Character Popularity/Usage Compared to Tiers

[SilentDeadbolt]

The point of this thread is to express your thoughts on why certain characters are at the top of the character usage charts but may or may not be top tier characters in themselves. If you look at the statistics I've compiled you can see that our community doesn't really just play top tiers but is actually very diverse. The top two tiers, S+ and S only comprise 24.21% of tournament entrants meaning the other 75.79% of the community plays using A tier and below.

It seems that people are led to believe that Fox is absurdly popular and that you need to value his match up more than others. While he is the most used it isn't by much and there are many other relevant matchups for players to learn in PM as I believe this list shows.

I took the tournament entrant numbers off of Smashboards itself and I'm using data from tournaments after 11/15/2014 (Only PM3.5 Data). I'm also using Strong Bad's 3.5 tier list to compare their positions. I understand if you disagree with his tier list but I believe it is the most accurate one currently out. Please refrain from arguing about the tier list itself as that is not what this thread is for.

Usage Statistics
Percent of players that use a spacie: 12.99% (Fox, Falco, or Wolf)

%Usage by Tier:

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By Total Number of Entrants:

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Top 16 Usage:

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Top 8 Usage:

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1st Place Usage:

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Tier Position Gap:
The position gap shows the difference between that characters tier list position and its usage position. A positive number means that it is that many positions higher on the usage list than its position on the tier list while a negative number represents how much lower it is. For example Marth is 15 on the tier list but is the second most used character meaning 15-2=13 so he is 13 places higher in usage than the tier list would suggest he should be. In general a character with a positive number is used more than expected and a character with a negative number less than expected.

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Ice Climbers were positioned as if they were broken.

Strong Bad's tier list (for reference)

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Please note that I did not make this tier list nor the explanation for it. Everything below is Strong Bad's work.

Okay so I put a decent amount of time into this tier list, starting from two lists I had made in January and February. I ordered characters within tiers, but denoted (several) ties with | when I didn't care to order them. When ties are denoted, I ordered them alphabetically.

S+


S
| |
| |

A

| |
| |

B+
|
| |
|

B
|
| Fixed
| |
| |

B-
| | |
| |
| |

(Arguable C-Tier gap)


I had them ordered by a lot more initially, but decided that similar to Lunchables' tier list, the list serves its job of indicating character power through gaps instead of a fully ordered list, where the gaps between characters are not indicated and thus ambiguous, subject to interpretation by individual readers.

Characters are generally ranked based on a general feel for their matchup spread, and the popularity of the characters they lose to, giving a general idea of how likely that character is to perform well. For example, Roy loses to Jigglypuff and Dedede, but there are between 0 and 1 players who play those characters at the level of play that we see Roy showcased by players like Sethlon and Lunchables. By having "unpopular" bad matchups, Roy is more likely to perform well, despite having a numerically similar MU spread to others who are ranked below him. This is also why many characters' placing is influenced heavily by their MU with Fox; while there are usually between 0 and 2 players of any given character that can compete with top level players of any other given character, Fox has something like 10 or 15 players that can be described in that way. Having a matchup close to even vs Fox therefore significantly improves the character's ability to perform well in a given field that is properly representative of the metagame.

Some characters' placings I'm more sure of than others (such as characters immediately within my local metagame or characters I play myself), but I don't think that's particularly useful to the reader to know, so I'll leave it as is.

 

[AceGamer]

Wow this is pretty interesting, as for why some characters are used more than others there are a variety of reasons. 1st off there's the region, character popularity can vary from region to region because of which characters see the most action. Roy is a lot more popular in Texas compared to other regions because you have a player like Sethlon who wins with him almost all the time so that most likely inspires people of that region to play that character.
2nd you have simplicity vs complexity, there are characters you can just jump into and do well with and gradually get into the advanced stuff later (the best examples of this kinda character imo would be Roy, Mario and maybe Lucario)and then you have characters that have a high entry barrier, like you need to practice a bit just to do the basic stuff and high level takes a huge amount of practice (characters that fit this type would be Mewtwo, Peach and Ice Climbers).
Finally you have character appeal, which is just really subjective. You got people that want cute, cool, weird or badass characters. People that want to play characters because they're fans of their series and many more reasons

 

[SilentDeadbolt]

Wow this is pretty interesting, as for why some characters are used more than others there are a variety of reasons. 1st off there's the region, character popularity can vary from region to region because of which characters see the most action. Roy is a lot more popular in Texas compared to other regions because you have a player like Sethlon who wins with him almost all the time so that most likely inspires people of that region to play that character.
2nd you have simplicity vs complexity, there are characters you can just jump into and do well with and gradually get into the advanced stuff later (the best examples of this kinda character imo would be Roy, Mario and maybe Lucario)and then you have characters that have a high entry barrier, like you need to practice a bit just to do the basic stuff and high level takes a huge amount of practice (characters that fit this type would be Mewtwo, Peach and Ice Climbers).
Finally you have character appeal, which is just really subjective. You got people that want cute, cool, weird or badass characters. People that want to play characters because they're fans of their series and many more reasons

You make a very good point with the region comment. I live on the east coast and I still wanna play Roy when I watch him haha. I'm still surprised ganondorf is the 3rd most used though. I wish there was a way I could separate the statistics by region as that could be really interesting as well. Guess I'll have to look around for more info on it.

