Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[Nathan Richardson]

I still hold the opinion that rage is an intelligent design decision. The reason why it gets so much flak is because our definition of "outplayed" is flawed.

Top players like ANTi and Mr.R will cry about how rage allows weaker players to get undeserved wins. They feel that because they got more nuetral wins and more conversions, they were the better player in that match and should have taken it.


...But that isn't logical at all when you take a more holistic approach at the game.

Sakurai used rage as a way to re-balance both the character archetypes that have historically always dominated smash, and the chars that never had a chance before.


In smash bros, we're all used to metas where speedy lightweights strangle half the cast with ease. They're hard to hit, pressure really well with unreactable attacks, have long conversions/combos, and have more options to choose from than any other characters in the game.

The further your char gets from that model, the less viable your char tends to ends up. In smash 4 however, all of these traits have abusable counters now. You no longer have to be in that club to contest with them.

You may be hard to hit and have a myriad of options in neutral, fox, but option-starved DK only needs 3 grabs to erase you.

You may have long conversions and exert a lot of pressure, sheik, but Bowser gets stronger the longer you take to finally finish the job.


Emblem Lord brought this question up a while back:
How much are you really getting "outplayed" when you're DK and sheik is dragging you across the entire screen?
You have far fewer options in nuetral which makes it absurdly difficult to stop her onslaught in the first place. Sheik, on the other hand, wins nuetral for free against 2/3 of the cast and converts it into upwards of 50% on average. The DK player has to work far harder to get that grab than you think.


If a "weaker player" manages to catch you slipping 3 times with their DK when your sheik is D E S I G N E D to be extraordinarily safe, is he/she really a bad player? Are they really such a bad player if you couldn't seal the stock of a char with the worst disadvantage state in smash 4 before 120%?

Is it somehow blasphemy that top tiers have actual flaws to counteract their extreme strengths now?

But yeah...ANTi and Mr.R can keep sobbing about how smash 4 is "RNG sometimes" and allows "weaker players to win unfairly".


The main downside I see with rage is that some already bad chars like Pacman and jigglypuff get screwed further by it. But that may just be a show of their poor character design rather of a flaw in rage's design.
Losing to the shield button alone is unacceptable.

A common saying in Smash (and a nickname i've seen in FG is 'nojons' which means 'no excuses'.
Boohoo so you're used to winning neutral all the time but now rage is thrown into the equation and suddenly you have to think both offensively AND defensively.
Let's face it though, as was quoted above, characters like that used to invalidate half the cast, now with rage thrown into the mix players who used to not have to worry about sealing stocks suddenly have to do so to win sets SURPRISE!

 

[DunnoBro]

Also if wakeup raptor boost qualifies as a ledge option (I do think it does because of the pullback on its startup), then I'd also put ledge jump into falcon dive up there since it beats shields, jumps and moderate hitboxes and gets people from really far away, plus if you miss there's a slight chance the opponent will mess up the punish due to weaving.

I just meant to convey that Falcon is fine on the ledge, not that he's particularly bad or good. DK and Luigi are notably worse on the ledge, though Ness has the option to recover high and Ryu has rising focus and wake-up Shoryu.

 

[Luigi player]

So, I don't think I have to explain why rage is seen by many as bad. I just wrote a long post and basically always repeated myself, so I'll just write it once, even if everything isn't super fully explained.

- Rage balances the match a bit, but it's not as linear as "more rage is always better".
- It does help out the losing player. It should be easy to understand why that is anti-competitive.
- Because of this balancing, it also makes more characters viable, which can be seen as a good thing.


As for me, I'm not sure if no rage at all would make me like the game more. It would be really interesting to see how the game would be without it, though.
No rage would make combos more consistent [and possibly fun to lab] (only things you'd have to think of are opponent % and your move-staleness), but this could also be stupid (always have easier combos at kill%?).
I'm surely not the only one who is disgusted by KOing the opponent and then he comes back, gets a grab and KOs you because now when he's at low % his throw-to-KO combo works again.
No rage would possibly weaken single-hit killmoves. You want your combo into killmove, which will work more consistently. While single moves would just be weaker because rage wouldn't make them stronger.

