Official 4BR Tier List V4 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

The_Bookworm · Apr 11, 2018

J0eyboi said:
You're conflating range with disjoints. Pit has very good range on many of his moves, but very little of that range is actually disjointed. Meanwhile, Roy has bad range on some moves despite his better disjoints because he holds his sword like a ****ing ****.

No argument here.

Roy doesn't need to kill off reads, but he kills much earlier with reads than with combos. Jab-Up-B doesn't kill till like 130.

Roy's disadvantage (not counting edgeguarding) is fine and arguably better than Marth's. His airspeed and fall speed get him out of juggling much faster and he has options that don't need to be spaced to be safe, meaning he cares less about not having stage than other characters. He gets comboed incredibly hard, sure, but that's not part of disadvantage. Second of all, Roy is not Marth and doesn't play like Marth. There will always be a reason to play Roy over Marth, because the two don't play alike.

No, -7 or 8 spaced is the limit, depending on the range of the move. Again, Bayo's dtilt is safe. Beyond there, it's character dependent whether or not the move is safe.

Jab to Up b can sometimes whiff due to up B's weird hitboxes, especially on smaller characters.
Roy's airspeed and fast falling status actually makes him rather easy to juggle. It doesn't harm Fox as much as Roy, because Fox has better landing options and Roy has a larger hurtbox.

Skeeter Mania · Apr 11, 2018

MercuryPenny said:
2016 is when ally was going toe-to-toe with zero and people still didn't know how to fight mario, plus le up smash maymay was circulated pretty hard back then

So you're admitting that how good characters are isn't absolute and therefore must be subjective.

MercuryPenny · Apr 11, 2018

character strength is objective, although it is variable as new strategies are developed and implemented. the problem is that human perception doesn't necessarily line up with the facts.

we can really only approximate how good a character fares right now, with their current practical metagame in mind, as well as existing results. we could be way off track from the truth but our limited human perspective is such that it's an inevitability that we will be wrong in some areas, and thus it's always worth re-investigating previous conclusions. it's no different from science, really.

The_Bookworm · Apr 11, 2018

MercuryPenny said:
character strength is objective, although it is variable as new strategies are developed and implemented. the problem is that human perception doesn't necessarily line up with the facts.

we can really only approximate how good a character fares right now, with their current practical metagame in mind, as well as existing results. we could be way off track from the truth but our limited human perspective is such that it's an inevitability that we will be wrong in some areas, and thus it's always worth re-investigating previous conclusions. it's no different from science, really.

Pretty much I feel like it. I personally feel like that this a perfect subject to be put in a separate thread though.

So we finally reached our 100th page. My time here in Smashboards started here on this thread 4 months ago, about 75 pages ago. Might as well finish off the analysis.

Doing pretty well, benefiting the title of "best character". Despite some players describing her as "broken", she doesn't have the dominance of one, especially this year so far. At the start of 2018, her results (as shown from Das Koopa's chart) has gone down, with Salem not performing as potent as before. Even with Tweek picking her over Cloud and (alongside Mistake) getting better results, she lacks any tournament wins on majors (and even on B and C Tier events, she struggles to get victories, with Tweek (and Shu on a qualifier) being the only one getting any wins on those events). Although her results at higher level play has increased as a result of Salem and Captain Zack still getting good results, and Tweek's and Mistake's newfound success, Bayonetta's dominance at lower play has gone down (which dropped even more after BSD and RRS's Bayo videos), especially if those players are stacked up at majors, resulting in a large gap between high level Bayo players (Tweek, Mistake, Salem, Zack, and Lima) and lower level Bayo players (although tyroy and Chag can be an exception). In the end, only the most intelligent and skilled Bayo players will thrive in the current metagame, but until she gets consistent tournament wins and top 8 dominance, her placement can be in a little bit of a debate. However, she is well established as the best.

Not doing as well as before. With some events banning Cloud in doubles, Cloud players (despite still obtaining strong results in regional and local play, often higher than Bayo's and Sheik's) has less practice with the character, and his popularity decreased. Still mostly affects majors, as MKLeo and Tweek is starting to prefer Bayo over Cloud (with Tweek replacing Cloud altogether for certain matchups alongside DK), and komorikiri not travelling to the US as much as usual. This lack of interest with Cloud is also appointed with infamous top player opinions, with some top players claiming that Cloud's recovery is too exploitable for safe play at high level. I feel like MKLeo is especially getting that feeling. At this point, despite his enormous strengths, Cloud's placement is volatile, especially competing with Sheik and Diddy.

Similarly to Ness, Diddy is a lucky recipient of not falling apart when he lost his best player. His strengths and ever large playerbase allowed to obtain great results, sometimes higher than of Bayo and Cloud (such as Zinoto's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11). However, he struggles to enter top 4 at majors ever since ZeRo's hiatus (with one top 8 appearance being MVD at Genesis 5), so like Cloud, his placement is volatile.

Sheik seems to have some positive light this year. Similarly to 2017 Sheik, she lacks any tournament wins at majors. However, her consistent top 8 appearances only got better, and her performances on other levels of play got notably stronger as well. VoiD still gets good results and Mr. R continues his dominance at Europe, but his other players at lower level play (specifically sinnyboo242's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11 and Koolaid's upset on Salem) is establishing consistent success at regionals and locals. However, I feel like the verdict on whether Sheik will stay in place or rise in the tier list is ultimately determined in 2GG: Hyrule Saga.

Still getting strong results, in a dominant fashion. Possessing the most dominant matchup chart in the game, this character goes off strong. Despite being a little rarer than other top tier characters (with Kirihara showing up less in tournaments even in Japan) and herself having a little issues with a few of the other top ranked characters, her results is dominant as Dabuz is winning tournaments at a major and regional level, with other Rosa players such as falln getting commendable results as well. Like Sheik, whether she will rise in future tier lists or remain ranked 5th is a story of time.

Both of these flashy characters are going very strong this year with consistant strong success. While Fox has a larger representation, ZSS has greater peaks (thanks to Nairo, Marss, and Choco). I see them remaining here, but both are well established characters.

Not doing as good as before. His popularity and peaks are currently overshadowed by the characters above him. KEN hasn't traveled to the US ever since 2017 is over (with his dominance at Japan being slightly inconsistent), while both Manny and 6wx are in semi-active states. Despite his representation and results still remaining strong on other levels of play, it is kinda hard to predict the future of this character.

Despite not achieving the dominance of 2016 and early 2017, he still gets commendable results benefiting a top tier character. Despite not getting the peaks of Mewtwo, his representation and consistency are both higher than him. Ally and ANTi both gets consistent top 16 placings at majors, while Zenyou and the newly established Dark Wizzy slams down their forward air fists at regional and locals. Despite continuing negative views of this character (similar to Ness), his results makes his future placement debatable.

WaDi makes this character look top 5. Mewtwo is an even stronger combo and kill game than Fox, but with the cost of being even more frail. He competes with Mario for the 9th spot as WaDi gets consistent top 8 showings at majors, with Mewtwo's other players getting good results outside of that. 2018 is going to be volatile for this character as it is unknown if he will truly increase or stay at a very respectable 10th.

Marth is a rarer character than the other top tier characters, as he requires extra smart plays with great effect. MKLeo is the figurehead of this character, especially now as he is reluctant to use Cloud. The result is Marth getting more consistent peaks than other top tier character except for Rosalina and ZSS. However, his lack of popularity in other levels of play may come back to haunt him as he competes with Ryu and Corrin for the 11th spot.

A lot of negative views for this strong character. However, he has a quite a large playerbase despite not being as common as top tier characters. Darkshad gets consistent high placings at majors (getting 9th at Frostbite), Locus's results have improved from his sad performance at the latter half of 2017 (although this may come from picking up Bayonetta as a co-main / secondary), and other players improved successes such as Venom and Brosinex has further adds to this. As a result of both this and his negative views, his placement is volatile, especially if Trela participates in a major.

Doing very well. I entered Smashboards about four months ago, I can predict everyone's reaction to when Corrin is ranked 13th in the 3rd official tier list. However, Cosmos would prove that Corrin deserves that placement by scoring very high on tournaments. Fortunately for Corrin, he pushed this success to 2018 as well, consistently placing top 10 in each major he participates. Other Corrin players are playing very commendably in other areas of play as well. Other his representation is lower than other top/high tier characters, he competes with Marth and Ryu in terms of tier placement, and him being either at the top of high tier or the bottom of top tier is a wide topic of debate.

Solo Lucina is kinda rare for a character in her tier. She has more counterpick value than Marth, as she has a lower learning curve. As a result, she is seen as a very flexible counterpick character at high level play due to her similarities to Marth. Mr. E, among other Lucina mains, brings commandable results with this character to affirm her high tier placement. Although top players are using her less often in tournament play as a secondary so far in 2018, Mr. E continues to bring good results with the character, but not as good as the top 13. The only way she can be top tier with these results is if players think she is THAT similar to Marth (although not). Nevertheless, this tier position seems accurate and she keeps a close gap to her stronger ancestor.

This tier placement definitely brought debates thanks to AC's and MKLeo's success with MK as 2017 closes out. However, Pikachu seems to prove more and more that he deserves this 15th placement this year. Pikachu is a rare character in competitive play (which may lead to matchup inexperience) for being a high tier character, but ESAM brings out the thunder stronger this year, with a 7th placement on Genesis 5 and 3rd placement on EGLX 2018, with players like Rideae and Captain L giving out more consistent results regionally, and a few notable results in majors like Captain L's 13th placement on SML: Battle for Vegas. With this tier placement in tact, it is unknown if Pikachu will rise any further in the tier list due to still remaining rare.

MK's end of 2017 success didn't fully translate in 2018. MKLeo uses MK in more rarer occasions. Fortunately, he is still popular in a regional level, and still getting commendable results in a national level, with AC's 9th placement in EVO Japan being a good example. Despite MK's success and popularity, he competes with Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi for this spot, as they are rarer than him, yet obtains greater peaks that him in recent times. Time will tell.

Lucario is not doing too good backing up his 17th placement in 2018. Although he still gets a few good showings, such as Tsu- at Niconico Tokaigi 2018, he doesn't have too big of an impact in 2018 as he did in 2017 (aka Frostbite and West Side). His inconsistent playstyle, combined with the increased success of Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi makes things look bleak for him so far.

When we think of Luigi's successes, we think of Elegant in the end of 2017. In 2018, while Elegant continues to perform to (for the most part) dominate in regionals and locals, he struggles to achieve the peaks and wins in 2018 so far. While the increased successes of other Luigi players such Mr. ConCon and Poke in regionals does not make this a huge deal, the more consistent peaks and successes of Captain Falcon and Peach makes Luigi placing volatile. Nevertheless, his top 20 placement is secure for the time being.

Falcon is going off strong this year. Although he is a popular character (which puts emphasis on him being a high tier character), his results are nothing short of excellent. Fatality, although he struggles to make his Civil War impact, is performing amazing, getting consistent top 10 placements in tournaments for a high tier character. Due to that, things are looking bright for this character which may cause an increase in the future.

Peach, despite not being too common at all, is performing very well this year. This is especially credited to Samsora, for his high placements in both major and regional tournaments, and winning against opponents that Peach normally struggles with on paper. Other Peach players, especially in Japan, are pulling off good results for the character as well in a regional and sometimes even in major events (like MuteAce getting 25th at Frostbite). This combined with Lucario and Luigi lacking the peaks that she has makes this look only at her favor.

Olimar is somewhat struggling in comparison to 2017, but this is mainly thanks to Shuton's lack of attendance in US events. While Olimar still has a good playerbase getting results in regionals, those results specifically are not as strong as characters ranked below him such as Toon Link and Ness. With Shuton attending Switchfest and still getting good results in Japan, this may bring some positive gifts to Olimar, but until then, he is struggling off right now.

Both of these characters are not doing well, especially in comparison to 2017. Bowser's results and attendance, although respectable, have gone down. Nairo barely, if not at all, uses Bowser anymore at tournament play, while those who main him have continued to bring only average results for the character. DK's solo results have gone down. His big issues with his matchup spread (which also applies to Bowser) are getting more abused in the current meta which led to his decrease in results, which includes his solo results. Recently, however, HIKARU managed to win Sumabato 24 and Konga got 17th at SML: Battle for Vegas may show that DK's flame hasn't been put out yet, but the increased results of Toon Link, Ness, Mega Man, and Greninja may haunt him as he struggles to get his glory back.

Toon Link is looking pretty well lately. His strong point is his results in Japan, as Sigma and Ri-ma brings out consistently good results in Japan, which includes both of them getting 9th at EVO Japan. Outside of Japan, he obtains above average placings at tournaments, which is more prevalent in regionals thanks to 3xA and Biddy in USA, and Hyuga in Mexico. The ultimate test for Toon Link, however, is Hyrule Saga.

An unfortunate victim of losing a top player crashing and burning the character, which is combined with DLC introducing characters that dealt with him easier. Despite achieving no where near the consistent strong results he once had, Villager's other players still get above average results with the character, especially at a regional level, thanks to SS, Panda Bair, and Aardvark. With a power shift in the C tier itself happening as a result of changes in 2018, it is unknown how it will affect Villager's placing.

Greninja already established itself as a solid character. His most solid results come from Europe, as IStudying continues to obtain solid results there, while other Greninja players such as Stroder and Some (in their respective regions) bring upon above average results. Similar to Villager, the power shift in the C Tier may make his future tier placement unpredictable, but he these results may cause a rise in the future.

Mega Man is a tricky character to place where he is in the current metagame. In one hand, we have Kameme getting 3rd at EVO Japan mostly using him, while getting consistent good results at Japan, but in the other hand, his popularity has gone down. While his results remain above average, it is tricky to place where he is due to these factors. It is mainly a factor of waiting (especially with Kameme participating in Switchfest) to see his true place in the meta.

Ness continues to defy the negative opinions laid upon him (which is the main reason behind his drop to 28th), and place consistent above average results. The main contributors to this are Gackt, BestNess, taranito, and S1 earning notable results in their regions and even in some major tournaments such as BestNess getting 25th at Genesis 5, S1 placing 5th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taranito placing 17th at EVO Japan, and Gackt placing 2nd at Frostbite Ursa Major 2, with numerous notable names taken off. This, combined with other Ness player's (such as Shaky and Awestin) great consistent regional results, the fall of Lucas opinion, and FOW's return to the scene (again lol) allowed Ness's overall opinion to rise, which will most likely see a rise in placement in the future.

Not doing very good at all, especially being placed this high. Despite numerous characters in D tier getting notably better results than him, public opinion of him is very persistent thanks to Taiheita's "potential" to do extremely well if traveled to USA (despite inconsistent results at the latter half of 2017) and "potential" as a character, resulting in him rising to 29th. However, one of the main factors behind Lucas's "potential", Taiheita, retired in competitive play in 2018's start, which dropped off Lucas pretty hard to only getting respectable results in certain regions and especially in local play, since he is the figurehead of Lucas's results. Unless public opinion is still persistent (which is like Yoshi's, but on steroids in terms of durability lol), he is very likely to drop off the record.

His current condition in 2018 is pretty much identical to 2017. Although Raito rarely left to USA at all (though getting 17th at Genesis), his results in Japan has slightly increased, while other Duck Hunt players like Ozone still getting decent results in tournaments, especially at a regional level (with Tamushika and Brood getting 17th and 25th at Genesis, respectively). With Bowser and Lucas noticeably dropping in quality, it is likely that Duck Hunt will slightly increase if these results persist, although him rising to high tier seems very unlikely due to his glaring weaknesses and very meh representation.

Although a Link will never get the "Civil War" run, he is still doing fairly well to hold his position. While his others players, such as Scizor and the numerous European players he have, gets average to slightly below average results. However, T continues to push the character to show that he deserves this placement, obtaining 9th at EVO Japan and scoring high placements in Umebura and Rikabura tournaments. Although the large drop in Bowser's and Lucas's quality seems to make it likely for him to rise, the ultimate test for him is Hyrule Saga.

Not looking very good for them. As the meta advances, it is revealed that his strengths from Brawl didn't translate as well as expected. He is currently outclassed by Mario (also easy to play, but has better KO potential) and Marth (better disjoint), which results in them being not very popular. Despite Earth dual-maining him with Corrin, he still obtains some good results for him, while other Pit players such as Kiraflax, Chompy, and Kswz gets some solid results in a regional level. However, with R.O.B, Samus, Shulk, and even Yoshi, Wario, Lucas, and Ike getting more consistent success and larger playerbases at a regional level, things look bleak for him. Nevertheless, the continued efforts of his mains and his strengths will establish them as solid mid tier characters in spite of his decreased success.

For those who are wondering, the reason why Dark Pit's results and representation are worse than Pit's is because Japan (the home world for Pit results) views Dark Pit as a significantly inferior character to Pit due to poorer arrow control. It is the reason why Dark Pit is ranked three tiers lower than Pit in the second official tier list, although the tier system did automatically assigned them as the same character ever since then.

Probably the most average character in the whole game, with average representation and results. This stimuli continued into 2018, as Raptor and various other Yoshi mains continue this trend, with their most notable appearances being in regionals, although they usually take top either 25th or 33rd in majors. Although he doesn't enjoy the increased success of R.O.B., Shulk, and Samus, he is also benefits from Lucas and the Pits falling off the meta as well. This may overall result in this tier placement of 34th being very accurate for him, which is very respectable considering the negative views of some players (particularly top players).

While Shulk somewhat has fallen off in majors in 2018, in comparison to him getting some notable success such as getting 33rd in Civil War and 17th in Frame Perfect Series 2 in 2017, he has nevertheless has seen somewhat better success in regionals. This mainly thanks to Kome in Japan, getting notable results such as 4th at Sumabato 23, 5th at Umebura 31, and 25th at EVO Japan. Nicko, despite his "retirement" and co-maining him with Marth, gets consistent success in a local level, in addition of getting 5th at Kawaii Kon 2018. As a result, Shulk's placement is volatile: whether he slightly increases as a result of his notable results in regionals, or staying the same placement due to lacking consistent notable placings in majors in 2018.

Doing pretty well. Despite negative views stacked up (no pun attended) against him, he managed to found some newfound success in 2018 to make up his somewhat stagnate stance in the second half of 2017. This is mainly thanks to SaSSy's (mainly at Frostbite and No Fun Allowed) and WaDi's performance with the character, in addition of other R.O.B. players getting better regional and local success since then, winning against some matchups considered too unfathomable for R.O.B. "to be good" (most notably Bayonetta). This may result in an increase in tier ranking if such performances keep up, especially with a few characters above him, such as Lucas and Pit, stagnating in comparison to him.

Not doing so good. This is due to him stagnating in comparison to other mid tier characters. This is due to his unpopularity, negative views, and rather high learning curve. Although his strengths, a few notable placings (such as Skorpio's 9th placing at Midwest Mayhem 11), and some notable players (such as Ke-ya, Dath, Athena, and Reflet) keep him from falling to low tier, his stagnation in comparison to the rest of the characters in D Tier (plus Ike and Wario) makes things look bleak for him.

Samus is in a really weird spot. Although she doesn't have a lot of success in majors (like Shulk), her results in regionals and especially locals have been very respectable (like Shulk again). She is one of the only mid tier characters (besides Shulk and Lucas) to have positive views for her future, which combined with obtaining notable success (as mentioned before), makes things look bright for her. However, at the same time, she doesn't have a lot of success in majors, which may come back to haunt her. All we can do is to wait and see at this point.

Game and Watch is at the weirdest spot yet. He gets a single very significant result for the year, then runs off to get only respectable results in a local level (with Mexico being an exception, as he gets notable regional results there). This "single placement" syndrome happened again, as Maister (a Mexican player) gets 13th at Genesis 5, winning against Pink Fresh, Fatality, and Mistake, and then he is back to same position. This syndrome could be the result of matchup inexperience, due to him being a rare sight in competitive play for a non-low tier character. Some players do believe that he is underrated due to his theoretical matchup chart. In the end, his placement is somewhat accurate, although he is harmed by the more consistent success and representation of Ike and Wario.

