Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[Lord Dio]

Just a thought, but Ally still does well, consistent top 8s this year and won a saga. Sure he's not at his prime, but he's still going strong

 

[|RK|]

Speaking of a stagnant meta, do ally or anti or any high lvl Mario player ever use Dsmash like that? Frame 5 move? Fast as all his tilts? Also kills?

I think that move is real low key.

Ally uses pp dsmash on occasion. It's kinda sick

 

[my_T]

Why do people use the "people/humans make mistakes" argument as a metric to gauge a characters place in the tiers? It isn't a reliable metric at all as there is no consistency. No two people on this planet are the same and physical/mental strengths can vary quite a bit from person to person.

Ex:

I advance to the next bracket because my last opponent made mistakes. Will my next opponent make those same mistakes? Will my last opponent make the same mistakes next time if I have to play him again? How many mistakes will they make? How costly will those mistakes be? Will they make any mistakes at all? Again, there's no form of consistency with this argument so why do people use it?

Is Luigi a ****ty mid tier because most people lack the coordination, speed, and endurance to mash fast enough to effectively use the cyclone? Or is Luigi a high tier and it is the fault of the player if they are not able to effectively utilize one of Luigi's greatest strengths?

The argument can go both ways as well. If character X loses is it because player X made mistakes? If character Y loses is it because player Y made mistakes?

 

[Rizen]

Why do people use the "people/humans make mistakes" argument as a metric to gauge a characters place in the tiers? It isn't a reliable metric at all as there is no consistency. No two people on this planet are the same and physical/mental strengths can vary quite a bit from person to person.

Ex:

I advance to the next bracket because my last opponent made mistakes. Will my next opponent make those same mistakes? Will my last opponent make the same mistakes next time if I have to play him again? How many mistakes will they make? How costly will those mistakes be? Will they make any mistakes at all? Again, there's no form of consistency with this argument so why do people use it?

Is Luigi a ****ty mid tier because most people lack the coordination, speed, and endurance to mash fast enough to effectively use the cyclone? Or is Luigi a high tier and it is the fault of the player if they are not able to effectively utilize one of Luigi's greatest strengths?

The argument can go both ways as well. If character X loses is it because player X made mistakes? If character Y loses is it because player Y made mistakes?

People can't play like a TAS and it boils down to a risk/reward ratio. Bayo for example has huge reward off little risk so mistakes are probably going to cost opponents more. This is a big part of judging MUs. Ideally you want to play as safe as your character will allow and capitalize on the opponent's mistakes. Link as a counter point has a lot of lag on things like grab and no juggle breaker. While Link can successfully fight Bayo, he loses in risk/reward heavily. Generally the better the character, the better their reward to risk ratio will be.

 

[ARISTOS]

Re: Cloud as the best character

Don't forget this from June:

Second list dropping the best player of each character (ex. Not counting ZeRo's results for Diddy, etc). pic.twitter.com/oJuvolJOaa

— Team DRX (@Team_DRX) June 22, 2017

If we count every tournament, yeah the results get muddied. But if you count just B-tier events or higher, Cloud is in a consistent place, with top players removed and without.

Could very well be the best character in the game, IMO. But, as stated - it's safest to just say Diddy/Bayo/Cloud in some order.

An aside, but I really don't like these charts. The best player of a character=/=an outlier, but that's what they're treating it as.

From results and opinions. I think the top tier cam be organised like this. (In no particular order in each line)











What I am actullay more interested in as of late is what could possibly the the order of "high tier" characters. say around the 11-20 mark.

/ have always been thought of high tier characters for a while and we have also been seeing strong performances from and as well lately. I wonder if people think these or other viable characters are have are currently underrated and have a chance to grow or even move up in the meta?

Well you have all of the above, and then also . Consideration as well for, though I believe they'll fall out of favor as time goes on.

 

[|RK|]

An aside, but I really don't like these charts. The best player of a character=/=an outlier, but that's what they're treating it as.

I posted this because it's connected to another tweet that shows results without the top player removed.

If you look at both tweets, Cloud is at the top both with AND without the top player of each character removed.

 

[verbatim]

Speaking of a stagnant meta, do ally or anti or any high lvl Mario player ever use Dsmash like that? Frame 5 move? Fast as all his tilts? Also kills?