 

[Laken64]

Karisuma 13 (~106 Entrants) (Japan)

1st: Earth (Ordered that way on the bracket)
2nd: Ranai
3rd: Taiheita
4th: Edge
5th: Ri-ma
5th: ikep
7th: Masashi
7th: Mangalitza
9th: Sigma
9th: NGA
9th: Masha
9th: 9B
13th: Kisha
13th: Lickey*
13th: FILIP
13th: Kento

Halo was one hit away from making top 16 winners side, but got Rage MK Laddered and died at 30. Sigh.


Oh, and in Italy: quiK 3-1 iStudying

Earth said on his Twitter that he's going to main corrin and use pit as a secondary I believe

 

[Emblem Lord]

Holy crap.

Finally Earth has awakened. He has hit the next level.

Man needs to change his name to Heaven.

Such good news in the community lately. Real competitors deciding to play real characters. It's a good thing.

 

[FeelMeUp]

and with that both and seem to be dying.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ok, no Mario needs to stay. That kinda sucks.

Pit can kick rocks.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Nah, man, Mario sucks. Been telling you guys for the past year.
What I did not predict, however, was the Marth/Lucina matchup getting as bad as it did. That's just plain depressing to watch.
Wizzy thinks it's getting Sonic-level bad.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Oh yah Mario is actually not good. But he has the one thing that matters a lot.

Burst Zone Threat.

He can stay for that.

Trash bag in disguise Italian plumbing ass

 

[Nu~]

I think > is gonna start happening in the future.

Hell, its starting now. Elegant is an insane threat

 

[FeelMeUp]

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Luigi's too easy to camp horizontally but I can see what you're getting at. It wouldn't exactly surprise me, but his groundspeed+traction work as a soft cap to his potential imo. Luigi's counterplay is also far less developed than Mario's.

 

[|RK|]

I still hold the opinion that rage is an intelligent design decision. The reason why it gets so much flak is because our definition of "outplayed" is flawed.

Top players like ANTi and Mr.R will cry about how rage allows weaker players to get undeserved wins. They feel that because they got more nuetral wins and more conversions, they were the better player in that match and should have taken it.


...But that isn't logical at all when you take a more holistic approach at the game.

Sakurai used rage as a way to re-balance both the character archetypes that have historically always dominated smash, and the chars that never had a chance before.


In smash bros, we're all used to metas where speedy lightweights strangle half the cast with ease. They're hard to hit, pressure really well with unreactable attacks, have long conversions/combos, and have more options to choose from than any other characters in the game.

The further your char gets from that model, the less viable your char tends to ends up. In smash 4 however, all of these traits have abusable counters now. You no longer have to be in that club to contest with them.

You may be hard to hit and have a myriad of options in neutral, fox, but option-starved DK only needs 3 grabs to erase you.

You may have long conversions and exert a lot of pressure, sheik, but Bowser gets stronger the longer you take to finally finish the job.


Emblem Lord brought this question up a while back:
How much are you really getting "outplayed" when you're DK and sheik is dragging you across the entire screen?
You have far fewer options in nuetral which makes it absurdly difficult to stop her onslaught in the first place. Sheik, on the other hand, wins nuetral for free against 2/3 of the cast and converts it into upwards of 50% on average. The DK player has to work far harder to get that grab than you think.


If a "weaker player" manages to catch you slipping 3 times with their DK when your sheik is D E S I G N E D to be extraordinarily safe, is he/she really a bad player? Are they really such a bad player if you couldn't seal the stock of a char with the worst disadvantage state in smash 4 before 120%?

Is it somehow blasphemy that top tiers have actual flaws to counteract their extreme strengths now?

But yeah...ANTi and Mr.R can keep sobbing about how smash 4 is "RNG sometimes" and allows "weaker players to win unfairly".


The main downside I see with rage is that some already bad chars like Pacman and jigglypuff get screwed further by it. But that may just be a show of their poor character design rather of a flaw in rage's design.
Losing to the shield button alone is unacceptable.

MY MAN

and with that both and seem to be dying.

Isn't Ally trying to pick up DK or something?

