Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Rizen]

Id say Ike is still high-tier, but not at the high-end of it.

The upper-are of high-tier to me is more like and likely Many people consider top-tier level I guess. But maybe a bit better but still at the cusp.

Yea is still top-tier for sure

Chroy I'd say are better but then they have to recover. Ike's recovery is exploitable by counters but he gets good side or vertical distance at least.

The area Ike shines is controlling space. Ike is better than any of those characters at controlling space and he's safe while doing it too. I'm not saying Ike's better than them (or vice versa) but he does have his strengths. Ike's advantage state is like Lucina's; his Uair/Fair/Nair are huge walls of pain. I'd rather be in disadvantage against any of them over Ike and I've fought everyone except Greninja and Ken.

Ike has a good MU vs my characters so I'm biased but he can do a lot to certain characters. He's one of the harder characters for zoners because he's so hard to cross over.

NAir is Ike's best option in neutral most of the time and it gives him the greatest reward, Ike relies more on his NAir to put in work than any other character relies on one singular move. Ike is definitely a linear, exploitable character and it's been proven with time. He fell off, hard, for a reason.

I didn't claim it was literally his only option period, obviously it isn't, but it's the most optimal one a lot of the time. Aether punishes are gimmicky and once you get punished by the armor once, well any good player won't usually get locked up into such a gimmicky punish twice. Using it on reaction when you can is good, but you can't always do that.

Also a F4 jab is nothing to write home about in a game with frame 1-2 moves, especially considering the lackluster range it has like most jabs tend to. It's a good get off me tool sometimes, but a lot of characters have up close options that can beat it out. YL isn't one, but that doesn't mean other examples don't exist.

With his tragic recovery, unga bunga neutral and heavy, combo-food status I don't see how you can not call Ike exploitable. He's textbook exploitable.

Just because Ike has one option that's really good does not mean that he's linear. It's like when I play YL, fire arrows are extremely good in neutral and grab is slow and punishable. But I've recently worked grab into my game more because players are conditioned to shield and it works. Strong options are only linear if they're over-relied on.
And when Ike does use Nair it is extremely hard to punish with high reward; using it a lot is not a bad thing. It's like YL's Nair; it's my main CQC option because it's so fast with little lag. If a character has safe options they should be using them. The more I nair the better I do vs the rats and Wario.

No a f4 jab is really good for a swordsman, Marcina have a f5 jab for comparison and Ike's jab steps forward so it's great at controlling space. Try playing Link or Ganon and you'll see how important a fast jab is.

Ike's still 22 on Orion Stats; I'm not claiming he's a top tier or anything but he's more than proven to be a good high tier. Watch Leo's Ike and tell me how punishable he is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBRWkyaAjQI
Sure Leo uses Nair a lot but he gets away with it 90% of the time. Leo also works in footsies with grabs.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

NAir is Ike's best option in neutral most of the time and it gives him the greatest reward, Ike relies more on his NAir to put in work than any other character relies on one singular move. Ike is definitely a linear, exploitable character and it's been proven with time. He fell off, hard, for a reason.

I didn't claim it was literally his only option period, obviously it isn't, but it's the most optimal one a lot of the time. Aether punishes are gimmicky and once you get punished by the armor once, well any good player won't usually get locked up into such a gimmicky punish twice. Using it on reaction when you can is good, but you can't always do that.

Also a F4 jab is nothing to write home about in a game with frame 1-2 moves, especially considering the lackluster range it has like most jabs tend to. It's a good get off me tool sometimes, but a lot of characters have up close options that can beat it out. YL isn't one, but that doesn't mean other examples don't exist.

With his tragic recovery, unga bunga neutral and heavy, combo-food status I don't see how you can not call Ike exploitable. He's textbook exploitable. His frame data as an overall package is pretty meh too, the startup on a lot of his moves leaves him open to heavy punishes from a lot of characters.

His results haven't fallen off hard at all. He's dropped... a couple of spots at most in the Orion Rankings? He spent the majority of his time around the 14th-17th range and he's down to 20th. Which is to be expected when the best player in the world no longer uses your character because he's all over the latest DLC character. Still actively being used as a secondary by a top 5 player in the world, that's pretty good. Better than what, 70 of the characters in the roster can say?

