Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Anomika]

Such an interesting top 8. No sight of or , but this diversity still looks good. being in top 8 means that there's another fighter we have to look out for. I think he'll keep getting better results, but if you ask me, that also makes me anxious.

 

[$.A.F.]

Such an interesting top 8. No sight of or , but this diversity still looks good. being in top 8 means that there's another fighter we have to look out for. I think he'll keep getting better results, but if you ask me, that also makes me anxious.

Why does Bowser getting results make you anxious?

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Its becoming clear what is making a step above of his other Superheavyweight peers is an actual legit good Oos option, actullay a good "Get off me" option period in Up-B and even Side-B . You can see how much LeoN used it to his advantage vs Marss and Light. Is seems like most people think that oh, Bowser is a superheavy, therefore he is free in disadvantage and therefore I can go absolutely HAM with my all my offensive options and tools. Nope Bowser can catch ya if you get to overzealous

 

[NotLiquid]

Leon 3 - 1 Light

Fox lives and dies on whether he's allowed to be aggressive. Just the way Bowser likes it.

 

[Nebunera]

i want bowser to be top tier but i can't see him above mid high

 

[NotLiquid]

Ho3K|Gen 3 - 2 Light

Gen snapped

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Ho3K|Gen 3 - 2 Light

Gen snapped

Gen is going on a pretty impressive run for sure . Beating Mr.E, Shinji and now Light

 

[SwagGuy99]

Its becoming clear what is making a step above of his other Superheavyweight peers is an actual legit good Oos option, actullay a good "Get off me" option period in Up-B and even Side-B . You can see how much LeoN used it to his advantage vs Marss and Light. Is seems like most people think that oh, Bowser is a superheavy, therefore he is free in disadvantage and therefore I can go absolutely HAM with my all my offensive options and tools. Nope Boser can catch ya if you get to overzealous

I kind of said something a bit similar in a post a little while ago, but yeah. With all of the superheavies, it's like, what they are good at, Bowser is better.

Dedede has good edgeguarding? Bowser has f-air.

Ganondorf can deal 30% with one of his smash attacks? Wow, Bowser can deal almost as much with his, and he has fire-breath which can deal much more than 40% if you hit it right.

Incineroar has a good command grab and back throw? All of Bowser's throws except back throw have more utility than Incineroar's (up throw combos, f-throw kills, b-throw kills, down-throw deals massive damage) and Bowser has more control over his command grab than Incineroar.

K. Rool has belly armor? Well, good thing Bowser has super-armor on all of his grounded moves, tough guy which allows him to tank attacks, and an up smash that gives Bowser's shell full invincibility while the hitbox is active.

DK has a good horizontal recovery? Bowser's is just as good and his recovery is much better vertically.

The doesn't apply to everything, but a lot of the other super-heavies rely very hard on one or two things that they can do because they have gaping holes in the rest of their moveset, and in most cases, Bowser can do better than they can at both what they are good at, and what they aren't good at.

Bowser could realistically be as good as the top of high tier in the future if players/characters can't find/don't have good ways to work around his strengths. An example I like to use is that Mario can deal 50 to 60% to Bowser off of a single hit. However, first Mario has to land a hit on Bowser, which is very hard due to his range on his attacks and even if Mario does deal 60% to Bowser, he still has room to take at least 80% more damage before dying because he's so heavy.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Bowser is decent in this game (potentially low high tier at best), but he still has significant flaws, mostly a bad disadvantage state. Samsora's Peach got him offstage at 70% and then just ledgetrapped him until he could edgeguard for a kill. Bowser really struggles to get off the ledge, which is a big, huge, problem. He's not going to break top 15 anytime soon, probably not top 20 either. Still better than in Smash 4, at least, and probably one of the best character for mid level players (who tend to not be nearly as good at ledgetrapping as top level players).

 

[KirbySquad101]

this fucking grab LMFAO pic.twitter.com/qRIj01b7KA

— WAH (@WAHUltimate) July 21, 2019

What exactly happened here? I guess an easy explanation is that "grabs suck lol", but based off of what yeti said, it might have something to do with Bowser's apparent weird hurtbox when landing.

 

[NotLiquid]

Well,

Maybe I don't have to feel so bad about that Cosmos set anymore

 

[Ziodyne 21]

and Leon adds another top 10 player on his list today.

