Brawl Character Match-Up chart

[zapdose]

i stopped reading after this. at least i should have.

congratulations for completely missing the point of my post. and if you wanna know just how advantaged/disadvantaged one character is over another, go ask people who played at least 50 matches against the opponent's character i.e., don't go on your own unexperienced opinion. for instance, i can tell you have hardly any idea how to play yoshi, much less play as yoshi against DK. go to the yoshi forums and proclaim yoshi is disadvantaged against 30+ characters. go ahead. if it were the right stage (another thing you don't mention) yoshi could just be cheap and egg camp, eggs are far from garbage they just actually take skill to aim, and yes you can camp with them, don't even argue about that.

how easy is IC chaingrab? well here's the only known defense for it: don't get grabbed. there you go, advantage goes to them against everyone.

Yoshi has the eggs, but pretty much everything else about him sucks. It has useless B moves, laggy smashes, and mediocre aerials.

Ice climbers' chaingrab is pretty hard to do consistently, especially in a game situation. It becomes progressively harder on heavy characters and characters with high damage.

 

[Juggalo]

Different people use entirely different tactics. I think the game has too many characters and too many play styles to ever make a half-decent list.
Cmon, I don't even play yoshi, but you're just assuming he's bad because all your friends suck with him and the computer doesn't give him justice.

This chart will be in constant dispute until the end of brawl, and it wont get any better or any worse.

I might just be a d*** by saying this, but I'm surprised this thread went so long and still hasn't been closed yet for fact of no practical value.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Haha.

Did you know that Arcadia magazine made a tier list for Street Fighter 3 Third Strike and it was based on a match-up list they did.

The list was so accurate that Third Strike player's everywhere just accepted it and the tier list as the official list.

That list was made in 1999 or 2000 I believe. It was made by a handful of hardcore gamers that played the hell out all of the characters and knew the best strats. Granted the group that writes Arcadia magazine is from Gamest magazine in Japan which was a prestigous magazine made by the most avid hardcore fighting gamers and they constantly wrote good strategy guides and accurate tier list so they have a reputation that they now what they are doing.

But my point is vaild. If people work together for an endeavor such as this we CAN get accurate results. But yes I will agree that the main problem is bias and people not wanting to accept that their character has alot of bad match-ups. Also people not using solid facts to back up thier reasoning.

 

[Vaul]

Emblem Lord Brawl FC: 2621-2304-4977
InterimOfZeal Brawl FC: 2492-3834-6499

Do it. Just for the hell of it (even though the lag will probably suck).

Anyway, let's get to the Falcon.
C.Falc and Bowser are neutral. If Bowser does outrange and outprioritize Falcon, Falcon makes up for it in recovery and sheer speed. Bowser has the largest frame in the game, making Bowser the single easiest character to sweetspot some of Falcon's more difficult maneuvers (e.g. knee, dair, etc). Bowser's hard to kill? Not with Falcon's edgeguarding ability, which, IMO, is severely underrated. Unless someone can convince me otherwise, virtually all of Falcon's air moves are sufficient for easily gimping Bowser's recovery; not vice-versa. A good Falcon will exploit Bowser's lag; Raptor Boost and Falcon Kick make for excellent approaches when an opening arises. Now although Bowser doesn't have to deal with the projectile spam which hinders him against most opponents, a patient Falcon will always present a challenge. Even with Bowersercide and Fortress, these are moot advantages at best, certainly not enough to warrant a clear, universal advantage. I move for neutral.

Falcon has a serious disadvantage over Zelda. I know this has been a controversial topic in the Falcon forums, but it cannot be denied. Zelda's ground game is....satanic. Falcon's speed is nullified with the sheer range, priority, speed, and lasting effect of Zelda's smashes (Zelda's upsmash, for the record, is absolutely, positively obscene and should outlawed. If you disagree, you have not gone up against a good Zelda. They laugh at you). Din's fire...enough said. I suppose in the air, and perhaps on platform stages, Falcon will be able to hold his own. Falcon is able to regulate Zelda in the air fairly well (with the exception of the high priority nair). Gimping Zelda with Falcon is definitely his best (if only) advantage in this matchup. But it ends there. Falcon can't be patient with Din's fire, and his approaches almost always lose out to her defensive abilities (nayru's love included). And...finally....both of her toes are easier to sweetspot and are more dangerous than the knee. You have got to be f*cking kidding me.

 

[Endless Nightmares]

Ice climbers' chaingrab is pretty hard to do consistently, especially in a game situation. It becomes progressively harder on heavy characters and characters with high damage.

