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

[nicholas libreros]

cloud is to much of a double edge sword really ;/ don't see how he can be top tier but well i guess we have to give the character some more time he is only a month old

 

[HFlash]

cloud is to much of a double edge sword really ;/ don't see how he can be top tier but well i guess we have to give the character some more time he is only a month old

Exactly. I would refrain from talking too much about him quite yet. The only for sure thing you can say for sure is that he is at least at the realm of Captain Falcon/Yoshi viability. This early on and he already has some significant representation in a national. Where he lands between around 5-20 is what remains to be shown.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Are all of these MUs in G3?

Nah, these are just some high level results from all over the place.

In theory [and practice] Fox has a stronger neutral game than Falcon, an even stronger advantaged state than Falcon and his disadvantaged state is not quite as bad as Falcon's. It's not an easy matchup but Fox kind of has Falcon covered on all fronts.

What do u think of FOW fighting Ranai? I know villager is hard for Ness

I can see this one going into nearly any direction. Fow probably knows the Villager matchup better than most people do and he's actually the player with the strongest record in the whole tournament. He's beaten both Larry and Hyuga 3-0 and I don't know if he even dropped a single game yet.

But on the other side ... it's Ranai. And it's Ness vs Villager. Could be close. But we also may get to see a very one-sided set.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Nah, these are just some high level results from all over the place.

In theory [and practice] Fox has a stronger neutral game than Falcon, an even stronger advantaged state than Falcon and his disadvantaged state is not quite as bad as Falcon's. It's not an easy matchup but Fox kind of has Falcon covered on all fronts.



I can see this one going into nearly any direction. Fow probably knows the Villager matchup better than most people do and he's actually the player with the strongest record in the whole tournament. He's beaten both Larry and Hyuga 3-0 and I don't know if he even dropped a single game yet.

But on the other side ... it's Ranai. And it's Ness vs Villager. Could be close. But we also may get to see a very one-sided set.

He lost one game aganist Teb

 

[Sinister Slush]

With top 8 rounded out, some cursory thoughts. A bit drunk rn, so these will be filled out later tomorrow.

lacks a full gameplan; like others have said, he's a bag of tools that look good on paper but end up not being coherent once put together. While no top player is playing him, he doesn't seem to have what it takes to make it once people are wise to his tricks. This character is going to fall with time.

Like ya said, when people realize how to play against Yoshi it becomes incredibly easy to just keep him out and punish his moves or even gimp Yoshi if they think they're gonna get away with the reckless way they recover
Of the 4 Yoshi's that we were all supposed to look out for this tournament, two of em lost first round in losers r2 pools and two others lost in round 4 of losers. Sky apparently went 0-2 in Round 1 pools from what I was told?

Raptor prolly had the toughest bracket in R2, having to go through Sk92 and Ryo in losers before being taken out by the same sheik he lost too in R1 pools (really genesis, what's up with that. Same person from a previous round of pools in R2)


Also thing is a couple top players have tried him out (I mean actual top players like ESAM for example) but they slowly gravitate away from Yoshi realizing his problems and just go back to their main.

 

[Wtfwasthat]

I just wanna point out how awesome FOW has been playing! Ill be rooting for him he has been super solid

 

[Yikarur]

lacks a full gameplan; like others have said, he's a bag of tools that look good on paper but end up not being coherent once put together. While no top player is playing him, he doesn't seem to have what it takes to make it once people are wise to his tricks. This character is going to fall with time.

he already has fallen enough because he was considered a Top5 character half a year ago.
Yoshi will probably rise from there because his players are getting better and better.

The Wall and Raptor got 41st, 2 wins away from Top32, the Wall has lost to Nairo and 8bitman while Raptor has lost to Akiro twice. These are solid loses for players of their level and I think Yoshi has not reached his full potential yet.

is overrated in the West. ESAM has been underpeforming for quite some time and the character's frailness bites him back a lot when getting kills are as complicated as it is.

ESAM only lost to a Mario (what is arguably a bad Match-up for Pikachu) and Nairo. Nothing to make assumptions like that off.
Nakat made it far as well but chocked in the important matches against SlayerZ.

