Character Usage Differences Between Regions?

[Jucchan]

I was intrigued after reading the usage statistics at Umebura 16, the most recent Japanese singles tournament (the version was still 1.0.7.) that had more than 160 players. For a character to count as "used", it had to have been used at least twice by a player.

Players Characters
20
11
10
9
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

Comparing to the Smashboards records (use advanced search to limit to after ver 1.0.6, the 16th of April), the clear stand-out is G&W's amazing usage. Pit is also significantly more common in Japan.

What is your region's character usage like, and what do you think creates regional character usage differences? What do you expect the character usage at CEO and EVO to be like?

 

[mario123007]

G&W can't explain why, probably it's the most iconic character in Japan besides Mario?
Pros Smashers love to use fast pace characters, so is the USA region right?

 

[dean.]

Australian data is here http://qldsmash.com/Characters/SSBU

Captain Falcon and Mario are very high; no-one uses Wario.

 

[⑨ball]

G&W can't explain why, probably it's the most iconic character in Japan besides Mario?

This is most likely including doubles data.

 

[Jucchan]

This is most likely including doubles data.

No, this is singles only for the most recent tournament.

 

[Zelder]

New York has ten million Marios, and MDVA has ten million Luigis.

 

[CrabLeg]

Many of the Japanese players believe that Wario is top tier.

 

[Nexin]

A region's character usage is often directly affected by who the top players from that area use. It's one thing to know that a character is supposed to be good, but it's another to actually get to see what makes them good.

If the best player in your region plays Captain Falcon exclusively while non of the major players use Sheik, then chances are that Captain Falcon is going to see far more usage from most players in that region than Sheik players. The reason for this is because you actually get to see first hand what makes Captain Falcon so good, but you may not have that great of an idea of what Sheik is able to do or what makes Sheik top tier.

On slightly rarer occasions, a regions character usage can be affected by what other characters are common in that region. Just so this example can work, lets say Wii Fit Trainer had the tools to normally be a major tournament threat, but the only thing holding her back was being countered pretty badly by Duck Hunt, who normally isn't that much of a threat. If that were the case, Wii Fit Trainer may be an extremely common character in areas with few, if any, Duck Hunt players, but she may see almost no usage in a region where everybody has a pocket Duck Hunt.

These are main factors that affect character usage in my opinion. There may be a few other factors that affect it, but I feel these points sum it up fairly well.

 

[Swampertrulz]

Diddy is after Shiek lel.

 

[Caterpillor]

I'm quite surprised by those statistics...
The only G&W I happen to see in Umebura videos is Songn.