Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Gearkeeper-8a]

What y’all think of Lea?

For real tho, he’s only dropped 1? game in winners bracket so far.

hard work is being rewarded, he stucked with greninja since smash 4 and now he can compete against the very best with a good character, hopefully he atleast go to top 4.

 

[Frihetsanka]

What y’all think of Lea?

For real tho, he’s only dropped 1? game in winners bracket so far.

Lea very skilled, Greninja top 10 seems fairly likely too; which MUs does Greninja lose? Greninja is generally considered to be Lucina's worst matchup, so that's huge. The Pichu matchup doesn't seem bad either (fairly likely to be Even).

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I think we have too many characters who are "likely top 10". Phrase is starting to lose meaning.

(/) all have common claims, and then showing up in the discussion as well. Might see show up in the debate as well depending on who you talk to. And I mean in theory if you say consider Lucina top 2 one could make an argument that would be top 10 even if he's almost never used simply because most of the principles that make Lucina amazing still work with him as well.

That's 18 characters with at least solid claims for being top 10, and another 3-4 showing up in the discussion.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think we have too many characters who are "likely top 10".

I'd drop Link, Mega Man, Pokémon Trainer, Young Link, Wario, Ike, Chrom, Roy, so that leaves ~13 characters, which is fairly reasonable since there's a lot we don't know yet.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Can't really drop Ike, he's consistently showing up in top 8 at nationals/super majors between MKLeo and Marss. Until people learn to parry consistently results say you can't logically argue him out of top 10, he's doing too much damage too easily to not be top 10. Wario won a fairly large tournament as well so I don't know if he can be dismissed quite that easily (and Tweek is busting him out in Frostbite right now).

Shulk should be dropped along before Chrom or Roy, I'm not sure if Shulk has broken through top 32 at a national/super major yet. When Falco, Bayonetta, and Dr.Mario are pulling that off at Frostbite alone I think its fair to say outside of a cloneish situation (Marth vs Lucina, Roy vs Chrom) that should be a criteria for being considered top 10 at this point.

I'd be dropping Shulk, Marth, Link, Young Link and probably MegaMan post-nerf reasonably quickly from consideration. And most likely Chrom and Roy afterwards (but given how one of each are still running through losers at Frostbite I could be proven hasty in that drop). But after that it gets very muddy.

 

[J0eyboi]

Shulk should be dropped along before Chrom or Roy, I'm not sure if Shulk has broken through top 32 at a national/super major yet. When Falco, Bayonetta, and Dr.Mario are pulling that off at Frostbite alone I think its fair to say outside of a cloneish situation (Marth vs Lucina, Roy vs Chrom) that should be a criteria for being considered top 10 at this point.

All 3 of those are out at 33rd.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Can't really drop Ike, he's consistently showing up in top 8 at nationals/super majors between MKLeo and Marss.

I think Ike is very good but I don't think he's really a contender for top 10, too many other characters that have a stronger claim to that spot. I could be wrong, though. Still, in the end only 10 characters will turn out to actually be top 10. Oh, some people would argue that R.O.B and/or Yoshi are top 10, but I agree with that.

Shulk seems pretty strong to me, but time will tell. His results aren't bad but not what you'd expect from a top 10 character, and the lack of a top-top player is rather unfortunate for Shulk (Darkshad is probably the most notable right now?).

 

[sedrf]

Honestly results or theory crafting to base results is kinda lame tbh. Just devolves into mindlessly aping trends and stuff

 

[J0eyboi]

Lea very skilled, Greninja top 10 seems fairly likely too; which MUs does Greninja lose? Greninja is generally considered to be Lucina's worst matchup, so that's huge. The Pichu matchup doesn't seem bad either (fairly likely to be Even).

Good question, and one that I don't have an answer to. Looking at a lot of top player matchup charts, very few people seem to think their character actually beats Greninja; most think they go even or lose slightly.

A lot of Gren mains seem to think they lose to the rats, but I think a lot of the problems in that matchup are technical more than anything. For example, in Lea's set against Void, he used landing Fair a lot. Landing Fair is very hard to hit grounded Pichu with, but if you have the timing down, nothing should really stop you from doing it; it's difficult because of execution, not interaction. The same applies with a lot of Greninja's combos on Pichu. It's very easy to mess up your combo by missing Pichu, but if you're comboing correctly, what Pichu does shouldn't affect you any more than it would against another character. That's not to say there aren't practical reasons why the matchup is hard for Greninja (getting hit in this matchup is ****ing terrifying), but I think a lot of Gren players think it's worse than it is because they miss things that they shouldn't miss.

