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

[Peaches]

Here's my post from Gaia:

Personally, Shiek should be above Marth.

I know it's old news, however I've just seen it on smashboards...however that ranking system, the first post on it...am I the only one who's confused and bothered by it? Seriously, I thought the person with the highest points would be #1, because the ranking system that they are deploying is very much like the ranking system that they created for Street Fighter III 3rdStrike for Japan, and the most points was Yun who was then #1.

In the one at smashboards...Shiek has the best overall points of 186 and yet...she's #3? Makes no sense to me at all, how can someone who has the best ratio points be #3?

Good point, well. She's technically not the best in the game. Fox has advantage over her (and everyone else), Falco has advantage. Marth is even (though many say that it's in Shiek's favor. . . like me).


HOWEVER, Shiek ***** so many characters, far worse than Fox will. This is due to dthrow, the fair, and the ftilt. Thsoe 3 moves will ****; SHiek simply doesn't have any hard matchups outside of the top tier characters.

Dthrow doesn't work so well on Fox/Falco. So half of her BS is gone, sure she still has a mean grab game, but it's not the ******** dthrow xx fair xx death stuff she can do on everything else.

So. TO sum it up, she has the most good matchups in the game; but Melee is so broken that anyone below middle tier doesn't have much of a chance anyways and that's who she is so good against. Fox and Falco however, do have some matchups that are fairly even throughout the tier list.

 

[Mogwai]

That makes no sense, almost nobody plays as the Bears in Tekken, however they are not insignificant in anyway. Remember, judging from the charts, she overall has better matchups than any character within the game...so how is she not #1? Tournament or whatnot, that's still irrelevant, if Fox and Falco where "indeed" better, then shouldn't they have better matchups then her?

In SFIII 3S, Yun is overall better than everyone, is because he has better matchups than everyone within the game, his only difficult matchups are Ken and Makoto. Steve is considered #1 in 5.0, because he has better matchups than everyone in the game his tough matchups would be Nina, Feng and Law, and guess what, half of the cast are not significant either because no players that place in tournaments play half of them as well in both games. Seriously how many people play Sean in 3S? How many people play the Bears or Lei-Wulong in Tekken5? This however does not make them insignificant is ranking characters though.

To me this list makes no sense, to how a character who overall averages better than everyone else in matchups is placed at #3.

Also, your statement about Waveshine, Usmash, etc, etc, sure those are great/excellent and all, however when you talk about that, your basically going back to stating about character potential again. Because if those where such a huge benefactor, then shouldn't Fox and Falco's matchups ultimately be stronger than Shieks overall then?

I can very say, well you know what, Storm doesn't have the potential to kill off an opponent off of one connected c.lk or tri-jump attack like Magneto, so therefore "technically" Magneto is or should be #1, however matchup wise, Storm>Magneto, which is why Storm is #1 while Mags is at #3, nobody can do it perfectly, thus the reason why "character potential" should be ruled out.

The only way I can agree on it is if Fox and Falco had better matchups than Shiek, however that isn't the case from the chart that is given to us. 186 points, compared to 175 points compared to 171 points...it just doesn't add up and isn't correct. Now unless there is a new chart which shows that Fox and Falco does indeed have better matchups overall, then Shiek should still be #1.

Not all match-ups are created equal and your stubbornness on this fact is mind boggling.

Lemme make this as simple as possible for you. The teir list is made to show how good characters are in the given metagame. When smash was new to the world, everyone picked their own cute little character and everyone got owned by Shiek. It was so unfair, everything she did wrecked everyone. So she was #1 on the charts. Then people started to learn the game, and certain characters popularity started dying down, and others started rising. Advanced tech was learned and some characters potential skyrocketted. Shiek still stayed on top of the tier list for a very long time, but once the metagame developed into what it is today, she's no longer the best. If 75% of the players in a tournament are playing the top 5 characters, your matchups there are so much more important than ****** the **** out of the bottom teir. I don't understand how this is even debatable. I mean, even considering the low teir matchups relevant, it's not like fox and falco should lose, it's just that they aren't expected to win with the same level of dominance that shiek does. Playing well in metagame > ****** ****ty characters that no one uses.

