Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[Ziodyne 21]

I am beginning to have doubts about Bayo even being top 3 Myself in the current meta. Looking at the Major tournaments over the past few weeks Bayo has not been able to reach top 8 in any majors over the past month until Today, and even then Salem just got in at 7th.

Bayo planking is a thing and might be really strong yes .but as soon as its used effectively in a match people rush on the Bayo hate train and theaten to impose a LGL on her. Zack likely has been hesitant from using it again after Dreamland because of that.

I cant help to think there is also a double-standard going on here regarding Bayo. Sonic running out the clock vs characters that cannot deal with his lame play is apparently A-OK but Bayo? Ban that **** immediately!!

 

[TDK]

MomoCon 2017 (286 Entrants) (Georgia)

1st: Nairo
2nd: Fatality
3rd: ZeRo
4th: Larry Lurr
5th: VoiD
5th: Kameme
7th: Salem
7th: Ally
9th: Komorikiri
9th: Abadango
9th: Ranai
9th: Wrath
13th: RFang
13th: Mekos
13th: Myran
13th: Lazyboredom
17th: Day
17th: NAKAT
17th: Captain Zack
17th: Mr. Speedman
17th: Sinji
17th: RoguePenguin
17th: HyperKirby
17th: Saj
25th: DRAKEML
25th: ScAtt
25th: LordMix
25th: KidG
25th: KDK
25th: TheReflexWonder
25th: Rango

Combo Breaker 2017 (150 Entrants) (Illinois)

1st: ESAM
2nd: John Numbers
3rd: Ned
4th: Tyroy
5th: 8BitMan
5th: MVD
7th: dekillsage
7th: Dill
9th: Walrus
9th: DJ Jack
9th: JJROCKETS
9th: Zinoto
13th: Xane
13th: StarbasedFruit
13th: Kenta
13th: Cheezeballer

 

[L9999]

So New England had a regional happen yesterday. Not as many entrants as expected (given the weekend has been chock full of events), but a good bit of NE's finest talent came through.
https://smash.gg/tournament/shift/events/wii-u-singles/stats
Shift (101 Entrants) (Massachusetts)
1st Marss
2nd Light
3rd Lingling
4th Raffi-X
5th Pelca
5th Koolaid
7th Scot!
7th Craftis

Spoiler: Other "Notable" Character Placings

9th Kogarasuma
9th Tsage
9th Tony Pajamas
17th Game7a1
17th LeeT (Miis are 1111)
17th Juice
17th WriteGrammer

Swordfighter was actually played in tournament? First time in years.

 

[Laken64]

ZSS also has an above average neutral

I'm curious about this statement, I've usually heard that ZSS has a lackluster neutral a lot, though the character has the 2nd best attributes in general/natural mobility (fast run speed air speed walk speed second only to Greninja stats). Can you explain why ZSS has an above average neutral in your thoughts or someone explain ZSS neutral in general to me because all I usually think is SH nair, dsmash baiting, bair, and zair which doesn't sound too lackluster (bair and zair mostly).

 

[blackghost]

I am beginning to have doubts about Bayo even being top 3 Myself in the current meta. Looking at the Major tournaments over the past few weeks Bayo has not been able to reach top 8 in any majors over the past month until Today, and even then Salem just got in at 7th.

Bayo planking is a thing and might be really strong yes .but as soon as its used effectively in a match people rush on the Bayo hate train and theaten to impose a LGL on her. Zack likely has been hesitant from using it again after Dreamland because of that.

I cant help to think there is also a double-standard going on here regarding Bayo. Sonic running out the clock vs characters that cannot deal with his lame play is apparently A-OK but Bayo? Ban that **** immediately!!

