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Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis
- Thread starter Shaya
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Ziodyne 21
Smash Lord
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2016
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I am also kinda curious on what MU's Mewtwo does bad against that Bayo can handle better?? Diddy is the first MU I can think of that Mewtwo struggles against but I don't think Bayo does all that much better in that regard. Cloud Maybe?
Then again Abadango has somewhat of a Bayo problem. So maybe he's thinking if ya can't beat her, use her lol
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FeelMeUp
Smash Lord
Glad people finally wisened up to Mario not being that amazing MU spread wise. Took about half a year of me saying it repeatedly.
OT: Which type of advantage do you value more and why? The ability to hit the opponent just right with certain moves in the right position and instantly kill them at low percents(
) or the ability to extend advantage for long periods of time by pinning the opponent and convert massive damage off of it()?
OT: Which type of advantage do you value more and why? The ability to hit the opponent just right with certain moves in the right position and instantly kill them at low percents(
) or the ability to extend advantage for long periods of time by pinning the opponent and convert massive damage off of it()?
TDK
Smash Master
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxMA5yU2R5k
So someone a while back posted a Jab infinite on Mewtwo with Pac-Man, and it appears that Falco can get it too. I wonder how many characters have really strong Jab Cancel combos/infinites on Mewtwo and how it'd affect his viability?
So someone a while back posted a Jab infinite on Mewtwo with Pac-Man, and it appears that Falco can get it too. I wonder how many characters have really strong Jab Cancel combos/infinites on Mewtwo and how it'd affect his viability?
Bowserboy3
Asking mum how to talk to a lady
That's about the crux of it.
Still doesn't mean his neutral and disadvantage are "meh" though.
OverTime
Smash Cadet
Low Percent Kills.OT: Which type of advantage do you value more and why? The ability to hit the opponent just right with certain moves in the right position and instantly kill them at low percents(
I look at VoiD's Sheik play for this. He's by far the best Sheik at killing. But he struggles in long bracket runs because it's terribly taxing to have to outsmart your different opponents for that many games In order to win a tournament.
The game's ultimately about killing, not damage. Sheik is the ultimate neutral beast, but if she's also top tier's extreme case of not being able to seal stocks consistently, especially against the top tiers with good disadvantage states. The only characters she kills "easily" in top tier are Fox and Cloud, who have the two worst disadvantage states in the tier. It's even hard to kill Mario consistently and we just agreed for the most part he has a bottom echelon disadvantage state (relative to top tiers).
We have Diddy Kong, Mario, ZSS, and now Rosalina winning Majors. Sheik hasn't for the reason above.
She wins Neutral then has to proceed to win Advantage state, when for other characters Advantage state is already a reward of Neutral.
It doesn't matter how long your strings are if you can't seal them out, give your opponent max rage and then die at 40 to Shoryu, Ding Dong, Ladders, Aura, Fair Footstools, Jab Locks, Tippers, Limit, Reversals etc.
It's a rant because I'm angry that I main Sheik.
FeelMeUp
Smash Lord
I don't disagree with this, but I'd like to add that she also kills
and maybe with relative ease as well. The other top tiers like can be eeeeeextremely difficult to close out stocks on. There's other non-top tier examples such as . I'm sure you can see the pattern in there :/
Skeeter Mania
Smash Ace
How does she struggle killingI don't disagree with this, but I'd like to add that she also kills
?
PGH_Chrispy
Smash Journeyman
Don't trash Mario's disadvantage too much. He has decent aerial mobility, good combo breaking moves, cape to air stall.
Diamond Octobot
Smash Ace
When a character starts to escape your kill combos & you have limited kill options, you know you will have trouble dealing with him at some point. Jiggs is light, but her weight & fallspeed can make it hard to combo her, and she actually has decent aerials. She still gets wrecked by needles tho.How does she struggle killing
...Now, facing a Jiggs is another problem.
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Skeeter Mania
Smash Ace
I'm pretty sure she can duck under them ala Kirby.
Nathan Richardson
Smash Ace
Early percent kills are always a factor, regardless of if you're playing a top-tier or even a middle-low tier.
The name of the game is to seal stocks.
Not to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible (though one does lead into the other as fundamentals have shown us).
If you net a ton of damage but can't get a kill then you'll just become a victim of the rage mechanic.
On the other hand if you seal a stock early through kill confirms and spikes your opponent has to play catch-up, you're at an advantage and you don't have to worry about the opponent getting a victory through rage as they have to build it back up again.
The name of the game is to seal stocks.
Not to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible (though one does lead into the other as fundamentals have shown us).
If you net a ton of damage but can't get a kill then you'll just become a victim of the rage mechanic.
On the other hand if you seal a stock early through kill confirms and spikes your opponent has to play catch-up, you're at an advantage and you don't have to worry about the opponent getting a victory through rage as they have to build it back up again.
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Yonder
Smashboard's 1st Sole Survivor
Makes sense.
Sad, but makes sense. The man is at his best when he whips out brand new characters and pushes their meta imo. Wario and Pac were very successful for a short time before people learned them. So I wonder if Aba's Bayo will be quickly figured out, or will be put a new spin to the character via footstools/whatever like he did Mewtwo?
Diamond Octobot
Smash Ace
...As a Mega Man main, I second this. I'm still kinda bad *sobs*, but there are times where I just grinded as much damage as possible, only because getting the kills is insanely hard >_<
I'm just glad you can kill with UThrow once you reach that rageless 200% on your opponent.
Just remember that every and any character has his own jank factor, but that early kills aren't exactly easy to get, even for Hevyweight grapplers.