Also, you quite clearly don't know a lot about Ike or haven't been keeping up with him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzNA22knCSo Just... just watch this to get caught up. Marss vs ESAM (so another high level player), which also means he's using Pikachu (who is extremely good at punishing, meaning that if Ike was as linear as you seem to think he is he would get destroyed).

Yes Nair is used a lot... and its used safely a lot. As in not exploitable when you know how to space it properly and when to not use it. He doesn't rely on it in neutral exclusively, Marrs lands plenty of tilts and other moves. And again this is all against Pikachu who is pretty great at punishing things and is probably one of the best characters in the game at punishing Nair on reaction, lot of characters don't have good ways to punish Nair unless they predict it and try to stuff it. Of course its punishable if an Ike player goes on auto-pilot and just keeps spamming Nair, same goes for any character in the game. That would be like saying Snake's grenades are punishable because if Snake auto-pilots and keeps spamming them he'll get caught out on throwing them.

Ike's recovery as an entire package is also above average in this game. Not significantly above average, but a lot of characters can't cleanly deal with Quickdraw this time around because just airdodging in front of it no longer works. There's also a good cross section of characters who simply can't afford to try to tangle with Aether because they don't have a reliable way to spike it without risking getting dragged down. Having one quite solid option and one sub-par option is better than relying strictly on one move for recovery, like a lot of the cast has to do.

Yes he doesn't like getting juggled. Same with like 90% of the cast.

His Fsmash and Usmash are quite frighting to deal with between their massive disjointed range and power, particularly Usmash when you're trying to land. Marss also landed Aether more than once or twice, its not a "gimmick", its a fairly reliable option when you understand when to use it.

You also failed to mention how terrifying Ike is on a stage like Battlefield or any other stage with lots of platforms: he can kill you off of one Nair at around 40% thanks to platforms and a lot of his attacks will cover the entire platform. One of the scariest characters to try to land on a platform against period.

Ike has his issues, I wouldn't want to use him in a tournament full of say Roy or Chrom for example. But he's still an extremely good character, in upper high tier. One of the better characters for challenging Olimar and Snake, can go toe to toe with Peach/Daisy and Pikachu/Pichu. Wouldn't be surprised if he overall has the advantage against Pokemon Trainer but I'd want to see more footage first. He's both solo viable and one of the smarter pocket characters to have if you aren't going to go with the standard Wolf or Lucina pocket.

 

[Gleam]

And as a note, this is what the current Orion data would look like in order-ish by combining phase 01 and phase 02.


The Awesome Sauce Group
#1 849.25

#2 784.5

#3692.25

#4 684.5

#5614.25

#6569.6

#7563.75

#8553.75

#9 508

#10 447.75




The Spiffy Group
#11429.5

#12395.5

#13391

#14388

#15381.5

#16379.5

#17367.5

#18338.75

#19333

#20287.5



The Nowhere Near Top Tier But Still Quite Good Group
#21287

#22267.5

#23239

#24237.75

#25232

#26224.75

#27190.25

#28186.5

#29182.5

#30174



The Relatively Decent Group
#31139

#32131.5

#33129

#34122

#35115

#36114

#37113.75

#38108.5

#39106.5

#40105



The Painfully Average Group
#41102.5

#42101.5

#43100.5

#44100

#4596

#4693

#4786.5

#4882.25

#4978

#5067



The Kind of Starting to Reek Group
#5162

#5255

#5351.5

#5449.5

#5547

#5644

#5735.5

#5834.75

#5932.5

#6030




The Up in Ganon's Armpits Stink Group

#6128.5

#6228

#6327

#6425

#6523.5

#6523.5

#6721

#6819.5

#6918.5

#7016.5




The Might Not Even Win if The Other Opponent Unplugged Their Controller During A Match Group
#7115.5

#7214



I think you'll notice if you compare this to the July15th Phase 01 Orion that, very few people seem to have made any impact on Orion. Most of them remain where they were or at best rise or fall one spot. Also again, because number and placement is so weird, I did not place him.

 

[Tri Knight]

Try playing Link or Ganon and you'll see how important a fast jab is.