It's extremely easy, actually. Too easy, perhaps. The hardest part is reading up on chaingrabs and watching a couple vids. lol

Different people use entirely different tactics. I think the game has too many characters and too many play styles to ever make a half-decent list.
Cmon, I don't even play yoshi, but you're just assuming he's bad because all your friends suck with him and the computer doesn't give him justice.

This chart will be in constant dispute until the end of brawl, and it wont get any better or any worse.

I might just be a d*** by saying this, but I'm surprised this thread went so long and still hasn't been closed yet for fact of no practical value.

I agree strongly.

Haha.

Did you know that Arcadia magazine made a tier list for Street Fighter 3 Third Strike and it was based on a match-up list they did.

The list was so accurate that Third Strike player's everywhere just accepted it and the tier list as the official list.

That list was made in 1999 or 2000 I believe. It was made by a handful of hardcore gamers that played the hell out all of the characters and knew the best strats. Granted the group that writes Arcadia magazine is from Gamest magazine in Japan which was a prestigous magazine made by the most avid hardcore fighting gamers and they constantly wrote good strategy guides and accurate tier list so they have a reputation that they now what they are doing.

But my point is vaild. If people work together for an endeavor such as this we CAN get accurate results. But yes I will agree that the main problem is bias and people not wanting to accept that their character has alot of bad match-ups. Also people not using solid facts to back up thier reasoning.

I agree. There is far too much character bias to make a reasonable match-up chart for this game. As of right now, a lot of factors are working against the successful creation of a match-up chart for brawl. One, it's new. Duh. Don't really need to get into that. Two, there are just too many characters. Three, each character is so diverse in it's own way that the opposing party usually doesn't know enough about the character to argue matchups for or against it. A G&W player might think he has Pit beat just because he can bucket his arrows, meanwhile Pit is SHFairWoI'ing into WPBair and Wing Lunge. Don't know what I just said? Exactly. It's going to take a lot more research before we can do one of these the right way. Years perhaps. I think every attempt at a character match-up chart is doomed to fail eventually. This one did a long time ago.

 

[Samikay]

Pit is not very good against Pikachu. I have a difficult time against even the scrubbiest of Pikachu players. Pikachu's down smash is insanely powerful, and lasts a long time. You can not sidestep it, which is a big problem for Pit players who use the strategy of sidestep f-smashing. They are about even in the air. When I was playing, the air attacks cancelled each other out quite often. Also, the long range of Pikachu's forward smash makes him hard to approach. These factors warrant advantage Pikachu. I have lost games to clearly lesser players because of my inability to fight against Pikachu. Not as bad as metaknight, but still pretty bad. Open for debate.

 

[bobwhiz]

I came here to post this.
First post.

 

[Endless Nightmares]

lol nice job leaving out the Xs

 

[Help!]

Mario's match up's is pretty wrong imo. i saw a lot of things I disagree with. Ill just list off my thoughts, although I'm sure they're not all right. If I leave them blank then you're stuff is either i agree with or i don't know so i wont comment.
Bowser-Advantage
Diddy - Neutral or disputed
Falco - disadvantage
Jiggly - Disputed
Lucas - Advantage or nuetral. I'd say more of an advantage though.
Luigi - Disadvantage
Marth - Neutral
Ness - Neutral or disputed
Samus- I'd say advantage although i havnt played one but samus is garbage
Shiek - Disadvantage
Snake - Disputed or neutral
Sonic - Advantage or neutral
Wolf - Nuetral or disputed
Zelda - Nuetral or disadvantage
Zamus - Eh I doubt it's disadvantage, but I don't really know.

 

[InterimOfZeal]

I'll play Emblem, I suppose, but Sonic sucks BALLS online. Or, at least, mine does. I can't get used to lag to save mah life. Still, friendly matches just to show we aren't complete douches to each other is nice, I suppose.

 

[SoliceTK]

Thank You for putting the list up, I like its kid-friendly charm. But its gonna be changing up a lot as the game and skill of players develop isn't it?

 

[Gleam]

IMO, they're neutral. like i mentioned earlier, 80-90% of brawl matchups are gonna be neutral (assuming both players are skilled with said characters), thus rendering this thread a waste of time. i think the matchup is slightly tilted in yoshi's favor, but it wouldn't merit what i consider an advantage. gindler probably means that yoshi can just overrun ganondorf because his attacks are faster. but i don't think it would be an issue with a ganondorf who knows his character well, it all comes down to shield rolling. yoshi does have a projectile in egg tosses, though. and i'm not quite sure that g-dorf's aerials are executed quicker than yoshi's, and yoshi's d-smash and d-tilt has knockback. and i'm almost positive that yoshi's smashes come out a lot quicker than his. all of that damage that ganondorf does is negligible if he's getting swarmed. what i hate about playing ganondorf though is that he KO's in like 6 hits (sometimes even less), and most of his moves will KO.