*has Ganondorf PTSD*
(P.S.: I must admit, I'm not sure if I understood the point of your post correctly, tho...)
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Diamond Octobot
Smash Ace
Hey, sometimes you just want to try another boat to see how it sails. It's easy to get bored, and switching Secondaries / Mains in Sm4sh seems to be pretty easy.
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Game7a1
?
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2014
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- 607
- NNID
- User7a1
She can just like G&W can as well. Crouching also reduces Knockback in case Sheik decides to try using F-Tilt as a KO option, allowing Puff/Kirby/G&W to live just a bit more for their kill moves to KO even earlier.
She, along with Kirby, also can use Step Dash (or really just crouch, run, crouch, etc.) to approach Sheik on stages like FD and T&C if she decides to needle camp.
Nathan Richardson
Smash Ace
You got my point. Damage is a factor but sealing stocks is far more important. It's the objective of the game after all and high damage helps to seal stocks but if you can do it early that's much better.
NairWizard
Somewhere
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2014
- Messages
- 1,947
Worse disadvantage than Mario in Top Tier?
Pretty much everyone. And for the few who don't fall into that category, it ends up barely mattering.
Fox and Cloud have been mentioned. Both have exploitable recoveries and get trashed because of their fall speed (when Cloud is in Limit). But there's also Marth and Rosalina. Marth is obvious, should need no explaining. Rosalina's recovery is far worse than Mario's and makes her susceptible to edgeguarding from the likes of Villager and Pikachu, and while Luma is a nice cushion and she has good aerial turn-around time/drift speed she's still a bit slow to land and can eat a ton of damage trying. If you consider Lumaless Rosalina to be in disadvantage, which I would, she's very vulnerable then too, with her low-distance rolls and generally poor grounded options. Plus she's light.
Sonic is marginally worse than Mario in disadvantage. He's got all of the same landing problems but can't stall in the air with cape, use fireball to cover landing, or throw out a quick hitbox unless he springs out of the way. He's got spindash to get out but it tends to be situational in the actual game and disjointed characters like Cloud who give Mario trouble landing can usually hit Sonic anyway even if he spindashes.
Diddy's disadvantage is tough to understand because of his landing mixups but his fastest escape is no longer his up-air like it was many patches ago because the hitbox is useless for that purpose; n-air is only frame 8, and b-air and f-air don't do a great job of escaping given his low aerial mobility without Flip Jump. He can get juggled and landing-trapped pretty hard, and while there are ways around his recovery getting jacked, it'll happen once every other set or so, whereas Mario's autosnapping up-b along with his aerial drift speed won't let him get edgeguarded very often. Let's not forget that Mario is also heavier than Diddy, since Diddy is closer to lightweight than true midweight.
Mewtwo's got mixups and a great airdodge but he's tall and super light, so while he doesn't get hit as much as Mario he also doesn't need to get hit as much. He also doesn't have a great fast combobreaker and because of his physics he ends up dying to random things like Sheik up-air kill combos. Play Mario against Sheik and then play Mewtwo and tell me which one survives longer. Trust me. Won't be Mewtwo.
This leaves Sheik, Bayonetta, and Zero Suit Samus in Top Tier with better disadvantage games than Mario. Only three characters. And, although I call them "better," they do fall short in comparison to Mario in a couple of ways. 1 is that they're all lighter, and this matters in a game where rage often comes into play to determine survivability. 2 is that while they can get out of potential juggles they are much more vulnerable to actual combos, due to their physics and hurtbox size. I'm much more worried about Mario escaping my hits in the Mario ditto than I am about Sheik in the Mario vs. Sheik matchup.
Of all the characters mentioned, guess which one can actually consistently escape Falco's misspaced jab just by n-airing out?
That's right. Mario. frame 3 baby. And isn't a fastfaller.
It is true that all three of these characters escape juggles better (and possibly get off the ledge better) than Mario because of burst movement options, and that two of the three have better recoveries (while the other has Witch Time), but in the end it doesn't matter.
1) The burst movement tricks that used to work universally against juggles don't work nearly as well now. You'll notice ZSS taking almost as many Cloud up-airs as Mario in Nairo vs. Leo because Leo calls out the Flip Jumps and up-airs her anyway.
2) There is no escaping true combos and tight followups, and people are getting better at those. Elegant combos Void's Sheik to heck just as hard as he combos Ally's Mario.
3) Some advantage states are so ridiculous that even if you can consistently escape a certain option you're still going to eat something else. See: Fox. Don't want to take 10 up-airs? Take 5 up-airs, 4 up-tilts, and 2 dash attacks instead.
Disadvantage states don't matter nearly as much as they used to because people are better in advantage now. At top level, making a mistake often means losing most of your stock, no matter what character you're playing.
With smash 4 in the state that it's in right now, advantage > neutral >> disadvantage.
Unless you're DK. Then you're ****ed.
Pretty much everyone. And for the few who don't fall into that category, it ends up barely mattering.
Fox and Cloud have been mentioned. Both have exploitable recoveries and get trashed because of their fall speed (when Cloud is in Limit). But there's also Marth and Rosalina. Marth is obvious, should need no explaining. Rosalina's recovery is far worse than Mario's and makes her susceptible to edgeguarding from the likes of Villager and Pikachu, and while Luma is a nice cushion and she has good aerial turn-around time/drift speed she's still a bit slow to land and can eat a ton of damage trying. If you consider Lumaless Rosalina to be in disadvantage, which I would, she's very vulnerable then too, with her low-distance rolls and generally poor grounded options. Plus she's light.