You know, if he at least had fast recovery from the jab I wouldnt even mind how slow it is.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

As another aside on Ike: if the balance patch with Hero goes as we expect, he could become even stronger in the meta.

I think its fair to say that most people are predicting Snake getting nerfed to some extent, most likely Palutena getting at least some sort of small nerf (based on the trend of who they seem to target per patch, their relative position in general player opinions/Orion Stats, ect etc) and Olimar getting his shield fixed one way or another. Chrom/Roy getting minor Lucina level nerfs probably wouldn't be out of the picture in most people's minds as well.

Depending on how Snake gets nerfed, it could easily go from even MU to Ike's advantage. Palutena is frankly one of Ike's most difficult MUs in top tier because of the combo of Usmash and Explosive Flame shutting down his recovery options on top of her Nair shenanigans so anything to make it even slightly easier would be quite welcomed. If Olimar's shield is fixed he's probably back to being a menace to a lot of characters, but Ike had a winning record against him before he got nerfed at all and Olimar would still have his smash attack nerfs active. Chrom/Roy getting slight taps would again be quite welcomed by Ike.

Assuming those go through, if you look at the combined Orion Rankings:

Wolf is still slightly losing, but quite winnable
Snake is a winning MU
Palutena is a "probably still losing but not as hard" MU
Peach/Daisy is even
Fox is "Even only because it is such a volatile MU it seems to matter more on the players than the characters, both kill each other stupid early for different reasons"
Lucina is a slightly losing MU
Inkling is... I'm not entirely sure frankly.
Pichu is a slightly winning MU
Olimar is a winning MU
Pokemon Trainer is unknown

That's not exactly a bad MU spread. If Fox also gets a nerf despite slight downward trend due to patches being behind on meta trends, that also makes things even better for Ike. Out of the top 12 characters you would have only 3 definite losing MUs, and quite critically a winning MU against two characters many find to be quite problematic + a even MU against another heavily problematic character. Between that and the general ease of learning Ike's in and outs, he could become one of the premier pocket characters: good against several major threats and if your opponent has another pocket character in the top tier range there is a good chance Ike does fine so you won't get punished for switching to him as long as its not Palutena, that one is quite rough even though its still winnable.

 

[Billy Scrammer]

NAir is Ike's best option in neutral most of the time and it gives him the greatest reward, Ike relies more on his NAir to put in work than any other character relies on one singular move. Ike is definitely a linear, exploitable character and it's been proven with time. He fell off, hard, for a reason.

I didn't claim it was literally his only option period, obviously it isn't, but it's the most optimal one a lot of the time. Aether punishes are gimmicky and once you get punished by the armor once, well any good player won't usually get locked up into such a gimmicky punish twice. Using it on reaction when you can is good, but you can't always do that.

There are some ways to play around NAir too with YL. NAir’s -5 on block so if YL can get in and block it close up he’s in a good position to use a NAir of his own and since Ike is so minus against such a fast move literally the only thing he can do without getting hit during start up is shield. This can condition an Ike who normally does stuff after a shielded NAir to start shielding after he lands and when you have him on the defensive like that you can start trying out your own stuff like maybe reading a roll or shieldgrabbing which leads to a slew of other options.


Haven’t gotten to test much since I’ve been busy but I’ll get to the lab soon and see if there’s other things you can do following a blocked NAir.

 

[Rizen]

There are some ways to play around NAir too with YL. NAir’s -5 on block so if YL can get in and block it close up he’s in a good position to use a NAir of his own and since Ike is so minus against such a fast move literally the only thing he can do without getting hit during start up is shield. This can condition an Ike who normally does stuff after a shielded NAir to start shielding after he lands and when you have him on the defensive like that you can start trying out your own stuff like maybe reading a roll or shieldgrabbing which leads to a slew of other options.


Haven’t gotten to test much since I’ve been busy but I’ll get to the lab soon and see if there’s other things you can do following a blocked NAir.

What sucks for YL is he can't Nair OoS since shield+attack+jump will always buffer his f11 Zair.

 

[Game7a1]

What sucks for YL is he can't Nair OoS since shield+attack+jump will always buffer his f11 Zair.

