Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Eggimannd]

Ridley's pretty much a Mid Tier who definitely has the form to be near the higher part of Mid but lacks the necessity to be considered "High Tier" directly. The thing with Ridley is that once he gets up to the characters many considered to be "high" or "Top" he starts to lose some of his primary advantages.

He can't be as aggressive, needs to be more defensive and if the characters can deal with him offstage, well might as well say you screwed. Thankfully his advantages state does help him in a lot of cases. Lucina might not be a 'favorable" match up, but its hardly the worst thing Ridley has to go through and Chrom is one of the few characters who simply does not want to be off stage when facing Ridley. However you get characters like Wario who can not only contend if not surpass Ridley's neutral game but frankly can get off stage and arguably whoop him even worse than Ridley could. The same thing can be said about characters like Inkling, Peach and Pichu.

Ridley has the tools to contend defensively in the lower areas of "High Tier" but he's going to find himself much more comfortable in the "Mid Tier" section.

And on the subject, I'd say the same thing about . A relatively solid to honestly good character who has a lot worth to him but just isn't at High Tier yet. Give him one good buff and he might darn well move up there.

**** that if anything bowsers back kick needs a nerf. that **** is overpowered as all hell.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

**** that if anything bowsers back kick needs a nerf. that **** is overpowered as all hell.

Mind explaining how...

 

[MapleBeasts]

Awestin wins USW again this time beating ESAM's Pika with Ness. Making us Ness mains proud. It was also kind of cool to see a Zelda in grand finals at Wednesday Whiffs.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Mind explaining how...

Yeah. I mean yeah I mean It can kill ridiculously early. But it also not a free neutral option or be safe on sheilds like most other effective killing bairs. Its really ony good for reads in the air.

Bowsers nair and fair are considered his better air buttons

 

[E.G.G.M.A.N.]

Probably a bit of both.

Side note, do we have any clear idea of Ridley's potential? He has had an impressive number of top 8's in the past few weeks at local events. Personally, he feels right on the border of being a great character, but I don't really have enough experience using him.

I think his unfavorable match-ups against the top tiers limits his competitive viability. His game plan is to basically take control of the game early, get his opponent on the back foot, and then tech chase them around until he can seal the deal with an edge guard. Against anyone who can out zone him and/or anyone he can't edgeguard effectively, it's an uphill battle all the way.

 

[Browny]

By the time this game is finished and the next smash is out, people will realise that PT is and always was, one of the easiest characters in the game to play.

I actually can't think of a single character that is more linear and flowchart than ivysaur and since most PT play ivy almost exclusively, the character itself is easy.

mid range = sideb
grab = dthrow, all other throws are inferior
close range = bair
uair chains at low %
dthrow upb to KO
dair over ledge to catch recoveries

Half of its moves serve basically no function as they are inferior to its other highly spammable options. Has anyone actually seen ivysaurs dsmash? dash attack, f/u/bthrow, nair, fair, utilt, dtilt are so rarely used.

Nothing against the character, I just find it funny when people say PT is so complex. An extremely strong character that only needs 1/3 of its moves to win can't really be complex by definition.

 

[NotLiquid]

Someone define the difference between top and high tier

Top Tier: can win a major

High tier: can get to top 8 but might need a secondary to win

It's that easy

 

[Planty]

By the time this game is finished and the next smash is out, people will realise that PT is and always was, one of the easiest characters in the game to play.

I actually can't think of a single character that is more linear and flowchart than ivysaur and since most PT play ivy almost exclusively, the character itself is easy.

mid range = sideb
grab = dthrow, all other throws are inferior
close range = bair
uair chains at low %
dthrow upb to KO
dair over ledge to catch recoveries

Half of its moves serve basically no function as they are inferior to its other highly spammable options. Has anyone actually seen ivysaurs dsmash? dash attack, f/u/bthrow, nair, fair, utilt, dtilt are so rarely used.

Nothing against the character, I just find it funny when people say PT is so complex. An extremely strong character that only needs 1/3 of its moves to win can't really be complex by definition.

Ivysaur is a little bit more complex than that. A lot of characters can outzone her, which forces a different playstyle and generally speaking she needs to be smart about when to use grounded vs short hop razor leaf. Other moves like nair do serve a purpose as being OoS options, or dtilt acting as a quick poke. Bthrow also kills at the ledge and uthrow can be used at some low percent combos.

Regardless, trainers who use only Ivysaur can sort of be compared to low level Kirby's who jump high in the air and down b. It's super easy to execute and at their level it works for them, but as they face better players that strategy just won't cut it anymore. It's the same thing with trainer. At higher and higher levels of play, switching becomes a necessity to remain unpredictable and keep the character relevant, so you can't avoid using the other 2/3 of the moveset.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Half of its moves serve basically no function as they are inferior to its other highly spammable options. Has anyone actually seen ivysaurs dsmash? dash attack, f/u/bthrow, nair, fair, utilt, dtilt are so rarely used.

U-Throw is a good combo tool at low percents.
Fair has a slow start up time but has a fantastic hitbox. It auto cancels when buffered out of a short hop so it's actually pretty safe despite its start up. It can sometimes combo out of Razor Leaf. It even kills at really high percents.
D-tilt is frame 4 and her best grounded option. It's a good poking tool and her fastest close quarters option. I think a lot of players underutilize it.
Nair is Ivy's fastest OoS move for opponents standing in front of her. It's start up is the same as Bair but it can hit in front.
B-Throw is an incredibly respectable kill throw, you're kidding if you think good Ivys don't take advantage of that.

