Character Competitive Impressions

[Djent]

Aside from Salem, check out Ranai (a.k.a. Ganbaranai, Japan's legendary multi-character sleeper) for some good play.

 

[SpaceJell0]

Here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNktB4ODRxg.

Here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPc1H5u_ZyA.

Here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UERJkNBqRW8. This one's the infamous Mr. Game & Watch windbox kill. GimR switches to Falco after the second match.

And here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnrFFfhWiv0.

Thank @gameplayzero for the first two links.

Thanks for the links!

Here is some of Salem's best work (Villager tourney play is unfortunately rare):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTpcQ0WYmKE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SJHKG8Vk9c

Two of the top players in Australia main Villager and in my experience, it's very tough to play against them. All Villager's aerials are great, Nair is a great anti-juggle tool, Fair and Bair along with Lloid makes a big wall. Villager's jab is also a decent get off me tool, although not fantastic. Villager also has a tonne of kill power and easy setups for up smash (which I believe kills me at about 120%) through down smash. Forward Smash, Axe and tree are just brutal.

You have to be really patient and wait for an opening that doesn't appear very often. Once in though, Villager does have a tough time getting you off them and that's really the biggest weakness Villager has. I have only really got experience in the MU with Pac-Man so I dunno what it's like with others but it certainly is frustrating.

I believe Villager is a really good character. Definitely top 20, if not higher.

Oh yeah, Villager is definitely at least Top 20. The jab is better than you think also, the speed at which it comes out is great if someone's shielding close to you. It can help prevent Shield Grabs. Speaking of grabs, I would suggest Villagers only use the Net to punish super laggy moves (as shown in Salem's game vs Chibo) or Roll Reads.

 

[Nu~]

I watched the first two matches of that (obnoxious audio desynch and obnoxious wrapper around the game aside). That video didn't really show anything for Pac-Man mostly because Koolaid seemed to just be way, way better than his opponent on a fundamental level. The Diddy player was just running into smashes (and every other button Koolaid was hitting) repeatedly which I don't want to just downplay players maybe Koolaid was really in his opponent's head or something but I'm pretty sure he could have won that set with any character with how the set went. If the Diddy player was doing stuff like blocking Pac-Man's attacks and trying to punish OoS we might have seen more of what Pac-Man could do, but that wasn't how the match went...

I would actually be interested in seeing Abadango's Pac-Man playing strong opponents though. Do you have video of that handy? I still have pretty much zero faith in your character, but seeing him played at a very high level would certainly be handy for getting a better picture of him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ipHJdzsvX4
マイトガイ（）VS てぃー（）Semi-Final

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH1-4cIea_E
うみうし（）VS てぃー（）Final

Pre KVO 敗者側2回戦ch(Pacman) vs D2(ZSS)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RizBpmM0-hY

These are other awesome pacman's in Japan

ウメブラ11 勝者側3回戦 Brood vs Abadango / UMEBURA11 WB3
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VBMj4JMFtX8

Smash 4-Ever 10 | Abadango (PacMan) vs RekRP (Robin)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jmBJ66_yx0M

These are Abadango vids

Unfortunately, the fight against keitaro's diddy was on stream and isn't on YouTube.

 

[Lavani]

I would actually be interested in seeing Abadango's Pac-Man playing strong opponents though. Do you have video of that handy? I still have pretty much zero faith in your character, but seeing him played at a very high level would certainly be handy for getting a better picture of him.

From Smash 4-Ever 10:
vs Keitaro
vs Nietono

Unsure if he played Pac-Man earlier in the tournament, every time I saw him play before these he was using Wario.

EDIT: Guess the above answers that lol

 

[dragontamer]

Keitaro's inexperience with Pacman really shows unfortunately, while Abadango's mastery of the PacMan vs Diddy matchup is the highlight there.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

How do you all feel about Mario? I've heard ZeRo say Mario is top 5 (which I think is a GIGANTIC stretch for reasons I'll get into in a bit), and allegedly M2K has said the same thing. Before I begin, I need to clarify that I really hate how often players religiously subscribe to "top professional" insight (i.e., if M2K said Charizard is top 3 tomorrow, we'd see Charizard use go up, or bottom-feeding YouTube spectators praise him out of nowhere). There are some players who avoid forming their own opinions on characters, instead letting M2K or some elitist on the Nintendo Dojo ladder tell them which characters are and aren't viable. Thankfully there are also dedicated players (though Falco mains are hugely lacking, it's actually looking like G&W's metagame will develop fully before Falco's, and G&W's are rare as ****).