In a similar vein to Ness, he is a heavily picked on character (by especially the top players, unsurprisingly) despite his success not reflecting that. His stagnation in 2017 was broken in the second half of 2017 with San and Ryo getting very respectable results in a regional level (with San even getting 4th at GOML 2017). Despite this, his negative views led him to be dropped to 40th with some players even claiming that he is low tier (with some tournaments now allowing him in low tier side events) and worse than Roy. In 2018, however, his regional success continues with added support of Rango, SM, and Soan. This is further pushed with Ryo getting 25th at Genesis 5, and SM getting 33rd in both Genesis and Battle for Vegas. The combination of getting more consistent showings and better results than Pit, Robin, Game & Watch, and arguably Lucas, alongside the numerous negative views and bias against him, makes his future placement volatile, but he can definitely rise higher.

Despite him being slightly rare, especially in comparison to other mid tier characters, he is seen with notable successes this year. When you think of Wario's success, the first thing you think about is Glutonny. He continues to obtain consistent commending results in Europe (recently winning a decently stacked tournament), alongside getting 9th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taking a set off of Darkshad. The peaks presented are higher than some of the upper mid tier characters, impressive for a character that some players consider not good at all. Other notable players to speak of is Waymas and Fluzi (Reflex is semi-active). However, his playerbase is still relatively small, and his glaring weakness of relying on a bait and punish style continue to hold him back from placing higher or more consistent. With his strong results from Glutonny and negative views from many players (which is the main force behind his drop to 41st), his future placement is volatile, but like Ike, he could definitely be higher.

Similarly to Yoshi, his current representation and results accurately reflect his current placement. While he receives a few notable successes in regionals mainly thanks to Captain Levi and Hyper Kirby, and komorikiri placing high with solo Roy in Japan locals, he lacks any notable appearances in majors. His main appearances in the meta mainly revolve around locals, in which he performs best. However, despite this, his performance is somewhat laughable in comparison to the "potential" many players put on him. There is debate on whether he (alongside Charizard, Little Mac, and Palutena) should be considered an upper low or lower mid tier character.

Getting some notable appearances this year. Sharpyzard notably achieved getting 33rd in Genesis 5. Charizard's main appearance is regionals, especially at Europe, with Fire, Virum, and Sharpyzard getting some decent placings at European regionals and especially locals. Similarly to Roy, locals is where it shines due to possessing more strengths than the characters in F and G tier (except for maybe Pac Man). As his success in 2017 would continue into 2018, it makes it's tier placement accurate, although it's results (especially at a major level) is noticeably worse than most characters ranked above him. As a result, him being upper low tier or lower mid tier is a topic of debate.

Despite numerous negative views on the characters (which is most notable from ZeRo), he obtains a dedicated playerbase with numerous regional and local results to speak of. In 2018, this continued. The notable players that continued this is pu55yking, Vash (who got 13th in 2GG: Last Chance Qualifier and 33rd in Battle for Vegas), Sol, Wonderbread, Lazyboredom, and Elvis. The Japanese Mac player bt.yamato notably obtained 7th in Sumabato 24 recently. However, with his glaring weaknesses and inferior results in comparison characters ranked above Roy makes it debatable whether he should be in the upper low tier or lower mid tier.

Doing slightly worse than before. This year, her mains are noticeably underperforming / not as active as before (examples include her best player, TLTC, getting 49th at Genesis and 129th at Frostbite). This is combined with some players noted her strengths not being as potent as previously deemed, as well as her noticeable weaknesses. While some players such as Nairo continue to argue in support of her, Palutena being lower mid tier seems rather unlikely, especially with Pac Man and Bowser Jr. recently outperforming her.

Doing pretty well, which is mainly thanks to Sinji, getting placements like 17th at Genesis 5 as well as consistent success in regionals (such as 13th at Collision XV). Other Pac Man players make good placements as well, although it mainly at a local level. However, his glaring weaknesses prevent him from getting any more consistent results, especially at higher levels of play. Opinions on him is rather mixed. While some players go as far to say that he is at the lower portion of mid tier as a result of Sinji's successes, others, such as ESAM and Mr. R, view him as a poor character that should be ranked even lower. As a result, while he could be ranked higher in the future, him getting out of low tier seems very unlikely.

Not doing too good. Although he somewhat has backed up his placing thanks to the efforts for those who main him, those successes are mainly at a local level. He is very scarce at a major and even regional level, and those who participate in those tournaments (particularly at a major level) generally don't place well. It doesn't help that one: his best player AC now only uses him as a secondary / sandbagging character, now pretty much just using a more viable character in Meta Knight, and two: Bowser Jr. this year started to outperform in almost every level of play. Although he isn't as bad as characters like Dr. Mario, Kirby, or Wii Fit thanks to his niche matchups against zoning characters, as well as the three's inconsistent results and nearly abysmal representation, things look pretty bleak for him.

Doing notably better than before, despite still being mediocre. He got increased results in a regional and local level thanks to the efforts of Blanc (who is widely considered the best Jr. player in the world), Taternator (who gets consistent high placing in MSM's, defeating players like K9, Scizor, and numerous games off of Elegant), and Hatsuyuki (who gets decent results in Karisuma tournaments). This is most highlighted by Taternator getting 25th at Battle for Vegas. However, these results are not good enough to prove that he is a lower mid tier character, while some players such as ZeRo rank him even lower and have a negative perception of him. His placement is volatile as a result, although he has a good chance of slightly rising in the future due to Palutena's and Falco's declining representation, results, and perception.

Similarly to Falco, these two characters have their supporters, but both are performing very badly. Both Dr. Mario and Kirby have similar strengths and weaknesses: having a decent combo game and a handful of surprisingly strong KO moves, but they both suffer from an very poor approach thanks to their minimal range and mobility, and poor endurance (Kirby due to his light weight and exploitable recovery, and Dr. Mario due to his abysmal recovery). For Dr. Mario, his representation is among the worse in the game, with the only active notable player to speak of his B7Games (who only gets respectable results in a local level). For Kirby, after Komota's performance in Frostbite 2017, the character now only gets his best results in a local level, being very sparse as well. Unfortunately for both of them, this trend continued into 2018, which looks even worse for both of them as Wii Fit Trainer at least gets splashes of results thanks to John Numbers.

Wii Fit Trainer is pretty much the same as last year: despite the good showings from John Numbers, both her representation and results outside of him is very minimal. However, the main reason behind being ranked lower than Dr. Mario and Kirby, despite those two characters having a similar situation but having no player giving off respectable results in a regional level and consistently powerful results local level, Japan views Wii Fit as one of the worse characters in the game despite having RIN in their region. However, with the same pattern of these three characters continuing into 2018, Wii Fit may potentially rise above the two in the future.

It is really hard to put a finger on where Dedede is in the bottom 5. In one hand, Whiteout scores an upset against WaDi, with Zaki getting 9th at Sumabato 24 (although he is known to perform decently in Sumabato tournaments). In the other hand, he still possess less representation and consistent results than fellow super heavyweight Ganondorf. He also has mixed opinions among the players, some thinking that he is underrated, while others think he is a candidate for the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, time will tell on how he will perform.

Although Ganon lacks the large splashes of results (Gungnir's 17th placement in Umebura Japan Major and Adom's 9th placement at Syndicate 2017) his 2017 self has (although this is mainly contributed to the year still remaining young), his 2018 self still gets some consistent results in a local and sometimes even in regional levels. His abnormally high representation is mostly thanks to his status as a "disrespect" and stylish character. Opinions on Ganon are rather mixed. Some players (such as ESAM and Dabuz) view Ganon as a completely abysmal (or joke) character and shouldn't be taken seriously, while others are more optimistic about the character due to his reps and results. His ultimate test is Hyrule Saga: if one places even 33rd there, this would boost the character.

Doing somewhat well for her tier placment. This is mostly thanks to ven (and sometimes tyroy when he plays her in locals), getting some alright results in a local level, despite having minimal representation. ven, after drowning in pools (129th) in both Genesis and Frostbite, made a nice showing of placing 25th at Battle for Vegas: the highest she has ever placed. However, her placement is extremely volatile due to numerous factors: one, having mixed perception from players, two: comparing her results to Ganon and Dedede is rather difficult, three: the possibility of Mii's being included in the next list, and finally: how she would do in Hyrule Saga. Time and patience is required for this one.

Although there are some notable players in it's credit, Jigglypuff is performing not very well at all (which isn't surprising considering that it is a three time worse character). This trend is unlikely going to change in the future, as most of her players (despite still only getting notable local results) are region locked, and one of it's best players in the US, LeeT, mainly plays Mii Brawler now. While there are a few supporters for the character, it is almost unanimously considered one of the worse in the game, although having some notable local results in it's credit makes it compete with Mii Swordfighter and Mii Brawler for the spot of the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, the Mii's potential inclusion of a future tier list may aid it in the end, but overall... yeah it is pretty bad character.

Despite some notoriety (such as AEMehr's 13th placement at IBP Masters Showdown), it's lack of representation makes it unranked in the tier list. It, at this point, is considered the unanimous best Mii Fighter, getting some respectable results at a local level thanks to Rom and AEMehr. This a static position that it retains in 2018: only getting notoriety in locals. If it does return in a future tier list, it's placement is volatile, as it is seen as ideally being placed around Ganon's, Dedede's, and Zelda's position, while their results are hard to compare.

Both of them completely suck. Their abysmal representation is further supported by very poor results. As a result, prior to their exclusion from the tier list, they are seen as candidates for the absolute worse character. However, while their strengths are decently compared, the Brawler's results are worse than of the Swordfighter (as well as Jigglypuff), which somewhat continued into 2018. However, out of the Brawler, the Swordfighter, and Jigglypuff, the Brawler has the most vocal support. Notably, Keitaro went as far as to co-main the character to (futility) prove it's worth himself. Nevertheless, they are not good characters at all, which a lot of people often forget they exist.

And that is it. Got any thoughts? Maybe some predictions on Ganon's, Dedede's, Zelda's, and Gunner's placement? Should this be a completely separate thread?

TheWill44 · Apr 11, 2018

The_Bookworm said:
Pretty much I feel like it. I personally feel like that this a perfect subject to be put in a separate thread though.

So we finally reached our 100th page. My time here in Smashboards started here on this thread 4 months ago, about 75 pages ago. Might as well finish off the analysis.

Doing pretty well, benefiting the title of "best character". Despite some players describing her as "broken", she doesn't have the dominance of one, especially this year so far. At the start of 2018, her results (as shown from Das Koopa's chart) has gone down, with Salem not performing as potent as before. Even with Tweek picking her over Cloud and (alongside Mistake) getting better results, she lacks any tournament wins on majors (and even on B and C Tier events, she struggles to get victories, with Tweek (and Shu on a qualifier) being the only one getting any wins on those events). Although her results at higher level play has increased as a result of Salem and Captain Zack still getting good results, and Tweek's and Mistake's newfound success, Bayonetta's dominance at lower play has gone down (which dropped even more after BSD and RRS's Bayo videos), especially if those players are stacked up at majors, resulting in a large gap between high level Bayo players (Tweek, Mistake, Salem, Zack, and Lima) and lower level Bayo players (although tyroy and Chag can be an exception). In the end, only the most intelligent and skilled Bayo players will thrive in the current metagame, but until she gets consistent tournament wins and top 8 dominance, her placement can be in a little bit of a debate. However, she is well established as the best.

Not doing as well as before. With some events banning Cloud in doubles, Cloud players (despite still obtaining strong results in regional and local play, often higher than Bayo's and Sheik's) has less practice with the character, and his popularity decreased. Still mostly affects majors, as MKLeo and Tweek is starting to prefer Bayo over Cloud (with Tweek replacing Cloud altogether for certain matchups alongside DK), and komorikiri not travelling to the US as much as usual. This lack of interest with Cloud is also appointed with infamous top player opinions, with some top players claiming that Cloud's recovery is too exploitable for safe play at high level. I feel like MKLeo is especially getting that feeling. At this point, despite his enormous strengths, Cloud's placement is volatile, especially competing with Sheik and Diddy.

Similarly to Ness, Diddy is a lucky recipient of not falling apart when he lost his best player. His strengths and ever large playerbase allowed to obtain great results, sometimes higher than of Bayo and Cloud (such as Zinoto's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11). However, he struggles to enter top 4 at majors ever since ZeRo's hiatus (with one top 8 appearance being MVD at Genesis 5), so like Cloud, his placement is volatile.

Sheik seems to have some positive light this year. Similarly to 2017 Sheik, she lacks any tournament wins at majors. However, her consistent top 8 appearances only got better, and her performances on other levels of play got notably stronger as well. VoiD still gets good results and Mr. R continues his dominance at Europe, but his other players at lower level play (specifically sinnyboo242's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11 and Koolaid's upset on Salem) is establishing consistent success at regionals and locals. However, I feel like the verdict on whether Sheik will stay in place or rise in the tier list is ultimately determined in 2GG: Hyrule Saga.
Still getting strong results, in a dominant fashion. Possessing the most dominant matchup chart in the game, this character goes off strong. Despite being a little rarer than other top tier characters (with Kirihara showing up less in tournaments even in Japan) and herself having a little issues with a few of the other top ranked characters, her results is dominant as Dabuz is winning tournaments at a major and regional level, with other Rosa players such as falln getting commendable results as well. Like Sheik, whether she will rise in future tier lists or remain ranked 5th is a story of time.

Both of these flashy characters are going very strong this year with consistant strong success. While Fox has a larger representation, ZSS has greater peaks (thanks to Nairo, Marss, and Choco). I see them remaining here, but both are well established characters.

Not doing as good as before. His popularity and peaks are currently overshadowed by the characters above him. KEN hasn't traveled to the US ever since 2017 is over (with his dominance at Japan being slightly inconsistent), while both Manny and 6wx are in semi-active states. Despite his representation and results still remaining strong on other levels of play, it is kinda hard to predict the future of this character.

Despite not achieving the dominance of 2016 and early 2017, he still gets commendable results benefiting a top tier character. Despite not getting the peaks of Mewtwo, his representation and consistency are both higher than him. Ally and ANTi both gets consistent top 16 placings at majors, while Zenyou and the newly established Dark Wizzy slams down their forward air fists at regional and locals. Despite continuing negative views of this character (similar to Ness), his results makes his future placement debatable.
WaDi makes this character look top 5. Mewtwo is an even stronger combo and kill game than Fox, but with the cost of being even more frail. He competes with Mario for the 9th spot as WaDi gets consistent top 8 showings at majors, with Mewtwo's other players getting good results outside of that. 2018 is going to be volatile for this character as it is unknown if he will truly increase or stay at a very respectable 10th.

Marth is a rarer character than the other top tier characters, as he requires extra smart plays with great effect. MKLeo is the figurehead of this character, especially now as he is reluctant to use Cloud. The result is Marth getting more consistent peaks than other top tier character except for Rosalina and ZSS. However, his lack of popularity in other levels of play may come back to haunt him as he competes with Ryu and Corrin for the 11th spot.

A lot of negative views for this strong character. However, he has a quite a large playerbase despite not being as common as top tier characters. Darkshad gets consistent high placings at majors (getting 9th at Frostbite), Locus's results have improved from his sad performance at the latter half of 2017 (although this may come from picking up Bayonetta as a co-main / secondary), and other players improved successes such as Venom and Brosinex has further adds to this. As a result of both this and his negative views, his placement is volatile, especially if Trela participates in a major.

Doing very well. I entered Smashboards about four months ago, I can predict everyone's reaction to when Corrin is ranked 13th in the 3rd official tier list. However, Cosmos would prove that Corrin deserves that placement by scoring very high on tournaments. Fortunately for Corrin, he pushed this success to 2018 as well, consistently placing top 10 in each major he participates. Other Corrin players are playing very commendably in other areas of play as well. Other his representation is lower than other top/high tier characters, he competes with Marth and Ryu in terms of tier placement, and him being either at the top of high tier or the bottom of top tier is a wide topic of debate.

Solo Lucina is kinda rare for a character in her tier. She has more counterpick value than Marth, as she has a lower learning curve. As a result, she is seen as a very flexible counterpick character at high level play due to her similarities to Marth. Mr. E, among other Lucina mains, brings commandable results with this character to affirm her high tier placement. Although top players are using her less often in tournament play as a secondary so far in 2018, Mr. E continues to bring good results with the character, but not as good as the top 13. The only way she can be top tier with these results is if players think she is THAT similar to Marth (although not). Nevertheless, this tier position seems accurate and she keeps a close gap to her stronger ancestor.
This tier placement definitely brought debates thanks to AC's and MKLeo's success with MK as 2017 closes out. However, Pikachu seems to prove more and more that he deserves this 15th placement this year. Pikachu is a rare character in competitive play (which may lead to matchup inexperience) for being a high tier character, but ESAM brings out the thunder stronger this year, with a 7th placement on Genesis 5 and 3rd placement on EGLX 2018, with players like Rideae and Captain L giving out more consistent results regionally, and a few notable results in majors like Captain L's 13th placement on SML: Battle for Vegas. With this tier placement in tact, it is unknown if Pikachu will rise any further in the tier list due to still remaining rare.

MK's end of 2017 success didn't fully translate in 2018. MKLeo uses MK in more rarer occasions. Fortunately, he is still popular in a regional level, and still getting commendable results in a national level, with AC's 9th placement in EVO Japan being a good example. Despite MK's success and popularity, he competes with Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi for this spot, as they are rarer than him, yet obtains greater peaks that him in recent times. Time will tell.

Lucario is not doing too good backing up his 17th placement in 2018. Although he still gets a few good showings, such as Tsu- at Niconico Tokaigi 2018, he doesn't have too big of an impact in 2018 as he did in 2017 (aka Frostbite and West Side). His inconsistent playstyle, combined with the increased success of Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi makes things look bleak for him so far.

When we think of Luigi's successes, we think of Elegant in the end of 2017. In 2018, while Elegant continues to perform to (for the most part) dominate in regionals and locals, he struggles to achieve the peaks and wins in 2018 so far. While the increased successes of other Luigi players such Mr. ConCon and Poke in regionals does not make this a huge deal, the more consistent peaks and successes of Captain Falcon and Peach makes Luigi placing volatile. Nevertheless, his top 20 placement is secure for the time being.

Falcon is going off strong this year. Although he is a popular character (which puts emphasis on him being a high tier character), his results are nothing short of excellent. Fatality, although he struggles to make his Civil War impact, is performing amazing, getting consistent top 10 placements in tournaments for a high tier character. Due to that, things are looking bright for this character which may cause an increase in the future.
Peach, despite not being too common at all, is performing very well this year. This is especially credited to Samsora, for his high placements in both major and regional tournaments, and winning against opponents that Peach normally struggles with on paper. Other Peach players, especially in Japan, are pulling off good results for the character as well in a regional and sometimes even in major events (like MuteAce getting 25th at Frostbite). This combined with Lucario and Luigi lacking the peaks that she has makes this look only at her favor.

Olimar is somewhat struggling in comparison to 2017, but this is mainly thanks to Shuton's lack of attendance in US events. While Olimar still has a good playerbase getting results in regionals, those results specifically are not as strong as characters ranked below him such as Toon Link and Ness. With Shuton attending Switchfest and still getting good results in Japan, this may bring some positive gifts to Olimar, but until then, he is struggling off right now.

Both of these characters are not doing well, especially in comparison to 2017. Bowser's results and attendance, although respectable, have gone down. Nairo barely, if not at all, uses Bowser anymore at tournament play, while those who main him have continued to bring only average results for the character. DK's solo results have gone down. His big issues with his matchup spread (which also applies to Bowser) are getting more abused in the current meta which led to his decrease in results, which includes his solo results. Recently, however, HIKARU managed to win Sumabato 24 and Konga got 17th at SML: Battle for Vegas may show that DK's flame hasn't been put out yet, but the increased results of Toon Link, Ness, Mega Man, and Greninja may haunt him as he struggles to get his glory back.

