Why I think results hardly matter when making tier lists
An explanation by Floor
Tier lists are being discussed and everyone wants to explain why X is low tier/top tier. A common explanation: Y won Z major last week; ZeRo beat Pugwest, CaptainZack has a 6-1 record against Zinoto, Rosalina just won 2 majors in a row… (fictitious examples). Well, what do these results mean? If you compiled every results that happened after 1.1.6, would you get an objective tier list? Are results objective.
Objective: If something is able to be disagreed with, it is not objective.
Objective statement: A move with less ending lag is better than the same move with more ending lag.
Are results objective? Can you look at every player and characters placing and make a tier list/rankings that can’t be disagreed with? Well, no, you can’t. Results aren’t objective. Certain results and records can be formulated to make a ranking system, but you can’t say for certain if a certain player is better than another if something like the following occurs. (The following is a fictitious example):
Major A: Salem gets 1st – Captain Zack gets 2nd
Major B: Salem gets 4th – Captain Zack gets 2nd
Who is the better Bayo? Well, it depends on who you ask. Some people will say Captain Zack is better because he is more consistent, others will look at Salem’s first place and see that CaptainZack doesn’t have the potential that Salem has. Both are fair views and no one is objectively the better Bayo. People will disagree. You can’t use results here to say who is better because the results are subjective; you would have to analyze their playstyles, their stats, and admittedly, their record against other players (I’ll get to this in a second) in order to form an argument on who is the better Bayo.
Well, the better Bayo is whoever has the better record, right? Well, close, but that’s still subjective. (Fictitious example):
Salem is 6-0 with Dyr meanwhile CaptainZack is 0-6 with Dyr
Salem is 3-3 with Nairo meanwhile CaptainZack is 3-3 with Nairo
Salem is 0-6 with Zinoto meanwhile CaptainZack is 6-0 with Zinoto
Who has the better record? Well it depends on wether you value a favorable record against Zinoto or Dyr. So, who is the best Diddy? (The loop continues)
Or perhaps the only difference between their record is that Salem has favorable wins against ZeRo (meanwhile CaptainZack has an even record) but Salem loses to MKLeo (while CaptainZack is even). The results alone don’t say much as people can disagree.
The answer to who is the better Bayo seems to be an argument of consistency vs potential (no, I’m no starting a Marth vs Lucina discussion here, but this is a large part of what that discussion is based off of). Or, you can analyze who the better Bayo is by looking at their playstyles. (Fictitious example) CaptainZack is more patient and safe; he doesn’t take much damage but he doesn’t land those Bayonetta 0-death combos. He’s harder to get in against but he doesn’t push his advantage either. Meanwhile with Salem, he kind of rushes in their a lot and often gets punished for it, but when he manages to get a hit in, he brings you off the top blastzone in a stylish 0-death Bayo combo. Or, you can discuss which player gets more reads, which players keeps their opponent guessing better, which player can pull off the best tech more effectively… all these things are valid support for the best Bayo is but they don’t exactly translate into a X-Y record with so-and-so.
Let’s bring the focus of this discussion as it applies to characters now.
Is Ness a good character? I mean sure, but in this fictitious example, let’s say he’s high tier. FOW enters a tournament and soars through pools with his solo Ness. Things are looking good until he gets into top 32 and, uh-oh, if Dabuz beats Luhtie, FOW has to deal with the 20-80 Ness vs Rosa matchup… but, this is Smash 4 and Luhtie upsets Dabuz! FOW now avoids the rosa matchup and beats Luhtie and ends up winning the entire tournament, never once facing a Rosalina. Is Ness all of a sudden a top tier character because he won a major? Let’s say the same thing happens again at a different major and FOW wins by avoiding the Rosalina matchup. Is Ness top tier? He just won two majors… Well, there’s things to consider.
1. Is FOW a god? Did FOW grind and grind and grind and become the new ZeRo?
2. What happens when he has to fight a Rosalina? How important is one really bad matchup even if you’re character is fine otherwise?
3. Could he repeat his success with Luigi or Pit? Or is this something that’s really Ness specific.
4. How are FOW’s opponents doing? Was ZeRo not there? Was Nairo not playing his best? Was MKLeo sick or feeling down?
Just seeing a
icon at first place at a major doesn’t give you the full picture. Ness’s framedate, killpower, neutral, and range, however, does give you a more complete picture. Ness has a frame 3 jab; that’s worse than ZSS’s jab (frame 1) in terms of frame data objectively. What kinds of combos can Ness get out of jab? Marth and Lucina can kill off of jab at 100 thanks to Dancing Blade and jab into tipper ftilt (Marth only). I don’t know Ness’s jab combos, but in this fictitious example, let’s pretend he has none and that his jab is now frame 7. He would objectively has a worse jab than Marth and Lucina as he has less range, less damage, and less combo game from jab. There would really be no argument as to why Ness has a better jab. Thus, you can begin to rank Ness on actual framedata and attributes that would hold true regardless of whether or not ZeRo is present, Nairo is on a roll, whether or not MKLeo is sick, or how late in the bracket FOW went until he fought a Rosalina. Bracketing, Wellness, and attendance vary from tournament to tournament. ZeRo may be there, a Rosalina may stop FOW… who knows. But Ness will always have a worse jab than Marcina (again, pretend Ness doesn’t get combos from jab), a worse uptilt than X, and a worse grab than Y.
Don’t misconstrue this as me saying 1 moves is always objectively better than another; moves are only objectively better when all other things are held constant. Ness’s jab is only worse than Marcina’s because everything is worse about it. If, for example, Ness happened to be able to confirm jab 1 into fully charged PK Flash… then the better jab isn’t quite objective. You have a trade off; one is better at playing footsies in the neutral while the other grants bigger reward.