Sonic is marginally worse than Mario in disadvantage. He's got all of the same landing problems but can't stall in the air with cape, use fireball to cover landing, or throw out a quick hitbox unless he springs out of the way. He's got spindash to get out but it tends to be situational in the actual game and disjointed characters like Cloud who give Mario trouble landing can usually hit Sonic anyway even if he spindashes.
Diddy's disadvantage is tough to understand because of his landing mixups but his fastest escape is no longer his up-air like it was many patches ago because the hitbox is useless for that purpose; n-air is only frame 8, and b-air and f-air don't do a great job of escaping given his low aerial mobility without Flip Jump. He can get juggled and landing-trapped pretty hard, and while there are ways around his recovery getting jacked, it'll happen once every other set or so, whereas Mario's autosnapping up-b along with his aerial drift speed won't let him get edgeguarded very often. Let's not forget that Mario is also heavier than Diddy, since Diddy is closer to lightweight than true midweight.
Mewtwo's got mixups and a great airdodge but he's tall and super light, so while he doesn't get hit as much as Mario he also doesn't need to get hit as much. He also doesn't have a great fast combobreaker and because of his physics he ends up dying to random things like Sheik up-air kill combos. Play Mario against Sheik and then play Mewtwo and tell me which one survives longer. Trust me. Won't be Mewtwo.
This leaves Sheik, Bayonetta, and Zero Suit Samus in Top Tier with better disadvantage games than Mario. Only three characters. And, although I call them "better," they do fall short in comparison to Mario in a couple of ways. 1 is that they're all lighter, and this matters in a game where rage often comes into play to determine survivability. 2 is that while they can get out of potential juggles they are much more vulnerable to actual combos, due to their physics and hurtbox size. I'm much more worried about Mario escaping my hits in the Mario ditto than I am about Sheik in the Mario vs. Sheik matchup.
Of all the characters mentioned, guess which one can actually consistently escape Falco's misspaced jab just by n-airing out?
That's right. Mario. frame 3 baby. And isn't a fastfaller.
It is true that all three of these characters escape juggles better (and possibly get off the ledge better) than Mario because of burst movement options, and that two of the three have better recoveries (while the other has Witch Time), but in the end it doesn't matter.
1) The burst movement tricks that used to work universally against juggles don't work nearly as well now. You'll notice ZSS taking almost as many Cloud up-airs as Mario in Nairo vs. Leo because Leo calls out the Flip Jumps and up-airs her anyway.
2) There is no escaping true combos and tight followups, and people are getting better at those. Elegant combos Void's Sheik to heck just as hard as he combos Ally's Mario.
3) Some advantage states are so ridiculous that even if you can consistently escape a certain option you're still going to eat something else. See: Fox. Don't want to take 10 up-airs? Take 5 up-airs, 4 up-tilts, and 2 dash attacks instead.
Disadvantage states don't matter nearly as much as they used to because people are better in advantage now. At top level, making a mistake often means losing most of your stock, no matter what character you're playing.
With smash 4 in the state that it's in right now, advantage > neutral >> disadvantage.
Unless you're DK. Then you're ****ed.
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Guido65
Smash Apprentice
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2015
- Messages
- 144
Advantage state, the ability to consistently kill, and having high reward to make neutral wins count is a very powerful trait to have. Such traits make it so that characters like ,,,andwho are very poor characters and lackluster in theory function far better in practice then their theory suggests about them. Not being able to consistently close out stock I can see being a massive problem in the future for some characters(pikachu comes to mind especially as while he has a very solid neutral and disadvantage his advantage state is a bit on the weaker side due to him mostly being poor at killing with very few consistent kill options and setups and not getting a lot of reward off a neutral exchange). Sheik can definitely struggle taking the stock and has some flaws like pika has but not nearly too the same degree as he does given she has much more consistent mixups into her kill moves, has significantly better mobility, and much higher range and far more oppressive neutral game.
With that aside I have a question about sheik. What are the qualities that make a character do well vs her or go even with her?
,,,andwho are very poor characters and lackluster in theory function far better in practice then their theory suggests about them. Not being able to consistently close out stock I can see being a massive problem in the future for some characters(pikachu comes to mind especially as while he has a very solid neutral and disadvantage his advantage state is a bit on the weaker side due to him mostly being poor at killing with very few consistent kill options and setups and not getting a lot of reward off a neutral exchange). Sheik can definitely struggle taking the stock and has some flaws like pika has but not nearly too the same degree as he does given she has much more consistent mixups into her kill moves, has significantly better mobility, and much higher range and far more oppressive neutral game.With that aside I have a question about sheik. What are the qualities that make a character do well vs her or go even with her?
Modern thoughts on characters, in order of the Civil War Results Tier List™
1st:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought popular opinion was that Rosalina is a top character who would be top 5 (or higher) if not for Cloud. I'm not sure a tourney where Dabuz and Kirihara performed very well while not having to fight a single Cloud provides much new information to this. Regardless, it was interesting to observe that:
We saw a delightfully read-heavy Falcon, as if Fatality unleashed his final form. It's much more interesting to watch this mature Falcon vs. some primal Falcon who wants to jab all day. Is this Falcon here to stay? I feel like ZSS is still an easier and more reliable version of the same playstyle, but who knows? If the Bayo and Rosa matchups really are as reasonable as Fatality made it look, I could see Falcon's stock on the rise.
3rd:
T played Link like the ******* child of ZSS and Toon Link, which isn't new. The missing link was just the sheer percentage of grabs he landed, which was Nairo-tier. Also, something something Link nair.