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Nah, man, Mario sucks. Been telling you guys for the past year.
What I did not predict, however, was the Marth/Lucina matchup getting as bad as it did. That's just plain depressing to watch.
Wizzy thinks it's getting Sonic-level bad.

So effectively another situation like Melee?

 

[Thinkaman]

Rage, like Aura, simply tilts a little extra weight towards decisions at the end of the game/stock vs the rest. That's it.

If you think better players build an advantage of their opponents as they play and "download" them, then rage helps better players.

If you think weaker players are the ones whose play improves over the course of a game, then rage helps weaker players. But then you should probably reevaluate your definition of "weaker players."

 

[Yonder]

I think > is gonna start happening in the future.

Hell, its starting now. Elegant is an insane threat

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Luigi's too easy to camp horizontally but I can see what you're getting at. It wouldn't exactly surprise me, but his groundspeed+traction work as a soft cap to his potential imo. Luigi's counterplay is also far less developed than Mario's.

Did I miss something, or did some secret patch come through and nerf Mario to the ground? I'm kidding of course, but I don't think Luigi is surpassing Mario anytime soon when he lacks as said, mobility and traction. If he still had his d throw cyclone, then they would be neck in neck. But Mario still has a massive player base to explore his metagame, while Luigi has basically only Elegant. And Mario isn't getting gimped, or camped, or pushed back on shield...Luigi runs on hot and cold, which is why when he's winning, he may seem all the more impressive at the moment.

What I DON'T get is why people don't realize how strong Luigi can be as a secondary/counterpick when he boats good matchups against Bayo,Fox,Mario,Diddy,and Pikachu. Last time I checked at least 4 of them are meta relavent, with Luigi losing to the typical top tiers (but has a gimp niche vs Cloud) and random mid tiers who aren't relavent. Not a lot of borderline viable characters boasts the same positive matchup spread vs relavent characters, if any.

 

[Nobie]

While Earth relegating Pit to secondary is kind of sad for Pit mains everywhere, I predict that a Pit secondary is actually going to be a valuable and dangerous tool for Earth to have in his toolbelt.

A lot of people have secondaries to cover specific matchups. They're counterpicks, trying to fill the gaps in their characters, but often in a way where the secondary is assumed to be useful in fewer situations overall.

No one, not even Earth, will ever pick Pit to hard counter an opponent. Pit doesn't have some ace up his sleeve that lets him dominate or overwhelm. Rather than being a secondary to deal with bad matchups, he'll be a secondary that forces a change of pace.

Not only that, but often with a limited secondary (whose strengths and weaknesses are more skewed), it gets into a complex counterpick metagame between sets. "I counterpicked DK and won, but now I have to go back to my original main for fear that you might counterpick my DK." With Earth, however, as long as he isn't fighting Bayonetta he can generally afford to just stick with Pit.

And when the opponent is making their decision, they have to keep in mind that Earth is still likely going to be the best Pit in the world, a Pit that can take games off of top 10 players and get high placings in major.

 

[DunnoBro]

Mario's only hope to remain relevant (as a top tier) is to develop potent and reliable ledge traps, as his only way of dealing with camping and spaced aerials is to FLUDD them off...

But fireballs don't hit opponents on ledge very consistently, he lacks the speed and range to do the "Guess this but still cover that" which other top tiers do, and DLC like Bayonetta, Mewtwo, and Corrin are amazing on the ledge so they're not too worried just losing stage control to mario from fludd.

Each top mario seems to have a different take on his ledge trapping. Ally seems to be the most consistent at yielding reward, but Zenyou is the most consistent at getting stocks in a timely fashion. Anti is... Well he just backrolls to and from the ledge. It's very effective before they figure it out (which makes him worse vs players familiar with him)

There is nair > bair, super trump punch, and the fludd regrab trap, and lots of other weird tools and confirms, so there might be SOMETHING. But there would have to be for Mario to remain relevant.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Unless blocking with Luigi magically becomes not the worst thing ever he's not surpassing Mario nor is Mario going to magically vanish from the metagame. Luigi's shield traction really, really, REALLY hurts the character.