 

[Peaches]

Dude, his point is that on a point based system whoever has the most points is the top. Smash is just hella broken, that's all there is to it. It's really due to the fact that Fastfallers can be be defeated by some lower tier characters easier than Shiek.

 

[Mogwai]

Dude, his point is that on a point based system whoever has the most points is the top. Smash is just hella broken, that's all there is to it. It's really due to the fact that Fastfallers can be be defeated by some lower tier characters easier than Shiek.

The teir list and character ratings aren't based on a point system, they're based on who should do best in tournaments. Tournament characters aren't even close to an even distribution, so straight up adding points is an incorrect measurement of a character's effectiveness. Call it "hella broken" if you want, but that's the way things are.

Also, he's trying to draw these connections with games I've never heard of. Please, these are smash forums, speak in a language we can all understand.

 

[Peaches]

. . . YOu've never heard of Street Fighter or Marvel vs. Capcom 2? lol

 

[Mogwai]

. . . YOu've never heard of Street Fighter or Marvel vs. Capcom 2? lol

It's very admirable of you to dodge the actual point of my post...

Anyway, I've heard of them, but I'll be d@mned if I know what the f*** this is supposed to mean:

That makes no sense, almost nobody plays as the Bears in Tekken, however they are not insignificant in anyway. Remember, judging from the charts, she overall has better matchups than any character within the game...so how is she not #1? Tournament or whatnot, that's still irrelevant, if Fox and Falco where "indeed" better, then shouldn't they have better matchups then her?

In SFIII 3S, Yun is overall better than everyone, is because he has better matchups than everyone within the game, his only difficult matchups are Ken and Makoto. Steve is considered #1 in 5.0, because he has better matchups than everyone in the game his tough matchups would be Nina, Feng and Law, and guess what, half of the cast are not significant either because no players that place in tournaments play half of them as well in both games. Seriously how many people play Sean in 3S? How many people play the Bears or Lei-Wulong in Tekken5? This however does not make them insignificant is ranking characters though.

I can very say, well you know what, Storm doesn't have the potential to kill off an opponent off of one connected c.lk or tri-jump attack like Magneto, so therefore "technically" Magneto is or should be #1, however matchup wise, Storm>Magneto, which is why Storm is #1 while Mags is at #3, nobody can do it perfectly, thus the reason why "character potential" should be ruled out.

You know what I mean, this is talk that someone who's just here to talk about smash has no idea about.

 

[Gimpyfish62]

the problem with what OneWingSephiroth is saying is that he is taking the small differences in matchups way to far.

if shiek can **** a low tier character 5-0 and fox only ***** that character 5-1, who freaking cares, you are still ****** their faces off. a few points here and there dont matter, the important matchups are the matchups you'll be seeing (for example shiek, fox, falco, marth, peach (not so much peach anymore though)) you are making the bottom tier vs top tier matchups where the character just gets ***** seem like its a big deal when zomg bowser can win a couple vs falco, but still get his face torn off, but vs shiek he wont win any matches.

subtleties ftw.

 

[mood4food77]

yea, i agree, i don't think peach is a "gay" as she used to be, we've seemed to somehow get around her whorenado and other stuff, i consider her to be at the same level as falcon, ICs, and samus, and maybe even ganon

wow @chozen and magus, never realized that jiggs had THAT many bad match-ups, but yet, she's somehow still higher than ganon where basically you said she has as many (about) good match-ups compared to as many bad match-ups ganon as

ness does a lot worse on falco than he does on fox, falco has the SHL and fox doesn't, against falco he has to completely change his approach (or not fight on FD) i hate this match-up (personally, i hate falco), at least with fox he can get close

what about ness on falcon, i'd consider this almost like the the spacies, like a 5-3 to falcon, ness can do pretty much everything to falcon as he can to the spacies, only he can make his combo's more painful

and i've come to realize, every character besides fox and falco that i use, are underrated by quite a bit

 

[Peaches]

I think the point here is that, a total matchup chart comes out differently than the tier list. Matchup wise, Shiek is top. Tier wise, Fox is top.