Ahem.. DO. NOT. SLEEP. ON. BOWSER. BECASUE. HE. IS. SEEMS. LIKE. HE. IS. VERY. FLAWED

 

[Tri Knight]

Well Bowser being high tier was planned ever since he became the face of Nintendo.

and Leon adds another top 10 player on his list today

DO NOT. SLEEP. ON. BOWSER. BECASUE. HE. IS. A .SUPERHEAVY!!!

Which once again is a remnant mindset of the past. Just because a character is heavy doesnt mean he lacks in potential. People see heavyweights and say "yeah, combo food whatever." Now look, we're talking about Bowser, the heaviest character in the game, being possibly a high tier AND playing in a top tier environment.

He might have lost the set against Peach but I think this is a great example of THE superheavy with untapped potential. Leon put some damn fine work in.

 

[NotLiquid]

Feeling kinda vindicated about earlier suppositions. Samsora clearly studied the Bowser MU after their last encounter. He's got the advantage of being the only top player to have met Leon in bracket multiple times between tournaments, and while he did clutch it the first time they fought, it was pretty clear he was more prepared this time around and took heed of all the things that Bowser struggles with in the Peach MU. He is extremely vulnerable off-stage, he has ledge problems, and he has both trouble with landing and being combo fodder.

That's probably going to be a trend going forward. Bowser may be the best superheavy around, but realistically, every character Leon's plowed through (Marss' ZSS, Cosmos' Inkling, Dabuz's Olimar) have a whole lot of tools that can make mince meat of Bowser's disadvantage state in a flash, while still going blow for blow with his deceptively strong neutral game. I wouldn't be surprised if any of those players were more ready to take him on next time.

In the meantime, that was an extremely good performance from Leon, and Bowser is still as entertaining as ever.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Defend the North 2019

1st: Samsora
2nd: LeoN
3rd: Dabuz
4th: Gen
5th: Light
5th: Marss
7th: Sinji
7th: Laid
9th: Mr E
9th: Stocktaker69
9th: LingLing
9th: Wishes
13th: ANTi
13th: Juuuuul
13th: NickC
13th: Frozen


LeoN was taring up the bracket, taking names off of Marss, Light, and Dabuz.
Getting this high with solo Bowser, even if this isn't the biggest of events, is only something SSB4 Bowser (or any iteration of Bowser) can only dream of reaching.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Bowser is decent in this game (potentially low high tier at best), but he still has significant flaws, mostly a bad disadvantage state. Samsora's Peach got him offstage at 70% and then just ledgetrapped him until he could edgeguard for a kill. Bowser really struggles to get off the ledge, which is a big, huge, problem. He's not going to break top 15 anytime soon, probably not top 20 either.

I disagree with Bowser being low high tier because he's had good enough results and he has too many good things about him to put him there. I personally see him as a mid high tier who struggles against most of the characters above him (with a few exceptions) but does very well against most of the characters below him (with one or two exceptions). I do agree with him being outside of Top 20 at the moment, although, that could change with time.

Edit: I don't think his disadvantage is as bad as people make it out to be due to his high fall speed, but I do agree with people saying he has trouble getting off the ledge. That's probably his biggest weakness at the moment.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I disagree with Bowser being low high tier because he's had good enough results and he has too many good things about him to put him there.

I do agree with him being outside of Top 20 at the moment, although, that could change with time.

I think low-high tier is something like 18-23 or so, after that you get into high-mid tier.

 

[Impax]

Kind of cool to see 2 wiifits place even if used as secondaries. Suprised John numbers used wiifit

 

[The_Bookworm]

this fucking grab LMFAO pic.twitter.com/qRIj01b7KA

— WAH (@WAHUltimate) July 21, 2019

What exactly happened here? I guess an easy explanation is that "grabs suck lol", but based off of what yeti said, it might have something to do with Bowser's apparent weird hurtbox when landing.

I found out the reason why this happened:

During the shield animation Bowser also shifts his hurtbox on frame 2 & has arm intangibility from frames 3-5. This can sometimes cause grabs to whiff in his face #SSBU_BOWSER https://t.co/hoPWlLvfaa pic.twitter.com/Kds0gXUPlQ

— #1 Sora Hater 🍑 (@FRKSCHEEKS) June 22, 2019

This is some... interesting character design.

 

[meleebrawler]

I kind of said something a bit similar in a post a little while ago, but yeah. With all of the superheavies, it's like, what they are good at, Bowser is better.

Dedede has good edgeguarding? Bowser has f-air.

