtilt that needs to be spaced & played well with but definitly useful, and of course, an overly safe dash attack ) , let us talk about a real improvement that has been happening lately within the G&W metagame: matchups have gotten better.

Through the sets & wins that Game&Watch has been slowly racking up & the improvement of good players over certain matchups, things have been looking brighter for us in terms of solo viability: Sonic is still our worst matchup but right stage picking in order to make Sonic not camp us too easily makes it somewhat playable, not good by any means but a good g&w could clutch out a set on a decent Sonic and not be forced into a secondary like in the past, just don't pick FD, and use the recent tricks to bait your opponent into thinking you're commiting, like SH FF Bair which, if timed correctly ( right before you land ), will significantly reduce landing lag. G&W's ability to efficiently take out Luma & respectable ability to chase Rosalina through his overhelmingly big disjoints & good air speed/decent ground speed allowed us to do better in the matchup: Koss recently 3-1'd Falln, which is yet another dsign of improvement. Diddy's counterplay with the predictability of Monkey Flip or Fair, and his whole banana game being more straight forward & easier to deal with than we would have thought at first, G&W's edgeguarding, reverse upsmash and its armor, or excellent foxtrot shine to give yet another fairly doable top tier matchup. If you ask any G&W players 6 months ago or so who they thought won in DK v G&W, the response was unanimously DK, because of how overwhelming grapplers with such consistency can be a pain for a glass cannon like G&W, but once again, the overwhelming hitboxes & ability that G&W has to juggle DK is truly wonderful and allow us a very strong advantage dominance once we get it, making DK players as well as ourselves think again.

I could go on & on about these, and this isn't to forget that G&W already has several respectable matchups against relevant metagame threats such as Mario, Mewtwo, Villager, Pikachu or Ryu, and with the matchup inexperience that we usually enjoy, almost all characters in the cast can be thrown off and easily lose an already doable & decent matchup for G&W.

So yeah, i want to say that i believe in Game&Watch, and that being aware of all of this potential could allow one to think that he's that good. However, as of now, we're held back by our lack of truly great player ( All of the players i've mentionned could learn from one another and are prone to several mistakes &/or a general lack of matchup knowledge that could throw them off when facing a character their region do not have, like Regi vs Scatt ) which lead into a lack of truly impressive peak: we've reached top 32 several times, occasionally top 16, but to affirm the character's potential, a Top 8 or Top 12 would be really enjoyable, on top of a win on a worldwide threat, even if we do already have a fair amount.

 

[ARISTOS]

I would like to hear more about .

The character was hyped to an incredible amount (peep this for comedy) yet his supposed amazing toolset never quite played out in practice, and despite a large playerbase he's never really found time in the spotlight.

Why do y'all think this is the case, beyond standard reasons like "He gets eaten by Cloud and Bayonetta!" etc.

 

[C0rvus]

Finally, I've been waiting on a top player to talk about FACLO!

 

[PK Gaming]

I feel like ZeRo (and some users in general) overrate Robin too much. I hate to say it, but that character's future is grim. Robin player results are on the decline, usage is still terrible, and on paper he just gets eviscerated by the top tiers. Checkmate can only take a character so far imo.

 

[The-Technique]

I would like to hear more about .

The character was hyped to an incredible amount (peep this for comedy) yet his supposed amazing toolset never quite played out in practice, and despite a large playerbase he's never really found time in the spotlight.

Why do y'all think this is the case, beyond standard reasons like "He gets eaten by Cloud and Bayonetta!" etc.

Yoshi was originally thought of as a super safe character combined heavy weight and great frame data, all of which sounds broken on paper, but the truth is that most of his matchups either range from even at best to cruddy at worst, since his approach is bad as well as his mid-range and long range threat being very lacking.

As for Zero's tier list, can't say I'm too offended given Zero's previous track record of having bonkers tier list placings, it is his opeenion at the end of the day. With that said...Charizard over Greninja? Mega Man barely top 30? Lucario better than Mewtwo?

 

[NotLiquid]

I would like to hear more about .

The character was hyped to an incredible amount (peep this for comedy) yet his supposed amazing toolset never quite played out in practice, and despite a large playerbase he's never really found time in the spotlight.

Why do y'all think this is the case, beyond standard reasons like "He gets eaten by Cloud and Bayonetta!" etc.

