Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[Minordeth]

You're probably right in that Greninja needs to play evasively. His frame data doesn't really lend itself to overwhelming CQC like Fox can (he also has pretty terrible OoS options).

Yeah, I think his bad OoS options are mitigated by the fact that he really shouldn't be in shield. He is about as safe on shield as Fox, with longer range, and an actual retreating spacing option. He isn't a strong CQC'er, but he can fake it.

Also, fun fact, Greninja has better airspeed than Mario with the same air acceleration. Mario!

 

[Rizen]

No not necessarily. Pikachu is the most perfect example of that. But more importantly, DK and Bowser have so much rep in large part due to their simplicity. No one is going to pick up Link for a matchup or two - you have to be legitimately good with the character.

I agree Link is harder and one of the hardest characters to play. He must micro manage bomb timers, boomerang as well as his direct attacks and has to plan moves many frames in advance. The issue is he doesn't actually get higher rewards than characters like DK for doing so. Sheik is a great example of a hard character to master with huge rewards, DK/Bowser are more fundamental characters with huge rewards but big downsides, Link is hard to master and still doesn't kill super early off simple moves like grabs. Players like Tweek for example do great with DK because they're great at the game and DK's so rewarding. A reason no one picks up Link for specific MUs is he doesn't dominate or counter anybody. Link has to outplay for the entire game.

I don't mean to downplay Link either; he can handle any situation and doesn't struggle to kill. The versatility of how he can play and his staying power plus rage and SSB4 shield stun keep him a threat. It's one of those SSB4 things were Link isn't bad but other characters are better.

 

[PK Bash]

That makes sense and I can agree with that. Ness can get by without using a lot of tricks and just playing really well fundamentally (The Great Gonzales is a good example of a really "basic" Ness that does well) most of his meta development has been just general his players making better decisions, playing more sound and not dropping combos and just general gameplay improvement which all is more player things than Ness things but his players still aren't abusing PKT as much as you can in alot of MUs, I don't think I've ever seen anyone use his footstool combos and his platform game is still developing. Ive seen some crazy things come from some JP Ness' recently.

There is some cool things coming along I hope they get adapted by the top level Ness players.

Good post, I agree with more or less everything you said (not sure if the footstool combos are actually practical tho?) but you forgot what is imo one of the biggest developments Ness is experiencing - his movement. As far as movement goes, S1 is pushing Ness to the max with his utilisation of universal options and Ness-specific stuff.
No other Ness player comes anywhere close to S1's level in this regard.
When the rest of the Ness playerbase catches up to S1 in this department and people realise the magnitude of Ness' movement and how much it gives this character, then he has a case for being high tier again.

Personally I don't think he'll ever be high tier in this post-DLC world, when you realise you have to compare him to a number of top 10 characters to put him in high tier it's just an incomprehensible notion.
That said, he'll never be irrelevant. We don't see a lot of him at top level though which doesn't help. The vast majority of Ness mains simply don't know how to play disadvantage state, and unfortunately this includes some top level Nesses - The Great Gonzales being the obvious one. So this has led to a bad culture across a lot of Ness players (including Gonzales) of just spamming airdodge in disadvantage, which works great at mid level because nobody knows how to punish it, but put an average Ness main in front of a high level player, or someone who just knows how to punish Ness' airdodge, and they will probably lose because of this. Gonzales, as a non-average Ness player guilty of this, is maybe the exception to the rule, but he's definitely thrown games away by spamming airdodges and generally failing to think his disadvantage state through properly.

When you remember that Ness is built to punish overextensions and overcommitments (or abusing the hell out of an opponent who doesn't overcommit enough), not being able to play disadvantage state is a huge problem for Ness' playerbase.

So if we want Ness to be within a shout of high tier again, Ness players need to work on:
-Our movement
-Our disadvantage state
first and foremost. And to this extent, we need to look at S1 especially and also Shaky more than we need to look at FOW or TGG to understand what it is we need to be doing. Because as great as the latter two are, it's just so much harder to replicate their methods consistently for most of us, and their disadvantage states are much worse. The vast majority of us need to take an S1/Shaky approach to playing the character.
At least, in my opinion.

