Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Game7a1]

I don't know if I'd call it bias if I agree with M2K that she's probably mid-tier just like Robin. People are considering that both have the same weaknesses (being slow and being bad against rush-down characters) and they can be exploited, sure.
However I think her strengths (good OoS options, pretty much no edgeguards possible against her, good grab follow-ups at low percent although her grab is awful, phantom is actually a move in this game, can edgeguard very good) are vastly overlooked and that her weaknesses are more in the spotlight. I don't know, maybe it's true but you can't say she's definitely a low-tier just now, especially when she made it to Top 24 (or w/e it was) on Genesis 6.
I'd say people are really at jumping at her and call her low-tier.

The best Zelda got at Genesis 6 was top 192. She didn't break top 128 at Frostbite 2019 either. Maybe it could change at Prime Saga or Pound 2019, but that's in the future and not what has happened already.
We have a tournament results thread, so I suggest looking over that before making such claims.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

The best characters in 2.0+ are all characters with incredible air or ground speed (or both). It is very easy to avoid being where Charizard wants you to be, most

That's just it though. Charizard has a top 10 ground dash speed. Characters only run circles around him because his AIR SPEED is so poor. Which makes no sense because Donkey Kong who's larger than charizard and is also a super heavyweight has better air speed. Considering that zard is supposed to be a flying type it makes little sense for his air speed to be so terrible (this is a problem that's plagued zard since Smash for 3DS/Wii U)

 

[Lacrimosa]

The best Zelda got at Genesis 6 was top 192. She didn't break top 128 at Frostbite 2019 either. Maybe it could change at Prime Saga or Pound 2019, but that's in the future and not what has happened already.
We have a tournament results thread, so I suggest looking over that before making such claims.

Wrong tournament, I mixed something up there. Anyway, talking specifically about the set from Void vs. Ven at WNF 4.6. Don't know how I mixed that up with Genesis 6 :<.

 

[Siledh]

Weirdly, I find it much easier to deal with Yink than Tink.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Zelda has one of the best trapping games I've ever seen, if she can get into an advantage state she can set up some really great coverage on-stage. She's no Snake but it is definitely sometimes scary.

I wish she was a little better at gaining an advantage state, however. The combination of low ground and air speed and her projectiles both leaving her pretty open make it difficult to get the space she needs to start setting things up. If I could buff Zelda I'd probably make her grab a bit better and give her a throw with tons of very horizontal knockback growth so that she could kill with it earlier and use it to get into position for her trap game, especially vs. recovering enemies.

The character has ingredients that work for the first time in many games, but they need to give the recipe a little bit more kick.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Weirdly, I find it much easier to deal with Yink than Tink.

Personal mu doesn't really speak to a characters strengths or weaknesses. You can have a better MU vs a good character and a losing one vs a bad character. Doesn't say anything about the MU.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I know it's opinion and all, but I am really starting to feel like , , (especially the "lawl F-Air is so bad, instant F Tier") being low tier are memes that need to die. All of them have achieved a respectable amount of results and some really noticeable placings, whether it's Trela's Ridley beating Awestin, Fatality placing 17th at Genesis 6, and Maister defeating ESAM, MVD, and taking Cosmos and Marss both to game 5. I'm also surprised Nick C hasn't been brought up in terms of Falcon mains either, the dude placed 1st in a tournament that had people like Sinji, Venia, and Frozen.

I'm not sure about DDD's case, but I did hear he's doing well result-wise, so he could probably be added to that pool.

's placement is also shoddy as well, but M2K does think quite negatively about the nerfs he got from 4 to Ultimate, so I'm not terribly surprised by this. To be fair, I haven't seen a lot of notable Cloud mains doing much work lately, though Cheeks does have a really good Cloud.

I'm sort of mixed on 's placement; on one hand, Ven has done really well with her locals, and actually seems to be doing a pretty good job of beating out FOW now sometimes; on the other hand, she really doesn't have anything else beyond that. Hopefully Ven can get a lot of work done with her at Prime Saga.

The thing that bothers me the most about most tier lists in general is that characters like G&W, Robin, Diddy Kong, Falco, Zelda, Toon Link, Meta Knight, and Pit (probably a few others that I missed) constantly get dunked on for a lack of results, yet for some reason, always seems to get a free pass from this criticism and manages to slip into high tier on every tier list I see. I get that Nicko's really good with him, but I really think most of the reasoning just chalks up to "potential".

