Official Character Competitive Impressions - Tourneys, Tiers, Theories, Tactics

[TurboLink]

We'll see. When there's money on the line, it's more about winning than putting on a show.

If Izaw was so concerned about winning then I'm pretty sure he would've dropped Link a long time ago.

 

[Jamurai]

Day 1 was a blast as usual, I fell asleep during the final crew battle though

One of my biggest takeaways was that ZeRo elected to use Diddy once more against Nairo's ZSS in their crew match. And he won soundly. I think that's just further proof that we underrate Diddy.

The second best player in the world playing the second best character in the game forcing the best player off his main (the best character) TWICE is not something we can ignore.

Not to be picky but I wouldn't say ZeRo straight up mains Sheik. To me he co-mains Sheik and Diddy which means he can switch between the two depending on which one he prefers in a certain matchup. Obviously he may play Sheik most of the time because she is the better character overall, doesn't mean that Diddy is a secondary ie. a character he knows somewhat less well which he plays to cover matchups, his Diddy is clearly incredibly practised and considered the best in the world.

 

[LancerStaff]

One thing's becoming very apparent... You're going to need to know a hell of a lot of matchups to win anything big. Like I said before, there's no honest characters in this game. So, if you're not prepared for every decently good character you run the risk of getting bodied.

 

[L9999]

One thing's becoming very apparent... You're going to need to know a hell of a lot of matchups to win anything big. Like I said before, there's no honest characters in this game. So, if you're not prepared for every decently good character you run the risk of getting bodied.

Add that there are 58 characters (soon, forgot the number by this point) and half the cast is underrated and there are a billion mid/low tier heroes that can wreck you if you don't know how to play against them, and top tier plyers go without saying.

 

[Game7a1]

Half of the matchups you listed are actually decent.
Rosa & Fox are not fun though, Sonic isn't fun either, but Diddy & ZSS are somewhat manageable despite us still losing.
Don't let the terrible footage Gimr gave of the matchup in G3 vs Nairo fool you, it's actually much cleaner than you'd think, just that it is an oddity of a matchup that requires on point precision, a thing that Gimr kind of lacks
No offense to him btw

Well, GimR moved onto the second round of pools. KOSSimoss (another G&W main who's 5th on the NorCal PR) and Regi didn't make it. And I can't find Songun on the first wave of pools, so...
As far as I know from looking (well, skimming) at the brackets, GimR is the only G&W main in round 2. I hope I'm wrong as I would like to see more G&W mains in bracket.
EDIT: Hmmm... I feel as if I quoted the wrong thing.

 

[TurboLink]

Add that there are 58 characters (soon, forgot the number by this point) and half the cast is underrated and there are a billion mid/low tier heroes that can wreck you if you don't know how to play against them, and top tier plyers go without saying.

Who in the cast is underrated in your opinion? And can you state your reasons as to why you think they are?

 

[L9999]

Off topic, but could someone explain me how do pools work?

Who in the cast is underrated in your opinion? And can you state your reasons as to why you think they are?

I think I messed up my wording and meant obscure, but point is that we don't know much about the cast yet and many characters are underplayed and is hard to learn every matchup appropiately. And many characters are just tagged as garbage or low tier without much proof. .

I think is still a bit underrated though. He has a lot of good things going for him with all his traps and stage control, but almost no one plays him. Sometimes I forget he exists, then Tweek wrecks someone good with Bowser Jr.

 

[Asdioh]

Also how many top players know the match? When someone specializes in a character they can bring them to a level unheard of and one that many top players simply are not ready for.

Add that there are 58 characters (soon, forgot the number by this point) and half the cast is underrated and there are a billion mid/low tier heroes that can wreck you if you don't know how to play against them, and top tier plyers go without saying.

Gotta emphasize this point. When you think you know what to do against a character, and then you play somebody from a different part of the world that brings the character to a whole new level you haven't experienced, it's going to be very difficult to adapt to, especially when you only have 2 stocks in a best of 3, at a high pressure tournament. Regardless of how good/bad characters like Villager/G&W/Toon Link/ROB etc might be, it was obvious that some of the people playing the top players of these characters had little experience in those matchups, and that would be extremely stressful. This is true for every matchup in the game, but especially for the more obscure ones that you aren't totally prepared for, since there are so many characters in this game.