As Ness' metagame optimises, we're going to start favouring Battlefield more and more as one of our best stages, far better than Smashville in some regards. But we're not there yet, because we've collectively hit a wall - and FOW could attend every tournament under the sun and still wouldn't be the Ness to help us break this particular barrier down.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I assumed the movement stuff was well known but your right I should had addressed it, good catch. S1 makes Ness look way faster than he actually is and he's not even using all the movement techs he could use I definitely agree that all Ness mains should be trying to replicate it. The footstool stuff was more of the Nair-FS extenders and lock set ups and standing footstool stuff rather than that PKF footstool stuff (which I don't think is totally impractical in some MUs namely characters that have a hard time escaping it but I think it has use in the right hands

 

[dakotaisgreat]

What happened to Mario?

Maybe it's because I've been paying less attention lately but I can't remember any Mario's doing anything for a long time now. Maybe it's because of Cloud, Bayo and to some extent Corrin but he seems so much worse than he did in 2016 and I can't really remember why Mario ever seemed so threatening to begin with

Spoiler

also I haven't played against a good Mario in a very long time that's probably why I don't remember fearing him.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

What happened to Mario?

Maybe it's because I've been paying less attention lately but I can't remember any Mario's doing anything for a long time now. Maybe it's because of Cloud, Bayo and to some extent Corrin but he seems so much worse than he did in 2016 and I can't really remember why Mario ever seemed so threatening to begin with

Spoiler

also I haven't played against a good Mario in a very long time that's probably why I don't remember fearing him.

ANTi won GOML, and Ally got 5th at Shine.

Outside of that, not really much else super notable.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I think I'm more optimistic about Greninja than his mains, probably. I see a character that has the overall best mobility in the game, the ability to actually play anti-air and footsies well, with a range of near Fox-like options for quick damage combos off of most of his buttons, a great recovery, and a tricky disadvantage. Plus! a great projectile.

I could be off base, but I think it seems like his top mains have traditionally gotten caught up in trying to force opportunities to happen for high damage, rather than taking advantage of opportunities that do happen.

In other words, play like Bayo wants to play: force an approach, get a lead, actually camp, force another approach, capitalize on what you can while being evasive because you are probably the most evasive character in the game, then use your kill power to actually seal stocks. Do this and don't try to force your 60% drag down Uair footstool combo, and you are set.

I think you're on point. Salems relative success with the frog despite his being unpolished and him making quite a few crucial mistakes which got him punished hard kinda indicates this imo. When he was doing it right defensive Greninja looked pretty ace. Same in game 2 of Stroder vs Nairo, when Stroder got all defensive after Nairo lost his first stock he was doing great. Big combos don't seem worth it, you can add the same amount of damage over time with a better risk/reward ratio.

 

[Ad3n]

That tier list was months ago, the meta has changed dramatically since then.

Welcome to the forums, by the way.

Oh ok. Thanks

 

[FeelMeUp]

Mario is bad. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[verbatim]

Same in game 2 of Stroder vs Nairo, when Stroder got all defensive after Nairo lost his first stock he was doing great. Big combos don't seem worth it, you can add the same amount of damage over time with a better risk/reward ratio.

Greninja's rediculous mobility and water shuriken make campy play very viable. IMO he'd be high tier (MK/Ryu level) if his water shurikens charging mechanic worked like Sheik's needles.

 

[ARISTOS]

Greninja's rediculous mobility and water shuriken make campy play very viable. IMO he'd be high tier (MK/Ryu level) if his water shurikens charging mechanic worked like Sheik's needles.

That'd be so gross lmao.

 

[FullMoon]

I'm cautiously optimistic regarding Greninja. I'm not too sure on him having top tier potential as he, at least for now, doesn't really have the consistency to be top tier, but he has been getting good results and with players like Stroder rising, the frog might be making a climb again.

Greninja's main flaws are his frame data and his OoS options which are kinda tied to the former. He can avoid the OoS problem by just not using shield since he does have the mobility for it, but the bad frame data is really damning in some MUs like Sheik and Sonic.

Out of the top tier MUs he loses, I think he does best against Bayonetta and Fox, with the hardest ones being Sonic and Sheik. But with how the Japanese Greninja seem to have consistent victories against KEN, it shows that the MU is still very much doable, just difficult. As much as I feel like Sonic is a -2 MU, with how Some deals with it so well it's kinda hard to justify it being harder than -1.

And Greninja being able to hold charge would be pretty bonkers considering there's plenty of combos and traps that are possible with the full shuriken, if he had that then he could definitely be a top tier threat, but playing with hypotheticals like that is not very productive.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Mario is bad. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why's that, m8?

 

[blackghost]

So this thread is saying that high tier is top 20ish in results? So we are saying that roughly half this character roster belongs in high tier as a category?

We have some real optimists around here. I just want to keep a pulse on what the community thinks.