While we're on the subject, something I think Lea did extremely well against VoiD was finding kills. Basically every time Lea hit VoiD with a Dtilt past 75, he got a kill off of it. Even when he couldn't get a guaranteed kill, he chased VoiD's airdodge to seal the stock. This helped to ensure that he never gave VoiD chances to mount the insane comebacks Pichu is notorious for. His play in disadvantage was also commendable; while he was able to seal stocks quite well, he was making VoiD struggle to do the same.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I don't see how a logical claim can be made for top 10 than winning one of the super majors, and showing up in top 8 of every other one. There's less than 10 characters that can even make the top 8 portion of the claim. Results speak quite well for themselves. If you were to make a tier list for Ultimate using Frostbite and earlier, Ike has to be top 10. The theory of "his Nair makes up for his ground game shortcomings and a lot of characters can't handle the damage and kill confirm combo of Nair well, as well as his recovery is overall a noticeable step above other sword characters because Quickdraw isn't complete garbo this time around" is backed up by results.

Is he say, top 5? No (unless MKLeo wins Frostbite and Ryuga not only makes top 8 but makes top 4 as well in which case I'll have to seriously consider that possibility), he mostly goes even or slightly losing against a lot of the other characters in the "maybe top 10" range. But I'd say he most likely beats Olimar and Snake (possibly Pichu as well), while appearing to go dead even with Peach, and none of the other characters shut him out. I'd say only Fox and Lucina are firmly in "yeah Ike loses by some amount" out of the top batch of characters, everyone else is debatable if not already mentioned.

 

[Y2Kay]

Greninja’s only real sus matchup rn is Megaman. That’s the only matchup I haven’t seen be too much in his favor results wise.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I don't see how a logical claim can be made for top 10 than winning one of the super majors, and showing up in top 8 of every other one.

MkLeo is incredibly skilled, he also released a tier list where he didn't place Ike in top 10, and made a MU chart that's not the MU chart of a top 10 character:

Ok i made new lists for my sub goal
This is based in my opinion
Pls keep that in mind
This is my channel if you want to say hihttps://t.co/poBYClfSEt pic.twitter.com/vufDk7ZhTA

— LG | MkLeo (@Mkleosb) February 8, 2019

Greninja’s only real sus matchup rn is Megaman. That’s the only matchup I haven’t seen be too much in his favor results wise.

Sounds like a top 5 character to be honest, it'll be interesting to see what the future will hold and if more people will pick up Greninja. I'm a bit worried the balance team will hit characters who do well in the early meta and ignore the characters who are secret bosses (such as Shulk and Greninja). I'm hoping they'll wait a bit with heavy nerfs and let the meta and counter-play develop a bit more first.

 

[bc1910]

Does Ike really lose to the rest of the “maybe top 10” range though? Leo just beat Nairo’s Palu and Ryuga has beaten Pichu and Roy, all bad MUs according to Leo. Not seeing how they’re bad myself.

Leo’s MU chart or indeed his opinion of Ike should have no bearing on where Ike ends up on the tier list. It’s interesting to see his opinion but that’s all it is at the end of the day. Ike’s results speak loudest and they certainly scream top 10 if not top 5 at this point.

I know it’s a bit of a meme but Ike’s easy confirms into kills at 80 off ridiculously safe buttons are honestly a problem. Reminds me of a Smash 4 top tier.

On Greninja, MU inexperience on the USA side is playing a massive part particularly in VoiD’s case (and the less said about that Samsora match the better). Be careful with jumping on the Greninja top 10 bandwagon. It’s great to see Lea doing well though of course. He’s showing power of a very reactive, methodical playstyle based around Greninja’s incredible mobility. I think my assertion of “best bait and punish character in the game” holds true regardless of whether that means top 10, top 20 or whatever.

 

[Rizen]

Does Ike really lose to the rest of the “maybe top 10” range though? Leo just beat Nairo’s Palu and Ryuga has beaten Pichu and Roy, all bad MUs according to Leo. Not seeing how they’re bad myself.

I think Leo might be underselling Ike and his MUs. From my experience playing vs Ike as YL, Ike wins +1 but Leo has it as even. MUs are largely subjective of course but I get the feeling Ike's not that bad. But what do I know?

 

[NotLiquid]

Frostbite's Top 16 has been quite wild. As far as solo mains go, we've seen



The top 8 consists of

(x2)

This is not accounting for several of the pocket characters and secondaries (notably Tweek and MKLeo, in which case Wolf's surprising solo absence is covered).