 

[Kiligar]

I know it's opinion and all, but I am really starting to feel like , , (especially the "lawl F-Air is so bad, instant F Tier") being low tier are memes that need to die. All of them have achieved a respectable amount of results and some really noticeable placings, whether it's Trela's Ridley beating Awestin, Fatality placing 17th at Genesis 6, and Maister defeating ESAM, MVD, and taking Cosmos and Marss both to game 5. I'm also surprised Nick C hasn't been brought up in terms of Falcon mains either, the dude placed 1st in a tournament that had people like Sinji, Venia, and Frozen.

I'm not sure about DDD's case, but I did hear he's doing well result-wise, so he could probably be added to that pool.

's placement is also shoddy as well, but M2K does think quite negatively about the nerfs he got from 4 to Ultimate. To be fair, I haven't seen a lot of notable Cloud mains doing much work lately, though Cheeks does have a really good Cloud.

I'm sort of mixed on 's placement; on one hand, Ven has done really well with her locals, and actually seems to be doing a pretty good job of beating out FOW now sometimes; on the other hand, she really doesn't have anything else beyond that. Hopefully Ven can get a lot of work done with her at Prime Saga.

The thing that bothers me the most about most tier lists in general is that characters like G&W, Robin, Diddy Kong, Falco, Zelda, Toon Link, Meta Knight, and Pit (probably a few others that I missed) constantly get dunked on for a lack of results, yet for some reason, always seems to get a free pass from this criticism and manages to slip into high tier on every tier list I see. I get that Nicko's really good with him, but I really think most of the reasoning just chalks up to "potential".

M2K’s tier list, no offense to him, is wildly inaccurate in the low mid tier portions. Pros are usually pretty accurate with top tier, but they underrate half the cast because they never used them, nor played them. Maister’s game&watch has been destroying many top players recently, and yet look where Zero places him.
https://youtu.be/saMWY1rkBlU

 

[Rizen]

The thing that bothers me the most about most tier lists in general is that characters like G&W, Robin, Diddy Kong, Falco, Zelda, Toon Link, Meta Knight, and Pit (probably a few others that I missed) constantly get dunked on for a lack of results, yet for some reason, always seems to get a free pass from this criticism and manages to slip into high tier on every tier list I see. I get that Nicko's really good with him, but I really think most of the reasoning just chalks up to "potential".

's overrated. I've been saying this for a while now. He's not bad but he certainly isn't top tier. Even high tier is stretching it. Nicko's really good in locals but who else has placed with Shulk? Shulk has some good things going for him but his frame data's terrible. He's another high maintenance character who gets outclassed by more simple top tiers.

 

[$.A.F.]

I don't know if I'd call it bias if I agree with M2K that she's probably mid-tier just like Robin. People are considering that both have the same weaknesses (being slow and being bad against rush-down characters) and they can be exploited, sure.
However I think her strengths (good OoS options, pretty much no edgeguards possible against her, good grab follow-ups at low percent although her grab is awful, phantom is actually a move in this game, can edgeguard very good) are vastly overlooked and that her weaknesses are more in the spotlight. I don't know, maybe it's true but you can't say she's definitely a low-tier just now, especially when she made it to Top 24 (or w/e it was) on Genesis 6.
I'd say people are really at jumping at her and call her low-tier.

Alright first of all, What solo Zelda made Genesis top 24? Second of all let’s look at Zelda’s strengths. Good OoS, Good Edgeguarding, Great Down B, Good grab follow ups at low percentages, and Hard to get edge guarded. These all sound great until you realize that even Charizard has all of these going for him. And as for great grab game but sucky grab, that isn’t a plus. Shieldgrab and grabs in general already got nerfed really badly in this game already. To have a bad grab compared to the rest of the nerfed grab cast combined with lag reduction on moves making them safe on Shield, not to mention Zelda’s lack of speed make getting a grab almost impossible at high level play. Why do you think Luigi is low tier with a 0-death? Think of it like Warlock Punch. It’s really powerful if you land it, but you never can land it except for rare occasions. It isn’t to that extent of course, but the principle still applies. Also Zelda’s weakness’s are much more than 2. Her kill moves are very punishable and laggy or have a finicky sweetspot, She has no tools to escape pressure, meh aerials, Terrible range, and mediocre movement. Phantom is a good move no doubt. So is Ptooie. So are Mac’s smashes. So is crown. So is jr.’s up air. Are they now not low tiers?