There is almost no point in opening that box. Players that are watching both results and matches themselves see bayo's flaws coming out: they haven't changed:neutral game, her own players mentality and honestly in a realistic match scenario when both players are at both of 100 percent what is she gonna do?
A trend I see developing is how well do characters do when they are both looking purely for kills. Comparing bayo and zss to cloud and diddy. If both players are around 100 to 120 percent diddy and cloud have multiple reliable kill moves grounded and aerial normals
Bayo and zss both have one major option bair and a few less than ideal options afterwards. Zss also has uptilt but it's mainly an oos option. Confirming kills in last hit senarios in high stakes matches have a major impact on results that's one reason I think bayo and zss continue to be in flux results wise despite community toxicity towards bayo and sometimes zss as well.

 

[The-Technique]

Do you really consider Civil War (probably the most bonkers tournament that there's ever been, where Zero and Ally got eliminated far earlier than expected by both ZSS and regular Samus) to be a tournament where ZSS performed badly? Marrs actually placed 5th, so that's still another ZSS in top 8.

As for Greninja saga, he was eliminated by Mekos and Captain Zack, both of whom are amazing players, and Nairo still placed the same as Rich Brown and Ranai while outplacing Void, Samsora, and Mekos.

 

[Vyrnx]

I want to review videos before I draw all of my conclusions, but one of Nairo's struggles traditionally vs ZeRo has been the fact that he can't straight up abuse his mastery of up close interactions like he does against other players. ZeRo, Ally, and Mr. R are the only players who match Nairo in the up close jab/spot dodge/grab/roll game. Nairo can destroy lesser players and several other top players by getting up close reads and charging dsmash through their spot dodges. Not even Marss can do this.

ZeRo Suit's neutral gameplan (as designed by Nairo) has always relied on spaced nairs first and foremost. There's been criticism of the nair-heavy ZSS play in this thread before, but there isn't anything necessarily bad about it in a lot of cases. Players with mastery in the ZSS MU will end up getting down the powershield timing on ZSS nairs if the ZSS jumps and nair fastfalls with roughly the same timing everytime (which most players do), but the ZSS can mixup when or if they fast fall the nair. The problem that Nairo has had with ZeRo is ZeRo dashing into him when he jumps for a nair, which throws off Nairo's spacing. This dashing in, as well as preemptive fairs to cover ZSS' jumps (which requires certain positioning from the Diddy), has been the basis of the Diddy/ZSS MU.

Marss showed the first diverging from Nairo's neutral plan by mixing up nair, bair, zair, and to a some extent every other move in ZSS' moveset without showing a clear preference for one aerial spacing option. Zinoto at least believes Marss is the best ZSS at the Diddy MU and this is probably part of it (also because of his crouching and whiff punish game).

Nairo has modified his play to adapt several of Marss' tactics as well as put heavier emphasis on CQC. Nairo knows he's good at this aspect of the game. Something Nairo has added recently is dashing backwards out of cqc and pivot grabbing with extremely high success (if you want to see what I mean, watch Nairo's set vs VoiD at Momocon where he does it about twelve times. The animation is hella slick, too). The first time I saw him do this was at Frostbite vs ZeRo and the first couple games looked like Nairo had really figured something out.

What I want to get at is how Nairo shifted his playstyle against ZeRo today. Instead of spacing with nairs and letting ZeRo dash in on him (which is always when ZeRo-Nairo looks most hopeless for Nairo), he was rolling. ZeRo was punishing some, but Nairo is a hard to predict player. Even if you know he is going to roll, you don't know which way or when. Nairo positioned his rolls to either throw off ZeRo's spacing or get behind ZeRo and force CQC situations with ZeRo, and Nairo was winning the CQC interactions: dash back pivot grabs, aggressive jab combo mixups, down smashes, spot dodges, etc. It was very similar to the first couple of games of the Frostbite set, but Nairo didn't revert back to nair spacing and he was doing a better job of forcing bad situations for ZeRo. ZSS' frame 1 jab mixups and extreme reward off of spot dodge reads or dash back pivot grabs are a bright spot in the Diddy MU where Diddy legitimately struggles. The difference today is that Nairo found a way to force these situations and break up ZeRo's dominating neutral with them and find nairs/grabs and initiate ladders. (unrelated, but I feel like Leo-style perfect pivots could find similar success in the ZSS arsenal...).