From my testings, Ganondorf's aerials do come out slightly faster. It's not so much that it would define a distinct advantage. But in any case, they do come out slightly faster. (I can always recheck though.) However, I am certain that most of them have better reach, priority and the other stuff I mentioned.

There's no denying Yoshi's Ground moves all have quicker speed, and some of his ground moves have good knockback. However, Ganondorf's knockback has a clear advantage over Yoshi's knockback, not that Yoshi's isn't good.

 

[Raistlin]

No offense to the people who put a lot of time and effort into this, but it's a complete waste of time right now. There's no tiers list, the game's barely been out. People were still debating match-ups in melee after 7 years; I don't think any chart right now is going to be anywhere near accurate.

 

[KaShank]

No offense to the people who put a lot of time and effort into this, but it's a complete waste of time right now. There's no tiers list, the game's barely been out. People were still debating match-ups in melee after 7 years; I don't think any chart right now is going to be anywhere near accurate.

Then don't contribute.

 

[Ants]

No offense to the people who put a lot of time and effort into this, but it's a complete waste of time right now. There's no tiers list, the game's barely been out. People were still debating match-ups in melee after 7 years; I don't think any chart right now is going to be anywhere near accurate.

It's not a complete waste of time. Perhaps we won't reach a perfectly accurate chart rite now, but it still gives people an idea of who may have the advantage in a match-up as backed up by the research going into the decision. If a match-up chart was ever to be made for brawl, I believe the sooner the better, we can only go uphill with the research and debates.

 

[Link he come to town...]

Oh poor captain falcon, he's like a bird with a broken wing...
According to this, reliable or not, he has NO advantages over ANYONE -_-
what a drop from top of the middle tier.

Anyways, to those who think this is a waste of time, you don't get good at moonwalking off the edge on your first try, it takes a few before you get what you want, and the same is with coming up with match ups, after all they should be generally accurate according to the current game.

 

[BluMilk]

No offense to the people who put a lot of time and effort into this, but it's a complete waste of time right now. There's no tiers list, the game's barely been out. People were still debating match-ups in melee after 7 years; I don't think any chart right now is going to be anywhere near accurate.

well if you take a look at the chart its actually pretty good guess at what the tier list Will look like when it comes out. Characters with most Check Marks = Top Tier.

 

[Kiwikomix]

Keep on spamming.

Will do, I'm interested in how this project will give us a more specific view of what the tiers will be.

Chookay, prepare your rebuttal, because I'm gonna have to hate on the Mario Bros. again... hopefully I can keep it more civil this time

Ivysaur has a pretty noticeable advantage over both plumbers. Reasons:
- Ivysaur is a poor character in some respects but excels in RANGE. As mentioned before, Mario isn't the best guy when it comes to range, and Luigi isn't much better unless he wants to quickly Tornado his way across the stage. Ivy's disjoint will also keep her from taking damage from M&L's fists of fury, and grabbing is always an option when the opponent is in the right range and looking ready to get thrown off the edge. Pretty much every attack Ivysaur has will hit farther than M&L's attacks - except, of course, the fireball...
- Which I'm getting to right now. The Bros love spamming their fireballs quite a bit, but Ivy's Razor Leaf can cancel them out, as well as her jab. Ivysaur is probably better off not spamming her projectile against Mario due to his capey goodness, but she can get off scot-free if she's facing Luigi. Either way, fireballs don't pose a problem. This leaves the Bros with three choices: sit there and cancel out Ivy's projectiles till the end of time, approach on the ground and get outranged, or...
- Try approaching from the air. Seriously, just try it. M&L don't have any aerials with much range, so that meas Ivy will either go for the only slightly risky KO with her godly u-smash, or rack up a ton of damage with Bullet Seed. Either way, Mario and Luigi aren't going to like what happens... the hitbox and duration for both attacks is just a tiny amount too much for them to airdodge it.
- It's gonna be a weird situation either way once a character is off the edge. Ivy is not so hot at edgequarding if the opponent knows when to airdodge, so her guarding will consist of either staying on the stage or waiting until the opponent is really close and then dropping just next to the ledge. Luigi isn't too bad at edgeguarding provided he can get back to the stage, which is easier with his improved recovery, so that's his only real advantage against Ivy. Mario has no such luck, though - FLUDD probably won't help him out too much here, since Ivy's recovery auto-sweetspots the edge. Either bro can, like any character, just grab the ledge to foil Ivy's tether, but if Ivy aims a Razor Leaf correctly it will knock them off the edge anyway. I don't see edgeguarding being a huge factor in this matchup.