D-Smash is really weak, I'll give you that. Ivy is far from the only character with a bad D-Smash though. U-tilt's horizontal hit box is too narrow for neutral and the fact that it extends her hurtbox means it's not usually that safe as an anti-air, although it does at least put opponents into a good position for more Uairs. Bullet Seed is generally pretty impractical to land. F-tilt is at least usable.

That aside I agree Solo Ivy is still a pretty easy character to play but that doesn't make Squirtles combos or Charizard's lagginess any less difficult to deal with. Ivysaur's disadvantage and recovery make it hard to solo main her, and her D-throw to Up-B window can sometimes be a little tight. At a minimum you should be able to play Ivysaur but if you truly want to master the character you should still put effort into learning all three.

 

[JustCallMeJon]

Update 2.0.1 is coming up soon!

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Heracr055]

^This was not a balance patch. All it was character-wise was to fix a bug with K Rool in Adventure mode.

 

[Jotun873]

^This was not a balance patch. All it was character-wise was to fix a bug with K Rool in Adventure mode.

They mentioned "other fixes" but unless its like a tech removal there wont be much impact on balance

 

[MagnesD3]

Top Tier: can win a major

High tier: can get to top 8 but might need a secondary to win

It's that easy

Nah replace the high tier definition with Midtier and your correct. High tiers can win majors often as well, it’s just more consistent/easier with a top tier.

 

[NotLiquid]

Nah replace the high tier definition with Midtier and your correct. High tiers can win majors often as well, it’s just more consistent/easier with a top tier.

The keyword is "might". It's mid-tier where you're going to have to start considering diminishing returns seriously.

 

[ARISTOS]

By the time this game is finished and the next smash is out, people will realise that PT is and always was, one of the easiest characters in the game to play.

I actually can't think of a single character that is more linear and flowchart than ivysaur and since most PT play ivy almost exclusively, the character itself is easy.

mid range = sideb
grab = dthrow, all other throws are inferior
close range = bair
uair chains at low %
dthrow upb to KO
dair over ledge to catch recoveries

Half of its moves serve basically no function as they are inferior to its other highly spammable options. Has anyone actually seen ivysaurs dsmash? dash attack, f/u/bthrow, nair, fair, utilt, dtilt are so rarely used.

Nothing against the character, I just find it funny when people say PT is so complex. An extremely strong character that only needs 1/3 of its moves to win can't really be complex by definition.

Pokemon Trainer on the whole, in terms of managing switches to maintain/retake control of the fight, is pretty complex.

The individual Pokemon themselves play pretty straightforward though, with Ivy being particularly braindead. Most PKMN Trainers don't actively know how to use Charizard though besides meatshielding so once they've swapped from Ivysaur it's generally a free stock lmao.

Tuning up Squirtle and Charizard a bit (I don't think they need much more to be very strong as a unit) while toning down some of Ivy's sillier options would go a long way to making the character very complex+more rewarding

 

[Y2Kay]

I'm pretty sure arguing the semantics behind tier definitions is against our rules.....

 

[Frihetsanka]

Mid tiers can win majors, we saw that almost happen several times in Smash 4. It's going to be harder though, but they can do it. Top tiers are much more likely to win majors (partly because most top players will pick top tiers, or at least high tiers).

I'm pretty sure arguing the semantics behind tier definitions is against our rules.....

It was in the tier list threads for Smash 4. I got the impression that this thread is a bit lax for now, and eventually they'll create a new thread that's more regulated. See:

This is a general catch all to metagame and tournament discussion. The rules for previous threads have been extensive and will get ported over eventually.

 

[Lore]

The argument about what defines top vs high is even more hilarious when you consider the age of the game. The meta isn't even close to settled.

 

[Browny]

Pokemon Trainer on the whole, in terms of managing switches to maintain/retake control of the fight, is pretty complex.

The individual Pokemon themselves play pretty straightforward though, with Ivy being particularly braindead. Most PKMN Trainers don't actively know how to use Charizard though besides meatshielding so once they've swapped from Ivysaur it's generally a free stock lmao.

Tuning up Squirtle and Charizard a bit (I don't think they need much more to be very strong as a unit) while toning down some of Ivy's sillier options would go a long way to making the character very complex+more rewarding

No argument there.

I just think of melee sheik. She was regarded as the easiest character in the game. Switching to a low tier in zelda didn't suddenly make her more complex because you had to determine optimal times to switch, since there was never an optimal time.

That's how I see ivysaur, its just that much better than Charizard its not even funny. I'd love to see Ivy lose that nonsense dthrow-upb and give squirtle his killing dthrow back. Ivy shouldn't have such a multitude of easy kill options, its ok to be a zoner. Its not ok when that zoner has extremely strong kill throws.

 

[ARISTOS]

No argument there.

I just think of melee sheik. She was regarded as the easiest character in the game. Switching to a low tier in zelda didn't suddenly make her more complex because you had to determine optimal times to switch, since there was never an optimal time.

That's how I see ivysaur, its just that much better than Charizard its not even funny. I'd love to see Ivy lose that nonsense dthrow-upb and give squirtle his killing dthrow back. Ivy shouldn't have such a multitude of easy kill options, its ok to be a zoner. Its not ok when that zoner has extremely strong kill throws.

I think that's a good comparison, although I do think there are several reasons to pick Charizard even now:

1. Ivy's really bad at landing if you maintain your spacing well enough to avoid uair/dair, as the rest of it's moves don't play well falling on shield. This means at higher percents it usually has to reset to ledge, where it's not the greatest. Charizard at least has three jumps to help it reset + you can switch to the harder to hit Squirtle as Charizard if you need an air speed boost.