I think that move is real low key.

if you catch someone rolling on a battlefield platform you can jablock them with rising nair into down smash. I've seen Ally do it on a few occasions.

 

[HoSmash4]

Mario still has a lot of development. Anti and Ally csn advsnce their combo meta

 

[Skeeter Mania]

if you catch someone rolling on a battlefield platform you can jablock them with rising nair into down smash. I've seen Ally do it on a few occasions.

What makes it any better than forward smash?

 

[|RK|]

Speaking of Mario - one of the biggest things I noticed at Shine(?) was that Ally did go for the footstool combo at last. My biggest concern - that idk if anyone else talked about - is he ended with grab instead of a sweet spot fsmash (which probably would have killed).

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I’m not aware of what Footstool combos Mario would go for in most situations. What exactly would Mario be going for?

 

[Skeeter Mania]

I’m not aware of what Footstool combos Mario would go for in most situations. What exactly would Mario be going for?

Footstool -> Cape to stop momentum -> soft Nair to reset

The rest depend on circumstance.

 

[MercuryPenny]

What makes it any better than forward smash?

knockback angle and speed, mostly. back hit is super strong and sends at an incredibly shallow knockback angle that forces your opponent to recover low if it doesn't kill. front hit sends at the same angle with less power and frame 5 startup. it's probably mario's best move for setting up edgeguards, which can give it some edge over f-smash if you're unsure it will kill.

 

[RonNewcomb]

Nintendo just added GameCube controller support to the Switch today. USB adapter required of course.

 

[|RK|]

I’m not aware of what Footstool combos Mario would go for in most situations. What exactly would Mario be going for?

https://youtu.be/rTHSks0Lr_M

At 1:14

Thing is, he didn't get the full lock. He could have killed Leo off of that.

 

[origamiscienceguy]

Nintendo just added GameCube controller support to the Switch today. USB adapter required of course.

I think a virtual console (with gamecube support) is more imminent than a new smash game at this point.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Nintendo just added GameCube controller support to the Switch today. USB adapter required of course.

Not to be too blunt, but don't you think this post would fit more on the Smash for Switch discussion forum?

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

It has been reported by GameXplain and other sources that all Switch games now work with the GCC adapter. Twitter blew up the other day and I am hype too.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

It has been reported by GameXplain and other sources that all Switch games now work with the GCC adapter. Twitter blew up the other day and I am hype too.

So every Mario Kart except the handhelds is now playable on the GCN controller.

 

[RonNewcomb]

Not to be too blunt, but don't you think this post would fit more on the Smash for Switch discussion forum?

Sorta. I think GCC on Switch is a bigger deal to competitors than to general smash players. Casuals will play on JoyCons, but can you imagine competition on JoyCons? For any Smash game, new or old?

Why do people use the "people/humans make mistakes" argument as a metric to gauge a characters place in the tiers? It isn't a reliable metric at all as there is no consistency. No two people on this planet are the same and physical/mental strengths can vary quite a bit from person to person.

Ex:

I advance to the next bracket because my last opponent made mistakes. Will my next opponent make those same mistakes? Will my last opponent make the same mistakes next time if I have to play him again? How many mistakes will they make? How costly will those mistakes be? Will they make any mistakes at all? Again, there's no form of consistency with this argument so why do people use it?

Is Luigi a ****ty mid tier because most people lack the coordination, speed, and endurance to mash fast enough to effectively use the cyclone? Or is Luigi a high tier and it is the fault of the player if they are not able to effectively utilize one of Luigi's greatest strengths?

There's two different senses of the word execution. Mashing Luigi's cyclone is the typical kind of "one-player" execution, and we assume perfect execution for tier placement, so "difficult to mash" doesn't reduce Luigi's tier placement. But Sheik's winning "don't get hit for six minutes" timeout strategy vs rage Ryu is a kind of "two-player" execution that the other player can defeat by hard-reads if nothing else. At that point, "no one is TASbot" is allowed to bring down tier placement.

The tourney ruleset bans stages that make "don't get hit for six minutes" quite doable, under the name circle-camping. Without circle-camping clauses in the ruleset removing those stages, then yeah, Sheik would be even better tier-wise precisely because it's easier to TAS the neutral. So would several other characters.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

With Clutch City Clash 2 coming up next week in The Woodlands, Texas, I was wondering if anyone wanted to talk about it.