My previous post mentioned this but I’ll rephrase it here and elaborate.
When you’re like me and you don’t go off of results, then you know that Lucina was top/high tier all along since 1.1.4. Now, not everyone has as much familiarity with Lucina as I do, but I noticed how broken her fsmash was early on. I noticed how dominate she was at edge guarding and how great of a move bair is. I was familiar with her kill power and neutral even though 90% of the community cemented her into low and mid tier for I think over a year and a half or so. To be fair, not everyone is familiar with Lucina, which is why the place they put her on a tier list should be hesitant and they should be ready to change their view. Quite frankly, not a lot of people knew that Lucina could kill with her aerials before 150%. She suffered from I’m-in-Marth’s-Shadow syndrome for a long time; I had people tell me Marth’s tipper aerials must kill 50% earlier than Lucinas. Why? Because they haven’t spent more than an hour into her and didn’t know the truth. That, and she didn’t get results largely because no one played her. Now that PersistentBlade is a thing, people are starting to see just how powerful Lucina is. I’ve been saying it for years and everyone disagreed, but now that they see ZeRo utilize Lucina’s kit and power, they change their view. I don’t want to say “I told you so”, but when you allow results (Lucina had poor results) to blur the truth (no one knew Lucina was actually powerful and good) simply because you don’t know what the truth is, this is what happens; you severely underrate a character for such a long time. And only now that she has results do people start to recognize her as top tier/high tier even those she is exactly the same as she was a year and a half ago. Nothing changed outside of ZeRo thinking long and hard about “man, I need a counter to Ally. Eh, I have a pretty good Lucina; time to train her up” (with a little help from Mr. E, NAKAT, Ranai, Komoikiri, Salem, and Nairo). I was calling her top tier/high tier a long time ago but I was met with constant disagreement because “she doesn’t have results”. Again, to everyone’s credit, they didn’t quite know her real power and potential, but that’s precisely why they shouldn’t be so damned strong about their views.
One more thing to consider before you consider results:
Bayo hasn’t had good results since like, basically ever. Results would dictate she’s top 15; maybe top 10 (not going to pull up results just to make this point, you should understand it regardless). But, even if results would put her as top 15, pretty much everyone can recognize that her devastating punish game, good neutral, great edge guarding, witch time, planking, mobility, frame data, bat within, recovery, kill power (do I need to continue?) makes her #1 or, at the worst, top 3.
Earlier, I asked “Would you rather your character win a major, or get a buff?” I got a few responses, a few of which bring me to my last idea (how results *can* affect a tier list,) To me, this largely translates to “Would you rather your character look better, or actually be better”. Now, obviously, I want a balanced game. If I mained Bayo, then for the sake of everyone else in the community, I would go with winning a major since I don’t want to put everyone through a Bayo *buff* (alluding to
@Frihetsanka ‘s response). However, from purely the perspective of “I want my character to be the best in the game”, one option puts your character closer to that goal while the other acts as a status update to some people and doesn’t change what your character can do or determine how well they do in certain matchups. Let’s say Mario only lost to Sonic. After Mario wins a major, he still loses to Sonic. But after getting a nice buff to his speed (or something, I don’t know what Mario needs to beat Sonic as I don’t play either of those characters and know little about them), then Mario may be able to beat Sonic and have no bad matchups.
@ARISTOS made a good point about how, finally, results *can* affect a tier list. How? By putting a spotlight on certain characters and showing people what to work on. If Marios are constantly losing to Sonics (emphasis on constantly, continuous results that occur back to back nearly like clockwork do hold some amount of weight), then the Mario community can step up their Sonic game and improve the Mario vs Sonic meta, grind the matchup, and make some breakthroughs for other Marios, therefore improving and uncovering just how much Mario is capable of. If Earth was somehow able to beat ZeRo by abusing this one simple trick that will put the Diddy industry out of business, then other Pit mains can see this trick, utilize it, perfect it, and explore its uses in other matchups, therefore furthering the Pit meta and improving their character’s spot on the tier list. So, how can results make a difference? By having a long term affect on how the meta grows. Results can serve as a status-check to see how meta are growing and by pointing to certain characters that might be on a rise or in need of a secondary to help them with bad matchups.
As a fictitious example, let’s look at Cloud.
1. Cloud gets released. People use him in bracket.
2. Results come in: Cloud is winning neutral a lot, killing early, and juggling, but he’s dying early to simple gimps. Looks like his recovery is a problem
3. Cloud mains hit the lab and practice and explore, trying find better ways to recover. They find out that stalling with sideB and NeutralB seems to help some, as does recovering high with climbhazzard and snapping the ledge on the way down.
4. They use this is bracket and see what happens. It seems to work, but Komo is still getting gimped by simple reads even after using these tools.
5. Clouds hit the lab again and use the results to try to find better ways to recover. They suggest playing conservative with limit and save it for their recovery more often.
6. They use this in bracket and get edge guarded less, ect, the cycle continues.
Results are how and in what direction the meta evolves, but they don’t make up an objective tier list. Tier lists consider matchup spread, results, moveset, and the effectiveness of strategies. I personally weigh Matchup spread the heaviest (as it is a combination of moveset and strategies) and results the least (as I just explained why).
Didn’t think my post would be this long, and I doubt anyone will read it 100% through (and I don’t blame them) but I want my be-all-and-end-all argument on the matter out there, unabridged and fully explained.