Toon Link is looking pretty well lately. His strong point is his results in Japan, as Sigma and Ri-ma brings out consistently good results in Japan, which includes both of them getting 9th at EVO Japan. Outside of Japan, he obtains above average placings at tournaments, which is more prevalent in regionals thanks to 3xA and Biddy in USA, and Hyuga in Mexico. The ultimate test for Toon Link, however, is Hyrule Saga.
An unfortunate victim of losing a top player crashing and burning the character, which is combined with DLC introducing characters that dealt with him easier. Despite achieving no where near the consistent strong results he once had, Villager's other players still get above average results with the character, especially at a regional level, thanks to SS, Panda Bair, and Aardvark. With a power shift in the C tier itself happening as a result of changes in 2018, it is unknown how it will affect Villager's placing.

Greninja already established itself as a solid character. His most solid results come from Europe, as IStudying continues to obtain solid results there, while other Greninja players such as Stroder and Some (in their respective regions) bring upon above average results. Similar to Villager, the power shift in the C Tier may make his future tier placement unpredictable, but he these results may cause a rise in the future.

Mega Man is a tricky character to place where he is in the current metagame. In one hand, we have Kameme getting 3rd at EVO Japan mostly using him, while getting consistent good results at Japan, but in the other hand, his popularity has gone down. While his results remain above average, it is tricky to place where he is due to these factors. It is mainly a factor of waiting (especially with Kameme participating in Switchfest) to see his true place in the meta.

Ness continues to defy the negative opinions laid upon him (which is the main reason behind his drop to 28th), and place consistent above average results. The main contributors to this are Gackt, BestNess, taranito, and S1 earning notable results in their regions and even in some major tournaments such as BestNess getting 25th at Genesis 5, S1 placing 5th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taranito placing 17th at EVO Japan, and Gackt placing 2nd at Frostbite Ursa Major 2, with numerous notable names taken off. This, combined with other Ness player's (such as Shaky and Awestin) great consistent regional results, the fall of Lucas opinion, and FOW's return to the scene (again lol) allowed Ness's overall opinion to rise, which will most likely see a rise in placement in the future.

Not doing very good at all, especially being placed this high. Despite numerous characters in D tier getting notably better results than him, public opinion of him is very persistent thanks to Taiheita's "potential" to do extremely well if traveled to USA (despite inconsistent results at the latter half of 2017) and "potential" as a character, resulting in him rising to 29th. However, one of the main factors behind Lucas's "potential", Taiheita, retired in competitive play in 2018's start, which dropped off Lucas pretty hard to only getting respectable results in certain regions and especially in local play, since he is the figurehead of Lucas's results. Unless public opinion is still persistent (which is like Yoshi's, but on steroids in terms of durability lol), he is very likely to drop off the record.

His current condition in 2018 is pretty much identical to 2017. Although Raito rarely left to USA at all (though getting 17th at Genesis), his results in Japan has slightly increased, while other Duck Hunt players like Ozone still getting decent results in tournaments, especially at a regional level (with Tamushika and Brood getting 17th and 25th at Genesis, respectively). With Bowser and Lucas noticeably dropping in quality, it is likely that Duck Hunt will slightly increase if these results persist, although him rising to high tier seems very unlikely due to his glaring weaknesses and very meh representation.

Although a Link will never get the "Civil War" run, he is still doing fairly well to hold his position. While his others players, such as Scizor and the numerous European players he have, gets average to slightly below average results. However, T continues to push the character to show that he deserves this placement, obtaining 9th at EVO Japan and scoring high placements in Umebura and Rikabura tournaments. Although the large drop in Bowser's and Lucas's quality seems to make it likely for him to rise, the ultimate test for him is Hyrule Saga.

Not looking very good for them. As the meta advances, it is revealed that his strengths from Brawl didn't translate as well as expected. He is currently outclassed by Mario (also easy to play, but has better KO potential) and Marth (better disjoint), which results in them being not very popular. Despite Earth dual-maining him with Corrin, he still obtains some good results for him, while other Pit players such as Kiraflax, Chompy, and Kswz gets some solid results in a regional level. However, with R.O.B, Samus, Shulk, and even Yoshi, Wario, Lucas, and Ike getting more consistent success and larger playerbases at a regional level, things look bleak for him. Nevertheless, the continued efforts of his mains and his strengths will establish them as solid mid tier characters in spite of his decreased success.
For those who are wondering, the reason why Dark Pit's results and representation are worse than Pit's is because Japan (the home world for Pit results) views Dark Pit as a significantly inferior character to Pit due to poorer arrow control. It is the reason why Dark Pit is ranked three tiers lower than Pit in the second official tier list, although the tier system did automatically assigned them as the same character ever since then.

Probably the most average character in the whole game, with average representation and results. This stimuli continued into 2018, as Raptor and various other Yoshi mains continue this trend, with their most notable appearances being in regionals, although they usually take top either 25th or 33rd in majors. Although he doesn't enjoy the increased success of R.O.B., Shulk, and Samus, he is also benefits from Lucas and the Pits falling off the meta as well. This may overall result in this tier placement of 34th being very accurate for him, which is very respectable considering the negative views of some players (particularly top players).

While Shulk somewhat has fallen off in majors in 2018, in comparison to him getting some notable success such as getting 33rd in Civil War and 17th in Frame Perfect Series 2 in 2017, he has nevertheless has seen somewhat better success in regionals. This mainly thanks to Kome in Japan, getting notable results such as 4th at Sumabato 23, 5th at Umebura 31, and 25th at EVO Japan. Nicko, despite his "retirement" and co-maining him with Marth, gets consistent success in a local level, in addition of getting 5th at Kawaii Kon 2018. As a result, Shulk's placement is volatile: whether he slightly increases as a result of his notable results in regionals, or staying the same placement due to lacking consistent notable placings in majors in 2018.

Doing pretty well. Despite negative views stacked up (no pun attended) against him, he managed to found some newfound success in 2018 to make up his somewhat stagnate stance in the second half of 2017. This is mainly thanks to SaSSy's (mainly at Frostbite and No Fun Allowed) and WaDi's performance with the character, in addition of other R.O.B. players getting better regional and local success since then, winning against some matchups considered too unfathomable for R.O.B. "to be good" (most notably Bayonetta). This may result in an increase in tier ranking if such performances keep up, especially with a few characters above him, such as Lucas and Pit, stagnating in comparison to him.
Not doing so good. This is due to him stagnating in comparison to other mid tier characters. This is due to his unpopularity, negative views, and rather high learning curve. Although his strengths, a few notable placings (such as Skorpio's 9th placing at Midwest Mayhem 11), and some notable players (such as Ke-ya, Dath, Athena, and Reflet) keep him from falling to low tier, his stagnation in comparison to the rest of the characters in D Tier (plus Ike and Wario) makes things look bleak for him.

Samus is in a really weird spot. Although she doesn't have a lot of success in majors (like Shulk), her results in regionals and especially locals have been very respectable (like Shulk again). She is one of the only mid tier characters (besides Shulk and Lucas) to have positive views for her future, which combined with obtaining notable success (as mentioned before), makes things look bright for her. However, at the same time, she doesn't have a lot of success in majors, which may come back to haunt her. All we can do is to wait and see at this point.

Game and Watch is at the weirdest spot yet. He gets a single very significant result for the year, then runs off to get only respectable results in a local level (with Mexico being an exception, as he gets notable regional results there). This "single placement" syndrome happened again, as Maister (a Mexican player) gets 13th at Genesis 5, winning against Pink Fresh, Fatality, and Mistake, and then he is back to same position. This syndrome could be the result of matchup inexperience, due to him being a rare sight in competitive play for a non-low tier character. Some players do believe that he is underrated due to his theoretical matchup chart. In the end, his placement is somewhat accurate, although he is harmed by the more consistent success and representation of Ike and Wario.

In a similar vein to Ness, he is a heavily picked on character (by especially the top players, unsurprisingly) despite his success not reflecting that. His stagnation in 2017 was broken in the second half of 2017 with San and Ryo getting very respectable results in a regional level (with San even getting 4th at GOML 2017). Despite this, his negative views led him to be dropped to 40th with some players even claiming that he is low tier (with some tournaments now allowing him in low tier side events) and worse than Roy. In 2018, however, his regional success continues with added support of Rango, SM, and Soan. This is further pushed with Ryo getting 25th at Genesis 5, and SM getting 33rd in both Genesis and Battle for Vegas. The combination of getting more consistent showings and better results than Pit, Robin, Game & Watch, and arguably Lucas, alongside the numerous negative views and bias against him, makes his future placement volatile, but he can definitely rise higher.
Despite him being slightly rare, especially in comparison to other mid tier characters, he is seen with notable successes this year. When you think of Wario's success, the first thing you think about is Glutonny. He continues to obtain consistent commending results in Europe (recently winning a decently stacked tournament), alongside getting 9th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taking a set off of Darkshad. The peaks presented are higher than some of the upper mid tier characters, impressive for a character that some players consider not good at all. Other notable players to speak of is Waymas and Fluzi (Reflex is semi-active). However, his playerbase is still relatively small, and his glaring weakness of relying on a bait and punish style continue to hold him back from placing higher or more consistent. With his strong results from Glutonny and negative views from many players (which is the main force behind his drop to 41st), his future placement is volatile, but like Ike, he could definitely be higher.

Similarly to Yoshi, his current representation and results accurately reflect his current placement. While he receives a few notable successes in regionals mainly thanks to Captain Levi and Hyper Kirby, and komorikiri placing high with solo Roy in Japan locals, he lacks any notable appearances in majors. His main appearances in the meta mainly revolve around locals, in which he performs best. However, despite this, his performance is somewhat laughable in comparison to the "potential" many players put on him. There is debate on whether he (alongside Charizard, Little Mac, and Palutena) should be considered an upper low or lower mid tier character.

Getting some notable appearances this year. Sharpyzard notably achieved getting 33rd in Genesis 5. Charizard's main appearance is regionals, especially at Europe, with Fire, Virum, and Sharpyzard getting some decent placings at European regionals and especially locals. Similarly to Roy, locals is where it shines due to possessing more strengths than the characters in F and G tier (except for maybe Pac Man). As his success in 2017 would continue into 2018, it makes it's tier placement accurate, although it's results (especially at a major level) is noticeably worse than most characters ranked above him. As a result, him being upper low tier or lower mid tier is a topic of debate.
Despite numerous negative views on the characters (which is most notable from ZeRo), he obtains a dedicated playerbase with numerous regional and local results to speak of. In 2018, this continued. The notable players that continued this is pu55yking, Vash (who got 13th in 2GG: Last Chance Qualifier and 33rd in Battle for Vegas), Sol, Wonderbread, Lazyboredom, and Elvis. The Japanese Mac player bt.yamato notably obtained 7th in Sumabato 24 recently. However, with his glaring weaknesses and inferior results in comparison characters ranked above Roy makes it debatable whether he should be in the upper low tier or lower mid tier.

Doing slightly worse than before. This year, her mains are noticeably underperforming / not as active as before (examples include her best player, TLTC, getting 49th at Genesis and 129th at Frostbite). This is combined with some players noted her strengths not being as potent as previously deemed, as well as her noticeable weaknesses. While some players such as Nairo continue to argue in support of her, Palutena being lower mid tier seems rather unlikely, especially with Pac Man and Bowser Jr. recently outperforming her.

Doing pretty well, which is mainly thanks to Sinji, getting placements like 17th at Genesis 5 as well as consistent success in regionals (such as 13th at Collision XV). Other Pac Man players make good placements as well, although it mainly at a local level. However, his glaring weaknesses prevent him from getting any more consistent results, especially at higher levels of play. Opinions on him is rather mixed. While some players go as far to say that he is at the lower portion of mid tier as a result of Sinji's successes, others, such as ESAM and Mr. R, view him as a poor character that should be ranked even lower. As a result, while he could be ranked higher in the future, him getting out of low tier seems very unlikely.

Not doing too good. Although he somewhat has backed up his placing thanks to the efforts for those who main him, those successes are mainly at a local level. He is very scarce at a major and even regional level, and those who participate in those tournaments (particularly at a major level) generally don't place well. It doesn't help that one: his best player AC now only uses him as a secondary / sandbagging character, now pretty much just using a more viable character in Meta Knight, and two: Bowser Jr. this year started to outperform in almost every level of play. Although he isn't as bad as characters like Dr. Mario, Kirby, or Wii Fit thanks to his niche matchups against zoning characters, as well as the three's inconsistent results and nearly abysmal representation, things look pretty bleak for him.

Doing notably better than before, despite still being mediocre. He got increased results in a regional and local level thanks to the efforts of Blanc (who is widely considered the best Jr. player in the world), Taternator (who gets consistent high placing in MSM's, defeating players like K9, Scizor, and numerous games off of Elegant), and Hatsuyuki (who gets decent results in Karisuma tournaments). This is most highlighted by Taternator getting 25th at Battle for Vegas. However, these results are not good enough to prove that he is a lower mid tier character, while some players such as ZeRo rank him even lower and have a negative perception of him. His placement is volatile as a result, although he has a good chance of slightly rising in the future due to Palutena's and Falco's declining representation, results, and perception.

Similarly to Falco, these two characters have their supporters, but both are performing very badly. Both Dr. Mario and Kirby have similar strengths and weaknesses: having a decent combo game and a handful of surprisingly strong KO moves, but they both suffer from an very poor approach thanks to their minimal range and mobility, and poor endurance (Kirby due to his light weight and exploitable recovery, and Dr. Mario due to his abysmal recovery). For Dr. Mario, his representation is among the worse in the game, with the only active notable player to speak of his B7Games (who only gets respectable results in a local level). For Kirby, after Komota's performance in Frostbite 2017, the character now only gets his best results in a local level, being very sparse as well. Unfortunately for both of them, this trend continued into 2018, which looks even worse for both of them as Wii Fit Trainer at least gets splashes of results thanks to John Numbers.

Wii Fit Trainer is pretty much the same as last year: despite the good showings from John Numbers, both her representation and results outside of him is very minimal. However, the main reason behind being ranked lower than Dr. Mario and Kirby, despite those two characters having a similar situation but having no player giving off respectable results in a regional level and consistently powerful results local level, Japan views Wii Fit as one of the worse characters in the game despite having RIN in their region. However, with the same pattern of these three characters continuing into 2018, Wii Fit may potentially rise above the two in the future.

It is really hard to put a finger on where Dedede is in the bottom 5. In one hand, Whiteout scores an upset against WaDi, with Zaki getting 9th at Sumabato 24 (although he is known to perform decently in Sumabato tournaments). In the other hand, he still possess less representation and consistent results than fellow super heavyweight Ganondorf. He also has mixed opinions among the players, some thinking that he is underrated, while others think he is a candidate for the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, time will tell on how he will perform.

Although Ganon lacks the large splashes of results (Gungnir's 17th placement in Umebura Japan Major and Adom's 9th placement at Syndicate 2017) his 2017 self has (although this is mainly contributed to the year still remaining young), his 2018 self still gets some consistent results in a local and sometimes even in regional levels. His abnormally high representation is mostly thanks to his status as a "disrespect" and stylish character. Opinions on Ganon are rather mixed. Some players (such as ESAM and Dabuz) view Ganon as a completely abysmal (or joke) character and shouldn't be taken seriously, while others are more optimistic about the character due to his reps and results. His ultimate test is Hyrule Saga: if one places even 33rd there, this would boost the character.

Doing somewhat well for her tier placment. This is mostly thanks to ven (and sometimes tyroy when he plays her in locals), getting some alright results in a local level, despite having minimal representation. ven, after drowning in pools (129th) in both Genesis and Frostbite, made a nice showing of placing 25th at Battle for Vegas: the highest she has ever placed. However, her placement is extremely volatile due to numerous factors: one, having mixed perception from players, two: comparing her results to Ganon and Dedede is rather difficult, three: the possibility of Mii's being included in the next list, and finally: how she would do in Hyrule Saga. Time and patience is required for this one.

Although there are some notable players in it's credit, Jigglypuff is performing not very well at all (which isn't surprising considering that it is a three time worse character). This trend is unlikely going to change in the future, as most of her players (despite still only getting notable local results) are region locked, and one of it's best players in the US, LeeT, mainly plays Mii Brawler now. While there are a few supporters for the character, it is almost unanimously considered one of the worse in the game, although having some notable local results in it's credit makes it compete with Mii Swordfighter and Mii Brawler for the spot of the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, the Mii's potential inclusion of a future tier list may aid it in the end, but overall... yeah it is pretty bad character.

Despite some notoriety (such as AEMehr's 13th placement at IBP Masters Showdown), it's lack of representation makes it unranked in the tier list. It, at this point, is considered the unanimous best Mii Fighter, getting some respectable results at a local level thanks to Rom and AEMehr. This a static position that it retains in 2018: only getting notoriety in locals. If it does return in a future tier list, it's placement is volatile, as it is seen as ideally being placed around Ganon's, Dedede's, and Zelda's position, while their results are hard to compare.

Both of them completely suck. Their abysmal representation is further supported by very poor results. As a result, prior to their exclusion from the tier list, they are seen as candidates for the absolute worse character. However, while their strengths are decently compared, the Brawler's results are worse than of the Swordfighter (as well as Jigglypuff), which somewhat continued into 2018. However, out of the Brawler, the Swordfighter, and Jigglypuff, the Brawler has the most vocal support. Notably, Keitaro went as far as to co-main the character to (futility) prove it's worth himself. Nevertheless, they are not good characters at all, which a lot of people often forget they exist.

And that is it. Got any thoughts? Maybe some predictions on Ganon's, Dedede's, Zelda's, and Gunner's placement? Should this be a completely separate thread?

That must have taken you a LONG time to type up. Very good read. Deserves to be featured on an article.

The_Bookworm · Apr 11, 2018

TheWill44 said:
That must have taken you a LONG time to type up. Very good read. Deserves to be featured on an article.

It did. This specific part didn't take TOO long, but all the other parts did, especially combined. I would like my research to be featured in an article though.

Prince Koopa Jr · Apr 11, 2018

The_Bookworm said:
Pretty much I feel like it. I personally feel like that this a perfect subject to be put in a separate thread though.

So we finally reached our 100th page. My time here in Smashboards started here on this thread 4 months ago, about 75 pages ago. Might as well finish off the analysis.

Doing pretty well, benefiting the title of "best character". Despite some players describing her as "broken", she doesn't have the dominance of one, especially this year so far. At the start of 2018, her results (as shown from Das Koopa's chart) has gone down, with Salem not performing as potent as before. Even with Tweek picking her over Cloud and (alongside Mistake) getting better results, she lacks any tournament wins on majors (and even on B and C Tier events, she struggles to get victories, with Tweek (and Shu on a qualifier) being the only one getting any wins on those events). Although her results at higher level play has increased as a result of Salem and Captain Zack still getting good results, and Tweek's and Mistake's newfound success, Bayonetta's dominance at lower play has gone down (which dropped even more after BSD and RRS's Bayo videos), especially if those players are stacked up at majors, resulting in a large gap between high level Bayo players (Tweek, Mistake, Salem, Zack, and Lima) and lower level Bayo players (although tyroy and Chag can be an exception). In the end, only the most intelligent and skilled Bayo players will thrive in the current metagame, but until she gets consistent tournament wins and top 8 dominance, her placement can be in a little bit of a debate. However, she is well established as the best.

Not doing as well as before. With some events banning Cloud in doubles, Cloud players (despite still obtaining strong results in regional and local play, often higher than Bayo's and Sheik's) has less practice with the character, and his popularity decreased. Still mostly affects majors, as MKLeo and Tweek is starting to prefer Bayo over Cloud (with Tweek replacing Cloud altogether for certain matchups alongside DK), and komorikiri not travelling to the US as much as usual. This lack of interest with Cloud is also appointed with infamous top player opinions, with some top players claiming that Cloud's recovery is too exploitable for safe play at high level. I feel like MKLeo is especially getting that feeling. At this point, despite his enormous strengths, Cloud's placement is volatile, especially competing with Sheik and Diddy.