2. Ivy can't deal with safe up-close pressure well (as a zoner duh but worth emphasizing), whereas at the hint of anything slightly poorly spaced Charizard gets to nuke you with USmash/Up-B, so that would be a situation where you'd want to be Zard.

3. Approaching Zard when you are at a percentage deficit is pretty hard to deal with tbh as long as the PKMN Trainer isn't doing daft **** like lolsorandumb Flare Blitz. But of course most players playing PKMN Trainer don't really play with the spacing options of Charizard so

Outside of Trainer looking at bair, it seems like an absurdly good edgeguard option. You just float down with your back facing the opponent and any hit of bair you get is pretty much fatal

 

[Heracr055]

I see Charizard get bashed a lot, but from what I've seen he's pretty good. Aside from the loss of Rock Smash, what is holding him back? Still pretty sure he still retains his silly jab and fair. And yes, proper spacing is actually quite good with this ftilt and bair. And ofc he has options like Usmash and uthrow that allow him to more easily accomplish his role of sealing stocks.

 

[KakuCP9]

Outside of Trainer looking at bair, it seems like an absurdly good edgeguard option. You just float down with your back facing the opponent and any hit of bair you get is pretty much fatal

It gets better with the charge mechanics because you can just jump at your opponent and make them think you're going for fair, but then do a b-reverse shadow ball, jump out of it and then bair for a super nasty edge-guard mixup.

 

[Y2Kay]

It was in the tier list threads for Smash 4. I got the impression that this thread is a bit lax for now, and eventually they'll create a new thread that's more regulated. See:

yeah, it was banned because it's a never ending, pointless cycle, and it doesn't feel like the current conversation is any different.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Pokemon Trainer on the whole, in terms of managing switches to maintain/retake control of the fight, is pretty complex.

The individual Pokemon themselves play pretty straightforward though, with Ivy being particularly braindead. Most PKMN Trainers don't actively know how to use Charizard though besides meatshielding so once they've swapped from Ivysaur it's generally a free stock lmao.

Tuning up Squirtle and Charizard a bit (I don't think they need much more to be very strong as a unit) while toning down some of Ivy's sillier options would go a long way to making the character very complex+more rewarding

This talk of tweaking high tiers is cool and all, I would very much appreciate it if Luigi had a better recovery in exchange of a 0-to-death grab ( 2.0.) See Xzax video for more details.
However, I would much rather see the devs put time into buffing the weaker fighters ( etc) before they consider tuning the strong.

 

[Rizen]

I don't see becoming a flavor of the month because he's reliant on knowing MUs for both spacing and combo %s. I was playing friendlies against Ganon and lost at first until I started to get the spacing down. YL shouldn't stand at the edge and spam but rather stay at midrange so he can rush in and combo off projectiles. YL's combos vary based on % and weight; I tried to Fair1>Dsmash Palutena at 120% but she popped up too much and Dsmash missed. That works on heavier characters but I should have Ftilted or Usmash Palu. The amount things like Fair1, Dtilt, close boomerang and bombs pop up at kill %s can change the followups used. YL has a lot of potential but is very hard to optimize.

Spoiler: YL MUs part 3

Dittos. I played someone who I think was PRed. These are some of the fiercest matches you'll ever see. YL has a ton of combos and BS off confirms so both YLs frantically are tossing out projectiles at a small target trying to weave around them then rushing in for combos. YL is susceptible to all his confirms, same as every character, so it's about who is smarter with hitboxes and gains more in advantage.
Obviously even.

There are two things I never see talked about that caught me by surprise. One: he can release you manually from aerial command grab. It was last stock and I jumped into the grab offstage thinking he'd die first. But Ridley released me and, unprepared, I fell to my death. Two: Dsmash jumps over ledge getup attacks and hits. It also catches ledge rolls. Dsmash is an amazing ledge trap move. I think YL ultimately wins but Ridley's advantage is scary. Ridley's Nair is his swiss army knife; it is useful in so many situations.
YL can wall him hard and convert into his own combos. Ridley doesn't have a good answer to being walled. Uair and bombs give him a hard time getting back down to the stage too. YL has to respect Ridley's tail range but it pokes out and isn't as hard to get around as say Lucina's curving Fairs.
+1 YL.

This is one of those MUs where YL wins 95% of neutral then dies at 60%. Ganon's reward on hit is insane. He's very good at controlling space with huge hitboxes, especially on U/Fsmash. You have to respect his command grabs' range too. He can recover low and be surprisingly hard to intercept because upB has big grab bubbles.
YL can wall him hard and juggle for days. After I got the spacing down I did pretty well. YL wants to pop him in the air then stay on top Ganon with faster moves. Ganon hits hard but doesn't have any GTFO quick options.
+1 YL.

Nothing new to say about these. YL controls the match and they don't have the reward to make up for it.
+1.5 YL.

The people I played were worse than me so I don't have good insight on these MUs. YL might slightly win both.

YL likes to smother opponents with hitboxes but you can't do that to K.Rool. His belly reflects and several of his moves have armor. Ftilt, DA and Nair in particular are very good at powering through attacks. His f4 jab is a great GTFO tool. He also lives forEVER. Despite these tools, YL is relatively safe at mid range. K.Rool has a lot of lag so as long as YL doesn't mindlessly press buttons he can poke with projectiles and capitalize on openings. K.Rool's recovery is hard to punish, even with throwing bombs down. It's fast and the way stage bottoms work, K.Rool can fly under the stage then go up diagonally to the ledge. He will take some damage but it's very hard to land a kill move on a recovering K.Rool.
At the end of the day a patient YL can create openings and juggle K.Rool hard. It's an endurance match on both sides.
+.5 to +1 YL.

