Today I looked at the cast to see who has the best reactive ground game. By this I mean characters who play best when they stay grounded, do not approach, and just wait at midrange for the opponent to make a mistake--so not characters who rely on short hops like Pikachu and Diddy Kong. I went through the roster looking for great jabs, dash attacks, and dash grabs and came up with these characters that have all three (I didn't count the Miis because of size variations, though they conditionally have great frame data) based on my own observations:
From this list, I knocked out Bowser immediately because his frame data wasn't as good as I had thought (his jab has great range though, covering a roll's length almost). I took out Yoshi after some thought too because of the endlag on his dash grab, which makes it slightly less abusable than most others on this list.
Jigglypuff was a really strange case, and I was surprised to see her there. Frame 5 dash attack, frame 8 dash grab, frame 5 jab? All pretty great data. But the worst running and walking speed in the cast? Not as appealing, even if her aerial mobility does mean that she can get to where she wants to be more often than not. Her jab also doesn't have that much range (though it has a deceptive amount of range relative to its animation). So she got cut. Following this reasoning, I cut Peach, Ness, and Lucario as well because of ground mobility, though they were strong contenders.
After reductions, the list had some characters with amazing ground mobility left, so after some thought I cut Game & Watch, Mario, and ROB, though I kept Rosalina and the Pits due to disjoints. I also cut Falco, because while he is awesome and has great walk speed he does have some trouble with his wonky jab sometimes, and his dash attack isn't
that great.
Charizard was the last one I cut. Fire Breath is strong, his jab is great, and his dash grab is good despite being frame 10 because his dash speed is great in general and he has huge grab range. Dragon Rush and Flare Blitz also make up for a less-than-stellar dash attack, but the other 10 characters simply seemed better by comparison, so Charizard got cut solely on the basis of being 11th man out. The size was a bit of an issue too, but more on that later.
Thus I had this as my top 10:
Reducing the list from this point was harder as all of these characters have fantastic ground games. I noticed, though, that a few characters on the list do better against short hop aerials than others: in particular, Falcon, Pit, Dark Pit, and Rosalina (even with her crouch) were cut because of this (it helped that besides Falcon all of them are on the lower end of the mobility spectrum). As amazing as Falcon's and Rosalina's ground games are, it's difficult to overlook how much easier it is to hit them because of their height compared to guys like Meta Knight and Sonic/Fox. This is part of why I had cut Charizard earlier.
So my final top 5 reactive ground games list, with a dash of subjectivity from yours truly, looks like this:
1.
I'm sure everyone saw this coming. Great mobility specs, great dash attack, great jab, great rolls, great smashes and tilts that all serve jab-like functions--Mac doesn't even need a good dash grab to be #1 in the game in this regard. Shields? Who cares about those?
2.
I have to give it to Metaknight over the characters below, because as @
Tagxy pointed out, being resistant to short hop aerials is a really big deal--when your opponent can't short hop against you, it seriously cuts down his options in neutral, giving you a better chance to react to the remaining options. Anyway, his dash attack is great, dash grab is good, run speed is huge, and rolls are great. Having multiple jumps is a boon since he can land precisely where he wants to while avoiding projectile camping. His rapid jab is kind of mediocre, but he doesn't need a great jab to be #2 when he has d-tilt since it's frame 3 (though it's not like you can't use jab at all; it covers spotdodges and landings quite well). Also, f-smash being nearly lagless at the end seals the deal: it gives him a strong spacing tool to punish landings and ledge getups with use of pivots.
2.
It's difficult to compare Sonic and Meta Knight on the ground, so I gave them a tie at #2. Meta Knight is harder to hit with SH aerials, it's true, but Sonic during spindash has tiny hurtboxes because his spikes don't count as hurtboxes, so it's a tough call. You have two great spin options as Sonic: you can go for the more damaging punish in side-b or the faster punish in down-b, so the lack of a great dash attack doesn't really matter (and it's not that bad, really). Sonic's placement comes down to this: spindash is just that good. Could easily be slightly better than MK overall, though still worse than Little Mac I think.
4.
Really close with Fox, but I put Sheik above him for two reasons: one is that needles are more annoying than lasers for most members of the cast, and two is that Sheik's rolls are far better (among the best in the game, in fact). Other than that, great crouch, semi-crouching frame-5 dash, pivot options--Sheik is great on the ground. Sheik's lack of gentleman jab doesn't matter because her f-tilt is all kinds of crazy. It's worth noting that Sheik not only has one of the best reactive ground games but also one of the best short hop games in the game--so don't let Sheik being 4th on this list fool you; I still think that she's the best character in the game.
5.
4-frame dash attack and lasers+reflector basically give him all the control he needs on the ground. His rapid jab is kind of bad, but jab cancels save him here. That plus his general mobility (seriously, have you tried pivoting as Fox? it goes quite far) makes Fox crazy strong on the ground.
Honorable Mention: Greninja just fell to #6 because I think the 5 that are above him are that good. 6th out of this list isn't bad at all, of course, so still a huge threat.
So, in conclusion,
Little Mac Meta Knight da bess, and you should all go play him right now.