 

[MetaKnight0]

How can you say every match-up is even and should have even consideration in the weighting of a character?

If this was true Sheik would be the top, maybe. However does the fact that Sheik owns everyone below Ganondorf mean anything? How many times can you think of where Sheik gets to fight Yoshi and Pikachu in a tournament? Having powerful matchups that low on the list doesn't matter very much. On the other hand, Sheik's matchups are more balanced high up on the list, where it really matters. Keeping that in mind, and the fact that Fox and Falco are generally more capable of getting to the high echelons of tournaments then Sheik is, and you have the reason why Sheik is below them.

 

[aces]

even though falco is easier and better i still think fox is better :D

 

[Mogwai]

even though falco is easier and better i still think fox is better :D

One or the other is better, they can't both be -_-...

This debate is really metagame dependant I think (whether Fox or Falco should be #1). Around Pittsburgh, there's a low number of ICs and Peaches, which makes Falco better in my opinion, but if those characters are prominent, then Fox is better. It's so close though, so either way it goes, I think the teir list is acceptable. The same is true for Shiek, Marth and Peach, they're all so close, so you could rearrange however you'd like and I don't think you'd find too many objections, though their true power is metagame dependant. Anyway, the teir list debate should not be in this thread, so I don't know why I'm encouraging it...

 

[mood4food77]

sheik and marth are much better than peach now

low number of peach players, wow, never thought of that one

peach actually has some bad low tier match-ups

 

[tarheeljks]

@Sephiroth: No one said the matchups didn't matter. Wesley's point is right on the money. The fact that Sheik destroys a lot of crappy characters that aren't played in many tournaments is not particularly relevant. Anyway, like I said before we all ready debated this topic a few pages back and laid it to rest. There was a good deal of in depth discussion regarding why a total points system doesn't work-- all matchups aren't equally significant. I don't care if you don't read it, but I wrote a lot about it the last time and don't care to do it again.

 

[phish-it]

You know, maybe we should just forget about everyone who isn't in the Top tier, and play a game called Super ****ing Starfox bros.

I mean really, if we just ban everyone but Fox, Falco, Sheik and Marth, there will be no broken characters.

I do hope they do a little more balancing in Brawl than they did in Melee.

 

[pdk]

You know what I mean, this is talk that someone who's just here to talk about smash has no idea about.

and how does that make it any less obvious what he was getting at with his examples?

 

[radical00edward]

shiek has many more chances of winning against every character than fox? then why isnt shiek top tier?

its good, but a little off..

 

[Mogwai]

shiek has many more chances of winning against every character than fox? then why isnt shiek top tier?

its good, but a little off..

Please read before posting, we've beating this to death, and shiek isn't better against everyone than fox is. . .

and how does that make it any less obvious what he was getting at with his examples?

Because, he's saying stuff about how the fact that certain characters are never played isn't relevant and I seriously have no idea how that can be the case. Also, certain stuff about Storm and Magneto and ****, well, I don't know, maybe someone else can understand that, but I couldn't read it for the life of me. Also, after the first time he refered to another game in terms that I couldn't understand (something about bears. . .), I just skipped all paragraphs that began with, "In ______ blah blah blah" because I had no frame of reference. After reading his post again, I can make some sense of it, but there's no explanation for why the characters in other games are rated the way they are, and frankly, as someone who doesn't play those games, I have no way of knowing. "Well, so and so, in this game isn't rated higher than whats-his-face, despite being strictly better" doesn't help me because I have no idea what he's talking about.

 

[Zodiak-Lucien]

shiek has many more chances of winning against every character than fox? then why isnt shiek top tier?

Fox does better against fox and fox does better against sheik.

 

[radical00edward]

but overall, shiek had much better rating than fox on the chart

 

[stingers]

Thanks a lot for this chart, I've used it to help in a lot of counterpicks and stuff I've made! ^_^

 

[JFox]

Phanna, you should add the total numbers up and put them to the side of the characters.

I found it pretty interesting that the numbers I bothered to add up were:
Fox-171
Sheik-186
Falco-175
Marth-174
Peach-160

 

[Mogwai]

Done discussing irrelevant stuff.