Falco has all the tools to shut YL down: a kick out reflector, f2 gtfo jab and a faster translucent blaster. His problem is none of these have good reward. Falco's lacking mobility keeps him from running away and lets YL hop around and out-angle Falco with aim-able projectiles. Although YL has trouble getting conversions, his reward is very high. YL can play keep away and Falco has a terrible time getting more than some slight chip damage if YL has the lead. YL can generally gimp Falco better than the other way around and Falco's even lighter than YL at 82 vs 88 units.
It really boils down to reward. Falco has good answers to YL's usual BS but YL has higher reward.
+.5 to +1.

No new thoughts. Mewtwo has some answers to YL's projectiles with confusion and Shadowball but he's a big hurtbox who has trouble getting in, gets juggled hard and dies earlier. SB moves slow enough it's easy to react to.
+1.5.

 

[Sean²]

I'm convinced Mac is a lost cause. There will always be people who play him well (and idiots like me who lose to them because I can't fight them like normal characters) but I can't even think of a way they can buff his recovery or aerial ability without nerfing "something" (ahem, KO Punch) at the same time. I can't be bothered to go look for who posted the video, but the only way they can handle him is the way they handled SRK canceling in SFIV. He's one of those characters that teeters the edge between balance and brokenness, give him just a little too much and he's god tier, leave him as is and he's bottom 5.

Unfortunately he can dominate casual play and FFAs, so I really don't see much happening.

He's almost like the Smash version of Dan Hibiki, though it was totally unintentional.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think people are underrating Pikachu and overrating Pichu a bit. Pikachu is a very solid character who, surprisingly enough, isn't as bad as killing as people seem to think (nair is a very good kill confirm, after all). Pikachu also has very strong edgeguarding (probably amongst the best in the game), probably the best up-B in the game (much better than Pichu's, in my opinion, since it has a hitbox and is thus harder to contest and actually useful in neutral). Pikachu can also camp for long periods of time without taking damage (Pichu's self-damage combined with his light weigh is actually pretty significant, and means he will die after only losing a few interactions). Pikachu's superior range is also a factor

Does that mean that Pikachu is simply a better character than Pichu? Well, no, I don't think so. While Pikachu has some advantages over Pichu, Pichu has other advantages, such as being smaller and having an arguably better combo game, better tilts (arguably, especially f-tilt), arguably better f-smash (shorter range but multihit and kills earlier, some self-damage though), Thunder Jolt that hits harder (at the cost of self-damage), and in general a better ability to rush-down opponents (Pikachu has to be a bit more careful). Some characters will struggle more vs Pikachu due to increased range and Quick Attack and more durability, while others will struggle more vs Pichu due to him being so small and powerful. Both of them are top 10, in my opinion, neither seem to be top 5 right now though.

yeah, it was banned because it's a never ending, pointless cycle, and it doesn't feel like the current conversation is any different.

To be fair, there are probably a lot of people new to competitive Smash (or fighting games in general), so for their benefit it could be useful to have some clarification, but there's probably little need to go too much in depth since, well, you kind of get a sense for what "top" and "high" tier etc means over time (and there aren't any 100% agreed upon definitions anyway).

I'm convinced Mac is a lost cause. There will always be people who play him well (and idiots like me who lose to them because I can't fight them like normal characters) but I can't even think of a way they can buff his recovery or aerial ability without nerfing "something" (ahem, KO Punch) at the same time. I can't be bothered to go look for who posted the video, but the only way they can handle him is the way they handled SRK canceling in SFIV. He's one of those characters that teeters the edge between balance and brokenness, give him just a little too much and he's god tier, leave him as is and he's bottom 5.

He wasn't this bad in Smash 4. Give him a few tweaks and he could probably be low-mid tier. He should get his side-B back if he's hit after using it, down-tilt should be a better combo-tool, f-tilt should be more consistent. Those three changes alone would probably make him a lot better without being overpowered.

For some reason, they apparently added 4 frames of endlag for his down-tilt and made the angle worse for follow-ups. F-smash apparently has less knockback too, KO Punch is weaker (and I think harder to combo into from down-tilt?), and the universal removal of perfect pivoting probably hurt Little Mac more than many other characters. Oh, and universal changes to jump squat and landing lag? Yeah, that's not really helping Mac much. The stage list is unlikely to benefit him too much as well (at least he won't have to deal with Smash 4 Smashville anymore).

I think a few buffs could make him much more respectable and less bad. A character like Little Mac probably shouldn't be top tier, but buffs aimed at making him low-mid tier or mid-mid tier could be reasonable. Right now, he's probably one of the worst characters in the game.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I'm convinced Mac is a lost cause. There will always be people who play him well (and idiots like me who lose to them because I can't fight them like normal characters) but I can't even think of a way they can buff his recovery or aerial ability without nerfing "something" (ahem, KO Punch) at the same time. I can't be bothered to go look for who posted the video, but the only way they can handle him is the way they handled SRK canceling in SFIV. He's one of those characters that teeters the edge between balance and brokenness, give him just a little too much and he's god tier, leave him as is and he's bottom 5.

Unfortunately he can dominate casual play and FFAs, so I really don't see much happening.