I was really bamboozled by T's lack of aggressive edgeguarding though--surely there is a better option than just f-tilting their invincibility frames? And sure enough, a couple times T did some amazing 2-frame bomb or dair plays that brought the house down, but why can't we see more of that?
4th:
I actually feel like Mr. R is right on this: The adaptive skills of our top Bayonettas are developing faster than the ability of other players to DI/SDI, and people need to work on that. Bayo is not ZSS, take away even a fraction of her doom ladders and she is crippled in most matchups. Bayo is like Rosa--she demands that you know her specific matchup to stand a chance against her.
Regardless, obviously this event showed that even our current top players are susceptible to the Bayo special. I never cease to be surprised at just how good her disadvantage is, and find myself wondering what the best options are against CaptainZack-style Bayo "planking".
5th:
Reality check: Between Marss, Nairo, and Luhtie, ZSS was the 3rd best performing character at Civil War after Rosa and Bayo. Not Sheik, not Diddy, not Mario, and certainly not Cloud. In a world of Bayo ladders, the original vertical cheese kill is still going strong. Honestly, I struggle to characterize a single ZSS matchup as truly problematic for her.
7th:
Oddly enough, two characters with a similar objective. DK seems rate-limited by how abusive the opponent can be with his disadvantage state, but this event disproved anyone's hypothesis that DK is a gimmick character with a ceiling.
Ryu's limit seems to be more about neutral--both Locus and Trela didn't have significant difficulty in disadvantage in any matchup I watched.
9th:
Much has been said about the Void/Mr. R playstyles, but both seem to be suffering from gradual optimizations all over the ecosystem that are resulting in more fast kills and rage-profiteering--be it Bayo, Rosa, or even DK and Lucario. Do people think Sheik is destined to get weighed down out of the top echelon by this trend? Results seem to suggest it...
Mewtwo is, uh, still Mewtwo I guess? I've seen almost zero Mewtwo play since Pound 2016, and it's always been "Yup, character is still really scary when Abadango plays him." Haven't watched WaDi at all unfortunately. And honestly, I feel very similarly about Larry and Fox, and Ranai and Villager.
13th:
I think Tsu's neutral is distinctly better than any other Lucario. With all due respect to Day and others, I've long felt like Lucario boiled down to just this "hope you get the right read at the right time" sort of character. But Tsu makes Lucario not look totally outclassed in the neutral, particularly with great Aura Spheres.
Shuton I unfortunately caught zero matches of, and it's not like I've seen any other Olimar play for the last year otherwise. I couldn't even begin to guess what his modern matchups are like against Cloud or Bayo.
17th:
I might make another full post about Cloud sometime. Cloud's dominance of teams and dominance of lower level players (most casuals I talk to think Cloud is unambiguously the #1 character (and hate him)) could have entire pages of ink spilled. But in top level international 1v1 play, we continue to see an upper limit to Cloud's performance that he can't break through.
Ranai lost to Nairo and 9B, and the 9B win was close/iffy. Looking at how thinks played out, I think Ranai is one of the most likely players to have won this stacked event had things played out just slightly differently.
Props to ESAM for the most exciting sets. A lot of people have already been talking about Samus, and every word is warranted. Curious to see an evolved and informed Samus matchup chart. Also, this is a taboo topic here, but boy oh boy was ESAM hitting a lot of u-throws to thunders.
Shoutouts to Diddy for placing this highly at such a stacked event, finally proving to everyone that he is a decent character when played well.
Samsora's Peach was obviously impressive, want to see more of it. (NO ONE PLAYS THIS CHARACTER, WHY???) Also see: Earth and Pit.
25th:
Blah blah Lucina blah blah. It's been said.
What I'm more interested in talking about is Ness. Was FOW just playing out of his mind (before two close losses, fueled by some unfortunate unforced errors), or has Ness's demise been overstated? Like I don't feel like the nuts and bolts of Ness play we saw from FOW, Shakey, S1, or the other players who dabbled in him was any different from what we've seen of Ness since launch--I thought good players were supposed to have figured Ness out by now? Yet here he is, getting grabs left and right at Civil War.
I agree with the recent discussion of Mario, and I feel like everyone agrees more than they are letting on: Mario has a mediocre disadvantage augmented by great combo escape options. Mario has a decidedly *NOT* jack-o-all-trades playstyles that trades range for an unmatched combination of attack speed and power, and has a kit robust enough to apply that advantage to *any* matchup. I think when you look at the *entire* cast, Mario has *very* few bad matchups. I dunno if I can justify him in any conceivable top 5 ecosystem though, especially with all other Marios lagging so far behind Ally. (and sort of Zenyou)
I only saw one AC match, but dang he made Falco look good. Or at least, Falco fair look good.
Wait, there were Sonics at Civil War?
33rd:
Double Luigi, double Shulk?!? I was way more impressed with the Shulks, both only lost narrowly and to players with far more (I believe) tourney experience. I found it interesting how diverse and non-degenerate the Monado usage was across their matchups.
Luigi just can't leverage his attack speed to control the entire match in the same way that Mario can. Like Samus, I'd be interested in seeing an up-to-date matchup spread for him.
Was it just me, or has Komeme played notably worse in every tourney since last EVO? Like, if you gave me footage side-by-side, I wouldn't recognize him as the same player; makes it hard to reflect on Mega Man as a character, since all Rockman footage is basically just him and Scatt.