Some Fox/Falco stuff is wrong I think:

Fox vs. Marth 5-5: This matchup is so dead even. Marth has obnoxious cging, fox has waveshine to grab and uthrow to uair combos. There's a lot more to this than that, but trust me, it's really really even.

Fox vs. IC 5-4: This matchup is very similar to the falco one, but there's no SHL to harass ICs. On the other hand, shine is a real ***** to them and can keep them seperated and can gimp Nana really really easily. They also die off the top pretty easily and his recovery is good enough to survive the dsmash at 50% unlike falco. It's noticably harder for ICs than falco is, so it really has to be 5-4.

Falco vs. Doc 5-3: Caping, gimping with bair, chainthrowing, I get it. But the fact of the matter is, doc's not hard to combo and not hard to keep him the hell away from you. I've played against some pretty good docs, and I've never had any trouble with them since I got good.

Falco vs. Mario 5-3: See above.

Falco vs. Jiggs 5-4/5-3: Jiggs doesn't like SHL. She can combo falco well, but she has real problems beating dair and bair as long as you play smart. Again, I've played against some very good jiggs (Magus), and while I still usually lost, I'm convinced this is in falco's favor. Also consider Fox for 5-2 here, it's rough dying to usmash/uair at 60%ish.

Falco vs. Kirby 5-2: Kirby's got nothing here. I don't understand how this is any worse than 5-2.

Shiek vs. Kirby 5-3/5-2: That one video of Ken vs. Isai has gotten blown way out of proportion. This matchup isn't very good, it was just a fluke match and I'm really yet to see any other evidence of this being OK for Kirby.

 

[radical00edward]

Phanna, you should add the total numbers up and put them to the side of the characters.

I found it pretty interesting that the numbers I bothered to add up were:
Fox-171
Sheik-186
Falco-175
Marth-174
Peach-160

exactly, shiek is better than fox overall according to this chart, thats kinda off..

 

[Mogwai]

exactly, shiek is better than fox overall according to this chart, thats kinda off..

if I see another post like this I'm going to explode. would it kill you people to just read the debate on this very subject a whopping one page-two pages ago?

 

[phanna]

Yeah, people keep adding numbers together, so I might as well put them on the chart to save people the trouble. Those numbers don't have the significance that people think they do, however. For instance:

exactly, shiek is better than fox overall according to this chart, thats kinda off..

Wrong. Lower tiers, in general, have no hope against Ice Climbers or Sheik, and as such, their numbers are greatly inflated. As someone said, beating one character 5-0 is about the same as beating it 5-2 or even 5-3 as far as tournaments are concerned, so inflation on lower tiers doesn't make a character higher in the tier lists, sorry.

The best approach I've seen so far involves counting the number of match-ups as either victorious (5-3 or less), close (5-4, 5-5, or 4-5), or defeated (3-5 or less), and then weighting this somehow against the frequency of each character being played in tournaments, and probably taking double elimination into consideration (if one character got owned by only one other character, which only one person on average played per tournament, the first character would still be at the top of the tiers).

So back to my original point: Wrong.

I just got back from 3 hours of racquetball. My body is sore, I'm going to bed, I'll update this as soon as I can this week. I'll add tallies on at least the right, and maybe the bottom, but keep in mind the number this, and ONLY this:

A line tally gives how many wins that character would get if he had to play 26 people all at the same skill level, in 26 sets of best out of 5.

So this hardly replicates or even gets barely close to most tournaments, which are between 4 and 8 sets, with a much higher frequency of matches with upper tier characters.

 

[phanna]

Yeah, people keep adding numbers together, so I might as well put them on the chart to save people the trouble. Those numbers don't have the significance that people think they do, however. For instance:


Wrong. Lower tiers, in general, have no hope against Ice Climbers or Sheik, and as such, their numbers are greatly inflated. As someone said, beating one character 5-0 is about the same as beating it 5-2 or even 5-3 as far as tournaments are concerned, so inflation on lower tiers doesn't make a character higher in the tier lists, sorry.