 

[ARISTOS]

I believe in the power of ZSS.

She's the hero we need.

Hopefully the meme saying is only backed by Nairo will die for real this time

In general, I'm thinking that we need to change the metric a bit; We've used Top 8 as the metric of National-viable for ages because of Melee, but Melee has 13-14 viable characters in a 26 character roster and Smash 4 has probably somewhere around half of its own cast viable out of a soon-to-be 58 character roster.

The main issue is that Sm4sh Top 8s are so varied that the information supplied is almost useless in certain cases because you have a large number of Top 8s with lone Peach/Yoshi/whatever tops whereas a Top 16 count could better help determine a meta placing/community-based tier list.

Basically, I feel like we should start treating Top 8s how Melee players treat Top 4s and treat Top 16s how they treat Top 8s as a better way to gather data on characters. I'll probably try this post-Genesis, but finding bracket info on Top 16s is harder in some cases.

Top 32 is not that great a metric for determining viability amongst the cast. Ideally, you want to look for player and results trends over time; that's the best way of seeing where the game is headed.

I dont see how anyone could say that Pikachu or Ryu are top 4 tbh. All the best players of the characters there and only one got anywhere

Seems to me like Diddy would round out the top 4 of sheik, rosa, zss and diddy
with the next best characters being mario, sonic, cloud, pikachu, ryu, fox, ness, mk, villager in no particular order

Reminder that this is just one tournament- any one of the various Ryu mains may have had a bad day at the office/poor bracket luck. It happens. Genesis 3 is not the end all be all of tournaments.

i dont think is as much a roadblock to as people think she is. he should be getting blown up every time he goes offstage. what people need to focus on instead is how they interact onstage, which isn't really that tilted in either characters favor. has early killing options on her that are very easy to get without setups(uair, bthrow, etc.) and she has very good normals to contest with his aerials. now the advantage state for either character is bonkers. he blows her up offstage almost as hard as she does(vulnerable linear recoveries in general get demolished) and because she's light bair should ko offstage at about 70%~. his killing options on her are in general gross. its still clear advantage but it's still very doable for .

speaking of , don't the japanese have a low opinion of him? i wonder how this will affect their perceptions, with him in top 8.

This has not been held up in practice. Everytime Ness and Rosalina meet, he gets hard bodied like nobodies business.

Rosalina has easy ways to force Ness to Up-B offstage, and can then gimp him with ease. Disadvantage is a crucial part in this game, and in this MU Ness doesn't get to play it at all.

Like ya said, when people realize how to play against Yoshi it becomes incredibly easy to just keep him out and punish his moves or even gimp Yoshi if they think they're gonna get away with the reckless way they recover
Of the 4 Yoshi's that we were all supposed to look out for this tournament, two of em lost first round in losers r2 pools and two others lost in round 4 of losers. Sky apparently went 0-2 in Round 1 pools from what I was told?

Raptor prolly had the toughest bracket in R2, having to go through Sk92 and Ryo in losers before being taken out by the same sheik he lost too in R1 pools (really genesis, what's up with that. Same person from a previous round of pools in R2)


Also thing is a couple top players have tried him out (I mean actual top players like ESAM for example) but they slowly gravitate away from Yoshi realizing his problems and just go back to their main.

he already has fallen enough because he was considered a Top5 character half a year ago.
Yoshi will probably rise from there because his players are getting better and better.

The Wall and Raptor got 41st, 2 wins away from Top32, the Wall has lost to Nairo and 8bitman while Raptor has lost to Akiro twice. These are solid loses for players of their level and I think Yoshi has not reached his full potential yet.

Good to see two different viewpoints. I believe Yoshi will end up in the 10-20 region of characters- his kit is solid enough to not ever be garbo but small flaws hurt him a lot.

Him being touted as a top 5 character a year ago doesn't mean much to me, we were pretty stupid a year ago and without knowledge of how to play against the character it's hard to do well.

I could be wrong though

ESAM only lost to a Mario (what is arguably a bad Match-up for Pikachu) and Nairo. Nothing to make assumptions like that off.
Nakat made it far as well but chocked in the important matches against SlayerZ.