49th:
Glad that ROB is still relevant, but I can't shake the conclusion that he just has too mediocre of matchups against the fast guys running the ladder currently. Can't imagine the Cloud and Bayo matchups are all that much fun either.
I feel like the community (or maybe it's just me) goes through this sin wave on Robin expectations. While he made some errors, this was Dath's most impressive Robin play yet imo, very polished. Lots of solid thunders, and a great showing that Arcfire is not a bad move to have in your kit. If this character does have a ceiling, it's probably just due to poor disadvantage and nothing else.
Most impressive 65th place:
This WFT showing by Mr. Numbers was the best WFT play this game has ever seen. I never thought WFT could play a neutral this well, and if John had a tad better bracket luck I think he could have made top 32 or beyond. It was a sharp difference from the camp-heavy style Wave popularized, which has more obvious limits at top level play--the WFT I saw in these matches could be a very relevant mid-tier if anyone cared to play the character.
Other most impressive 65th place:
I really want to see recordings of all of these matches, and then us argue over how much of it is just ven being apparently incredible. Because I'm still of the thought that Zelda is junk, but keeping an open mind.
Other 65th place characters who are good I guess:
"Yup, these are also pretty good characters that I have unchanged long-term opinions on." - Me
Y'all better be glad the Japanese dog-god trio and Taiheita didn't represent 'cause I'm still bullish on these two Tier:
I think both these characters are solid mid-tiers with functional neutrals and conversions who could be the next Link.
Doomed to be eternally overlooked Tier:
NO SERIOUSLY DOC IS A SOLID MID-TIER CHARACTER AT WORST but no one has much of a reason to play him so whatever. (I will never tire of yelling this like an old man)
Can anyone tell me what these Bayo matchups are like because I'm actually interested Tier:
But really. Frame 1 invincible vertical kill moves matter more here than anywhere else, and Bayo tends to dislike fighting against mobility in any form. So like, how does it play out?
Other Characters In This Game Tier:
"Yup, these are also characters in this game." - Me
Bottom Tier:
Not to beat a dead horse, but acting appropriately as a human being can positively influence factors that affect performance at future tourneys, such as attending them.
Whelp, that's it. Enjoy your new tier list, everybody!
1st:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought popular opinion was that Rosalina is a top character who would be top 5 (or higher) if not for Cloud. I'm not sure a tourney where Dabuz and Kirihara performed very well while not having to fight a single Cloud provides much new information to this. Regardless, it was interesting to observe that:
- Yup, Dabuz is terrifyingly consistent and truly one of the game's best players, as if there was any doubt.
- The Dabuz/Kirihara ditto was a bloodbath.
- The strength of Dabuz's perfected ledge play shows that optimized Rosalina has one of the most comprehensive advantage states in the game, and is what drives most of her polarized matchups.
- It is great to see players actually going for Luma, but I can't help but feel that there is still a lot of room for optimization in edgeguarding Rosa. She has a lot of flexibility, but it feels like she is being given a free pass more often than other characters for no reason.
We saw a delightfully read-heavy Falcon, as if Fatality unleashed his final form. It's much more interesting to watch this mature Falcon vs. some primal Falcon who wants to jab all day. Is this Falcon here to stay? I feel like ZSS is still an easier and more reliable version of the same playstyle, but who knows? If the Bayo and Rosa matchups really are as reasonable as Fatality made it look, I could see Falcon's stock on the rise.
3rd:
T played Link like the ******* child of ZSS and Toon Link, which isn't new. The missing link was just the sheer percentage of grabs he landed, which was Nairo-tier. Also, something something Link nair.
I was really bamboozled by T's lack of aggressive edgeguarding though--surely there is a better option than just f-tilting their invincibility frames? And sure enough, a couple times T did some amazing 2-frame bomb or dair plays that brought the house down, but why can't we see more of that?
4th:
I actually feel like Mr. R is right on this: The adaptive skills of our top Bayonettas are developing faster than the ability of other players to DI/SDI, and people need to work on that. Bayo is not ZSS, take away even a fraction of her doom ladders and she is crippled in most matchups. Bayo is like Rosa--she demands that you know her specific matchup to stand a chance against her.
Regardless, obviously this event showed that even our current top players are susceptible to the Bayo special. I never cease to be surprised at just how good her disadvantage is, and find myself wondering what the best options are against CaptainZack-style Bayo "planking".
5th:
Reality check: Between Marss, Nairo, and Luhtie, ZSS was the 3rd best performing character at Civil War after Rosa and Bayo. Not Sheik, not Diddy, not Mario, and certainly not Cloud. In a world of Bayo ladders, the original vertical cheese kill is still going strong. Honestly, I struggle to characterize a single ZSS matchup as truly problematic for her.
7th:
Oddly enough, two characters with a similar objective. DK seems rate-limited by how abusive the opponent can be with his disadvantage state, but this event disproved anyone's hypothesis that DK is a gimmick character with a ceiling.
Ryu's limit seems to be more about neutral--both Locus and Trela didn't have significant difficulty in disadvantage in any matchup I watched.
9th:
Much has been said about the Void/Mr. R playstyles, but both seem to be suffering from gradual optimizations all over the ecosystem that are resulting in more fast kills and rage-profiteering--be it Bayo, Rosa, or even DK and Lucario. Do people think Sheik is destined to get weighed down out of the top echelon by this trend? Results seem to suggest it...
Mewtwo is, uh, still Mewtwo I guess? I've seen almost zero Mewtwo play since Pound 2016, and it's always been "Yup, character is still really scary when Abadango plays him." Haven't watched WaDi at all unfortunately. And honestly, I feel very similarly about Larry and Fox, and Ranai and Villager.