Rage is only bad for weaker chars that rely on specific confirms to be honest, Dr. Mario has D-Throw > Fair and it's true....but Rage shifts and jumbles the percentages and messes with what would otherwise be a reliable kill confirm against a plethora of metagame viable characters. I probably couldn't exacerbate how amazing it would be if Doc could hit this confirm all the time. It kills ZSS on average at about 60-70% on small stages, depending on location, and the window is super wide on both ZSS and Bayonetta, who interestingly have similar windows. From a mechanical standpoint I'm not a fan of it because of this aspect mostly, the other stuff are caveats and my personal preference, not really objective design quirks.

On the note of Mario until his burst advantage and burst stock cleaning are knocked down a peg he's not going anywhere. Being a good character does not exempt said character from bad or weird matchups.

Once more Mario players start remembering how broken his Nair is I expect some interesting results. There are a lot of things Mario can do from a reverse Nair (which is pretty easy to set up when you have a move that can manipulate people's movement i.e. FLUDD) that are really potent and work at any number of wide ranges. If you get good at this you begin to greatly discourage high recoveries as well which is fun.

For an idea of how good Mario's Nair is at doing just about anything he can frametrap an airdodge from himself with it if he Nairs on the exact same frame the airdodge starts up on assuming he follows his target. It's pretty crazy, this move is reaaalllly underutilized at a lot of areas of play since more people focus on Bair which is by no means a bad move but Nair has so many interesting properties.

 

[DunnoBro]

Once more Mario players start remembering how broken his Nair is I expect some interesting results. There are a lot of things Mario can do from a reverse Nair (which is pretty easy to set up when you have a move that can manipulate people's movement i.e. FLUDD) that are really potent and work at any number of wide ranges. If you get good at this you begin to greatly discourage high recoveries as well which is fun.

For an idea of how good Mario's Nair is at doing just about anything he can frametrap an airdodge from himself with it if he Nairs on the exact same frame the airdodge starts up on assuming he follows his target. It's pretty crazy, this move is reaaalllly underutilized at a lot of areas of play since more people focus on Bair which is by no means a bad move but Nair has so many interesting properties.

Issue with nair is it has to be a reverse hit offstage and it can't be landing or it's just kind of worthless. It's irrefutably an optimization over the bair spam, but even with the consistent kill potential from ledge jumps and high recoveries I think mario is still missing some key ledge trapping tools.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Issue with nair is it has to be a reverse hit offstage and it can't be landing or it's just kind of worthless. It's irrefutably an optimization over the bair spam, but even with the consistent kill potential from ledge jumps and high recoveries I think mario is still missing some key ledge trapping tools.

Landing reverse Nair depends on where it is, and it's why I think smaller ceiling/smooth plats (not tri-plats) are going to be (more) of an asset for Mario than ever due to the things he can do with Nair and these platforms. You can usually use the slide from landing Nair to trap/hit people if they jump or airdodge if you Nair onto a plat (esp. reverse Nair) and it's much more potent on T&C and Lylat from my experience in attempting these.

I'm glad we agree that his Bair is being overused. In general I think Mario should be pressing a lot less buttons and relying more on fakes, jukes, and dashgrabs because he's good at threatening all of these quickly and he gets better when he's not overcommitting because unfortunately Mario has no 100% safe thing in neutral (a trait he shares with most of the cast sans Sheik and Diddy, probably).

Ledge trapping is going to boil down to drifting with Nair a lot and at > 100% I'd say aiming for the untechable spin on backwards NAir if they feel risky (since I do believe it sets those up). Who knows? I just think Mario's burst game is going to keep him relevant because how much of it can you really react to in 6f of lag when done properly? Time will tell I guess.

Also to further argue against Luigi > Mario I'm gonna try and illustrate it a bit more clearly just for my own sake, really. Luigi has to fish about as hard as Mario does in most scenarios, but he trades Mario's mobility for more explosive punish but also the ability to get blockstringed and shield pressured by basically the whole cast when he's at center stage, a place he generally wants to be since this gives his combos and pressure more room to operate. It's pretty critical IMO.

