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

[Ikes]

being heavy in a game where the meta is practically built around combos is pretty much a death sentence if you dont have plenty of other redeeming factors

I mean DK's alright I guess, not gonna really be seeing much of him past top 16 though in any tournament/venue that takes itself seriously

 

[Dre89]

being heavy in a game where the meta is practically built around combos is pretty much a death sentence if you dont have plenty of other redeeming factors

I mean DK's alright I guess, not gonna really be seeing much of him past top 16 though in any tournament/venue that takes itself seriously

You say that, but then we've seen DKs get results like beating MVD's Diddy, and beating/going close with high level Sheiks. A top level player could definitely pick him up and place in top 16. ZSS is probably the only MU where he is 100% guaranteed to lose at top level.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Jigglypuff's still bad because she loses to "roll backward." She likely has an alright matchup against Rosalina, yeah, because she's tall and you can give her hell offstage. It's slow-going, but you generally do more to her than she does to you, in my experience.

 

[Ikes]

You say that, but then we've seen DKs get results like beating MVD's Diddy, and beating/going close with high level Sheiks. A top level player could definitely pick him up and place in top 16. ZSS is probably the only MU where he is 100% guaranteed to lose at top level.

but WHY would you pick up DK when top tiers are almost entirely better?

not to **** on anyones main but if your motive is anything but to advance a character's meta, 90% of the time you're just weighing yourself down if they're not very high or top

 

[Z'zgashi]

but WHY would you pick up DK when top tiers are almost entirely better?

Cuz he's the last member of the DK crew. Because you enjoy playing him, he fits your playstyle, can be a good counterpick (especially a playstyle CP), and he's still a good character

 

[bc1910]

Where exactly do you lot rank DK?

I can see him in that 20-25 bracket, in that best mid tier/worst high tier group. As strong as he is, his crippling MU against ZSS and bad MUs against other top tiers seem to keep him in check. Any character with mobility and a good projectile seems to give him trouble too. I can see him kinda destroying some of the low tiers though, and he does well against a lot of the high tiers.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

but WHY would you pick up DK when top tiers are almost entirely better?

not to **** on anyones main but if your motive is anything but to advance a character's meta, 90% of the time you're just weighing yourself down if they're not very high or top

Why pick anyone but Sheik and open yourself up to potential bad matchups?

Why are you bothering to ask this question?

 

[Dre89]

Where exactly do you lot rank DK?

I can see him in that 20-25 bracket, in that best mid tier/worst high tier group. As strong as he is, his crippling MU against ZSS and bad MUs against other top tiers seem to keep him in check. Any character with mobility and a good projectile seems to give him trouble too. I can see him kinda destroying some of the low tiers though, and he does well against a lot of the high tiers.

I don't like to rank in terms of numbers, because that requires you to have a strong understanding of everyone's meta, and doesn't show how viable they are. I prefer to simply label them based on how viable I think they are. So for DK, I think he's high tier in that he's a pretty good character who does well against a lot of the cast, but loses to top tiers so he can't be a top tier myself.

but WHY would you pick up DK when top tiers are almost entirely better?

not to **** on anyones main but if your motive is anything but to advance a character's meta, 90% of the time you're just weighing yourself down if they're not very high or top

Just because a character is a sub-optimal choice doesn't mean they can't do well.

We were discussing viability, not which character is the most efficient to main.

Also DK is pretty good as a pocket, because like I said before, he requires minimal investment to suceed in his good MUs. For example he beats Falcon, so if your main doesn't do that well against him you could go DK and do better.

 

[Mario766]

20-25 sounds fair. People freaked out about ding dong but it isn't the new hoo hah. His flaws are just the same as before.

 

[Man Li Gi]

No way in hell is DK high tier. Give him legit buffs that aren't on his grabs a LA the Ike treatment, then yeah. Ur being vague in describing the dude, so let me explain his weaknesses.

No real way of landing. This forces easy juggle situations as not being able to AD to the grounded or having a hitbox around him forces the player to guess what works. Up b sometimes works for horizontal combos.

Getting out footsied. Fox, ZSS, and Sheik do this the most. Dk becomes combo as he is overwhelmed by their speed and can straight up make DK do nothing.

Forced Approaches. Sonic's playstyke is the bane of DKs existence as no approaching NIR landing means combos on DK, with not able to steal stocks (unless on a good stage).

Ledges. DK has by far the worst ledge options. First, his hurt box is exposed so early, horrible roll, slow and low jump, fat hurt box on normal getup (easy to predict and hit), no aerial mixup to land on stage.....I've at times gained 70% on the ledge.