 

[Kiligar]

Alright first of all, What solo Zelda made Genesis top 24? Second of all let’s look at Zelda’s strengths. Good OoS, Good Edgeguarding, Great Down B, Good grab follow ups at low percentages, and Hard to get edge guarded. These all sound great until you realize that even Charizard has all of these going for him. And as for great grab game but sucky grab, that isn’t a plus. Shieldgrab and grabs in general already got nerfed really badly in this game already. To have a bad grab compared to the rest of the nerfed grab cast combined with lag reduction on moves making them safe on Shield, not to mention Zelda’s lack of speed make getting a grab almost impossible at high level play. Why do you think Luigi is low tier with a 0-death? Think of it like Warlock Punch. It’s really powerful if you land it, but you never can land it except for rare occasions. It isn’t to that extent of course, but the principle still applies. Also Zelda’s weakness’s are much more than 2. Her kill moves are very punishable and laggy or have a finicky sweetspot, She has no tools to escape pressure, meh aerials, Terrible range, and mediocre movement. Phantom is a good move no doubt. So is Ptooie. So are Mac’s smashes. So is crown. So is jr.’s up air. Are they now not low tiers?

Zelda is SS tier in online FFA, that’s for sure.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Where is M2K’s tier list?

 

[$.A.F.]

It’s on MVG’s YouTube

 

[Repli.Cant]

Jr. bottom 3 oh lord. But I won't tread that ground any further... I'm sure you all know I'm a Jr. sympathizer by now (though I won't hesitate to answer any questions/critiques about the character!). What I do want to talk about is the Pits' placement. I always figured they weren't anything higher than mid, but bottom 15? An eyebrow raiser to be sure. Yeah, it's widely known that no one plays the character, but that doesn't excuse his general all-roundedness that doesn't make him a total pushover. Pittoo's Electroshock is a good punish tool that can KO you at sub-90% if you're not careful (unless you're a heavy, but unless you're K. Rool you are now being subjected to his pretty decent disjoints offstage.)

 

[Lacrimosa]

Yeah, don't expect too much since his explanations are rather scarce but it serves as a good point to discuss things.

 

[JustCallMeJon]

Where is M2K’s tier list?

Right here bud. Quoting it from previous page.

Mew2King creates a tier list for Low and Mid tiers right now! Check out the current tier list from M2K!
TOP TIER:
HIGH TIER:
MID TIER: (/)
LOW TIER: (/)

What is the most suprising? How do you feel about his current tier list so far?

...instead of posting someone else’s thoughts and dipping, what do you think about M2K’s take?

Its really off and the reasoning in each character's placement is shoddy. I am upset that certain characters such as Cloud, Falco, and many others were placed pretty badly. Bayonetta in upper mid raises my eyebrows too. Otherwise his tier list is among the most unique tier list so far as many player's tier list have some sort of similarity one way or another. Still, it is M2K's opinion so I will respect his list nevertheless.

 

[blackghost]

Mew2King creates a tier list for Low and Mid tiers right now! Check out the current tier list from M2K!
TOP TIER:
HIGH TIER:
MID TIER: (/)
LOW TIER: (/)

What is the most suprising? How do you feel about his current tier list so far?

ok this is starting to REALLY annoy me. Bayonetta is NOT a mid tier. (Wait is this ordered????) Bayonetta is certainly not a high mid tier. What is even the reasoning to have her that high? she is not in the same tier as cloud, samus, tink, dk, or wii fit. its hard to say she's better than multiple characters in low tier (ridley, falcon, DDD, or diddy). I know players have holes in their knowledge but come on at this point its more smash 4 reputation than actual threat. she's basically a rapper past her prime.
looking at the rest of mid tier i see kill options, better frame data, better zoning, better and more consistent combos (luigi and wii fit), more kill power, and disjoints. she does not belong with these other characters.

