Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[ShadowGuy1]

Something we haven’t talked about much is PGR. Today, suar dropped some information about some general stuff about who’s in and who’s not. What he said in his tweet was:

4 are returning from a previous season
10 are new
14 are out from v3

Who do you guys think fits those categories. Here’s what I think

4 returning - Darkshad, K9, Xzax, and Dyr
10 New - Mistake, Cosmos, Lima, Charlie, Light, Ryuga, Tyroy, Zenyou, Ryuga, James

14 leaving - Ranai, FOW, HIKARU, Myran, Earth, AC, Edge, Scatt, Locus, T, Rich Brown, Nietono, 9B, 6WX

 

[Deleted member]

Honestly, I'm not even concerned about the reverse AS ledgetrap. Personally, I think the more flexible ledgetrap is just holding AS at roll distance. It's more dangerous than what Mewtwo does with Shadow Ball, as holding ledge doesn't beat it, roll = death, and jump can be caught more easily. Disjoints are pretty much irrelevant against that.

But in either case, that's his advantage state... Which I also think is godlike, tbh. Vortexing with his amazing pivot grab, catching landings with Aura Sphere (or Force Palm/grab), etc.

I personally put Lucario exactly where ZeRo does... top tier.

Source:

22:37 for .
ZeRo thinks Lucario is above Mewtwo by one spot.
He thinks Lucario is that high because his Aura can kill at twenty percent and he also thinks that Rage and his buffed Aura from Brawl help him a lot. He also describes that Tsu for a moment and how Lucario is inconsistent which means hard to place. He places him that high because of the rage and his buffed Aura system. I am not going to say where I would put Lucario, but he does make a valid point about Lucario and gives a good explanation on why he thinks that.
- He put as third best above Sheik and Diddy Kong. He also put as sixth best above Sonic and Fox. -
Thoughts?

 

[Heracr055]

Lucario's a character that I haven't heard buzz from since Frostbite. Has he done anything since? Coming from a Pokemon background, he's not a Mon that I've cared much about. However, I cannot deny that he's got some crazy kill potential. With the rise of heavyweight grapplers that kill at early %, I fear he will be kept in check.

 

[KakuCP9]

I have a small, off-topic comment to make:

I don't quite understand how Lucario's neutral is considered to be weak. I've been in a minor character crisis between Lucario and Kirby as of late (because of playstyle fit, not perceived strength), and so I've been practicing more Lucario.

When you take notes from Venia's Greninja + WaDi's Mewtwo, Lucario's neutral seems simple yet very effective. Charge aura sphere a little. Choose an action - nair, grab, shoot aura sphere, bait something else with his great foxtrot...

And that gets to be way more terrifying when he has aura. Against, say, Marcina... whiff punishing with a dash attack is new to me (very solid burst option). It just seems like he has a number of ways to safely threaten pressure or play around his opponent's range.

I'm certainly no high-level player. But I will say that he seems to have all the neutral tools you could want. Anyone better educated on the character want to tell me what I'm missing (neutral-wise)?

(Well, obviously his frame data is iffy, but the same applies to Greninja/Mewtwo).