Yoshi's lack of a proper grab game, which would be his easiest fix, cripples his long term viability. It borders on Pac-Man level of uselessness and is compounded by his neutral/approach just not being that good.

As it stands his toolset makes it hard for him to deal with shields and his own defensive capabilities aren't the best either. He has a stupidly good advantage state but characters like Mario and Mewtwo do everything Yoshi ideally wants to do, but better.

I'm kind of imagining Yoshi having a ZSS-style grab game and christ almighty that would be terrifying.

 

[Floor]

ZeRo's tier list looks pretty good to me; better than anything from Reddit or certain other similar sites. Few small things that could change (boost Corrin, for one) but it makes up for it with favorable Link and Charizard placement. I think ZeRo knows what he's doing.

Remember guys, this is just opinion (not going to make an opeeeenion joke, it really is his opinion)

 

[Fox Is Openly Deceptive]

Just on the z-axis topic, when I tested spotdodge z-axis stuff a while ago (no idea how much is still accurate, sorry) it wasn't DDD's spotdodge that impressed me by any means, it was Falcon's. DDD's was notorious in brawl, but it's not as bad now, and besides, his vulnerable hurtboxes are in front of him, whereas Facon's are behind and on the ground, then after a bit his hand becomes vulnerable too, then after a bit more his body is vulnerable, later still after he's already able to act his front leg finally becomes vulnerable.
To make this clear, Falcon effectively has an extra 5 invulnerability frames against small hitboxes (that don't go into the z-axis that far themselves obviously) and 7 if you miss his hand, only leaving one frame of vulnerability against small hitboxes on his body ignoring the hand before he can shield. It's dumb.
https://smashboards.com/threads/mechanics-techniques-discussion.368206/page-59#post-20589325

 

[Y2Kay]

Zero's Greninja placement made me barf out my lunch.

I tried to make a detaIled post explaining why greninja is better than a lot of the characters above him, but all that came out was "WTF"

 

[Floor]

I like the approach ZeRo took with Link/Tink, DK/Bowser, Pit/Dark Pit, Marcina. Group them together! Now this doesn't apply to every character that's remotely similar, but I think people get caught up too much looking at differences that they forget how similar the characters really are and that nearly every difference between the two is almost always a trade off.

Yeah, Tink is faster than Link... but Link is stronger. Trade off. Yeah Tink's boomerang is "better" ... but Link's arrow is better. So Tink has an easier time getting the grab... but Link gets more off of grabs. I think people get caught up with focusing on Tink's speed that they click the "check all" button Tink is now vastly better in every way.

And even if you think one is better than the other, does it warrant putting them more than one spot apart? If i remember right, most recent Reddit tier list put Yoshi between Pit and Dark Pit... so you're telling me that one character with one less move (it's not even an A tier move; you don't use arrows when Falcon is running up to grab you; you do jab/uptilt/jump.) attached to a clone warrants putting Yoshi between them? Sorry for a bad analogy, but that's like making the following tier list

1. Pizza with extra pepporoni
2. A walnut
3. Pizza with a normal amount of pepporoni.

No one would seriously make that tier list. Keep in mind what you're comparing and what eveything else is.

A Boxer heavy weight grappler with a sorta poor recovery, a HooHah, nasty grab combos, and the most ridiculous grab in the game? We got two of them; DK and Bower. Yeah, I know their differences and we could weight them all day long. But most characters will fight them the same. Don't get grabbed and punish their recovery. To me, saying anyone goes in between them is like trying to throw a walnut in between two slices of pizza, one with more pepporoni. Or throwing a Yoshi in between Pit and Pit-but-with-better-arrows.

There are of course limits to this (Mario and Dr. Mario). But it's something I see people doing a lot and ZeRo is one of the first to stop it.

 

[Floor]

Hit the reply button, not the edit button. Disregard this

 

[verbatim]

Yoshi's lack of a proper grab game, which would be his easiest fix, cripples his long term viability. It borders on Pac-Man level of uselessness and is compounded by his neutral/approach just not being that good.

As it stands his toolset makes it hard for him to deal with shields and his own defensive capabilities aren't the best either. He has a stupidly good advantage state but characters like Mario and Mewtwo do everything Yoshi ideally wants to do, but better.