 

[The_Bookworm]

ok this is starting to REALLY annoy me. Bayonetta is NOT a mid tier. (Wait is this ordered????) Bayonetta is certainly not a high mid tier. What is even the reasoning to have her that high? she is not in the same tier as cloud, samus, tink, dk, or wii fit. its hard to say she's better than multiple characters in low tier (ridley, falcon, DDD, or diddy). I know players have holes in their knowledge but come on at this point its more smash 4 reputation than actual threat. she's basically a rapper past her prime.
looking at the rest of mid tier i see kill options, better frame data, better zoning, better and more consistent combos (luigi and wii fit), more kill power, and disjoints. she does not belong with these other characters.

I think his opinion of Bayo is boosted by the fact that he is with Salem. His video on E3 demo Bayo further boosts that point.

 

[blackghost]

I think his opinion of Bayo is boosted by the fact that he is with Salem. His video on E3 demo Bayo further boosts that point.

E3 bayo is a way better character. but im not going to go into that. Salem has ZERO results with the character. at least in other instances (ESAM with MVD for example) there are results that correlate with the characters opinions. here its just M2K word and honestly when it comes to ultimate zero and M2k are not top players they dont even have mains. they are celebrities in the community but not competitors at a high level.

as for salem he did a lot of talking on twitter about how good bayonetta was but has yet to do anything with her. so take that for what its worth.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Why is charizards neutral bad? He has decent options in neutral imo. Flamethrower is strong, his oos game isnt rly bad, he can bait with bair, spaced F-tilt is Good, he has a plethora of anti air options, has somewhat of a burst option with dash attack, can jump without fully commiting cuz multihops. Imo hes pretty good att stuffing people who try to rush him in neutral, and he can contend with more spacing oriented approaches as well because of bair and flamethrower, fair Will also trade favourably with spacing moves most of the time. Characters with oppressive projectile-based neutrals who dont mind camping tho...

The real issue with Charizard's neutral is that he lacks safe poking or pressure tools. He does have a few good tools for winning neutral but for just playing neutral he's a bit more limited, if you get what I mean. His aerials aren't really safe on shield outside of his slow and finicky Bair and his F-tilt and D-tilt are punishable and extend his hurtbox.

Comparatively, Squirtle has fantastic aerial acceleration for weaving in and out of an opponent's face, fast frame data to snuff out enemy attacks, and low lag so he doesn't have to commit as much. Ivysaur has a fantastic projectile to control the flow of the match and disjointed aerials which are very safe when spaced well.

That said, I don't think his neutral game is terrible. He's got a great ground speed for baiting, approaching or ruining an opponent's spacing, complimented by a dangerous OoS game. He's got a pretty mean punish game as well. But his neutral is just too basic and dependent on raw yomi. If you make the right play you get rewarding and you make the wrong one you get hurt - there's no move you can just safely throw out just to force a reaction.

His neutral isn't good, but I think some people do exaggerate just how "bad" it is. It has the basic things it needs to function, at least.

 

[Sean²]

That's the worst tier list released yet lol. Looks like he just threw all the characters he knows little or nothing about into low and mid tiers lmao.

I mean that’s basically what all the other pros do. Most of their tier lists are super samey, with the exception of the top 5 order, and maybe a few wildcard all-over-the-place picks like Pac Man and G&W. Kind of a breath of fresh air to see someone have a differing opinion.

If anything, it will create good discussion. Some of these characters actually need proof they’re good or they’ll just continue to drown in mid tier “has potential” land on every pro tier list from here on out. IMO if there’s no proof they can be good, they probably deserve to be low tier until someone proves otherwise. The “idkkkkk about this char so i guess MID TIER LOL” trend is becoming frustrating to muddle through every few weeks.

 

[Deleted member]

Unpopular opinion: Mario is near the top of high tier

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Unpopular opinion: Mario is near the top of high tier

That opinion is not too farfetched right now. He is considered high-tier now and I think he has room to grow. I think re around "top of high tier" are currently. Not quite as good as the top-tier characters, but seem stronger than most other characters considered high-tier

 

[Rizen]

edit, ninja-ed

Unpopular opinion: Mario is near the top of high tier

That's not too outrageous; I have Mario somewhere in upper mid or lower high tier. Ally and MastaMario have gotten results with him, he's speedy, well rounded and has a good combo game. It's hard to say exactly where he falls on the tier list.

 

[Deleted member]

That opinion is not too farfetched right now. He is considered high-tier now and I think he has room to grow. I think are around "top of high tier" are currently. Not quite as good as the top-tier characters, but seem stronger than most other characters considered high-tier

edit, ninja-ed

That's not too outrageous; I have Mario somewhere in upper mid or lower high tier. Ally and MastaMario have gotten results with him, he's speedy, well rounded and has a good combo game. It's hard to say exactly where he falls on the tier list.