With characters with Z-airs, you want to do the following out of shield: Jump, let go of Shield, then press Attack. You'll have to practice it as the timing is awkward (at least for me), but even if N-air might not be instantaneous the first few tries, it's better than getting a Z-air when trying to get a N-air.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Tbf, out of the shotos, it seems to be just that everyone's hyping up, mostly because of the Twitter clips of him getting a kill at 40% while at some ridiculously high percentage.

Poor Ryu continues to be overlooked :/

What Ryu does is not appealing to mid level players and below. Opinions of him seem to trend upwards with higher skilled players.

 

[Lacrimosa]

I've already questioned Meru's credibility when he talked about Zelda. The tweet was posted a few pages ago. In it he complained about her tool kit but also for example about her inability to edgeguard/ledgetrap.
Now, I wonder if that's really a character thing or if Meru is just ranting/talking. Because a few hours ago he posted another tweet about Peach where he said that it's him that's doing a bad job at edgeguarding.
Now, you may have different opinions about a character but saying in case of Zelda it's the character and in case of Peach it's the player doesn't make that much sense when the subject (edgeguarding/ledgetrapping) is pretty much identical.

Looks more to me that you talk way faster about certain characters than other but you're at the same time bad at the very same thing with another , "better" character.

Now, do I actually complain about Meru or something else? Pretty much the latter. It's the same with ESAM's tierlist where I said the same thing when he evaluated the lower tier characters: You talk more than you know and I wouldn't be surprised if Meru labbed Peach much more thorough than another character like Zelda who he doesn't even use often at tournament play.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

er.. Nice to know still compeltey stomps all over superheavies. Defend the North. Zaxxel played surprisingly well vs Marss. even won a game. But man I lost count of all those nair into Flip-kick spike confirms

 

[NotLiquid]

Jakal 3 - 2 Venia at Defend The North, early Top 64 winners. Two of the games were 3-stocks.

Ain't easy being frog.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Speaking of Greninja, we have some new tech here for the character.

I don't know if this is already known through this thread, but I want to share it.

 

[Anomika]

It ain't easy, Odyssey also used against Light in game 5 and lost. Had he not switched to the frog...

 

[Frihetsanka]

The Nowhere Near Top Tier But Still Quite Good Group
#21287

#23239

#25232

I hope you're joking or something, these characters are excellent. Your list illustrates the point that results are far from everything when it comes to character strength. Interesting list, but we have to take results with a grain of salt.

The Might Not Even Win if The Other Opponent Unplugged Their Controller During A Match Group
#7115.5

She's bad but I don't think she's bottom 5 bad. Not much reason to play her when better swordfighters exist, though. At this point she'll remain irrelevant unless she gets a buff, most likely. I highly doubt Corrin has much potential right now, she's so underwhelming.

 

[bc1910]

Jakal 3 - 2 Venia at Defend The North, early Top 64 winners. Two of the games were 3-stocks.

Ain't easy being frog.

This was painful to watch.

Jakal’s smart use of shield was really what allowed him to dismantle Venia’s neutral completely. It really highlighted Greninja’s weakness against shielding in general. It’s no wonder the character was stronger in early Ultimate where everyone was playing aggro, those aggro whiffs are exactly what the character wants. He is far less option rich against smart defensive play.

Venia as a player doesn’t grab much so Jakal felt no threat to his shield whatsoever. He really needs to incorporate grabbing into his game plan more. Greninja’s grab is bad, but it’s not so bad as to be unusable and it does have good range. I’d also note that Venia has said in a Xeno winners interview before that he would be more scared of fighting a good Wolf than any other top tier as he has very little Wolf MU experience.

Regardless, results are dropping off and Joker shares a lot of Greninja’s positive traits while also having Arsene, a normal grab and a better disadvantage state. Greninja is clearly a solid high tier but he’s looking more and more outclassed and less able to compete in the top tier meta. He has value as a counterpick character due to some great top tier MUs against Peach, Lucina and Palutena but again I’m struggling to think of any that he would strictly do better in than Joker.

EDIT: Another reason this was so heartbreaking is that the winner fights Samsora who is pretty much the best top player MU that Venia could have hoped for. The stage was set for a potential breakout performance for the frog here; that’s looking increasingly unlikely.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Jakal 3 - 2 Venia at Defend The North, early Top 64 winners. Two of the games were 3-stocks.