I'm kind of imagining Yoshi having a ZSS-style grab game and christ almighty that would be terrifying.

imo people don't always appreciate how badly characters with tether and tether-like grabs are hurt by the slower frame data.

Villager would be an clear top tier if they had a regular grab (jab -> grab would true combo, just to give an example).

Pac-Man/Yoshi would get significantly better as well. I'm sure BJR would appreciate the boost but it honestly seems like he's got a bunch of different issues, whereas a normal grab would pretty much fix all of Pac-Man/Yoshi's (Yoshi still has a susceptible recovery, but that seems like it was intended from a design standpoint).

 

[Nu~]

I like the approach ZeRo took with Link/Tink, DK/Bowser, Pit/Dark Pit, Marcina. Group them together! Now this doesn't apply to every character that's remotely similar, but I think people get caught up too much looking at differences that they forget how similar the characters really are and that nearly every difference between the two is almost always a trade off.

Yeah, Tink is faster than Link... but Link is stronger. Trade off. Yeah Tink's boomerang is "better" ... but Link's arrow is better. So Tink has an easier time getting the grab... but Link gets more off of grabs. I think people get caught up with focusing on Tink's speed that they click the "check all" button Tink is now vastly better in every way.

And even if you think one is better than the other, does it warrant putting them more than one spot apart? If i remember right, most recent Reddit tier list put Yoshi between Pit and Dark Pit... so you're telling me that one character with one less move (it's not even an A tier move; you don't use arrows when Falcon is running up to grab you; you do jab/uptilt/jump.) attached to a clone warrants putting Yoshi between them? Sorry for a bad analogy, but that's like making the following tier list

1. Pizza with extra pepporoni
2. A walnut
3. Pizza with a normal amount of pepporoni.

No one would seriously make that tier list. Keep in mind what you're comparing and what eveything else is.

A Boxer heavy weight grappler with a sorta poor recovery, a HooHah, nasty grab combos, and the most ridiculous grab in the game? We got two of them; DK and Bower. Yeah, I know their differences and we could weight them all day long. But most characters will fight them the same. Don't get grabbed and punish their recovery. To me, saying anyone goes in between them is like trying to throw a walnut in between two slices of pizza, one with more pepporoni. Or throwing a Yoshi in between Pit and Pit-but-with-better-arrows.

There are of course limits to this (Mario and Dr. Mario). But it's something I see people doing a lot and ZeRo is one of the first to stop it.

...I'd agree with all of this if you didn't try to apply the same logic to link and toon link. In that case, it seems like you're ignoring nuance for the sake of simplicity. Toon link's lack of safe pokes alone already puts a big difference between toon link and link's nuetral. Same with their relative focus on grab reward. Yeah you can have trade offs, but "not all trade offs are equal" and so on.


I just don't think you can put toon link/link into the same category as pit/dark Pit (chars that only have slight differences in 3 moves) and Bowser/DK.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Honestly the main issue I have with this tier is how irrelevant he made the tiers. 15-37 is all high tier? You negate the value and meaning of the tier if you stuff everyone in into it. I get it, there are many good characters in this game but someone has to be mid tier, someone has to be low tier you can't just lump them all together. Also what's the point in a low tier if it's literally one character, just make them mid tier since the tiers clearly don't matter.

Also I don't care how similar thier win conditions is you cannot combine two distinctly different characters into one. This isn't even close to a Dark Pit/Pit or Marthcina situation. Same thing with the Links.

I get it's his opinion and that he is much better than I likely ever will be but if you post it publicly it's open for criticism, and honestly overall in my opinion this tier list is a mess.

 

[|RK|]

So, I've been thinking more about Ike. I don't think his fsmash is that bad, honestly, since he has such a powerful grab game. In fact, I don't think slow smash attacks are inherently bad at all. They eat spotdodges in many cases, so once you condition your opponent to run up and spotdodge, you can get some early kills.

Most recent example being ANTi vs M2K at BoBC2. It's how M2K got the set winning kill, actually.

And separately, I realized the obvious reason Cloud doesn't invalidate Ike, and it is those grab confirms. Makes any sort of approach that much more risky. For grapplers, anyways.

Completely random, but thought I'd say it.