Yes his grab is great, but Dk himself ain't.

 

[Dre89]

20-25 sounds fair. People freaked out about ding dong but it isn't the new hoo hah. His flaws are just the same as before.

It's not just ding dong. He can do 50% with a grab. On some characters you can nair-upb or bair-upb which puts them at 70%. Even when he can't do that, uthrow bair is still 23%.

Ding dong is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his grab game.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Tier 2. Yoshi at the bottom of it though.

Mario's probably the top of tier 2 though, the angle his upb goes is perfect to challenge the 2-frame with and the only thing that makes him truly vulnerable in some MUs. If they can't do that he's essentially a "don't bother"

I wouldn't quite put Yoshi in Tier 3 (nor would I put Mario in tier 1).

I speak from experience both as playing the character and watching high level Yoshi play. Gimping him isn't quite as trivial as you seem to imply. According to your description, Tier 2 is defined as "Pretty susceptible but you need to meet certain conditions before you'll yield high reward". Assuming you count heavy armor as a certain condition, then this is where Yoshi should be on the list (not to mention the varied amount of mixups he has; can't really say the same for Mario). I've rarely seen a Yoshi getting gimped by traditional methods, let alone footstool.

Mario's recovery is indeed difficult to challenge due to high "priority" and large ledge sweetspot, but he's also one of those characters in which if you push him out too far, especially when he's already burned out his double jump, he's pretty much dead. Plus I know certain ones like A2Z have said it to death, but lingering hitboxes also beat Up B out.

 

[meleebrawler]

Can people give a legit analysis of characters instead of giving skin deep analysis of DK (or characters that aren't as popular)? I keep seeing stuff like "yeah he has a great reward on grab....his grab tho....grab........grabbbbbbbbbbb.......". This is even on the commentators as they do the same. I understand that DK isn't really the most relevant or popular character, but it seems like people completely discount some characters to one trait instead of looking at the big picture. What if for some reason or another, the DK player can't land a grab around the ding dong percents? Is he now a completely booty character, is he awesome without it, or is he mid tier? While I have my opinions on him with or without grab, I wanna see others opinion on it.

The fact we see one thing and say pretty shallow things is kinda concerning to me. The same goes for M2.

Mewtwo gets shafted even worse by people analyzing him because he doesn't exactly have this one "OMG" trait that everyone is constantly fearful of. Shadow Ball is the closest thing being the strongest normal chargeable projectile but still isn't exactly strong enough to be polarizing.

Because of this hardly anyone around here ever says anything about Mewtwo except to put him really low on tier lists or claim he's worse than a particular character. All without much justification other than the one "defining" negative trait about him; his light weight.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

It's not just ding dong. He can do 50% with a grab. On some characters you can nair-upb or bair-upb which puts them at 70%. Even when he can't do that, uthrow bair is still 23%.

Ding dong is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his grab game.

I mean, you're not wrong. But you're only focusing on reward. His disadvantage is decent because of his frame 3 invincible up b (does wonders in the Mario matchup), but if the opponint realizes this and sheilds you eat a hard punish, so it becomes a mindgame.
But his neutral. Like seriously, thank god he has problems in neutral otherwise he'd be a broken pre-patch Luigi. His neutral keeps him in check by ZSS and Sheik. So at that point, his reward doesnt matter. (Think Ice Climbers in Melee. This is why they are NOT better than the spacies).

 

[KenMeister]

I wouldn't quite put Yoshi in Tier 3 (nor would I put Mario in tier 1).

I speak from experience both as playing the character and watching high level Yoshi play. Gimping him isn't quite as trivial as you seem to imply. According to your description, Tier 2 is defined as "Pretty susceptible but you need to meet certain conditions before you'll yield high reward". Assuming you count heavy armor as a certain condition, then this is where Yoshi should be on the list (not to mention the varied amount of mixups he has; can't really say the same for Mario). I've rarely seen a Yoshi getting gimped by traditional methods, let alone footstool.

Mario's recovery is indeed difficult to challenge due to high "priority" and large ledge sweetspot, but he's also one of those characters in which if you push him out too far, especially when he's already burned out his double jump, he's pretty much dead. Plus I know certain ones like A2Z have said it to death, but lingering hitboxes also beat Up B out.

I feel like the only way anyone is going to be gimping Yoshi reliably is if they have strong options to cover high recoveries without putting themselves at significant risk. Think Falco's rising fair for example, with its lingering hitboxes and high jump, which creates a wall that's hard for Yoshi to navigate around. Characters who can cover both angles well without too much commitment can edgeguard Yoshi with ease, we just have yet to make it towards that point of the meta, where most people are still afraid to go offstage for the kill (which I kind of don't blame them for, honestly).