A really diverse showing all around.

 

[Ark of Silence101]

What's the general consensus on after Goblin's showing on Frostbite?

 

[Frihetsanka]

What's the general consensus on :ultferoy: after Goblin's showing on Frostbite?

Still a good character.

 

[Y2Kay]

4 Greninja’s in Top 64 at frostbite.

Wins over Void, Blank, Z, Peli, Darkshad, and WaDi collectively.

Sad to see Lea crumble against Cosmos and MVD but it is what it is. Amazing showing for the frog.

Greninja player base is so young and so small compared to other characters, so he feels a bit behind, but I do believe firmly that this character is top tier.

 

[bc1910]

Good question, and one that I don't have an answer to. Looking at a lot of top player matchup charts, very few people seem to think their character actually beats Greninja; most think they go even or lose slightly.

He probably doesn’t lose to the thunder rats. It’s a case of baiting and punishing them properly because they don’t have the range to press buttons against him and not get punished for it, as we observed with VoiD.

Mega Man seems bad based on results. He can kind of just throw leaf shield to stop anything Greninja wants to do up close and nickel and dime him to death with his projectiles if he doesn’t approach. I feel like there’s underdeveloped counterplay to this MU though; a lot of leaf shield counterplay involves shield which isn’t intuitive for Greninja players.

Ike and Shulk are concerning MUs because Greninja can’t abuse the one weakness of their ridiculous Nairs and stuff them on startup since his own aerials are too slow, and he can’t really punish their landings due to the aforementioned range (as in it’s definitely possible but takes way more effort on the Greninja player’s part who has to consider spacing and timing, compared to the Ike player who just jumps and presses A). Ike is more concerning; Shulk’s Nair at least usually isn’t a kill confirm and Akashic did beat a Shulk player this weekend.

It may well be that Greninja doesn’t really lose any MUs; rather he’s limited by how difficult he is to play and how mentally taxing that gets in tournament compared to say, Ike, Lucina, Wolf or maybe Pichu. He’s very well rounded and has the tools to beat every character but has the suspect disadvantage stage and frame data to get blown up by every character as well.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

i think a greninja won a European event, elexiao was the name of the player.

 

[Y2Kay]

Elexiao plays Greninja, yes. Was a top 2 France player in smash 4 at his prime, good to hear he’s back.

 

[Emblem Lord]

lol@saying you "believe" shadow amphibian is top tier.

Just look at the toolset.

Character is silly.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I'd drop Link, Mega Man, Pokémon Trainer, Young Link, Wario, Ike, Chrom, Roy, so that leaves ~13 characters, which is fairly reasonable since there's a lot we don't know yet.

So your list includes and . I would agree that most of these characters seem to have claims for top 10 (and if not top 15) and given the current tournament results and opinions of other people, this seems like a pretty reasonable list of characters that we should be considering.

 

[J0eyboi]

Ike and Shulk are concerning MUs because Greninja can’t abuse the one weakness of their ridiculous Nairs and stuff them on startup since his own aerials are too slow, and he can’t really punish their landings due to the aforementioned range (as in it’s definitely possible but takes way more effort on the Greninja player’s part who has to consider spacing and timing, compared to the Ike player who just jumps and presses A). Ike is more concerning; Shulk’s Nair at least usually isn’t a kill confirm and Akashic did beat a Shulk player this weekend.

I don't think Ike is quite as bad as you're making him out to be. Greninja can't stuff Ike's aerials with his own, but he can stuff Ike's aerials with ground moves. In particular, upwards-angled Ftilt is pretty useful for calling out jumps from Ike. Greninja can also do things like crossup Nair, abusing the blindspot above and behind Ike on his Nair. And of course, whiff-punishing Ike is still very much possible if you space well and aren't on WiFi.

Ike is definitely one of the more annoying characters to fight as Greninja, though. He basically forces Greninja to play completely differently to how he does in most other matchups.

 

[Frihetsanka]

So your list includes and . I would agree that most of these characters seem to have claims for top 10 (and if not top 15) and given the current tournament results and opinions of other people, this seems like a pretty reasonable list of characters that we should be considering.

Add Shulk to the list and yeah, that's pretty much it.

 

[Y2Kay]

lol@saying you "believe" shadow amphibian is top tier.

Just look at the toolset.

Character is silly.