 

[Yikarur]

Icarus III (114 Entrants) (Italy)

1st: quiK
2nd: Fire
3rd: Robo~Luigi
4th: iStudying
5th: MarthForever
5th: Shunf
7th: Dinamirer
7th: ElMoro
9th: Danu
9th: El_Bardo
9th: G-Danzee
9th: Smuff
13th: Kitsunebi
13th: Destany
13th: Sim-Max
13th: Fake

Not 100% sure on some secondaries but this is pretty much it.
Really nice tournament overall, unfortunate streaming issues aside, and good showing for Europe in general. Sadly our best players only occupied the 4 bottom spots on Top 8 but we are powering up and we hope to travel more!
Also, AMAZING play from Fire , that was the best Zard I've ever seen, unfortunately quiK's ZSS was too much and he was forced to switch to his, still very good, Pikachu.

Fun Fact, quiK has never won a national before. Germany op 8)

 

[Aaron1997]

https://twitter.com/OCEANrob/status/856287986836688897

Speaking of character switches.

OCEAN is dropping and going back to

 

[TDK]

The Come Up 2017 (150 Entrants) (Ontario)

1st: Mistake
2nd: Blacktwins
3rd: Yoh
4th: LetsTickle
5th: Chrim Foisch
5th: KiddyKong
7th: FALGOD
7th: Poke
9th: nFuego
9th: iModerz
9th: DKWill
9th: Xyro
13th: X (All I know is it's not Utah X)
13th: TruBlu
13th: Phillycheeze
13th: Ray Kalm

Has BlueLink gone inactive?

Unfortunately, yeah.

Earth said on his Twitter that he's going to main corrin and use pit as a secondary I believe

An excellent decision. Someone with a neutral on the level of Earth's playing an actually good character will be frightening.

 

[Nu~]

TTTTTsd
I agree that luigi's traction is a huge issue, but there's some important counterplay to it that you may be missing here.

Luigi has the 2nd longest Perfect Pivot in the game (3rd if you count Monado speed shulk)
That's pretty big news mobility wise, and even bigger news for his OoS game.

I think perfect pivot OoS punishes can go far with every char who has a long PP...
But for Luigi??
it's downright essential.

For most moves that would push him too far to get the punish, Luigi can just PP back in range and punish with a down smash, advancing fire ball (PP C bounce Fireball) for moves that send him really far back, or PP crouch to really mess up the opponent's spacing.

If they start expecting it, you just mix up the timing and option you choose to slide in with. If they try to shield afterwards expecting a PP down smash, you PP-> dash grab and so on.

 

[TTTTTsd]

TTTTTsd
I agree that luigi's traction is a huge issue, but there's some important counterplay to it that you may be missing here.

Luigi has the 2nd longest Perfect Pivot in the game (3rd if you count Monado speed shulk)
That's pretty big news mobility wise, and even bigger news for his OoS game.

I think perfect pivot OoS punishes can go far with every char who has a long PP...
But for Luigi??
it's downright essential.

For most moves that would push him too far to get the punish, Luigi can just PP back in range and punish with a down smash, advancing fire ball (PP C bounce Fireball) for moves that send him really far back, or PP crouch to really mess up the opponent's spacing.

If they start expecting it, you just mix up the timing and option you choose to slide in with. If they try to shield afterwards expecting a PP down smash, you PP-> dash grab and so on.

Luigi's PP is excellent yes but the other problem is that his punishment for messing up a PP is pretty intense because he also has one of the longest skid/slide animations unfortunately, and ultimately he still has to block things.

I don't disagree that his friction isn't all bad but when compared to Mario it poses much more of a problem for him than an assistant, I'd say. Funny enough I think PP OoS stuff with Mario would be more broken because this means he can USmash you OoS in front of him from a PS or a shield if you commit too much or overextend period.

 

[Rizen]

IMO rage isn't a bad mechanic but could use some tweaking. Rage+high base KB kills at 0% like' DA>UpB or's witch time>witch twists are dumb. An easy fix would be to have rage only effect KB Growth and maybe draw it out over 200% rather than 150%. 150% isn't that hard to survive to even for relatively light characters like ZSS.

I can't see any lower than top ten and here's why. is underrated and should be high tier imo but he's not as good as Mario.