That's why I would hate to go to a huge 2 stock tournament, and get 0-deathed by Meta Knight or something lol. Apparently a guy from NE got sent to losers, and then eliminated by a G&W Dthrow->9, that has to be fun heheh.

Speaking of low tier heroes, T1mmy and Triple R, two of the better Kirbys out there, didn't make it out of pools round 1, if my information is correct. I believe they had DKWill and Vinnie in their pools, who both have plenty of experience in the matchup thanks to MikeKirby, but I also heard they lost before they even got the chance to play them.

Well, GimR moved onto the second round of pools. KOSSimoss (another G&W main who's 5th on the NorCal PR) and Regi didn't make it. And I can't find Songun on the first wave of pools, so...
As far as I know from looking (well, skimming) at the brackets, GimR is the only G&W main in round 2. I hope I'm wrong as I would like to see more G&W mains in bracket.
EDIT: Hmmm... I feel as if I quoted the wrong thing.

Wait, really? Who did Regi lose to..?




http://www.twitch.tv/showdowngg time for Pug and Marss to beat Nairo and Zero...?????? maybe???

 

[Game7a1]

Wait, really? Who did Regi lose to..?

Scizor. Since Loser's Finals weren't streamed, I don't know who he used.
EDIT: Never mind.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

SM is already out, Ryuga has Larry, Seagull, and Esam in his second pool. Ryo has Zero.

RIP Ikes at Genesis. Also, Ryuga and Ryo will face each other in Doubles if both teams win their first match, lol.

 

[Icy_Eagle]

Well, GimR moved onto the second round of pools. KOSSimoss (another G&W main who's 5th on the NorCal PR) and Regi didn't make it. And I can't find Songun on the first wave of pools, so...
As far as I know from looking (well, skimming) at the brackets, GimR is the only G&W main in round 2. I hope I'm wrong as I would like to see more G&W mains in bracket.
EDIT: Hmmm... I feel as if I quoted the wrong thing.

Regi & KOSSismoss both made it to R2 tho?

 

[Game7a1]

Regi & KOSSismoss both made it to R2 tho?

Huh, would you look at that. Seems like the brackets weren't properly updated when I last checked.
Sorry for the early scare.
EDIT: No wait, they were? I don't even know anymore.

 

[hypersonicJD]

THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING: ZERO AND NAIRO GOT SENT TO LOSERS BRACKET IN DOUBLES: I CAN'T BELIEVE IT:

 

[Rashyboy05]

Wow a Marth and ZSS team knocked Nairo and ZeRo to losers.

 

[Asdioh]

http://www.twitch.tv/showdowngg time for Pug and Marss to beat Nairo and Zero...?????? maybe???

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That was incredibly intense, holy crap.
New England's best player + his almost-as-good brother, with amazing team synergy, vs Zero Nairo, who are the best, but I didn't think they would be as practiced. I'm not surprised at the outcome, but it was unbelievably close.


Spoilers: pay attention to Marss in singles, he's definitely going to make top 32, and after that who knows.

 

[Y2Kay]

I wish I saw that......where will these replays be posted after it ends?

 

[Wintermelon43]

Regi's still in, just in losers. SlayerZ beat Regi.

 

[Baskerville]

Christ Komo & Ranai against Ryo & Sol was savage.

 

[Nu~]

Christ Komo & Ranai against Ryo & Sol was savage.

Who won?

 

[TMNTSSB4]

Christ Komo & Ranai against Ryo & Sol was savage.

I felt bad for Ryo and Sol...they got destroyed badly

 

[Baskerville]

Who won?

Komo & Ranai 2-0

 

[MistressRemilia]

I've never been one of them people that used to look up to Gimr as the staple of G&W gameplay. In my opinion Songun is the best G&W player but it's easily possible that Regi is actually better. I honestly cannot tell you where Gimr gained that amount of credit from. It's never been a big secret that MDVA isn't exactly the strongest region out there so even if he had decent results it wouldn't mean all that much.