Ain't easy being frog.

It ain't easy, Odyssey also used against Light in game 5 and lost. Had he not switched to the frog...

Greninja low-tier confirmed!

Ehh every character gets unlucky sometimes. But yeah he is pretty good and a high-tier for sure. But its looking like the frog is falling a bit-short of being some Super amazing top-tier he was being hyped to be a while ago. Think of Shulk only not as meme-worthy and having some actual results to at least make his case valid

 

[Anomika]

These are the Orion stats. It doesn't necessarily mean they're not top tier, they just recently got more results. Give it some time, they might rise into the "top tiers" in a month or two, especially if they remain unaffected by the next patch

 

[SwagGuy99]

I highly doubt Corrin has much potential right now, she's so underwhelming.

She does have some things going for her, but she's basically the definition of a mid mid tier character.

• Her juggling is really good, especially against super-heavies.
• She has some combo potential against fast fallers.
• She has really disjointed and long range attacks.
• Pin is still really good.
• Her Up-Special has some invincibility (despite being easy to edgeguard before and after using up-b).

However, she has some major weaknesses that kind of balance out her strengths.

• She's not very fast in the air or on the ground.
• Her main KO options aren't very practical.
• She's easy to combo and juggle.

 

[Rizen]

Jakal’s smart use of shield was really what allowed him to dismantle Venia’s neutral completely. It really highlighted Greninja’s weakness against shielding in general. It’s no wonder the character was stronger in early Ultimate where everyone was playing aggro, those aggro whiffs are exactly what the character wants. He is far less option rich against smart defensive play.

Venia as a player doesn’t grab much so Jakal felt no threat to his shield whatsoever. He really needs to incorporate grabbing into his game plan more. Greninja’s grab is bad, but it’s not so bad as to be unusable and it does have good range. I’d also note that Venia has said in a Xeno winners interview before that he would be more scared of fighting a good Wolf than any other top tier as he has very little Wolf MU experience.

This is something I've been incorporating into my 's play style too, basing it off how T's Link played in SSB4. Slow grabs are definitely a con but with the 6 frames of input lag they're harder to react to than in previous titles. Certain characters condition opponents to shield so working in grabs, even slow ones, can be an effective strategy. It plays off the rock-paper-scissors dynamic in smash.

Good Wolfs are scary because their versatile enough to cover many options with strong punishes. DA and blaster are great mid range attacks, Dsmash is big and punishes hard, Fair is surprisingly disjointed with a wide arc. He also has a good jab and grab for quick pressure. Wolf's hard to shutdown and most of the time you're forced to make better choices or eat strong punishes.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

oh geez why would anyone think it would be a good idea to use Gannondorf as a counterpick vs ZSS ,epescailly vs Marss's ZSS

Smokk was doing somewhat ok game 1 and 2, but that last game was a massacare

 

[PK Gaming]

She does have some things going for her, but she's basically the definition of a mid mid tier character.

• Her juggling is really good, especially against super-heavies.
• She has some combo potential against fast fallers.
• She has really disjointed and long range attacks.
• Pin is still really good.
• Her Up-Special has some invincibility (despite being easy to edgeguard before and after using up-b).

However, she has some major weaknesses that kind of balance out her strengths.

• She's not very fast in the air or on the ground.
• Her main KO options aren't very practical.
• She's easy to combo and juggle.

You forgot the big one; her recovery is among the worst in the game

If Corrin is mid tier (and that's a big if, given how many "good" characters are in mid tier) she's at the very bottom of it

 

[KirbySquad101]

Can we ummmmm

NOT put that tweet in this thread, please.

Sorry about that.

In other news, ZD ended up 6-0 reversing Puppeh at a weekly

Granted there wasn't much stakes involved, but I felt like it was pretty noteworthy, giving Puppeh's caliber.

Some things to note of:

- It looks like strong hit NAir into DTilt seems to be the way to go in terms of Fox's combos at lower percents. Dash attack into UTilt doesn't put people in nearly enough hitstun to be reliable. Though, it Fox does get a good reward off of shielding the opponent's retaliation.