I'm not going to name all of the notables attending but Mekos and Zero will be there.

The rules have Lylat as a neutral along with a Battlefield/Miiverse pairing instead of the popular Battlefield/Dreamland 64 combo.

Duck Hunt, along with Dreamland 64 and ALL Omega stages are legal counterpicks. And my favorite is that the tourney is in 3 stocks 8 minutes.

Rules: https://pastebin.com/nJmptNji

Smash.gg page for attendees (since brackets are not up yet): https://smash.gg/tournament/clutch-city-clash-2/attendees?per_page=50&filter={"eventIds":24962}&page=1

I'm confident that the rules will turn some heads so I'm curious what you guys will have to say.

 

[|RK|]

With Clutch City Clash 2 coming up next week in The Woodlands, Texas, I was wondering if anyone wanted to talk about it.

I'm not going to name all of the notables attending but Mekos and Zero will be there.

The rules have Lylat as a neutral along with a Battlefield/Miiverse pairing instead of the popular Battlefield/Dreamland 64 combo.

Duck Hunt, along with Dreamland 64 and ALL Omega stages are legal counterpicks. And my favorite is that the tourney is in 3 stocks.

Rules: https://pastebin.com/nJmptNji

Smash.gg page for attendees (since brackets are not up yet): https://smash.gg/tournament/clutch-city-clash-2/attendees?per_page=50&filter={"eventIds":24962}&page=1

I'm confident that the rules will turn some heads so I'm curious what you guys will have to say.

I think legal Duck Hunt is a mistake. Not for competitive purposes, but... People want to show that 3-stock is the best way for the game. Last year, we had some Sonic match on stream + the casters didn't have any energy during.

Even though these things happen in 2-stock as well, people will attribute any sluggishness to 3-stock. Now you legalize a stage like Duck Hunt when you have a number of people watching for ZeRo?

If this goes slowly as well, and/or their casters don't make it interesting, there's no way people are going to say "yeah, 3-stock makes sense." Oh well; I don't mind 2-stock much.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Duck Hunt isn't legal at CCC.
We asked Krebs, the SU main TO, and he said it was an accident. I can ask him again if you need confirmation in a picture.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Wonder how DL and BF being split will affect things (it's probably a bigger factor than 3 stock imo, though I love the idea of 3 stock even if it doesn't really change anything it just feels right) and I though Lylat was already neutral (atleast that's how we treat it). I do love to see people implement new rulesets and ideas into tournaments instead of the same old same old it keeps things fresh, even if it's only a one time thing.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Wonder how DL and BF being split will affect things

Why would it? The stages are distinct enough to warrant being separate.

 

[MercuryPenny]

that would make 3 triplats between battlefield, town/city, and dreamland. hypothetically, characters who do well on triplats will always have an option since there are only 2 stage bans at the loser's disposal.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I'm attending this weekend so I'll definitely have to ask about the triplat ban thing.
ZSS is buffed considerably if that is the case.

Edit: National ruleset is being used, guys.

 

[my_T]

There's two different senses of the word execution. Mashing Luigi's cyclone is the typical kind of "one-player" execution, and we assume perfect execution for tier placement, so "difficult to mash" doesn't reduce Luigi's tier placement. But Sheik's winning "don't get hit for six minutes" timeout strategy vs rage Ryu is a kind of "two-player" execution that the other player can defeat by hard-reads if nothing else. At that point, "no one is TASbot" is allowed to bring down tier placement.

The tourney ruleset bans stages that make "don't get hit for six minutes" quite doable, under the name circle-camping. Without circle-camping clauses in the ruleset removing those stages, then yeah, Sheik would be even better tier-wise precisely because it's easier to TAS the neutral. So would several other characters.

I understand your and Rizen point. The problem is that the whole "people make mistakes" argument can be applied to every character. People only really bring it up when Sheik loses or characters like DK wins.

What's the difference? If the DK player loses did the DK player not make mistakes?

Lets look at the Ding Dong. DK players don't always land this combo. Sometimes they over/under shoot the window. The window shrinks as you gain rage and it can be manipulated by the opponent as well by forcing the DK player to inflict damage or by self inflicting damage.

Lets look at DK's ****ty disadvantage state. He's bound to make mistakes when having such poor options in disadvantage. Sometimes he takes a ton of damage which effects the Ding Dong window and forces him to approach. Sometimes he loses his stock on top of taking a ton of damage.

