All Characters Match-up Chart (9/07 update)

[Fonz]

Canceling a shl by hitting B too late and fastfalling early while approaching a zelda you think is going to neutral B is too good. Free charged fsmash. Yay for not being a robot unable to deal with reflecting moves.

 

[tarheeljks]

yeah, couldn't you get around zelda's reflector by using a lot of empty short hops?

 

[mood4food77]

it's pretty obvious when a falco is going for his blaster, a lot of empty short hops hurts falco more than it helps since the blaster is teh real reason why falco is top tier and not using it at all really hurts his game, and yes the emptry short hop can help but a lot of zelda's can abuse that even more, but for countering teh SHL, zelda's b probably does best

 

[NJzFinest]

too many open short hops = lighten kick in the face

 

[1048576]

Okay, fine. Let's just look at Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth, Peach, C.Falcon, ICs, & Samus. If you completely ignore everybody else & only look at how well those 8 characters do against eachother, this is the order you get.

1.Marth
2.Falco
3.Fox
3.Sheik
5.Peach
5.ICs
7.Samus
8.C.Falcon

Marth isn't just ranked number one because of how he does against Mewtwo & Luigi. You guys keep saying that, & yet you don't even look at the chart. You say things like "If A & B both have equal records, but A is better against Y & B is better against Z, then A is better then B because Y is better then Z." & while that sounds really smart, no one can give me one example of a situation like that on this chart. You guys are just using made up information, while I'm going on what the chart actually says.

We have a recovery tier list on this site too. Is that just based on how well the characters recover in tournaments? And what was the information on this chart based on, if not tournaments?

Sorry for spamming this thread with tier list talk, but you can't just use the top 8 characters; you can't just use the top five characters; you have to use all 26 characters, with their matchups weighed based upon their overall matchups. Ex. If character A can **** Bowser and Mewtwo, but can't beat a decent Sheik, and character B ***** Sheik but sucks against Bowser and Mewtwo, then character B is better because being able to own Sheik is much more useful than being able to own Mewtwo and Bowser (Sheik has better overall matchups, so she [he?] will see more play), even though character A is 2-1 and character B is 1-2. Whether the results end up the same, or whether a situation like that actually exists (it does) is irrelevant. Your calculation methods are irrational and inaccurate, producing results that disproportionately reward characters who pwn characters who are never used, but do poorly against the characters one might actually see in a tournament. If you want a theoretical tier list, as opposed to the current one that is based off of tournament results, then you can't just add up the advantages vs. disadvantages column. You're not even taking into account slight counters vs. hard counters.

 

[Fonz]

yeah you guys are right, i was stupid

shl to reflector! oh man lots of damage for zelda!

 

[3GOD]

can someone show me a really good kirby, i want to see one

Try the N64 version if you want to see that

 

[freeman123]

1048576
Sorry for spamming this thread with tier list talk, but you can't just use the top 8 characters; you can't just use the top five characters; you have to use all 26 characters, with their matchups weighed based upon their overall matchups.

I already did that, remember? That was the first thing I posted, & you guys said Marth was only in the top because he does well against all the crappy characters. So I was showing you that when you just compare the top characters Marth is still number one.

If character A can **** Bowser and Mewtwo, but can't beat a decent Sheik, and character B ***** Sheik but sucks against Bowser and Mewtwo, then character B is better because being able to own Sheik is much more useful than being able to own Mewtwo and Bowser

Give me an actual example of something like that on this chart. There is no situation on this chart where two characters are exactly equal except one does better against good characters while the other does better against bad characters. Even if there was a situation like that, you could say the exact opposite. If character A does better then B against Bowser but worse against Sheik, & that makes B significantly better for doing better against Sheik, doesn't it also make B significantly worse for doing poorly against Bowser? Not that it matters, because like I said, there's nothing like that on the chart. I'm showing you the order of the characters from best to worst based on what the chart says, & you're basically saying "you're wrong because of this information I made up."

That's like someone saying apples are better for you then candybars, & then someone else saying "You can't just say apples are better for you then candybars just because apples are healthier, because what if candybars gave you super powers." Well if candybars did give you super powers, then maybe there'd be something to debate. But if you can't point out specific examples of any super powers that candybars give you, then you haven't got a case.