- Fox's reward off catching people in the air is still ridiculous; 3 UAir strings nets him an easy ~50% damage by itself. I think this where Puppeh fussed up most, when he started panic hopping with all the PKMN Trainer's Pokemon against Fox.

- Fox's recovery still isn't great, but angling Fire Fox to hug the ledge actually looks like a decent way to escape potential 2-framing spikes, kind of like how Olimar hugs the ledge with his Up B.

Overall, Fox is still experiencing somewhat of a downwards trend, but this should provide a glimmer of hope for those who think otherwise.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Sorry about that.

In other news, ZD ended up 6-0 reversing Puppeh at a weekly

Granted there wasn't much stakes involved, but I felt like it was pretty noteworthy, giving Puppeh's caliber.

Some things to note of:

- It looks like strong hit NAir into DTilt seems to be the way to go in terms of Fox's combos at lower percents. Dash attack into UTilt doesn't put people in nearly enough hitstun to be reliable. Though, it Fox does get a good reward off of shielding the opponent's retaliation.

- Fox's reward off catching people in the air is still ridiculous; 3 UAir strings nets him an easy ~50% damage by itself. I think this where Puppeh fussed up most, when he started panic hopping with all the PKMN Trainer's Pokemon against Fox.

- Fox's recovery still is great, but angling Fire Fox to hug the ledge actually looks like a decent way to escape potential 2-framing spikes, kind of like how Olimar hugs the ledge with his Up B.

Overall, Fox is still experiencing somewhat of a downwards trend, but this should provide a glimmer of hope for those who think otherwise.

In a more positive note for Fox, Light is still in the winner's bracket of DtN2019 and is moving on to top 16 winner's.

 

[Frihetsanka]

She does have some things going for her, but she's basically the definition of a mid mid tier character.

I disagree, I think she's more low-mid tier than mid-mid tier.

Her pin is not all that special now (maybe B-tier instead of S-tier), her recovery is really bad, and she still struggles to land, and killing is harder than in Smash 4. Oh, and Counter is no longer a good anti-projectile tool due to it being much, much laggier on-hit.

 

[SwagGuy99]

You forgot the big one; her recovery is among the worst in the game

If Corrin is mid tier (and that's a big if, given how many "good" characters are in mid tier) she's at the very bottom of it

I think her recovery isn't great, but not that bad if only because of the invincibility and the large hitbox. Outside of up-b though, she has no good options when offstage. I agree she is near the bottom of Mid Tier, because she has too many good things to put her into low tier, but not enough to put her any higher.

I disagree, I think she's more low-mid tier than mid-mid tier.

Her pin is not all that special now (maybe B-tier instead of S-tier), her recovery is really bad, and she still struggles to land, and killing is harder than in Smash 4. Oh, and Counter is no longer a good anti-projectile tool due to it being much, much laggier on-hit.

Oops, I meant low mid tier. Don't know why that's what I put seeing as that's where I have her in the tier list I made recently just arrange my opinions on some characters. Also, I forgot about counter because nobody ever uses it now but yeah, it's not that good.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Defend the North 2019 Top 16


Winner's
Marss vs LeoN
Light vs Wishes
Dabuz vs Sinji
Samsora vs Mr E


Loser's
Frozen vs Gen
ANTi vs (Winner of Venom vs Stocktaker69)
(Winner of Juice vs Jul) vs Laid
NickC vs LingLing

 

[Frihetsanka]

Smashboards: "Zero Suit Samus destroys all superheavies."
LeoN: "Hold my beer."

On a more serious note, I think matchups in this game generally aren't as loopsided as in 4. Bowser vs Zero Suit Samus doesn't seem that bad, she probably still wins the matchup though, but it might just be a slight win.

 

[Lacrimosa]

And LeoN won 3-1 vs. Marss.

 

[|RK|]

Smashboards: "Zero Suit Samus destroys all superheavies."
LeoN: "Hold my beer."

On a more serious note, I think matchups in this game generally aren't as loopsided as in 4. Bowser vs Zero Suit Samus doesn't seem that bad, she probably still wins the matchup though, but it might just be a slight win.

Bowser doesn't seem to have usual superheavy problems. He does fine vs Palu as well, by all accounts.