Now onto Mario: I don't think he's top 5. He's good, but not top 5. "But he has good tournament results!" Yeah, I parroted that talking point for a while too, directing Mario haters to Ally's performance at The Come Up. However, Mario usage is out-of-pocket 99% of the time as with Anti and Tearbear at Collision and SSS respectively (Anti won most of the tournament using a plethora of other characters besides Mario, mostly Diddy, and Tearbear is a Falcon main if I'm not mistaken). People who go Mario the whole tournament do pretty well, normally placing top 10, but I've never heard of a solo Mario winning a major tournament. Luigi on the other hand has notable wins (BEAST 5, and that one S@X thing) and dedicated players in Boss and now False, but it looks like Mario is mostly a secondary character, and even if he does have main status with some professionals like Ally, keep in mind that there's normally a crutch character in Diddy or in Ally's case Shulk (Ally had to win The Come Up with Shulk because his Mario kept losing to Will's Donkey Kong).

Mario has problems racking up good amounts of damage on characters that are most vulnerable to his combos, like Donkey Kong, King Dedede, Ganondorf, and Bowser. Ganondorf specifically is able to easily gimp Mario at reasonable percents using his f-tilt, and if positioned right, can gimp Mario with the back hit of u-air. Mario plays too much like a finesse character, having kill moves only in his smash attacks while is other moves are quick and weak (plus a situational meteor, which is... well, situational). His up smash is amazing but he's overreliant on it for kills, which is a flaw that kept Fox in mid tier in Brawl. I also think Mario loses to characters everyone thinks have fallen from grace, like Falco, Marth, and Meta Knight (only slightly though; each MU is like 45:55 in their favor).

Furthermore, Mario's combo game is lackluster. D-throw -> u-tilt yields minimal results on 90% of the cast, with many being able to simply use their double jump (pretty much everyone whose frame isn't large or doesn't fall too quickly), n-air out of it (Villager, other Mario's, Dr. Mario) or fast fall -> shield grab (Greninja) unless Mario's mixup game is on point. Up B is actually safer to use after one or two up tilts, it's practically free 12%. Again on mixups, once d-throw actually starts delivering knockback, Mario can bait an air dodge and get a free up smash (if he travels the proper distance). U-throw combos into d-air at lower percents but floatier characters can escape it. That's about it, though. Oh and u-air is amazing, but situational, especially in the absence of platforms.

Mario is able to break some combos with his d-air, he even breaks out of R.O.B.'s jab with it (I haven't tested others). D-air is a great move as it was in Brawl and is probably better since SDI is out.

Now I'm not saying Mario is a bad character. Anti has some notable wins under his belt using him and while Mario is a tad weaker than he was in Brawl (I think the worst nerf was to his fireball, which has more ending lag now), the fact that most of the cast also got nerfed + key physics changes (characters no longer being able to act out of hitstun, the absence of chain grabbing, to provide 2 examples) means he'll be a common pick in competitive play. I just think he gets waaaay more credit than he deserves and definitely is not top 5.

On Doc comparisons, it's generally agreed that Mario is better, but I believe only by a small margin (because Mario does better against Sheik, Diddy, and Sonic). Doc does better against characters Mario struggles with though because of his greater damage output and Doc's pills being more defense-oriented (where as Mario's fireballs are for approaching; Doc's pills are good at stopping aggression, and their trajectory really gets into the opponent's head like Dedede's Gordos), said characters being Ness, Falcon (who imo destroys Mario because he outclasses him in nearly every way) and Yoshi as ZOMG pointed out earlier. Doc's superior damage output also means he does better against the aforementioned heavyweights, though the speed decrease means he does worse against Sonic and Pikachu (though imo Doc still wins the Pikachu MU). Additionally Doc is more dangerous off-stage and I'd say he's slightly better at edgeguarding because 1) he falls with the super sheet, making caping easier, 2) b-air is deadly off-stage, and if it were a semi-spike like in Melee Doc would easily have the best b-air in the game, 3) Dr. Tornado, which applies reasonable amounts of pressure, and 4) Up B, which can be reversed on contact, and is one of the reasons I think Doc does slightly better against the likes of Rosalina and R.O.B., two characters very susceptible to getting murdered off-stage. It's a huge risk going off-stage due to how quickly Doc falls, but careful positioning is rewarding 9 times out of 10.

y/n?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Abadango is a very impressive player and was enjoyable to watch (thanks Pacman9 and Lavani for the videos), but pretty much all of his opponents seem kinda unsure about what to do against Pac-Man, especially how to navigate hydrant and what to do about fruits in general (lots of hits from players who don't seem to know the properties, especially surprise apple hits, and a lot of players don't seem to know how to use them if they catch them). Nietono was a stark contrast, clearly highly versed in the MU, and I felt like he highlighted how Pac-Man's tools can be used against him pretty well and made that match-up look pretty good for Sheik. It is nice that this game is so well balanced though; even as I remain convinced Pac-Man is near the bottom, it's pretty clear the balance is good enough to let the Abadangos of the world do their stuff.

