Character Competitive Impressions

[TriTails]

I think Kirby might be this games Wolf. Having otherwise unremarkable matchup spread but being the only one or one of few who has an even matchup with the number one character. I've heard a lot of reasons why Kirby goes even or even has a slight advantage over sheik (considerably even/better air game, can crouch under needles to avoid needle setups, utilt combos and the likes work on sheik just like anyone else) and I think i can agree with this.

????

Even when factoring Kirby can crouch under Sheik's needles, what is he going to do about it?

Let me rephrase what I said:

I have a projectile, you don't have one, at least not the one who can combat mine. I throw mine, you avoid/clank with it with whatever. Sooooooo?????? What. I don't care if you avoid mine. You still have to approach, unless you are in the lead. I mess up, I'm just... fine. No single stratch. You mess up, you take damage.

Yeah. When I'm playing against Marths/Lucinas/Ikes, etc, I'm willing to spam Fireballs 'till they come. They perfect shield? They clank with it? I DAWN'T CARE! I'm willing to have a staring contest as long as you want 'till you know your place that you are in no way can hurt me from afar and finally approach me.

The same can be said for Sheik vs Kirby. Kirby ducks under needles. So? The battle starts out in neutral, and Kirby just pressed down. I'm as Sheik just gonna charge my needles to max and just sit here admiring the ghrapics until you finally decides to come. Kirby ain't winning neutral, he is losing it because he literally just gives Sheik free time to charge her needles, which is very dangerous when fully charged. Until you come, I'm not gonna move an inch.

On the other hand, the same CANNOT be said for Luigi vs Fox. I can duck and crawl under his lasers. I'm threathening him, can't say the same for Kirby vs Sheik, unless you manage to hack the game and give Kirby a crawl for the heck of it.

And even IF Sheik has to approach, what Kirby has to counter her mobility? She has to approach, and she does a very well job doing so.

I can't see Kirby going even with Sheik. I just can't.

 

[Balgorxz]

sheik exposed? everyone knows the matchup?
just kidding great matches, I'm glad we have no jank players in top8.
guaranteed hype for tomorrow

 

[Dagon97]

????

Even when factoring Kirby can crouch under Sheik's needles, what is he going to do about it?

Let me rephrase what I said:

I have a projectile, you don't have one, at least not the one who can combat mine. I throw mine, you avoid/clank with it with whatever. Sooooooo?????? What. I don't care if you avoid mine. You still have to approach, unless you are in the lead. I mess up, I'm just... fine. No single stratch. You mess up, you take damage.

Yeah. When I'm playing against Marths/Lucinas/Ikes, etc, I'm willing to spam Fireballs 'till they come. They perfect shield? They clank with it? I DAWN'T CARE! I'm willing to have a staring contest as long as you want 'till you know your place that you are in no way can hurt me from afar and finally approach me.

The same can be said for Sheik vs Kirby. Kirby ducks under needles. So? The battle starts out in neutral, and Kirby just pressed down. I'm as Sheik just gonna charge my needles to max and just sit here admiring the ghrapics until you finally decides to come. Kirby ain't winning neutral, he is losing it because he literally just gives Sheik free time to charge her needles, which is very dangerous when fully charged. Until you come, I'm not gonna move an inch.

On the other hand, the same CANNOT be said for Luigi vs Fox. I can duck and crawl under his lasers. I'm threathening him, can't say the same for Kirby vs Sheik, unless you manage to hack the game and give Kirby a crawl for the heck of it.

And even IF Sheik has to approach, what Kirby has to counter her mobility? She has to approach, and she does a very well job doing so.

I can't see Kirby going even with Sheik. I just can't.

Being a Sheik main who fights against high level Kirby's constantly, Kirby combos the **** out of Sheik due to Sheik being a fast faller, it is mad easy for Kirby to get the percentage lead on Sheik and camp sheik out due to his multiple jumps and low crouch. Kirby can defend vs Sheik's approach options easily, utilt the BF or grab regardless if it's tomahawked or not. Dair to utilt the SH Fair and the list goes on. But if Sheik gets the percent lead then it gets mad difficult.