You can't argue factual information with 'what ifs.' I'm saying "the chart says this" & you're saying "You can't say the chart says this, because what if it said that?" Who cares if it said that? It doesn't say that, it says this. When it says that we'll discuss that, but until then the only thing to talk about is this.

 

[tarheeljks]

The apple/candy bar anecdote ruined your argument. The problem with you saying "the chart says this" is that those who disagree with you believe the chart means something different. You seem to want to weight the character matchups equally, while others find merit in having better matchups against higher tier characters ( I am among the latter).

It's like an apple protecting you from the common cold, the flu, allergies, but not from major illnesses while a candy bar protects you from cancer, but may leave you more susceptible to the common cold. I'll take my chances wit the candy bar.

 

[1048576]

Young Link ***** Peach, but gets owned by Ness. Jigglypuff owns Ness, but gets beat by Peach. Peach is a more prevalent character because she has better overall matchups and thus will be played more in tournaments, therefore, Young Link's Peach matchup is more important than Jigglypuff's Ness matchup.

 

[ToP CaT]

wow you guys are idiots, apples and candybars wtf? do you guys even know what your talking about anymore, quit having arguments that have already taken place 1000 times on smashboards...quit trying to make people see it your way because no one is that good at changing peoples minds. If they think something they are going to keep their opinion no matter what you say so you can all quit wasting your time. Who cares who is first or second or dead ****ing last, in the end it doesnt mean ****...

 

[highandmightyjoe]

I still think that Link has at least a small advantage on Marth. I have two friends that use Marth and I always have trouble with them, but if I'm using Link I can usually take them. Then again I do have a very different style to my Link then most other Link users. First off Link is hard to kill. Sure he can be comboed fairly easy, but he is heavy and has good recovery. Links recovery, if done right, is very hard for Marth to edgeguard. He also has some of the most effective projectiles for fighting Marth with. Certain projectiles Marth can just swat away but if he tries that on a bomb he'll run into trouble. You can set up for bombs with a short hopped boomerang, if he swats or dodges it throw the bomb and follow with a good hit/combo.

Marth also relies alot on his grabs and a good Link is hard to grab. First off Link can play at range which makes it naturally hard to grab him, and several of Links attacks if shielded knock the opponent to far away to shield grab. Not to mention that Link is one of the handful of characters with a longer grab range than Marth, albeit he does have disadvantages to his throw too. Another thing is that Link can break grabs with some clever tricks. Holding a bomb while being grabbed will cause you to be freed as it explodes. Also a returning boomerang is one of the best ways to get out of a grab in the game.

As far as sword fighting goes Marth does have longer range on most of his attacks, but not all. The third hit of Links jab combo is, I think, longer than most of if not all Marths attacks. Also the aerial hookshot does suprisingly well against Marth. If he tries to do a Fair combo you can airdodge back to avoid one, then if he follows up with another you can hookshot from the airdodge to prevent it. Short Hopped aerial hookshots are actually a good approach/retreat tactic for Link in this matchup too. Another thing is that since Marths recovery is almost all vertical he falls very prone to bomb-drops over the ledge. He is one of the easiest characters to hit with this.

I am not saying that Link completely butchers Marth, as it may seem from that long list of advantages. But Link definately, at least when played right, has a good advantage here.

 

[Culinary]

I really think this should be stickied.

 

[exarch]

Marth beats link...
1. Link is not hard to edgeguard. He has to be somewhat creative (as in something besides fsmash, dtilt, and bair) but it's pretty darn easy. What's worse is it kills Link at ANY percent.

2. link's aerials that knock people away don't matter for marth with super grab range.

3. i used to think it was an even match, then i learned link never gets back on and now it is t3h suck.

 

[Mankosuki]

I just discovered yesterday that that is the case for Doc vs. Marth as well.

 

[highandmightyjoe]

First off I don't really have much trouble coming back with Link against Marth in most cases. However, I am willing to concede that it may just be stage dependant. Given the right circumstances either of them can have the advantage.