 

[TDK]

I like the approach ZeRo took with Link/Tink, DK/Bowser, Pit/Dark Pit, Marcina. Group them together! Now this doesn't apply to every character that's remotely similar, but I think people get caught up too much looking at differences that they forget how similar the characters really are and that nearly every difference between the two is almost always a trade off.

Yeah, Tink is faster than Link... but Link is stronger. Trade off. Yeah Tink's boomerang is "better" ... but Link's arrow is better. So Tink has an easier time getting the grab... but Link gets more off of grabs. I think people get caught up with focusing on Tink's speed that they click the "check all" button Tink is now vastly better in every way.

And even if you think one is better than the other, does it warrant putting them more than one spot apart? If i remember right, most recent Reddit tier list put Yoshi between Pit and Dark Pit... so you're telling me that one character with one less move (it's not even an A tier move; you don't use arrows when Falcon is running up to grab you; you do jab/uptilt/jump.) attached to a clone warrants putting Yoshi between them? Sorry for a bad analogy, but that's like making the following tier list

1. Pizza with extra pepporoni
2. A walnut
3. Pizza with a normal amount of pepporoni.

No one would seriously make that tier list. Keep in mind what you're comparing and what eveything else is.

A Boxer heavy weight grappler with a sorta poor recovery, a HooHah, nasty grab combos, and the most ridiculous grab in the game? We got two of them; DK and Bower. Yeah, I know their differences and we could weight them all day long. But most characters will fight them the same. Don't get grabbed and punish their recovery. To me, saying anyone goes in between them is like trying to throw a walnut in between two slices of pizza, one with more pepporoni. Or throwing a Yoshi in between Pit and Pit-but-with-better-arrows.

There are of course limits to this (Mario and Dr. Mario). But it's something I see people doing a lot and ZeRo is one of the first to stop it.

Comparing Link and Toon Link is like comparing an Apple to a Pineapple. They both have "Apple" in the name, sure, but calling them the same or even similar enough to justify a grouping together is just wrong, and, in this case, shows me you know nothing about how (Toon) Link functions. Tink being faster, in terms of Frame Data and actual speed is honestly the only real advantage Tink has over Link, and it's the main reason why Tink's camp game is better than Link's, because he has an easier time resetting to neutral and creating space to resume throwing stuff at you. Link's speed isn't great, sure, but it accomplishes what he needs to do and having actual range (something you for some reason didn't mention...) is a very large boon over Toon Link, as it allows Link to threaten space with his sword much more effectively.

In fact, since I doubt you have a picture of how substantial the range difference is, here's a visual aide:

http://imgur.com/a/2D6hk

As you can see, especially with the Usmash, Link's sword is approximately 1.5x the size of Toon Link's, giving him much larger range. With more Range, Link can control the space around him much better than Toon Link and gives him a solid spacing game, something Toon Link sorely lacks.

Another big advantage Link has over Toon Link is shield safety. I've mentioned this multiple times before, but Toon Link has zero capacity to threaten shields at all. Link can threaten shield from a safe distance between his range and how much shieldstun his entire kit has, whereas Toon Link just throws stuff on your shield and has zero reward for landing anything on shield whatsoever, even his throw game isn't anywhere near as threatening as Link's. Tink has Bthrow at 120 on the ledge, but around that time Link's Dthrow Uair starts working, and Dthrow Uair isn't dependant on where you are on the stage, same with Uthrow, and with Link's huge grab range he actually has an easier time landing grabs than Tink does.

I could keep going on but I need sleep so I'll just stop here. tl;dr do your research and don't oversimplify stuff.

EDIT: MSM 101 (101 Entrants) (SoCal)

1st: Razo
2nd: Phoenix
3rd: Charliedaking
4th: Mr. Con Con
5th: Elegant
5th: Aarvark
7th: Ghost
7th: S2H

 

[Bowserboy3]

ZeRo's tier list is interesting.

I'm gonna disregard anything but the top tier because from there it starts to get real messy. Whatever drugs ZeRo was taking while making that list, I need them in my life right now.

But the top tier is legitimately interesting, and dare I say it, pretty accurate in most cases.

I still think Diddy should be at the least, top 3, but given ZeRo's history of consistently underranking the character, top 5 is really good. I agree with a post just above in that Diddy really does have a lot of future left ahead of him.