I feel like Mario is just as good as a character like Snake or Palutena. He has effective edge-guarding tools in F.L.U.D.D and Cape. His frame data is excellent, and he's hard to punish. The only reason I don't consider him top tier is his "meh" recovery, and poor range

 

[Rizen]

I feel like Mario is just as good as a character like Snake or Palutena. He has effective edge-guarding tools in F.L.U.D.D and Cape. His frame data is excellent, and he's hard to punish. The only reason I don't consider him top tier is his "meh" recovery, and poor range

Snake and Palu is a high bar. They're both getting tons of results. Mario's good but he's not as oppressive as top tiers imo. He doesn't have overpowered options and can't control space as well. He's too honest so to speak.

 

[Deleted member]

Snake and Palu is a high bar. They're both getting tons of results. Mario's good but he's not as oppressive as top tiers imo. He doesn't have overpowered options and can't control space as well. He's too honest so to speak.

But riddle me this:


Does Snake have a talking hat? No? Mario top tier confirmed

 

[StoicPhantom]

Popping in here to correct some misinformation and nonsense.

Second of all let’s look at Zelda’s strengths. Good OoS, Good Edgeguarding, Great Down B, Good grab follow ups at low percentages, and Hard to get edge guarded. These all sound great until you realize that even Charizard has all of these going for him.

This makes it sound like they aren't that far apart and sounds just a little disingenuous. Charizard does not have those on the same level and isn't that safe offstage either. Zelda's better than him in all of those respects.

Charizard can't have a hitbox covering above the ledge while he goes below, isn't safe offstage and has a wide variety of edgeguard tools, doesn't have a projectile that can kill early, and doesn't have moves OoS that can kill at sub 100 percents on most characters.

And as for great grab game but sucky grab, that isn’t a plus. Shieldgrab and grabs in general already got nerfed really badly in this game already. To have a bad grab compared to the rest of the nerfed grab cast combined with lag reduction on moves making them safe on Shield, not to mention Zelda’s lack of speed make getting a grab almost impossible at high level play. Why do you think Luigi is low tier with a 0-death? Think of it like Warlock Punch. It’s really powerful if you land it, but you never can land it except for rare occasions. It isn’t to that extent of course, but the principle still applies.

That's why you don't grab in isolation, you do it when they shield, with the Phantom covering you, and after a feint like dashing to bait an aerial, then using a pivot grab to catch their landing.

Also Zelda’s weakness’s are much more than 2. Her kill moves are very punishable and laggy or have a finicky sweetspot, She has no tools to escape pressure, meh aerials, Terrible range, and mediocre movement. Phantom is a good move no doubt. So is Ptooie. So are Mac’s smashes. So is crown. So is jr.’s up air. Are they now not low tiers?

Her only real weakness is her disadvantage and light weight. Fsmash is safe when properly spaced, nearly all of her kill moves are safe when used in the proper context, you shouldn't be spamming kill moves anyways. Zelda has literally some of the best tools to escape pressure, that was her original strength, her defense. Nayru's Love is intangible at the start, comes out quick and has an omnidirectional hitbox. Nair is very good at close range and can beat out many attacks, Up-B's first hitbox covers most of the area around her, comes out on frame 6, and pops the opponent up on successful hit and lets Zelda teleport out of there. The early charges of Phantom can also act as a large disjoint that knocks opponents back rather far.

Her aerials are great. Nair is a frame 6 long lasting disjoint that allows for spacing around larger disjoints. Fair/Bair is basically a frame 6 Ganon Fsmash that can be used nearly anywhere in nearly any situation. Up-air is basically and Ivy Up-air that can beat or trade with nearly any move in the game. Dair has powerful meteor, is quick, and can combo from stage spikes into things like Up-Tilt, Up-Smash, Fair/Bair, Up-B, and Up-air.

"Terrible range" and "mediocre movement" doesn't mean much when you have a large disjoint that can cover wide swaths of space and detach and act independently. You don't really want to be playing a rush down game all the time with Zelda anyway, she's a very good defensive character. "Phantom is a good move" yes, one that works and plays off the rest of her kit, not a move heavily relied on and/or used in isolation like the ones you mentioned.