Losing to a random doesn't fill me with confidence about 's fate. ESAM is way better than Teb; he shouldn't be losing to him at all.

However, my basis for Pikachu being overrated doesn't come from Genesis, but rather from the lack of placements for Pikachu almost anywhere and the amount of MUs Pika seems to only do OK in.

He's a viable character but relies on consistently top level play to do well because small mistakes lead to big punishes and death.

NAKAT had a good tournament, but SlayerZ also wasn't playing well early on in that set and was making adjustments as time went on. Don't think it should entirely written off as NAKAT choking.

 

[Sonicninja115]

Can I just say how stacked this tournament is? We have a GF's match to get into top 8. Nairo/esam for 13th. Nairo/Ally for 9th and Mr. R/ZeRo for 9th.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

ESAM only lost to a Mario (what is arguably a bad Match-up for Pikachu) and Nairo. Nothing to make assumptions like that off.
Nakat made it far as well but chocked in the important matches against SlayerZ.

While that's fair enough it doesn't really contradict the notion that Pikachu is overrated. You know, people say he's top 8 for sure. But he isn't actually top 8 "for sure" at all.

 

[Smog Frog]

She's the hero we need.





This has not been held up in practice. Everytime Ness and Rosalina meet, he gets hard bodied like nobodies business.

Rosalina has easy ways to force Ness to Up-B offstage, and can then gimp him with ease. Disadvantage is a crucial part in this game, and in this MU Ness doesn't get to play it at all.

i largely blame that on nerves and a self-defeating mindset. if you immediately accept defeat you won't win plain and simple. is already a character that breathes hopelessness and despair because she's a brick wall. it's doubly morale sapping if you get gimped and you feel there was nothing you could've done about it.

 

[Asdioh]

Pikachu is amazing, except when it comes to getting KOs against characters with decent recoveries, and that's kind of an important trait to have. He's good, but there are better characters. I actually wonder if Villager fits into this mold as well, how does Ranai get most of his KOs?

ZSS on the other hand, there's no way people are actually arguing that she's only good because of Nairo, are they? The character is so blatantly top tier. Even in ESAM's recent "deal with it" video, he pointed out her weaknesses, but she's not easy to reliably deal with. Her neutral is not as good as Sheik's, but it's still amazingly low risk high reward, and her reward is so frequently the highest (stock taking) that I often view her as at least as good as Sheik.

Also seriously, why is her Bair so incredibly strong? It's easy to overlook that move when you're focused on the power of her upair chains and specials, but Bair kills so much earlier and more safely than I'd realized.

 

[L9999]

Like ya said, when people realize how to play against Yoshi it becomes incredibly easy to just keep him out and punish his moves or even gimp Yoshi if they think they're gonna get away with the reckless way they recover
Of the 4 Yoshi's that we were all supposed to look out for this tournament, two of em lost first round in losers r2 pools and two others lost in round 4 of losers. Sky apparently went 0-2 in Round 1 pools from what I was told?

Raptor prolly had the toughest bracket in R2, having to go through Sk92 and Ryo in losers before being taken out by the same sheik he lost too in R1 pools (really genesis, what's up with that. Same person from a previous round of pools in R2)


Also thing is a couple top players have tried him out (I mean actual top players like ESAM for example) but they slowly gravitate away from Yoshi realizing his problems and just go back to their main.

After seeing G3 TheWall plays it looks like he thinks his recovery is completely invincible and won't get punished for interrupting it 1 meter away from the ledge, and really showed, I recall him getting gimped a lot.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I am totally ok with people saying Ryu is not top 5 as long as those same people acknowledge Pika and Mario are BOTH weaker chars then him.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

he already has fallen enough because he was considered a Top5 character half a year ago.
Yoshi will probably rise from there because his players are getting better and better.

The Wall and Raptor got 41st, 2 wins away from Top32, the Wall has lost to Nairo and 8bitman while Raptor has lost to Akiro twice. These are solid loses for players of their level and I think Yoshi has not reached his full potential yet.