He's almost like the Smash version of Dan Hibiki, though it was totally unintentional.

What I don't understand is why they haven't given him a better grab game...

Would providing this 17 year boxer an niche BnB combo throw and a decent kill throw really off-set the balance...
Cause I don't see how.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

I see Charizard get bashed a lot, but from what I've seen he's pretty good. Aside from the loss of Rock Smash, what is holding him back? Still pretty sure he still retains his silly jab and fair. And yes, proper spacing is actually quite good with this ftilt and bair. And ofc he has options like Usmash and uthrow that allow him to more easily accomplish his role of sealing stocks.

He's a huge body so he's still combo bait at low percents. Many of his moves are very committal and not super safe, meaning they can be punished. I agree that he gets bashed a lot (especially by Leffen these days) but he's not super terrible. He's got a solid projectile in Flamethrower, three jumps, absurd killing power between Bair, Flare Blitz, and Usmash and buffed movement speeds. Charizard's main job is to get the KOs and live forever and for the most part, he does those 2 things quite well.

 

[Alias Tex]

What I don't understand is why they haven't given him a better grab game...

Would providing this 17 year boxer an niche BnB combo throw and a decent kill throw really off-set the balance...
Cause I don't see how.

They don’t even have to do that. If they want to keep the whole boxer thing going on, they could just give him a vicious 3% pummel or something like that. It would be pretty fitting.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Ra

I don't see becoming a flavor of the month because he's reliant on knowing MUs for both spacing and combo %s. I was playing friendlies against Ganon and lost at first until I started to get the spacing down. YL shouldn't stand at the edge and spam but rather stay at midrange so he can rush in and combo off projectiles. YL's combos vary based on % and weight; I tried to Fair1>Dsmash Palutena at 120% but she popped up too much and Dsmash missed. That works on heavier characters but I should have Ftilted or Usmash Palu. The amount things like Fair1, Dtilt, close boomerang and bombs pop up at kill %s can change the followups used. YL has a lot of potential but is very hard to optimize.

Spoiler: YL MUs part 3

Dittos. I played someone who I think was PRed. These are some of the fiercest matches you'll ever see. YL has a ton of combos and BS off confirms so both YLs frantically are tossing out projectiles at a small target trying to weave around them then rushing in for combos. YL is susceptible to all his confirms, same as every character, so it's about who is smarter with hitboxes and gains more in advantage.
Obviously even.

There are two things I never see talked about that caught me by surprise. One: he can release you manually from aerial command grab. It was last stock and I jumped into the grab offstage thinking he'd die first. But Ridley released me and, unprepared, I fell to my death. Two: Dsmash jumps over ledge getup attacks and hits. It also catches ledge rolls. Dsmash is an amazing ledge trap move. I think YL ultimately wins but Ridley's advantage is scary. Ridley's Nair is his swiss army knife; it is useful in so many situations.
YL can wall him hard and convert into his own combos. Ridley doesn't have a good answer to being walled. Uair and bombs give him a hard time getting back down to the stage too. YL has to respect Ridley's tail range but it pokes out and isn't as hard to get around as say Lucina's curving Fairs.
+1 YL.

This is one of those MUs where YL wins 95% of neutral then dies at 60%. Ganon's reward on hit is insane. He's very good at controlling space with huge hitboxes, especially on U/Fsmash. You have to respect his command grabs' range too. He can recover low and be surprisingly hard to intercept because upB has big grab bubbles.
YL can wall him hard and juggle for days. After I got the spacing down I did pretty well. YL wants to pop him in the air then stay on top Ganon with faster moves. Ganon hits hard but doesn't have any GTFO quick options.
+1 YL.

Nothing new to say about these. YL controls the match and they don't have the reward to make up for it.
+1.5 YL.

The people I played were worse than me so I don't have good insight on these MUs. YL might slightly win both.

YL likes to smother opponents with hitboxes but you can't do that to K.Rool. His belly reflects and several of his moves have armor. Ftilt, DA and Nair in particular are very good at powering through attacks. His f4 jab is a great GTFO tool. He also lives forEVER. Despite these tools, YL is relatively safe at mid range. K.Rool has a lot of lag so as long as YL doesn't mindlessly press buttons he can poke with projectiles and capitalize on openings. K.Rool's recovery is hard to punish, even with throwing bombs down. It's fast and the way stage bottoms work, K.Rool can fly under the stage then go up diagonally to the ledge. He will take some damage but it's very hard to land a kill move on a recovering K.Rool.
At the end of the day a patient YL can create openings and juggle K.Rool hard. It's an endurance match on both sides.
+.5 to +1 YL.

Falco has all the tools to shut YL down: a kick out reflector, f2 gtfo jab and a faster translucent blaster. His problem is none of these have good reward. Falco's lacking mobility keeps him from running away and lets YL hop around and out-angle Falco with aim-able projectiles. Although YL has trouble getting conversions, his reward is very high. YL can play keep away and Falco has a terrible time getting more than some slight chip damage if YL has the lead. YL can generally gimp Falco better than the other way around and Falco's even lighter than YL at 82 vs 88 units.
It really boils down to reward. Falco has good answers to YL's usual BS but YL has higher reward.
+.5 to +1.

No new thoughts. Mewtwo has some answers to YL's projectiles with confusion and Shadowball but he's a big hurtbox who has trouble getting in, gets juggled hard and dies earlier. SB moves slow enough it's easy to react to.
+1.5.