Nairo has actually destroyed VoiD in their last two encounters (3-1, 3-0, and not particularly close games) doing much of the same thing. VoiD doesn't compare to Nairo in CQC interactions and Sheik can't afford to lose even relatively small interactions against rage ZSS. Just like FeelMeUp was talking about, VoiD doesn't always force situations while Nairo is the epitome of a player who forces situations, and Nairo ends up getting to play his game against VoiD everytime he cracks VoiD's neutral. Mr. R, on the other hand, was ready for Nairo's dash back pivot grabs and so far seems to be the only player who is ever consistently ready.

Nairo recently said that he discussed the ZSS-Sheik MU with ZeRo, and they agreed that even though Sheik beats ZSS, the Sheik players don't want to play Nairo's ZSS, so he uses that to his advantage and won't go Lucina in the MU. It's one of the game's craziest MUs, and even though on paper Sheik is very strong against ZSS, ZSS will often end up "getting away with murder" and seal early stocks (it isn't actually "getting away with murder"; it's the basic workings of the MU, but most people don't understand how ZSS ladders work).

Greninja Saga last week has been ZSS' only truly bad performance this year (even with Nairo beating VoiD) because Nairo shouldn't have lost to Mekos. But part of me is more surprised that Zack beat Nairo than I am by Mekos beating Nairo... I don't know why. Genesis 4 saw neither ZSS make top 8, but Nairo's losses were to Mr. R and ZeRo (somehow resulting in him getting 17th) and Marss' were to Zack and Dabuz (also somehow resulting in him getting 17th, though Zack wasn't a big name yet I suppose). Every other tournament in 2017 has seen one or two ZSSs in top 8, which matters quite a bit if we're pretending to discuss competitive viability. Both mains have seen great success - I don't think people realize how incredibly well Marss has done this year and the sets he's taken from top players this year, Royal Flush being the only outlier - as has Choco.

Again, I want to review some of the videos before I draw all conclusions on Nairo's gameplay today, but in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the beauty that was Momocon, watch the video of Pyreeze's Samus killing Elegant at 8%, laugh at funny jank, and remember why I loved this game in the first place.

 

[NairWizard]

Well, damn, that analysis actually convinced me that ZSS is top 5.

First time that's ever happened in this thread. Props to you, that was excellent.

 

[PJB]

Damn Fatality, you're too good. At this point based on both theory and results, is Falcon not only high tier but possibly the best high tier?

 

[Rizen]

I am beginning to have doubts about Bayo even being top 3 Myself in the current meta. Looking at the Major tournaments over the past few weeks Bayo has not been able to reach top 8 in any majors over the past month until Today, and even then Salem just got in at 7th.

Bayo planking is a thing and might be really strong yes .but as soon as its used effectively in a match people rush on the Bayo hate train and theaten to impose a LGL on her. Zack likely has been hesitant from using it again after Dreamland because of that.

I cant help to think there is also a double-standard going on here regarding Bayo. Sonic running out the clock vs characters that cannot deal with his lame play is apparently A-OK but Bayo? Ban that **** immediately!!

I don't think anyone (who matters) said Bayo should be banned after she was nerfed. A reminder though, she has top 3 overall results.
Cloud: 362.5
Diddy Kong: 349
Bayonetta: 335.5
Sheik: 266.5
I can't see these 4 characters lower than top 4. The next best characters are Sonic (192.5), Fox and Mario a good gap behind them. Bayo being imperfect does not mean she isn't one of the best. Sheik and Diddy are probably better solo characters than Cloud, he gets a lot of doubles points. Bayo destroys scrubs so there's a case she's under them too because lower levels of play. I can't see Sonic being better than her. Whatever the case, the top 4 are cemented at the top barring some big meta developments or AT discoveries.