 

[Ghostbone]

Somewhat late to the Jigglypuff party, but a character that relies on their aerial game, not to mention being the lightest character in the game, needs to be absolutely bonkers to be good in a game like smash.

Mainly because aerials don't clank, they trade, and jigglypuff can't trade with anyone. Her aerials aren't disjointed enough to circumvent this.
Melee is a different game where puff IS basically broken because of her edgeguards and disjointed hitboxes (and <10% rest kills). Even there she struggles primarily because her aerials are easy to trade with. (though she can afford to trade in that game because the opponent may be sent off-stage which should end in their death). So she'll die to a trade between one of her aerials and Fox u-smash, or Sheik fair/bair, etc.

That effect is just compounded in Smash 4 where so many characters have invincible anti-air up-smashes. Jigglypuff dies the earliest off the top, she relies on approaching from an angle where these moves will easily hit, and she doesn't even get to trade because they're invincible.


Jigglypuff can most easily be compared to Wario, who has essentially just as good aerial mobility (and better weaving?) and is actually heavy so he can afford to trade. Plus he's not stupidly floaty (Puff has to go to the ledge whenever she's above you most of the time because her fall speed is abysmal)
Then if we look at what's ridiculous about him, you have his aerial command grab, forward killing throw, and waft. Waft is better than rest because the hitbox is 100000x bigger (roughly) and it's actually safe if you miss. Charge up time is relatively inconsequential when both character's playstyle relies on a looooot of poking and weaving in neutral.
And despite Wario's ridiculous aspects he's still likely not top 10 lol. Puff is very very bad.

 

[Z'zgashi]

Where exactly do you lot rank DK?

I can see him in that 20-25 bracket, in that best mid tier/worst high tier group. As strong as he is, his crippling MU against ZSS and bad MUs against other top tiers seem to keep him in check. Any character with mobility and a good projectile seems to give him trouble too. I can see him kinda destroying some of the low tiers though, and he does well against a lot of the high tiers.

Personally, somewhere around 15ish. ZSS is definitely something you need a pocket for though, but with how CP heavy this game is, I dont think 1 really bad MU is as bad as most make it out to be.

 

[Wintropy]

@DunnoBro, what tier of recovery do you think pit falls into? great recovery distance on up-b, but the trajectory is easy to trace and even side-b's recovery can be intercepted with a projectile (or, in theory, a kamikaze jump-in if you can tank the hit; not advisable, but it can be done).

i ask because pit is an especially controversial topic when considering the questinon of challenging the opponent off-stage. personally i don't think you risk much by trying to edgeguard pit if you have a plan to make it back - he will probably make it back if he wants to and if you don't outright kill him, since the nature of his recovery makes it very difficult to gimp him in the traditional sense, but i don't think there's many characters that really risk getting killed or gimped themselves if they whiff it - but i'm interested in your opinion.

 

[TriTails]

a kamikaze jump-in if you can tank the hit; not advisable, but it can be done).

Woah wait Summertropy.

How is tanking Upperdash Arm is going to do anything? You take 9% of damage and you will be sent upwards. It 'intercepts' Upperdash Arm, sure. But Pit bounces up when it activates in the air. The best case scenario for you, he has to take the whole end lag and PoF to the ledge, in which time hopefully you already made it back onto the ground. But Pit shouldn't be using Upperdash Arm far away from the ledge to begin with (Because using Upperdash below ledge level = instant death) and if he is so paranoid on being interrupted, he has his body covering N-air to do so. Worst case? He either kills you or put you above him while he himself returns to the ledge quicker than you.

I mean, I know you said it's not advisable. But I see zero point on body-blocking the Upperdash if you can't punish his end lag (Something you can do with projectiles).

But if I were to rank Pit's recovery, I'd rank him high tier at worst. He is extremely hard to gimp and edgeguards usually are only feasible with Ganon aerials level of power or spikes. Upperdash armors and uppercuts through everything and as open as it is, PoF is extremely good with its distance. He also has N-air to protect his entire body if he were to be challenged. Spiking him outside of PoF can be hard due to U-air's nature and Upperdash. Combine that with the fact he has three midair jumps. He can mix-up a lot of things.

Force him into a position where he has to repeatedly PoF though, he is in for some pain. But getting Pit into that kind of state is a chore to begin with.

