If Shulk's MU chart wasn't exaggerated, he would be actually winning things. All of the top level players who say he has "potential" would flat out pick him up because hey a character with "only two slightly losing MUs out of the entire top tier cast?" spread? That's borderline Brawl MK level. You'd have like, ESAM and a handful of other character loyalists and it would be like 75% Shulk at the top 16 for supermajors regardless of how technical a character is. We've seen in the past with Bayonetta that technicality doesn't stop the bulk of top level players who play to win. I mean, just imagine how good MKLeo would be with Shulk if he truly only slightly loss two MUs, and he's a guy who is far from afraid from experimenting with new characters. He has what, Ike, Lucina, Wolf, Marth, Greninja, Joker all to his name already? Pretty sure if Shulk only lost to two other top level characters MKLeo would pick him up in a heartbeat instead of trying to mess around with Marth, or play with Greninja.
Let me let you in on a little secret: Shulk only appears to "win or go even" with that many characters in top tier because he's so rare that the majority don't know how to play against him, while the handful of people who play Shulk are obviously very well versed in all of the major MUs and know them in and out because they have to constantly play them.
You do not get to claim a character is top tier while also saying "ignore the fact he's only like, 28th in overall results". Doesn't line up, you don't get to jump up 18+ spots on the backs of "potential" claims. Not while also claiming to use logic at least. This is the exact same bloody song and dance he went through almost the entirty of SSB4. No exaggeration, just change the number of MUs he's claimed to win and change the number he's claimed to jump up to by high level players while actual measurable evidence never materializes.
Can we please learn from the past once in a blue moon and accept that if the results don't even come close to the theory (either in potential or in MU charts) then maybe, just maybe the theory is wrong? This isn't a slight deviation this is a major difference between results and theory, with the results saying that he's only maybe high tier. That maybe people not having experience with the MU because outside of a few specialists nobody plays him inflates how well those specialists do? Maybe for once actually looking at how those specialists almost always fall down when travelling to super majors and considering the idea that "hrm, you know, seeing as they struggle to even get into top 32 when the chips are on the line, maybe they aren't actually top tier because if these top level players knew the MU better the specialists might get whooped even harder?"
Results are what decide when theory is warranted or not. Theory without results is worthless. You know what it looks like when people claim a character is underrated and then prove it? Sonic back in Brawl, who shot up from low tier to upper mid in one tournament because both of his top level mains went to the same super major and ended up top 16 (possibly top 8, memory getting a bit hazy on that). One of the Sonics had to fight a gauntlet of MKs, the other one had to fight every top/high level character but MK, and then the two had to play each other. They put results to where the theory was and proved it. All Shulk has proved that it takes a miracle for him to reach top 32.
's potential forward.