I agree with Emblem Lord, Bayo has very high potential to play dirty and needs to do so more. IMO her carrying opponents offstage will become a central part of her meta in the future. Why? She Witch Times>Fsmash/Bair/Fair chains/Fthrow/cuts ladder short and Nairs your DI to get you offstage, maybe goes to the ledge for upB walls depending on the opponent, WT counters your recovery and Dair dunks you. GG.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Gonna be real, why the heck did it take Larry Lurr for ppl to realize that 4:6 = pretty doable? It is literally basic math.

If you are winning 4 of 10 games vs. the other opponent if equally matched, then you can pretty realistically win a Bo5 and most certainly a Bo3. This is why 3:7 is so vastly worse because the margin of error in the stats is nonexistent when factoring in Bo5.

Oh well, glad it's at least sinking in.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

*sighs* I'm glad for character rep, I really am, but my boy zard even with the buffs instantly got thrown to the wayside because of the DLC...no I'm not talking about Cloud, i'm talking about Bayo. When sharpy got over here he instantly got bodied by some of the best Bayos from over here. Then there's the issues he has with not just top tiers but with high and mid tiers too.
Can someone give a RECENT MU chart because I can't find one!

edit: Stupid internet ate my post! It was much nicer than this!

 

[FeelMeUp]

Nairo killed VoiDat:
65%
63%

130%
128%(almost 63%)

102%
57%

This man is downright abusive.

 

[Trifroze]

Do you really consider Civil War (probably the most bonkers tournament that there's ever been, where Zero and Ally got eliminated far earlier than expected by both ZSS and regular Samus) to be a tournament where ZSS performed badly? Marrs actually placed 5th, so that's still another ZSS in top 8.

As for Greninja saga, he was eliminated by Mekos and Captain Zack, both of whom are amazing players, and Nairo still placed the same as Rich Brown and Ranai while outplacing Void, Samsora, and Mekos.

You said Nairo placed top 3 or top 8 at every previous event this year. He didn't.

Aside from that please stop putting words in my mouth, I never labeled any of ZSS' or Nairo's results bad. In the hands of a great player, a high risk character getting 1st is as expected as them getting 17th.

Still ZSS' results this year overall do make her a strong contender for one of the best characters in the game. I don't think S tier should even exist, and A tier should be something like Diddy, Cloud, Sheik, ZSS, Bayo, Mario, Rosalina, and Fox. For some reason Sagat tier has just sticked around since the 1.0.4 days.

The frontrunners of this community are actually pretty great at organizing tournaments, making content and clear detailed tutorials and stuff when compared to other competitive games, but my gosh get your **** together with the tier list category meta aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

red topic

in my defense it ties into a constructive context in which i implied that a character shouldn't be S tier for winning a tournament after several non-wins in the hands of a player for whom such results are ordinary with their talent and dedication in mind

 

[HoSmash4]

When ZSS has a concept of a disadvantage state (other than not having a lead) I'll consider her out of top 8

 

[Rizen]

When ZSS has a concept of a disadvantage state (other than not having a lead) I'll consider her out of top 8

The current top tiers are in this order:
/
I can see ZSS moving above Mewtwo but then she'd be in 9th place. IMO she isn't better than Rosalina but still a solid top 10, if not top 8.

 

[|RK|]

Vyrnx Nairo almost beat CaptainZack. Bayonetta just fell out of the gamewinning upb.

There's also stuff about him autopiloting after he was up 2-0, but I prefer to mention the most provable stuff.

 

[Laken64]

The current top tiers are in this order:
/
I can see ZSS moving above Mewtwo but then she'd be in 9th place. IMO she isn't better than Rosalina but still a solid top 10, if not top 8.

