Hippieslayer
Smash Ace
Yeah, at least for now. But I don't think he is easy to figure out. He has a rather diverse moveset and lacks redundant attacks. The size of the skill gap between Sharpy and the other zards also seems huge to me, he's the only one who doesn't repeatedly pick poor options and throw out random strong moves as if though wishful thinking would make them hit. Now on to another low tier character...
I am? Provide examples plz. I never denied he was heavy, I know he is. I also know that while his recovery isn't the best its solid and gets the job done almost all the time, he has weaknesses recovery wise (vulnerable at the apex of his up-b, side-b being possible to stop without him getting to up-b afterwards by jumping into it and airdodging, and other char specific stuff) but they aren't easy to exploit and Ike can mix things up a bit to keep from being predictable. But it should be mentioned that Ike gets away with gimpable ways of recovering all the time because no one bothers to learn how to fight him (a strong indicator of low tier status statistically speaking).
Now of course he thrives off of rage, dude I said his grab game was good in my own post. And yeah he doesn't need to be at pointblank range to hit, he has this big sharp metallic stick which he swings at his opponent, it seems to increase his effective range. These are just facts I didn't bother bringing up since they are pretty common knowledge, anyone who wants to voice in on Ike's status needs to know this stuff.
I already brought up his jab as well and grab game in greater detail. Yes his jab is quick for a swordsman, but it isn't scarier than Marths or Lucina. They can land kill moves directly from jabs. Ike struggles doing the same, though jabjab>bair is probs far from impossible to land at the right percentage and rage especially on chars with certain properties. Rather, Ike will mostly be doing jab cancels into grabs since that guarantees him solid damage well up into percents and isnt hard to land so long as you dont get too predictable with it. Frame 4 is good for a swordsman jab, but just like Clouds frame 4 jab, Ikes doesn't use his sword initially, thus its more of a regular jab on a swordsman.
Speaking of Clouds jab, it has quite a lot of pros over Ikes. While it isn't scary as Ike's since it doesn't lend itself very well to damaging or stock taking conversions, it is a more reliable defensive move. Clouds jab, especially its first hit, outranges Ike's, and Cloud moves forward further than Ike does while doing his jab combo. The final hit of Clouds jab also has better knockback than Ike's since it launches opponents in a more horizontal angle rather than in a diagonal one. This horizontal knockback in combination with the fact that Clouds jab combo in itself carries opponents horizontally means that Cloud gains a lot of stage control from landing his jab, oftentimes it will push opponents offstage or force them to fight from a cornered position. Moreover, Ike's jab combo (which you do need to use occasionally, at early percents where jab cancels wont work, and in order to condition the opponent into falling for jab cancels later) lacking range on its initial hit makes it so that he is unable to punish moves which Clouds jab could. Clouds movement during his jab animations also makes his jab harder to punish since good Clouds can use it to perform crossups and likewise in order to trick their opponents into thinking there's a crossup coming. Cloud will typically rarely go for jab cancels. He can do certain jab cancels however, they just require more conditioning and close attention being payed to the factors which influence said move. Now the range difference is minor; however, since initial jabs tend to be rather short ranged the difference is pretty big relatively speaking, similarly to how a 1 frame difference matters a lot more on your average f-tilt than it does on your average f-smash.
(Again, no strawmans please, Ike has the superior jab, I just want ya'll to understand its limitations, and since ya'll seem to benefit from pedagogical methods of explanation I compared it to Clouds. Now ya'll can go ahead and compare it to other jabs or you can just accept the truth and admit in your hearts that Ike is bad)
Now furthermore, you're severely overrating Ike's mobility by calling it good, as someone mentioned already: air acceleration speed matters and Ike sucks at it. Ike can move, but he can't manouvre. His mobility specs are clearly bad and you should also feel bad about thinking you could get away with calling it something else by tunnel visioning on the only attribute supporting your delusion while ignoring the larger picture.
Finally you asked me who destroys Ike. The answer is a vast majority of the characters which are of relevance beat him, and thats what matters most. It also matters fairly much that Sheik and Diddy both shut him down, and that he can't really handle any top tier other than Marcina. He's such an obscure character that one can't speak with much certainty when it comes to most of his matchups however, and so rather than dwell into the realm of poorly grounded speculation I will finish this paragraph and move on to make an important point.
I'm not an expert on Ike's matchups (very few are, none of the people participating in this discussion are afaik), nor am I an expert on his results, but I do possess some kind of ability to think logically on occasion. One such occasion is now when I'm going to point out something most of you seem to be missing by asking a question you should've asked yourselfes before you instinctively rebelled at the notion of Ike being low tier.
How much of the tiny amount of results which Ike players have are due to people not knowing how to fight him? My bet is a considerable amount. Players such as Ryo being able to get a little work done using Ike isn't strange despite Ike being low tier. He hits pretty hard, his punishes are scary, he becomes insanely powerful with rage, his normals and aerials kill and they do it hard, ergo not knowing the Ike matchup can get you killed quickly. He's the kind of character which you can't make that many mistakes against. What would be strange, would be how little his best players are able to claim in terms of results if we were actually talking about a genuine mid tier character who can heavily punish lack of matchup knowledge and which few people know how to fight. In fact, it simply doesn't compute.
If Ike is mid tier then I guess people like Ryo and San must kinda be pretty mediocre maybe even bad players. Or maybe Ike is just low tier since everything indicates that being the case, doesn't mean he can't have a few favorable matchups here and there, even against genuinely good characters. The few characters which struggle to approach him even when employing patience will struggle against him. I can imagine Luigi not having that easy a time vs Ike, just going by intuition, but don't take my word on it for intuitions are not reliable.
To summarize things: Since ya'll must've accepted the fact that Ike is bad and low tier by now lets repeat some of the more prominent reasons why in order than you don't forget and regress into falsely believing him to be mid tier:
Ike is linear, simple, predictable, clumsy, slow, surprisingly lacking in terms of damage output since his combo game almost doesnt exist outside of throw followups, and Ike is very easily juggled. If you do know Ike's options (most importantly in neutral, Ike has little in terms of options in advantage, and in disadvantage his best is to lube up to make it less painful or maybe to pray) and patiently play around them while pushing hard once you get him into disadvantage he can't really do much at all. It's just that since Ike is scary and obscure the players wise enough not to do what Ike wants them to do (press buttons carelessly) are far fewer in number than they could be. Now lets all take a moment and consider in unison that despite the fact that a wast majority do what Ike wants them to do Ike still hardly gets anything done. Now repeat the following mantra in your head thrice when you wake up, once before lunch, and twice before you go to bed: Ike is low tier.
(Sorry about that last part, I just thought I'd try something different since logical and convincing arguments don't seem to be enough for a lot of people going by the ignorance demonstrated by several people following my last wall of text about Ike being bad and the good reasons why that is so. For instance RK who keeps on repeating misinformation I dealt with already, all the while relying on comparisons which don't require scrutiny in order for one to see they don't make sense at all, hey RK Ike isn't going to have a sudden surge like some of the characters you listed did, it happened to them but it cant happen to Ike and I've friggin' explained why so stop posting and start reading)
@Routa: Disagree, but I see your points. Have you seen Cosmos in dubs? Unlike in singles where people have the time and space they need to work their way around or past Corrins disjoints by exploiting her poor mobility and lack of safe on shield moves she is hard to get at in doubles. Nair goes from really really good in singles to positively godlike in doubles. Still I dunno, maybe youre right.
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