EDIT: Holy flipping what. No wonder the text looks brown. Did I just tag DunnoBro in this entire post? Lmao.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

I feel like the only way anyone is going to be gimping Yoshi reliably is if they have strong options to cover high recoveries without putting themselves at significant risk. Think Falco's rising fair for example, with its lingering hitboxes and high jump, which creates a wall that's hard for Yoshi to navigate around. Characters who can cover both angles well without too much commitment can edgeguard Yoshi with ease, we just have yet to make it towards that point of the meta, where most people are still afraid to go offstage for the kill (which I kind of don't blame them for, honestly).

I'll concede on the Falco part, especially considering he has a reflector to prevent covering options with Eggs (there are other reasons why I believe this to be slightly harder than Fox).

In all honesty, yes, I do think people should try to get better at edge guarding and not giving too much respect to the person recovering (I feel Mario is also one of those characters I would expect to go down in effectiveness once this happens, provided it ever does). In fact, ZeRo, Nairo, and maybe a few others are the only ones daring to actually (riskily) edgeguard offstage.

@DunnoBro could very much be correct in theory, but I think he constantly downplays certain recoveries while also overrating others.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I recall TheReflexWonder used to play Jigglypuff and he did very well with her. He said that Puff has a good Rosalina MU. I wonder how he feels about the MU now and Puff's MUs in general. There are very few Puff mains and far fewer worth listening to. I dabble myself but cannot make meaningful statements about her lol.

I actually fought a Jigglypuff this weekend as Rosalina. Wasn't too hard, hardest thing was getting used to her insane aerial weaving. Rosalina's usmash is a good anti-air. Luma's may be too but to this day I'm not entirely sure what it trades or clanks with, so I didn't abuse its range as much as I maybe could have.

Given that Rosalina loves to kill off the top it shouldn't be surprising that Jigglypuff needs to fear the juggles. I also want to experiment with bair as a zoning tool, especially RAR bair since that puts a lot of extra range on Luma's attack.

Not entirely sure what strengths Jigglypuff can bring forward. I believe aerial characters can make it hard to defend Luma, so I can see Jigglypuff having an easier time than most poking it away if she places her hits very carefully, but that's strictly theory.

 

[AnEventHorizon]

being heavy in a game where the meta is practically built around combos is pretty much a death sentence if you dont have plenty of other redeeming factors

I mean DK's alright I guess, not gonna really be seeing much of him past top 16 though in any tournament/venue that takes itself seriously

Nothing in Top 16, despite DKWill getting 7th at Super Smash Con, 4th at SKTAR 4, 9th at Smash the record, and 9th at Ibuypower?

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Nothing in Top 16, despite DKWill getting 7th at Super Smash Con, 4th at SKTAR 4, 9th at Smash the record, and 9th at Ibuypower?

Let us also not forget M2K placing 3rd at PAX.

 

[Jams.]

How can anyone think mk is any worse than 7 - 8th

Ness has huge exploitable flaws counteracted by huge strengths. Are the strengths good enough to completely counteract his weaknesses? No not really.

Also I'm pretty sure "but what even is top tier, what should we even consider tiers lol", is explicitly banned by the op

In my community, there is still stigma surrounding MK because of Brawl nerfs and how inaccurate his hitboxes were at release. People still think he's overhyped, relies on cheese, and has a low/bottom tier neutral game. Unfortunately, I feel like people really need to play against a good MK to acknowledge his strengths at this point, and he's just not a common pick.

I actually fought a Jigglypuff this weekend as Rosalina. Wasn't too hard, hardest thing was getting used to her insane aerial weaving. Rosalina's usmash is a good anti-air. Luma's may be too but to this day I'm not entirely sure what it trades or clanks with, so I didn't abuse its range as much as I maybe could have.

Given that Rosalina loves to kill off the top it shouldn't be surprising that Jigglypuff needs to fear the juggles. I also want to experiment with bair as a zoning tool, especially RAR bair since that puts a lot of extra range on Luma's attack.

Not entirely sure what strengths Jigglypuff can bring forward. I believe aerial characters can make it hard to defend Luma, so I can see Jigglypuff having an easier time than most poking it away if she places her hits very carefully, but that's strictly theory.

From my experience, Jigglypuff's biggest strengths in this MU are when Rosalina is offstage. She can easily chain a few fairs together, force Rosalina to go for the ledge, then throw out a gigantic lingering nair hitbox. Jigglypuff can gain a lot of damage or even outright kill Rosalina by taking advantage of her lingering hitboxes and Rosalina's vulnerable recovery. Despite her abysmal fall speed, Jigglypuff can usually weave into a safer position to land or ledge reset without the risk of being frame trapped by uair since she has better air mobility. Her lingering aerials can also be tricky to wall, since Luma clanks with everything so Jigglypuff can occasionally just aerial through a Luma attack and hit Rosalina.

