This is actually a very interesting point. An important aspect the tier list needs to reflect is how well in a tournament can the average person expect to do in a reasonably competitive tourney should they pick this character? Strong fundamentals and tech skill can only take you so far. With some characters you really have to take the time to understand their playstyle, physics, hitboxes, matchups, etc. Many characters aren't like
who you can make tournament viable in a relatively short time. Some need quite a bit of work to really get good with them there lies a problem:
opportunity cost.
Only a select few players have proven the ability to be equally devastating with a 3 or more characters. When you decide to pick a character to main, you are forgoing main-ing a different one which could potentially get you better results for the time you put in. And depending on the character, it could hinder your ability to use a secondary or tertiary efficiently. Characters like
often get a bad rep for being super technical and tough to use (however true that may be). But as results from multiple players in multiple reasons have been showing, any effort it takes to play Greninja can be well worth it, even with popular top tier/high tier choices that have well established metagames. But can one as easily say the same for
? If I were to put in the time get really good with him, would I be able achieve the same level results on a regular basis as someone who picked a more straightforward/dominant top/high tier character? For Gluttony that's obviously a yes. But for someone getting into competitive Smash through SSB4 and is trying to get into competitive? Well...the results and theory don't bode too well. Gluttony shows that it's
POSSIBLE to do great things with Wario. But potential alone can't boost a character's position in the metagame.
Feasibility into tapping into a character's potential is just as crucial as the potential itself which is why characters like
,
,
,
,
and more have been able to dominate. Not only do they all have lots of much potential, but it's been proven that people can
reasonably access that potential too. It should be noted that many of the players who do great with the current top and high tiers only began maining them in
this game (or at least didn't use them in Brawl). Just look at all the players who started taking names the moment Bayonetta and Cloud were introduced. Not every person interested in playing Pikachu or Wario in this game put tons of hours into them in Brawl thus already have an intuitive feel for the character. On top of that, these characters have bang for their buck too. I am sure many of the current top and high level players could pick up mid, low, and bottom tiers and do cool stuff with them. But why should they when they already can use characters that are widely proven to be stronger overall to greater effect? I am sure Nairo could whack some fools with
again if he put in the time, but why should he when
and
can offer so much more for the same amount of effort (or less)?
The sad reality is that the average competitive player isn't like ESAM, Gluttony, John Numbers, Sinji, etc. who can get a natural feel for otherwise would be modest or mediocre characters and elevate them to heights people would never expect or are willing to put every ounce of effort they can push characters considered bad to a potent level. Many players getting into competitive want to pick a character that they feel will be worth their time and won't hold them back. Not everyone can be metagame innovators. Nor will they be so synergized with a character that they end up doing worse with someone theoretically better. And as Tweek and
show, that's not always the case with successful mid/low/botttom tier mains.
has already shown us how a character's position in a tier list can be affected by this issue. Back when the game was younger and ESAM stood along with many others on an echelon few players could match, it was easy to paint Pikachu is as a Top 5 pick. But as time went on, and players found success with other characters in greater quantity, Pikachu fell behind his former top tier brethren who were able to regularly achieve top and high level success with more than 1 potent main and he's gone from #5 to #15 (which to be fair is still good in a game this massive but it's been a noticeable drop and who's to say it won't continue?). ESAM has never failed to show Pikachu's potential. But Pikachu has never attained the
feasibility necessary to keep a character's metagame healthy and I feel Wario's in a similar boat. Gluttony shows us that Wario
HAS the potential to do great things. But unless Wario starts to develop into a character whose strengths can be feasibly attained by more players, I can't see his position improving too much.
TL:DR = Gluttony shows that
has potential, but he is where he currently is because it's too difficult or not practical for the average player to actually tap into it.
, charts like these are not Wario's full match up chart. The match up chart actually implies that Gluttony is a talented player because doing fine with all of the cast except for three is actually really good. He can be the one to make Wario rise from bottom fifteen.