 

[TriTails]

Being a Sheik main who fights against high level Kirby's constantly, Kirby combos the **** out of Sheik due to Sheik being a fast faller, it is mad easy for Kirby to get the percentage lead on Sheik and camp sheik out due to his multiple jumps and low crouch. Kirby can defend vs Sheik's approach options easily, utilt the BF or grab regardless if it's tomahawked or not. Dair to utilt the SH Fair and the list goes on. But if Sheik gets the percent lead then it gets mad difficult.

Then how does Kirby approach?

Sheik doesn't have to approach in this MU because needles. That's saying IF Sheik has to approach.

Welp. If you can prove me wrong please do.

 

[Asdioh]

Then how does Kirby approach?

Sheik doesn't have to approach in this MU because needles. That's saying IF Sheik has to approach.

Welp. If you can prove me wrong please do.

Suddenly kirby gets needles! Gg
seriously, neither "has" to approach in this situation. You can't hit me with needles safely ever, I can't hit you while ducking, it literally comes down to who wants to approach. Both have options to stuff the other's approach. I think kirby goes even/wins for other reasons besides "ducks needles"

 

[TriTails]

Then it comes on the almighty powah of...

Patience.

Oh my.

 

[NairWizard]

What you saw today against the Sheiks was players getting outplayed. But it was an interesting kind of outplaying that says a lot about Sheik as a character. In many matches, Sheik had the percent lead and lost the stock lead due to early KOs (Diddy up-throw up-air in MVD vs. Ramin, Ness Rage b-air in Shaky vs. Master Raven, Fox up-air on the platform in Larry vs. Ramin, etc.). This happens to Sheik pretty often. She's not too heavy, she's a humanoid, she's a fastfaller, and worst of all, she enables early KOs on her by combo'ing other characters to high Rage percents. Sure, Sheik wracks up 150% damage on you via Needles, but that just means that if she makes one mistake her stock is gone.

It may be harder to mess up as Sheik than as other characters, but I think that a lot of clutch is possible against Sheik--pulling out ahead in stocks despite being down in percent. One read (doesn't even have to be a hard read, just a safe guess like Ness b-air at the ledge) can give you that stock lead, and from there Sheik has a much harder time catching up than other characters might. Basically, against Sheik, every character becomes like Ganon. And we all know that Ganon has that "win anytime, at any percent" factor to him.

So while Sheik may theoretically invalidate many characters, and while she does have KO confirms, in practice her physics and playstyle (damage-wracking, ease into a KO later) make her beatable by other top characters.

 

[Vincent21]

Rage kind of makes any character that has kill trouble seem pretty damned in this game. I kinda feel like it's a nail in the coffin that moves in slow-motion; every ounce of match-up knowledge that people get on Sheik (and other characters of this mold, though I'm not getting any off the top of my head for some reason) works to invalidate her natural advantages more and more. The more efficient people in the community become at recognizing how to combat her limited kill potential and the harder Sheiks have to work to get the same returns in event results, the further she slips.

Basically, if this game lives along enough to age by years, or even crazier into Melee time, Sheik could theoretically become low/bottom tier sheerly through complete/near-perfect knowledge working against her.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

I am not really surprised that only ZeRo part time remains. If you noticed the characters that was able to take out Sheik were , all of these MU always seemed closely even to me (bar Diddy Kong but MVD is a beast making Diddy Kong look really good), and some might agree with me, while other say Fox/Rosa have a slight disadvantage. Even then their were a ton of sheiks in the top 32 of CEO which is still scary. We had

• Mr. R
• Vinnie
• Master Raven
• Phuzix
• Fresh Die Nasty ?
• and ZeRo if he counts

So now that people see Sheik isn't as dominating or didn't have a top 8 run bar maybe ZeRo using her for a few matches why continue to nerf her(and complain) (although ZeRo needles usage was on point) when you could just buff other characters ^_^. I think most sheik mains can agree that if you nerf her more, nerf her in the presumably right areas instead of taking all her kill power, and to give back some of her kill power as compensation for our struggles in her getting nerfed in most patches.