Ganondorf can deal 30% with one of his smash attacks? Wow, Bowser can deal almost as much with his, and he has fire-breath which can deal much more than 40% if you hit it right.

Incineroar has a good command grab and back throw? All of Bowser's throws except back throw have more utility than Incineroar's (up throw combos, f-throw kills, b-throw kills, down-throw deals massive damage) and Bowser has more control over his command grab than Incineroar.

K. Rool has belly armor? Well, good thing Bowser has super-armor on all of his grounded moves, tough guy which allows him to tank attacks, and an up smash that gives Bowser's shell full invincibility while the hitbox is active.

DK has a good horizontal recovery? Bowser's is just as good and his recovery is much better vertically.

The doesn't apply to everything, but a lot of the other super-heavies rely very hard on one or two things that they can do because they have gaping holes in the rest of their moveset, and in most cases, Bowser can do better than they can at both what they are good at, and what they aren't good at.

Bowser could realistically be as good as the top of high tier in the future if players/characters can't find/don't have good ways to work around his strengths. An example I like to use is that Mario can deal 50 to 60% to Bowser off of a single hit. However, first Mario has to land a hit on Bowser, which is very hard due to his range on his attacks and even if Mario does deal 60% to Bowser, he still has room to take at least 80% more damage before dying because he's so heavy.

These are weird things to compare, and hardly what I'd call defining features for a lot of them.

Dedede's (l)edgeguarding is good because he can cover several options with gordo with relatively minimal risk or commitment, not because of his fair. His disadvantage can also be relatively tricky to take advantage of with his multiple jumps and extremely quick fastfall.

Ganondorf deals huge damage with all of his attacks, not just his smashes, and has a burst option in Wizard's Foot that can plow through more than just pellets.

Incineroar's back throw deals just as much damage as Bowser's dthrow and he has a killing vertical throw so staling it isn't the end of the world when dthrow combos stop working. Besides, his real trump card in Revenge makes camping him less straightforward than it is with Bowser, and Darkest Lariat can be even an even more potent defensive move than fortress with it's invulnerability and shield-breaking potential, even if it's riskier.

You don't play DK for his horizontal recovery, you play him because his greater ability to start combos off anything and cargo throws that put opponents in whatever position you want them to be.

Belly armour is just one part of K. Rool's kit, the options of which give him the luxury of choosing whether to adopt a closer or longer-ranged game based on the situation.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

These are weird things to compare, and hardly what I'd call defining features for a lot of them.

Dedede's (l)edgeguarding is good because he can cover several options with gordo with relatively minimal risk or commitment, not because of his fair. His disadvantage can also be relatively tricky to take advantage of with his multiple jumps and extremely quick fastfall.

Ganondorf deals huge damage with all of his attacks, not just his smashes, and has a burst option in Wizard's Foot that can plow through more than just pellets.

Incineroar's back throw deals just as much damage as Bowser's dthrow and he has a killing vertical throw so staling it isn't the end of the world when dthrow combos stop working. Besides, his real trump card in Revenge makes camping him less straightforward than it is with Bowser, and Darkest Lariat can be even an even more potent defensive move than fortress with it's invulnerability and shield-breaking potential, even if it's riskier.

You don't play DK for his horizontal recovery, you play him because his greater ability to start combos off anything and cargo throws that put opponents in whatever position you want them to be.

Belly armour is just one part of K. Rool's kit, the options of which give him the luxury of choosing whether to adopt a closer or longer-ranged game based on the situation.

And yet Bowser is outpreforming all of them as far as results go. Bowser may not have D3's ledgetrapping and recovery, Gannons sheer raw power. Inceroars Revenge DK's grab reward or K.Rools ummmmm...ummmmmmmmmmmmmm

But he looks like he is the most overall solid of them all, and can cover the typical pitfalls and weakness that come with being a Superheavy just a bit better than the rest can, most of the time at least

 

[Goodstyle_4]

I feel like Bowser is an extremely powerful character that can win most match ups, but has a handful of truly untenable matchups that hold him back a lot.

 

[PK Gaming]

Anyone who's had the misfortune of fighting a good bowser on quickplay or at a local can attest to his absurdity

Not saying he's necessarily a top-class character, but... he can be a difficult character to fight.