Similarly to Ness, Diddy is a lucky recipient of not falling apart when he lost his best player. His strengths and ever large playerbase allowed to obtain great results, sometimes higher than of Bayo and Cloud (such as Zinoto's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11). However, he struggles to enter top 4 at majors ever since ZeRo's hiatus (with one top 8 appearance being MVD at Genesis 5), so like Cloud, his placement is volatile.

Sheik seems to have some positive light this year. Similarly to 2017 Sheik, she lacks any tournament wins at majors. However, her consistent top 8 appearances only got better, and her performances on other levels of play got notably stronger as well. VoiD still gets good results and Mr. R continues his dominance at Europe, but his other players at lower level play (specifically sinnyboo242's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11 and Koolaid's upset on Salem) is establishing consistent success at regionals and locals. However, I feel like the verdict on whether Sheik will stay in place or rise in the tier list is ultimately determined in 2GG: Hyrule Saga.
Still getting strong results, in a dominant fashion. Possessing the most dominant matchup chart in the game, this character goes off strong. Despite being a little rarer than other top tier characters (with Kirihara showing up less in tournaments even in Japan) and herself having a little issues with a few of the other top ranked characters, her results is dominant as Dabuz is winning tournaments at a major and regional level, with other Rosa players such as falln getting commendable results as well. Like Sheik, whether she will rise in future tier lists or remain ranked 5th is a story of time.

Both of these flashy characters are going very strong this year with consistant strong success. While Fox has a larger representation, ZSS has greater peaks (thanks to Nairo, Marss, and Choco). I see them remaining here, but both are well established characters.

Not doing as good as before. His popularity and peaks are currently overshadowed by the characters above him. KEN hasn't traveled to the US ever since 2017 is over (with his dominance at Japan being slightly inconsistent), while both Manny and 6wx are in semi-active states. Despite his representation and results still remaining strong on other levels of play, it is kinda hard to predict the future of this character.

Despite not achieving the dominance of 2016 and early 2017, he still gets commendable results benefiting a top tier character. Despite not getting the peaks of Mewtwo, his representation and consistency are both higher than him. Ally and ANTi both gets consistent top 16 placings at majors, while Zenyou and the newly established Dark Wizzy slams down their forward air fists at regional and locals. Despite continuing negative views of this character (similar to Ness), his results makes his future placement debatable.
WaDi makes this character look top 5. Mewtwo is an even stronger combo and kill game than Fox, but with the cost of being even more frail. He competes with Mario for the 9th spot as WaDi gets consistent top 8 showings at majors, with Mewtwo's other players getting good results outside of that. 2018 is going to be volatile for this character as it is unknown if he will truly increase or stay at a very respectable 10th.

Marth is a rarer character than the other top tier characters, as he requires extra smart plays with great effect. MKLeo is the figurehead of this character, especially now as he is reluctant to use Cloud. The result is Marth getting more consistent peaks than other top tier character except for Rosalina and ZSS. However, his lack of popularity in other levels of play may come back to haunt him as he competes with Ryu and Corrin for the 11th spot.

A lot of negative views for this strong character. However, he has a quite a large playerbase despite not being as common as top tier characters. Darkshad gets consistent high placings at majors (getting 9th at Frostbite), Locus's results have improved from his sad performance at the latter half of 2017 (although this may come from picking up Bayonetta as a co-main / secondary), and other players improved successes such as Venom and Brosinex has further adds to this. As a result of both this and his negative views, his placement is volatile, especially if Trela participates in a major.

Doing very well. I entered Smashboards about four months ago, I can predict everyone's reaction to when Corrin is ranked 13th in the 3rd official tier list. However, Cosmos would prove that Corrin deserves that placement by scoring very high on tournaments. Fortunately for Corrin, he pushed this success to 2018 as well, consistently placing top 10 in each major he participates. Other Corrin players are playing very commendably in other areas of play as well. Other his representation is lower than other top/high tier characters, he competes with Marth and Ryu in terms of tier placement, and him being either at the top of high tier or the bottom of top tier is a wide topic of debate.

Solo Lucina is kinda rare for a character in her tier. She has more counterpick value than Marth, as she has a lower learning curve. As a result, she is seen as a very flexible counterpick character at high level play due to her similarities to Marth. Mr. E, among other Lucina mains, brings commandable results with this character to affirm her high tier placement. Although top players are using her less often in tournament play as a secondary so far in 2018, Mr. E continues to bring good results with the character, but not as good as the top 13. The only way she can be top tier with these results is if players think she is THAT similar to Marth (although not). Nevertheless, this tier position seems accurate and she keeps a close gap to her stronger ancestor.
This tier placement definitely brought debates thanks to AC's and MKLeo's success with MK as 2017 closes out. However, Pikachu seems to prove more and more that he deserves this 15th placement this year. Pikachu is a rare character in competitive play (which may lead to matchup inexperience) for being a high tier character, but ESAM brings out the thunder stronger this year, with a 7th placement on Genesis 5 and 3rd placement on EGLX 2018, with players like Rideae and Captain L giving out more consistent results regionally, and a few notable results in majors like Captain L's 13th placement on SML: Battle for Vegas. With this tier placement in tact, it is unknown if Pikachu will rise any further in the tier list due to still remaining rare.

MK's end of 2017 success didn't fully translate in 2018. MKLeo uses MK in more rarer occasions. Fortunately, he is still popular in a regional level, and still getting commendable results in a national level, with AC's 9th placement in EVO Japan being a good example. Despite MK's success and popularity, he competes with Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi for this spot, as they are rarer than him, yet obtains greater peaks that him in recent times. Time will tell.

Lucario is not doing too good backing up his 17th placement in 2018. Although he still gets a few good showings, such as Tsu- at Niconico Tokaigi 2018, he doesn't have too big of an impact in 2018 as he did in 2017 (aka Frostbite and West Side). His inconsistent playstyle, combined with the increased success of Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi makes things look bleak for him so far.

When we think of Luigi's successes, we think of Elegant in the end of 2017. In 2018, while Elegant continues to perform to (for the most part) dominate in regionals and locals, he struggles to achieve the peaks and wins in 2018 so far. While the increased successes of other Luigi players such Mr. ConCon and Poke in regionals does not make this a huge deal, the more consistent peaks and successes of Captain Falcon and Peach makes Luigi placing volatile. Nevertheless, his top 20 placement is secure for the time being.

Falcon is going off strong this year. Although he is a popular character (which puts emphasis on him being a high tier character), his results are nothing short of excellent. Fatality, although he struggles to make his Civil War impact, is performing amazing, getting consistent top 10 placements in tournaments for a high tier character. Due to that, things are looking bright for this character which may cause an increase in the future.
Peach, despite not being too common at all, is performing very well this year. This is especially credited to Samsora, for his high placements in both major and regional tournaments, and winning against opponents that Peach normally struggles with on paper. Other Peach players, especially in Japan, are pulling off good results for the character as well in a regional and sometimes even in major events (like MuteAce getting 25th at Frostbite). This combined with Lucario and Luigi lacking the peaks that she has makes this look only at her favor.

Olimar is somewhat struggling in comparison to 2017, but this is mainly thanks to Shuton's lack of attendance in US events. While Olimar still has a good playerbase getting results in regionals, those results specifically are not as strong as characters ranked below him such as Toon Link and Ness. With Shuton attending Switchfest and still getting good results in Japan, this may bring some positive gifts to Olimar, but until then, he is struggling off right now.

Both of these characters are not doing well, especially in comparison to 2017. Bowser's results and attendance, although respectable, have gone down. Nairo barely, if not at all, uses Bowser anymore at tournament play, while those who main him have continued to bring only average results for the character. DK's solo results have gone down. His big issues with his matchup spread (which also applies to Bowser) are getting more abused in the current meta which led to his decrease in results, which includes his solo results. Recently, however, HIKARU managed to win Sumabato 24 and Konga got 17th at SML: Battle for Vegas may show that DK's flame hasn't been put out yet, but the increased results of Toon Link, Ness, Mega Man, and Greninja may haunt him as he struggles to get his glory back.

Toon Link is looking pretty well lately. His strong point is his results in Japan, as Sigma and Ri-ma brings out consistently good results in Japan, which includes both of them getting 9th at EVO Japan. Outside of Japan, he obtains above average placings at tournaments, which is more prevalent in regionals thanks to 3xA and Biddy in USA, and Hyuga in Mexico. The ultimate test for Toon Link, however, is Hyrule Saga.
An unfortunate victim of losing a top player crashing and burning the character, which is combined with DLC introducing characters that dealt with him easier. Despite achieving no where near the consistent strong results he once had, Villager's other players still get above average results with the character, especially at a regional level, thanks to SS, Panda Bair, and Aardvark. With a power shift in the C tier itself happening as a result of changes in 2018, it is unknown how it will affect Villager's placing.

Greninja already established itself as a solid character. His most solid results come from Europe, as IStudying continues to obtain solid results there, while other Greninja players such as Stroder and Some (in their respective regions) bring upon above average results. Similar to Villager, the power shift in the C Tier may make his future tier placement unpredictable, but he these results may cause a rise in the future.

Mega Man is a tricky character to place where he is in the current metagame. In one hand, we have Kameme getting 3rd at EVO Japan mostly using him, while getting consistent good results at Japan, but in the other hand, his popularity has gone down. While his results remain above average, it is tricky to place where he is due to these factors. It is mainly a factor of waiting (especially with Kameme participating in Switchfest) to see his true place in the meta.

Ness continues to defy the negative opinions laid upon him (which is the main reason behind his drop to 28th), and place consistent above average results. The main contributors to this are Gackt, BestNess, taranito, and S1 earning notable results in their regions and even in some major tournaments such as BestNess getting 25th at Genesis 5, S1 placing 5th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taranito placing 17th at EVO Japan, and Gackt placing 2nd at Frostbite Ursa Major 2, with numerous notable names taken off. This, combined with other Ness player's (such as Shaky and Awestin) great consistent regional results, the fall of Lucas opinion, and FOW's return to the scene (again lol) allowed Ness's overall opinion to rise, which will most likely see a rise in placement in the future.

Not doing very good at all, especially being placed this high. Despite numerous characters in D tier getting notably better results than him, public opinion of him is very persistent thanks to Taiheita's "potential" to do extremely well if traveled to USA (despite inconsistent results at the latter half of 2017) and "potential" as a character, resulting in him rising to 29th. However, one of the main factors behind Lucas's "potential", Taiheita, retired in competitive play in 2018's start, which dropped off Lucas pretty hard to only getting respectable results in certain regions and especially in local play, since he is the figurehead of Lucas's results. Unless public opinion is still persistent (which is like Yoshi's, but on steroids in terms of durability lol), he is very likely to drop off the record.

His current condition in 2018 is pretty much identical to 2017. Although Raito rarely left to USA at all (though getting 17th at Genesis), his results in Japan has slightly increased, while other Duck Hunt players like Ozone still getting decent results in tournaments, especially at a regional level (with Tamushika and Brood getting 17th and 25th at Genesis, respectively). With Bowser and Lucas noticeably dropping in quality, it is likely that Duck Hunt will slightly increase if these results persist, although him rising to high tier seems very unlikely due to his glaring weaknesses and very meh representation.

Although a Link will never get the "Civil War" run, he is still doing fairly well to hold his position. While his others players, such as Scizor and the numerous European players he have, gets average to slightly below average results. However, T continues to push the character to show that he deserves this placement, obtaining 9th at EVO Japan and scoring high placements in Umebura and Rikabura tournaments. Although the large drop in Bowser's and Lucas's quality seems to make it likely for him to rise, the ultimate test for him is Hyrule Saga.

Not looking very good for them. As the meta advances, it is revealed that his strengths from Brawl didn't translate as well as expected. He is currently outclassed by Mario (also easy to play, but has better KO potential) and Marth (better disjoint), which results in them being not very popular. Despite Earth dual-maining him with Corrin, he still obtains some good results for him, while other Pit players such as Kiraflax, Chompy, and Kswz gets some solid results in a regional level. However, with R.O.B, Samus, Shulk, and even Yoshi, Wario, Lucas, and Ike getting more consistent success and larger playerbases at a regional level, things look bleak for him. Nevertheless, the continued efforts of his mains and his strengths will establish them as solid mid tier characters in spite of his decreased success.
For those who are wondering, the reason why Dark Pit's results and representation are worse than Pit's is because Japan (the home world for Pit results) views Dark Pit as a significantly inferior character to Pit due to poorer arrow control. It is the reason why Dark Pit is ranked three tiers lower than Pit in the second official tier list, although the tier system did automatically assigned them as the same character ever since then.

Probably the most average character in the whole game, with average representation and results. This stimuli continued into 2018, as Raptor and various other Yoshi mains continue this trend, with their most notable appearances being in regionals, although they usually take top either 25th or 33rd in majors. Although he doesn't enjoy the increased success of R.O.B., Shulk, and Samus, he is also benefits from Lucas and the Pits falling off the meta as well. This may overall result in this tier placement of 34th being very accurate for him, which is very respectable considering the negative views of some players (particularly top players).

While Shulk somewhat has fallen off in majors in 2018, in comparison to him getting some notable success such as getting 33rd in Civil War and 17th in Frame Perfect Series 2 in 2017, he has nevertheless has seen somewhat better success in regionals. This mainly thanks to Kome in Japan, getting notable results such as 4th at Sumabato 23, 5th at Umebura 31, and 25th at EVO Japan. Nicko, despite his "retirement" and co-maining him with Marth, gets consistent success in a local level, in addition of getting 5th at Kawaii Kon 2018. As a result, Shulk's placement is volatile: whether he slightly increases as a result of his notable results in regionals, or staying the same placement due to lacking consistent notable placings in majors in 2018.

Doing pretty well. Despite negative views stacked up (no pun attended) against him, he managed to found some newfound success in 2018 to make up his somewhat stagnate stance in the second half of 2017. This is mainly thanks to SaSSy's (mainly at Frostbite and No Fun Allowed) and WaDi's performance with the character, in addition of other R.O.B. players getting better regional and local success since then, winning against some matchups considered too unfathomable for R.O.B. "to be good" (most notably Bayonetta). This may result in an increase in tier ranking if such performances keep up, especially with a few characters above him, such as Lucas and Pit, stagnating in comparison to him.
Not doing so good. This is due to him stagnating in comparison to other mid tier characters. This is due to his unpopularity, negative views, and rather high learning curve. Although his strengths, a few notable placings (such as Skorpio's 9th placing at Midwest Mayhem 11), and some notable players (such as Ke-ya, Dath, Athena, and Reflet) keep him from falling to low tier, his stagnation in comparison to the rest of the characters in D Tier (plus Ike and Wario) makes things look bleak for him.

Samus is in a really weird spot. Although she doesn't have a lot of success in majors (like Shulk), her results in regionals and especially locals have been very respectable (like Shulk again). She is one of the only mid tier characters (besides Shulk and Lucas) to have positive views for her future, which combined with obtaining notable success (as mentioned before), makes things look bright for her. However, at the same time, she doesn't have a lot of success in majors, which may come back to haunt her. All we can do is to wait and see at this point.

Game and Watch is at the weirdest spot yet. He gets a single very significant result for the year, then runs off to get only respectable results in a local level (with Mexico being an exception, as he gets notable regional results there). This "single placement" syndrome happened again, as Maister (a Mexican player) gets 13th at Genesis 5, winning against Pink Fresh, Fatality, and Mistake, and then he is back to same position. This syndrome could be the result of matchup inexperience, due to him being a rare sight in competitive play for a non-low tier character. Some players do believe that he is underrated due to his theoretical matchup chart. In the end, his placement is somewhat accurate, although he is harmed by the more consistent success and representation of Ike and Wario.

In a similar vein to Ness, he is a heavily picked on character (by especially the top players, unsurprisingly) despite his success not reflecting that. His stagnation in 2017 was broken in the second half of 2017 with San and Ryo getting very respectable results in a regional level (with San even getting 4th at GOML 2017). Despite this, his negative views led him to be dropped to 40th with some players even claiming that he is low tier (with some tournaments now allowing him in low tier side events) and worse than Roy. In 2018, however, his regional success continues with added support of Rango, SM, and Soan. This is further pushed with Ryo getting 25th at Genesis 5, and SM getting 33rd in both Genesis and Battle for Vegas. The combination of getting more consistent showings and better results than Pit, Robin, Game & Watch, and arguably Lucas, alongside the numerous negative views and bias against him, makes his future placement volatile, but he can definitely rise higher.
Despite him being slightly rare, especially in comparison to other mid tier characters, he is seen with notable successes this year. When you think of Wario's success, the first thing you think about is Glutonny. He continues to obtain consistent commending results in Europe (recently winning a decently stacked tournament), alongside getting 9th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taking a set off of Darkshad. The peaks presented are higher than some of the upper mid tier characters, impressive for a character that some players consider not good at all. Other notable players to speak of is Waymas and Fluzi (Reflex is semi-active). However, his playerbase is still relatively small, and his glaring weakness of relying on a bait and punish style continue to hold him back from placing higher or more consistent. With his strong results from Glutonny and negative views from many players (which is the main force behind his drop to 41st), his future placement is volatile, but like Ike, he could definitely be higher.

Similarly to Yoshi, his current representation and results accurately reflect his current placement. While he receives a few notable successes in regionals mainly thanks to Captain Levi and Hyper Kirby, and komorikiri placing high with solo Roy in Japan locals, he lacks any notable appearances in majors. His main appearances in the meta mainly revolve around locals, in which he performs best. However, despite this, his performance is somewhat laughable in comparison to the "potential" many players put on him. There is debate on whether he (alongside Charizard, Little Mac, and Palutena) should be considered an upper low or lower mid tier character.

Getting some notable appearances this year. Sharpyzard notably achieved getting 33rd in Genesis 5. Charizard's main appearance is regionals, especially at Europe, with Fire, Virum, and Sharpyzard getting some decent placings at European regionals and especially locals. Similarly to Roy, locals is where it shines due to possessing more strengths than the characters in F and G tier (except for maybe Pac Man). As his success in 2017 would continue into 2018, it makes it's tier placement accurate, although it's results (especially at a major level) is noticeably worse than most characters ranked above him. As a result, him being upper low tier or lower mid tier is a topic of debate.
Despite numerous negative views on the characters (which is most notable from ZeRo), he obtains a dedicated playerbase with numerous regional and local results to speak of. In 2018, this continued. The notable players that continued this is pu55yking, Vash (who got 13th in 2GG: Last Chance Qualifier and 33rd in Battle for Vegas), Sol, Wonderbread, Lazyboredom, and Elvis. The Japanese Mac player bt.yamato notably obtained 7th in Sumabato 24 recently. However, with his glaring weaknesses and inferior results in comparison characters ranked above Roy makes it debatable whether he should be in the upper low tier or lower mid tier.

Doing slightly worse than before. This year, her mains are noticeably underperforming / not as active as before (examples include her best player, TLTC, getting 49th at Genesis and 129th at Frostbite). This is combined with some players noted her strengths not being as potent as previously deemed, as well as her noticeable weaknesses. While some players such as Nairo continue to argue in support of her, Palutena being lower mid tier seems rather unlikely, especially with Pac Man and Bowser Jr. recently outperforming her.

Doing pretty well, which is mainly thanks to Sinji, getting placements like 17th at Genesis 5 as well as consistent success in regionals (such as 13th at Collision XV). Other Pac Man players make good placements as well, although it mainly at a local level. However, his glaring weaknesses prevent him from getting any more consistent results, especially at higher levels of play. Opinions on him is rather mixed. While some players go as far to say that he is at the lower portion of mid tier as a result of Sinji's successes, others, such as ESAM and Mr. R, view him as a poor character that should be ranked even lower. As a result, while he could be ranked higher in the future, him getting out of low tier seems very unlikely.