 

[TTTTTsd]

People still think he's overhyped, relies on cheese, and has a low/bottom tier neutral game.

Of these three things, the only one that's really true is the third (not to the extent presented). His neutral isn't really incredible or even that good, but with how amazing his advantage and punish game is it's like...he only has to win it so many times before he takes a stock. It's pretty insane! I don't think he's overrated at all. I'm just gonna guess your region/area doesn't have MK players to really see what he can do. He's really not super common, can't blame em in that regard.

I don't think the character needs any massive changes (some people do) so I have no idea what they're gonna change about him if they decide to address how he works in the game. Like, the only feasible way to make his advantage less ridiculous would be to give him better stuff to do in neutral to make up for it. I have no idea how they'd go about doing this but yea.

 

[Wintropy]

Woah wait Summertropy.

How is tanking Upperdash Arm is going to do anything? You take 9% of damage and you will be sent upwards. It 'intercepts' Upperdash Arm, sure. But Pit bounces up when it activates in the air. The best case scenario for you, he has to take the whole end lag and PoF to the ledge, in which time hopefully you already made it back onto the ground. But Pit shouldn't be using Upperdash Arm far away from the ledge to begin with (Because using Upperdash below ledge level = instant death) and if he is so paranoid on being interrupted, he has his body covering N-air to do so. Worst case? He either kills you or put you above him while he himself returns to the ledge quicker than you.

I mean, I know you said it's not advisable. But I see zero point on body-blocking the Upperdash if you can't punish his end lag (Something you can do with projectiles).

But if I were to rank Pit's recovery, I'd rank him high tier at worst. He is extremely hard to gimp and edgeguards usually are only feasible with Ganon aerials level of power or spikes. Upperdash armors and uppercuts through everything and as open as it is, PoF is extremely good with its distance. He also has N-air to protect his entire body if he were to be challenged. Spiking him outside of PoF can be hard due to U-air's nature and Upperdash. Combine that with the fact he has three midair jumps. He can mix-up a lot of things.

Force him into a position where he has to repeatedly PoF though, he is in for some pain. But getting Pit into that kind of state is a chore to begin with.

EDIT: Holy flipping what. No wonder the text looks brown. Did I just tag DunnoBro in this entire post? Lmao.

Oh no, you're quite right, there is absolutely no reason why you'd want to do it. It serves no practical benefit other than to be stylish. I just mentioned it purely for the sake of saying that, invincible it may be, you can get in the way of Upperdash if you really want to. But if you don't have a projectile you can toss his way, you're not going to do much with it.

Even so, I think every Pit's been in a position where we've misjudged the distance of Upperdash to the edge and been on the receiving end of Falcon's fiery soles. Getting d-air spiked just when you think you've made it to safety is a rite of passage.

 

[LancerStaff]

Depending on the projectile even getting them sent back at you might help. Like Greninja firing a shuriken to trigger the uppercut, getting hit by the reflected shuriken but since they have little hitstun it basically allows him to skip the endlag.

Not sure how well this works in practice but it sounds plausible to me in this case.

That could help but I imagine the projectile would have to be pretty unsafe on hit anyway. Like, Falco Blaster bad. Water Shuriken is one of the faster projectiles, ain't it?

Oh hey, a Gunman or can would probably do it. Still struggling to think of anything else though.

LancerStaff , i trust your understanding of pit's technical details, so i need to ask: why is it that pit can still be spiked by, say, falcon's d-air even when using upperdash? something to do with the hitbox connecting on the non-invincible frames? does anybody even know how the invincibility frames on upperdash work? i've seen chatter on it, but never a coherent response.

i don't want to discredit your research, you know more about it than i do, but it definitely doesn't feel as totally invincible as you say.

Well, like TTTTTsd said, the armor isn't on the whole duration of the move. When I said complete super armor or whatever I ment that the super armor cannot be beaten out by attacks. No number of hits, or amount of knockback or damage can interrupt the move while the armor is active. Ergo, when using it as a recovery you need to pay attention to your spacing.

If Pit Arms Arcfire Robin more or less gets a Fair for free since that Fireball's going nowhere near him.

And Pit's not going anywhere near you while he pops up, and he can just Fspecial again as soon as the endlag finishes and puts him in the same spot. Even if you plop the fire on the ground and Pit ends up "hitting" it multiple times Robin has a very narrow window if any at all to hit Pit. Usually it only hits once.

(Just so everybody's clear, deflected projectiles, ones that are sent up and out typically, aren't truly reflected. If Pit hits an active Arcfire with his Fspecial it won't change ownership.)