 

[ZephyrZ]

And yet Bowser is outpreforming all of them as far as results go. Bowser may not have D3's ledgetrapping and recovery, Gannons sheer raw power. Inceroars Revenge DK's grab reward or K.Rools ummmmm...ummmmmmmmmmmmmm

But he looks like he is the most overall solid of them all, and can cover the typical pitfalls and weakness that come with being a Superheavy just a bit better than the rest can, most of the time at least

That doesn't mean that was a good comparison. Bowser may be the same general archetype but being the best of an archetype doesn't mean he's superior to all the others in literally every way, or that they don't have niches over him.

Superheavies all have similarities, such as good grappling and punishing overly impatient players hard, but if play them you'll notice they all have different strengths, weaknesses and general feel in other areas as well.

...Also K.Rool has his crownerang and arguably the second best overall survivability in the game (only after DDD imo) so while he is a contender for weakest superheavy he still has a couple things going for him.

 

[|RK|]

Feeling kinda vindicated about earlier suppositions. Samsora clearly studied the Bowser MU after their last encounter. He's got the advantage of being the only top player to have met Leon in bracket multiple times between tournaments, and while he did clutch it the first time they fought, it was pretty clear he was more prepared this time around and took heed of all the things that Bowser struggles with in the Peach MU. He is extremely vulnerable off-stage, he has ledge problems, and he has both trouble with landing and being combo fodder.

That's probably going to be a trend going forward. Bowser may be the best superheavy around, but realistically, every character Leon's plowed through (Marss' ZSS, Cosmos' Inkling, Dabuz's Olimar) have a whole lot of tools that can make mince meat of Bowser's disadvantage state in a flash, while still going blow for blow with his deceptively strong neutral game. I wouldn't be surprised if any of those players were more ready to take him on next time.

In the meantime, that was an extremely good performance from Leon, and Bowser is still as entertaining as ever.

How can we determine this isn't player-based?

Beyond that, Peach is notorious for having some of the best ledge trapping in the whole game.

 

[Rizen]

Nice to see still has it, 5th at Defend the North.

This has been a good few weeks for considering he has no top 100 player rep since Tweek hasn't been using him.
Big Win Championship 2 (164 entrants) (Bentley, Australia)
1st: Jdizzle
Albion 4 (895 entrants) (London, UK)
9. Supahsemmie
The Pinnacle 2019 (188 Entrants) (British Columbia)
9th: Alphicans
Freaks Ultra #76 (110 entrants) (Denton, Texas)
2. NEB | Skittles
Class Change Archer
101 entrants
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/452279819
https://smash.gg/tournament/class-change-archer/events/singles/standings
7th. Colinies
Low Tier City 7 (695 entrants) (Texas)
25. SKITTLES!!
2GG: Breakthrough 2019 (560 entrants) (SoCal)
25. Reikken
BURST #4 (160 entrants) (Bégles, France)
https://smash.gg/tournament/burst-4/events/burst-4-ultimate-singles/brackets/598051/993503
5. NeS | Oryon
Paradigm Shift (208 entrants) (Davenport, Iowa)
9th: SKITTLES!!

 

[KirbySquad101]

The thing that interested the most about Paradigm Shift is that despite the claims about Mega Man being a rough matchup for Snake, Salem 3-0'd yeti in a pretty convincing fashion at Winner's Finals, all things considered. Now this isn't to say that people are wrong about it, or that player experience wasn't a factor, but based on what I've seen, yeti seemed to have a really hard time closing out stocks to catch up to Salem; once he had a lead, all he had to was start creating a barrier of grenades and C4s; without a lack of approach from Snake, it looked like Mega Man couldn't really get the kill, unless he managed to clip him conveniently with a Metal Blade.

That aside, it was a pretty good day for the jumpman as Dark Wizzy placed 2nd at Paradigm Shift after defeating both yeti and Myran in losers (on a side note, Myran performed much better than he normally has lately); that said, DW kind of ended up getting bodied by Salem in Grand Finals, but tbh, he and Salem look so lax when fighting each other, I'm not even sure if they were taking it super seriously or not lol.

EDIT: Also, we finally get to see some more spicy reflection tech in action against Olimar:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Lacrimosa]

The thing that interested the most about Paradigm Shift is that despite the claims about Mega Man being a rough matchup for Snake, Salem 3-0'd yeti in a pretty convincing fashion at Winner's Finals, all things considered. Now this isn't to say that people are wrong about it, or that player experience wasn't a factor, but based on what I've seen, yeti seemed to have a really hard time closing out stocks to catch up to Salem; once he had a lead, all he had to was start creating a barrier of grenades and C4s; without a lack of approach from Snake, it looked like Mega Man couldn't really get the kill, unless he managed to clip him conveniently with a Metal Blade.

