CnB | Chandy
Smash Journeyman
Hey all, if you haven't seen me around the character boards here or on the r/SSBM subreddit, I'm Uplift | Chandy. I main DK but I have spent much of my Melee career studying the bottom half of the cast, which has manifested itself in several tutorials and guides (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) but never a formal tier list. I don't think tier lists are a very useful reference tool in general, but on Twitter someone asked me for mine so I thought I'd make one because the exercise is fun and it's not something I think about often.
As opposed to most tier lists where the creator only really thinks about the top 10 or so and then the rest of the list is based solely on what little they know about the uncommon characters, I spent most of my time on the mid and low tiers and have done my best to group them effectively. I also used a new format instead of the standard unlabeled SABC ordering or "top/high/mid/low/bottom", as I think that labels of viability are more informative and meaningful than the alternatives. Some things to keep in mind:
Q: Why is Zelda so high? She only has like three good moves.
Q: Why is Link above Young Link? Most past tier lists have done the opposite.
Q: Why is Bowser in his own tier? Is he that much worse than Pichu, Kirby and Ness?
Please let me know what you liked or didn't like. Thanks.
-Chandy Chandy Chandy <3 <3 <3
As opposed to most tier lists where the creator only really thinks about the top 10 or so and then the rest of the list is based solely on what little they know about the uncommon characters, I spent most of my time on the mid and low tiers and have done my best to group them effectively. I also used a new format instead of the standard unlabeled SABC ordering or "top/high/mid/low/bottom", as I think that labels of viability are more informative and meaningful than the alternatives. Some things to keep in mind:
- While I did order the characters within their tiers, the tiers themselves represent much bigger gaps in viability than the intra-tier order.
- Intra-tier ordering gave more weight to recent notable results at majors but given that high level representation of some of these characters is so scarce, I made opinion-based exceptions for three characters: Marth, Yoshi and Pichu.
- Viable characters (top 3 tiers) are those who could believably make top 8 at a major without considerable bracket luck. I consider a "lucky" bracket to be any one in which you are not forced to play your character's worst match-up(s) for more than one set in top 64.
- Semi-viable and borderline nonviable characters have the attributes to believably place well at a major, but because of certain bad match-ups it is highly unlikely that a solo-main will be able to place top 8 without a lucky bracket or other unusual circumstances.
- Nonviable characters are those who have enough good attributes to achieve success in local and regional play, but have too many bad match-ups to believably place well at majors with any consistency. Even with a lucky bracket, these characters have such a bad match-up spread against the top 8 that deep runs at majors are rare if not impossible.
- Bowser is so ****ty that he deserves his own tier of filth to languish in. No one is bad in the same way that Bowser is bad. I think that with the right representation, the top two characters in each tier have potential to move up a tier (e.g. Fox and Falco could move into their own viable++ tier, Yoshi and Luigi could move up into Viable-, etc.). This is true for every tier except Bowser's. I think he'll always be the worst character in the game by a sizable margin.
Q: Why is Zelda so high? She only has like three good moves.
Intra-tier ordering is based primarily on results, and Zelda has the best results of her tier because no one is placing well with M2 or Roy right now.
Zelda over M2 was, to be honest, the most questionable decision I had to make. I am certain that Roy is worse than both of these characters given that all but his fastfaller match-ups are practically impossible and he's super susceptible to obvious and simple counterplay, including crouch canceling, dash dance camping, and platform camping. The only thing that saved Roy from being thrown in Nonviable- is his passable neutral and movement and the fact that his spacies match-up is actually probably the best in the Nonviable tier and is considerably better than anyone below him.
Despite having some of the worst attributes in the game AND several completely useless moves including an infamously ****ty grab and a mediocre grab game, Zelda's few good results and relatively large playerbase (compared to others in her tier and below) make her living proof that two stupidly good moves (fair/bair) and a handful of good moves (dash attack, dsmash, usmash, ftilt) are enough to make a serviceably decent character with a simple but annoying spacing-heavy playstyle based around landing fair/bair. Zelda has a way easier time in the floaty match-ups simply because her kicks are such a powerful tool and the generally slower pace of the match keeps her from being overwhelmed or trapped too easily.
As far as spacies and Falcon are concerned, Zelda and M2 both perform considerably worse than Roy despite the fact that all three of them have pretty good punish games on fastfallers. Roy's speed and good hitboxes make neutral in these fast-paced match-ups doable, but Zelda and M2 have a much harder time. I think M2 has more potential against spacies than Zelda but without recent results it's hard to back that up.