Well for the YL/Palu MU. Palu is generally anti-projectile at long-to mid range to YL cant just spam his without a plan. Her mobility also helps her get in to YL, plus she generally has better range and an easier time killing. YL needs to play really more agressive than most players would like in the MU. But if he does it can be a problem for her
I think its either even or +0.5 to Palu

 

[ZephyrZ]

I see Charizard get bashed a lot, but from what I've seen he's pretty good. Aside from the loss of Rock Smash, what is holding him back? Still pretty sure he still retains his silly jab and fair. And yes, proper spacing is actually quite good with this ftilt and bair. And ofc he has options like Usmash and uthrow that allow him to more easily accomplish his role of sealing stocks.

Fair has kind of been indirectly nerfed with the jumpsquat changes as it no longer autocancels out of a short hop and is no long safe on shield. It's a solid kill move offstage or near the ledge but is by no means "silly".

Zard has a few good spacing tools but is still kind of awkward to play in neutral. Unlike most "good" characters, he doesn't really have a lot of great options to carry him. His spacing tools are slow and extend his hurtbox. Neutral is such a core aspect of the game that having one as slow and clunky as Charizards is a massive detriment, but it's not hopeless and he at least has partners to win neutral () or bail him out of disadvantage () to make his own poor neutral a bit more manageable.

The thing that really frustrates me about how people treat Charizard though is that they act like his only job is to recover and steal stocks, then get frustrated that he doesn't kill as easily as Bowser or recovery as well as Inkling or whatever. So few people talk about pressing his advantage state. Why does no one ever talk about that insane disjointed hitbox on his u-tilt that covers an entire Battlefield platform? Probably because it doesn't kill, and killing is all they want to do with Zard. Ivysaur has a very strong advantage with Uair, sure, but she's slow and only really deals with opponents directly above her. Charizard has the ground movement to chase you down and keep the pressure up. In some matches I find it to be worth switching before I get my opponent to kill percent, especially since Zard can just bail back to Squirt if things go south.

I think more people just need to have more patience with Zard. Sometimes you're going to get a very fast kill with him, but as with most characters you shouldn't try to force it. People need to keep their eyes pealed and let kill opportunities come naturally as they play the match. I want people to stop seeing Charizard as a glorified kill move and more of a momentum carrier who finds an opening and runs with it.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

This is a bit off-tangent, but what are people's thoughts on Corrin currently?

The character is commonly considered to be the weakest character in the FE gang, but he still packs a lot of the traits that make the other FE characters strong, like a good combo game, decent sized sword, decent frame data, and a neutral air almost as oppressive as Ike's. Now, I understand the character has some pretty significant flaws, namely low mobility and bad recovery, but in theory, I feel many of his matchups against the non-sword top tiers shouldn't be too bad since the hitboxes on his aerials come out fast, with Nair specifically being hard to whiff punish due to its high amount of active frames.

 

[Frihetsanka]

This is a bit off-tangent, but what are people's thoughts on Corrin currently?

The character is commonly considered to be the weakest character in the FE gang, but he still packs a lot of the traits that make the other FE characters strong, like a good combo game, decent sized sword, decent frame data, and a neutral air almost as oppressive as Ike's. Now, I understand the character has some pretty significant flaws, namely low mobility and bad recovery, but in theory, I feel many of his matchups against the non-sword top tiers shouldn't be too bad since the hitboxes on his aerials come out fast, with Nair specifically being hard to whiff punish due to its high amount of active frames.

Corrin reminds me of Smash 4 Pit: Loses -1 to almost every relevant character. Sure, she's probably going to be able to put up a fight, but a character that loses, even slightly, to nearly every meta character is not going to be a very good character. Her recovery got nerfed quite a bit, as did her killing potential, and her neutral, and her advantage state... So I think she's pretty mediocre overall. She loses even harder to shield than in Smash 4 (even worse grab game + pin on shield is generally unsafe now), and she doesn't really have that many good grounded moves.

Is she terrible? No, not really, but there's little reason to play her in the state she's in now unless you find her really fun, Lucina does most things better. I guess Corrin might have a slightly better MU vs Olimar than Lucina does, so that's something, Corrin's nair is still pretty good in that MU. If they fixed Corrin's recovery (up-B regaining it's drift) and gave her better kill options (such as uncharged Dragon Fang Shot leading into bite) then she'd be in a much better spot, but right now, she's basically carried by good aerials (I don't think pin is a top 3 move for her right now).

 

[AxelVDP]

I'm starting to think Game&Watch might not be as terrible as I originally thought.
(disclaimer: I'm basing my opinion from my playtime online and from Maister's videos)
I used to think he had both terrible defenses and a bad offense but:
- up b is simply an amazing oos option, at mid to high %s it can even setup for juggles and basing on DI even combo into uair/bair to tack in some extra dammage, even on whiff it's not that bad, sure your opponent is under you which is usually a bad thing but between his dair, fair and ff bair I believe he has enough options to reset the situations rather easily (this might be exploited more by skilled opponents but from my current data it does not appear to be a huge problem)
- his dash attack shift his hurtbox downwards while having a decent hitbox, it's pretty great at whiff punishing and it reliably crosses over people shields. basically his only ground move he can "throw out" to try and gain positioning
- the Sausages are imo underexplored as of now, they are a great ledge trapping tool, they basically cover every option but ledge jump (depending obviously on where you use that move, you can't cover roll and jump at the same time unless the opponent has a really bad ledge roll).
to power through them you either need a long lasting hitbox or a strong projectile (Bucket says hi) and they deal a ****ton of dammage
On platform stages they can even be used in neutral to force an option out of the opponent (and being able to angle the sausages helps into condition the opponent into choosing an option you want). They do have a pretty lenghty endlag but the opponent can't tell by the animation whether you are still pressing B or have ended your move already, making it pretty deceptive. Sausages also last pretty long so you can do other stuff while still having some of them out.