A big reason people say SSB4 isn't consistent is the balance is so much better than past smash games so top players can't crush every non-top tier with OP strategies. Let's be real, Brawl MK should not be losing to anyone but a small handful of characters. There's no reason: his Ftilt alone is a better zoning tool than 2/3rds of the cast. If you can effectively limit options in Brawl there's nothing short of extremely risky hard reads that can be done against you by lower characters. SSB4 doesn't have nearly that level of character domination. Brawl's meta was about limiting the opponent's options and SSB4's is about making use of top-tier tools that are better but still have a rock-paper-scissors element. It's more like Cloud's scissors (LimitCS) for example still lose to rock (shield+followup) but him winning with scissors nets an early kill where the opponent's rock leads to maybe 15% damage with no kill potential. And Cloud can paper (grab) too.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Having playable wifi is a bigger upset factor than rage, 2 stocks, janky combos, 0 % deaths, and anything else within the game. Nobody seems to get that, though.

 

[Nu~]

IMO rage isn't a bad mechanic but could use some tweaking. Rage+high base KB kills at 0% like' DA>UpB or's witch time>witch twists are dumb. An easy fix would be to have rage only effect KB Growth and maybe draw it out over 200% rather than 150%. 150% isn't that hard to survive to even for relatively light characters like ZSS.

I can't see any lower than top ten and here's why. is underrated and should be high tier imo but he's not as good as Mario.


A big reason people say SSB4 isn't consistent is the balance is so much better than past smash games so top players can't crush every non-top tier with OP strategies. Let's be real, Brawl MK should not be losing to anyone but a small handful of characters. There's no reason: his Ftilt alone is a better zoning tool than 2/3rds of the cast. If you can effectively limit options in Brawl there's nothing short of extremely risky hard reads that can be done against you by lower characters. SSB4 doesn't have nearly that level of character domination. Brawl's meta was about limiting the opponent's options and SSB4's is about making use of top-tier tools that are better but still have a rock-paper-scissors element. It's more like Cloud's scissors (LimitCS) for example still lose to rock (shield+followup) but him winning with scissors nets an early kill where the opponent's rock leads to maybe 15% damage with no kill potential. And Cloud can paper (grab) too.

Yea, brawl top tiers did not play the same RPS game as the lower tiers.

Brawl top tiers were that kid on the playground who would throw "Black Hole!!!" or "Plasma Blade!!11!1!" in an RPS game.

(I was that kid )

 

[UberMadman]

My personal solution would be to add a property to certain moves that would cause them to not be affected by rage like how Cloud's Finishing Touch and some of Bayonetta's moves aren't affected by weight. That way, you could make every individual hit of ZSS' or Samus' Up-B's not be influenced by rage except the final hit, preventing jank early KOs due to falling out of the move early while still allowing the moves to be affected by rage in a "normal" fashion. This could also be used to buff characters like Game and Watch by making the first hit of up-air be unaffected by rage, for example.

 

[Thinkaman]

Rage should just only apply to KBG (like damage itself, and all damage-altering properties) and not BKG. Really strange that this isn't the case.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Having playable wifi is a bigger upset factor than rage, 2 stocks, janky combos, 0 % deaths, and anything else within the game. Nobody seems to get that, though.

I mean it would be playable if the game didn't inherently have 2 more frames of lag than it needs to because it's attempting to account for wireless controllers.

Demonstrably most fighting games have 3-5, usually 4. If this game had like 4 the netplay would feel better by proxy because 2 frames of delay would be gone from every connection, basically. IF ONLY

 

[NairWizard]

Those who think that Rage is anti-competitive would make terrible military generals, and win battles at the cost of losing wars.

 

[Kofu]

Those who think that Rage is anti-competitive would make terrible military generals, and win battles at the cost of losing wars.

Would you be willing to elaborate on this a little more? I feel like it is somewhat poorly implemented but don't feel like it's an inherently bad mechanic. However, I also don't see why it's a necessity when previous Smash games lacked it. I am aware of the benefits for heavies, but overall the patches have strengthened them more than rage has.

 

[NairWizard]

Pushing your opponent for investing resources in trying to take you out but failing to actually take you out is inherently competitive.

 

[PK Bash]

War is not a game though. I don't understand the comparison.