How do you define "decent"? Even if Diddy and ZSS are only about -1 that's still an additional two losing matchups among the top tier characters. That may be decent if taken out of context but if you add it up with his even worse matchups against Rosalina and Fox it's honestly not looking too good. I take it we can agree that Sheik is a losing matchup as well? I think it's fair to say that G&W, despite having a couple of decent matchups up there, just doesn't have the overall spread required to be better than mid tier. Shulk also has a ton of 'decent' matchups but even the most optimistic people would not rank him higher than mid tier. I think that's where G&W belongs as well.

I define decent as that:
Let's say we have a Top G&W, he's in pools, his next match is vs an alright Diddy Player.
He will most likely win despite the matchup not being in his favor.
Let's say he reaches Top 32, he now has to fight a Top Diddy.
In this case, he is very likely to lose unless matchup inexperience comes into play, which could help him. But overall, his chances of winning vs that player are still pretty low.
But, with the -2/-1.5 matchups that are Rosalina or Sonic, he's likely to lose to a player of that character who's alright but has indeed worse skill than him, even if said player doesn't know the matchup.

I think you took my counter argument as a response as to why G&W can possibly place in a major w/out secondary backup:
Let me get to the point, despite Regi & Songun's bringing a few results to our character & showing how good he can be in the right hands, as you mentionned, some of his matchups are extremely rough & may prevent you to advance any further in a tournament because of some kind of random has beaten you with what's basically your worst matchup.
However, i do think Game&Watch holds a strong niche in the metagame, with a bunch of solid matchups going for him. And as i said, going in with a secondary for these rough matchups is the way to go if you want to place.
Tl;dr , Game&Watch is most likely in the lower end of Mid Tier, with the niches he holds & few placements here & there, i don't think he can go too low, but yeah, he's not like, exceptional. He's your typical mixed bag character, with flaws & pros.
I really wish he had a SH AC on either Bair or Fair, that would be amazing.

 

[Smog Frog]

doesnt have really low jumps? i recall that his full hops were roughly the same as most characters short hops.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I'm gonna talk about Cloud (Double Cloud is OP in dubz lol. Well not really, but it's incredibly effective! Cloud's D-Throw has a really solid angle for Finishing Touch followups from another Cloud, and the B-Throw IASA is beneficial in case his partner misses)

Komorikiri plays him so perfectly. I just caught the end of Crews on YT and watched him pseudo-camp Sheik briefly. Komorikiri kinda plays Cloud like I envisioned the optimal play to look like, which is run away, get a few hits, build Limit, go ham. It's seriously beautiful.

Rain I think plays a different kind of Cloud to a different degree of success (he got blasted by Ven on Smashville, the margin of error was low and Ven is a BEAST <3) which I think proves one thing I will say about Cloud as well, he's kind of frail vs. a lot of other viable characters in regards to momentum IMO. Not even recovery, just in general from my experience.

Overall from what I've seen, my opinion on the character hasn't changed yet (we still have more Genesis to see!) but I feel very optimistically about the character.

That being said....Regi is a beast too. Good G&W play is a treat and I'm inclined to agree with Emblem Lord on this game's balance atm. Genesis 3 has been amazing so far.

 

[Mario766]

Marss/Pugwest just beat Dabuz/Hyuga.

I didn't see super incredible play but their synergy/team combos really work for them.

 

[Djent]

Team synergy/combos is super incredible play for doubles. The fact that a Marth and a tier 2 ZSS emerged from a bracket with ZeRo, Nairo, ESAM, and Dabuz in it says it all really.

RE: Cloud, we could see him storming on the horizon when Rain+Nietono dominated Umebura GC last weekend. Too bad we don't have any double Mega-Man teams to put those guys in losers.

 

[L9999]

Once again Ranai shows me that Killager doesn't give a damn about anyone's recovery, gimping LarryLurr like it's nothing.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Larry shouldn't have gone Fox in the first place. Fox is a singles character, he can't really play to his strenghts in doubles at all.

 

[Asdioh]

I'm kind of not impressed with Sheik in doubles as well. Am I wrong?
Of the top tiers, ZSS/Rosa/Sonic and others seem like better choices than Sheik. Sheik still has a great recovery, but otherwise doesn't seem that overwhelming. I don't really do doubles so I don't know for sure.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

Wake-up DP is a universal constant no matter the fighting game. Sometimes it works.

 

[warionumbah2]

Sheik is MKs Angel in doubles, while she's Satan in singles.