 

[Dagon97]

Then how does Kirby approach?

Sheik doesn't have to approach in this MU because needles. That's saying IF Sheik has to approach.

Welp. If you can prove me wrong please do.

Let me just tell you this, the aerial mix up game is crazy good. Dair is the simplest but there is a multitude of others (dair beats fair)

 

[PK Gaming]

Basically, if this game lives along enough to age by years, or even crazier into Melee time, Sheik could theoretically become low/bottom tier sheerly through complete/near-perfect knowledge working against her.

Perhaps that's a little too optimistic. Her buttons are terrific and her neutral is still very strong. She can definitely drop, but low/bottom are pretty much out of the question.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Rage kind of makes any character that has kill trouble seem pretty damned in this game. I kinda feel like it's a nail in the coffin that moves in slow-motion; every ounce of match-up knowledge that people get on Sheik (and other characters of this mold, though I'm not getting any off the top of my head for some reason) works to invalidate her natural advantages more and more. The more efficient people in the community become at recognizing how to combat her limited kill potential and the harder Sheiks have to work to get the same returns in event results, the further she slips.

Basically, if this game lives along enough to age by years, or even crazier into Melee time, Sheik could theoretically become low/bottom tier sheerly through complete/near-perfect knowledge working against her.

What you're saying is partly true until the last sentence. What you actually mean is "Sheik could theoretically become 3rd or 4th place on the tier list instead of securely number 1."

 

[Ikes]

????

Even when factoring Kirby can crouch under Sheik's needles, what is he going to do about it?

Let me rephrase what I said:

I have a projectile, you don't have one, at least not the one who can combat mine. I throw mine, you avoid/clank with it with whatever. Sooooooo?????? What. I don't care if you avoid mine. You still have to approach, unless you are in the lead. I mess up, I'm just... fine. No single stratch. You mess up, you take damage.

Yeah. When I'm playing against Marths/Lucinas/Ikes, etc, I'm willing to spam Fireballs 'till they come. They perfect shield? They clank with it? I DAWN'T CARE! I'm willing to have a staring contest as long as you want 'till you know your place that you are in no way can hurt me from afar and finally approach me.

The same can be said for Sheik vs Kirby. Kirby ducks under needles. So? The battle starts out in neutral, and Kirby just pressed down. I'm as Sheik just gonna charge my needles to max and just sit here admiring the ghrapics until you finally decides to come. Kirby ain't winning neutral, he is losing it because he literally just gives Sheik free time to charge her needles, which is very dangerous when fully charged. Until you come, I'm not gonna move an inch.

On the other hand, the same CANNOT be said for Luigi vs Fox. I can duck and crawl under his lasers. I'm threathening him, can't say the same for Kirby vs Sheik, unless you manage to hack the game and give Kirby a crawl for the heck of it.

And even IF Sheik has to approach, what Kirby has to counter her mobility? She has to approach, and she does a very well job doing so.

I can't see Kirby going even with Sheik. I just can't.

when kirby inhales sheik, his needles are the ones sheik had when she was never patched.

Kirby's needles are straight better than sheik's.

Ans since needles are such a powerful tool for sheik, kirby having better needles is a huge threat. especially since kirby already has very strong combo game.

and remember that since release Kirby's inhale has had endlag reduction amongst other buffs, so inhale is already fairly safe.

 

[Blobface]

Sheik is definitely a beatable character with some severely exploitable weaknesses. I honestly wouldn't say Sheik needs to be "nerfed" as much as "tweaked" so she's not so polarizing to so many characters.

If Sheik's needles were removed entirely* in exchange for... well below average kill power (instead of "bouncing-fish-doesn't-kill-till-140%" kill power), I'd be completely fine with it.