---

I'm just going to say good luck to any Doc who intends to murder Rosalina off-stage. I'll just air control too far for Doc to chase and then up-B the ledge when Doc has to recover. If Doc just waits by the ledge for me, I can just time my recovery to avoid his defenses; I have lots of time with my huge up special. I don't really feel unsafe in general off-stage with Rosalina though; her recovery has start-up and doesn't hit, but I can just do it over such a huge range of spacings and timings and still make it back that I feel I have a lot of room to be tricky.

 

[Ffamran]

@ SpaceJell0 and to anyone who's interested,

I forgot to credit Larry Lurr as well for working on Falco - actually, I should be thanking him for working on the general meta of SSB4. He's the guy who did the Competitive Footsie Guide For Smash Wii U Prologue: Hurtboxes. Here's one of his videos as Falco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFSYksCEzLg.

Here's the thing, Keitaro and GimR have Falco as secondaries. That or GimR likes to mess around and play as everyone. He played as Jigglypuff once and I love it when he goes for 9 Judges as Mr. G&W. I believe pretty much everyone has a high level player representing them except for Falco and maybe Mii Swordfighter which I will be proven wrong in a couple of posts later. I think Zelda has someone maining her or playing her at a very high level like Nairo's Zelda which I heard about a lot. I don't know anyone who mains Falco at that level; but I do know who uses them. So, this creates an issue where yes, Falco is seeing action in tournaments, but he's not being invested 100% unlike Salem focusing on the Villager or 6wX on Sonic.

Speaking of which, who does Warchief main? He played Keitaro recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE4owbeYiWU.

Optional: More or less a rant on Falco's underrepresenation.

Spoiler

This also leads to a lot of issues where people have misconceptions on him. Granted, commentators have to say things on the fly, but it's frustrating to hear people say that Falco has no edgeguarding tools when Fair, Bair, Uair, Down Smash, and Side Smash, and even a well-read Dair, Falco Phantasm, or Blaster are capable edgeguards. They're also not aware of Falco's kill moves aside from Bair.

Personally, I think Falco is one of the most under-developed character in the game. Falco's like this mixed bag where he can take many roles, but he won't excel at them. Can he zone? Yeah, but he pales in comparison to Samus, Villager, Mega Man, and even Fox at times who can rack up damage slowly, but surely since Fox's Dash Speed is good. He can rushdown, but not as well because his mobility is overall poor; yay, fast walking speed, but slow dash and air speed. He can combo, but not as well as Luigi. He can punish, but Ganondorf takes the cake for that. It's a slow process of developing Falco.

 

[TriTails]

.....Just curious. Has Apex started yet? Unless I'm seeing things wrong, it starts at 30 January.

It's 30 January in here.

Oh, and somehow, by reading this thread, I got a strange feeling saying that Luigi's mobility is pretty okay, but oh well, probably another one of my wierd things.

 

[Ffamran]

I think they have a set time since it's almost 2:00 am where I live.

 

[TriTails]

Well, I live in GMT: +7 (Yay, Indonesia!), and it's.... almost 3 PM here.

Maybe for people in USA or wherever Apex is has a time completely upside-down in comparison of mine...

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Nah. Mario ain't top 5. I could buy top 10 maybe but I think he's outside of that.

Also poor Falco. I keep messing with him hoping something great comes of it and sometimes I feel he's pretty damn strong. Not nearly as often as I feel he's bad though. You REALLY have to get in their head and I say this as a Sonic main.

 

[Funkermonster]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here: In my honest opinion, I don't think is that strong, barely even A tier (maybe not). I feel the hype surrounding him will eventually dry off once people get used to his tricks.

 

[Ffamran]

I just remembered and 'cause I'm lazy... This is from the List of attacks/grabs from fastest initial frame to slowest (Frame Speed) thread by @ItsRainingGravy.

One way how this data can be used:



Jab: 2nd fastest (Out of 10; frame 2)
DA: 3rd fastest (Out of 15; frame 6)
Ftilt: 2nd fastest (Out of 11; frame 5)
Utilt: 3rd fastest (Out of 12; frame 5)
Dtilt: 3rd fastest (Out of 11; frame 5)
FS: 6th fastest (Out of 16; frame 15)
US: 5th fastest (Out of 19; frame 9)
DS: 2nd fastest (Out of 17; frame 5)
Nair: 2nd fastest (Out of 12; frame 3)
Fair: 11th fastest (Out of 12; frame 16)
Bair: 3rd fastest (Out of 15; frame 6)
Uair: 2nd fastest (Out of 13; frame 4)
Dair: 2nd fastest (Out of 18; frame 5)

148 out of 181 total places = Overall ~81.767955801% faster attack speed (initial frame) in comparison to the rest of the cast/attacks.