That aside, it was a pretty good day for the jumpman as Dark Wizzy placed 2nd at Paradigm Shift after defeating both yeti and Myran in losers (on a side note, Myran performed much better than he normally has lately); that said, DW kind of ended up getting bodied by Salem in Grand Finals, but tbh, he and Salem look so lax when fighting each other, I'm not even sure if they were taking it super seriously or not lol.

EDIT: Also, we finally get to see some more spicy reflection tech in action against Olimar:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Glad to see that they start using reflectors against Olimar. I always wondered why Fox players or any other reflector player don't use them.
It's not part of the gameplan against most other characters but against Olimar it's truly a blessing.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Incineroar has a good command grab and back throw? All of Bowser's throws except back throw have more utility than Incineroar's (up throw combos, f-throw kills, b-throw kills, down-throw deals massive damage) and Bowser has more control over his command grab than Incineroar.

Not that I think Incineroar is anywhere close to being as good as Bowser, but it's not because his grab game is worse. He has everything you listed here, on top of a uthrow that kills.

 

[B_Burg]

The thing that interested the most about Paradigm Shift is that despite the claims about Mega Man being a rough matchup for Snake, Salem 3-0'd yeti in a pretty convincing fashion at Winner's Finals, all things considered. Now this isn't to say that people are wrong about it, or that player experience wasn't a factor, but based on what I've seen, yeti seemed to have a really hard time closing out stocks to catch up to Salem; once he had a lead, all he had to was start creating a barrier of grenades and C4s; without a lack of approach from Snake, it looked like Mega Man couldn't really get the kill, unless he managed to clip him conveniently with a Metal Blade.

That aside, it was a pretty good day for the jumpman as Dark Wizzy placed 2nd at Paradigm Shift after defeating both yeti and Myran in losers (on a side note, Myran performed much better than he normally has lately); that said, DW kind of ended up getting bodied by Salem in Grand Finals, but tbh, he and Salem look so lax when fighting each other, I'm not even sure if they were taking it super seriously or not lol.

EDIT: Also, we finally get to see some more spicy reflection tech in action against Olimar:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Yes, Mega Man struggles to KO in general having only on real reliable set up with metal blade makes it easy to see coming so it's always going to be a lot of work to actually land, especially against a heavy character like Snake.

I feel like a lot of matchups people talk about with involve a lot of theory without much evidence or many examples, whether he wins or loses them, because he's such a unique character who isn't really a common pick outside of a select few high level players. The Snake matchup being a prime example.

In theory Mega should give Snake trouble, and has in the past, but I'm not convinced that it was due to the character's strengths and not just a lack of matchup knowledge on the Snake players part. That's not to say it's necessarily a winning matchup for Snake either, mind, I just don't think it's as convincing of a win for Megaman as people might have thought.

It's a concern I still have for Megaman going forward. Watching top level Megaman players is a blast for me, seeing the way they move and place their attacks can get pretty wild, but to play the character at a top level, or even particularly well requires a lot of work throughout every single match no matter the opponent, to the point where I wonder how many good matchups he actually has.

I'll try to keep from ranting about that too much for now though without a little more proof the character is struggling. For now I suppose I should be happy a lot of the people from Smash 4 who played him didn't drop him for this game and that the character still has pretty good tournament representation, even if it's from a select few players.

 

[blackghost]

I refuse to overreact to one placing of bowser and call him low high tier or something. from the matches, i watched this was people being unfamiliar with leon the player in combination with bowser the character. there is a difference.

Leon like mars, lima,dabuz and fatality have a distinct playstyle that will catch you offgaurd if you are unfamiliar. In Leon's case he will throw out high commital moves in disadvantage becuase he knows in most cases his reward outweighs his risk because with bowser weight he wont die. I saw an assortment of bairs, dairs, and bowser bombs form leon in very unexpected laces and plenty of these landed (particularly in the mars set).

As for bowser himself the matches i saw were people trying to play bowser upclose and rely on frame datat to drown him. its bowser stay away from him. You dont want to be close and dont overextend, it will hurt. Alot. Leon is a great player but bowser is not a low high tier, but you dont have to be a low high tier to win in this game.