 

[ZephyrZ]

This makes it sound like they aren't that far apart and sounds just a little disingenuous. Charizard does not have those on the same level and isn't that safe offstage either. Zelda's better than him in all of those respects.

Charizard can't have a hitbox covering above the ledge while he goes below, isn't safe offstage and has a wide variety of edgeguard tools, doesn't have a projectile that can kill early, and doesn't have moves OoS that can kill at sub 100 percents on most characters.

Charizard is pretty safe offstage actually. He has a multijump to stall for a bit or position himself better and has super armor on his up special that comes out on frame 4. Flare Blitz isn't safe and can be punished hard if used poorly but your opponent is forced to respect it. It's getting ledge trapped that is his real weakness.

But both characters play very differently and I don't think it's fair to compare them to each other. Zelda is a slow, calculated trap character and Charizard is an aggressive grapper and they both use their strengths in different ways.

"Terrible range" and "mediocre movement" doesn't mean much when you have a large disjoint that can cover wide swaths of space and detach and act independently. You don't really want to be playing a rush down game all the time with Zelda anyway, she's a very good defensive character. "Phantom is a good move" yes, one that works and plays off the rest of her kit, not a move heavily relied on and/or used in isolation like the ones you mentioned.

Poor movement hurts you on defense as well though - it makes retreating and escaping situations much harder, as well as bait and punishing. It is a legitimate weakness of hers, and while she does have some traits that can sort of make up for it it's still there.

Not that I think she's low tier because of it. Honestly I'm not sure how I feel about her viability. I think that her kit does have a few blindspots though, namely that she Nair is her only reliable aerial to use in neutral, which can make it hard for her to fend off aerial approaches sometimes.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Don't know if I'd say it's too unpopular (though some people still only see him as mid tier character), but Mario is definitely a high tier character as of now.


A lot of what he had from Smash 4 is pretty much here in tact: He still has ridiculous ladder combos that can KO sometimes (and even if he can't, he piles on damage really quick), stupid good frame data, top 20 air speed, a back air that rivals 's in terms of silliness, a spammable up smash, and actual decent survivability for someone as fast as him.


In general, he does feel a little more "honest" in this game as he has more stiff competition compared to Smash 4, but that's certainly not stopping him from churning out results after results; like Rizen said, MastaMario and Zenyou do well in locals, while Prodigy and Dark Wizzy perform exceptionally well with him in higher-level tournaments.

 

[Wunderwaft]

I legit feel like Falco is being slept on. He has a ridiculous air game that can deliver dangerous combos. He also might have the best up tilt in the game, huge combo starter, spammable, covers big range. It may not be clear now, but I believe Falco can only go up from here as more people discover his hidden potential.

 

[StoicPhantom]

Charizard is pretty safe offstage actually. He has a multijump to stall for a bit or position himself better and has super armor on his up special that comes out on frame 4. Flare Blitz isn't safe and can be punished hard if used poorly but your opponent is forced to respect it. It's getting ledge trapped that is his real weakness.

I was speaking from experience of PT being my second most played character, but I'm ass at Charizard, so I'll defer to the actual PT main. I don't think he's horrible offstage, just not as safe as Zelda. I might also be a bit biased, because Zelda can edgeguard him pretty well. And I would agree that it's not really fair to compare them, I didn't mean to come off like that.

Poor movement hurts you on defense as well though - it makes retreating and escaping situations much harder, as well as bait and punishing. It is a legitimate weakness of hers, and while she does have some traits that can sort of make up for it it's still there.

She doesn't really defend with sheer movement speed, more so with trickery. Things like dash dance, empty short or fall hop, fast falling, spot dodging, and spacing and making opponents respect her disjoints. Basically, what we used to do before all this fancy mobility and being able to cover the entire stage in one jump. Her disjoints and defensive moves are setup in a way that they can cover lots of angles and come out fairly quick, in exchange for that short range. You don't have to move very far to turn the tables on your opponent.

I don't know that I would really classify that as a weakness, just a drastically different way than what is currently popular in the meta. And I think that is part of why people struggle understanding Zelda, is needing to micro space that fine and play in a way most other characters don't. Even shielding, despite shields being nerfed, is actually a strong option for Zelda, because her OoS game is so good you can get early stocks off of a misspace or parry. Opponents can't really pressure her shield that well and risk getting massively punished for the slightest mistake. About the only real issue, are swords and only Chrom/Roy can really pressure that much and they're over tuned IMO.