Honestly at this point is overrated, while he does well when he has the lead and his best strengths are reseting to nuetral quickly and whiff punishing, when he doesn't his approach game is linear and weak and his disadvantage stage isn't all too well either. Spring isn't the get out of jail free card as it was early on in the meta and it only serves to bring up his biggest weakness in disadvantage- landing. while i still think he's top tier I can see , and possibly and/(Big IF there for marth) overrunning him in the future (unintentional irony lol).

While KEN has done wonders for Sonic in Japan theres yet to see the same results in America, 6WX being the best sonic in the states but he's always seen to be shut out at top 32 or 9th. And despite Kels making top 8 at Royal Flush it doesn't match up to the success that had seen this season

 

[|RK|]

Side note - anyone else starting to notice Diddy's weaknesses getting hella exploited?

 

[NotLiquid]

Kels is underrated.

I feel Sonic is 7th best atm but I'm gonna wait to see how Ken does at Nairo Saga.

Side note - anyone else starting to notice Diddy's weaknesses getting hella exploited?

Yeah. People are finally challenging monkey flip.

 

[FeelMeUp]

ZSS disadvantage is steadily getting worse against characters like . Tbh, flip moves that usually feel like get out of jail free cards have been getting weaker and weaker over time. Monkey Flip now feels like a liability a good deal of the time, and Flip Jump is often getting sniped out of the sky nowadays. BF is getting a lot of Sheiks killed as well.

 

[TDK]

I think part of the problem with Monkey Flip/Bouncing Fish/Flip Kick is that counterplay is developing quickly, yet the mains of the characters are still using it the same way as always, leading to easy punishes. Because really, it's the first option a lot of the best players of those characters go for in disadvantage, which makes it easier to cover.

 

[NotLiquid]

I don't think top players utilize Mario's cape enough.

Noticed this especially during Ally's second game against VoiD at Momocon. He forced VoiD into a disadvantage state after a Bouncing Fish and eventually secured a stock despite a 103% deficit. He seemed to start using it a few more times afterwards but mostly from pretty disadvantageous positioning. While Mario has great options already I feel the cape is great as a burst option that is hard to immediately readjust to.

Probably something Dr. Mario players should be using as well since their cape is even better.

 

[MistressRemilia]

I don't think top players utilize Mario's cape enough.

Noticed this especially during Ally's second game against VoiD at Momocon. He forced VoiD into a disadvantage state after a Bouncing Fish and eventually secured a stock despite a 103% deficit. He seemed to start using it a few more times afterwards but mostly from pretty disadvantageous positioning. While Mario has great options already I feel the cape is great as a burst option that is hard to immediately readjust to.

Probably something Dr. Mario players should be using as well since their cape is even better.

Oh trust me, it's truly missing out on most Dr.Mario as of now, but Wavebounce Cape is actually really ****ing good:
http://imgur.com/6EcskR9 Here's an example of Wavebounce Cape at its finest, it acts as a rather safe mixups from Doc's otherwise rather linear neutral game, can allow Doc to land better & it can throw off people & possibly start stuff.

 

[Floor]

Someone mentioned Falcon's bad recovery being a meme; to be fair they clarified that it beats non-sword hitboxes very well. I don't know how well it beats non-sword hitboxes as a main a swordie, but I would argue that it's still bad. Even if it's only bad against swordies, that's 3 highly-viable characters that will give Falcon the hardest time recovering against (Marcina & Cloud). And it would lose to projectile, windboxes (Mario fireball and fludd), and is extra susceptible to two frames as it has no hitboxes attached (Mario dash attack would be a good one).

Not to mention one of its biggest flaw, the chance that it will stage spike if you try to edge guard off stage; that's a free tech into punish. I've seen it way too many times where Falcon connects his recovery offstage, and opponent techs, and follows up with death.