Yeah I guess what I really meant was "I know Greninja is top tier". Trying my best to not get written off as a delusional Greninja fanboy. I've been trying to convince people this character is good for nearly five years now.

 

[Illusion.]

Greninja doesn’t have a problem with Ike at all (I main both). Greninja has the mobility to scare/bait Ike into using a move and whiff-punishing it, and forcing the approach with his projectile. Offstage is especially bad for Ike since Greninja can snipe a jump, or even quickdraw, with shuriken; hydro pump can also be used to make Ike overshoot with quickdraw or make Aether completely miss the stage. Ike can charge eruption at ledge, but depending on Greninja’s position, he can interrupt the charge with shuriken or push him away with hydro pump so that he doesn’t get hit.

It’s by no means a free MU, but Greninja definitely wins.

 

[Rizen]

What confirms does Greninja have?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Greninja has all the mobility in the world to shut down lame play.

Ike trying to jump around throwing out Nairs should make the frog lol. Throw shurikens or just run cancel dtilt into a combo. Either way Ike cannot rely on Nair to win.

And I do not even play these characters, but just based on their tools I know Greninja can shut down the standard Ike tomfoolery.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

MkLeo is incredibly skilled, he also released a tier list where he didn't place Ike in top 10, and made a MU chart that's not the MU chart of a top 10 character:

Ok i made new lists for my sub goal
This is based in my opinion
Pls keep that in mind
This is my channel if you want to say hihttps://t.co/poBYClfSEt pic.twitter.com/vufDk7ZhTA

— LG | MkLeo (@Mkleosb) February 8, 2019

Sounds like a top 5 character to be honest, it'll be interesting to see what the future will hold and if more people will pick up Greninja. I'm a bit worried the balance team will hit characters who do well in the early meta and ignore the characters who are secret bosses (such as Shulk and Greninja). I'm hoping they'll wait a bit with heavy nerfs and let the meta and counter-play develop a bit more first.

Come on man, you've been around for a while. You know mains of top characters always undersell the MUs. We had a joke about it what, last page in this topic? Its like how Zero kept trying to undersell Diddy, Bayo mains underselling Bayo in SSB4, and MK mains back in Brawl underselling their character. I can list more examples.

Always happens. Basically if a character is in consideration for top tier.... gotta ignore their best players' MU charts because they will be underselling hard.

Also, there is nothing to base the idea that Shulk is remotely top 10. Like... the idea should be dead. Shulk just repeatedly falls flat on his face and there's a high chance that one of his mains is going to Joker because they're a P5 fanboy. Time to let it go. Its the exact same song and dance from SSB4 that never panned out. Potential is meaningless if nobody can successfully tap into it.

Also I think Tweek just proved my point about Wario earlier quite well.

 

[Gleam]

When it comes my thoughts are as such.

I think there's potentially a few characters who could be considered better than Ike including but not limited to:


I feel all these characters could prove superiority to Ike overall but hey, regardless Ike has proven himself to be a good character, definitely High Tier. Whether he's top 10 or not I really couldn't say.

however is different. I honestly don't know that much about Shulk but I do believe no matter how popular or unpopular you are, you should at least get results befitting your capabilities. Pokemon Trainer may have technical, but he/she still gets results. Ganondorf may be extremely popular, but he still falls short of the list. Results always speak louder than words and I think his placement should represent that.

For example, has honestly shown some good improvements since the game started, perhaps due to whatever buffs she might have gotten in 2.0 and the same can be said for.In the past, these two characters were hardly getting results and many of them deemed the two Low Tier. Bayonetta was even mocked as being one of the worst characters ever. However, both of them have made great strides in offline results, to the point where I'd easily put them at Mid Tier now. Heck, if it keeps up, I might have to put Zelda in the upper part of Mid.


Shulk is a character I'd personally put around Mid Tier, with even sliding up to the Upper Mid. He still is getting some results to his name and still gets first place from time to time. I do believe that Shulk does suffer under certain issues. A lot of his attacks have end lag to them. Jump and Speed Arts help boost him up to where he can potentially tango with some of the upper tier characters but that's the thing. Shulk isn't always going to have Jump and Speed and even if he does, that's not going to necessarily mean he'll have the advantage. It also doesn't help that Shulk is arguably one of the most technical characters to master.

So yeah, I'd currently put Shulk at around Mid to Upper Mid Tier. If I see his results improve as I have with other characters and keeps them up, I'll have no problem changing my opinion on him.

 

[KakuCP9]

What confirms does Greninja have?