As I'm typing this, I'm wondering why Kirby has an advantage over Ivy... he falls for the same things as M&L, only he's even worse because he doesn't have a projectile. I guess he gets some points for edgeguarding Ivy's recovery, but at best that matchup should be a neutral.

This one's open for debate against the Ivy haters (there are a lot of those) and the Mario and Luigi fanboys (a lot of those too).

Next time, I'll give Mario a break and try to find a good matchup to defend for him... Squirtle, anyone?

 

[Ripple]

OMG! there is absolutely no way that DK vs. ICs is an even match-up. It is a broken match-up in ICs favor due to the chain grab and DK being unable to recover from nana spiking.

and marth does not have an advantage on all but 1 character. this needs work

 

[hizzlum]

Someone needs to update a match-up chart again

 

[DarkDragoon]

Uhh, dunno if it was mentioned already, but Lucario wrecks Ike.
Aura Spam stops all aproaches from the ground, and Double Team is easily used against like 80% of Ike's Airs, never mind that their sheer slowness would be outpaced by Lucario's very quick ones.
Also, Similar smash attack range, but Lucario gets the multiplier up and can deal hits almost as heavily as Ike can.

:3 So yea, Lucario > Ike
-DD

 

[RoyIke]

I think the match-ups in general are circumstantial and that thier is a strategy for each character to help keep battles fairly balanced between all characters, and plus their is the factor of whose playing what character and thier skills and abilities with said character.

However good chart and really insightful to say the least.

 

[Tom]

where is roy??

 

[gamadaya]

He's still there, he just looks a little different now, that's all.

*cries*

 

[Tom]

T____T now you're going to make me cry

 

[IvanEva]

Someone needs to update a match-up chart again

My apologies for being so slow in the updates. I have two days left of school and thus due dates are flying at me worse than Pit's arrows fly at Bowser. I quickly skim through these just to see what everybody's saying (and then spend too much time responding ) but I won't be able to update the chart again until Saturday.

Does anybody second that poster's opinion that I should mirror the top character list onto the bottom? I think that would be a bit too overwhelming to look at - the colours are supposed to help you follow a row/column - but what do you guys think?

Oh, and by the way, no I don't think that Mario, Yoshi, Sonic, or even Captain Falcon are BAD. "Not quite as good" would be a better way of putting it (not necessarily those characters specifically). Brawl is a lot more balanced than most other fighters but to deny that characters have advantages over each other is to show a lack of understanding of fighters.

On an almost irrelevant note, has online gotten any better yet? I stopped playing because of the game destroying lag. If it has, I'll happily "research" advantages over a battle. I've been playing as Yoshi quite a bit lately and am now quite eager to test him out against other characters.

 

[MdrnDayMercutio]

I'd love it if you mirrored.

You can't even see the top row of names when you're checking some of the lower character's match ups. But than my moniter blows so I can't really set it to the resolution I would be using normally.

 

[Carouselambra]

Perhaps I have not played enough people, but I strongly believe that Yoshi has a pretty solid advantage on the larger characters like ROB, DK, and Bowser. My main argument would be Yoshi over ROB, since I was able to dominate my friend who mains ROB. Yoshi's aerials could do a quick 40 through comboing, and finishing him ain't tough cause he gets racked up so fast. Then again, I'd wait to see what others have to say cause this is just one instance.

On the other hand... I kinda like Yoshi being considered garbage.

 

[PredictablyStubborn]

I have trouble believing some of these. The source is just from other forums, which is like saying the source is from "mostly casual competitive play". I believe some of these results would be different in competitive tournament play.

Anyway, most of the chart shows truth, and it kind of highlights the soon-to-come tier list.

 

[Browny]

sonics match ups look more random then ever.

i dont see why hes at a disadvantage to diddy, sonic is near impossible to combo and they both have a hard time with KO's but sonic is heavier and hits harder. w/e

sonic does alright vs pit, spin charge goes below his arrows and unless pit is a super human-computer hybrid theres no way hes going to be able to hit sonic with his arrows. still a slight disadvantage but i dont think its blatant like it is vs metaknight/wario. either way i dont think its enough to warrant an X.

and sonic ***** dedede, for the reasons stated on like the last 5 pages.