 

[Yonder]

Singles have started up again for Smash 4. 12-2 pm

 

[Man Li Gi]

Legit, I dunno why if any region outside of America wins a major in America, why its a big deal. ZeRo and Nairo did it to Japan before and it's not unheard of in other games. Whenever America loses in a major, especially if its in America, everybody loses their mind and says stuff like we need to change our philosophy. After surviving the many waves of "Japanese influence" I'm convinced that America losing is only a natural process that needs to happen to make the meta progress.

I mean it brings new out looks which is natural, but MY problem with whenever a region is too strong (especially America for some reason) complacency and stagnation bothers happens and it bothers the hell out of me. The Swedish invasion brought along a better punish game for Melee.

Mexico brought us a band characters and outlooks. Japan brings an aggressive offstage game for Smash 4.

 

[DanGR]

I'm kind of not impressed with Sheik in doubles as well. Am I wrong?
Of the top tiers, ZSS/Rosa/Sonic and others seem like better choices than Sheik. Sheik still has a great recovery, but otherwise doesn't seem that overwhelming. I don't really do doubles so I don't know for sure.

Rosa is much, much worse in doubles than singles.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Marss/Pugwest just beat Dabuz/Hyuga.

I didn't see super incredible play but their synergy/team combos really work for them.

They are brothers and sparring partners who have played together for many years.

As far as synergy goes you arent going to get better then that.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

Legit, I dunno why if any region outside of America wins a major in America, why its a big deal. ZeRo and Nairo did it to Japan before and it's not unheard of in other games. Whenever America loses in a major, especially if its in America, everybody loses their mind and says stuff like we need to change our philosophy. After surviving the many waves of "Japanese influence" I'm convinced that America losing is only a natural process that needs to happen to make the meta progress.

I mean it brings new out looks which is natural, but MY problem with whenever a region is too strong (especially America for some reason) complacency and stagnation bothers happens and it bothers the hell out of me. The Swedish invasion brought along a better punish game for Melee.

Mexico brought us a band characters and outlooks. Japan brings an aggressive offstage game for Smash 4.

Smash is a lot like Marvel in that it's supposed to be an American game. I guess one can compare Smash to baseball in terms of popularity. Street Fighter is soccer in comparison. Marvel until recently was American football.

 

[Asdioh]

Rosa is much, much worse in doubles than singles.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. She'll be spending a lot of time solo, where she's nothing special in doubles. But hey, at least she makes it 3v2 sometimes? :/



Ike losing to Japanese Peach. Are opinions on Ike changing? He hasn't been doing too well this tourney, from what I've seen. And Japan has almost no Ike players, correct? I don't know how much Peach experience he has, but I always think it's interesting to see when matchup inexperience results in a loss, vs when matchup inexperience results in the inexperienced player still winning.


Side note: is ZSS Bair stronger than most smash attacks? Seeing it kill so often at 90-100 without any Rage and it makes me imaginary vomit

 

[Mario766]

Ryo looked incredibly lost that set, he doesn't look as crisp in his play either.

Ryo does have Saj, but Umeki is on another level. He didn't punish a lot of things and walked into random F-Airs that should have been shielded.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Ryo hasn't really added any tech to his game since October + Peach is a pretty even MU.

Ryuga is still on the winner's side atm. And both Ryo and Ryuga have a reasonable shot at top 32. For a tournament this large I'll take it.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Nice performance by the wall against Nairo. Yoshi easily has all the tools necessary to be a top 10 character, glad there's a player that's actually tapping into that potential.

Ike losing to Japanese Peach. Are opinions on Ike changing? He hasn't been doing too well this tourney, from what I've seen.

"Japanese Peach" is kinda good though. Like, disgustingly good. He's to Smash 4 what Kie was to Brawl.

Also worth noting that FL as a whole has not being doing very hot this whole tournament so far. Neither in crews [eliminated in R1], nor in doubles [none of their teams left in winners bracket of R2 pools I think] or singles [Nick and Ryo both already in losers of R2 pools].

Edit: I don't think Ryo has a good shot at top 32 anymore and Ryuga has to play Larry in round 1 of his pool so its gonna be very tough for him. But even then, at a tournament of this caliber two placings within ~top 50 would be a solid achievement. Would pretty much confirm Ike's position in high mid tier in my book.