ESAM only lost to a Mario (what is arguably a bad Match-up for Pikachu) and Nairo. Nothing to make assumptions like that off.
Nakat made it far as well but chocked in the important matches against SlayerZ.

How is Mario a bad MU for Pikachu? Don't really know much about the MU.

 

[TDK]

So the top 8 matchups are:

vs

vs

vs

vs

Looking at the record between ZeRo and Dabuz, ZeRo will probably beat him. So if FOW can stay on the winner's side, he doesn't have to deal with a terrible matchup.

Also, who's streaming top 8?

 

[FullMoon]

I feel like Ranai is going to really mess FOW up with his edgeguarding.

 

[Sonicninja115]

So the top 8 matchups are:

vs

vs

vs

vs

Looking at the record between ZeRo and Dabuz, ZeRo will probably beat him. So if FOW can stay on the winner's side, he doesn't have to deal with a terrible matchup.

Also, who's streaming top 8?

showdownsmash at 2:00ish
I believe 64 award ceremony is supposed to be at 2, with Sm4sh at 2:15. PST btw.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

vs -Ranai

vs -ZeRo

vs -Anything goes

vs -Nairo(hopefully)

I don't think it'll go anyother way

 

[Nu~]

I feel like Ranai is going to really mess FOW up with his edgeguarding.

Wouldn't it suck for him to be so excited that he was able to escape from Rosalina due to the bracket switch...


Just for Villager to steal his recovery just as efficiently lol

 

[Dr.Smex]

Doesn't plumber bros's up smash beat all of pikachu's best approaches clean?

 

[Nu~]

Doesn't plumber bros's up smash beat all of pikachu's best approaches clean?

In theory...

But pikachu probably shouldn't be throwing his face at Mario that freely.

 

[Smog Frog]

isnt pocket smaller than gp? i don't think pocket would be as effective as gp for gimping .

 

[Emblem Lord]

And we thought Cloud had a good MU against Sheik? lol guys.It seems Mr. R has figured out how to edgeguard him and now a secondary looks absolutely required.

Um no. maybe silly people did. We said he does well on the stage. Which he does. We also said he gets gimped to hell. Which he does.

 

[TDK]

Um no. maybe silly people like you did. We said he does well on the stage. Which he does. We also said he gets gimped to hell. Which he does.

Thing is, Sheik seems to have all the tools to get him off the stage.

 

[KenMeister]

Thing is, Sheik seems to have all the tools to get him off the stage.

But you still don't get it. We're talking about Cloud's ability to handle Sheik ONstage, offstage is pretty obvious. =\

 

[Jamurai]

Standout players in this tournament (ie. ones I certainly did not expect to get this far):

Marss has taken out the likes of

• Mr. ConCon
• Komorikiri
• Earth
• Hyuga

What a beast. I had heard good things about him but definitely did not expect him to get to top 8 in a tourney this stacked. Not expecting him to beat Nairo but won't be totally surprised to see him take it either, he is in great form.

FOW and Shaky have come very far using a character which I severely underestimated, I thought most people had this character's number but I stand corrected. His tools combined with strong fundamentals clearly make for a very deadly combination.

Hyuga (of course), his amazing run to 9th place beating players like Nairo and 6WX has put Mexico on the map, this region can no longer be slept on. Also props to him and Zan for showing what this character can do at top level, Zan took out Abadango too.

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

My predictions:

1st: ZeRo
2nd: Ranai
3rd: Nairo
4th: Larry
5th: Dabuz , FOW
7th: Marss , VoiD

 

[Sonicninja115]

Standout players in this tournament (ie. ones I certainly did not expect to get this far):

Marss has taken out the likes of

• Mr. ConCon
• Komorikiri
• Earth
• Hyuga

What a beast. I had heard good things about him but definitely did not expect him to get to top 8 in a tourney this stacked. Not expecting him to beat Nairo but won't be totally surprised to see him take it either, he is in great form.

FOW and Shaky have come very far using a character which I severely underestimated, I thought most people had this character's number but I stand corrected. His tools combined with strong fundamentals clearly make for a very deadly combination.