I could make an argument for Bayonetta still not really deserving of being number 1 and that if it ain't Diddy, it should be Cloud (which tbh, I'm kind of leaning towards nowadays), but Cloud's 2nd, he mentioned them together and that there isn't really much of a difference overall, so I'm happy there. Cloud, Diddy, Bayo - to me they're all so close that I honestly personally just rank them as one spot because they're all f***ing dumb and their differences in strengths are negligible, especially when you consider results.

I am ABSOLUTELY glad ZeRo didn't underrate both Rosalina and ZSS. Aside from what I said about Diddy Kong potentially being above Rosalina, I feel their placements are both spot on. Both tremendous characters that the community really needs to drop the stigmas about (ZSS much more so than Rosalina). To be honest I'm feeling really positive about Rosalina as of late so that may boost her up a spot or two in my eyes, but if she's performing well for me, then that says something to me.

Also glad Marth and Lucina were ranked on the lower side of top tier, as they should be. He essentially mentioned what I said about them the other day. They are super good, but don't have anything major about them; in a sense they are rather tame. And that's why I have no problem with Mario's placement either. There are characters that abuse things better than he can.

Whether or not Lucario truly is better than Mewtwo remains to be seen; purely on a results standpoint I think not, but I can still see Lucario as a top tier. Absolutely terrifying to fight in bracket.

On a side note, he mentioned Mewtwo doesn't really have any broken moves/tools. Uh, hello? Forward Air exists ya know?

Also happy to see Sonic on the lower side of things too. Again, amazing character, but overrated as f*** in some areas.

And to be honest, I also have no qualms seeing Luigi back in the top tier. He does very well against a lot of the top tier cast, such as Bayonetta, Mario, Fox, and even characters like ZSS and Sheik are perfect combo food for him. He's performed well enough as of late to at least have an argument behind him to be in top tier. Plus, he's still at the bottom of the top tier, so it's no big deal. Luigi has been growing and growing ever since his nerf. It's a bit like what happened with Bayonetta; dropped off after the nerf, but slowly rose back into the top tier. Albeit Luigi won't become top 3, but you get me.

 

[NairWizard]

I don't want to join the flood of anti-ZeRo-list videos. His list is good: well reasoned and internally consistent. But his meta description of Pikachu doesn't make any sense at all, and it strikes me in particular because I've played the character for so long.

In the video he talks about how Pikachu has problems with range in neutral but has the ability to seal stocks early and come back from a deficit just like Falcon. But this is reversed. Pikachu doesn't practically struggle with range except in very specific matchups such as vs. Corrin (Pin punishes Pikachu's ideal spacing and options out of that spacing pretty well). He doesn't tend to struggle with Marth, Bowser, DK, ZSS, and other characters with decent range, at least not because of their range in particular.

Compare Pikachu to a character with real range issues, like Mario or Luigi. Compared to grapplers like the Mario Bros., Pikachu actually has forward-facing options with decent range like f-air and d-tilt, in addition to QC for burst, a crawl option, and a low end-lag disjointed f-smash that's relatively safe on whiff. Thus keeping Pikachu out is a much taller order than keeping Mario or Luigi out. You can see the difference that this makes in practice, too; it's not just theory. If you watch Nairo vs. Elegant from Nairo Saga you'll see how well Nairo prevents Elegant from getting grabs with spaced z-airs and n-airs. Luigi has to rely on well-timed rolls and dashgrabs to get past the wall; these are his only real options against such a strategy. ZSS can't really do this to Pikachu, because he has literally 3 or 4 times the number of options, and she can't cover them all; watch any Pikachu vs. ZSS set and you can easily confirm that this is the case.

Pikachu's neutral is thus pretty good; he enjoys many of the advantages of a grappler without suffering the typical range problems encountered by grapplers. He does have some holes in his neutral game, though, such as a lack of a truly strong grounded poke tool and poor options for dealing with strong CQC, but overall it's one of the better neutrals in the cast on the premise of the design alone.