Not doing too good. Although he somewhat has backed up his placing thanks to the efforts for those who main him, those successes are mainly at a local level. He is very scarce at a major and even regional level, and those who participate in those tournaments (particularly at a major level) generally don't place well. It doesn't help that one: his best player AC now only uses him as a secondary / sandbagging character, now pretty much just using a more viable character in Meta Knight, and two: Bowser Jr. this year started to outperform in almost every level of play. Although he isn't as bad as characters like Dr. Mario, Kirby, or Wii Fit thanks to his niche matchups against zoning characters, as well as the three's inconsistent results and nearly abysmal representation, things look pretty bleak for him.

Doing notably better than before, despite still being mediocre. He got increased results in a regional and local level thanks to the efforts of Blanc (who is widely considered the best Jr. player in the world), Taternator (who gets consistent high placing in MSM's, defeating players like K9, Scizor, and numerous games off of Elegant), and Hatsuyuki (who gets decent results in Karisuma tournaments). This is most highlighted by Taternator getting 25th at Battle for Vegas. However, these results are not good enough to prove that he is a lower mid tier character, while some players such as ZeRo rank him even lower and have a negative perception of him. His placement is volatile as a result, although he has a good chance of slightly rising in the future due to Palutena's and Falco's declining representation, results, and perception.

Similarly to Falco, these two characters have their supporters, but both are performing very badly. Both Dr. Mario and Kirby have similar strengths and weaknesses: having a decent combo game and a handful of surprisingly strong KO moves, but they both suffer from an very poor approach thanks to their minimal range and mobility, and poor endurance (Kirby due to his light weight and exploitable recovery, and Dr. Mario due to his abysmal recovery). For Dr. Mario, his representation is among the worse in the game, with the only active notable player to speak of his B7Games (who only gets respectable results in a local level). For Kirby, after Komota's performance in Frostbite 2017, the character now only gets his best results in a local level, being very sparse as well. Unfortunately for both of them, this trend continued into 2018, which looks even worse for both of them as Wii Fit Trainer at least gets splashes of results thanks to John Numbers.

Wii Fit Trainer is pretty much the same as last year: despite the good showings from John Numbers, both her representation and results outside of him is very minimal. However, the main reason behind being ranked lower than Dr. Mario and Kirby, despite those two characters having a similar situation but having no player giving off respectable results in a regional level and consistently powerful results local level, Japan views Wii Fit as one of the worse characters in the game despite having RIN in their region. However, with the same pattern of these three characters continuing into 2018, Wii Fit may potentially rise above the two in the future.

It is really hard to put a finger on where Dedede is in the bottom 5. In one hand, Whiteout scores an upset against WaDi, with Zaki getting 9th at Sumabato 24 (although he is known to perform decently in Sumabato tournaments). In the other hand, he still possess less representation and consistent results than fellow super heavyweight Ganondorf. He also has mixed opinions among the players, some thinking that he is underrated, while others think he is a candidate for the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, time will tell on how he will perform.

Although Ganon lacks the large splashes of results (Gungnir's 17th placement in Umebura Japan Major and Adom's 9th placement at Syndicate 2017) his 2017 self has (although this is mainly contributed to the year still remaining young), his 2018 self still gets some consistent results in a local and sometimes even in regional levels. His abnormally high representation is mostly thanks to his status as a "disrespect" and stylish character. Opinions on Ganon are rather mixed. Some players (such as ESAM and Dabuz) view Ganon as a completely abysmal (or joke) character and shouldn't be taken seriously, while others are more optimistic about the character due to his reps and results. His ultimate test is Hyrule Saga: if one places even 33rd there, this would boost the character.

Doing somewhat well for her tier placment. This is mostly thanks to ven (and sometimes tyroy when he plays her in locals), getting some alright results in a local level, despite having minimal representation. ven, after drowning in pools (129th) in both Genesis and Frostbite, made a nice showing of placing 25th at Battle for Vegas: the highest she has ever placed. However, her placement is extremely volatile due to numerous factors: one, having mixed perception from players, two: comparing her results to Ganon and Dedede is rather difficult, three: the possibility of Mii's being included in the next list, and finally: how she would do in Hyrule Saga. Time and patience is required for this one.

Although there are some notable players in it's credit, Jigglypuff is performing not very well at all (which isn't surprising considering that it is a three time worse character). This trend is unlikely going to change in the future, as most of her players (despite still only getting notable local results) are region locked, and one of it's best players in the US, LeeT, mainly plays Mii Brawler now. While there are a few supporters for the character, it is almost unanimously considered one of the worse in the game, although having some notable local results in it's credit makes it compete with Mii Swordfighter and Mii Brawler for the spot of the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, the Mii's potential inclusion of a future tier list may aid it in the end, but overall... yeah it is pretty bad character.

Despite some notoriety (such as AEMehr's 13th placement at IBP Masters Showdown), it's lack of representation makes it unranked in the tier list. It, at this point, is considered the unanimous best Mii Fighter, getting some respectable results at a local level thanks to Rom and AEMehr. This a static position that it retains in 2018: only getting notoriety in locals. If it does return in a future tier list, it's placement is volatile, as it is seen as ideally being placed around Ganon's, Dedede's, and Zelda's position, while their results are hard to compare.

Both of them completely suck. Their abysmal representation is further supported by very poor results. As a result, prior to their exclusion from the tier list, they are seen as candidates for the absolute worse character. However, while their strengths are decently compared, the Brawler's results are worse than of the Swordfighter (as well as Jigglypuff), which somewhat continued into 2018. However, out of the Brawler, the Swordfighter, and Jigglypuff, the Brawler has the most vocal support. Notably, Keitaro went as far as to co-main the character to (futility) prove it's worth himself. Nevertheless, they are not good characters at all, which a lot of people often forget they exist.

And that is it. Got any thoughts? Maybe some predictions on Ganon's, Dedede's, Zelda's, and Gunner's placement? Should this be a completely separate thread?

Really gotta give you credit for taking the time to type up this information about the characters and their players bookworm.

The_Bookworm · Apr 11, 2018

Update: Switchfest has been promoted to an A tier event.

PGR'ed Players
Nairo

MKLeo

Tweek

Larry Lurr

VoiD

Abadango

komorikiri

Cosmos

Samsora

Shuton

Raito

Charliedaking

falln

Kameme

Light

Notable Players
Xzax

Dynamo

Candy

pu55yking

There is a notable amount of Cloud and Fox players in attendance.

Heracr055 · Apr 11, 2018

It looks like that took a lot of work Bookworm.
I have a few minor quips (such as the perception of Trela coming back, which won't happen imo, or highlighting DP's lack of results when it pretty much goes without saying), but I feel the biggest setback to this is that DasKoopa's monthly articles depict this in an easier to follow fashion (with visuals and noting the big plusses or minuses for a character's monthly results change). However, you did tackle every character over 2016 to now, as opposed to covering "flavor of the month" or just looking at a few character's trends over a few months. If you're going to keep doing these, I would condense the timeframe to a smaller window (discussing EVO 2016 serms very out of date now) and trying to remove stuff of little substance, such as discussing Kirby and Dr Mario's general gameplan (trim the fat, keep the meat). For instance, you mentioned results for lesser known chars and provided player nanes I've never even heard of. That stuff is good

Edit: Also where did all this agression from several users come from these last few pages?

MercuryPenny · Apr 11, 2018

The_Bookworm said:
There is a notable amount of Cloud and Fox players in attendance.

mfw 2 cloud players is notable

nannerham · Apr 11, 2018

I'm actually astonished at the amount of misinformation flying around especially by

The_Bookworm , I've literally shown you in the past on how none of roy's aerials get worse than -9, don't remember, well here it is.

nannerham said:
This is completely false, the absolute worst his shield advantage gets when it comes to his sourspot aerials is -9 (bair) and because its a sourspot aerial that means the opponent is a fair distance away, Roy's ability to space is hardly ineffective and I don't know about you but to me his ability to space seems actually pretty solid.

Shield Advantage (OoS)

N-air (Hit 1): -7
N-air (Hit 2): -7
F-air: -7
B-air: -9
D-tilt: -9

Shield Advantage (Shield Drop)

N-air (Hit 1): 0
N-air (Hit 2): 0
F-air: 0
B-air: -2
D-tilt: -2

All of these numbers where from his sourspot moves and look at that none of the moves he uses to reliably space even hit -10, and just to reiterate that since these are sourspot moves that means the opponent is a fair distance away. Remember to always do your research folks when talking about the advantages/disadvantages of a character so you don't spread misinformation.

How are you still going on about this? The Data literally shows you how surprisingly safe his moves are it doesn't matter if his range is nerfed from melee, it doesn't matter if sourspots do less stun on shield (surprise surprise if a move does less damage you'll get less shieldstun) considering his aerials are barely shorter than marth's and he's pulling these numbers maybe just maybe and stay with me now because this might amaze you, his moves are safe on shield when spaced well, not perfectly, well, there's no convincing needed if the data says its -2 on shield drop then its -2 on shield drop if you don't think that's safe in relation to the amount of disjoint he has then I really don't know what to tell you.

You say you've done your research but the fact that you're saying that roy has trouble spacing, and has the second shortest sword (which I have no idea how you came to that conclusion) clearly tells me you haven't done any research at all when in fact you're only spewing nonsense, saying this as a roy main that practices with PR players btw.

Its things like this that drive people that post quality content away that as FeelMeUp mentioned, for the love of god if you don't play the character you're mentioning and don't have at least a good understanding on how they play in the metagame don't say anything or things like this happen, go to the character discords if you want to learn anything or in fact go to the character thread on this website that's literally designed to do this, its only a few clicks away its not hard.

ぱみゅ · Apr 11, 2018

The_Bookworm said:
Pretty much I feel like it. I personally feel like that this a perfect subject to be put in a separate thread though.

So we finally reached our 100th page. My time here in Smashboards started here on this thread 4 months ago, about 75 pages ago. Might as well finish off the analysis.

Doing pretty well, benefiting the title of "best character". Despite some players describing her as "broken", she doesn't have the dominance of one, especially this year so far. At the start of 2018, her results (as shown from Das Koopa's chart) has gone down, with Salem not performing as potent as before. Even with Tweek picking her over Cloud and (alongside Mistake) getting better results, she lacks any tournament wins on majors (and even on B and C Tier events, she struggles to get victories, with Tweek (and Shu on a qualifier) being the only one getting any wins on those events). Although her results at higher level play has increased as a result of Salem and Captain Zack still getting good results, and Tweek's and Mistake's newfound success, Bayonetta's dominance at lower play has gone down (which dropped even more after BSD and RRS's Bayo videos), especially if those players are stacked up at majors, resulting in a large gap between high level Bayo players (Tweek, Mistake, Salem, Zack, and Lima) and lower level Bayo players (although tyroy and Chag can be an exception). In the end, only the most intelligent and skilled Bayo players will thrive in the current metagame, but until she gets consistent tournament wins and top 8 dominance, her placement can be in a little bit of a debate. However, she is well established as the best.

Not doing as well as before. With some events banning Cloud in doubles, Cloud players (despite still obtaining strong results in regional and local play, often higher than Bayo's and Sheik's) has less practice with the character, and his popularity decreased. Still mostly affects majors, as MKLeo and Tweek is starting to prefer Bayo over Cloud (with Tweek replacing Cloud altogether for certain matchups alongside DK), and komorikiri not travelling to the US as much as usual. This lack of interest with Cloud is also appointed with infamous top player opinions, with some top players claiming that Cloud's recovery is too exploitable for safe play at high level. I feel like MKLeo is especially getting that feeling. At this point, despite his enormous strengths, Cloud's placement is volatile, especially competing with Sheik and Diddy.

Similarly to Ness, Diddy is a lucky recipient of not falling apart when he lost his best player. His strengths and ever large playerbase allowed to obtain great results, sometimes higher than of Bayo and Cloud (such as Zinoto's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11). However, he struggles to enter top 4 at majors ever since ZeRo's hiatus (with one top 8 appearance being MVD at Genesis 5), so like Cloud, his placement is volatile.

Sheik seems to have some positive light this year. Similarly to 2017 Sheik, she lacks any tournament wins at majors. However, her consistent top 8 appearances only got better, and her performances on other levels of play got notably stronger as well. VoiD still gets good results and Mr. R continues his dominance at Europe, but his other players at lower level play (specifically sinnyboo242's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11 and Koolaid's upset on Salem) is establishing consistent success at regionals and locals. However, I feel like the verdict on whether Sheik will stay in place or rise in the tier list is ultimately determined in 2GG: Hyrule Saga.
Still getting strong results, in a dominant fashion. Possessing the most dominant matchup chart in the game, this character goes off strong. Despite being a little rarer than other top tier characters (with Kirihara showing up less in tournaments even in Japan) and herself having a little issues with a few of the other top ranked characters, her results is dominant as Dabuz is winning tournaments at a major and regional level, with other Rosa players such as falln getting commendable results as well. Like Sheik, whether she will rise in future tier lists or remain ranked 5th is a story of time.

Both of these flashy characters are going very strong this year with consistant strong success. While Fox has a larger representation, ZSS has greater peaks (thanks to Nairo, Marss, and Choco). I see them remaining here, but both are well established characters.

Not doing as good as before. His popularity and peaks are currently overshadowed by the characters above him. KEN hasn't traveled to the US ever since 2017 is over (with his dominance at Japan being slightly inconsistent), while both Manny and 6wx are in semi-active states. Despite his representation and results still remaining strong on other levels of play, it is kinda hard to predict the future of this character.

Despite not achieving the dominance of 2016 and early 2017, he still gets commendable results benefiting a top tier character. Despite not getting the peaks of Mewtwo, his representation and consistency are both higher than him. Ally and ANTi both gets consistent top 16 placings at majors, while Zenyou and the newly established Dark Wizzy slams down their forward air fists at regional and locals. Despite continuing negative views of this character (similar to Ness), his results makes his future placement debatable.
WaDi makes this character look top 5. Mewtwo is an even stronger combo and kill game than Fox, but with the cost of being even more frail. He competes with Mario for the 9th spot as WaDi gets consistent top 8 showings at majors, with Mewtwo's other players getting good results outside of that. 2018 is going to be volatile for this character as it is unknown if he will truly increase or stay at a very respectable 10th.

Marth is a rarer character than the other top tier characters, as he requires extra smart plays with great effect. MKLeo is the figurehead of this character, especially now as he is reluctant to use Cloud. The result is Marth getting more consistent peaks than other top tier character except for Rosalina and ZSS. However, his lack of popularity in other levels of play may come back to haunt him as he competes with Ryu and Corrin for the 11th spot.

A lot of negative views for this strong character. However, he has a quite a large playerbase despite not being as common as top tier characters. Darkshad gets consistent high placings at majors (getting 9th at Frostbite), Locus's results have improved from his sad performance at the latter half of 2017 (although this may come from picking up Bayonetta as a co-main / secondary), and other players improved successes such as Venom and Brosinex has further adds to this. As a result of both this and his negative views, his placement is volatile, especially if Trela participates in a major.

Doing very well. I entered Smashboards about four months ago, I can predict everyone's reaction to when Corrin is ranked 13th in the 3rd official tier list. However, Cosmos would prove that Corrin deserves that placement by scoring very high on tournaments. Fortunately for Corrin, he pushed this success to 2018 as well, consistently placing top 10 in each major he participates. Other Corrin players are playing very commendably in other areas of play as well. Other his representation is lower than other top/high tier characters, he competes with Marth and Ryu in terms of tier placement, and him being either at the top of high tier or the bottom of top tier is a wide topic of debate.

Solo Lucina is kinda rare for a character in her tier. She has more counterpick value than Marth, as she has a lower learning curve. As a result, she is seen as a very flexible counterpick character at high level play due to her similarities to Marth. Mr. E, among other Lucina mains, brings commandable results with this character to affirm her high tier placement. Although top players are using her less often in tournament play as a secondary so far in 2018, Mr. E continues to bring good results with the character, but not as good as the top 13. The only way she can be top tier with these results is if players think she is THAT similar to Marth (although not). Nevertheless, this tier position seems accurate and she keeps a close gap to her stronger ancestor.
This tier placement definitely brought debates thanks to AC's and MKLeo's success with MK as 2017 closes out. However, Pikachu seems to prove more and more that he deserves this 15th placement this year. Pikachu is a rare character in competitive play (which may lead to matchup inexperience) for being a high tier character, but ESAM brings out the thunder stronger this year, with a 7th placement on Genesis 5 and 3rd placement on EGLX 2018, with players like Rideae and Captain L giving out more consistent results regionally, and a few notable results in majors like Captain L's 13th placement on SML: Battle for Vegas. With this tier placement in tact, it is unknown if Pikachu will rise any further in the tier list due to still remaining rare.

MK's end of 2017 success didn't fully translate in 2018. MKLeo uses MK in more rarer occasions. Fortunately, he is still popular in a regional level, and still getting commendable results in a national level, with AC's 9th placement in EVO Japan being a good example. Despite MK's success and popularity, he competes with Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi for this spot, as they are rarer than him, yet obtains greater peaks that him in recent times. Time will tell.

Lucario is not doing too good backing up his 17th placement in 2018. Although he still gets a few good showings, such as Tsu- at Niconico Tokaigi 2018, he doesn't have too big of an impact in 2018 as he did in 2017 (aka Frostbite and West Side). His inconsistent playstyle, combined with the increased success of Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi makes things look bleak for him so far.

When we think of Luigi's successes, we think of Elegant in the end of 2017. In 2018, while Elegant continues to perform to (for the most part) dominate in regionals and locals, he struggles to achieve the peaks and wins in 2018 so far. While the increased successes of other Luigi players such Mr. ConCon and Poke in regionals does not make this a huge deal, the more consistent peaks and successes of Captain Falcon and Peach makes Luigi placing volatile. Nevertheless, his top 20 placement is secure for the time being.

Falcon is going off strong this year. Although he is a popular character (which puts emphasis on him being a high tier character), his results are nothing short of excellent. Fatality, although he struggles to make his Civil War impact, is performing amazing, getting consistent top 10 placements in tournaments for a high tier character. Due to that, things are looking bright for this character which may cause an increase in the future.
Peach, despite not being too common at all, is performing very well this year. This is especially credited to Samsora, for his high placements in both major and regional tournaments, and winning against opponents that Peach normally struggles with on paper. Other Peach players, especially in Japan, are pulling off good results for the character as well in a regional and sometimes even in major events (like MuteAce getting 25th at Frostbite). This combined with Lucario and Luigi lacking the peaks that she has makes this look only at her favor.

Olimar is somewhat struggling in comparison to 2017, but this is mainly thanks to Shuton's lack of attendance in US events. While Olimar still has a good playerbase getting results in regionals, those results specifically are not as strong as characters ranked below him such as Toon Link and Ness. With Shuton attending Switchfest and still getting good results in Japan, this may bring some positive gifts to Olimar, but until then, he is struggling off right now.

Both of these characters are not doing well, especially in comparison to 2017. Bowser's results and attendance, although respectable, have gone down. Nairo barely, if not at all, uses Bowser anymore at tournament play, while those who main him have continued to bring only average results for the character. DK's solo results have gone down. His big issues with his matchup spread (which also applies to Bowser) are getting more abused in the current meta which led to his decrease in results, which includes his solo results. Recently, however, HIKARU managed to win Sumabato 24 and Konga got 17th at SML: Battle for Vegas may show that DK's flame hasn't been put out yet, but the increased results of Toon Link, Ness, Mega Man, and Greninja may haunt him as he struggles to get his glory back.

Toon Link is looking pretty well lately. His strong point is his results in Japan, as Sigma and Ri-ma brings out consistently good results in Japan, which includes both of them getting 9th at EVO Japan. Outside of Japan, he obtains above average placings at tournaments, which is more prevalent in regionals thanks to 3xA and Biddy in USA, and Hyuga in Mexico. The ultimate test for Toon Link, however, is Hyrule Saga.
An unfortunate victim of losing a top player crashing and burning the character, which is combined with DLC introducing characters that dealt with him easier. Despite achieving no where near the consistent strong results he once had, Villager's other players still get above average results with the character, especially at a regional level, thanks to SS, Panda Bair, and Aardvark. With a power shift in the C tier itself happening as a result of changes in 2018, it is unknown how it will affect Villager's placing.