The best approach I've seen so far involves counting the number of match-ups as either victorious (5-3 or less), close (5-4, 5-5, or 4-5), or defeated (3-5 or less), and then weighting this somehow against the frequency of each character being played in tournaments, and probably taking double elimination into consideration (if one character got owned by only one other character, which only one person on average played per tournament, the first character would still be at the top of the tiers).

So back to my original point: Wrong.

I just got back from 3 hours of racquetball. My body is sore, I'm going to bed, I'll update this as soon as I can this week. I'll add tallies on at least the right, and maybe the bottom, but keep in mind the number this, and ONLY this:

A line tally gives how many wins that character would get if he had to play 26 people all at the same skill level, in 26 sets of best out of 5.

So this hardly replicates or even gets barely close to most tournaments, which are between 4 and 8 sets, with a much higher frequency of matches with upper tier characters.

edit:

And something I just realized for the implications of this chart tying into the Tiers List, I just realized everyone has been overlooking a critical point:

Skilled players (which is who we are talking about) would be able to counter-pick characters in a tournament. So sure Ganon gets ***** by Sheik, but Ganon is still higher up on the Tier lists than the chart might suggest since he does well against most other people, and a Ganon main can just pick a different character against the limited number of Sheiks he encounters, thus granting the Ganon main higher tournament placings. So a few poor match-ups, even with some more frequently played tournament characters, don't necissarily indicate a lower tier placement than otherwise.

Everyone has to remember the Tier List is based on tournaments. This chart is each match-up, if it WERE to occur in a tournament, with those 2 characters throughout the whole set. So the fact that not every character is played with the same frequency in tournament sets, combined with the fact that it's not unlikely that at least one of the players in the set will use a different character at least once give rise to complications in translating the chart to the tier list that a simple method such as just adding up every row, or tallying the net gains/losses severely overlooks.

Edit (for real this time: Yup, definitely too worn out and tired from Racquetball. I hope people get the idea of what I was trying to do.

 

[OneWingSephiroth]

You know what I mean, this is talk that someone who's just here to talk about smash has no idea about.

I am speaking in a language that everyone should know, gosh forbid my knowledge in fighting games just doesn't just end on SSBM alone , I used those other games as a notion because theory fighting was being brought into the frey a few post back, also 3S used a similair pointing system such as the one posted by SSBM, so unless SSBM is the ONLY game you've been playing then yes, you wouldn't know what I'm talking about. Also on a matchup chart it would be usually assumed that the highest pointed character should be #1 which is what I was saying, however I will agree that if you "only" count the Top 8 Shiek does have more bad matchups than Fox or Falco, so I will agree upon that.

- Peace -

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

Hello. I have some comments about the Jigglypuff matchups. In case you don't know me, I'm a Jigglypuff main from Norcal, currently #10 on the Norcal rankings, and I've done a lot of travel; been to MLG Anaheim, Dallas, Chicago, and Orlando, as well as FC3, FC6, and OC2.

- I think that the top tier numbers are basically spot-on, though I think Falco should be a 4. I am glad to see that whoever was responsible for the chart realizes that Fox is decidedly harder for Puff than Marth (I personally love fighting Marths and Sheiks).

- Ice Climbers, to put it lightly, I disagree very strongly with the current assessment, and I'd like to know how it got put as 7 in the first place. I'd put it down as a 4. Their smash attacks are very effictive kill moves, and barring that, bairs and uairs can kill as well. Puff doesn't have any particular moves that are great at separating the Climbers. Not to say that she CAN'T, but there is not really a move you can count on to do it. Compounding this is that since Jiggly moves very slowly across the stage (despite having the best aerial mobility), she doesn't have as many great opportunities to focus on one climber as other characters. Finally, IC's have relatively good survivability against Puff. The Fwd B recovery is very safe against bairs/fairs, and has very little lag upon landing on the stage.

- I think Samus should be a 5, though I think 6 is a reasonable position.