Also I now love Culinary. Your sig is from one of my favorite Penny-Arcades. Loved it.

 

[chun1]

sheik vs peach

do you guys really think it's in sheiks favor? some ppl say it's even and i personally have trouble with it. can someone explain?

 

[AS Money]

sheiks combos > than dsmash

if your sheik in this match up just dont hold down and if you do make sure to hold up on the other stick that isnt down a hint you wont eat the dress

and i love how sheik has 3 match ups below 5 and they are all only 4's

 

[StripesOrBars]

Shiek should never lose priority battles(as stated from exarch).

Which is true.

Shiek has waaaay more range, more priority, her attacks come out quicker, she has a better grab, needles>turnips, and is efficient at edgegurding Peach too.

Shiek has more than a "slight" advantage.

 

[freeman123]

tarheeljks
The problem with you saying "the chart says this" is that those who disagree with you believe the chart means something different.

Oh my God... Why am I the only person here who isn't ********? WHAT THE CHART SAYS IS NOT A MATTER OF OPINION!!! Maybe whether or not the information on the chart is correct is a matter of opinion, but the chart says what it says. If anybody thinks it says something other then what it says, they're wrong.

tarheeljks
You seem to want to weight the character matchups equally, while others find merit in having better matchups against higher tier characters ( I am among the latter).

I've already shown that if you just include the top 8 characters & compare how they do against eachother, while ignoring everyone else, they still come in almost the exact same order. It's not my problem if you want to pretend that isn't true. There is no character on the list that I made that's ranked high just because he does well against a bunch of scrub characters, but sucks against all of the good characters. As a matter of fact, every character in the top 10 on my list beats at least 2 characters within 5 places of themselves. They aren't just ranked high just because they beat all the sucky characters.

If I robbed a bank, in court I couldn't say "You can't convict me of robbing the bank, because what if they gave the money?" It doesn't matter, because they didn't give me the money. That's how stupid this argument you keep repeating sounds. TELL ME WHICH CHARACTER I HAVE RANKED HIGH JUST BECAUSE HE BEATS SCRUB CHARACTERS!!! I'm begging you guys to tell me that.

1048576
Young Link ***** Peach, but gets owned by Ness. Jigglypuff owns Ness, but gets beat by Peach. Peach is a more prevalent character because she has better overall matchups and thus will be played more in tournaments, therefore, Young Link's Peach matchup is more important than Jigglypuff's Ness matchup.

So are you arguing that Young Link is better then Jigglypuff? What about the fact that Jigglypuff beats Young Link? Or the fact that Jigglypuff is even against Falco, while Young Link loses to Falco. Or the fact that Jigglypuff beats ICs & Samus, while Young Link loses to Ice Climbers & Samus. You think Young Link is good just because he has one good matchup against one good character?

 

[Tera253]

Jiggs>Y.Link
~Tera253~

 

[mood4food77]

freeman, to make a tier list based on character match-ups, what you have to do is set a degree to each character (like 1 for fox and 26 for mewtwo) and base each characters match-ups accordingly and then do something with the degrees, it's much more complicated than what you have, you just added the characters match-ups, while some of the characters may have been accurate, the rest were way off, like why doc's advantage over fox weighed heavier than his on bowser's, even though he's like bowser's worst match-up, just adding the characters match-up total shows how well each character does against every character if each character was used the exact same amount, but they're not, and you may never come to an end since you'll have to weigh each character again and again because the positions from the initial use will change and keep changing, so to make a tier list based solely off of match-ups is ******** since no final could be decided, it's basically decided on how well each character can withstand the top 5, which in my opinion is still ********, but what are we gonna do

 

[tarheeljks]

@ freeman: I misspoke, when I said "the chart doesn't necessarily mean blah, blah, blah. . ." Everyone knows what the chart means. The dissention has arisen as a result of just summing the #'s for a particular character and creating a ranking.
Also, just for the sake of the scientific method, I summed the #'s for Fox, Falco, Sheik and Marth in the following manner: 1) cumulative score vs. entire list 2) cumulative score vs characters upto and including Link 3) score vs. top 5. Someone check these, b/c I did it mentally, but I'm pretty sure they are right. Also, I didn't determine these totals the exact same way as Airo; he used 1 for the worst matchup (0-5) and 11 for the best ( 5-0). I took the list as is and used 0 for (0-5) and A=10 for (5-0). As a result, I got different totals and subsequently different rankings.