 

[Suic]

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out, but it would seem to me that as terrible as sonics priority is, he is at least equal with diddy. The main reason of course being that sonic's spin dash negates those terribly annoying bananas...which are a large part of every diddy main that I have seen playing (just watch the paool combo video on youtube and you will definitely see what I mean.) Sonic's homing spin is also a great gimp for diddy's recovery. I am not necessarily saying that sonic has the advantage, because even with these things going for him; his lack of priority still hurts him. I do think that it should be even though. Although sonic isn't my main, he is one of my secondaries and I have a friend that mains diddy that I play with a lot. Maybe he just sucks though haha...If i'm wrong then i'm wrong, but that's my two cents.

Edit: wow the guy right before me just happened to point it out ...well i went into more detail so i guess it still helps

 

[MdrnDayMercutio]

And alot of those bananas get turned against him easily as a sonic. At least in my expierence. It's not hard to run, dash, grab hit the attack. Sure it's not lagless like Diddy's dash attack but it still works just as well.

 

[bobwhiz]

Does anybody second that poster's opinion that I should mirror the top character list onto the bottom? I think that would be a bit too overwhelming to look at - the colours are supposed to help you follow a row/column - but what do you guys think?
.

I think a mirror+ one in the middle would help.

Also could you add a cumulative Pokemon bracket, I made a sample one page back?


On a separate note in a PT vs PT match we see the following.

Charizard>Ivysaur+Squirtle, so any player who plays as either of these will get rocked by Charizard.

IF this conclusion holds true, will all PT dittos be Charizard vs. Charizard?
Perhaps a skilled Squirtle player could come along I guess. Does water have an advantage over fire in the game? Has this been checked out? (sorry, too lazy to use the search function).

-bobwhiz

 

[DarkDragoon]

I think a mirror+ one in the middle would help.

Also could you add a cumulative Pokemon bracket, I made a sample one page back?


On a separate note in a PT vs PT match we see the following.

Charizard>Ivysaur+Squirtle, so any player who plays as either of these will get rocked by Charizard.

IF this conclusion holds true, will all PT dittos be Charizard vs. Charizard?
Perhaps a skilled Squirtle player could come along I guess. Does water have an advantage over fire in the game? Has this been checked out? (sorry, too lazy to use the search function).

-bobwhiz

Uhh...Ivy beats the crap out of Zard cause hes so big and heavy. Squirtle beats the crap out of Ivy because hes so fast and has moves of comparable power. Charizard beats Squirtle because although squirtle has speed going for him, he is just WAY too light to handle any attacks from a Charizard effectively.

So no, elements don't mean a thing, and they are, in fact, completely reversed.

XD Ironic, no?
-DD

 

[thumbswayup]

Useful thread.

 

[User33]

Honestly though, there is no point to this, as the backroom will make a better one in a year or so anyways

 

[VulgarHandGestures]

pt is one character.

 

[Neodaft_boy]

pt is one character.

That may be true, but the chart can't funtion that way... you choose weather to be Ivy, Squirtle or Charizard from the first or can change during battle thus changing the gameplay.

PT is one character, but to have only PT on the list wouldn't be so smart. Just think of Zelda with an extra form... play styles are different but you can't say they're the same.

Know what I mean?

------------

Now for my own little blurb, I'm a bit sad that Yoshi has such an aweful disatvantage to almost everyone but thats how it works... merely a chart it doesn't determine the outcome of the match -- but a GOOD chart nontheless! ^.^

I'm impressed with Marths matchups the most... good to see TL doing well too. I expected falcon to be where he is, he's great but... technically speaking, not great XD

 

[Kiwikomix]

I expected falcon to be where he is, he's great but... technically speaking, not great XD

I know what you mean bro.

I'm a bit concerned about how good the matchups are for Toon and Marth. I mean, they're both excellent characters but they have their weaknesses, right? Time to put on the debating cap...

 

[KaShank]

Ivan I think some of your Snake match ups are pretty off, but I can't be for sure until hid metagame is developed more. What is becoming obvious is that he is getting consistently more broken as
A. He has almost infinite priority.
B. His grenades are incredibly versatile.
C. Many of the pros/high ranking people on gamebattles are maining him.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8aH1pRLmxmU
Heres arguably the best Snake/player wrecking arguably the best Wolf. This doesn't mean that Snake has a good match up against Wolf I'm just demonstrating that Snake can be really broken.

Anyway the one critique I may offer for Snake is that he appears to have a bad match up against Falco.
A. Falco can reflect Snakes grenades.
B. Falco easily spikes Snake out of his cypher.
C. Snake can be lazer locked pretty easy by Falco, although not really a big deal.