Now ZSS... I never thought she left top 5 before Bayo and Cloud. Bayo and Cloud made me question if she left, but if so, not by much. Zss being 11th was another reason I had a good laugh when V3 came out; it felt completly inaccurate and unbased. Do people really think she's behind Mewtwo? I never saw it that way

 

[my_T]

While KEN has done wonders for Sonic in Japan theres yet to see the same results in America

Japan is just as strong of a region as NA and the fact that KEN usually does really well in Japan even when NA's top players like MKLeo, Nairo, Dabuz, etc are in attendance leads me to believe that this character is not overrated.

Also, most of KEN's loses in NA have been to top 10 players like Void, Dabuz, and Ally as well. All respectable loses. On top of all of this, he's only been to like 2 majors in NA.

Seems more like people are placing more weight on the American scene as opposed to Sonic being overrated

 

[Rizen]

Here's a side by side comparison of Dr and vanilla Mario's Hitbubbls on specials. Dr.'s cape doesn't have much horizontal range and Mario's upB is tiers better. Flashing blue means invulnerability btw.

Too bad we don't have CF's grab data on upB, only the attack. I mentioned before that Ganon's upB is easy to beat by dropping down, as opposed to being in front of him, with a Dair or sex kick. Until the end when the punch hits above him. I suspect CF's upB might have a blind spot too. No, there isn't a video of CF's hitbubbles.

Too bad it's so hard to find complete sets of every character's hitbubbles.

 

[Illuminose]

even though fatality makes good decisions, i think he gets away with murder recovering. bayo, for example, should edgeguard falcon 3/4 of the time, and certainly at least half the time, but we see a lot of edgeguards where people just don't think. edgeguarding is generally underdeveloped in this game, so that's not too surprising. people are also incredibly bad at beating falcon regular getup into jab or grab for some reason, which is just not understanding what you should be doing. in general, i just don't think people are exploiting falcon's edgeguarding/ledge trap weaknesses nearly well enough.

 

[|RK|]

I mean, we COULD say that. But if even ESAM isn't edgeguarding Fatality that often, there has to be something to it.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Pikachu is surprisingly not too spectacular at converting Falcon edgeguards into death. Hitboxes linger for a while but are generally too small and often send the opponent in undesireable directions. Moves that almost guarantee Falcon shouldn't come back are Sheik Bair/Fair, Bayo Nair, Cloud Nair, etc.

 

[Yonder]

I don't know if it's just me, but Falcon is probably the easiest character in the game to gimp with Luigi.

Why?

Not cyclone...

Fast fall dair spike.

Try it. Falcon lines up with Luigi dair spike perfectly, timing and everything. Luigi will spike him everytime. And with the frame data on Luigi's dair, it makes it really potent.

Sure Falcon can use uair to swat Luigi away low, but by that time, Falcon will be too low himself after cooldown to make it back.

(The FF dair spike also applies to Ganondorf. He's a little trickier though to hit)

And Luigi also automatically hits Falcon twice if Falcon tries the full jab with Nair. And Luigi bodies Falcon is disadvantage.

Just saying. If Falcon is on the rise, Luigi will have yet another good higher tier MU. No worse than even for Luigi.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

With all of this talk about edgeguarding I was wondering, who do you think has the edgeguarding tools to edgeguard other characters for free and which can easily get out of edgeguarding situations?
I know my zard's flamethrower is good as edgeguarding essentially anyone for free safely but there are characters with better tools. Diddy can use his bananas and bair easily. Marth makes getting knocked offstage a dangerous preposition. Who else edgeguards well?

 

[Lord Dio]

Wait. Maybe I'm missing something, but.......was it made out that Falcon's recovery is good?
It's decent, and the wall jump helps. But it's still pretty easy to intercept. Falcon as a whole is pretty easy to edgeguard. Just look at GFs of Civil War.

 

[Trifroze]

There are very few bad recoveries in this game. Falcon's recovery is relatively bad, but the mean is so good that a recovery being relatively bad doesn't have that much of a negative impact.

Not to mention one of its biggest flaw, the chance that it will stage spike if you try to edge guard off stage; that's a free tech into punish. I've seen it way too many times where Falcon connects his recovery offstage, and opponent techs, and follows up with death.