 

[Skeeter Mania]

MK

has a low/bottom tier neutral game.

How?

 

[Jamurai]

MK's neutral is at least better than average, his ground game is awesome. If you wanted to change MK to tone down his combo game and buff his neutral, you could increase the base knockback and decrease the scaling of Uair, so that it no longer combos into itself multiple times but still combos into Up-B at kill %s. Then give him a workable short hop game or something; since the spike got patched out, Fair is almost useless.

MK doesn't get much play simply because he is difficult to use and do well with. Some still think that Uair combos are ezpz cheese that you can learn after a few hours in training mode, and they give Abadango as an example of someone who seemed to pick up the character on a whim and then proceeded to destroy almost everyone at Big House and make a name for himself as one of if not THE best MK. The reality is that the dude worked his butt off, apparently doing 99-stock CPU matches constantly and noting down what happened every single time he tried the combo. Some high-level players are picking him up and seeing some results fairly quickly (a recent example being Zinoto) but it seems that unless you're incredibly good at the game already, MK isn't someone you can secondary to pull out the cheese in a bad matchup. He requires dedication, a mastery of his punish game and a deep understanding of his neutral game in order to be consistent enough to hang with the top tiers and translate into results at big tournaments.

 

[Jams.]

How?

Dunno. I don't believe that and IDK what other people's justification is for thinking that way, but there are people in my community with that sentiment. Perhaps they feel like MK is limited by his lack of aerial approach options and poor horizontal aerial mobility, and is thus over-reliant on his dash attack and dash grab? MK is just misunderstood.

 

[Y2Kay]

MK's neutral is at least better than average, his ground game is awesome. If you wanted to change MK to tone down his combo game and buff his neutral, you could increase the base knockback and decrease the scaling of Uair, so that it no longer combos into itself multiple times but still combos into Up-B at kill %s. Then give him a workable short hop game or something; since the spike got patched out, Fair is almost useless.

MK doesn't get much play simply because he is difficult to use and do well with. Some still think that Uair combos are ezpz cheese that you can learn after a few hours in training mode, and they give Abadango as an example of someone who seemed to pick up the character on a whim and then proceeded to destroy almost everyone at Big House and make a name for himself as one of if not THE best MK. The reality is that the dude worked his butt off, apparently doing 99-stock CPU matches constantly and noting down what happened every single time he tried the combo. Some high-level players are picking him up and seeing some results fairly quickly (a recent example being Zinoto) but it seems that unless you're incredibly good at the game already, MK isn't someone you can secondary to pull out the cheese in a bad matchup. He requires dedication, a mastery of his punish game and a deep understanding of his neutral game in order to be consistent enough to hang with the top tiers and translate into results at big tournaments.

I remember a few pages back I said MK was one of the most difficult to play, and people disagreed with me. I was gonna main him at first when I decided to play competitively. It was pretty darn difficult to say the least. You can't really afford to be really goofy with him if you want to win. If he was all cheese, I definitely would be more successful, don't you think? Once I get better, I'll return to him for sure.

 

[Amadeus9]

I remember a few pages back I said MK was one of the most difficult to play, and people disagreed with me. I was gonna main him at first when I decided to play competitively. It was pretty darn difficult to say the least. You can't really afford to be really goofy with him if you want to win. If he was all cheese, I definitely would be more successful, don't you think? Once I get better, I'll return to him for sure.

Generally you can't trust what someone says about mk unless they main him.

 

[Pazzo.]

Generally you can't trust what someone says about mk unless they main him.

The truth.

You could really say this about 65% of the cast too.

 

[Rizen]

I remember a few pages back I said MK was one of the most difficult to play, and people disagreed with me. I was gonna main him at first when I decided to play competitively. It was pretty darn difficult to say the least. You can't really afford to be really goofy with him if you want to win. If he was all cheese, I definitely would be more successful, don't you think? Once I get better, I'll return to him for sure.

MK's not all cheese but he does have strong cheese. He's the blue cheese salad of smash.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

The truth.

You could really say this about 65% or the cast too.

Really? Who's the other 35%?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Really? Who's the other 35%?

The bottom 35% of the cast. Those characters' mains will tell you that their character is actually mid tier.

 

[Pazzo.]

Really? Who's the other 35%?

Eh, I'd say more of 45-55% now that I think about it.
(In no particular order)











etc, etc.

Players who have participated in locals, are frequent here or on Reddit, or have watched popular guides/videos will know the major weaknesses/quirks about these characters. They may not have extensive knowledge, but they'll go in with at least a basic knowledge of what to exploit.