Meanwhile his advantage state is quite subpar. He does pitiful damage per hit, like 4-7% when others are doing 7-11% with similar hits, so even when he does have a combo or string on you you won't take much damage and if you manage to break out with some aerial then he probably takes almost as much damage as you did from the breakout factoring in weight. His aerial mobility is pretty mediocre overall, decent air accel but poor max airspeed, so he can't chase all that well in several critical, common situations such as following someone's landing drift and covering ledge-jump mixups. So he's basically having trouble getting you to kill percent from mid percents, and then when he does? He doesn't have a good kill confirm to close the deal. Up-throw Thunder? Even though it's real with fast enough reaction speed it doesn't kill nearly early enough especially across stage if you DI correctly, it's really difficult to execute, and it starts from a grab from a character with one of the shortest grab ranges in the entire game. Edgeguarding in this game isn't consistent at all and while Pikachu can go deep, he can't cover options all that well because of limited aerial range and mobility, so he has difficulty closing stocks out early. He'll probably get a good chunk of damage on you when you get thrown offstage, though, that much is true.

I don't disagree with the tier list positioning, but ZeRo's analysis of the character seems shallow. It's not "troubled neutral, but great and explosive advantage state makes up for it," it's "great neutral with a few flaws, but held back by inability to close stocks."

 

[Floor]

Comparing Link and Toon Link is like comparing an Apple to a Pineapple. They both have "Apple" in the name, sure, but calling them the same or even similar enough to justify a grouping together is just wrong, and, in this case, shows me you know nothing about how (Toon) Link functions. Tink being faster, in terms of Frame Data and actual speed is honestly the only real advantage Tink has over Link, and it's the main reason why Tink's camp game is better than Link's, because he has an easier time resetting to neutral and creating space to resume throwing stuff at you. Link's speed isn't great, sure, but it accomplishes what he needs to do and having actual range (something you for some reason didn't mention...) is a very large boon over Toon Link, as it allows Link to threaten space with his sword much more effectively.

In fact, since I doubt you have a picture of how substantial the range difference is, here's a visual aide:

http://imgur.com/a/2D6hk

As you can see, especially with the Usmash, Link's sword is approximately 1.5x the size of Toon Link's, giving him much larger range. With more Range, Link can control the space around him much better than Toon Link and gives him a solid spacing game, something Toon Link sorely lacks.

Another big advantage Link has over Toon Link is shield safety. I've mentioned this multiple times before, but Toon Link has zero capacity to threaten shields at all. Link can threaten shield from a safe distance between his range and how much shieldstun his entire kit has, whereas Toon Link just throws stuff on your shield and has zero reward for landing anything on shield whatsoever, even his throw game isn't anywhere near as threatening as Link's. Tink has Bthrow at 120 on the ledge, but around that time Link's Dthrow Uair starts working, and Dthrow Uair isn't dependant on where you are on the stage, same with Uthrow, and with Link's huge grab range he actually has an easier time landing grabs than Tink does.

I could keep going on but I need sleep so I'll just stop here. tl;dr do your research and don't oversimplify stuff.

I didn't mention a few things because I was trying to be brief; the point wasn't to weigh which is better, Link or Toon Link, but to demonstrate that grouping then together isn't outrageous. If Link and Toon Link are an apple and a pineapple, then everyone else is a meat, a vegetable, a dairy product... I agree with ZeRo's reasoning.

Link's grab has more range than Tinks, sure. I said Toon Link has an easier time getting the grab due to his speed and a few things ZeRo mentioned in the video, such as confirms that let him land the grab (after rewatching the video, he said Link has grab confirms too, but Tinks are easier). So its more range vs speed and easier confirms, which is why I said Tink has an easier time getting the grab.

I understand that you're trying to inform us on the differences between the two characters (and that's appreciated), but my post was deliberately stressing their similarities and contrasting them wasn't the main point; keeping it simple was the point.

So my research = ZeRo's video and preexisting knowledge of Tink's speed. Keeping it simplified was the point.

 

[|RK|]

Just wanted to say that I still agree with Salem regarding Sonic. But I wanna go a little more in depth with it. If you keep running away from Sonic and throwing out safe hitboxes on his approach, what can he do? If you shield spindash/attack dash grab attempts with safe tilts or jabs, what can he do? Serious question.

Most of the time I watch a Sonic match, people get hit for overextending. ZeRo included. Everyone tries to catch him with an aerial somehow (when he's not landing), or go for unsafe reads. And more importantly, they try to chase him somehow. For discussion/education purposes, what can Sonic actually do to you if you don't take any real risks?