Ooo, my turn. Hmm, I hope in the future there's a way to check a character's frame data ranking. Anyway...

. Really? Falco's frame speed is actually fairly fast and fairly decent. Now if only the pheasant would actually dash faster or flap his wings to move faster in the air. MOVE FASTER, POKEY FALCO! FASTER! ... FASTER! ... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, FASTER!

Spoiler

Jab: 2nd fastest at frame 2; out of 10 characters.
Dash Attack: 5th fastest at frame 5; out of 6 characters.
Ftilt: 3rd fastest at frame 6; out of 7 characters.
Utilt: 3rd fastest at frame 5; out of 10 characters.
Dtilt: 5th fastest at frame 7; out of 10 characters.
Side Smash: 8th fastest at frame 17; out of 4 characters.
Up Smash: 4th fastest at frame 8; out of 6 characters.
Down Smash: 4th fastest at frame 7; out of 5 characters.
Nair: 2nd fastest at frame 3; out of 10 characters.
Fair: 8th fastest at frame 12; out of 3 characters.
Bair: The fastest at frame 4; out of 4 characters.
Uair: 8th fastest at frame 10; out of 6 characters.
Dair: 13th fastest at frame 16; out of 6 characters.
Grab: 3rd fastest at frame 8-9; out of characters.
Dash grab: 3rd fastest at frame 10-11; out of with 9 characters.
Pivot grab: 4th fastest at frame 11-12; out of 9 characters.

. Because I was curious about her frame speed data and that people said she is one of the faster characters... Well, her Side Smash is the fastest, Fair second, Jab third, and Uair third. She seems all right, though. I don't know much about her in SSB4, unfortunately.

Spoiler

Jab: 3rd fastest at frame 3; out 9 characters.
Dash Attack: 7th fastest at frame 10; out of 6 characters.
Ftilt: 5th fastest at frame 8; out of 4 characters.
Utilt: 11th fastest at frame 15; hers alone.
Dtilt: 4th fastest at frame 6; out of 7 characters.
Side Smash: The fastest at frame 10; out of 4 characters.
Up Smash: 7th fastest at frame 11; out of 7 characters.
Down Smash: 6th fastest at frame 9; out of 5 characters.
Nair: 7th fastest at frame 8; out of 6 characters.
Fair: 2nd fastest at frame 6; out of 6 characters.
Bair: 6th fastest at frame 9; out of 8 characters.
Uair: 3rd fastest at frame 5; out of 7 characters.
Dair: 14th fastest at frame 17; out of 7 characters.
Grab: 9th fastest at frame 16-25; technically out of 2 since ZSS's starts at 16, but ends at frame 29.
Dash Grab: 8th fastest at frame 16-26; technically out of 3 since Villager's ends at frame 17 and ZSS's ends at 29 making Samus the "second fastest" of the 3.
Pivot Grab: 7th fastest at frame 17-28; same as the above except Villager's ends at 18 and ZSS's ends at 29.

Oh, and there's a typo in the Pivot Grabs section. Greninja is labeled as "Greninka".

Anyone want to delve into 's? I mean, fastest Uair, anyone? Eh, eh? *gets Falcon Punched*

Edit: Suck at math, too lazy to do math, so I won't figure out the percentage of their frame speeds. Well, I might if I'm that bored.

I remembered someone saying Samus has good or one of the best frame data. Well, for one, she has the fastest Side Smash. I'm not knowledgeable on stuff like this, but hey, discuss about how Mario's frame speed data is great or Falco and/or Samus's frame speed data.

 

[NairWizard]

Ganondorf specifically is able to easily gimp Mario at reasonable percents using his f-tilt

No, unless the Mario's DI is atrocious. DI up. Mario's invincible up-b prevents most gimps on him.

His up smash is amazing but he's overreliant on it for kills, which is a flaw that kept Fox in mid tier in Brawl.

Fox was mid tier because of Pikachu and Ice Climbers chaingrabs. Had nothing to do with up-smash. He had a pretty decent Meta Knight matchup despite relying on up-smash. Mario relies on up-smash far less than Brawl Fox anyway, because b-air + cape offstage and f-smash/pivot f-smash onstage are not too bad for netting KOs one way or another, whereas Fox had basically no offstage game in Brawl, and his f-smash was meh.

while Mario is a tad weaker than he was in Brawl (I think the worst nerf was to his fireball, which has more ending lag now

Can we stop saying that Mario was nerfed from Brawl when his air speed is so much better now? That was his single greatest weakness--getting walled out. He no longer gets walled out (or at least not as easily). Taking a character with fast attacks like Mario and giving him good airspeed results in a better character despite these other nerfs like cape.