I think he lacks a certain reliable tool that allows him to actively control the neutral game. Greninja has his smol shuriken that act like discount Falco lasers that safely ilcit a response from the opponent and Mewtwo has his d-tilt which is fast, long and converts into stuff. While Lucario has mini AS and n-air to help him control space, he can't belligerently throw them like Greninja or Mewtwo. Instead, I feel Lucario' s neutral leads itself to be a passive mid range one where he operates outside of his intial dash area and has various tools to respond to opponent (Aura sphere for whiff punish and zoning, n-air/f-tilt to control space and poke, ASC movement to catch bad approaches along with foxtroting+run up shield made strong via grab range and traction, etc).
While it works for many MUs, it means he will rarely dictate the pace of neutral and certain characters can brute force their way through his neutral (swordies, Fox, Sheik and to a lesser extent ZSS). Another thing to note is his horrible boxing game. Granted his neutral game lets him ease away from this, but characters like Fox give him hell because of it.
Also the aura bit is smidge overblown. While at low aura he isn't threatening and death percentage he is ****ing scary, it's not like he is two different characters. Those low percent combos he lands help lower the damage benchmark he needs to be at for his setups to KO and when he gets pressured, it can be hard to stop the opponent's momentum no matter the percent. Aura doesn't drastically change the neutral game unless he is in projectile war where he hits a certain percent, Aura sphere and Force palm tear apart most characters zoning .Basically the risk/reward ebbs and flows throughout the match rather than being black and white. Also camping out at low aura isn't that practical in practice. Only about handful of characters do it effectively (Wario and Cloud) while others only benefit when they have a stock lead which is basically an issue for any character. Chaos theory still bites him in the ass something fierce, though his weight and recover can make him difficult to kill at times.
As for his tier placement, I think he like characters such as Luigi, Olimar, Peach, and to lesser extent Link and Samus who fight for a place in the top 20; all of them having great strengths and damming weaknesses (yes I know he top 20 in the PG list, though I feel his place is hotly contested). In Luc's case, I feel the other players need to compete in the bigger events like Day, Goma, Serge etc cause Tsu can't carry him alone but the other players probably have IRL stuff/can't travel.

Tl;dr- Lucario is a weird character, but he's strong and can compete.

 

[Minordeth]

Zero has this tendency to overrate characters that do well against Diddy or that he struggles against. He also has a tendency to bank on characters needing “just one opening” to do well. The other side of this logic is that these certain characters need to hope their opponents mess up to get their win condition.

It’s why I think he overrates characters like Lucario, ZSS, and Ryu.

He also underestimates Bayonetta’s weaknesses, and basically says her only weakness is an above average neutral game. But he, like every other top player, still approaches Salem for no reason, so this inflates how good her actual neutral is. Salem’s entire game is based around trying to goad the opponent into approaching. And they do, so...

Also, Greninja and Corrin are bizarrely placed.

 

[The-Technique]

I wanna bring up Sheik's recent performance versus Bayonetta in top level...it doesn't seem to be looking good. When Mr. R played against Salem yesterday, Salem spent 80% of the time n-airing in the air above Sheik....and there didn't seem to be a whole lot Mr. R could do about it. And everytime Sheik got touched by n-air, Salem would convert that into a big combo, then reset back to air camping with n-air. VoiD doesn't seem to fare much better in the Bayo matchup either, getting 3-0'd by Salem in the Championship.

Sheik was originally thought to have an advantage against Bayo, but maybe this is no longer the case?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Bayo v Sheik is even.
Sheik combos her for free, frametraps her, Needle/Bouncing Fish mixup is a very strong edgeguard against her laggy airdodge, and the 50/50 is a thing.
But her paperweight hurts her a lot, Bair kills her insanely early, if she gets WT'd she's basically dead, and some combos and kill confirms work on her while they wouldn't on others.
Both screw each other pretty hard.

 

[|RK|]

Lucario's a character that I haven't heard buzz from since Frostbite. Has he done anything since? Coming from a Pokemon background, he's not a Mon that I've cared much about. However, I cannot deny that he's got some crazy kill potential. With the rise of heavyweight grapplers that kill at early %, I fear he will be kept in check.

Thing is... Lucario doesn't do badly against the grapplers. Tsu has even changed his opinion recently, thinking the DK MU is in Lucario's favor, while Bowser is a slight disadvantage.

I keep saying - kill power alone doesn't wreck Lucario. Fox is Lucario's worst MU for a million reasons, with kill power added on.

 

[Heracr055]

What I meant to say is characters who can kill reliably early are threats to Luke in this game. Fox is one of those characters who can do that. Those 2 heavyweights were the first that came to mind, especially since the meta is more accomodating of their attributes than it was.

 

[FeelMeUp]

The Sheiks aren't using most of her good answers against Neutral Air camping. They were even losing to it on the FD version of Town, which should never happen.