Hyuga (of course), his amazing run to 9th place beating players like Nairo and 6WX has put Mexico on the map, this region can no longer be slept on. Also props to him and Zan for showing what this character can do at top level, Zan took out Abadango too.

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

My predictions:

1st: ZeRo
2nd: Ranai
3rd: Nairo
4th: Larry
5th: Dabuz , FOW
7th: Marss , VoiD

I think Marss and Nairo might be a toss-up, and Nairo might lose to Dabuz. those ones are really up in the air right now. and Void has been beating larry a lot recently.

 

[L9999]

isnt pocket smaller than gp? i don't think pocket would be as effective as gp for gimping .

Factoring out Gravitational Gimp, do you think Killager cares at all about Ness' recovery?

 

[TTTTTsd]

But you still don't get it. We're talking about Cloud's ability to handle Sheik ONstage, offstage is pretty obvious. =\

This is legit the only reason Cloud vs. Sheik is even doable tbh.

The offstage is REALLY hard but on-stage is thankfully DOABLE. It's obv in Sheik's favor overall but I'm pretty sure anyone smart knew that already~.

 

[FimPhym]

To be fair, Smash 4 has over 50 characters and Melee has 26. It is natural for Smash 4 to have more characters that are viable.

I beg you to make an asymmetric competitive game with as many characters as you like. A hundred, two hundred, a thousand. You'll rapidly discover that a large cast is not a shortcut to balance but a massive hinderance, way more likely to have horrific outlying God tier characters.

It's no shame to melee that it's less balanced than a game patched throughout a year of tournament play. If balance were the only metric to judge games by we could be done with melee. As it happens, balance is only part of what makes a game great.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Factoring out Gravitational Gimp, do you think Killager cares at all about Ness' recovery?

This so hard. Sure, Pocketing PKT1 is obviously easy modo, but Villager can completely **** on Ness from every conceivable angle of approaching offstage otherwise. Bair, fair, nair, bowling balls, Lloids...it's almost mindboggling.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Funen1]

isnt pocket smaller than gp? i don't think pocket would be as effective as gp for gimping .

Afaik GP covers about 1/5th the length of FD, while Pocket covers 1/6th or so. But like L9999 alluded to, Villager is so comfortable edgeguarding that the smaller range of Pocket shouldn't matter. We'll see how Ranai plays it later today, and what FOW can do in response.

 

[Jamurai]

I think Marss and Nairo might be a toss-up, and Nairo might lose to Dabuz. those ones are really up in the air right now. and Void has been beating larry a lot recently.

I'm not really sure who will win between VoiD and Larry, but I went with Larry cause I play Fox so I'm rooting for him. However, I don't mind who wins too much, as VoiD is a very entertaining player.

I'm fairly confident in the rest of my predictions. We shall see!

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I would add Void as a standout player. Highest placing solo Sheik, only solo Sheik in top 8 and he took 5 stocks off Japan in crew battles.


Looking at the bracket I think my prediction would be:

1st Zero
2nd Ranai
3rd Nairo
4th dabuz
5th Void / Fow
7th Larry / Marss

 

[HeavyLobster]

So the top 8 matchups are:

vs

vs

vs

vs

Looking at the record between ZeRo and Dabuz, ZeRo will probably beat him. So if FOW can stay on the winner's side, he doesn't have to deal with a terrible matchup.

Also, who's streaming top 8?

FOW isn't beating Ranai. Villager is every bit as bad offstage for him as Rosa is. Plus Ranai is a better player.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

Fow may beqt Ranai with Falco, he has a lot pf knowledge in the matchup

 

[Wintermelon43]

Here's my predictions:

7th:Marrss, VoiD

5th:Larry Lurr, Dabuz

4th:Fow

3rd:Nairo

2nd:Ranai

1st:ZeRo



But, I don't understand something. If Marrss beat Earth, how are we still alive to talk about this?

 

[TDK]

Fow may beqt Ranai with Falco, he has a lot pf knowledge in the matchup

I do doubt this. Ranai's a top 2 player in the world.

 

[Halifax?]

Didn't Void handle Larry with his own character LOL