Greninja already established itself as a solid character. His most solid results come from Europe, as IStudying continues to obtain solid results there, while other Greninja players such as Stroder and Some (in their respective regions) bring upon above average results. Similar to Villager, the power shift in the C Tier may make his future tier placement unpredictable, but he these results may cause a rise in the future.

Mega Man is a tricky character to place where he is in the current metagame. In one hand, we have Kameme getting 3rd at EVO Japan mostly using him, while getting consistent good results at Japan, but in the other hand, his popularity has gone down. While his results remain above average, it is tricky to place where he is due to these factors. It is mainly a factor of waiting (especially with Kameme participating in Switchfest) to see his true place in the meta.

Ness continues to defy the negative opinions laid upon him (which is the main reason behind his drop to 28th), and place consistent above average results. The main contributors to this are Gackt, BestNess, taranito, and S1 earning notable results in their regions and even in some major tournaments such as BestNess getting 25th at Genesis 5, S1 placing 5th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taranito placing 17th at EVO Japan, and Gackt placing 2nd at Frostbite Ursa Major 2, with numerous notable names taken off. This, combined with other Ness player's (such as Shaky and Awestin) great consistent regional results, the fall of Lucas opinion, and FOW's return to the scene (again lol) allowed Ness's overall opinion to rise, which will most likely see a rise in placement in the future.

Not doing very good at all, especially being placed this high. Despite numerous characters in D tier getting notably better results than him, public opinion of him is very persistent thanks to Taiheita's "potential" to do extremely well if traveled to USA (despite inconsistent results at the latter half of 2017) and "potential" as a character, resulting in him rising to 29th. However, one of the main factors behind Lucas's "potential", Taiheita, retired in competitive play in 2018's start, which dropped off Lucas pretty hard to only getting respectable results in certain regions and especially in local play, since he is the figurehead of Lucas's results. Unless public opinion is still persistent (which is like Yoshi's, but on steroids in terms of durability lol), he is very likely to drop off the record.

His current condition in 2018 is pretty much identical to 2017. Although Raito rarely left to USA at all (though getting 17th at Genesis), his results in Japan has slightly increased, while other Duck Hunt players like Ozone still getting decent results in tournaments, especially at a regional level (with Tamushika and Brood getting 17th and 25th at Genesis, respectively). With Bowser and Lucas noticeably dropping in quality, it is likely that Duck Hunt will slightly increase if these results persist, although him rising to high tier seems very unlikely due to his glaring weaknesses and very meh representation.

Although a Link will never get the "Civil War" run, he is still doing fairly well to hold his position. While his others players, such as Scizor and the numerous European players he have, gets average to slightly below average results. However, T continues to push the character to show that he deserves this placement, obtaining 9th at EVO Japan and scoring high placements in Umebura and Rikabura tournaments. Although the large drop in Bowser's and Lucas's quality seems to make it likely for him to rise, the ultimate test for him is Hyrule Saga.

Not looking very good for them. As the meta advances, it is revealed that his strengths from Brawl didn't translate as well as expected. He is currently outclassed by Mario (also easy to play, but has better KO potential) and Marth (better disjoint), which results in them being not very popular. Despite Earth dual-maining him with Corrin, he still obtains some good results for him, while other Pit players such as Kiraflax, Chompy, and Kswz gets some solid results in a regional level. However, with R.O.B, Samus, Shulk, and even Yoshi, Wario, Lucas, and Ike getting more consistent success and larger playerbases at a regional level, things look bleak for him. Nevertheless, the continued efforts of his mains and his strengths will establish them as solid mid tier characters in spite of his decreased success.
For those who are wondering, the reason why Dark Pit's results and representation are worse than Pit's is because Japan (the home world for Pit results) views Dark Pit as a significantly inferior character to Pit due to poorer arrow control. It is the reason why Dark Pit is ranked three tiers lower than Pit in the second official tier list, although the tier system did automatically assigned them as the same character ever since then.

Probably the most average character in the whole game, with average representation and results. This stimuli continued into 2018, as Raptor and various other Yoshi mains continue this trend, with their most notable appearances being in regionals, although they usually take top either 25th or 33rd in majors. Although he doesn't enjoy the increased success of R.O.B., Shulk, and Samus, he is also benefits from Lucas and the Pits falling off the meta as well. This may overall result in this tier placement of 34th being very accurate for him, which is very respectable considering the negative views of some players (particularly top players).

While Shulk somewhat has fallen off in majors in 2018, in comparison to him getting some notable success such as getting 33rd in Civil War and 17th in Frame Perfect Series 2 in 2017, he has nevertheless has seen somewhat better success in regionals. This mainly thanks to Kome in Japan, getting notable results such as 4th at Sumabato 23, 5th at Umebura 31, and 25th at EVO Japan. Nicko, despite his "retirement" and co-maining him with Marth, gets consistent success in a local level, in addition of getting 5th at Kawaii Kon 2018. As a result, Shulk's placement is volatile: whether he slightly increases as a result of his notable results in regionals, or staying the same placement due to lacking consistent notable placings in majors in 2018.

Doing pretty well. Despite negative views stacked up (no pun attended) against him, he managed to found some newfound success in 2018 to make up his somewhat stagnate stance in the second half of 2017. This is mainly thanks to SaSSy's (mainly at Frostbite and No Fun Allowed) and WaDi's performance with the character, in addition of other R.O.B. players getting better regional and local success since then, winning against some matchups considered too unfathomable for R.O.B. "to be good" (most notably Bayonetta). This may result in an increase in tier ranking if such performances keep up, especially with a few characters above him, such as Lucas and Pit, stagnating in comparison to him.
Not doing so good. This is due to him stagnating in comparison to other mid tier characters. This is due to his unpopularity, negative views, and rather high learning curve. Although his strengths, a few notable placings (such as Skorpio's 9th placing at Midwest Mayhem 11), and some notable players (such as Ke-ya, Dath, Athena, and Reflet) keep him from falling to low tier, his stagnation in comparison to the rest of the characters in D Tier (plus Ike and Wario) makes things look bleak for him.

Samus is in a really weird spot. Although she doesn't have a lot of success in majors (like Shulk), her results in regionals and especially locals have been very respectable (like Shulk again). She is one of the only mid tier characters (besides Shulk and Lucas) to have positive views for her future, which combined with obtaining notable success (as mentioned before), makes things look bright for her. However, at the same time, she doesn't have a lot of success in majors, which may come back to haunt her. All we can do is to wait and see at this point.

Game and Watch is at the weirdest spot yet. He gets a single very significant result for the year, then runs off to get only respectable results in a local level (with Mexico being an exception, as he gets notable regional results there). This "single placement" syndrome happened again, as Maister (a Mexican player) gets 13th at Genesis 5, winning against Pink Fresh, Fatality, and Mistake, and then he is back to same position. This syndrome could be the result of matchup inexperience, due to him being a rare sight in competitive play for a non-low tier character. Some players do believe that he is underrated due to his theoretical matchup chart. In the end, his placement is somewhat accurate, although he is harmed by the more consistent success and representation of Ike and Wario.

In a similar vein to Ness, he is a heavily picked on character (by especially the top players, unsurprisingly) despite his success not reflecting that. His stagnation in 2017 was broken in the second half of 2017 with San and Ryo getting very respectable results in a regional level (with San even getting 4th at GOML 2017). Despite this, his negative views led him to be dropped to 40th with some players even claiming that he is low tier (with some tournaments now allowing him in low tier side events) and worse than Roy. In 2018, however, his regional success continues with added support of Rango, SM, and Soan. This is further pushed with Ryo getting 25th at Genesis 5, and SM getting 33rd in both Genesis and Battle for Vegas. The combination of getting more consistent showings and better results than Pit, Robin, Game & Watch, and arguably Lucas, alongside the numerous negative views and bias against him, makes his future placement volatile, but he can definitely rise higher.
Despite him being slightly rare, especially in comparison to other mid tier characters, he is seen with notable successes this year. When you think of Wario's success, the first thing you think about is Glutonny. He continues to obtain consistent commending results in Europe (recently winning a decently stacked tournament), alongside getting 9th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taking a set off of Darkshad. The peaks presented are higher than some of the upper mid tier characters, impressive for a character that some players consider not good at all. Other notable players to speak of is Waymas and Fluzi (Reflex is semi-active). However, his playerbase is still relatively small, and his glaring weakness of relying on a bait and punish style continue to hold him back from placing higher or more consistent. With his strong results from Glutonny and negative views from many players (which is the main force behind his drop to 41st), his future placement is volatile, but like Ike, he could definitely be higher.

Similarly to Yoshi, his current representation and results accurately reflect his current placement. While he receives a few notable successes in regionals mainly thanks to Captain Levi and Hyper Kirby, and komorikiri placing high with solo Roy in Japan locals, he lacks any notable appearances in majors. His main appearances in the meta mainly revolve around locals, in which he performs best. However, despite this, his performance is somewhat laughable in comparison to the "potential" many players put on him. There is debate on whether he (alongside Charizard, Little Mac, and Palutena) should be considered an upper low or lower mid tier character.

Getting some notable appearances this year. Sharpyzard notably achieved getting 33rd in Genesis 5. Charizard's main appearance is regionals, especially at Europe, with Fire, Virum, and Sharpyzard getting some decent placings at European regionals and especially locals. Similarly to Roy, locals is where it shines due to possessing more strengths than the characters in F and G tier (except for maybe Pac Man). As his success in 2017 would continue into 2018, it makes it's tier placement accurate, although it's results (especially at a major level) is noticeably worse than most characters ranked above him. As a result, him being upper low tier or lower mid tier is a topic of debate.
Despite numerous negative views on the characters (which is most notable from ZeRo), he obtains a dedicated playerbase with numerous regional and local results to speak of. In 2018, this continued. The notable players that continued this is pu55yking, Vash (who got 13th in 2GG: Last Chance Qualifier and 33rd in Battle for Vegas), Sol, Wonderbread, Lazyboredom, and Elvis. The Japanese Mac player bt.yamato notably obtained 7th in Sumabato 24 recently. However, with his glaring weaknesses and inferior results in comparison characters ranked above Roy makes it debatable whether he should be in the upper low tier or lower mid tier.

Doing slightly worse than before. This year, her mains are noticeably underperforming / not as active as before (examples include her best player, TLTC, getting 49th at Genesis and 129th at Frostbite). This is combined with some players noted her strengths not being as potent as previously deemed, as well as her noticeable weaknesses. While some players such as Nairo continue to argue in support of her, Palutena being lower mid tier seems rather unlikely, especially with Pac Man and Bowser Jr. recently outperforming her.

Doing pretty well, which is mainly thanks to Sinji, getting placements like 17th at Genesis 5 as well as consistent success in regionals (such as 13th at Collision XV). Other Pac Man players make good placements as well, although it mainly at a local level. However, his glaring weaknesses prevent him from getting any more consistent results, especially at higher levels of play. Opinions on him is rather mixed. While some players go as far to say that he is at the lower portion of mid tier as a result of Sinji's successes, others, such as ESAM and Mr. R, view him as a poor character that should be ranked even lower. As a result, while he could be ranked higher in the future, him getting out of low tier seems very unlikely.

Not doing too good. Although he somewhat has backed up his placing thanks to the efforts for those who main him, those successes are mainly at a local level. He is very scarce at a major and even regional level, and those who participate in those tournaments (particularly at a major level) generally don't place well. It doesn't help that one: his best player AC now only uses him as a secondary / sandbagging character, now pretty much just using a more viable character in Meta Knight, and two: Bowser Jr. this year started to outperform in almost every level of play. Although he isn't as bad as characters like Dr. Mario, Kirby, or Wii Fit thanks to his niche matchups against zoning characters, as well as the three's inconsistent results and nearly abysmal representation, things look pretty bleak for him.

Doing notably better than before, despite still being mediocre. He got increased results in a regional and local level thanks to the efforts of Blanc (who is widely considered the best Jr. player in the world), Taternator (who gets consistent high placing in MSM's, defeating players like K9, Scizor, and numerous games off of Elegant), and Hatsuyuki (who gets decent results in Karisuma tournaments). This is most highlighted by Taternator getting 25th at Battle for Vegas. However, these results are not good enough to prove that he is a lower mid tier character, while some players such as ZeRo rank him even lower and have a negative perception of him. His placement is volatile as a result, although he has a good chance of slightly rising in the future due to Palutena's and Falco's declining representation, results, and perception.

Similarly to Falco, these two characters have their supporters, but both are performing very badly. Both Dr. Mario and Kirby have similar strengths and weaknesses: having a decent combo game and a handful of surprisingly strong KO moves, but they both suffer from an very poor approach thanks to their minimal range and mobility, and poor endurance (Kirby due to his light weight and exploitable recovery, and Dr. Mario due to his abysmal recovery). For Dr. Mario, his representation is among the worse in the game, with the only active notable player to speak of his B7Games (who only gets respectable results in a local level). For Kirby, after Komota's performance in Frostbite 2017, the character now only gets his best results in a local level, being very sparse as well. Unfortunately for both of them, this trend continued into 2018, which looks even worse for both of them as Wii Fit Trainer at least gets splashes of results thanks to John Numbers.

Wii Fit Trainer is pretty much the same as last year: despite the good showings from John Numbers, both her representation and results outside of him is very minimal. However, the main reason behind being ranked lower than Dr. Mario and Kirby, despite those two characters having a similar situation but having no player giving off respectable results in a regional level and consistently powerful results local level, Japan views Wii Fit as one of the worse characters in the game despite having RIN in their region. However, with the same pattern of these three characters continuing into 2018, Wii Fit may potentially rise above the two in the future.

It is really hard to put a finger on where Dedede is in the bottom 5. In one hand, Whiteout scores an upset against WaDi, with Zaki getting 9th at Sumabato 24 (although he is known to perform decently in Sumabato tournaments). In the other hand, he still possess less representation and consistent results than fellow super heavyweight Ganondorf. He also has mixed opinions among the players, some thinking that he is underrated, while others think he is a candidate for the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, time will tell on how he will perform.

Although Ganon lacks the large splashes of results (Gungnir's 17th placement in Umebura Japan Major and Adom's 9th placement at Syndicate 2017) his 2017 self has (although this is mainly contributed to the year still remaining young), his 2018 self still gets some consistent results in a local and sometimes even in regional levels. His abnormally high representation is mostly thanks to his status as a "disrespect" and stylish character. Opinions on Ganon are rather mixed. Some players (such as ESAM and Dabuz) view Ganon as a completely abysmal (or joke) character and shouldn't be taken seriously, while others are more optimistic about the character due to his reps and results. His ultimate test is Hyrule Saga: if one places even 33rd there, this would boost the character.

Doing somewhat well for her tier placment. This is mostly thanks to ven (and sometimes tyroy when he plays her in locals), getting some alright results in a local level, despite having minimal representation. ven, after drowning in pools (129th) in both Genesis and Frostbite, made a nice showing of placing 25th at Battle for Vegas: the highest she has ever placed. However, her placement is extremely volatile due to numerous factors: one, having mixed perception from players, two: comparing her results to Ganon and Dedede is rather difficult, three: the possibility of Mii's being included in the next list, and finally: how she would do in Hyrule Saga. Time and patience is required for this one.

Although there are some notable players in it's credit, Jigglypuff is performing not very well at all (which isn't surprising considering that it is a three time worse character). This trend is unlikely going to change in the future, as most of her players (despite still only getting notable local results) are region locked, and one of it's best players in the US, LeeT, mainly plays Mii Brawler now. While there are a few supporters for the character, it is almost unanimously considered one of the worse in the game, although having some notable local results in it's credit makes it compete with Mii Swordfighter and Mii Brawler for the spot of the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, the Mii's potential inclusion of a future tier list may aid it in the end, but overall... yeah it is pretty bad character.

Despite some notoriety (such as AEMehr's 13th placement at IBP Masters Showdown), it's lack of representation makes it unranked in the tier list. It, at this point, is considered the unanimous best Mii Fighter, getting some respectable results at a local level thanks to Rom and AEMehr. This a static position that it retains in 2018: only getting notoriety in locals. If it does return in a future tier list, it's placement is volatile, as it is seen as ideally being placed around Ganon's, Dedede's, and Zelda's position, while their results are hard to compare.

Both of them completely suck. Their abysmal representation is further supported by very poor results. As a result, prior to their exclusion from the tier list, they are seen as candidates for the absolute worse character. However, while their strengths are decently compared, the Brawler's results are worse than of the Swordfighter (as well as Jigglypuff), which somewhat continued into 2018. However, out of the Brawler, the Swordfighter, and Jigglypuff, the Brawler has the most vocal support. Notably, Keitaro went as far as to co-main the character to (futility) prove it's worth himself. Nevertheless, they are not good characters at all, which a lot of people often forget they exist.

And that is it. Got any thoughts? Maybe some predictions on Ganon's, Dedede's, Zelda's, and Gunner's placement? Should this be a completely separate thread?

A lot of people interested in using Miis were scared of actually maining them due to the ambiguous rulesets regarding them, so that is a big factor towards their lack of representation.
Some places even go as far as outright banning them.

But yes, Brawler and Swordfighter with 1111 sets are candidates for worst character in the game.
:196:

MarioManTAW · Apr 11, 2018

The_Bookworm said:
the Brawler's results are worse than of the Swordfighter

Are you sure about that? My data so far seems to indicate the opposite, as does ssbworld.com, on which

has the least representation and the lowest success rate of any character.

Skeeter Mania · Apr 12, 2018

MercuryPenny said:
character strength is objective, although it is variable as new strategies are developed and implemented. the problem is that human perception doesn't necessarily line up with the facts.

we can really only approximate how good a character fares right now, with their current practical metagame in mind, as well as existing results. we could be way off track from the truth but our limited human perspective is such that it's an inevitability that we will be wrong in some areas, and thus it's always worth re-investigating previous conclusions. it's no different from science, really.

So in a way, you’re saying tier lists are rather unreliable.

|RK| · Apr 12, 2018

The_Bookworm said:
Similarly to Falco, these two characters have their supporters, but both are performing very badly. Both Dr. Mario and Kirby have similar strengths and weaknesses: having a decent combo game and a handful of surprisingly strong KO moves, but they both suffer from an very poor approach thanks to their minimal range and mobility, and poor endurance (Kirby due to his light weight and exploitable recovery, and Dr. Mario due to his abysmal recovery). For Dr. Mario, his representation is among the worse in the game, with the only active notable player to speak of his B7Games (who only gets respectable results in a local level). For Kirby, after Komota's performance in Frostbite 2017, the character now only gets his best results in a local level, being very sparse as well. Unfortunately for both of them, this trend continued into 2018, which looks even worse for both of them as Wii Fit Trainer at least gets splashes of results thanks to John Numbers.

Poyo still exists.

49th at Shine 2017, 33 at Big House 2017. It's not "nothing since Frostbite."

His results after that haven't been amazing, sure (65th at G5 & 129th at Frostbite), but there also haven't been many big tournaments since.

Yes, I still get triggered when people put Kirby and Doc (whose results are actually non-existent) together.

Good work overall, though; we appreciate the effort!

Skeeter Mania · Apr 12, 2018

To add to my response to

MercuryPenny , results are a metric defined by a player, not a character.

Rran · Apr 12, 2018

Skeeter Mania said:
Oh, shut up already. Do I have to take you seriously or something?

why ya' gotta be so disrespectful sometimes :/

ARGHETH · Apr 12, 2018

Rran said:
why ya' gotta be so disrespectful sometimes :/

This whole argument has been people being needlessly aggressive.