Not that I think she's low tier because of it. Honestly I'm not sure how I feel about her viability. I think that her kit does have a few blindspots though, namely that she Nair is her only reliable aerial to use in neutral, which can make it hard for her to fend off aerial approaches sometimes.

As for her viability, I agree with m2k that she is potentially high tier. Outside of top tiers, there isn't really many MUs she struggles in. Small characters and characters with high and fast jumps and a very good aerial game are her problematic MUs, but the way her kit is setup, lends her to having a fairly even MU spread. There is very little of the cast that have a real answer to Phantom, which is what helps her get around her middling attributes and having disjoints in a game like this is pretty big. Having so many powerful kill moves also ups her clutch factor and combined with her high damage output, she can turn deficits around pretty quickly.

I think the two biggest issues of why she isn't making a splash, is it's taking a longer time to optimize her, which leads to so few playing her and those few who do, can't afford the time and money to constantly travel. There's no incentive for professional players who do, to invest the time into playing such a difficult character, not when top tiers are so easy. So I don't think you'll be seeing much of her, even if she does turn out to be really good. It'll be something akin to Smash 4 Rosalina, where despite being top 5, there were only a couple notable ones and her exposure was kinda carried by Dabuz.

Nair is a pretty good one though, but Dair has it's place as well and fast fall Fair/Bair is fairly safe when properly spaced on shield. I think though, Zelda is a ground based character, so you need to be thinking along those lines as far as neutral goes. I know the current meta is spamming safe aerials, but Zelda's Up-Tilt is pretty good at stuffing non disjoints or misspaced ones. It takes some practice, but you can take advantage of it's somewhat slow arc, to space around those moves it can't outright beat. A large part of her neutral is going to revolve around Phantom and while it takes some practice and MU knowledge, your opponent will have to respect properly spaced Phantom, the vast majority of the time.

Long story short, it's going to take a dedicated Zelda main to actually do good with her, you can't pick her up and play. And ain't nobody got time for that, except hipsters and character loyalists. Or players who just genuinely like her playstyle enough to dedicate to it.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

I legit feel like Falco is being slept on. He has a ridiculous air game that can deliver dangerous combos. He also might have the best up tilt in the game, huge combo starter, spammable, covers big range. It may not be clear now, but I believe Falco can only go up from here as more people discover his hidden potential.

I don't believe he has the best utilt I mean have you snakes? His utilt is good though and he does have good follow ups from it. I'm not sure if he's being slept on though. I don't believe there's anything about him that's overwhelming not only that but he does seem to be the worst spacie.

As for Zelda eh I'm not really sold on her really don't believe in her. She has dedicated mains that's been playing her for a long time. There's a couple of things they could do for her that would make her a much better character. I do believe she still has one of the slowest grabs in the game

 

[Diddy Kong]

Right here bud. Quoting it from previous page.



Its really off and the reasoning in each character's placement is shoddy. I am upset that certain characters such as Cloud, Falco, and many others were placed pretty badly. Bayonetta in upper mid raises my eyebrows too. Otherwise his tier list is among the most unique tier list so far as many player's tier list have some sort of similarity one way or another. Still, it is M2K's opinion so I will respect his list nevertheless.

It’s actually a great tier list. I agree with most except for Diddy and Mewtwo’s placements. Yet he also stated it’s mostly because they haven’t got any results yet. Mostly with Diddy. Logically speaking he should be better than most of Mid Tier anyway. I actually think he’s a underdeveloped High Tiger but then again,I have nothing to base that on.

 

[SwagGuy99]

The thing that bothers me the most about most tier lists in general is that characters like G&W, Robin, Diddy Kong, Falco, Zelda, Toon Link, Meta Knight, and Pit (probably a few others that I missed) constantly get dunked on for a lack of results, yet for some reason, always seems to get a free pass from this criticism and manages to slip into high tier on every tier list I see. I get that Nicko's really good with him, but I really think most of the reasoning just chalks up to "potential".

A lot of characters have been falling into this trap of being put low because of 'lack of results' ( and are some of them) and then there are characters who seem to get a free pass into tiers higher than they deserve to be in BECAUSE they have results even though they arguably aren't the greatest of characters like and at times, maybe . I'm not saying they are bad or are even mid or low tier, but they are definitely overrated.