- I see Ganon as a 5 or a 6. While it is true that Jiggly gets killed after about 5 hits from Ganon, I think Ganon is extremely easy to combo (including rest combos) and edgeguard. A stock on Ganon may only take 1 or 2 combos followed by an edgeguard (which although can be lengthy are not particularly difficult or precision-requiring).

- DK as a 7 seems disagreeable to me, but I don't have a lot of experience with the matchup. I do know that Bum routinely beats KillaOR however. DK is not the easiest to edgeguard either, although again, it could just be my own inexperience.

- Roy I see as closer to 7. Jiggly likes to hang out at his tipper range, which is garbage for him. Roy has few reliable ways to kill ANYONE, let alone Jigglypuff, who can avoid fsmashes and Fwd B's easily. Dsmashes and Usmashes probably kill more effectively (though Fsmash is still stronger, it is harder to land). The One-hit kill can only be done on stages with ceilings that have a height equal to or lower than FD (unless done in the air or on a platform), and in any case isn't reliable or safe.

- YL I'd prefer a 5. This isn't one of those matchups where "YL can't kill." YL has a great projectile game, and a fairly strong aerial game that can stifle Puff's approaches. Puff has a tendency to be in position for flying dairs after being hit by bombs.

- Pika is far from Jiggly's worst matchup. The argument is always that thunderflips kill Puff at ~30%. This is true if the usmash isn't DI'd, which at metagame is pretty rare. I don't consider myself to be playing Puff at metagame and I can get proper DI on Fox usmashes (comparable in speed and hitlag frames to Pika's) in matches nearly 100% of the time. This doesn't just save you the extra 6% (that is in fact, how much longer you can survive a Fox/Pika usmash with perfect DI, sadly), it saves you getting hit by the thunder entirely as well. Now, given that, Pika is of course slower than Fox, and can't get the usmashes that Fox can just from speed. Pika also lacks Fox's deadly throw combos, and has the single WORST grab range in the game. Pika lacks entirely the kind of defense that Fox has with shine. Dsmash is a nice safe move, but it's not unpunishable. Basically, all Jiggly needs to do to beat Pika is watch out for anything that leads to an usmash (mainly flying fairs and nairs). As for edgeguarding, Pika does have a good recovery, but his lag when landing on the stage is horrible. I'd put Pika down as a 5 or 6.

- Zelda is definitely not easy for Jiggly, but I think the tier difference causes people to misjudge it for what it really is. The case for a 4 I think is weak. Remeber this is saying that Jiggly has equivalent chances against a Zelda as she does against Marth, Peach, or Sheik. Being also a Zelda player, I think Zelda is a good test of a Puff's ability to use his ground game. Zelda cannot do very much against a Jiggly that ducks defensively or that spaces bairs well. Zelda has no throw combos on Jiggly (dthrow -> foot can be DI'd out of by anyone with a brain stem), so Jiggly can shield with confidence. One of Zelda's defenses, Nayru's Love, is actually risky to use against Jiggly. Besides the fact that it offers virtually no defense from above or below, if it is done in close proximity next to a shielding, or heck even a CROUCHING Jiggly sometimes, it CAN be rested. There is that much lag after the lest hit. I'm content with this matchup as a 5 or 6.

- Ness I'd rather see as an 8. He can kill Jiggly with bthrows, and uairs with some reliability, and bairs and fsmashes with somewhat less, and he has a solid defense with fairs and can maintain unpredictability with his DJC and excellent WD and dash attack. He is of course very easy to edgeguard.

- Bowser I'm not sure about, but 9 seems a bit high, given that Bowser's up B from shield, if hit properly, kills at nearly the same % as a Fox usmash, and it definitely harder to DI. He has some decent kill options in general, but no really good way to approach or combo/build up %. He is a huge target and easily combo'd. His shield is pretty huge though. 8 or 9, but I haven't much experience.

- I don't know where anyone got the idea that Pichu is a 6. He's just a small target, that's basically all he has going for him. Usmash is very hard to hit a Puff with, the final hit of Fsmash can be DI'd out of (and doesn't have that much range to begin with). His dsmash retains virtually none of the defensive qualities that Pika's has. Add to that that Pichu is the only character LIGHTER THAN PUFF. Pichu is also slower than Pikachu. At least 8, probably 9.