I don't see why Rage is necessary but it doesn't make the game inherently uncompetitive or inconsistent. I'm sure if people legit believed that they'd have gone to Melee by now.

What even is the point of Rage though. It's not only a poor balancing tool but rarely facilitates otherwise impossible comebacks. If you're allowing your opponent to constantly reset to neutral then you're giving them opportunities to take the game from under your nose with a ridiculous comeback, with or without Rage. We see it in Melee, we see it in traditional fighting games. I'm confident it would exist in Smash 4 regardless of whether or not Rage was a thing. More often than not, the better player is the one that wins anyway. Just because you took the first stock or something, does not give you some god-given right to claim the match or set.

Any "inconsistency" in this game is mostly due to the players themselves. Top players are only people. People have off-days. People lose focus mid-match. People make bad decisions which they rightly do not get away with. None of this is the fault of the game. Upsets happen in any game, it isn't some Smash 4 phenomenon. At the end of the day you never see randoms top 8ing major tournaments due to inconsistent jank. Skill > luck in Smash 4. This isn't Pokemon, any "RNG" is pretty minimal.
Smash 4's inherent "inconsistency" is mostly hyperbolic and born out of unrealistic expectations.

Oh and Mario is still a good character. Luigi is still Player 2.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Icarus III (114 Entrants) (Italy)

1st: quiK
2nd: Fire
3rd: Robo~Luigi
4th: iStudying
5th: MarthForever
5th: Shunf
7th: Dinamirer
7th: ElMoro
9th: Danu
9th: El_Bardo
9th: G-Danzee
9th: Smuff
13th: Kitsunebi
13th: Destany
13th: Sim-Max
13th: Fake

Not 100% sure on some secondaries but this is pretty much it.
Really nice tournament overall, unfortunate streaming issues aside, and good showing for Europe in general. Sadly our best players only occupied the 4 bottom spots on Top 8 but we are powering up and we hope to travel more!
Also, AMAZING play from Fire , that was the best Zard I've ever seen, unfortunately quiK's ZSS was too much and he was forced to switch to his, still very good, Pikachu.

Not surprised he switched to pika for zss.

Arguably Zard's worst mu in the game, I think it is.

Still major props for an awesome showing with charizard.

 

[The-Technique]

Issue with nair is it has to be a reverse hit offstage and it can't be landing or it's just kind of worthless. It's irrefutably an optimization over the bair spam, but even with the consistent kill potential from ledge jumps and high recoveries I think mario is still missing some key ledge trapping tools.

Does...does that work with the doc? (I get the feeling the answer is no...)

 

[DunnoBro]

Does...does that work with the doc? (I get the feeling the answer is no...)

Doc's bair lingers 3 more frames, with a larger hitbox, and wayy stronger. You're better off just bairing raw anyway.

Overall Doc is a monster on the ledge. He just has trouble getting people there.

 

[Deleted member]

I swear this thread has some of the most hilarious habits ever.

There's almost nothing that implies Luigi has potential to be a better character than Mario. Mario's counterplay is becoming stronger, that can't be denied, but he's still a quite strong character and probably will be top 15 for a while.
Whenever a character is on a perceived downward trend, everyone jumps on the "this character actually sucked the whole time train", then whenever they get high placement(s) at a notable tournament it suddenly turns into "woah, this character is amazing!" (this happened in particular with and ).

 

[Luco]

Rage also doesn't necessarily 'balance' the losing character, keep in mind Nu's mention of this 'holistic' approach to the game and you'll see it's actually pretty easy to mess with those fast, combo-centric characters we talked about dominating the meta-game. Anyone who's ever played against a Sheik in their life has probably listened to incessant nagging once they finally die at 180% that "Sheik's got rage now and can't do anything to your character ever."

It's just a different ruleset, a different lens under which the game is viewed. It's a prime example of the idea that changing the rules changes the meta. It means different things to different characters, good and bad. That isn't to say it's perfect, I certainly wish the game-defining characters like ZSS / Bayo / Mario didn't have the ability to kill at 0% under their kit but at the end of the day it's something they have (usually under very specific circumstances) and it's something your character probably has access to as well in some form.

It's not even like Chain Grabs in Brawl where the interactions those mechanics caused were very black and white.