 

[FullMoon]

In a roster with 58 characters, 20 is still about a third of the cast. Melee's top + high tier is also about a third of its cast so I don't see the problem here.

 

[TDK]

So this thread is saying that high tier is top 20ish in results? So we are saying that roughly half this character roster belongs in high tier as a category?

We have some real optimists around here. I just want to keep a pulse on what the community thinks.

In this game, there's around 30 "top 20" characters. Huge roster + lots of balance will do that.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Mario is bad. Nothing more, nothing less.

I don't see how Mario is any lower than top 17 (and that's assuming characters like Corrin, Olimar, and Pikachu are better, which is plausible, I suppose). I still think he's likely top 12, at least. Perhaps a bit higher or a bit lower, I'm not sure. Is that bad, though? He may not be top 10, but in a game as balanced as Smash 4, is being not top 10 bad?

I would say Mario is a good character, potentially top tier even, or near the top of high tier. He's definitely not lower than high tier (then again, people used to think Ness was top tier, but it's a bit different).

 

[MercuryPenny]

calling mario outright bad is an overexaggeration but calling him top 10 at this point is pretty silly

mario has a great punish game, okay edgeguarding and decent mobility but he also has awful range, really low traction, bad out-of-shield options, and nothing exceptional to speak of beyond his punish game (which is outdone by characters like bayo and luigi anyway). ally has also only just finished recovering from eye surgery, so his results have dropped off as well.

he's a great noob killer but his matchups against top tiers are too bad to ignore, since he only goes even with fox and maybe zero suit

 

[my_T]

Why's that, m8?

Well for starters, his neutral is not top tier material, and his disadvantage state isn't anything to write home about either. Then you have his advantage state which is good in terms of damage racking but when it comes to killing Mario's not very good at that either. Outside of usmash which is avoidable and has no confirms, his other kill options either kill late or are somewhat impractical/unreliable to land.

Been saying for a long time that this character is overrated for a variety of reasons. One being that his mains at top level (Ally, Anti, Ron, Zenyou) all lack consistency and/or have high secondary usage. I've seen people claim that he is better than Rosa, Fox, ZSS, Sonic, and Marth (Marth's debatable) which is kinda laughable when you compare Mario's strengths, weaknesses, and MU spread to these characters. Not to mention he's one of the most overly represented characters in the game and none of his mains have been able to maintain long term success at top level with Mario alone. Meanwhile you see some of the mains of most of the other top tiers, especially the ones I've mentioned consistently place top 8 over a long period of time and usually with less representation.

Sometimes I even question if he's top tier

 

[Nu~]

Greninja, to put it simply, plays like a ninja lol

Evade all day and play the smokescreen game until you see the right moment to strike.
It's actually really cool how well they designed him (after all the patches, that is)

 

[Hippieslayer]

calling mario outright bad is an overexaggeration but calling him top 10 at this point is pretty silly

mario has a great punish game, okay edgeguarding and decent mobility but he also has awful range, really low traction, bad out-of-shield options, and nothing exceptional to speak of beyond his punish game (which is outdone by characters like bayo and luigi anyway). ally has also only just finished recovering from eye surgery, so his results have dropped off as well.

he's a great noob killer but his matchups against top tiers are too bad to ignore, since he only goes even with fox and maybe zero suit

Potentially beats Sheik. Also does good vs Diddy. Has the tools to handle Rosa. Having winning matchups vs the best in the game isn't necessarily required to be top 10, it can be enough to not lose very hard to them. That being said Bayonetta does look painful, even for Ally who is a bit an outlier like Zero with Diddy. Cloud also seems painful, even if Ally does fairly well against most Clouds iirc (not counting MKleo).

I don't think Mario being top 10 is much of a stretch as of yet, he might lose important matchups, but he doesn't lose them so hard as to render them hopeless, he's not that polarized. Which 10 characters are better than Mario pray tell? I think it's not possible to list ten without dwelling into a realm of uncertainty where its only sufficiently justified to say that he may or may not be top 10, not that he probably is or isn't.

 

[Das Koopa]

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/6zgv96/orionrank_late_summer_101/

https://intheloop837.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/orionrank-late-summer-10-1/

Final of five articles on OrionRank Late Summer is up!

 

[RonNewcomb]

My headcanon is that Radical Larry is an Izaw smurf account.

"Smurf" account??