13th:
I think Tsu's neutral is distinctly better than any other Lucario. With all due respect to Day and others, I've long felt like Lucario boiled down to just this "hope you get the right read at the right time" sort of character. But Tsu makes Lucario not look totally outclassed in the neutral, particularly with great Aura Spheres.
Shuton I unfortunately caught zero matches of, and it's not like I've seen any other Olimar play for the last year otherwise. I couldn't even begin to guess what his modern matchups are like against Cloud or Bayo.
17th:
I might make another full post about Cloud sometime. Cloud's dominance of teams and dominance of lower level players (most casuals I talk to think Cloud is unambiguously the #1 character (and hate him)) could have entire pages of ink spilled. But in top level international 1v1 play, we continue to see an upper limit to Cloud's performance that he can't break through.
Ranai lost to Nairo and 9B, and the 9B win was close/iffy. Looking at how thinks played out, I think Ranai is one of the most likely players to have won this stacked event had things played out just slightly differently.
Props to ESAM for the most exciting sets. A lot of people have already been talking about Samus, and every word is warranted. Curious to see an evolved and informed Samus matchup chart. Also, this is a taboo topic here, but boy oh boy was ESAM hitting a lot of u-throws to thunders.
Shoutouts to Diddy for placing this highly at such a stacked event, finally proving to everyone that he is a decent character when played well.
Samsora's Peach was obviously impressive, want to see more of it. (NO ONE PLAYS THIS CHARACTER, WHY???) Also see: Earth and Pit.
25th:
Blah blah Lucina blah blah. It's been said.
What I'm more interested in talking about is Ness. Was FOW just playing out of his mind (before two close losses, fueled by some unfortunate unforced errors), or has Ness's demise been overstated? Like I don't feel like the nuts and bolts of Ness play we saw from FOW, Shakey, S1, or the other players who dabbled in him was any different from what we've seen of Ness since launch--I thought good players were supposed to have figured Ness out by now? Yet here he is, getting grabs left and right at Civil War.
I agree with the recent discussion of Mario, and I feel like everyone agrees more than they are letting on: Mario has a mediocre disadvantage augmented by great combo escape options. Mario has a decidedly *NOT* jack-o-all-trades playstyles that trades range for an unmatched combination of attack speed and power, and has a kit robust enough to apply that advantage to *any* matchup. I think when you look at the *entire* cast, Mario has *very* few bad matchups. I dunno if I can justify him in any conceivable top 5 ecosystem though, especially with all other Marios lagging so far behind Ally. (and sort of Zenyou)
I only saw one AC match, but dang he made Falco look good. Or at least, Falco fair look good.
Wait, there were Sonics at Civil War?
33rd:
Double Luigi, double Shulk?!? I was way more impressed with the Shulks, both only lost narrowly and to players with far more (I believe) tourney experience. I found it interesting how diverse and non-degenerate the Monado usage was across their matchups.
Luigi just can't leverage his attack speed to control the entire match in the same way that Mario can. Like Samus, I'd be interested in seeing an up-to-date matchup spread for him.
Was it just me, or has Komeme played notably worse in every tourney since last EVO? Like, if you gave me footage side-by-side, I wouldn't recognize him as the same player; makes it hard to reflect on Mega Man as a character, since all Rockman footage is basically just him and Scatt.
49th:
Glad that ROB is still relevant, but I can't shake the conclusion that he just has too mediocre of matchups against the fast guys running the ladder currently. Can't imagine the Cloud and Bayo matchups are all that much fun either.
I feel like the community (or maybe it's just me) goes through this sin wave on Robin expectations. While he made some errors, this was Dath's most impressive Robin play yet imo, very polished. Lots of solid thunders, and a great showing that Arcfire is not a bad move to have in your kit. If this character does have a ceiling, it's probably just due to poor disadvantage and nothing else.
Most impressive 65th place:
This WFT showing by Mr. Numbers was the best WFT play this game has ever seen. I never thought WFT could play a neutral this well, and if John had a tad better bracket luck I think he could have made top 32 or beyond. It was a sharp difference from the camp-heavy style Wave popularized, which has more obvious limits at top level play--the WFT I saw in these matches could be a very relevant mid-tier if anyone cared to play the character.
Other most impressive 65th place:
I really want to see recordings of all of these matches, and then us argue over how much of it is just ven being apparently incredible. Because I'm still of the thought that Zelda is junk, but keeping an open mind.
Other 65th place characters who are good I guess:
"Yup, these are also pretty good characters that I have unchanged long-term opinions on." - Me
Y'all better be glad the Japanese dog-god trio and Taiheita didn't represent 'cause I'm still bullish on these two Tier:
I think both these characters are solid mid-tiers with functional neutrals and conversions who could be the next Link.
Doomed to be eternally overlooked Tier:
NO SERIOUSLY DOC IS A SOLID MID-TIER CHARACTER AT WORST but no one has much of a reason to play him so whatever. (I will never tire of yelling this like an old man)
Can anyone tell me what these Bayo matchups are like because I'm actually interested Tier:
But really. Frame 1 invincible vertical kill moves matter more here than anywhere else, and Bayo tends to dislike fighting against mobility in any form. So like, how does it play out?
Other Characters In This Game Tier:
"Yup, these are also characters in this game." - Me
Bottom Tier:
Not to beat a dead horse, but acting appropriately as a human being can positively influence factors that affect performance at future tourneys, such as attending them.
Whelp, that's it. Enjoy your new tier list, everybody!