1) score vs. list
Fox: 171
Falco: 175
Marth: 174
Sheik: 188

The ranking based on overall score would be Shiek, Falco, Marth, Fox. Airo got Marth, Sheik, IC, Falco, Fox; I may add in the IC later, but for now I'm just looking at the other four. I haven't checked how Airo got his totals yet, so I don't know what the reason for the difference is (other than him using 1-11 and me using 0-10 which shouldn't make a difference). However this ranking seems reasonable to me b/c it's pretty apparent that Sheik has the most 8's, 9's, and A's on the list.

2) score upto and including Link
Fox: 75
Falco: 75
Marth: 74
Sheik: 78

I separated the scores in this manner as to include characters that appear in tournaments more often. My selection for Link as the cutoff is essentially arbitrary, but I also wanted to see how much closer the scores were against better characters. As you can see you get, Sheik, Falco/Fox, Marth.

3) score vs. top 5

Fox: 25
Falco: 26
Marth: 25
Sheik: 26

Marth's score suffers and Sheik's benefits in this total b/c of the 5-3 matchup in favor of Sheik. So here we have Falco/Sheik, Fox/Marth.

For the record I'm not endorsing the results I 've obtained here, I'm just posting them for everyone to see. Also, as far as the scores are concerned, I think 2) could/should be analyzed more because the separation begins to occur the most around Ganon through DK, b/c Sheik owns the weaker characters harder than Falco, Fox, and Marth.

This brings me to my point about weighted matchups. There is nothing wrong w/adding the scores. If the chart has any merit, then we should be able to aggregate scores from individual matchups to create rankings. We shouldn't discount the fact that some characters dominate the bottom half of this list, but stronger matchups against weak characters shouldn't carry the same weight as strong/good matchups against stronger characters (and don't in my opinion).

Wow, this ended up being longer than I meant for it be. Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing feedback. For those of you who disagree just be civil and say why. There is no need to insult people; who talks **** (and is being serious) on a forum anyway.

edit: deleted a typo.

 

[Wak]

I think you've made a small mistake about peach's matchups.

I looked at the whole board, I don't agree with some matchup, but maybe because I don't know enough about them...

but YL is definitely not peach's worst matchup! I played YL a lot, he's great against peach players but I usually take my average-skilled Sheik.

And Link also have a better matchup against peach than YL

My 2 cent

 

[mood4food77]

we need more peach players here to determine that but i hear that they complain more about y. link than sheik and link

 

[phish-it]

I haven't heard a single person here who thinks YL vs. Peach to be 5-3 in YL's favor. Most of them agree that it is either 5-4 YL or dead even (where I agree) to even a couple who think peach is at a 6-4 advantage.

 

[mood4food77]

yea, maybe you're right, but i've heard that y. link can give peach troubles, more than most of the characters she faces, and most of them say that y. link is better than link on peach, same with jiggs

 

[LessThanThree]

sticky....

 

[YOSHIDO]

the only thing i would say. Is i think yoshi vs shiek and samus is pretty even. As long as the yoshi doesnt mess up of coarse.

 

[NJzFinest]

Marth beats link...
1. Link is not hard to edgeguard. He has to be somewhat creative (as in something besides fsmash, dtilt, and bair) but it's pretty darn easy. What's worse is it kills Link at ANY percent.

2. link's aerials that knock people away don't matter for marth with super grab range.

3. i used to think it was an even match, then i learned link never gets back on and now it is t3h suck.

Um, Exarch, Marth vs Link is commonly known to be an even matchup and you stated in the Roy forums that Roy beats Link >.> I think you have a little more to learn about Link

the only thing i would say. Is i think yoshi vs shiek and samus is pretty even. As long as the yoshi doesnt mess up of coarse.