Falco, Marth, Meta Knight

I don't think that any of these characters beat Mario. Marth and Meta Knight did in Brawl due to the walling out that I just mentioned. Since that doesn't happen any more, Mario does pretty well by getting in on these characters and putting them in disadvantage. Falco in particular really hates disadvantage, being a fastfaller.

though the speed decrease means he does worse against Sonic and Pikachu (though imo Doc still wins the Pikachu MU).

Doc vs. Pikachu is one of the most one-sided matchups in the entire game (not unwinnable for Doc, but a bad look given two equally skilled players). Doc doesn't have Mario's invincible up-b unless customs are on, and his airspeed is tons worse. If Pikachu knows how to navigate pills, this MU is really easy. Doc just gets perpetually walled out, and then gimped. Mario by contrast is much harder to gimp and is probably a 50:50, but definitely doesn't win unless the Pikachu forgets that d-tilt exists or something.

y/n?

n overall, I think that Mario is pretty good due to having decent matchups against Sheik, Pikachu, ZSS, Rosalina, Yoshi, Ness, and Sonic, basically every Top Tier except Diddy. He's probably in High Tier just because of his High/Top Tier MUs; the rest matter, but not as much. How many Meta Knights will you fight in tourney? How many Sheiks?

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Frame traps with shuair jab dtilt is basically the **** I'm doing with Falco. I just feel that's where the potential is mostly. His data is pretty great I think.

 

[Ffamran]

Frame traps with shuair jab dtilt is basically the **** I'm doing with Falco. I just feel that's where the potential is mostly. His data is pretty great I think.

His mobility is an issue which makes approaches and escapes difficult.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Yeah. That's such a HUGE issue. Removing laser cancels didn't bother me because no more camping. It bothered me because it was the only plug in the hole of his mobility. Approaching is a pain and escapes are like...jab jab run back sh phantasm or something easily punishable. **** sucks.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I actually see a lot of posts of people really delving into Falco; I often feel he gets more work put into him than he deserves and that his metagame is progressing fairly quickly for the type of character he is. It's at least progressing more quickly than he progresses across the stage.

I still think the character who deserves way more work and is just not getting it right now is Peach. That character oozes potential, but she's really hard to play and isn't immediately obvious as a top character (though she could be one really; she's good enough and our knowledge about her is imperfect enough that it's definitely feasible). That is discouraging exploration of her, but in the long run, quality will trump those kinds of concerns and I expect some dedicated Peach mains will "surprise" us all. This will, of course, not include me in any way; I couldn't play Peach well to save my life.

 

[A2ZOMG]

No, unless the Mario's DI is atrocious. DI up. Mario's invincible up-b prevents most gimps on him.



Fox was mid tier because of Pikachu and Ice Climbers chaingrabs. Had nothing to do with up-smash. He had a pretty decent Meta Knight matchup despite relying on up-smash. Mario relies on up-smash far less than Brawl Fox anyway, because b-air + cape offstage and f-smash/pivot f-smash onstage are not too bad for netting KOs one way or another, whereas Fox had basically no offstage game in Brawl, and his f-smash was meh.



Can we stop saying that Mario was nerfed from Brawl when his air speed is so much better now? That was his single greatest weakness--getting walled out. He no longer gets walled out (or at least not as easily). Taking a character with fast attacks like Mario and giving him good airspeed results in a better character despite these other nerfs like cape.



I don't think that any of these characters beat Mario. Marth and Meta Knight did in Brawl due to the walling out that I just mentioned. Since that doesn't happen any more, Mario does pretty well by getting in on these characters and putting them in disadvantage. Falco in particular really hates disadvantage, being a fastfaller.



Doc vs. Pikachu is one of the most one-sided matchups in the entire game (not unwinnable for Doc, but a bad look given two equally skilled players). Doc doesn't have Mario's invincible up-b unless customs are on, and his airspeed is tons worse. If Pikachu knows how to navigate pills, this MU is really easy. Doc just gets perpetually walled out, and then gimped. Mario by contrast is much harder to gimp and is probably a 50:50, but definitely doesn't win unless the Pikachu forgets that d-tilt exists or something.



n overall, I think that Mario is pretty good due to having decent matchups against Sheik, Pikachu, ZSS, Rosalina, Yoshi, Ness, and Sonic, basically every Top Tier except Diddy. He's probably in High Tier just because of his High/Top Tier MUs; the rest matter, but not as much. How many Meta Knights will you fight in tourney? How many Sheiks?

Mario's Up-B is only invincible frames 3-6. That's not actually a very large window of invincibility, and a lot of characters technically have an aerial that can trade with Mario's Up-B and kill him.