D-tilt-> fair/U-smash
Dash attack-> fair/U-smash

Maybe Nair->U-smash, drag down u-air stuff as well as some other stuff.

Plus he can fish for raw fair or gimp people with hydro pump. The D-tilt/dash attack confirms are basically cheating since they're super powerful for how practical they are as neutral tools.

 

[Frihetsanka]

And I do not even play these characters[...]

What do you think about Ken? Is he as bad as people seem to think he is? Or is he perhaps a potential high tier?

You know mains of top characters always undersell the MUs.

Having spent quite some time studying MU charts in Smash 4 I'd say it depends, some top players are more optimistic than others, MkLeo probably underrated Marth a bit so it's fairly plausible that he's underrating Ike as well. Those -1.5 MUs are probably -1 MUs, and some of them may be even or winning (like, Ike-Sheik is probably not losing for Ike, right?).

Still, it's fairly likely Ike has a MU chart that makes him not top 10. I'd be very interested to see what Ryuga thinks (assuming he's going to make one, he made a few for Corrin in Smash 4 at least).

"Against the real threats, he [MkLeo] realizes Ike just can't cut it" - D1

Anyway, yeah, Ike's disadvantage is still not that great, and parry seems to be an issue for Ike (people will likely lab parry more as time goes on). Is he high tier? Sure. Top 10? I'm doubtful. MkLeo is a beast though, he tricked a lot of people into thinking Smash 4 Marth was top tier.

 

[Rocketjay8]

When it comes my thoughts are as such.

I think there's potentially a few characters who could be considered better than Ike including but not limited to:


I feel all these characters could prove superiority to Ike overall but hey, regardless Ike has proven himself to be a good character, definitely High Tier. Whether he's top 10 or not I really couldn't say.

however is different. I honestly don't know that much about Shulk but I do believe no matter how popular or unpopular you are, you should at least get results befitting your capabilities. Pokemon Trainer may have technical, but he/she still gets results. Ganondorf may be extremely popular, but he still falls short of the list. Results always speak louder than words and I think his placement should represent that.

For example, has honestly shown some good improvements since the game started, perhaps due to whatever buffs she might have gotten in 2.0 and the same can be said for.In the past, these two characters were hardly getting results and many of them deemed the two Low Tier. Bayonetta was even mocked as being one of the worst characters ever. However, both of them have made great strides in offline results, to the point where I'd easily put them at Mid Tier now. Heck, if it keeps up, I might have to put Zelda in the upper part of Mid.


Shulk is a character I'd personally put around Mid Tier, with even sliding up to the Upper Mid. He still is getting some results to his name and still gets first place from time to time. I do believe that Shulk does suffer under certain issues. A lot of his attacks have end lag to them. Jump and Speed Arts help boost him up to where he can potentially tango with some of the upper tier characters but that's the thing. Shulk isn't always going to have Jump and Speed and even if he does, that's not going to necessarily mean he'll have the advantage. It also doesn't help that Shulk is arguably one of the most technical characters to master.

So yeah, I'd currently put Shulk at around Mid to Upper Mid Tier. If I see his results improve as I have with other characters and keeps them up, I'll have no problem changing my opinion on him.

Zelda did not get any changes in the 2.0.0 patch. But good job to the Zelda mains sticking with her.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Tweek's really making me reconsider how much Wario actually struggles against swords this time around.

 

[Shaya]

Tweek's really making me reconsider how much Wario actually struggles against swords this time around.

Wario's fair was very good vs Marth in Brawl, and it seems to be just as solid a fast rising aerial option that inhibits swordies in this game.
Wario's got the speed/frame data to easily frame trap [air dodges], whilst frame trapping in disadvantage practically went against the aggressors in S4.

Range is obviously something that can be used against him in neutral and his own disadvantage, but he isn't "missing" the options to deal with them, imo.

 

[KamikazePotato]

I honestly don't know that much about Shulk but I do believe no matter how popular or unpopular you are, you should at least get results befitting your capabilities. Pokemon Trainer may have technical, but he/she still gets results. Ganondorf may be extremely popular, but he still falls short of the list. Results always speak louder than words and I think his placement should represent that.

I both agree and disagree with this. On one hand, yes, a character should not be judged entirely on subjective opinion, for obvious reasons. And I agree that Shulk is likely a little overrated by most pros in their tier lists.

On the other hand, results are always going to be hamstrung by a character's popularity. I'm going to pick a name out of a hat and go with Pac-man - Pac-man could very well be underrated in the current meta. I've seen some nasty Pac-mans out there. One just got Top 16 at Frostbite. But will Pac-man ever be widely-played, even if he's strong, even if he gets further buffs in the future? Probably not. People don't care about Pac-man as a character and his playstyle is weird.