Probably invalid but still nontrivial considerations include Zelda's completely tournament legal ability to turn into the fourth best character in the game, which in a way indirectly improves her viability but obviously ought not to be considered in the spirit of the tier list (i.e. that characters should be judged in a vacuum of sorts, on their own merits). Further, she benefits the most from version 1.0 jank in that she gains a few more decent moves (fsmash, neutral B, nair, usmash) based on SDI differences, although this is also obviously not a very valid advantage due to 1.0 set-ups being so scarce these days.
It's quite possible that M2 and Roy have potential beyond Zelda and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a breakout performance from an M2 or Roy came long before one from a Zelda. Playing Zelda in the best way possible is probably a lot more intuitive and considerably less technically demanding than playing Roy or M2 in the best way possible, but I wouldn't argue with the sentiment that she clearly has less room to grow than the other two. That being said, I think a tier list should reflect both theoretical potential as well as concrete results, and like most people in the current community, I value the results more than the wistful thinking.
Zelda over M2 was, to be honest, the most questionable decision I had to make. I am certain that Roy is worse than both of these characters given that all but his fastfaller match-ups are practically impossible and he's super susceptible to obvious and simple counterplay, including crouch canceling, dash dance camping, and platform camping. The only thing that saved Roy from being thrown in Nonviable- is his passable neutral and movement and the fact that his spacies match-up is actually probably the best in the Nonviable tier and is considerably better than anyone below him.
Despite having some of the worst attributes in the game AND several completely useless moves including an infamously ****ty grab and a mediocre grab game, Zelda's few good results and relatively large playerbase (compared to others in her tier and below) make her living proof that two stupidly good moves (fair/bair) and a handful of good moves (dash attack, dsmash, usmash, ftilt) are enough to make a serviceably decent character with a simple but annoying spacing-heavy playstyle based around landing fair/bair. Zelda has a way easier time in the floaty match-ups simply because her kicks are such a powerful tool and the generally slower pace of the match keeps her from being overwhelmed or trapped too easily.
As far as spacies and Falcon are concerned, Zelda and M2 both perform considerably worse than Roy despite the fact that all three of them have pretty good punish games on fastfallers. Roy's speed and good hitboxes make neutral in these fast-paced match-ups doable, but Zelda and M2 have a much harder time. I think M2 has more potential against spacies than Zelda but without recent results it's hard to back that up.
Probably invalid but still nontrivial considerations include Zelda's completely tournament legal ability to turn into the fourth best character in the game, which in a way indirectly improves her viability but obviously ought not to be considered in the spirit of the tier list (i.e. that characters should be judged in a vacuum of sorts, on their own merits). Further, she benefits the most from version 1.0 jank in that she gains a few more decent moves (fsmash, neutral B, nair, usmash) based on SDI differences, although this is also obviously not a very valid advantage due to 1.0 set-ups being so scarce these days.
It's quite possible that M2 and Roy have potential beyond Zelda and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a breakout performance from an M2 or Roy came long before one from a Zelda. Playing Zelda in the best way possible is probably a lot more intuitive and considerably less technically demanding than playing Roy or M2 in the best way possible, but I wouldn't argue with the sentiment that she clearly has less room to grow than the other two. That being said, I think a tier list should reflect both theoretical potential as well as concrete results, and like most people in the current community, I value the results more than the wistful thinking.
Q: Why is Link above Young Link? Most past tier lists have done the opposite.
After splitting the cast into viable and nonviable, the tiers were made based on my assessment of their match-up coverage, primarily vs the top 8 characters but with limited consideration of intra-tier and lower tier match-ups as well.
The nonviable plus tier is the most crowded of the bottom half because it's right at the fringe of where the data points start to drop off. It's also probably the tier where the order is the most arbitrary for the same reason. I placed Link above Young Link for three reasons:
1) Intra-tier ordering is primarily based off of results, and solo Young Link is almost completely non-existent at the top level of play these days. Taj's pocket Young Link managed to place 49th at Paragon, but conflicting reports say he may have also used Link. By comparison, Link's results are better than everyone else's in his tier in terms of both quantity and quality.
2) Considering Link's match-up spread, his worst match-ups (spacies) are not nearly as bad and exploitable as the worst match-ups of everyone else in his tier. DK gets ****** by Falco AND ICs and has a hard time against Peach and Puff, Gdubs gets obliterated by Peach and has pretty tough spacies match-ups as well. Young Link has decent match-ups against some floaties and can "better character" nearly everyone below him, but his spacie match-ups are both easily the worst out of his tier. Even compared to Link and Gdubs who also get pooped on by Sheik, he still has a pretty hard time. As those are probably the three most common characters at the top level of play these days, you really can't put that much faith in yung $$$ as anything more than a lazy, janky, stop-gap measure floaty counterpick. You can't say much better for anyone else in his tier, though, so it's really not that big of a deal.