Sheik's low risk options to combat it include:
Stepdash/Crouchwalk > Down Tilt
Crouch > Powershield > Forward Tilt
Full needle on her landing(Mr. R just kept running at Salem's nairs, lol)
Bouncing Fish or Up Air from beneath(the hitbox is bafflingly small near the bottom of Bayo on Neutral Air)

The only stages where Sheik doesn't have any options to combat it are Battlefield, which is an autoban, and Smashville when Bayo has a significant lead and is out of combo percents(i.e at 110 with at 50).

Edit: Also consider the fact that Salem is the only Bayonetta with a stellar record against Sheiks. Also happens to be....yknow, the second best player in the world. The other Bayos sport losses to Sheiks of all type(Big Mak took a set over prime Zack, for example).

 

[ぱみゅ]

People tend to freak out against Nair camp, most people will approach, most of the time recklessly, even when they have a sizeable lead, like they not realise it requires like 3-4 Bullet Arts shots to receive even 1% damage.
Sheik can just Needle against it and the reward would be on her favour.

 

[|RK|]

Following up on both points: Nair is given way too much respect, yeah. And dtilt bullet arts are the only ones that give respectable damage, and even that isn't an excuse to rush in.

People freak out against a bunch of Bayo stuff. I personally can't see a reason Sheik in particular can't just hang back and force approaches from the start of the match.

 

[Finh009]

Karisuma 16 (Chubu, Japan) (80 Entrants)

1st: Sigma
2nd: Yuzu
3rd: Masha
4th: DIO
5th: Earth
5th: Yakara
7th: T
7th: Sukekokko

Spoiler: Rest of Top 16

9th: Nojinko
9th: Tamiflu
9th: Hatsuyuki
9th: OCEAN
13th: Gobu
13th: Kuro
13th: Kiosk
13th: Rizeasu

Also, ikep drowned but I think he went solo .

 

[ARGHETH]

Note: I've posted the character discussion thread talked about earlier for anyone interested, first character is DDD.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I like the idea but one character per week is slow, we'll take over a year to cover them all. Individual threads should have at least 2 imo.

 

[Rizen]

Bayo's Nair is really good. I talk about Link's Nair as a neutral tool because it has 10 frames of landing lag and is +5/+2 Strong/late hit on shield drop. Well Bayo's Nair has 10 frames of landing lag and is +3/+2 on drop. Like all her aerials it has freaky leg range. It's another of her great assets that is overlooked because WTime and WTwist stuff; like that f4 jump squat I rant about. Bayo's neutral is not bad; she just has more of a zoner style neutral.

 

[Routa]

When talking about Lucario we must remember his poor framedata and mobility. He may have good ground mobility, but it is not enough. He is one of the easiest character to camp out. Remember that not the only reward from camping opponent is Waft or Limit. Look at Salem. He forces his opponent to do bad options when he is platform camping and he punishes his opponent for it.
The reason why Lucario is doing so well atm has to do with people not optimizing their killing ability at % range where Lucario os that dangerous yet (below 110%). He gets to live far too long. I see way too often people going for chip damage when they should be trying to finish his stock. Lucario should not live above 120%.
Other thing people are not doing is edgeguarding him. One of the reasons why Wario does extremely well against him. His ability to challenge Lucario with strong Dair and ability to follow Lucario and go for waft kill makes it hard to get on stage. In many cases Lucario is forced to recover high which is often the worst option. Add to that his ability to cover every option from the ledge along with 2framing with Bike setup.
These are the reasons why I don't think very highly about him. And back to lurking.

 

[Minordeth]

Salem’s Nair zoning is literally smoke and mirrors. Nair is safe on shield yes, but when you spam it it is easily countered.

Why? It has no hitbox underneath it.

It loses to any anti air underneath it. If Mr. R wanted to, he could literally dash and upsmash on anticipation.

Bayo, for all her massive hit boxes, doesn’t have anything that hits directly below her. When you see a Bayo spamming Nair, you know the opponent is respecting her too much because they don’t know her hitboxes.

Salem, I swear to god, has cast some witchcraft on other top players and they buy into what he says and sells about Bayo when they play him. Like they play Salem and go,”Oh, it’s Salem! He’s gonna camp! I better go in!” and proceed to autopilot to death.