And no, Mario's biggest weakness wasn't specifically getting walled out. It's that his options facing forward are TERRIBLE, and they still are overall pretty bad (better dashgrab helps a little and actually matters more than the cited buffed aerial mobility, but doesn't completely address this). Sure, Mario has a decent B-air, but once you take a hit, you lose a lot of control as Mario and basically can't do much. It also makes Mario's approach options telegraphed.

Marth and Metaknight still beat Mario in neutral in this game and make it hard for him to approach. Yes they got nerfed in the transition, but so did Mario, and the characters overall deal more damage than Mario, and still have a fairly easy time edgeguarding him, while Mario can't actually do much to them in return. Both of them also have options to interrupt Mario's D-air on hit.

I also don't think Mario does better against Pikachu than Doc...honestly. Pikachu beats both of them by playing a ground game, and he's also way too short for either to use aerials against. Pikachu loses the matchups if he tries too hard to space aerials given both Mario and Doc can trade favorably with B-airs, but that's not how the matchup works anyway. Doc however actually has a fast KO option in his Up-B which Mario doesn't have, which is something you failed to account for, while Mario more likely has to rely on B-throw to KO Pikachu with any consistency. The invincibility on Mario's Up-B is a lot less big of a deal than you're implying.

Mario does okay against Yoshi and Rosalina but doesn't win those matchups. I disagree that he does well against any of the other matchups you mentioned and you failed to mention that Mario is competent against Fox and Falcon. Aside from that though, he has a bunch of other unfavorable matchups that I could easily argue ranging from Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt, Luigi, and Ganondorf.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Mario has a pretty good ftilt, an overall good jab, a serviceable projectile no matter which of the two variations you pick (fast or default), and an overall good dash attack. Mario can also outspace a lot of stuff in footsies and punish hard with his fsmash as well. I don't really see his forward facing options as weak unless your primary strategy is to jump at the opponent and have to deal with his slow fair, but that doesn't really seem to be necessary to me.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Mario has a pretty good ftilt, an overall good jab, a serviceable projectile no matter which of the two variations you pick (fast or default), and an overall good dash attack. Mario can also outspace a lot of stuff in footsies and punish hard with his fsmash as well. I don't really see his forward facing options as weak unless your primary strategy is to jump at the opponent and have to deal with his slow fair, but that doesn't really seem to be necessary to me.

I don't get how you describe any of those moves as good options facing forward. Jab and F-tilt don't really do much for spacing rather than keeping the pressure up when you do successfully get in. Mario's only real options when facing forward are mostly DA, Dashgrab, and Nair/D-air, and hoping you don't swat his fireball when he approaches. If you're not explicitly committed to something that Mario can easily whiff punish with these moves, you almost automatically give him a bad day in neutral. Like, Ganondorf beats Mario because he basically has no direct way of dealing with N-air or D-tilt. Mario's forced to tickle his way in with dodges, but he's also dealing with the one character in the game who has arguably the best positive state overall, and he struggles to get in.

F-smash can be gamechanging, but it's worse in this game when you don't have reverse step mechanics to make it a bigger ranged threat meaning you more explicitly have to bet on your opponent committing a certain way in order for it to be applicable.

With Fast Fireballs (in most matchups except probably vs Link), this weakness is addressed significantly and forces more characters to play in Mario's terms. Shocking Cape is also underrated as a spacing tool and I would use it in several matchups where a reflector isn't very useful, such as vs Marth and Duck Hunt.

 

[Shaya]

Falco is hype, this is a combo oriented game. Top/High tiers from Brawl are going to have higher player bases. As a character he feels like Ganon is Captain Falcon, single hits are very rewarding and feel very very good.
But TBQH, no one plays Falco and his meta goes fast because there's things to advance. He's a solid middle-tierish character with enough contrasting strengths to Fox to be worthwhile (the big one being having a grab game, if Fox traded throws with Falco, not only would Falco be the worst character in the game, Fox would be the best character in the game).

But yeah, the falco's are in the diaspora, I've been able to spot a few Falcos in my current trip to the US and a majority of them are honestly behind in his "meta". People still use dthrow more than one out of 10 or at extremely low percent based on character in contrast to up throw [getting you kills~], no down tilt, no use of shine for rounding off horizontal combos that could not be otherwise followed up from whilst having a high enough trip rate to allow extensions if it does trip, ditto to laser but to further away opponents. Falco may also have the best sliding pivot, at least out of those which I have seen.

Peach on the other hand has a high technical threshold without as much merit achieving it. She's definitely a better character, but she's still overly reliant on being in the air... which is honestly a critical weakness even for the characters who by design/force/most match ups have to spend 60-80% of their time there. The air is just a lot more restrictive than it ever has been while it's the opposite for the ground.