 

[NotLiquid]

Between Cosmos, Marss and Samsora (I know Samsora won, but 3-2 is by no means anything to scoff at), it's clear pros need to start investing in the Bowser MU. You can't use standard anti-superheavy tactics against him, if anything he's a walking reminder that players need to get good at defense.

 

[Rizen]

Sorry about that.

In other news, ZD ended up 6-0 reversing Puppeh at a weekly

Granted there wasn't much stakes involved, but I felt like it was pretty noteworthy, giving Puppeh's caliber.

Some things to note of:

- It looks like strong hit NAir into DTilt seems to be the way to go in terms of Fox's combos at lower percents. Dash attack into UTilt doesn't put people in nearly enough hitstun to be reliable. Though, it Fox does get a good reward off of shielding the opponent's retaliation.

- Fox's reward off catching people in the air is still ridiculous; 3 UAir strings nets him an easy ~50% damage by itself. I think this where Puppeh fussed up most, when he started panic hopping with all the PKMN Trainer's Pokemon against Fox.

- Fox's recovery still is great, but angling Fire Fox to hug the ledge actually looks like a decent way to escape potential 2-framing spikes, kind of like how Olimar hugs the ledge with his Up B.

Overall, Fox is still experiencing somewhat of a downwards trend, but this should provide a glimmer of hope for those who think otherwise.

Anyone who thinks Fox has trouble killing, even relative to top tiers, needs to watch this set. Several kills were vortex UAirs, he tech chased USmash, Fsmashed once, Fox's upB killed when Puppeh was trying to intercept it (it's probably better than Fire Wolf post nerf), several Bair kills, Usmash OoS and his BnB Nair>Usmash. The only thing Fox lacks is a kill throw. And saying Fox only kills with Usmash is like saying "what you're only serving steak oscar?!" Having a really good option does not make a character linear. They still have other good options it's just that one works in most situations. It's effective.

 

[Anomika]

doesn't lack the moves that can KO, but they can be kinda hard to land. I can only think of his bair sometimes being kinda unimpressive. I know Light might be exaggerating sometimes, but this clip made me "scratch my head". (Props to Samsora having a good DI and momentum cancels though)

https://twitter.com/Light_S21/status/1140404432997408774?s=19

 

[Rizen]

doesn't lack the moves that can KO, but they can be kinda hard to land. I can only think of his bair sometimes being kinda unimpressive. I know Light might be exaggerating sometimes, but this clip made me "scratch my head". (Props to Samsora having a good DI and momentum cancels though)

https://twitter.com/Light_S21/status/1140404432997408774?s=19

Here's Fox's Bair killing Ivy at 105% onstage.

 

[Anomika]

Hence the italic sometimes. It's great when the opponent is near the ledge so Fox needs to take the advantage of pushing the opponents offstage. Otherwise it's pretty average.

 

[Rizen]

Hence the italic sometimes. It's great when the opponent is near the ledge so Fox needs to take the advantage of pushing the opponents offstage. Otherwise it's pretty average.

I think the bigger takeaway from the twitter clip is don't take characters to Kalos if you plan to kill them off the side.

 

[NotLiquid]

I'm not really sure what that set is supposed to tell me about Fox's KO capability that we don't already know, especially when 70% of all the stocks ZD took were up smashes.

Yeah, up air can also kill. We knew that. None of that was anything in contention.

The FAir into BAir kill looked fake as hell considering Ivy was already out of hitstun by the time ZD went for it. I'm guessing Puppeh also DI'd away at that moment since he didn't anticipate it.

That tweet by Light is news to me though. As far as BAirs go it pretty much looks like most other character's BAirs; good edgeguard move that sometimes kills, so he's not really looking unique in that regard.

 

[Anomika]

I think it's just the Finishing Zoom that made Light tweet this. Had it not existed maybe he wouldn't have tweeted this. Fox is pretty fine except for his dair not always connecting properly.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well anyone who says or are not top-tier or are overrated I say nay. What can you say about characters can make top 16-8 in tournaments as consistently as they do.

I dunno I hear it all on Reddit mostly (and pro players)

 

[The_Bookworm]

Defend the North 2019 Top 8


Winner's
LeoN vs Light
Dabuz vs Samsora


Loser's
Marss vs Laid
Sinji vs Gen