 

[|RK|]

When talking about Lucario we must remember his poor framedata and mobility. He may have good ground mobility, but it is not enough. He is one of the easiest character to camp out. Remember that not the only reward from camping opponent is Waft or Limit. Look at Salem. He forces his opponent to do bad options when he is platform camping and he punishes his opponent for it.
The reason why Lucario is doing so well atm has to do with people not optimizing their killing ability at % range where Lucario os that dangerous yet (below 110%). He gets to live far too long. I see way too often people going for chip damage when they should be trying to finish his stock. Lucario should not live above 120%.
Other thing people are not doing is edgeguarding him. One of the reasons why Wario does extremely well against him. His ability to challenge Lucario with strong Dair and ability to follow Lucario and go for waft kill makes it hard to get on stage. In many cases Lucario is forced to recover high which is often the worst option. Add to that his ability to cover every option from the ledge along with 2framing with Bike setup.
These are the reasons why I don't think very highly about him. And back to lurking.

The thing is - some characters are way better at doing that than others. The camping thing, and the edgeguarding? That's the reason Wario does super well in the MU.

Other characters can't do this as easily. They require projectile zoning in order to be effective at camping (which makes it harder for them to camp), or they have a hard time landing. Characters like Sheik are great at keeping pressure on him like that (and she really doesn't want to camp), but ultimately that game is playable by very few characters.

 

[Heracr055]

Salem’s Nair zoning is literally smoke and mirrors. Nair is safe on shield yes, but when you spam it it is easily countered.

Why? It has no hitbox underneath it.

It loses to any anti air underneath it. If Mr. R wanted to, he could literally dash and upsmash on anticipation.

Bayo, for all her massive hit boxes, doesn’t have anything that hits directly below her. When you see a Bayo spamming Nair, you know the opponent is respecting her too much because they don’t know her hitboxes.

Salem, I swear to god, has cast some witchcraft on other top players and they buy into what he says and sells about Bayo when they play him. Like they play Salem and go,”Oh, it’s Salem! He’s gonna camp! I better go in!” and proceed to autopilot to death.

I don't think Bayo needs a hitbox underneath her. People are so scared of Witch Time, it discourages attempts to challenge her with anti airs.

 

[|RK|]

I don't think Bayo needs a hitbox underneath her. People are so scared of Witch Time, it discourages attempts to challenge her with anti airs.

I just tweeted about this the other day, actually. Witch Time is a bit stronger than people think it is. Like, it's the wave to say that Bat Within is worse (or something else), but Witch Time is in everyone's head pretty much all the time vs Bayo. Her neutral strengths are stuff we've seen before - long range sans disjoints (for the most part). If people were able to contest it in the same way, you'd probably see Bayo beaten more easily. But the ever-present threat of Witch Time makes it easier to give her stuff for free.

 

[blackghost]

I just tweeted about this the other day, actually. Witch Time is a bit stronger than people think it is. Like, it's the wave to say that Bat Within is worse (or something else), but Witch Time is in everyone's head pretty much all the time vs Bayo. Her neutral strengths are stuff we've seen before - long range sans disjoints (for the most part). If people were able to contest it in the same way, you'd probably see Bayo beaten more easily. But the ever-present threat of Witch Time makes it easier to give her stuff for free.

Thats a different argument. If bayo is spamming nair just get directly beneath her. You dont even have to press a button to pressure her in that situation. Also its smash, bayo cannot cancel an active nair into witch time. Witch time is good but know when its an active threat.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Haven' seen it brought up but the final brackets of Smash 4 boot camp is happening now. What is interesting is that ZeRo, MKLeo, and Dabuz are starting in the losers side!
MKLeo and Dabuz are also facing each other with loser being eliminated already.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Haven' seen it brought up but the final brackets of Smash 4 boot camp is happening now. What is interesting is that ZeRo, MKLeo, and Dabuz are starting in the losers side!
MKLeo and Dabuz are also facing each other with loser being eliminated already.