3) His intra-tier match-ups are actually pretty good, and because Young Link can "better character" pretty much everyone below him, he gets the edge on Gdubs, who similarly lacks recent results (besides Qerb at 49th at Pound 2016) and cannot claim the same dominant match-ups against the lower half nor the decent match-ups with some of the mid/high tiers that the kid has. However, Link also has pretty good intra-tier match-ups (he may lose to YL) and also invalidates much of the cast below him.
The nonviable plus tier is the most crowded of the bottom half because it's right at the fringe of where the data points start to drop off. It's also probably the tier where the order is the most arbitrary for the same reason. I placed Link above Young Link for three reasons:
1) Intra-tier ordering is primarily based off of results, and solo Young Link is almost completely non-existent at the top level of play these days. Taj's pocket Young Link managed to place 49th at Paragon, but conflicting reports say he may have also used Link. By comparison, Link's results are better than everyone else's in his tier in terms of both quantity and quality.
2) Considering Link's match-up spread, his worst match-ups (spacies) are not nearly as bad and exploitable as the worst match-ups of everyone else in his tier. DK gets ****** by Falco AND ICs and has a hard time against Peach and Puff, Gdubs gets obliterated by Peach and has pretty tough spacies match-ups as well. Young Link has decent match-ups against some floaties and can "better character" nearly everyone below him, but his spacie match-ups are both easily the worst out of his tier. Even compared to Link and Gdubs who also get pooped on by Sheik, he still has a pretty hard time. As those are probably the three most common characters at the top level of play these days, you really can't put that much faith in yung $$$ as anything more than a lazy, janky, stop-gap measure floaty counterpick. You can't say much better for anyone else in his tier, though, so it's really not that big of a deal.
3) His intra-tier match-ups are actually pretty good, and because Young Link can "better character" pretty much everyone below him, he gets the edge on Gdubs, who similarly lacks recent results (besides Qerb at 49th at Pound 2016) and cannot claim the same dominant match-ups against the lower half nor the decent match-ups with some of the mid/high tiers that the kid has. However, Link also has pretty good intra-tier match-ups (he may lose to YL) and also invalidates much of the cast below him.
Q: Why is Bowser in his own tier? Is he that much worse than Pichu, Kirby and Ness?
Bowser doesn't have a single winning match-up. He has indisputably the worst overall attributes in the game, with a large hurtbox, bad grounded mobility and aerial mobility, perfect weight and fallspeed to get combo'd by everybody, and terrible frame data. His movement is awful because of his slow dash and super long jumpsquat. His aerials besides fair either have bad hitboxes or too much start-up and end-lag to be effective in most both punish and neutral interactions. His regular throws and command grab throws already have limited combo potential, but are completely ineffective because the animations take so long that it's hard to get the necessary DI mix-ups to convert on anyone who knows the match-up. Aside from utilt, which is fast but has a lot of endlag, and uair, which can combo but also has too much start-up and endlag, Bowser doesn't really have the tools combo anyone. Even fastfallers, who get combo'd by literally everyone in the game, can just double jump out of Bowser's follow-ups like 90% of the time because he's so slow. One stupidly good out of shield option can't save Bowser from being the Melee equivalent of the Hindenberg.
The tier above Bowser is better than him simply because they have at least one winning match-up, which is against Bowser. If you wanted me to quantify just how many times more viable Ness is than Bowser, I literally wouldn't be able to do it, because there is nothing you can multiply zero by to get a nonzero number. In addition to the fact that solo Bowser hasn't had a decent result since the Bush administration, the other characters are also better in that they are real characters, and not some postmodern avant-garde deconstruction of what a Melee character represents, like Bowser. Ness, Kirby, and Pichu all have attributes that allow them to meaningfully interact with the top 8 characters in neutral and punish situations, unlike Bowser, who either hopes that the opponent doesn't know the match-up or loses.
The tier above Bowser is better than him simply because they have at least one winning match-up, which is against Bowser. If you wanted me to quantify just how many times more viable Ness is than Bowser, I literally wouldn't be able to do it, because there is nothing you can multiply zero by to get a nonzero number. In addition to the fact that solo Bowser hasn't had a decent result since the Bush administration, the other characters are also better in that they are real characters, and not some postmodern avant-garde deconstruction of what a Melee character represents, like Bowser. Ness, Kirby, and Pichu all have attributes that allow them to meaningfully interact with the top 8 characters in neutral and punish situations, unlike Bowser, who either hopes that the opponent doesn't know the match-up or loses.
Please let me know what you liked or didn't like. Thanks.
-Chandy Chandy Chandy <3 <3 <3