Minordeth · Apr 12, 2018

Nah said:
I took a look around and found some ****:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094215
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2586814/
https://ac.els-cdn.com/S18777058173...t=1523475536_9613ad39de561a6a3f66488a71439004
https://psychcentral.com/news/2010/...onnections-slows-our-reaction-time/18031.html

Assuming the information is legit, it seems that reaction time gets better from birth to somewhere in the 20's (one of the things says 24 specifically), then declines as one gets older. Though from my skimming it seemed like it's not completely agreed upon, and there's potentially other factors that would affect a person's reaction time.

Some additional take-always: reaction time is more or less set during your teenage years and starts declining somewhere in your 20s/30s depending on what you are measuring. This is confounded by how “reaction” is coded and quantified.

Depending on the activity, experience/education can compensate for reaction-time/task speed losses. This seems to manifest either indirectly, through simplification of execution and system familiarity, or through learned skills that increase efficiency.

I’d wager that games that rely predominantly on twitch mechanics to gain a competitive advantage (like old school Quake or CS 1.6)) or require both speed and complex inputs (like Guilty Gear) favor younger players.

Most fighting games are trending toward lower skill floors, which allows for a wider variety of competitors, as less reliance on twitch and complexity also allows players to stay competitive longer.

The authors of one paper also noted the importance of physical exercise in keeping the brain functioning well. I’d imagine players like Armada, Hbox, or Larry could end up being competitive well into their 30’s, provided the former players take care of their hands.

And now for something else:

Skeeter Mania said:
I mean, it's not like tier lists are word of god or anything.

Skeeter Mania said:
So in a way, you’re saying tier lists are rather unreliable.

You’ve said this multiple times, and frequently as a non-sequiter. So, what’s your point?

Skeeter Mania said:
Well, with scientific hypotheses, you could be inciting a change in the real world.

First, scientific hypotheses may or may not have anything to do with “the real world.”

Second, @Nah was making an analogy that you took literally and tried to dismiss, for some reason, by appealing to the “real world.”

EDIT: Perhaps I could also add objectivity vs subjectivity. With scientific experiments, subjectivity only comes into play when it comes to observation. Subjectivity, in this game's case, applies to a much broader spectrum (tier placements, player interaction, effectiveness of technique). Objectivity, for the latter, only applies to frame data and hitboxes.

Also, no.

Subjective judgments come into play in science all the time. Everything from how to quantify and measure what you want to study, to choosing the right statistical tools, to deciding what to control for, and especially with interpreting the data.

The only thing “objective” in there is what you have no control over.

Ultimately, the difference between good science and bad science is how thorough you are at accounting for your biases.

Iridium · Apr 12, 2018

TDK said:
Karna confirmed for Hyrule Saga.

Notable Hyrule Main total so far:

: 8 (Karna, MVL, VoiD, K9, DKHo, Blank, Sinnyboo242, big_mak)
: 5 (Espeon•CH, Arrow, IzAw, 7, T)
: 9 (Yeti, BasK 3xA, Biddy, Jdizzle, ItsSonic, L.U.C.Y, Zan(?), Ri-Ma, Sigma)
: 8 (Bloodynite, Opana, Rickles, MGK, Adom, Pon, Vermanubis, Lord Bahamut)
: 6 (Ven, Nayru, Purple Guy, Diamond, Bonren, Rizeasu)

You can add Glentendo

to the list. He was confirmed last night.

Skeeter Mania · Apr 12, 2018

Minordeth said:
First, scientific hypotheses may or may not have anything to do with “the real world.”

Note that I said "could incite a change".

The_Bookworm · Apr 12, 2018

|RK| said:
Poyo still exists.

49th at Shine 2017, 33 at Big House 2017. It's not "nothing since Frostbite."

His results after that haven't been amazing, sure (65th at G5 & 129th at Frostbite), but there also haven't been many big tournaments since.

Yes, I still get triggered when people put Kirby and Doc (whose results are actually non-existent) together.

Good work overall, though; we appreciate the effort!

It is still pretty stagnate nevertheless. I never said that Kirby has no notable representatives either, but this is something to be noted.

MarioManTAW said:
Are you sure about that? My data so far seems to indicate the opposite, as does ssbworld.com, on which has the least representation and the lowest success rate of any character.

Maybe it shifted to Brawler's favor this year? If so, this is interesting and a few minor tweaks may be needed.

Heracr055 said:
It looks like that took a lot of work Bookworm.
I have a few minor quips (such as the perception of Trela coming back, which won't happen imo, or highlighting DP's lack of results when it pretty much goes without saying), but I feel the biggest setback to this is that DasKoopa's monthly articles depict this in an easier to follow fashion (with visuals and noting the big plusses or minuses for a character's monthly results change). However, you did tackle every character over 2016 to now, as opposed to covering "flavor of the month" or just looking at a few character's trends over a few months. If you're going to keep doing these, I would condense the timeframe to a smaller window (discussing EVO 2016 serms very out of date now) and trying to remove stuff of little substance, such as discussing Kirby and Dr Mario's general gameplan (trim the fat, keep the meat). For instance, you mentioned results for lesser known chars and provided player nanes I've never even heard of. That stuff is good

Edit: Also where did all this agression from several users come from these last few pages?

This article is talking about their performances in 2018. I don't remember mentioning EVO 2016 at all in my works.

Skeeter Mania · Apr 12, 2018

Minordeth said:
Subjective judgments come into play in science all the time. Everything from how to quantify and measure what you want to study, to choosing the right statistical tools, to deciding what to control for, and especially with interpreting the data.

The only thing “objective” in there is what you have no control over.

The same applies here.

Thus the volatility makes it hard for me to take these lists seriously.

Minordeth · Apr 12, 2018

Skeeter Mania said:
Note that I said "could incite a change".

I know. It’s a meaningless statement.

Because human beings interact both through and with Smash Bros, testing and examining match-ups and hypotheses or whatever about stuff in Smash, has an effect on the “real world.”

Finding out that Marth has some AT that shuts down half the cast has a “real world” consequence.

Skeeter Mania said:
The same applies here.

Thus the volatility makes it hard for me to take these lists seriously.

Do you read what you write? Do you read what other people write? You make posts and write replies divorced from the context you are replying to.

Lemme explain: You literally tried to denigrate attempts to test out hypotheses in Smash by comparing it unfavorably to scientific testing. You did this because you misunderstand science but act like you know. When I called out your misunderstanding, you tried to make it seem like it was part of your original argument. Which it is not.

MercuryPenny made an entirely reasonable and nuanced post about character strength versus what we know or do not know. You then decided to go off on your misunderstanding of science when they had it right the first time.

TL:DR - Saying “Sheik is top tier” is a reliable and valid enough statement to be fact at this point in time.

Skeeter Mania · Apr 12, 2018

Minordeth said:
Finding out that Marth has some AT that shuts down half the cast has a “real world” consequence.

What kind?

Prince Koopa Jr · Apr 12, 2018

Iridium said:
You can add Glentendo to the list. He was confirmed last night.

Where is Glentendo from?

Bigbomb2 · Apr 12, 2018

Prince Koopa Jr said:
Where is Glentendo from?

He's from New Jersey

Prince Koopa Jr · Apr 12, 2018

Bigbomb2 said:
He's from New Jersey

Ah, ok, is he a notable Link player in his area?

Bigbomb2 · Apr 12, 2018

Prince Koopa Jr said:
Ah, ok, is he a notable Link player in his area?

Yeah he's pretty well known. He's about the only Link that I can think of in Jersey

The_Bookworm · Apr 12, 2018

Well we got ourselves a flip and switch. Before, GOML 2018 is an A tier and Switchfest was a B tier (before my recent announcement). Now, GOML 2018 is a B tier and Switchfest is an A tier. We might see GOML become an A tier again in time though.

Skeeter Mania · Apr 12, 2018

The_Bookworm said:
Well we got ourselves a flip and switch. Before, GOML 2018 is an A tier and Switchfest was a B tier (before my recent announcement). Now, GOML 2018 is a B tier and Switchfest is an A tier. We might see GOML become an A tier again in time though.

What happened to cause that switch?

The_Bookworm · Apr 12, 2018

Skeeter Mania said:
What happened to cause that switch?

Simply that GOML has less entrants than expected (emphasis why it could return to A tier in time), while Switchfest has more top level action happening.

WiFi · Apr 12, 2018

Ok, Roy's moves being safe on shield have very little to do with his spacing game as a whole. We all know that Roy's sweetspots are at the tip of his sword AKA, it isn't necessarily beneficial him to space out the opponent the same way Marth does. It has nothing to do with range nerfs or the data overall.

Guys, we were just talking about how this site is good for it's low level of toxicity, and here we are tearing each other apart.

Envoy of Chaos · Apr 12, 2018

WiFi said:
Ok, Roy's moves being safe on shield have very little to do with his spacing game as a whole. We all know that Roy's sweetspots are at the tip of his sword AKA, it isn't necessarily beneficial him to space out the opponent the same way Marth does. It has nothing to do with range nerfs or the data overall.

Guys, we were just talking about how this site is good for it's low level of toxicity, and here we are tearing each other apart.

Correcting misinformation is not toxicity no reason to take it that way. Every character benefits from good spacing, just because he does more damage at the hilt doesn't mean he's not going to use his sword to control space which keeps him safe and allows him to open holes in the opponents defense. Yeah when he's trying to kill he isn't going to look to hit with the sword but the fact his weak hits do lead into his strong hits means it's not useless for him to hit you with it.

J0eyboi · Apr 12, 2018

Envoy of Chaos said:
Correcting misinformation is not toxicity no reason to take it that way.

Gonna assume WiFi was more referring to

Skeeter Mania said:
Oh, shut up already. Do I have to take you seriously or something?

Rizen · Apr 13, 2018

Crazy thought: how about we stop drawing attention to spam or whatever?

I was in a low tier side event. Ike, G&W and Wario should really be bumped up a tier; they fit much better with D tier and wreck some of the bottom tiers. Having said that, GFs were between a DDD and Palutena, who won, so make what you want of that :/

It's weird not being able to play Link in those. I need to find a low tier main.

Deleted member · Apr 13, 2018

The_Bookworm said:
Pretty much I feel like it. I personally feel like that this a perfect subject to be put in a separate thread though.

So we finally reached our 100th page. My time here in Smashboards started here on this thread 4 months ago, about 75 pages ago. Might as well finish off the analysis.

Doing pretty well, benefiting the title of "best character". Despite some players describing her as "broken", she doesn't have the dominance of one, especially this year so far. At the start of 2018, her results (as shown from Das Koopa's chart) has gone down, with Salem not performing as potent as before. Even with Tweek picking her over Cloud and (alongside Mistake) getting better results, she lacks any tournament wins on majors (and even on B and C Tier events, she struggles to get victories, with Tweek (and Shu on a qualifier) being the only one getting any wins on those events). Although her results at higher level play has increased as a result of Salem and Captain Zack still getting good results, and Tweek's and Mistake's newfound success, Bayonetta's dominance at lower play has gone down (which dropped even more after BSD and RRS's Bayo videos), especially if those players are stacked up at majors, resulting in a large gap between high level Bayo players (Tweek, Mistake, Salem, Zack, and Lima) and lower level Bayo players (although tyroy and Chag can be an exception). In the end, only the most intelligent and skilled Bayo players will thrive in the current metagame, but until she gets consistent tournament wins and top 8 dominance, her placement can be in a little bit of a debate. However, she is well established as the best.

Not doing as well as before. With some events banning Cloud in doubles, Cloud players (despite still obtaining strong results in regional and local play, often higher than Bayo's and Sheik's) has less practice with the character, and his popularity decreased. Still mostly affects majors, as MKLeo and Tweek is starting to prefer Bayo over Cloud (with Tweek replacing Cloud altogether for certain matchups alongside DK), and komorikiri not travelling to the US as much as usual. This lack of interest with Cloud is also appointed with infamous top player opinions, with some top players claiming that Cloud's recovery is too exploitable for safe play at high level. I feel like MKLeo is especially getting that feeling. At this point, despite his enormous strengths, Cloud's placement is volatile, especially competing with Sheik and Diddy.

Similarly to Ness, Diddy is a lucky recipient of not falling apart when he lost his best player. His strengths and ever large playerbase allowed to obtain great results, sometimes higher than of Bayo and Cloud (such as Zinoto's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11). However, he struggles to enter top 4 at majors ever since ZeRo's hiatus (with one top 8 appearance being MVD at Genesis 5), so like Cloud, his placement is volatile.

Sheik seems to have some positive light this year. Similarly to 2017 Sheik, she lacks any tournament wins at majors. However, her consistent top 8 appearances only got better, and her performances on other levels of play got notably stronger as well. VoiD still gets good results and Mr. R continues his dominance at Europe, but his other players at lower level play (specifically sinnyboo242's performance at Midwest Mayhem 11 and Koolaid's upset on Salem) is establishing consistent success at regionals and locals. However, I feel like the verdict on whether Sheik will stay in place or rise in the tier list is ultimately determined in 2GG: Hyrule Saga.
Still getting strong results, in a dominant fashion. Possessing the most dominant matchup chart in the game, this character goes off strong. Despite being a little rarer than other top tier characters (with Kirihara showing up less in tournaments even in Japan) and herself having a little issues with a few of the other top ranked characters, her results is dominant as Dabuz is winning tournaments at a major and regional level, with other Rosa players such as falln getting commendable results as well. Like Sheik, whether she will rise in future tier lists or remain ranked 5th is a story of time.

Both of these flashy characters are going very strong this year with consistant strong success. While Fox has a larger representation, ZSS has greater peaks (thanks to Nairo, Marss, and Choco). I see them remaining here, but both are well established characters.

Not doing as good as before. His popularity and peaks are currently overshadowed by the characters above him. KEN hasn't traveled to the US ever since 2017 is over (with his dominance at Japan being slightly inconsistent), while both Manny and 6wx are in semi-active states. Despite his representation and results still remaining strong on other levels of play, it is kinda hard to predict the future of this character.

Despite not achieving the dominance of 2016 and early 2017, he still gets commendable results benefiting a top tier character. Despite not getting the peaks of Mewtwo, his representation and consistency are both higher than him. Ally and ANTi both gets consistent top 16 placings at majors, while Zenyou and the newly established Dark Wizzy slams down their forward air fists at regional and locals. Despite continuing negative views of this character (similar to Ness), his results makes his future placement debatable.
WaDi makes this character look top 5. Mewtwo is an even stronger combo and kill game than Fox, but with the cost of being even more frail. He competes with Mario for the 9th spot as WaDi gets consistent top 8 showings at majors, with Mewtwo's other players getting good results outside of that. 2018 is going to be volatile for this character as it is unknown if he will truly increase or stay at a very respectable 10th.

Marth is a rarer character than the other top tier characters, as he requires extra smart plays with great effect. MKLeo is the figurehead of this character, especially now as he is reluctant to use Cloud. The result is Marth getting more consistent peaks than other top tier character except for Rosalina and ZSS. However, his lack of popularity in other levels of play may come back to haunt him as he competes with Ryu and Corrin for the 11th spot.

A lot of negative views for this strong character. However, he has a quite a large playerbase despite not being as common as top tier characters. Darkshad gets consistent high placings at majors (getting 9th at Frostbite), Locus's results have improved from his sad performance at the latter half of 2017 (although this may come from picking up Bayonetta as a co-main / secondary), and other players improved successes such as Venom and Brosinex has further adds to this. As a result of both this and his negative views, his placement is volatile, especially if Trela participates in a major.

Doing very well. I entered Smashboards about four months ago, I can predict everyone's reaction to when Corrin is ranked 13th in the 3rd official tier list. However, Cosmos would prove that Corrin deserves that placement by scoring very high on tournaments. Fortunately for Corrin, he pushed this success to 2018 as well, consistently placing top 10 in each major he participates. Other Corrin players are playing very commendably in other areas of play as well. Other his representation is lower than other top/high tier characters, he competes with Marth and Ryu in terms of tier placement, and him being either at the top of high tier or the bottom of top tier is a wide topic of debate.

Solo Lucina is kinda rare for a character in her tier. She has more counterpick value than Marth, as she has a lower learning curve. As a result, she is seen as a very flexible counterpick character at high level play due to her similarities to Marth. Mr. E, among other Lucina mains, brings commandable results with this character to affirm her high tier placement. Although top players are using her less often in tournament play as a secondary so far in 2018, Mr. E continues to bring good results with the character, but not as good as the top 13. The only way she can be top tier with these results is if players think she is THAT similar to Marth (although not). Nevertheless, this tier position seems accurate and she keeps a close gap to her stronger ancestor.
This tier placement definitely brought debates thanks to AC's and MKLeo's success with MK as 2017 closes out. However, Pikachu seems to prove more and more that he deserves this 15th placement this year. Pikachu is a rare character in competitive play (which may lead to matchup inexperience) for being a high tier character, but ESAM brings out the thunder stronger this year, with a 7th placement on Genesis 5 and 3rd placement on EGLX 2018, with players like Rideae and Captain L giving out more consistent results regionally, and a few notable results in majors like Captain L's 13th placement on SML: Battle for Vegas. With this tier placement in tact, it is unknown if Pikachu will rise any further in the tier list due to still remaining rare.

MK's end of 2017 success didn't fully translate in 2018. MKLeo uses MK in more rarer occasions. Fortunately, he is still popular in a regional level, and still getting commendable results in a national level, with AC's 9th placement in EVO Japan being a good example. Despite MK's success and popularity, he competes with Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi for this spot, as they are rarer than him, yet obtains greater peaks that him in recent times. Time will tell.

Lucario is not doing too good backing up his 17th placement in 2018. Although he still gets a few good showings, such as Tsu- at Niconico Tokaigi 2018, he doesn't have too big of an impact in 2018 as he did in 2017 (aka Frostbite and West Side). His inconsistent playstyle, combined with the increased success of Captain Falcon, Peach, and Luigi makes things look bleak for him so far.

When we think of Luigi's successes, we think of Elegant in the end of 2017. In 2018, while Elegant continues to perform to (for the most part) dominate in regionals and locals, he struggles to achieve the peaks and wins in 2018 so far. While the increased successes of other Luigi players such Mr. ConCon and Poke in regionals does not make this a huge deal, the more consistent peaks and successes of Captain Falcon and Peach makes Luigi placing volatile. Nevertheless, his top 20 placement is secure for the time being.

Falcon is going off strong this year. Although he is a popular character (which puts emphasis on him being a high tier character), his results are nothing short of excellent. Fatality, although he struggles to make his Civil War impact, is performing amazing, getting consistent top 10 placements in tournaments for a high tier character. Due to that, things are looking bright for this character which may cause an increase in the future.
Peach, despite not being too common at all, is performing very well this year. This is especially credited to Samsora, for his high placements in both major and regional tournaments, and winning against opponents that Peach normally struggles with on paper. Other Peach players, especially in Japan, are pulling off good results for the character as well in a regional and sometimes even in major events (like MuteAce getting 25th at Frostbite). This combined with Lucario and Luigi lacking the peaks that she has makes this look only at her favor.

Olimar is somewhat struggling in comparison to 2017, but this is mainly thanks to Shuton's lack of attendance in US events. While Olimar still has a good playerbase getting results in regionals, those results specifically are not as strong as characters ranked below him such as Toon Link and Ness. With Shuton attending Switchfest and still getting good results in Japan, this may bring some positive gifts to Olimar, but until then, he is struggling off right now.

Both of these characters are not doing well, especially in comparison to 2017. Bowser's results and attendance, although respectable, have gone down. Nairo barely, if not at all, uses Bowser anymore at tournament play, while those who main him have continued to bring only average results for the character. DK's solo results have gone down. His big issues with his matchup spread (which also applies to Bowser) are getting more abused in the current meta which led to his decrease in results, which includes his solo results. Recently, however, HIKARU managed to win Sumabato 24 and Konga got 17th at SML: Battle for Vegas may show that DK's flame hasn't been put out yet, but the increased results of Toon Link, Ness, Mega Man, and Greninja may haunt him as he struggles to get his glory back.