Sheik can't kill early, Don't get grabbed, back-throw, etc.

 

[Megamang]

Really? Who's the other 35%?

Top tiers that you must have a baseline knowledge of to succeed in tournaments, ladder, or FG.

 

[Wintropy]

Really? Who's the other 35%?

I think he was being figurative in his expression.

Either way, while it definitely helps to have firsthand experience with the character you're discussing, you don't have to "main" the character to provide productive insights. I don't think TriTails plays Pit in any meaningful capacity, yet he perfectly described Pit's off-stage game, even more concisely than I'd have done. Sometimes you can get equally good insights by fighting the character rather than playing them directly. It definitely offers a different perspective than you might be used to just from controlling the character yourself.

It's a fine line between just discussing your own character and talking about something you know nothing about. Neither extreme is very helpful. On the one hand, you can have discussions based on one-dimensional experience with a certain character and nothing else; on the other hand, the discussion can be misinformed theorycraft that has no basis in reality. You have to have some cogent knowledge of the character to engage in a proper, productive conversation, you can't just make up statistics out of thin air with no prior experience and maintain it's de facto truth; yet short of "maining" every character in the roster, you can't expect knowledge to be disseminated based on the criteria that, if you don't play the character, you don't know the character.

This is relevant to Meta Knight for one simple reason, and that reason is the fact that Meta Knight is a very easily misunderstood character. This is a character that was initially considered unviable trash due to weird hitbox placement and no reliable combo game, yet who became a tournament-viable threat over the course of a couple of balance patches. To the casual observer, this seems to have happened overnight: until the likes of (initially) Leo and (currently) Abadango began taking games off of big-name players at relevant tourneys, most people with a passing interest in the tournament scene wrote off Meta Knight as a flash in the pan and nothing more. Now that Meta Knight has become something of a vogue trend in recent times, with people frequently citing him as a potential candidate for top tier and vague whisperings that he might have an even matchup with Sheik (disclaimer: I am not saying he does or does not), you have people suddenly taking an interest in what he can do and chattering about why he's suddenly become a relevant character in the meta. This will naturally begin a process of people trying to hop on the bandwagon and yield the same success that these top Meta Knight players have, near-invariably with no success; this then has the contingent side-effect of convincing a vocal minority that Meta Knight is just (to purloin the popular parlance) a "fraud" and that top players just rely on cheese and easy-bake combos to succeed. This is both unfortunately misinformed and potentially detrimental to greater understanding of the Meta Knight...meta. Then you have the inevitable few pessimists who still have a sour taste in their mouths from Brawl and think Meta Knight players want to exploit Smash 4 in the same way, just ride the galactic crusdader's midnight coattails to an easy victory.

The truth, as I understand it, is that this is not the case and people have greatly misinterpreted the character's inherent ease of use. Amadeus9 Jamurai pointed it out a few minutes back: Abadango didn't just pick up Meta Knight one day and decide he was going to win tourneys with him, he practiced very hard behind the scenes and is still trying to perfect Meta Knight's holy grail combo. I understand that this is something that even other experienced Meta Knight players have difficulty with, and it is something that requires dedication and training to become absolutely adept with. Then there's the fact that people have conflicting opinions on Meta Knight's own abilities (i.e. is his neutral good or bad? Is the holy grail combo a cheap exploit or a brilliant revelation?), exacerbated by the fact that there is still just a handful of very good Meta Knight players out there representing the character and demonstrating to the public what he can do. It might be something to do with the fact that development of the Meta meta happens to be mostly done behind the scenes and discussed between Meta Knight players themselves, which, in our days of spectator viewing and results-driven frenzy, means that for most people it does not exist and Abadango et al have just used some kind of distinguished demon magic to kill people off the top at 40%. Meta Knight players know what they're talking about, because they study the Meta meta day in, day out and have dedicated themselves to pushing forward with new discoveries and exciting tech - something you can't just pick up and play and expect to do well with. In that sense, I can understand why Meta Knight players can get frustrated with non-Meta Knight players trying to vindicate their understanding of the character despite having no firsthand experience, since the efforts of the Meta Knight players is a constant project based on deep technical understanding, a desire for innovation and an abiding interest in playing the character. In a nutshell: the Meta Knight meta is serious business, and woe betide ye who disrespect the understanding these guys have of the character and the effort it takes to do what they do.

Of course, everything I've just said has been written from the perspective of a non-Meta Knight player, so I might be totally off in my definition. I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say in response, since I know I am quite guilty of shifting the topic of conversation to my own main whenever I get the opportunity to do just that.

 

[meleebrawler]

I think he was being figurative in his expression.