Most of the time it's the Falcon player's fault for using it that way (autopiloting or guessing wrong), because there are usually other options.

If the opponent gets in the way high up b is safe to hit because it won't send them into the stage for a tech and punish, and if they get in the way low then you can either go deeper and reverse up b them or recover high. Even if they bait the high recovery and make it back to the stage to punish Falcon he'll make it to the ground and get his jump back which is all that matters.

I do know you said it's only a chance, but it's a lot more in the Falcon player's control than some might think.

Falcon lines up with Luigi dair spike perfectly, timing and everything. Luigi will spike him everytime.

Sure Falcon can use uair to swat Luigi away low, but by that time, Falcon will be too low himself after cooldown to make it back.

What kind of Falcons have you been playing?

You do know the player has control over the timing of their up b, and that even after using it doesn't have to choose the same angle because they can move during it, right?

And aside from that, you're not going to meteor the recovery startup itself out of reaction either.

Maybe you meant something else, but as I'm interpreting those lines I'm really not sure you understand how this game works.

 

[PJB]

I think recovery often tends to be overrated in terms of importance in smash. It matters of course, but unless the character in question has a truly bottom tier recovery (such as little Mac), it doesn't seem to prevent the character from being successful. Melee Falco, brawl olimar, smash 4 cloud all were solidly top tier

 

[BTVolta]

Wait. Maybe I'm missing something, but.......was it made out that Falcon's recovery is good?
It's decent, and the wall jump helps. But it's still pretty easy to intercept. Falcon as a whole is pretty easy to edgeguard. Just look at GFs of Civil War.

No one's saying it's good, but it's better than "lol hit him" which is what this conversation is looking like.
Falcon does have high air speed and can weave well to make his recovery more ambiguous. He has options to go high, low and instant edge grab like cloud. Also are we going to ignore every other opponent Fatality faced that tourney? You can't write off his recovery because of one set similarly how we shouldn't write off a MU based on one set.

Again I'm not saying Falcon has a "good" recovery, nor is anyone else, but it's definitely a lot better than what most people here are giving it credit for.

 

[Luigi player]

I don't know if it's just me, but Falcon is probably the easiest character in the game to gimp with Luigi.

Why?

Not cyclone...

Fast fall dair spike.

Try it. Falcon lines up with Luigi dair spike perfectly, timing and everything. Luigi will spike him everytime. And with the frame data on Luigi's dair, it makes it really potent.

Sure Falcon can use uair to swat Luigi away low, but by that time, Falcon will be too low himself after cooldown to make it back.

(The FF dair spike also applies to Ganondorf. He's a little trickier though to hit)

And Luigi also automatically hits Falcon twice if Falcon tries the full jab with Nair. And Luigi bodies Falcon is disadvantage.

Just saying. If Falcon is on the rise, Luigi will have yet another good higher tier MU. No worse than even for Luigi.

It's probably just me but I have problems with Falcons with Luigi.

Being somewhat close to him is already a super threat because of his immense dash and runspeed cupled with his dashgrab-boost and nice dashattack. This makes it hard to try to approach him and spamming Fireballs doesn't keep him out either.

He combos Luigi fine with dthrow to uairs and gives him a lot of trouble to land again once Luigi is in disadvantage because of Luigis floatiness (takes a lot of time to come back down) and his great uair and other strong punish-options if he reads what you're going to do (things like spaced fsmash or bairs are always really scary, not to mention airdodge-read-punishes with his knee).

CFs jabs somewhat outbox Luigi in CQC, he also seems to get more reward when he hits you with them (or at least it feels that way to me). Everytime Falcon dashes towards Luigi or any character there's some sort of 50/50 if you should shield or not. And every time he guesses right/knocks you up you're in a really bad spot. Oftentimes even 3 uairs can true-combo. I'm baffled every time it happenes because it doesn't look like it would connect, but it does (even when I'm mashing airdodge).