Point is, Sheik players aren't the only ones that make mistakes. The likelihood and cost of these mistakes varies from character to character and the situation they are in

#WeAllMakeMistakes

 

[RonNewcomb]

I understand your and Rizen point. The problem is that the whole "people make mistakes" argument can be applied to every character. People only really bring it up when Sheik loses or characters like DK wins.

What's the difference? If the DK player loses did the DK player not make mistakes?

The difference is how catastrophic the mistake is. Shiek regularly brings her opponents to high rage where the comeback factor can suddenly end her, and most of the cast making a mistake in DK's face is catastrophic.

Everyone makes mistakes all the time, but rarely does a mistake cost more than 10 or 20 percent damage. People don't bring up the usual-magnitude mistakes.

SFV has three "robbery" characters that, even when losing badly, steal the round on a sole mistake from their opponent. (Balrog, Laura, Urien) They're very DK/Bowser like.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Everyone makes mistakes all the time, but rarely does a mistake cost more than 10 or 20 percent damage. People don't bring up the usual-magnitude mistakes.

If you live in 2015, maybe. Make a mistake against most top 30-50 players and you eat a much heftier punish than that.

 

[Minordeth]

I know, I know, “weeklies,” but WaDi took out KEN and Komo pretty cleanly at MSM 118, taking the tourney from winner’s side. Everyone was playing their mains.

Which leads me to: I know, I know, Mewtwo is supposed to be dropping off or whatever, but I really don’t see how a character with a bunch of OD attributes and tools is anything but top tier. The only saving grace for the rest of this cast is his vulnerability at the ledge and his weight.

Can you imagine if he weighed as much as Mario? Lord have mercy he would be egregiously anti-fun.

 

[Yonder]

I know, I know, “weeklies,” but WaDi took out KEN and Komo pretty cleanly at MSM 118, taking the tourney from winner’s side. Everyone was playing their mains.

Which leads me to: I know, I know, Mewtwo is supposed to be dropping off or whatever, but I really don’t see how a character with a bunch of OD attributes and tools is anything but top tier. The only saving grace for the rest of this cast is his vulnerability at the ledge and his weight.

Can you imagine if he weighed as much as Mario? Lord have mercy he would be egregiously anti-fun.

He strikes me as one of the most potential filled top tiers, I just feel he has even more unlockable combos beyond footstool-disable. I just don't know who will discover them. People don't want to risk it because they have to play perfect, like Sheik. Except trading #of times allowed to lose neutral exponentially for kill power. Aka, glass cannon with wings, his mobility and escape options are amongst the best also.

 

[Guido65]

escape options are amongst the best also.

Aside from his air dodge what escape options does he have exactly?

 

[PURGE THEM LIKE THE]

He strikes me as one of the most potential filled top tiers, I just feel he has even more unlockable combos beyond footstool-disable. I just don't know who will discover them. People don't want to risk it because they have to play perfect, like Sheik. Except trading #of times allowed to lose neutral exponentially for kill power. Aka, glass cannon with wings, his mobility and escape options are amongst the best also.

Here's a potential kill confirm on some fast fallers: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-4ouaWwAhsA

Seems pretty frame tight. I can barely do it at all. Di away might mess it up. You can probably still bait an airdodge instead, though.

I'm not sure what these escape options are. I'd argue that escaping pressure is his biggest shortcoming, especially at the ledge.

 

[Minordeth]

In terms of escape, Mewtwo has no real combo breaker, although Fair can break through strings pretty effectively.

Really, what his escape boils down to is maximizing his momentum based off his pretty high airspeed. He has both B-reversed shadow ball and confusion to aid in his aerial mobility, and those two tools, coupled with his air dodge, make him actually pretty tricky to hit.

For a really good, recent example of how shifty Mewtwo can be, look at WaDi's set with KEN from MSM 118. Even with Sonic's absurd ground speed, in game 3 especially, KEN was barely able to make contact with WaDi at all. This was mostly due to the directional mix-ups that Mewtwo can do. It's similar to how Zero can mix up Diddy's landings with banana and Monkey flip, although Diddy's air speed is trash, so the effect is less pronounced.