I feel like Mario is just as good as a character like Snake or Palutena. He has effective edge-guarding tools in F.L.U.D.D and Cape. His frame data is excellent, and he's hard to punish. The only reason I don't consider him top tier is his "meh" recovery, and poor range

This is basically my opinion on the character as well. He's a very high high tier character. I also consider Dr. Mario to be better than most people because of these same reasons (minus FLUDD) and because he is very great at punishing others himself along with having great OOS options but because of his speed and recovery, there is no way I could really say he's any better than high to mid mid tier.

Edit: I guess I don't agree with him being as good as Snake or Palu because I believe Snake is slightly better and Palu is worse but not by much.

 

[ARISTOS]

Glad to see that at least M2K's awful list has reinvigorated discussion here!

I think this is also a good showing regarding MUs that aren't often seen:

Here you can see how strong Bowser's ledge trapping is, but also just the sheet damage and kill power Luigi can dish out when he gets to play the game.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

The thing that bothers me the most about most tier lists in general is that characters like G&W, Robin, Diddy Kong, Falco, Zelda, Toon Link, Meta Knight, and Pit (probably a few others that I missed) constantly get dunked on for a lack of results, yet for some reason, always seems to get a free pass from this criticism and manages to slip into high tier on every tier list I see. I get that Nicko's really good with him, but I really think most of the reasoning just chalks up to "potential".

It's not just results. It's also character theory

Smash has been around for a long time and generally we know what makes a good character. Shulk checks a lot of boxes that G&W etc. do not. That doesn't necessarily mean those characters are bad, it just means we don't know until someone shows us why they're good. We can look at Zelda and say her trapping game is good and her aerials have great kill power or Pit with his great recovery and disjointed attacks, but we don't immediately know/understand how they can be used to consistently win games; I call this "glue." How do these positive traits come together to form a package that wins games? We don't know yet.

Shulk on the other hand is easily compared to good characters from past games and has a lot of clasically good traits like air speed, damage, hitboxes, low lag, combo potential, recovery, whatever. It is easy for us to look at Shulk and think "this character has a lot in common with characters that have been good in the past, and even without results, we know he's probably capable of getting somewhere." In a year, a tier list might have him lower down if he doesn't manage to hit the mark, but early tier lists by necessity have to take these kinds of character theories into account or you can't really even make a list, right?

Fortunately for you, it dosen't really matter what this list says. The tier list isn't patch notes, and the character will be the same regardless of where it appears on a tier list.

If you want to see this exact thing in action, look no further than Brawl ZSS, a character that was in like low mid tier in the first tier list and is considered top 10 at least now (top 5 by some, and generally top 5 in Japan). She was considered bad because her tools didn't align with what we consider to be traditionally good as a kit, but good players over time showed us how she could work. That's what we really mean when we say results. We mean, "show us how you make these tools form a playstyle that wins games."

 

[Phoenix_is_OK]

So... Stage builder leak!

This can help immensely with labbing out stuff and practice.

Speaking of which, once we have everyone's hit boxes, do you expect to see any changes with viewpoints on characters?

 

[SwagGuy99]

Glad to see that at least M2K's awful list has reinvigorated discussion here!

I think this is also a good showing regarding MUs that aren't often seen:

Here you can see how strong Bowser's ledge trapping is, but also just the sheet damage and kill power Luigi can dish out when he gets to play the game.

vs / are fun matchups to watch. is a pretty thin but tall target, lacks range (at least compared to characters who have great range) and is easy to edgeguard, on top of being slower than both of these characters. But when finally gets in, / can't really do anything about it as they don't have any options fast enough to get him off. They are also really easy to 0-death and even if you don't kill them with a combo, chances are is that they'll be at death percent by the time he's finished because can usually kill pretty reliably under 120%.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

So... Stage builder leak!

This can help immensely with labbing out stuff and practice.

Speaking of which, once we have everyone's hit boxes, do you expect to see any changes with viewpoints on characters?

Back in the brawl era, we tried making stages for tournament use, but the idea never really went anywhere, heh.

Now, we have so many stages that I'm not sure how useful stage builder can really be. Hopefully you can do some cool things with it, but it's generally pretty limited.