Ziodyne 21
Smash Lord
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- Apr 11, 2016
- Messages
- 1,681
I think Rosa was always one of the Top-Tiers MU'S that that Falcon always pretty well against.
I agree with you on almost everything expect that Bayo is crippled if her death ladder combos are compromised. If you take a look at Salem vs ESAM at Frame Perfect. Salem managed to adapt and work around one of the current top SDI practioners to get thr reverse 3-0 Things may become more difficult for Bayo if the opponent has really great SDI skills, but still wining becomes far from impossible. As you said Bayo mains seem to be adapting and developing new tech faster that many players can find ways to counter her,
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ARISTOS
Smash Ace
What are your current long-term opinions on these characters?Other 65th place characters who are good I guess:
"Yup, these are also pretty good characters that I have unchanged long-term opinions on." - Me
Also good to have you back! At least for now
ARGHETH
Smash Lord
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Robin gets the typical mid tier treatment ("they're meh"-->player does something-->"they're amazing!"-->"they're meh") except it's been happening on loop since he's been buffed.
Ehh. Just a fluke imo, Diddy isn't that good.
Shard
Smash Cadet
Do you expect to see higher placing by Shulk mains in the future?
Rizen
Smash Legend
Abadango gets the joke.
Nobie
Smash Champion
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2002
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- 2,251
- NNID
- SDShamshel
- 3DS FC
- 2809-8958-8223
Some characters seem to induce fatigue in long tournaments more than others. That being the case, I wonder if it would be worthwhile for players to have "endurance" characters they can use to get through long brackets and save their best, most physically/mentally taxing characters for when they're truly needed.
I remember ESAM mentioning that this was one of the reason he picked up Mewtwo. Doing Pikachu Things is tiring, apparently, and being able to slaughter lesser players with d-tilt fair all day long keeps that Pikachu sharp.
The drawback of doing this is that you HAVE to be confident you can get through a bracket with your less proficient character. When most players need to confront each round like it might be their last, only the top players can possibly have this luxury.
By the way, for good analyses of a bunch of Civil War matches (notably ESAM Samus vs. Ally), NinjaLink had a stream yesterday: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/131637234
I remember ESAM mentioning that this was one of the reason he picked up Mewtwo. Doing Pikachu Things is tiring, apparently, and being able to slaughter lesser players with d-tilt fair all day long keeps that Pikachu sharp.
The drawback of doing this is that you HAVE to be confident you can get through a bracket with your less proficient character. When most players need to confront each round like it might be their last, only the top players can possibly have this luxury.
By the way, for good analyses of a bunch of Civil War matches (notably ESAM Samus vs. Ally), NinjaLink had a stream yesterday: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/131637234
D
Deleted member
Guest
I'm not Thinkaman but I'll tell you my thoughts anyway.
I can expect Shulk to get higher placements in the future. Nicko and Kome are only improving, and there's a good chance M might get the money to go out to more events courtesy of the Shulk Discord's sponsorship in the future. Shulk mains have worked extremely hard to get their character to where he is, and they're not gonna stop anytime soon.
Trunks159
Smash Journeyman
I would agree.
seems to fit this description. Use or or or in pools, then use , , in top 16/32 to beat all the ///// you'd find later to alleviate this.
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C0rvus
Pro Hands Catcher
I hope this was just a jab at Hyuga, because Toon Link is solid. I do wish he had more stable representation because frankly, I can't back up this assertion.Bottom Tier:
Not to beat a dead horse, but acting appropriately as a human being can positively influence factors that affect performance at future tourneys, such as attending them.
I think that Link falls squarely in mid tier, right next to
. They play kinda similarly in that they zone and condition for big grab punishes.And lately I've been feeling like
is pretty good. Maybe it was that "future metagame prediction" thing that Dabuz tweeted out a week ago, or Elegant's results. I would also like to see an up to date MU chart.NESS
Notable wins at Civil War:
FOW vs Larry FOW vs Luhtie (I guess Luthie is notable?) Shaky vs Saj Shaky vs Ryo
Loses:
FOW vs 9B FOW vs Nietono S1 vs ANTi S1 vs Trela Shaky vs Nairo Shaky vs Falln
The victories over Larry (Even with two fatal mistakes that could have been avoided) and Ryo are impressive. Fox is easily Ness best top tier MU with it being pretty much even. Considering that Ness hates swords and Ike being a decent sword character, this was another solid win. Didn't find the other wins impressive
The loses are no surprise. Ness has never really done well against any of those characters at top level, Bayo is still a question mark. Would like to see Salem/9B/Zach vs FOW/Shaky. Still iffy on Ness vs Bayo. There's barely any quality footage out there to analyze.
Didn't SS beat Cpt Zach with Ness? Has it been uploaded?
Notable wins at Civil War:
FOW vs Larry
FOW vs Luhtie (I guess Luthie is notable?) Shaky vs Saj Shaky vs Ryo Loses:
FOW vs 9B
FOW vs Nietono S1 vs ANTi S1 vs Trela Shaky vs Nairo Shaky vs Falln The victories over Larry (Even with two fatal mistakes that could have been avoided) and Ryo are impressive. Fox is easily Ness best top tier MU with it being pretty much even. Considering that Ness hates swords and Ike being a decent sword character, this was another solid win. Didn't find the other wins impressive
The loses are no surprise. Ness has never really done well against any of those characters at top level, Bayo is still a question mark. Would like to see Salem/9B/Zach vs FOW/Shaky. Still iffy on Ness vs Bayo. There's barely any quality footage out there to analyze.