*I don't actually support this, just speaking hypothetically

 

[Ryu_Ken]

Any notable matches at CEO today? Saw a couple matches with Lucario, Ike and Charizard which I thought were interesting, but I had a pretty busy day, so I didn't see all of them. Was disappointed not to see any Links or Ganons make it to top 32.

P.S. Note to self: never put Sonic against Mario. Ugh the torture of watching that match.

 

[Vincent21]

Perhaps that's a little too optimistic. Her buttons are terrific and her neutral is still very strong. She can definitely drop, but low/bottom are pretty much out of the question.

What you're saying is partly true until the last sentence. What you actually mean is "Sheik could theoretically become 3rd or 4th place on the tier list instead of securely number 1."

I mean yeah, I'l thoroughly admit it's a rather bold, overly optimistic statement, but the point is I want people thinking about... well just how big a deal kill power is, and becoming, in this game.

Like with the kind of kill moves newcomers like Roy & Ryu bring to the table, and longstanding threats like ZSS (and Wario considering Waft and off-stage bike shenanigans) running around, the "kill ceiling" of this game is getting really low.

When the game felt a lot more long-term, poke, slow-build on advantage etc. it seemed like a smaller point, but it feels like the game is progressing towards early kills or losing to rage.

So, to conclude in a bold statement, the idea I was really getting at, I honestly think "lacking kill power" is going to soon graduate from a minor difficulty to an unacceptable/fatal character flaw by itself.

 

[Noa.]

CEO is a great tournament and I've had a lot of fun watching it.

And yeah it's funny that Nick Riddle beat 6wx, Seagull Joe, and Staticmanny. Zss just does so well against Sonic.

Diddy is still a great and powerful character. But I think that a lot of his success comes from the huge player base he has/had. Diddy might be performing very well because his metagame developed so quickly and got far ahead of most other characters. Lots of characters are actually lacking in a huge amount of representation in the U.S. Fow and shaky are the only national level ness players. Nairo and Nick Riddle for ZSS. Falln and Dabuz for Rosa. Compared to MVD, zero, m2k, Denti, tyrant, as well as a plethora of other high level players. Diddy might be relying a lot on just how fleshed out the character is.

But Diddy is still definitely great.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I think it goes to show that the fact that there is really NO sheik players left (besides ZeRo and he sticks with diddy) that Sm4sh is more about MUs then tiers. Like ST and SF4.

 

[Emblem Lord]

ST is about match-ups till someone pulls out Boxer or O.Sagat.

Then its about nonsense.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

ST is about match-ups till someone pulls out Boxer or O.Sagat.

Then its about nonsense.

And then someone brings out zangief to counter boxer, and claw to counter O.sagat
But honestly, ST is full of so much jank, its crazy.
Honda vs ryu is 9-1

 

[Project Quarantine]

Top/high tiers all have even/close to even matchups with each other (with a few exceptions). Player ability and character knowledge determine outcomes rather than polarazing jank camp spam.

I love smash 4

 

[Balgorxz]

diddy is such a beautiful character now that he doesn't have super optimal throw combos like before, you have to use all of your options to mix it up including jab since diddy has a jab now since sakurai fixed it, mvd showed even upb is a valid option.
the sfx is still annoying but I can live with it

 

[Thinkaman]

Can we now, for once and for all, stop pretending that Diddy is anything but a solidly top 10 character still?

Current CEO results by characters, to the best of my limited knowledge:

Winners:
Zero /
ESAM
Nairo (+ against Sol)
MVD


Losers:
Dabuz
Shaky
Larry
NickRiddle (+ surprise technically?)


9th Place:
Vinnie
Master Raven
Mr. R
StaticManny


13th Place:
Tyrant
Fresh Die Nasty
Anti
KamiKario


17th Place:
falln
Fatality
Phuzix
8BitMan
AWAL
Trela
SeagullJoe
Poltergust


25th Place:
KDB
6WX
Neos ???
Tony ???
Xaltis
TheReflexWonder
Myran
ScAtt

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Can we now, for once and for all, stop pretending that Diddy is anything but a solidly top 10 character still?