 

[Krysco]

Just watched that set. Here it is for anyone curious:

Didn't notice too much evasiveness, moreso the Sonic just not committing though maybe I just failed to notice it. What I did notice however is more reasons why I dislike commentated matches. "Confusion is kinda like a command grab" No, not kinda. It IS a command grab. One of the 2 later does say it is but the kinda is pointless. The closest thing to being a 'kinda command grab' is the hitbox on Palutena's Reflect Barrier and customs like Meta Knight's down b that ignores shields.

"Sonic Spring is kinda a projectile" I was going to genuinely ask about this since I don't use Sonic but the move gets hit by Confusion at one point and the reflect sound goes off so again, not kinda, it is a projectile not that that matters much.

"Mewtwo has a frame 4 fair" It's actually frame 6.

"Mewtwo doesn't have much priority so he has a hard time getting off the ledge" The only characters I'm aware of that actually have priority on their aerials is Olimar save for his nair and every hitbox Luma produces in the air. As for Mewtwo's grounded options, Jab can't clank, ftilt is just bad, smash attacks are slow and then dtilt does 5/4.5/4% and utilt does 6/5/4.5%. Worst case scenario, Mewtwo's tilts will get out prioritized by moves that do 13% or more. Just looked at Smash wiki and was reminded that aerials do have priority for projectiles but fair does 13% and Sonic's spring hardly matters for ledge trapping.

Some other things I noticed: with Sonic able to do that side b jump thing where he goes flying across the stage, is it really such a good idea to stay on stage rather than going off to edgeguard? Mewtwo's nair lasts longer than airdodges and Sonic's up b lacks a hitbox (though it is intangible frames 5-13) and if he airdodges he could end up missing the ledge entirely. I also noticed Wadi doing a lot of nairs in neutral, probably hoping to hit Ken during his side b. Seemed like a bad idea though since Sonic doesn't have to fully commit to side b and trading with nair isn't often in Mewtwo's favour. Lastly, noticed Ken approaching even with the percent or stock lead. Not sure if that's just how Ken plays or if it's the fear of fully charged Shadow Ball. Then again Wadi had a point where he fired a fully charged Shadow Ball pretty much right after getting it though that may have been so he could continue pestering with them and for the movement options they provide.

 

[|RK|]

Re: Spin jump - it requires a double jump to use it. So Sonic can go far horizontally, but not very deep at all. And Sonic players already go far horizontally.

 

[Krysco]

Depending how high it goes, Sonic could possibly either do it immediately after a ledge drop or he can do a ledge jump, granted that can be covered before he spin jumps. Plus, Sonic can't go that far horizontally that fast from the ledge unless he does something like neutral getup and then just dashing which likely requires going through the opponent who is likely to have some sort of hitbox or grab box out. Main point anyways was that with Sonic having that as a ledge option AND having a recovery that doesn't defend him, why not go off stage more with a long lasting nair? Worst I can think of happening is if the intangibility of the up b and the grabbing of the ledge overlap since he can then only be 2 framed and at that point, he gets his double jump back.

That all being said, Mewtwo's nair is long lasting but it's not perfect. It's similar to Pac-Man's grab where it has specific points where hitboxes (grab boxes in the case of Pac's grab obviously) are active rather than say Palutena's nair which has hitboxes all the way through the move. Makes it less likely to 2 frame since there are gaps.

Wadi did also go for run off dairs more than once throughout the set so he clearly has no problem going off stage, he just seems to prefer the unlikely but high rewarding options over the more likely ones.

 

[verbatim]

Pacman would be more than willing to trade grab and nair w/ M2, if the opportunity ever arose.

 

[Krysco]

I'm sure he would with how terrible his grab currently is plus the poor reward from throws. Nair is a bit more surprising to see mentioned since Pac's is more than twice as fast as M2's but the combo potential of M2's is obviously nice. Point of comparing those two was the gaps they have. Mewtwo's nair never has a hitbox on frames 9-10 since the first hitboxes are f7-8 and then f11-12 similar to how Pac's grab never grabs on frames 15-21 since that's the gap between the first grab boxes and the second ones. Compare that to Palutena's nair which has hitboxes on frames 5-27 and simply has a rehit rate of 5 to make it a multihit move. Doesn't matter when you get near your opponent, the nair will land while Mewtwo's has gaps which can make 2 framing with it tricky despite the moves overall long duration.