---

OK, now some comments about the concepts in general:

A Tier List is a List of "Tourney Viability." This is not the same as an unweighted average of outcomes across all character matchups, which is what simple addition of all the numbers in a row gives. Matchups that are less likely to occur are given less weight. If say Puff does poorly against Pika and Zelda, this does not carry the same weight as her doing as poorly against Peach and Marth, due to the fact that a player is far more likely to encounter a Peach or Marth than a Pika or Zelda, especially as the number of rounds in the tourney increases.

Also you can't ever really have a matchup that is a 0/A. It's mathematically impossible unless you are using intervals centered around the number to actually represent it (i.e. "5" actually represents 4.5-5.5, so "0" would represent 0.0 - 0.5)

 

[tarheeljks]

Please stop adding up the totals and saying Sheik is the best.

phanna: I agree that weighting the sums is the weigh to go. The question is how to determine the frequency that each character appears.

ricdeau: it can't be exactly 0, but think of it as the 0th percentile.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

Clearly we want to weight by the expected frequency of meeting each character. But it is not as simple as just finding what fraction of players are mains of X character. This only gives you the weight for the very first round (and this is without seeding, that is, random matchups and skill levels for the first round). If we are talking about a metagame player, he will be playing 6 or more rounds at a tourney. Each round, in general, will have fewer weaker characters and players in it, so as the number of rounds increases, the number of meetings with higher-tiered characters increases dramatically. This is to say, suppose we had a huge tournament of 256 people and had roughly 10 mains for each character in the game. A metagame player is about equally likely to see a Pichu as a Sheik in the first round. In each successive round, the chance of meeting higher tiered characters increases. Let's say the player in question wins the tourney. In the end, even though there were as many Pichus as Sheiks, it's overwhelmingly more likely that the player faces a Sheik.

Additionally, since higher-tiered characters tend to advance further in tourneys, a Sheik will face a Sheik more often than a Pichu will face a Sheik, since Pichu does not feel the full effect of the fact that successive rounds are met with higher tiers in general. In fact, if we assume that all players are metagame in the above tourney, it's likely that Pichu will lose the first match, be put into loser's bracket, and face generally lower-tiered characters.

So, to summarize my point, aside from the simple factor of the number of mains of a character that are at a tournament, there is a SECOND factor that gives more weight to characters close to one another in the tier list. This factor is more prevalent in higher tiered characters since they on average will play more matches in total than lower tiered ones.

EDIT: I tried to prove that last sentence mathematically and realized that I would need to have a computer program to do some simulations to have an idea of whether or not the factor does in fact change in magnitude as a function of a character's position in the tier list. I think potentially the second factor itself is very important, but its change between tiers is probably small in comparison, if it does exist.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Wesley said it. There is no way Marth has slight advantage on Fox.

He goes even with both space animals. He can gay them out. They can do the same to him.

 

[petre]

but say you actually do want to calculate the probability of winning at a tournament...that would be a very very long and complicated process...also you'd need a standard tournament size to base it on (such as 256 players), as well as noting that out of those players, most likely there will be more sheik and fox mains than pichu/bowser mains...it would be somewhat easy to find the chance of a character winning the first round after having this information, but after that it just gets really complex.

 

[ToP CaT]

complex, more like impossible, your trying to find concrete statistics, from probabilities and guesses its kinda ridiculous

 

[petre]

well yeah, but isnt this whole chart? i mean, the metagame is constantly changing, with every tournament outcome even, although not enough to change a piece of this chart, but still...

 

[Deleted member]

I made something like this a while ago

red = strong advantage
orange = mild advantage
green = fairly even
blue = mild disadvantage
purple = strong disadvantage

 

[Gimpyfish62]

haha apparently bowser is way way worse than i thought, o wellz

 

[ToP CaT]

ya apparently so is zelda..

 

[MetalLuigi1209]

and Yoshi, but Luigi's is better

 

[Gimpyfish62]

maybe i'll post my thoughts on bowser's matchups at some point. but probably not, its not really important, hes a horrible character that nobody cares about except for me lol