I agree can we also stop pretending this guy wasn't ban worthy.

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

And then someone brings out zangief to counter boxer, and claw to counter O.sagat
But honestly, ST is full of so much jank, its crazy.
Honda vs ryu is 9-1

Wasn't another MU 9-1 involving Honda?

Honda and T.Hawk I think it was?

 

[Shaya]

Diddy is realistically back to "You can't touch him or aggress against him while he holds a banana" and Monkey Flip grab breaking you for trying to tip toe in with the best option you have (shield). I think his skill floor for success is now similar to Brawl, in the early parts of this game there just aren't going to be enough players capable of still doing well with him.
Forward Air, down tilt and smart rolling makes him out-box-button-whatever-you-want-to-call-it-neutral practically the entire cast; still. Tomorrow will be very exciting/damning for him. Diddy is obviously still strong, but I think it's near certain he has poor match ups to deal with now. Is one of them Pikachu? ZSS? What about Rosalina? We already see Sheik-only for match ups like Ness and Luigi in terms of ZeRo.

This tournament is also revitalizing Fox hype, which for a brief period was taking spotlight as a top tier but has been excruciatingly quiet (Larry wins everything he goes to in SoCal essentially, but SoCal streams are barely watched still) and Texas with Megafox is in an even worse situation for exposure.
ZSS match up with Fox is near-even or maybe an advantage for ZSS. Rosa's specs and Luma are an obvious hindrance to Fox, lacking disjoints or reliable anti-luma tools, if Larry beats NickRiddle it could be a rematch of their winner's set which was 0-2. Shaky vs Dabuz, while Shaky is Ness personified, the Rosa match up has been shown as poor on numerous occasions. Shaky vs Dabuz is potentially THE upset of the tournament though, as it's Florida in Florida I could see it happening; MVD's upsets with Diddy were surprising but not unthinkable; APEX runner up bowing out for 7th would be metagame meltdown (heck I can't feel confident in ZeRo winning this either).

SO BASICALLY
Diddy, Sonic, Fox, Rosa > Sheik
ZSS >>>>>> Sonic (seriously, character seeding confirmation bias?)

ZSS vs Diddy
Pikachu vs Diddy and/or Sheik
To be decided!

 

[Yikarur]

Semifer (Fox) just won an european international beating cyve (Sheik, Diddy) in the grand finals.
I think Fox is a solid Top5 in this game.
If you want to watch the recordings:
http://www.twitch.tv/smashlabsde/b/673041542

Top8 starts at 10:06:00.
Winners Final starts at 12:23:00
Grand Finals starts at 13:06:00

Results:
1. Semifer (Fox)
2. cyve (Diddy, Sheik)
3. Light (Sheik)
4. Luigi_player (Diddy, Luigi)
5. Longouw (R.O.B) Griffith (Sheik, Luigi)
7. TwoMix (Duck Hunt, Kirby), Gregs (Sheik Luigi)

 

[bc1910]

Basically, if this game lives along enough to age by years, or even crazier into Melee time, Sheik could theoretically become low/bottom tier sheerly through complete/near-perfect knowledge working against her.

Ludicrous.

We saw Sheik, the best character, being beaten by other top tiers. Characters who are nearly as stupid as her.

There is nothing wrong with top tiers having the best chance against Sheik, such is the nature of the beast, but there is no way she will experience a significant tier drop while she continues to dominate low, mid and most high tiers to the point of near-invalidation. From CEO, we have no evidence that anyone besides top tiers and a few select high tiers stand a chance against her (I know a few lower tiers have put up a decent fight elsewhere).

The most important thing to take from CEO is that, as the commentators said, Sheik is not infallible. She is not going to kill character variety completely, and that's good. But no amount of knowledge is going to make this character anything less than top tier in her current build.