Toon Link is looking pretty well lately. His strong point is his results in Japan, as Sigma and Ri-ma brings out consistently good results in Japan, which includes both of them getting 9th at EVO Japan. Outside of Japan, he obtains above average placings at tournaments, which is more prevalent in regionals thanks to 3xA and Biddy in USA, and Hyuga in Mexico. The ultimate test for Toon Link, however, is Hyrule Saga.
An unfortunate victim of losing a top player crashing and burning the character, which is combined with DLC introducing characters that dealt with him easier. Despite achieving no where near the consistent strong results he once had, Villager's other players still get above average results with the character, especially at a regional level, thanks to SS, Panda Bair, and Aardvark. With a power shift in the C tier itself happening as a result of changes in 2018, it is unknown how it will affect Villager's placing.

Greninja already established itself as a solid character. His most solid results come from Europe, as IStudying continues to obtain solid results there, while other Greninja players such as Stroder and Some (in their respective regions) bring upon above average results. Similar to Villager, the power shift in the C Tier may make his future tier placement unpredictable, but he these results may cause a rise in the future.

Mega Man is a tricky character to place where he is in the current metagame. In one hand, we have Kameme getting 3rd at EVO Japan mostly using him, while getting consistent good results at Japan, but in the other hand, his popularity has gone down. While his results remain above average, it is tricky to place where he is due to these factors. It is mainly a factor of waiting (especially with Kameme participating in Switchfest) to see his true place in the meta.

Ness continues to defy the negative opinions laid upon him (which is the main reason behind his drop to 28th), and place consistent above average results. The main contributors to this are Gackt, BestNess, taranito, and S1 earning notable results in their regions and even in some major tournaments such as BestNess getting 25th at Genesis 5, S1 placing 5th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taranito placing 17th at EVO Japan, and Gackt placing 2nd at Frostbite Ursa Major 2, with numerous notable names taken off. This, combined with other Ness player's (such as Shaky and Awestin) great consistent regional results, the fall of Lucas opinion, and FOW's return to the scene (again lol) allowed Ness's overall opinion to rise, which will most likely see a rise in placement in the future.

Not doing very good at all, especially being placed this high. Despite numerous characters in D tier getting notably better results than him, public opinion of him is very persistent thanks to Taiheita's "potential" to do extremely well if traveled to USA (despite inconsistent results at the latter half of 2017) and "potential" as a character, resulting in him rising to 29th. However, one of the main factors behind Lucas's "potential", Taiheita, retired in competitive play in 2018's start, which dropped off Lucas pretty hard to only getting respectable results in certain regions and especially in local play, since he is the figurehead of Lucas's results. Unless public opinion is still persistent (which is like Yoshi's, but on steroids in terms of durability lol), he is very likely to drop off the record.

His current condition in 2018 is pretty much identical to 2017. Although Raito rarely left to USA at all (though getting 17th at Genesis), his results in Japan has slightly increased, while other Duck Hunt players like Ozone still getting decent results in tournaments, especially at a regional level (with Tamushika and Brood getting 17th and 25th at Genesis, respectively). With Bowser and Lucas noticeably dropping in quality, it is likely that Duck Hunt will slightly increase if these results persist, although him rising to high tier seems very unlikely due to his glaring weaknesses and very meh representation.

Although a Link will never get the "Civil War" run, he is still doing fairly well to hold his position. While his others players, such as Scizor and the numerous European players he have, gets average to slightly below average results. However, T continues to push the character to show that he deserves this placement, obtaining 9th at EVO Japan and scoring high placements in Umebura and Rikabura tournaments. Although the large drop in Bowser's and Lucas's quality seems to make it likely for him to rise, the ultimate test for him is Hyrule Saga.

Not looking very good for them. As the meta advances, it is revealed that his strengths from Brawl didn't translate as well as expected. He is currently outclassed by Mario (also easy to play, but has better KO potential) and Marth (better disjoint), which results in them being not very popular. Despite Earth dual-maining him with Corrin, he still obtains some good results for him, while other Pit players such as Kiraflax, Chompy, and Kswz gets some solid results in a regional level. However, with R.O.B, Samus, Shulk, and even Yoshi, Wario, Lucas, and Ike getting more consistent success and larger playerbases at a regional level, things look bleak for him. Nevertheless, the continued efforts of his mains and his strengths will establish them as solid mid tier characters in spite of his decreased success.
For those who are wondering, the reason why Dark Pit's results and representation are worse than Pit's is because Japan (the home world for Pit results) views Dark Pit as a significantly inferior character to Pit due to poorer arrow control. It is the reason why Dark Pit is ranked three tiers lower than Pit in the second official tier list, although the tier system did automatically assigned them as the same character ever since then.

Probably the most average character in the whole game, with average representation and results. This stimuli continued into 2018, as Raptor and various other Yoshi mains continue this trend, with their most notable appearances being in regionals, although they usually take top either 25th or 33rd in majors. Although he doesn't enjoy the increased success of R.O.B., Shulk, and Samus, he is also benefits from Lucas and the Pits falling off the meta as well. This may overall result in this tier placement of 34th being very accurate for him, which is very respectable considering the negative views of some players (particularly top players).

While Shulk somewhat has fallen off in majors in 2018, in comparison to him getting some notable success such as getting 33rd in Civil War and 17th in Frame Perfect Series 2 in 2017, he has nevertheless has seen somewhat better success in regionals. This mainly thanks to Kome in Japan, getting notable results such as 4th at Sumabato 23, 5th at Umebura 31, and 25th at EVO Japan. Nicko, despite his "retirement" and co-maining him with Marth, gets consistent success in a local level, in addition of getting 5th at Kawaii Kon 2018. As a result, Shulk's placement is volatile: whether he slightly increases as a result of his notable results in regionals, or staying the same placement due to lacking consistent notable placings in majors in 2018.

Doing pretty well. Despite negative views stacked up (no pun attended) against him, he managed to found some newfound success in 2018 to make up his somewhat stagnate stance in the second half of 2017. This is mainly thanks to SaSSy's (mainly at Frostbite and No Fun Allowed) and WaDi's performance with the character, in addition of other R.O.B. players getting better regional and local success since then, winning against some matchups considered too unfathomable for R.O.B. "to be good" (most notably Bayonetta). This may result in an increase in tier ranking if such performances keep up, especially with a few characters above him, such as Lucas and Pit, stagnating in comparison to him.
Not doing so good. This is due to him stagnating in comparison to other mid tier characters. This is due to his unpopularity, negative views, and rather high learning curve. Although his strengths, a few notable placings (such as Skorpio's 9th placing at Midwest Mayhem 11), and some notable players (such as Ke-ya, Dath, Athena, and Reflet) keep him from falling to low tier, his stagnation in comparison to the rest of the characters in D Tier (plus Ike and Wario) makes things look bleak for him.

Samus is in a really weird spot. Although she doesn't have a lot of success in majors (like Shulk), her results in regionals and especially locals have been very respectable (like Shulk again). She is one of the only mid tier characters (besides Shulk and Lucas) to have positive views for her future, which combined with obtaining notable success (as mentioned before), makes things look bright for her. However, at the same time, she doesn't have a lot of success in majors, which may come back to haunt her. All we can do is to wait and see at this point.

Game and Watch is at the weirdest spot yet. He gets a single very significant result for the year, then runs off to get only respectable results in a local level (with Mexico being an exception, as he gets notable regional results there). This "single placement" syndrome happened again, as Maister (a Mexican player) gets 13th at Genesis 5, winning against Pink Fresh, Fatality, and Mistake, and then he is back to same position. This syndrome could be the result of matchup inexperience, due to him being a rare sight in competitive play for a non-low tier character. Some players do believe that he is underrated due to his theoretical matchup chart. In the end, his placement is somewhat accurate, although he is harmed by the more consistent success and representation of Ike and Wario.

In a similar vein to Ness, he is a heavily picked on character (by especially the top players, unsurprisingly) despite his success not reflecting that. His stagnation in 2017 was broken in the second half of 2017 with San and Ryo getting very respectable results in a regional level (with San even getting 4th at GOML 2017). Despite this, his negative views led him to be dropped to 40th with some players even claiming that he is low tier (with some tournaments now allowing him in low tier side events) and worse than Roy. In 2018, however, his regional success continues with added support of Rango, SM, and Soan. This is further pushed with Ryo getting 25th at Genesis 5, and SM getting 33rd in both Genesis and Battle for Vegas. The combination of getting more consistent showings and better results than Pit, Robin, Game & Watch, and arguably Lucas, alongside the numerous negative views and bias against him, makes his future placement volatile, but he can definitely rise higher.
Despite him being slightly rare, especially in comparison to other mid tier characters, he is seen with notable successes this year. When you think of Wario's success, the first thing you think about is Glutonny. He continues to obtain consistent commending results in Europe (recently winning a decently stacked tournament), alongside getting 9th at Midwest Mayhem 11, taking a set off of Darkshad. The peaks presented are higher than some of the upper mid tier characters, impressive for a character that some players consider not good at all. Other notable players to speak of is Waymas and Fluzi (Reflex is semi-active). However, his playerbase is still relatively small, and his glaring weakness of relying on a bait and punish style continue to hold him back from placing higher or more consistent. With his strong results from Glutonny and negative views from many players (which is the main force behind his drop to 41st), his future placement is volatile, but like Ike, he could definitely be higher.

Similarly to Yoshi, his current representation and results accurately reflect his current placement. While he receives a few notable successes in regionals mainly thanks to Captain Levi and Hyper Kirby, and komorikiri placing high with solo Roy in Japan locals, he lacks any notable appearances in majors. His main appearances in the meta mainly revolve around locals, in which he performs best. However, despite this, his performance is somewhat laughable in comparison to the "potential" many players put on him. There is debate on whether he (alongside Charizard, Little Mac, and Palutena) should be considered an upper low or lower mid tier character.

Getting some notable appearances this year. Sharpyzard notably achieved getting 33rd in Genesis 5. Charizard's main appearance is regionals, especially at Europe, with Fire, Virum, and Sharpyzard getting some decent placings at European regionals and especially locals. Similarly to Roy, locals is where it shines due to possessing more strengths than the characters in F and G tier (except for maybe Pac Man). As his success in 2017 would continue into 2018, it makes it's tier placement accurate, although it's results (especially at a major level) is noticeably worse than most characters ranked above him. As a result, him being upper low tier or lower mid tier is a topic of debate.
Despite numerous negative views on the characters (which is most notable from ZeRo), he obtains a dedicated playerbase with numerous regional and local results to speak of. In 2018, this continued. The notable players that continued this is pu55yking, Vash (who got 13th in 2GG: Last Chance Qualifier and 33rd in Battle for Vegas), Sol, Wonderbread, Lazyboredom, and Elvis. The Japanese Mac player bt.yamato notably obtained 7th in Sumabato 24 recently. However, with his glaring weaknesses and inferior results in comparison characters ranked above Roy makes it debatable whether he should be in the upper low tier or lower mid tier.

Doing slightly worse than before. This year, her mains are noticeably underperforming / not as active as before (examples include her best player, TLTC, getting 49th at Genesis and 129th at Frostbite). This is combined with some players noted her strengths not being as potent as previously deemed, as well as her noticeable weaknesses. While some players such as Nairo continue to argue in support of her, Palutena being lower mid tier seems rather unlikely, especially with Pac Man and Bowser Jr. recently outperforming her.

Doing pretty well, which is mainly thanks to Sinji, getting placements like 17th at Genesis 5 as well as consistent success in regionals (such as 13th at Collision XV). Other Pac Man players make good placements as well, although it mainly at a local level. However, his glaring weaknesses prevent him from getting any more consistent results, especially at higher levels of play. Opinions on him is rather mixed. While some players go as far to say that he is at the lower portion of mid tier as a result of Sinji's successes, others, such as ESAM and Mr. R, view him as a poor character that should be ranked even lower. As a result, while he could be ranked higher in the future, him getting out of low tier seems very unlikely.

Not doing too good. Although he somewhat has backed up his placing thanks to the efforts for those who main him, those successes are mainly at a local level. He is very scarce at a major and even regional level, and those who participate in those tournaments (particularly at a major level) generally don't place well. It doesn't help that one: his best player AC now only uses him as a secondary / sandbagging character, now pretty much just using a more viable character in Meta Knight, and two: Bowser Jr. this year started to outperform in almost every level of play. Although he isn't as bad as characters like Dr. Mario, Kirby, or Wii Fit thanks to his niche matchups against zoning characters, as well as the three's inconsistent results and nearly abysmal representation, things look pretty bleak for him.

Doing notably better than before, despite still being mediocre. He got increased results in a regional and local level thanks to the efforts of Blanc (who is widely considered the best Jr. player in the world), Taternator (who gets consistent high placing in MSM's, defeating players like K9, Scizor, and numerous games off of Elegant), and Hatsuyuki (who gets decent results in Karisuma tournaments). This is most highlighted by Taternator getting 25th at Battle for Vegas. However, these results are not good enough to prove that he is a lower mid tier character, while some players such as ZeRo rank him even lower and have a negative perception of him. His placement is volatile as a result, although he has a good chance of slightly rising in the future due to Palutena's and Falco's declining representation, results, and perception.

Similarly to Falco, these two characters have their supporters, but both are performing very badly. Both Dr. Mario and Kirby have similar strengths and weaknesses: having a decent combo game and a handful of surprisingly strong KO moves, but they both suffer from an very poor approach thanks to their minimal range and mobility, and poor endurance (Kirby due to his light weight and exploitable recovery, and Dr. Mario due to his abysmal recovery). For Dr. Mario, his representation is among the worse in the game, with the only active notable player to speak of his B7Games (who only gets respectable results in a local level). For Kirby, after Komota's performance in Frostbite 2017, the character now only gets his best results in a local level, being very sparse as well. Unfortunately for both of them, this trend continued into 2018, which looks even worse for both of them as Wii Fit Trainer at least gets splashes of results thanks to John Numbers.

Wii Fit Trainer is pretty much the same as last year: despite the good showings from John Numbers, both her representation and results outside of him is very minimal. However, the main reason behind being ranked lower than Dr. Mario and Kirby, despite those two characters having a similar situation but having no player giving off respectable results in a regional level and consistently powerful results local level, Japan views Wii Fit as one of the worse characters in the game despite having RIN in their region. However, with the same pattern of these three characters continuing into 2018, Wii Fit may potentially rise above the two in the future.

It is really hard to put a finger on where Dedede is in the bottom 5. In one hand, Whiteout scores an upset against WaDi, with Zaki getting 9th at Sumabato 24 (although he is known to perform decently in Sumabato tournaments). In the other hand, he still possess less representation and consistent results than fellow super heavyweight Ganondorf. He also has mixed opinions among the players, some thinking that he is underrated, while others think he is a candidate for the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, time will tell on how he will perform.

Although Ganon lacks the large splashes of results (Gungnir's 17th placement in Umebura Japan Major and Adom's 9th placement at Syndicate 2017) his 2017 self has (although this is mainly contributed to the year still remaining young), his 2018 self still gets some consistent results in a local and sometimes even in regional levels. His abnormally high representation is mostly thanks to his status as a "disrespect" and stylish character. Opinions on Ganon are rather mixed. Some players (such as ESAM and Dabuz) view Ganon as a completely abysmal (or joke) character and shouldn't be taken seriously, while others are more optimistic about the character due to his reps and results. His ultimate test is Hyrule Saga: if one places even 33rd there, this would boost the character.

Doing somewhat well for her tier placment. This is mostly thanks to ven (and sometimes tyroy when he plays her in locals), getting some alright results in a local level, despite having minimal representation. ven, after drowning in pools (129th) in both Genesis and Frostbite, made a nice showing of placing 25th at Battle for Vegas: the highest she has ever placed. However, her placement is extremely volatile due to numerous factors: one, having mixed perception from players, two: comparing her results to Ganon and Dedede is rather difficult, three: the possibility of Mii's being included in the next list, and finally: how she would do in Hyrule Saga. Time and patience is required for this one.

Although there are some notable players in it's credit, Jigglypuff is performing not very well at all (which isn't surprising considering that it is a three time worse character). This trend is unlikely going to change in the future, as most of her players (despite still only getting notable local results) are region locked, and one of it's best players in the US, LeeT, mainly plays Mii Brawler now. While there are a few supporters for the character, it is almost unanimously considered one of the worse in the game, although having some notable local results in it's credit makes it compete with Mii Swordfighter and Mii Brawler for the spot of the absolute worse character in the game. As a result, the Mii's potential inclusion of a future tier list may aid it in the end, but overall... yeah it is pretty bad character.

Despite some notoriety (such as AEMehr's 13th placement at IBP Masters Showdown), it's lack of representation makes it unranked in the tier list. It, at this point, is considered the unanimous best Mii Fighter, getting some respectable results at a local level thanks to Rom and AEMehr. This a static position that it retains in 2018: only getting notoriety in locals. If it does return in a future tier list, it's placement is volatile, as it is seen as ideally being placed around Ganon's, Dedede's, and Zelda's position, while their results are hard to compare.

Both of them completely suck. Their abysmal representation is further supported by very poor results. As a result, prior to their exclusion from the tier list, they are seen as candidates for the absolute worse character. However, while their strengths are decently compared, the Brawler's results are worse than of the Swordfighter (as well as Jigglypuff), which somewhat continued into 2018. However, out of the Brawler, the Swordfighter, and Jigglypuff, the Brawler has the most vocal support. Notably, Keitaro went as far as to co-main the character to (futility) prove it's worth himself. Nevertheless, they are not good characters at all, which a lot of people often forget they exist.

And that is it. Got any thoughts? Maybe some predictions on Ganon's, Dedede's, Zelda's, and Gunner's placement? Should this be a completely separate thread?

I genuinely enjoyed this. Amazing job man.

You know as time progresses, I think Bayonetta has a chance of being in her own S tier. Not SS, S. Then Cloud and Diddy will join Sheik and the others in A tier. That is just my theory. :lol:

Oh, and I just want to say hi to everyone. I have not posted in here in a while, and I will return to the Competitive Analysis being more active when Smash Bros. Switch's meta starts to develop.

Back to going to other threads.

Also I have no IRL friends.

ArnoldPalmer · Apr 13, 2018

Rizen said:
Crazy thought: how about we stop drawing attention to spam or whatever?

i dont see why people dont just block him already, its the same thing over and over

Rizen said:
I was in a low tier side event. Ike, G&W and Wario should really be bumped up a tier; they fit much better with D tier and wreck some of the bottom tiers. Having said that, GFs were between a DDD and Palutena, who won, so make what you want of that :/

It's weird not being able to play Link in those. I need to find a low tier main.

Personally, I think Ike would be C tier if it wasn't for the lack of rep. Hes solid all rounder that has the tools to handle most situations and actually does decently against quite a few high/top tiers.
Too bad DLC stole his playerbase, now he might be stuck with the low tier stigma until smash 5 comes out

The-Technique · Apr 13, 2018

ArnoldPalmer said:
i dont see why people dont just block him already, its the same thing over and over

Personally, I think Ike would be C tier if it wasn't for the lack of rep. Hes solid all rounder that has the tools to handle most situations and actually does decently against quite a few high/top tiers.
Too bad DLC stole his playerbase, now he might be stuck with the low tier stigma until smash 5 comes out

It's a shame, but whatever. It makes things easier when people constantly dash into his jab and fall for the same 50/50 uthrow uair KO over and over.

Skeeter Mania · Apr 13, 2018

ShinyLegendary said:
I genuinely enjoyed this. Amazing job man.

You know as time progresses, I think Bayonetta has a chance of being in her own S tier. Not SS, S. Then Cloud and Diddy will join Sheik and the others in A tier. That is just my theory.

Oh, and I just want to say hi to everyone. I have not posted in here in a while, and I will return to the Competitive Analysis being more active when Smash Bros. Switch's meta starts to develop.

Back to going to other threads.

Also I have no IRL friends.

So are you spending more time on the Switch discussion board?

Official 4BR Tier List V4 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

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