Luigi can combo CF pretty nicely and is also supposed to be able to gimp him well enough, but I'm having so much trouble with this..

First you have somewhat of a 50:50 if he goes high or low. If you guess correctly it doesn't mean you'll get the gimp.
Often when I try to gimp CFs with downB I don't rise high enough at the end to get out of range of their upB. They hit me, take my doublejump that I try to use to get back up, make it back and I die.
It also happens a lot that I try to hit CF and his upB just trades with me. This is of course absolutely terrible if I've already used up my doublejump, which also happened quite a few times for me ~_~. Maybe it's sometimes better to not attack at all and just get hit by the upB, walltechjump and punish, lol.

Now I've thought about doublejump-airdoging up and that might be fast enough to avoid the upB, but I can't possibly be the only Luigi this happenes to... but I'm guessing Elegant and Concon would probably rise high enough at the end of the Cyclone to not be threatened by CFs upB after trying to gimp him with it.

Whenever I'm caught in CFs jab I'm at a terrible position (it's also hard to get back onto the stage from the ledge safely), and I'm not sure if I was ever able to just nair out of them. Well, maybe it did happen, but normally/most of the time it doesn't.

Dair would be safer than trying to Cyclone gimp CF in my case I guess, but it really sounds like it would be hard to hit. First you have to get him offstage too, and then it's still a 50:50 to guess correctly on where he goes. Then he can drift around a lot even during his uair and threatens with uairs so he's not just a sitting duck there that can be hit by anything for free. Even if you manage to hit the dair, getting the spike must be really hard.

It generally feels kinda difficult to land strong hits with Luigi while in the air imo. Bair is super strong, but not easy to sweetspot even if the opponent is in freefall, because of Luigis slowness in the air vertically and horizontally.

Falcon has been a super hard MU for me with Luigi most of the time, but I can see it being even or even Luigis favor when you can mash well enough to get him to fall out of the Cyclone and him not being able to get back from that.

CF doesn't feel as (but still) oppressing in neutral if I don't play Luigi, because of having more range, speed or other safe options.

 

[Lord Dio]

it's better than "lol hit him" which is what this conversation is looking like.

I mean, it can be just hit him. If you have Falcon offstage and have a good deal of damage on him, you can just bair him. If he recovers low, a ledge drop bair of decent strength will seal the stock. Recovering high, bair until the recover low, do the above.
Also, I noticed we haven't brought up Raptor Boost recovery.
Falcon's recovery is decent. Exploitable, but decent nonetheless.

 

[JB333]

Neat thing about Falcons recovery is that if you have your jump and are close to the ledge, you can use raptor boost to insta-grab the ledge. Using this technique helps to avoid getting 2-frame'd. I saw Fatality using it in a lot of his matches at momocon and it really seems to help when recovering.


I think Ganondorf can do it too

 

[NairWizard]

Falcon's recovery isn't really that big of a problem and won't get intercepted too often. He might take some damage trying to recover, but he won't die, even if you only look at sets where he gets trounced. Like this one, Fatality vs. ESAM from 2016:

In this set, you'll see that most of Fatality's stock losses aren't from gimps, but rather from ledgetrapping scenarios. Count the number of failed edgeguard attempts in this set by ESAM. He goes pretty deep to try to fry Fatality but often comes up short by a hair or two.

The real problem is getting back on stage, which Falcon does seem to have some issue with. When Fatality dies in this set it's usually because he tried to land on stage after getting knocked off and ate an f-smash or up-smash for his effort. It's half the reason that Larry vs. Fatality looks so one-sided most of the time, because when Fatality is on the ledge he can't get back without eating a ton of damage into up-tilt -> b-air -> KO or something like that.

On paper Falcon seems to have some good options for getting off the ledge including the ever-hilarious wakeup raptor boost. But in practice it seems to be a struggle in the meta.