Didn't SS beat Cpt Zach with Ness? Has it been uploaded?
TDK
Smash Master
For the love of god, this is the third time someone's pointed this out:
Z-A-C-K. Zack. Not Zach. Not Zak. Not Jack. Zack.
How do you guys mess up a four-letter word so easily? >.>
Envoy of Chaos
Smash Ace
Keep in mind that S1 did 3-0 Tony Sherbert's Rosalina and that FOW was one hit and a SD on game 4 from beating Nietono.NESS
Notable wins at Civil War:
FOW vs Larry
Loses:
FOW vs 9B
The victories over Larry (Even with two fatal mistakes that could have been avoided) and Ryo are impressive. Fox is easily Ness best top tier MU with it being pretty much even. Considering that Ness hates swords and Ike being a decent sword character, this was another solid win. Didn't find the other wins impressive
The loses are no surprise. Ness has never really done well against any of those characters at top level, Bayo is still a question mark. Would like to see Salem/9B/Zach vs FOW/Shaky. Still iffy on Ness vs Bayo. There's barely any quality footage out there to analyze.
Didn't SS beat Cpt Zach with Ness? Has it been uploaded?
As far as Ness-Bayonetta, FOW has beaten both Saj and Captain Zack along with JK at locals before and SS beat Tyroy at CW with Ness. You are correct thier isn't a lot of footage out there that shows the MU from both sides (When Bayo wins and when Ness wins the majority that I can find is Ness winning) to say for sure but I'm still in a it's a even match up camp.
Civil War was definitely a nice breath of fresh air for Ness imo.
L9999
Smash Champion
Actually there is for Bayo winning, ikep vs taranito and Gackt.
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Yonder
Smashboard's 1st Sole Survivor
So regarding Civil War, I did a bit of comparing on the current tier list, using the top 49 as an indicator for the highest ranked characters who didn't place at all, as followed from highest to lowest in the B and C tier, tiers that should have at least 1 placing rep...More likely B:
B:(6 spot gap)
C:(3 spot gap)
So here are some big losers at Civil War too. Understandably for Toon Link,his rep in Hyuga is AFK atm.
Bowser had someone in pools play him, Final Boss, but lost to a Ganondorf.
I don't know if Yoshi was used in pools either.
So as you all know, this leaves the winner of biggest failure of Civil War: Corrin.
We all said it right away about this tier list upon release, Corrin is FAR too high atm. I think him and Falcon switching spots on the tier list next lost would be a perfect placement, actually. He's a slow, but strong buttoned...With a mediocre neutral bar Lance if timed right (otherwise leaving you well open) and some nice range.
B:
(6 spot gap)C:
(3 spot gap)So here are some big losers at Civil War too. Understandably for Toon Link,his rep in Hyuga is AFK atm.
Bowser had someone in pools play him, Final Boss, but lost to a Ganondorf.
I don't know if Yoshi was used in pools either.
So as you all know, this leaves the winner of biggest failure of Civil War: Corrin.
We all said it right away about this tier list upon release, Corrin is FAR too high atm. I think him and Falcon switching spots on the tier list next lost would be a perfect placement, actually. He's a slow, but strong buttoned...With a mediocre neutral bar Lance if timed right (otherwise leaving you well open) and some nice range.
Envoy of Chaos
Smash Ace
Ah I forgot all about the Japanese Nesses. Are they examples of Bayonetta winning? Because as far as the American ones I find at a high level it's mostly Ness winning. I believe you need a decent sample size of both characters winning at high level play to truly analyze a MU from both sides to get a good idea of who wins.
RonNewcomb
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2014
- Messages
- 449
Not usually.3rd:
I was really bamboozled by T's lack of aggressive edgeguarding though--surely there is a better option than just f-tilting their invincibility frames?
Link's up-b is susceptible to dair spikes and his aerials have long FAF, so if he goes offstage and misses, it could be bad. High gravity don't help matters.
Meanwhile, onstage, f-tilt hits below the ledge so can 2-frame, has 5 active frames to make catching those 2-frames kinda reliable, deals 13%, and KBs almost as hard as a Lucina f-smash. It also recovers fast enough to try a second option, like to up-tilt pesky ledge-rolling Mewtwos.
T was wise to keep his butt on solid ground and f-tilt those i-frames.
Rizen
, was T getting away with too many nairs on shield? I didn't think it was that safe on shield even when FFed. Seemed a bit fraudulent, but I'm fuzzy on its frame advantage.
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Skeeter Mania
Smash Ace
Snoop placed 65th.
OverTime
Smash Cadet
I don't feel like Civil War results are a proper indication of the character when Cosmos, Ryuga, Frozen, or Yoc attended.So regarding Civil War, I did a bit of comparing on the current tier list, using the top 49 as an indicator for the highest ranked characters who didn't place at all, as followed from highest to lowest in the B and C tier, tiers that should have at least 1 placing rep...More likely B:
B:
C:
So here are some big losers at Civil War too. Understandably for Toon Link,his rep in Hyuga is AFK atm.
Bowser had someone in pools play him, Final Boss, but lost to a Ganondorf.
I don't know if Yoshi was used in pools either.
So as you all know, this leaves the winner of biggest failure of Civil War: Corrin.
We all said it right away about this tier list upon release, Corrin is FAR too high atm. I think him and Falcon switching spots on the tier list next lost would be a perfect placement, actually. He's a slow, but strong buttoned...With a mediocre neutral bar Lance if timed right (otherwise leaving you well open) and some nice range.
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