I'm really sorry if this comes off as aggressive, I honestly don't mean it like that, and I understand this post might get a frosty reception. I just think you're getting ahead of yourself with this anti-Sheik hype.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Polt also uses Luigi btw, Thinkaman.

 

[Cassio]

I watched a Florida stream a couple weeks ago. Characters aside I was greatly impressed with how well MVD played against ESAM, from a player perspective it felt like his talent was close to or on ESAM's level.

This is how I'd make a general rank of talent for smash 4 (US only).

Tier 1
Zero
Nairo
ESAM/MVD/Dabuz

Tier 2
Larry, 6wx, Ito, Shaky, etc.

Also I strongly suspected we'd see NY/NJ get exposed to an extent. Theyre clearly one of the better regions but they too easily claimed (and were accepted as) the undisputed best region. I feel part of their success relied on heavier use of polarizing characters and after a couple nerfs would struggle to achieve similar success. However I do believe Nairo has stepped into his own level and Dabuz fits in his own class as well since local results seem to indicate theyre pulling away from the rest of the pack.

There's a hodgepodge of very talented players outside this mostly from SoCal, Florida, and NY/NJ (IMO between these three NY/NJ has the least amount of depth, while SoCal is the weakest at the top end). Texas has talent too but its unclear to what degree.

Anyways, kind of tangential but I thought about it because I feel MVD's skill is important to the context of diddy.

Also RE: ZSS vs Sonic, Id like to see the MU played out more with a 6wx style of sonic, but in any case good to know she can beat the typical spin to win stuff.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Larry beat Ramin and Semifer beat cyve -best or second best Sheik in germany- and Griffith -best Sheik in France- this weekend. Fox loses to Sheik because Sheik does ever so slightly better in the advantaged position [especially offstage] but as long as the Fox player can keep the game focused on footsies/neutral position the matchup is completely even imo. It's really just a matter of the Fox player being on par with the Sheik player and playing on point. For now I'm gonna say that the matchup is even in theory but Sheik wins in practice despite results seemingly indicate the opposite for the time being.


:

45/55:
50/50:
55/45:

Could very well be the case with Kirby, DDD and Lucario being potential odd "counters" [as in "better than 40/60"] and other strong characters like Yoshi, Villager, Rosie and Ness being no worse than 40/60.

 

[PUK]

and Griffith -best Sheik in France-

really unsure, he doesn't even claim it i believe
There is three potential best sheik in France, and none of them plays enough with sheik to be sheik mains
phogoss plays mostly Diddy, but used sheik against leon and won 3 games straight.
Bjay is in the middle of a crisis playing Diddy sheik and fox, but seems to be maining sheik after 1.0.6
Griffith/insert all his others pseudo here, uses sheik but also a lot of wario and a third character, i can't remember between diddy and ness

 

[Diddy Kong]

So Diddy > Sheik now, but people still argueing he's no longer Top Tier?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

So Diddy > Sheik now, but people still argueing he's no longer Top Tier?

Yo.

Stop posting dumb ****.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Yo.

Stop posting dumb ****.

Yo.

Then stop posting confusing **** that leads into more dumb ****.

 

[TriTails]

No notable Luigis at CEO.

I am sad.

I wonder what Sheik mains think of Luigi.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Then stop posting confusing **** that leads into more dumb ****.

... there's nothing confusing about my post?

 

[Diddy Kong]

... there's nothing confusing about my post?

Who has an advantage over Sheik, Diddy, or Pikachu and Zero Suit Samus? That's where my confusion started. Especially since Diddy is doing well at CEO right now.

 

[Firefoxx]

NickRiddle (+ surprise technically?)

Thank you for reminding me of the weirdest damn thing that happened yesterday. Why in the world did NickRiddle throw away his spot in Winners with that Bowser against Shaky?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Who has an advantage over Sheik, Diddy, or Pikachu and Zero Suit Samus? That's where my confusion started. Especially since Diddy is doing well at CEO right now.

I think Diddy potentially has the advantage but I don't know what that has to do with what other people think about the character.