His biggest issue is probably killing, he really struggles to make opponents open up from their shield due to his terrible grab and throws, he can't get kills from aerials (barring bair which kills really late and mostly just when deep offstage) and his smashes are pretty committal.
He also lacks setups and/or traps that lead into kills.
At least his ftilt is like a disjointed and slightly less spammable Pichu ftilt which is good...
Speaking of Pichu, I think G&W has a (slightly) winning matchup against the rodent: Pichu's lack of range and "exploitable" recovery (Sausages yes please) are a pretty big factor in the matchup and he dies at like 30% if you get a dsmash read. Jolts are really really risky due to bucket being crazy strong so he is kind of forced to go in, which G&W can take advantage of.

 

[PK Bash]

I see Charizard get bashed a lot, but from what I've seen he's pretty good. Aside from the loss of Rock Smash, what is holding him back? Still pretty sure he still retains his silly jab and fair. And yes, proper spacing is actually quite good with this ftilt and bair. And ofc he has options like Usmash and uthrow that allow him to more easily accomplish his role of sealing stocks.

Jab lost quite a bit of range from what I can tell, and forward air won't autocancel in a shorthop this game as Zachmac already said. He's got back air and Flamethrower going for him though. I'd like to know if they fixed his down tilt at all to compensate for jab? I guess he has a good ftilt at least but it's not that great overall, a good dtilt would help a lot. He can't really establish openings particularly well unfortunately and it's difficult to see how his kit meshes to make this happen. Doesn't help that more or less everything he wants to use is strictly a whiff punish or callout option and little else besides. Except Flamethrower. Flamethrower's actually pretty good.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

Fair has kind of been indirectly nerfed with the jumpsquat changes as it no longer autocancels out of a short hop and is no long safe on shield. It's a solid kill move offstage or near the ledge but is by no means "silly".

Zard has a few good spacing tools but is still kind of awkward to play in neutral. Unlike most "good" characters, he doesn't really have a lot of great options to carry him. His spacing tools are slow and extend his hurtbox. Neutral is such a core aspect of the game that having one as slow and clunky as Charizards is a massive detriment, but it's not hopeless and he at least has partners to win neutral () or bail him out of disadvantage () to make his own poor neutral a bit more manageable.

The thing that really frustrates me about how people treat Charizard though is that they act like his only job is to recover and steal stocks, then get frustrated that he doesn't kill as easily as Bowser or recovery as well as Inkling or whatever. So few people talk about pressing his advantage state. Why does no one ever talk about that insane disjointed hitbox on his u-tilt that covers an entire Battlefield platform? Probably because it doesn't kill, and killing is all they want to do with Zard. Ivysaur has a very strong advantage with Uair, sure, but she's slow and only really deals with opponents directly above her. Charizard has the ground movement to chase you down and keep the pressure up. In some matches I find it to be worth switching before I get my opponent to kill percent, especially since Zard can just bail back to Squirt if things go south.

I think more people just need to have more patience with Zard. Sometimes you're going to get a very fast kill with him, but as with most characters you shouldn't try to force it. People need to keep their eyes pealed and let kill opportunities come naturally as they play the match. I want people to stop seeing Charizard as a glorified kill move and more of a momentum carrier who find an opening and runs with it.

I totally agree with your response. I meant "silly" because the hitbox on jab and fair seem much smaller than the animations show. I also agree that Charizard in advantage can be scary when utilized correctly. I think most people don't discuss Utilt because of how amazing Usmash is but it is indeed a another great tool for sharking beneath platforms and a decent anti-air that is less punishable than Usmash. Sometimes I'll use Charizard when my opponent is at low percents to see how they react and chaining 2 Usmashes together or disrupting their plan with Flamethrower justifies it.

One thing people don't mention is how good switching to is (even at high percents, it can be relatively safe). Switching into Squirtle's Fair can combo into a grab, leading to lots of damage being dealt. Another safe option is to switch then use Withdraw (although this is much more predictable at higher percents).
People mentioned being poor at landing but there are a couple of ways to mix up your landing. Vine Whip causes you to rise slightly, which can your landing. Dair also pops you up slightly and the hitbox is so huge that you usually win vs most Uairs. Lastly, switching to Charizard can act as a second air dodge and Zard's landing Nair isn't a bad option either.

Strategic switching (offensively and defensively) is really what pushes (or will push) this character above the sum of its parts.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I'm starting to think Game&Watch might not be as terrible as I originally thought.
(disclaimer: I'm basing my opinion from my playtime online and from Maister's videos)
I used to think he had both terrible defenses and a bad offense but:
- up b is simply an amazing oos option, at mid to high %s it can even setup for juggles and basing on DI even combo into uair/bair to tack in some extra dammage, even on whiff it's not that bad, sure your opponent is under you which is usually a bad thing but between his dair, fair and ff bair I believe he has enough options to reset the situations rather easily (this might be exploited more by skilled opponents but from my current data it does not appear to be a huge problem)
- his dash attack shift his hurtbox downwards while having a decent hitbox, it's pretty great at whiff punishing and it reliably crosses over people shields. basically his only ground move he can "throw out" to try and gain positioning
- the Sausages are imo underexplored as of now, they are a great ledge trapping tool, they basically cover every option but ledge jump (depending obviously on where you use that move, you can't cover roll and jump at the same time unless the opponent has a really bad ledge roll).
to power through them you either need a long lasting hitbox or a strong projectile (Bucket says hi) and they deal a ****ton of dammage
On platform stages they can even be used in neutral to force an option out of the opponent (and being able to angle the sausages helps into condition the opponent into choosing an option you want). They do have a pretty lenghty endlag but the opponent can't tell by the animation whether you are still pressing B or have ended your move already, making it pretty deceptive. Sausages also last pretty long so you can do other stuff while still having some of them out.