 

[HeroMystic]

I actually see a lot of posts of people really delving into Falco; I often feel he gets more work put into him than he deserves and that his metagame is progressing fairly quickly for the type of character he is. It's at least progressing more quickly than he progresses across the stage.

Honestly, I messed around with Falco in friendlies and he feels so good to play. He may not be better than Mario when you compare stats, but I feel their movesets work similarly with Falco having a better F-air. I may make him my secondary and put some work on him.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Falco is hype, this is a combo oriented game. Top/High tiers from Brawl are going to have higher player bases. As a character he feels like Ganon is Captain Falcon, single hits are very rewarding and feel very very good.
But TBQH, no one plays Falco and his meta goes fast because there's things to advance. He's a solid middle-tierish character with enough contrasting strengths to Fox to be worthwhile (the big one being having a grab game, if Fox traded throws with Falco, not only would Falco be the worst character in the game, Fox would be the best character in the game).

But yeah, the falco's are in the diaspora, I've been able to spot a few Falcos in my current trip to the US and a majority of them are honestly behind in his "meta". People still use dthrow more than one out of 10 or at extremely low percent based on character in contrast to up throw [getting you kills~], no down tilt, no use of shine for rounding off horizontal combos that could not be otherwise followed up from whilst having a high enough trip rate to allow extensions if it does trip, ditto to laser but to further away opponents. Falco may also have the best sliding pivot, at least out of those which I have seen.

Peach on the other hand has a high technical threshold without as much merit achieving it. She's definitely a better character, but she's still overly reliant on being in the air... which is honestly a critical weakness even for the characters who by design/force/most match ups have to spend 60-80% of their time there. The air is just a lot more restrictive than it ever has been while it's the opposite for the ground.

Gonna just add, Falco is really frustratingly hard to play on any latency. I feel he has a very reactive playstyle due to how important it is to space his moves correctly and things like hit confirming his Jab when playing footsies.

Peach I want to say is sorta anti-meta in the sense that her air game doesn't really have holes covering grounded options like the majority of characters in this game...but her ground game is actually sorta bad outside of her good Jab and okay DA. I personally feel the more I look at the character, the more obvious it is how Turnip pull startup nerfs hurt her. She depends on Turnips to really reliably control the ground when she walks/runs fairly slowly, and actually has deceptively poor tools for poking on the ground. I would argue she's also one of the most hurt characters from losing a Jab cancel.

Actually to be quite honest...this is part of why Pikachu is insane. Character has several good aerials for covering grounded options, and he actually has really good grounded pokes for his size, plus an annoying projectile.

Other character that benefits ridiculously hugely from short hop aerials being worse at covering the ground is Ness...who I realize increasingly is honestly way too heavy for how small he actually is.

 

[HeroMystic]

Let me get some things out of the way with Mario too, since people wanna talk about him again.

Honestly, if there was anything from his moveset I could get rid of and feel there'd be no real change in his playstyle, it'd be F-tilt. F-tilt pretty much only serves as a "Well ****, nothing else is going to work here" type of move. B-air > F-tilt is one example, and Fireball > F-tilt is another. It's surprisingly awkward to use because the only time you would use them in neutral is if you want to angle it. If you're using the non-angled version, you should be using jab or grabs.

Speaking of, Mario's best options on the ground are literally jab and grab. Grabs are for obvious reasons, but jab is the only serviceable move that Mario is capable of getting of getting any solid follow-ups on. This is why I miss Jab cancels so much. F-tilt and D-Smash would likely be better if these still existed. Fortunately Jab 1 still ends fast enough to have some decent mix-ups.

Now for something people have not been talking about, IASA frames. This is just from my general "feels", but his IASA frames overall seem worse for all his grounded options in comparison to Brawl. This is another reason why F-tilt is bad, because even though F-tilt didn't have as much knockback in Brawl, the fact that Mario could use it in rapid succession made it a pretty good footsie tool vs grounded opponents. Not much of the case here, as explained before.

I'm still experimenting with D-tilt and U-tilt during the neutral game, but Mario's best spacing tools are pretty much B-air and U-Smash, both of which are best used when Mario has his back against his opponent.

 

[Blue Ninjakoopa]

Peach on the other hand has a high technical threshold without as much merit achieving it. She's definitely a better character, but she's still overly reliant on being in the air... which is honestly a critical weakness even for the characters who by design/force/most match ups have to spend 60-80% of their time there. The air is just a lot more restrictive than it ever has been while it's the opposite for the ground.