How did that happen? O_O

 

[Lavani]

Haven' seen it brought up but the final brackets of Smash 4 boot camp is happening now. What is interesting is that ZeRo, MKLeo, and Dabuz are starting in the losers side!
MKLeo and Dabuz are also facing each other with loser being eliminated already.

Context:
Dabuz lost 1-2 to both Salem and Mr. R in pools, placing 3rd in pool A
Larry 2-0'd ZeRo, and VoiD had more game wins (5-3 vs 4-4), placing him above ZeRo in pool B
MKLeo placed last in pool C, losing 1-2 to Tweek and 0-2 to Cosmos(!)

 

[Rizen]

Context:
Dabuz lost 1-2 to both Salem and Mr. R in pools, placing 3rd in pool A
Larry 2-0'd ZeRo, and VoiD had more game wins (5-3 vs 4-4), placing him above ZeRo in pool B
MKLeo placed last in pool C, losing 1-2 to Tweek and 0-2 to Cosmos(!)

Good for Larry Lurr; I hope he wins this. He's really good but always seems to miss taking the #1 spot in tournaments. Nothing against ZeRo.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Salem managed to win another set vs Dabuz. Looks like he has finally figured out how to conquer his longtime demon..

How he just needs to find a way to fight agaiant his never demon in MKLeo's Marth hmm

 

[Megamang]

I am absolutely shocked MKLeo lost to Cosmos, because he absolutely obliterated him at MSM. Like watch the set, it could have been a combo video by itself. It was a twelve stock. I need to go watch those videos, because either Leo was playing well below his level which is EXTREMELY rare, or Cosmos made some amazing adaptations.


Leo is like the best way to learn smash in the history of the game. Not only is his ground movement amazing, but the way he uses platforms and whatever character he is using to its maximum is amazing. Cloud's combo game seems really simple on the surface, but MK gets more damage per conversion than anyone else, often using the stage to do this flawlessly.


AND, he routinely learns the opponent and starts beating them worse and worse each time they meet. It even began to happen with the best player in the world, MK has gone from losing handily to beating him brutally with a character that was believed to lose the MU pretty badly. I mean, he won so hard we were wondering if we were all wrong for a year and maybe MK beats Diddy. And this isn't because we just follow this trend (not entirely at least), he was playing the MU differently to the point it made it look like a different game.


You are a lucky person if MKLeo plays your main, because even if he just messes around with it you can learn so much in such a short time.


I am absolutely hyped that he appears to be picking up Shiek. His shiek already looked great, but he does have to nail down the kill confirm aspect But his agility with perfect pivots will certainly benefit him and the entire shiek meta greatly. It also gives me renewed confidence in the character, the man who can see what really makes the game tick (Corrin vs Bayo was basically his idea and it at least worked for him. He laughs at our analysis of Corrin frame data and pokes with dtilt like a genius. Of course it is still slow, you can't change frame data, but he makes it work really really well.


Im the resident MKLeo fan, he is just on another level.

 

[Laken64]

I am absolutely hyped that he appears to be picking up Shiek. His shiek already looked great, but he does have to nail down the kill confirm aspect But his agility with perfect pivots will certainly benefit him and the entire shiek meta greatly. It also gives me renewed confidence in the character, the man who can see what really makes the game tick (Corrin vs Bayo was basically his idea and it at least worked for him. He laughs at our analysis of Corrin frame data and pokes with dtilt like a genius. Of course it is still slow, you can't change frame data, but he makes it work really really well.

I remember seeing his shiek against Trela, and while it did lose to him the games he won were the textbook definition on how to play the mu correctly. I do wonder who he would use sheik in, he already has enough characters to cover pretty much every single top player imo but i guess it would be a nice pick if he really wants to play safe.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

Since no one has mentioned boot camp updates I might as well do that.