His biggest issue is probably killing, he really struggles to make opponents open up from their shield due to his terrible grab and throws, he can't get kills from aerials (barring bair which kills really late and mostly just when deep offstage) and his smashes are pretty committal.
He also lacks setups and/or traps that lead into kills.
At least his ftilt is like a disjointed and slightly less spammable Pichu ftilt which is good...
Speaking of Pichu, I think G&W has a (slightly) winning matchup against the rodent: Pichu's lack of range and "exploitable" recovery (Sausages yes please) are a pretty big factor in the matchup and he dies at like 30% if you get a dsmash read. Jolts are really really risky due to bucket being crazy strong so he is kind of forced to go in, which G&W can take advantage of.

I can mostly agree with all of this, particularly Chef; the move is so good for ledge-trapping, can rack up damage really fast (it's possible to get up to 30% damage with it), and even on the ground can grant you follow-ups. The ability to adjust trajectory really does help it.

While I agree he has a hard time to securing a stock, I do think it isn't as bad as Smash 4. In Smash 4, he had a really linear game plan of shield and fishing for Up Smashes or janky "Toot-Toot" combos. I think he does have it better in Ultimate, as he actually has decently fast KO options (FTilt and DTilt), and has access to other KO options, including DSmash (which is actually pretty easy), USmash, BAir, FAir, and DAir. From what I can tell, his shield pressure can also be really good with USmash, followed up with an FTilt or DTilt. He does suffer from not having a secure KO set-up; weak hits of NAir is alright, but it seems inconsistent with where it sends the opponent, and I think it's possible for them to mash out of it.

While I don't think he's top tier by any means, I do feel that people (include pros) underrate Mr. Game and Watch mainly because they seem to be on the misguided notion that "changed = nerfed", and evaluate too much on what he did lose, rather than what he actually got.

Speaking of G&W, Maister did post his matchup spread for him a while back: https://twitter.com/Maister_SSB/status/1093287305450831872


Some things to note:

- He does feel Game and Watch is a top 20 character, which would explain the lack of bad match-ups and the plethora of advantageous match-ups.
- He also feels that ZSS is G&W's worst matchup.

His perception of the list might've changed since this was posted about 2 weeks back.

 

[Game7a1]

- He also feels that ZSS is G&W's worst matchup.

While I can't say I agree with this yet, the MU is much harder for G&W than it was back in Smash 4. It almost feels like playing against a Sonic with kill power and a projectile. It's pretty annoying, and I myself have been trying to find a character or characters (or at least, among those I currently use) that can work better against ZSS.

On that note, I question some of his placements like Sonic, Greninja, Pichu, Pikachu (why is Pikachu harder than Pichu), Doc (why is he easier to face than Mario outside of speed), Ryu, Ken (mostly because I lack experience with Street Fighter characters, so it's more for knowledge than disagreement), Roy (why is Roy so much easier than Chrom), every Links' placement, and Wolf. Maister was optimistic about G&W in Smash 4, so where he thinks G&W is doesn't surprise me too much, but some matchups he labels are dubious.

 

[Tw0Dimensi0nal]

I have also been saying for some time (on the G&W boards) that Game & Watch is extremely underrated. Maister is great. It's surprising however that there aren't more people on the main stage playing him as well as he is. Not to diss him or anything, I just mean the character is good enough that there should be more people getting similarly great results with him.

Like the above post said, almost every tier list I've watched on YouTube, especially from the pro's, all they have to say about G&W is what he lost (the toot toot, the cheap u-smash, his f-air) but hardly anyone bothers to mention that he can bury almost every single character at 65% for a guaranteed kill with f-smash (even earlier with rage). And thanks to directional air-dodge, his recovery is crazy good (he can literally touch the lower blast zone and get back, and the move is basically invincible so it's safe unlike other good vertical recoveries). The bucket being a reflector is an insane buff to that move and if used properly, chef can take someone from 0 to kill percent very quickly. His jab and tilts kill and are crazy fast, if he jab locks you above 100% you're basically dead. Nair is severely underrated as a fast fall option (Maister uses this to disrupt his opponents' moves to great effect) and u-air is actually an improvement because wind boxes honestly did little other than irritate your opponent, and toot toot was way too inconsistent and situational to be useful at high level play. And of course, b-air is fantastic for edge guarding and an excellent stage spike move against anyone abusing a long vertical recovery.

There aren't really that many 'bad' matchups for Game & Watch because his toolkit is versatile. I can completely change the way I'm using his moves based on my opponent, so much that it almost feels like I'm playing a different character from match to match.

Edit: to clarify my last point about MU's, I do think there needs to be an understanding that G&W is a pretty fragile character in general. It takes a lot of quick thinking and precision to play him to his strengths, and if you aren't good at reading and punishing you're going to get killed a lot. So while there aren't that many MU's Game and Watch can't solve, it's still easy to die if you aren't being careful.