Pokemon Trainer and Shulk, in this regard, are not comparable. Trainer may have three different characters in one, and has a high skill ceiling, but each of the Pokemon's playstyles individual are easy to understand (small and fast, zoner, big and strong), making them easily accessible on a surface level. For them, matchup experience is more important than technical skill. They're also, you know, Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard. Slightly more iconic characters than the guy from Xenoblade 1. This makes Trainer SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to be picked up by a player than Shulk is, regardless of which character is actually stronger than the other.

I honestly don't know how many Shulks enter tournaments on average (do we have those stats?) but my initial guess would be that he's got Bottom 10 overall usage among characters. Unless he's buffed to Brawl Metaknight levels, he's never going to get the usage of any of the current widely-accepted Top Tiers. Too technical, small inherent fanbase, playstyle isn't straightforward. And you can't get results if people don't...you know. Play you.

P.S. Actually, you mentioned Ganondorf, so I'm going to pose this question as well - is Ganondorf ACTUALLY popular outside of online usage? Do people take their Ganondorfs into competitive offline tournaments?

 

[Gleam]

Considering the overall popularity that Ganondorf had online, it would only make sense for him to have that same popularity offline. Of course that just goes to show how the implication of Ganon's "skill" online didn't exactly carry over to his offline results. I believe it didn't take long for people to find his flaws and personally, even Online Ganon appearance appeared to have dropped.

Ganondorf was definitely a popular character and it probably didn't help that some of the "pros" continued to hype him up. I really don't know what the overall usage ofGanon was at the time but I dare say he faced a lesser usage of King K. Rool. A character who was overhyped, extremely popular online and made quite a few tournament visits. However once people worked around their gimmicks, both dropped in most people's eyes. I would say Ganondorf isn't as popular now as he was at the start of Ultimate but my main point was that, being popular didn't suddenly make Ganondorf good. Being popular online did not transfer to suddenly being good offline.

I do agree that Shulk's lack of popularity can often affect him and hey, for such an unpopular character he still gets results. Those who are able to represent him are able to show off his skill.

Another character in a similar, if not the exact same boat is Marth. I know a lot of people have Marth just a few placements below Lucina. However Lucina gets all the results and popularity and Marth is lucky to even make a placement, much less get First Place anywhere. His entire character is more or less just overshadowed by his more popular, slightly more competent clone. He is essentially screwed over despite what many would agree to be a competent character.

 

[Browny]

Snake is the most boring character to watch in this game, to play as and to play against.

His optimal playstyle is nothing but pressing b over and over and over again with the CRAZY mixup of dash attack, then ezbake nikita for edgeguard kills. I played against snake plenty in brawl and I don't recall it ever being this obnoxious. I have a feeling if the snakes of today played brawl, the same way they do here (as in a much stronger reliance on grenades and less on ftilt) then snake would have dominated just as bad as MK. Perhaps the over-reliance on ftilt actually made snake worse in brawl.

Top level snakes out here winning matches without even needing to land a single ftilt or utilt. Kinda says a lot. IDK how other people find it 'hype' to watch, one person is playing bullet hell and one person is pressing b. Give me literally any other character on stream.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Snake is the most boring character to watch in this game, and to play against.

His optimal playstyle is nothing but pressing b over and over and over again with the CRAZY mixup of dash attack, then ezbake nikita for edgeguard kills. I played against snake plenty in brawl and I don't recall it ever being this obnoxious. I have a feeling if the snakes of today played brawl, the same way they do here (as in a much stronger reliance on grenades and less on ftilt) then snake would have dominated just as bad as MK. Perhaps the over-reliance on ftilt actually made snake worse in brawl.

Top level snakes out here winning matches without even needing to land a single ftilt or utilt. Kinda says a lot.

They had Snakedashing in Brawl. They didn't need to spam grenades as much. But spamming grenades even more in Brawl wouldn't have made Snake stronger: it was already used a ton for b-reversals when he got stuck in the air. Or anytime MK was about to touch him. Or anytime they didn't feel like Snakedashing.

I actually find Snake entertaining to watch in Ultimate, just how different he is and trying to keep track of all of the explosives. I still miss the planting of the C4 half of the time. And unlike in Brawl he can actually use the occasional aerial without holding his breath hoping that he's not about to die for the attempt at landing Bair.