 

[CORY]

ganon is just stupid popular. a lot of new players are wowed by his sheer power, because they don't understand how to properly camp and bait at that point, so his weaknesses in neutral are far more muted. he's also easier to run around and do stuff with, compared to bowser or ddd, so that's a huge bonus to him and probably where a large chunk of his tourney listings come from.

i know i'm kinda guilty of it, since i'm only a bit above average as far as player skill goes, but any newer player think i'm a god at first because i kill them at 70% in 3 hits and don't get touched, because they haven't gotten accustomed to stuff like "don't always tech center stage" or "mixup your recovery methodologies".

 

[MegaMissingno]

Ice Climbers were positioned as if they were 'fixed'.

Isn't this a bit disingenuous? If we're reranking characters based on how they should be instead of how they actually are, well, you might as well jumble up the whole list and call it a guess for 3.6. We're looking at usage in actual 3.5, not usage in 3.5-but-with-Ice-Climbers-fixed. The fact that they're currently busted is probably part of why they're so rarely played.

 

[AceGamer]

Yeah powerful characters always amaze people, I think it's because their moves are so visually appealing like I can honestly say I love most of Ganons moves because I can feel the power behind them (even though he's lower on the tier list lol). Same thing with Bowser, Charizard and a few others, just goes to show the effect that well animated moves can have on people X)

 

[SilentDeadbolt]

Isn't this a bit disingenuous? If we're reranking characters based on how they should be instead of how they actually are, well, you might as well jumble up the whole list and call it a guess for 3.6. We're looking at usage in actual 3.5, not usage in 3.5-but-with-Ice-Climbers-fixed. The fact that they're currently busted is probably part of why they're so rarely played.

Hmmm. Yeah I guess I should have used them in the broken position. I'll fix it.
edit: It's been fixed.

 

[zpxociv]

Fox so high... B and even C tier existing... PMDT is bias, obviously. Shameful and hurts interest and 'usage' in every character, something to think about.

 

[SilentDeadbolt]

Fox so high... B and even C tier existing... PMDT is bias, obviously. Shameful and hurts interest and 'usage' in every character, something to think about.

Well, actually the reason I made this thread was to show how diverse the metagame really is, and that even though Fox is top tier, the overwhelming amount of people don't even play spacies in PM. Fox is the most used as an individual character, but when you have someone like ganondorf as the 3rd most character I think it's safe to say that people are trying to make their mains work regardless of their position on the tier list. I would go as far to say this shows how much better at balancing the PMDT team is getting.

 

[Journal]

So first off, thanks for putting this together, this is really interesting. I'd be interested in seeing usage in top 8 or 16 placing as compared to tiers, because I think that could give us a basis for a better tier list.

 

[SilentDeadbolt]

So first off, thanks for putting this together, this is really interesting. I'd be interested in seeing usage in top 8 or 16 placing as compared to tiers, because I think that could give us a basis for a better tier list.

I'll look into it. I just don't know how feasible it would be to compile all the data for that. It could definitely help though and if I can I'll add it to the post.

 

[ECHOnce]

So first off, thanks for putting this together, this is really interesting. I'd be interested in seeing usage in top 8 or 16 placing as compared to tiers, because I think that could give us a basis for a better tier list.

We don't really have a tier list yet, but even if we did, results (and in this case, only as statistics) are just one part of what goes into building one lol. Check out the community discussion sometime; always a good read, either to learn a ton more or have a good laugh hehe

I'll look into it. I just don't know how feasible it would be to compile all the data for that. It could definitely help though and if I can I'll add it to the post.

You can get the top 16/8/1 statistics per character from the same page you got the overall usages from; there should be some buttons in the top right corner iirc

It's hard to point at any 3.5 tier list as a widely accepted, but I suppose that's not too big of a deal; even if loosely, it does point out how large the discrepancies in character usage and potential viability is for many (although I do feel a lot of said potential is misunderstood for some characters like ROB...but that's an entirely different discussion). Neat findings huhu

 

[InfinityCollision]

If you decide to revisit your data I'd also encourage you to filter for events worth 25 points or more, as that removes all the various unranked events from the data pool.

 

[ECHOnce]

If you decide to revisit your data I'd also encourage you to filter for events worth 25 points or more, as that removes all the various unranked events from the data pool.

On that note, you should keep in mind what start/end periods to use. 3.5 was released on Nov. 14, 2014, but you may want to consider using data from 3.0's release date (Dec. 9, 2013) since it hasn't been out very long (doesn't give much to work with).

 

[TreK]

^ I believe he's already using them. I saw the original version of this thread he posted by accident and it was very much a copy-paste from the smashboards rankings. I doubt he changed that.
I'd actually argue the opposite. Results from 3.02 aren't relevant anymore and he needs to ignore them. Many people have changed mains in 3.5.

 

[MegaMissingno]

You can't compare 3.02 usage to 3.5 tiers, that doesn't make sense.

 

[SilentDeadbolt]

You can't compare 3.02 usage to 3.5 tiers, that doesn't make sense.

It's fixed.

 

[SilentDeadbolt]

^ I believe he's already using them. I saw the original version of this thread he posted by accident and it was very much a copy-paste from the smashboards rankings. I doubt he changed that.
I'd actually argue the opposite. Results from 3.02 aren't relevant anymore and he needs to ignore them. Many people have changed mains in 3.5.

I changed the data to reflect only 3.5 results. Thanks for the critique