Pool A:
Salem2-0 Xzax
Salem 2-0 Mr.R
Salem2-1 Dabuz
Mr.R2-1 Dabuz
Mr.R 2-1 Xzax
Dabuz2-0 Xzax

1.Salem
2. Mr.R
3. Dabuz(Losers)
4. Xzax (Losers)

Pool B:
Zero2-1 MVD
Zero2-1 VoiD
Larry2-0 Zero
Larry2-0 MVD
VoiD2-1 Larry
VoiD2-0 MVD

1. Larry Lurr
2. VoiD
3. Zero(Losers)
4. MVD(Losers)


Pool C:
Cosmos2-0 MKLeo
MKLeo2-0 Light
Light2-0 Tweek
Light2-1 Cosmos
Tweek2-1 MKLeo
Tweek2-0 Cosmos

1. Light
2. Tweek
3. Cosmos(Losers)
4. MKLeo(Losers)

Pool D:
Marss 2-1 Nairo
Marss 2-0 Elegant
Marss 2-0 Peabnut
Peabnut 2-0 Elegant
Nairo2-1 Elegant
Nairo2-0 Peabnut

1. Marss
2. Nairo
3. Peabnut(Losers)
4. Elegant (Losers)


Top 16
Winners:
Light 3-0 Mr.R
Nairo 3-1 Larry
Salem 3-2 Tweek
VoiD 3-1 Marss

Losers:
Cosmos 3-1 Xzax
Zero 3-0 Elegant
MKLeo 3-1 Dabuz
Peabnut 3-2 MVD

Losers Top 12
Cosmos 3-2 Marss
ZeRo 3-0 Tweek
Larry 3-1 MKLeo
Mr.R 3-0 Peabnut

Top 8
Winners
Lightvs Nairo
Salem vs VoiD

Losers

Cosmos vs Zero
Larry vs Mr.R

Low key rushed to finish this because Light was starting to speedrun nairo but then nairo won game 3 lol

 

[Gunla]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Howdy. Been a while, hasn't it?

 

[ShadowGuy1]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Howdy. Been a while, hasn't it?

Looking forward to it. Been awhile and excited to see the changes.

Guess this is the final day with this thread. Maybe I will stop being a lurker next thread.

 

[Nu~]

I’m curious as to where Link will end up.

Public opinion of him shot way up after the unholy beauty that was Civil War occurred. Unfortunately, T kinda dropped off a little bit after that (with some interesting upsets after that such as T decimating Elegant just a few days ago).

 

[Deleted member]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Howdy. Been a while, hasn't it?

I can live happy now, thank you.

Can not wait to join the next thread, I will see you all there!

I wonder who will be in top tier and bottom tier. The next thread will get interesting.

Anyways, I just want to mention is Piakchu vs Sheik match up. It is even, but who do you consider it a slight win? Answers would be appreciated.

I love this thread and everyone in this thread, thank you for giving us a good thread about competitive Smash Brothers. I will be seeing you all next V4 competitive discussion. - @ShinyLegendary

 

[Heracr055]

Congrats to Salem for getting the reset and beating Nairo 3-2 at Boot Camp. Nairo put up a strong fight at the end, too.
Hopefully Salem extends his dominance in 2018.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Hopefully not, commentators were very painfully biased against Bayonetta. I'm not sure if I can endure another year of that much complaining, onstream, coming from the only people whose words are heard while the games are going on.

 

[Heracr055]

That's not Bayo or Salem's fault. Perhaps the scene needs new, more open-minded commentators

 

[Nu~]

Hopefully not, commentators were very painfully biased against Bayonetta. I'm not sure if I can endure another year of that much complaining, onstream, coming from the only people whose words are heard while the games are going on.

I don’t see it going anywhere soon either tbh.

Especially considering what happened to custom moves.

That's not Bayo or Salem's fault. Perhaps the scene needs new, more open-minded commentators

You’re gonna need more than open minded commentators lmao. The community itself has to change its mindset

 

[|RK|]

Hopefully not, commentators were very painfully biased against Bayonetta. I'm not sure if I can endure another year of that much complaining, onstream, coming from the only people whose words are heard while the games are going on.

I find myself hoping Salem doesn't dominate me too hard, despite the fact I love him as a player. He can't play well without Bayo complaints.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I am going to make a bold, contoversal opinion on the new tier list that many of you will think I am crazy for stating.







Bayo will be #1