 

[Hippieslayer]

Well for starters, his neutral is not top tier material, and his disadvantage state isn't anything to write home about either. Then you have his advantage state which is good in terms of damage racking but when it comes to killing Mario's not very good at that either. Outside of usmash which is avoidable and has no confirms, his other kill options either kill late or are somewhat impractical/unreliable to land.

Been saying for a long time that this character is overrated for a variety of reasons. One being that his mains at top level (Ally, Anti, Ron, Zenyou) all lack consistency and/or have high secondary usage. I've seen people claim that he is better than Rosa, Fox, ZSS, Sonic, and Marth (Marth's debatable) which is kinda laughable when you compare Mario's strengths, weaknesses, and MU spread to these characters. Not to mention he's one of the most overly represented characters in the game and none of his mains have been able to maintain long term success at top level with Mario alone. Meanwhile you see some of the mains of most of the other top tiers, especially the ones I've mentioned consistently place top 8 over a long period of time and usually with less representation.

Sometimes I even question if he's top tier

I think you rely too much on blanket terms. Yes his neutral isn't stellar, but its pretty solid, and he has the neat ability to convert quick lagless attacks into either an extended combo or string or one or two hits which puts his opponent in a horrible position from which he is likely to either gain stage control or get more hits in as the opponent struggles to return to neutral. He is really good at pushing advantage, few characters can overwhelm like Mario can.

Moreover, his disadvantage state is also undeniably good, nair and dair are good mixups for avoiding juggles, can stall in the air with cape, nigh impossible to gimp recovering low, can cover high recoveries with fireballs, good aerial mobility ties it all together and makes him hard to ledgetrap.

And do top Mario mains really struggle when it comes to killing? I can agree that on paper his killing options pale in comparison to other characters around his level, but in practice top level Marios get it done at reasonable percentages. Fsmash is also formidable and deserves mentioning alongside usmash.

Of the characters you mention all bar Sonic and Rosa have far more polarized strengths and weaknesses than Mario. Fox recovery and grab game sucks, Zss grab sucks. Bar Marth, yeah they are probably better than Mario. Marth is just not on Mario's level, at least not as of yet. Still you seem to be missing one of Mario's biggest strengths.

Finally the way you summarize Mario's performance is dishonest and inaccurate and only possible because of Allys recent slump following eye surgery.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I would say Bayonetta, Diddy, Sheik, Rosa, Cloud, Sonic and Fox for sure are better then Mario but I can't say for certain after that, ZSS and M2 could potentially but I wouldn't put him below Ryu or Marth (as far as the current "top tiers" as this tier list is concerned) and I definitely would not put him below characters like Corrin, Meta Knight, Pikachu and so on. He's just too solid of a character no MU looks to be too much (Ally really should stop letting Bayo go to BF as it's clear that's one thing he can't handle). Very good advantage, good frame data, great aerial mobility, an okay disadvantage (frame three nair breaker, decent weight, decent recovery options) his neutral may be limited but it's not limited to the point he will suffer that badly. He definitely does have a problem out right closing stocks if he can't get the kill while his setups still work sorta like Marth but again it's not that limiting of a weakness.

He's probably the most common main in the game, everyone should know how to fight Mario by this point but it's still not keeping him from top ten results. Mario is fine guys.

 

[blackghost]

In a roster with 58 characters, 20 is still about a third of the cast. Melee's top + high tier is also about a third of its cast so I don't see the problem here.

That comparison doesn't really mean much because the difference between top tier and high tier is huge.

 

[Illusion.]

So this thread is saying that high tier is top 20ish in results? So we are saying that roughly half this character roster belongs in high tier as a category?

We have some real optimists around here. I just want to keep a pulse on what the community thinks.

I wouldn't even say that tiers should be described as a grouping of numbers (top 5, top 10, top 15, and etc.) The current 4BR tier list, albeit outdated, has 12 characters in top tier (S and A) and 11 in high tier.

If "top 10" were an exclusive term to being in top tier, that would mean there's a gap between #10 and #11, but it's clear there isn't.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

bad out-of-shield options

Of all the negatives you could've listed about Mario, this is definitely not one of them.

Frame 9 up smash OoS (jump-cancelled; especially effective against crossing up), frame 3 Up B with intangibility from frames 3-6, and his grab (short range, but comes out on frame 6 and, of course, has a lot of reward).

Yeah, totally equates to a bad OoS game, doncha think?!

The only bad part is his low traction.

 

[Minordeth]

So, Mario is still top tier in this meta because of how top players are still playing. As long as unnecessary jump-ins, over-reliance on shields, and especially the impatience and unwillingness to camp are prevalent, Mario will always be relevant. Mario has less ability to chase than Bayo, and has to rely on getting those big conversions to force approaches so he can close stocks.