"Doesn't mess up" - You can say that for any character....
Messing up = Losing

 

[mood4food77]

ok, can someone tell me how yoshi has an advantage on ganon, i went to the yoshi boards and some AZ yoshi told me that yoshi had the advantage on ganon, i don't see this one happening at all

yoshi on sheik...isn't that yoshi getting manhandled by sheik, yoshi on samus almost produces the same results, right?

the sword users all have even match-ups with each other except y. link on link, in which link has a decent advantage on him, other than that they're pretty much, even

 

[RyokoYaksa]

I hope I can offer some good views from the Peach/Zelda perspective.

Peach vs:

Sheik - It really isn't that bad a match for Peach. I've played M2K's Sheik enough to know, and I'd say the 4-6 is accurate. The secret lies in knowing that dtilt > range, and generally knowing what the hell you're doing and what not to leave yourself open to.

Y.Link - it's quite bad for those Peaches who don't fight Y.Link on a regular basis. Otherwise it's actually very winnable once you learn that the bombs are better than turnips, and start using them accordingly.

Zelda vs:

Marth - Impossible. How anyone managed to fathom even a 4-6 chance amazes me.

Falco - 1-9? I don't disagree that it's in Falco's favor but it's not that huge of a landslide, unlike other top tiers.

Peach - again, not that bad. A slight disadvantage mostly because of the spam. I don't mind playing this match, personally.

 

[Skler]

the sword users all have even match-ups with each other except y. link on link, in which link has a decent advantage on him, other than that they're pretty much, even

Young link has the advantage on Link. Link gets hit by a bomb, Link gets comboed. young Link gets hit by a bomb, he takes 8%. Link has a longer sword, but young link is faster, has better projectiles and has annoying moves that hit Link horizontally and then uses those annoying projectiles to edgeguard (+ a more powerful sex kick). Link can edgeguard young Link, but it's not as easy to get him off the stage because Link has very few good moves to hit YL off of it (the scrahhh!,the sex kick might also count).

Most Link/YL players agree that Yl has the advantage in this matchup, it's still very winnable for Link, but it's tough.

 

[exarch]

NJz you may be right, but Marth's counter edgeguard>>>>>>>>Link. That's why marth wins, IMO.

Roy vs Link is very close to even. As long as you have a LOT of patience as Roy. It's tough, but totally winnable as Roy. I personally think the Roy forums are overly pessimistic about Roy's matchups.

I agree with what Ryoko said about peach (as another peach main).

 

[NJzFinest]

Marth's counter edgeguard>>>>>>most characters in the game. Actually, Link has it much better than Fox and Falco while recovering <.<
Anyways, edgeguarding alone doesn't make a character have an advantage over another, or else Falco players wouldn't win that often

 

[ChozenOne]

Phanna.. i can say without a shadow of a doubt Jigglys matchups order like this from Most Difficult --> Easiest

Fox
Marth
Shiek
Capt. Falcon
Falco
Peach
Picachu
Gannon
Zelda
Young Link
Doc
IC's
Roy
Samus

let's stop wasting time.. no one else really matters...

 

[NJzFinest]

The King says that Link beats J Puff >.>

 

[ChozenOne]

I believe that you smashmaster. But it so it's probably more like 4-6 in link's favor..

 

[StripesOrBars]

Fox isn't jiggs worst matchup, Pikachu is.

Edit: and Peach is one of, if not her best, match ups.

 

[Pneuma]

Most Link/YL players agree that Yl has the advantage in this matchup, it's still very winnable for Link, but it's tough.

No way. YLink's recovery gets destroyed by a Link using nair and he gets hit off the sides too easily from a nair/fair/fsmash/upb.
Link has more lag but also more spacing. Even his jabs outdo YLink's ftilt.

This is one of the very few EVEN matchups. Ylink has some stuff on Link (comboing, mostly) and Link has some stuff on Ylink (finishing, mostly).




Also, Jiggs definitely loses to Pika. A quick Usmash to Thunder kills Jiggs from 40% on most stages, less on Corneria. His recovery is not always easy to stop and he can out-range most of Jiggs aerials with, you guessed it, that incredibly fast Usmash. He has projectiles if he needs to run away and his dthrow leads into usmash unless the Jiggs is amazing at DI (or at higher percents).