I feel like that also negatively affects Kirby, Jigglypuff, and Wario. Kirby and Jigglypuff can at least use their jumps to break edgeguards, but Wario has to play much more carefully this time around. Thankfully Wario has a very solid ground game, with a good command grab and a good approach option in Wario Bike.

@ NairWizard - I know it sounds weird when I say Doc beats Pikachu, but it's because I've played some good Pikachus online and have beaten all of them using Doc. I got combo'd a lot but was never gimped because I always saved my second jump, and always closed out Pikachu's stocks with well-timed smash attacks. Pikachu doesn't have the best range, only speed and an amazing combo game like in Brawl. It's probably just Wi-Fi, but to consistently phase through all of Pikachu's shenanigans had me believing Doc won the MU. It makes sense that he actually loses it given how poorly he does against Sonic, Sheik, and ZSS.

@ Amazing Ampharos - Yeah, murder was admittedly a heavy overstatement, but Up B or b-air off-stage is dangerous to R.O.B. and Rosalina. As a R.O.B. main myself I break most edgeguards by stalling and throwing out u-airs (which trade with most attacks except for stomps like DK's, Ganon's, Charizard's, etc.), but if I ever position myself incorrectly it's curtains and I feel Doc can capitalize on that well despite his recovery. Same with Rosalina, who dies earlier than R.O.B.

On customs, if they ever do become legal we'll see a lot more of several characters like Ganon and Kirby (Kirby's custom Wave Cutter is amazing). I know for sure that R.O.B. does better against Villager and Yoshi when equipped with reflector arm, and for matches where it's more important to remain grounded/avoid off-stage pressure, high-speed burner would be preferred. Infinite laser, while slow, is great in neutral. Lastly, Slip Gyro would be amazing if it had a 100% trip rate when thrown instead of only guaranteeing a trip if left on the ground to spin. It's still a good option and helps with stage control, but Fire Gyro is preferred because it deals more damage and it's easier for R.O.B. to collect it after it's launched.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I think Doc loses vs. Pikachu but I do not think it's one of the heaviest losses in the game. He's walled out but he's not really supposed to go in anyways in this MU, it's about using pills to control/force Pika's approach and punishing it. However the significant part is that when he's offstage he's dead and his on-stage isn't as good as Mario's in this particular MU. Far from unwinnable but it's not very good.

 

[A2ZOMG]

On customs, if they ever do become legal we'll see a lot more of several characters like Ganon and Kirby (Kirby's custom Wave Cutter is amazing). I know for sure that R.O.B. does better against Villager and Yoshi when equipped with reflector arm, and for matches where it's more important to remain grounded/avoid off-stage pressure, high-speed burner would be preferred. Infinite laser, while slow, is great in neutral. Lastly, Slip Gyro would be amazing if it had a 100% trip rate when thrown instead of only guaranteeing a trip if left on the ground to spin. It's still a good option and helps with stage control, but Fire Gyro is preferred because it deals more damage and it's easier for R.O.B. to collect it after it's launched.

Kirby's best Up-B is Upper Cutter unless I'm missing something...Also while his customs aren't bad (Jumping Inhale and Hammer Bash are certainly upgrades for him in singles) I don't actually think he really gets significantly better with them.

I personally think Ganon's customs are slightly overrated, though some of his hard matchups do get slightly less unfavorable in custom setting simply because WDK does improve his recovery and does do useful things like get in on Rosalina more easily.

Mario and WFT imo have the most versatile customs in the game. For the most part, all of their special variants are viable in some way.

 

[thehard]

Taking bets on Apex's breakout character.

 

[TriTails]

Has Apex started yet? About 4 hours to go before it's 31 January here.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Pools for Smash 4 start in about an hour.

Taking bets on Apex's breakout character.

Hmmm... Duck Hunt, Pac-Man or Shulk.

 

[TriTails]

Cool, I guess it won't be starting tommorow in my time.

Oh man, will Diddy dominate everything?

We'll find out..

 

[Smog Frog]

i honestly wouldnt be surprised if some breakout zard player made it into top 8, or any char for that matter

Pools for Smash 4 start in about an hour.



Hmmm... Duck Hunt, Pac-Man or Shulk.

where do you live? it would be terrible if they started when I was at school.

 

[FullMoon]

Here hoping Greninja performs well.

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

Umm I live in PA. EST. An hour is an hour though. lol

 

[Smog Frog]

Umm I live in PA. EST. An hour is an hour though. lol

shouldnt apex be considerate of folks who have school?

 

[Terios the Hedgehog]

UNDERAGE B&!

Not really an option I don't think. Too many entrants. Being during the Superb Owl is a little weird.

 

[David Viran]

I hope choco was really sandbagging in that last tournament. Also hope nairo ends up playing zss.

 

[Smog Frog]

well, how long will pools last? is it feasible for them to last 12 hours?