Ultimately, he just doesn't have the speed or range to chase the most important character in the game, and that alone is going to make him suffer in bracket.

As a side note, to clear this up since it's a popular sentiment I've seen regarding Ally: people who have LASIK surgery have better vision immediately following. If anything, afterwards, your eyes get dry quickly, so you have to rely on eye drops for a few weeks to keep your vision clear. Having had the same procedure myself, I think it's a little misguided to attribute Ally's drop in results to his surgery. Coincidentally, his drop in results did coincide with the rise of Mistake and Salem, tho.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Considering what Minordeth just said about Mario, I think this is the same reason many consider DK and Bowser Top 20 in the game (or, at the very least, high tier material).

I've been thinking about this for a while, and it just dawned on me. It's not necessarily because of the characters themselves are Top 20 material (MU spread in particular), but when you consider player habits like those mentioned above, it makes sense. DK and Bowser are vulnerable to camping, but not enough players seem to be doing that. They also capitalize very well on over-reliance on shield. And as long as jump-ins are prevalent, their ability to punish with a long-ranged pivot grab will be a consistent threat.

And especially as far as those I talked with on Reddit who believe Sheik loses to DK, when taking these habits into consideration, that can seem plausible, but at a more optimal level (camping and neutral mostly), I can't see how this is even, let alone, losing at all.

I know several will disagree with me, but that's just how I see it.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

"Smurf" account??

It's when high level players in games like League of Legends, Street Fighter 5, or other games that have a ranking system buy, get, or make a low rank account to play with people who are way below their rank.
This usually results in a player just dominating all of his opponents so hard it is sometimes funny to watch.
Some players do this to play with friends in rank matches where otherwise the in-game matchmaking system would forbid them to play together due to the huge gap in rank.
Some streamers/youtubers do a unranked to (insert rank name here) series to show or help fans learn to climb up the ranks. A few even manage to climb to highest rank of a given game

A smash example would be Zero going on Anther's Ladder under the alias Persistence Blade. Another one is watching notable players matches on tourney streams for Pools matches where usually their opposition has no chance of winning.

 

[Minordeth]

To expand, most people don't go back and analyze top level matches. Even when they do, they have a tendency to break it down like,"Oh, player A did X when in this situation and it led to a good/bad outcome. I'll make sure to do/not do X in that situation." It's just basic emulation.

Now, what they should do is "Oh, player A did X in this situation and it led to a good/bad outcome. What could they have done instead? Is there a better (more optimal) option given what characters they are playing as?"

That kind of analysis takes more time because it requires you to actually know, in depth, what the two characters can do given their tools. It also requires you to know how those tools interact. If you don't know, it should encourage you to want to know, and figure it out.

Top players, ideally, should know more than high, mid, and low level players. Instead, they brag about how they don't really study, or they ask other top players how to DI a move they absolutely should know how to DI, or they ask twitter to solve match ups for them. Don't rely on them to divine out an MU.

Basically, study the game yourself. There are 56 characters. Ike or whatever being low tier currently or whatever doesn't mean he can't end your bracket run because you don't know what his options are and how his tools interact with your Cloud's tools.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Dabuz just uploaded this.

 

[Y2Kay]

Dabuz just uploaded this.

>Greninja sandwhiched in between Ness and Samus

FeelsHorribleMan

 

[The-Technique]

I was ready to get triggered, but considering the density of high tiers in this game, its less of "oh this character is bad" but more like "well someone has to be bottom 10".

That said I don't think Bayo and Cloud belong in their own tier, at least regarding singles meta.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Dabuz just uploaded this.

sees Marth and Lucina in the same spot

This can only end so well...

 

[Nu~]

Mega Man in mid tier is both LUL and intriguing

He has been doing much more poorly lately, but is it Kameme's fault or mega man's

 

[ARISTOS]

The most interesting thing on the list is Fox at 3rd. Wasn't there someone in this thread saying that as well?

 

[|RK|]

Dabuz just uploaded this.

Mm.

I'm not going to say much other than - Kirby poses more of a threat (however minor you believe that is) to more characters than anyone in his group.

Oh well.

 

[The-Technique]

Mm.

I'm not going to say much other than - Kirby poses more of a threat (however minor you believe that is) to more characters than anyone in his group.

Oh well.

Oh wow, I just realized he placed Kirby as the 2nd worst character in the game, that's pretty nuts lol.