Either way, while it definitely helps to have firsthand experience with the character you're discussing, you don't have to "main" the character to provide productive insights. I don't think TriTails plays Pit in any meaningful capacity, yet he perfectly described Pit's off-stage game, even more concisely than I'd have done. Sometimes you can get equally good insights by fighting the character rather than playing them directly. It definitely offers a different perspective than you might be used to just from controlling the character yourself.

It's a fine line between just discussing your own character and talking about something you know nothing about. Neither extreme is very helpful. On the one hand, you can have discussions based on one-dimensional experience with a certain character and nothing else; on the other hand, the discussion can be misinformed theorycraft that has no basis in reality. You have to have some cogent knowledge of the character to engage in a proper, productive conversation, you can't just make up statistics out of thin air with no prior experience and maintain it's de facto truth; yet short of "maining" every character in the roster, you can't expect knowledge to be disseminated based on the criteria that, if you don't play the character, you don't know the character.

This is relevant to Meta Knight for one simple reason, and that reason is the fact that Meta Knight is a very easily misunderstood character. This is a character that was initially considered unviable trash due to weird hitbox placement and no reliable combo game, yet who became a tournament-viable threat over the course of a couple of balance patches. To the casual observer, this seems to have happened overnight: until the likes of (initially) Leo and (currently) Abadango began taking games off of big-name players at relevant tourneys, most people with a passing interest in the tournament scene wrote off Meta Knight as a flash in the pan and nothing more. Now that Meta Knight has become something of a vogue trend in recent times, with people frequently citing him as a potential candidate for top tier and vague whisperings that he might have an even matchup with Sheik (disclaimer: I am not saying he does or does not), you have people suddenly taking an interest in what he can do and chattering about why he's suddenly become a relevant character in the meta. This will naturally begin a process of people trying to hop on the bandwagon and yield the same success that these top Meta Knight players have, near-invariably with no success; this then has the contingent side-effect of convincing a vocal minority that Meta Knight is just (to purloin the popular parlance) a "fraud" and that top players just rely on cheese and easy-bake combos to succeed. This is both unfortunately misinformed and potentially detrimental to greater understanding of the Meta Knight...meta. Then you have the inevitable few pessimists who still have a sour taste in their mouths from Brawl and think Meta Knight players want to exploit Smash 4 in the same way, just ride the galactic crusdader's midnight coattails to an easy victory.

The truth, as I understand it, is that this is not the case and people have greatly misinterpreted the character's inherent ease of use. Amadeus9 pointed it out a few minutes back: Abadango didn't just pick up Meta Knight one day and decide he was going to win tourneys with him, he practiced very hard behind the scenes and is still trying to perfect Meta Knight's holy grail combo. I understand that this is something that even other experienced Meta Knight players have difficulty with, and it is something that requires dedication and training to become absolutely adept with. Then there's the fact that people have conflicting opinions on Meta Knight's own abilities (i.e. is his neutral good or bad? Is the holy grail combo a cheap exploit or a brilliant revelation?), exacerbated by the fact that there is still just a handful of very good Meta Knight players out there representing the character and demonstrating to the public what he can do. It might be something to do with the fact that development of the Meta meta happens to be mostly done behind the scenes and discussed between Meta Knight players themselves, which, in our days of spectator viewing and results-driven frenzy, means that for most people it does not exist and Abadango et al have just used some kind of distinguished demon magic to kill people off the top at 40%. Meta Knight players know what they're talking about, because they study the Meta meta day in, day out and have dedicated themselves to pushing forward with new discoveries and exciting tech - something you can't just pick up and play and expect to do well with. In that sense, I can understand why Meta Knight players can get frustrated with non-Meta Knight players trying to vindicate their understanding of the character despite having no firsthand experience, since the efforts of the Meta Knight players is a constant project based on deep technical understanding, a desire for innovation and an abiding interest in playing the character. In a nutshell: the Meta Knight meta is serious business, and woe betide ye who disrespect the understanding these guys have of the character and the effort it takes to do what they do.

Of course, everything I've just said has been written from the perspective of a non-Meta Knight player, so I might be totally off in my definition. I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say in response, since I know I am quite guilty of shifting the topic of conversation to my own main whenever I get the opportunity to do just that.

I dare people to count the amount of times the word "meta" was used in this post.

Like I said earlier, the difficulty in using Meta Knight is not just in the execution of his combos but how his reward greatly suffers if they fail. He can't exactly play the footsie game for damage against most characters like Ryu can when there's no opportunity to combo, he has to be even more vigilant and wily to find those openings and score his damage or kills.