 

[|RK|]

I refuse to overreact to one placing of bowser and call him low high tier or something. from the matches, i watched this was people being unfamiliar with leon the player in combination with bowser the character. there is a difference.

Leon like mars, lima,dabuz and fatality have a distinct playstyle that will catch you offgaurd if you are unfamiliar. In Leon's case he will throw out high commital moves in disadvantage becuase he knows in most cases his reward outweighs his risk because with bowser weight he wont die. I saw an assortment of bairs, dairs, and bowser bombs form leon in very unexpected laces and plenty of these landed (particularly in the mars set).

As for bowser himself the matches i saw were people trying to play bowser upclose and rely on frame datat to drown him. its bowser stay away from him. You dont want to be close and dont overextend, it will hurt. Alot. Leon is a great player but bowser is not a low high tier, but you dont have to be a low high tier to win in this game.

It's not one placing, though. He also got 9th at SnS, and has wins over Nairo, Dabuz, Samsora, Cosmos, Light, and Marss.

Some of the chars we call high tier don't have that kind of record. Also, a lot of "just do x" doesn't work in practice a lot of the time. Which is where S4 Ryu made his money.

 

[$.A.F.]

I refuse to overreact to one placing of bowser and call him low high tier or something. from the matches, i watched this was people being unfamiliar with leon the player in combination with bowser the character. there is a difference.

Leon like mars, lima,dabuz and fatality have a distinct playstyle that will catch you offgaurd if you are unfamiliar. In Leon's case he will throw out high commital moves in disadvantage becuase he knows in most cases his reward outweighs his risk because with bowser weight he wont die. I saw an assortment of bairs, dairs, and bowser bombs form leon in very unexpected laces and plenty of these landed (particularly in the mars set).

As for bowser himself the matches i saw were people trying to play bowser upclose and rely on frame datat to drown him. its bowser stay away from him. You dont want to be close and dont overextend, it will hurt. Alot. Leon is a great player but bowser is not a low high tier, but you dont have to be a low high tier to win in this game.

Bowser definitely has the tools of a high tier. Surprisingly good speed, broken neutral b, actual results, great kill power, good edge guarding, immunity to jab, an instant shield breaker move, an amazing OoS up b, decent recovery, amazing two framing, amazing down smash, a bunch of passive armor on moves etc.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I refuse to overreact to one placing of bowser and call him low high tier or something. from the matches, i watched this was people being unfamiliar with leon the player in combination with bowser the character. there is a difference.

Leon like mars, lima,dabuz and fatality have a distinct playstyle that will catch you offgaurd if you are unfamiliar. In Leon's case he will throw out high commital moves in disadvantage becuase he knows in most cases his reward outweighs his risk because with bowser weight he wont die. I saw an assortment of bairs, dairs, and bowser bombs form leon in very unexpected laces and plenty of these landed (particularly in the mars set).

As for bowser himself the matches i saw were people trying to play bowser upclose and rely on frame datat to drown him. its bowser stay away from him. You dont want to be close and dont overextend, it will hurt. Alot. Leon is a great player but bowser is not a low high tier, but you dont have to be a low high tier to win in this game.

So basically, they weren't respecting Bowser's tools and options?

 

[blackghost]

It's not one placing, though. He also got 9th at SnS, and has wins over Nairo, Dabuz, Samsora, Cosmos, Light, and Marss.

Some of the chars we call high tier don't have that kind of record. Also, a lot of "just do x" doesn't work in practice a lot of the time. Which is where S4 Ryu made his money.

what high tiers dont have multiple 9th placings? Also where are the other bowsers? in case i missed them.
also what do all those players listed except dabuz have in common? they are all hyper aggressive and every one of them play lightweight not even middle weight characters.
also just do x and failing to do so is called not playing the mu correctly. often i see people excuse top players for not knowing nor executing a plan properly. My background in other fighting games makes me less forgiving. When leon ran into someone that understood how to safely keep bowser in disadvantage without making consistent mistakes that was in gf and samsora had it under control.
i'm not dismissing leon as a player but im not ignoring this reaction reminds me of people reacting to ganon. bowser is viable high mid-tier but he's not playing in the same tier as zss, palutena, and others.

 

[Lacrimosa]

what high tiers dont have multiple 9th placings? Also where are the other bowsers? in case i missed them.
also what do all those players listed except dabuz have in common? they are all hyper aggressive and every one of them play lightweight not even middle weight characters.
also just do x and failing to do so is called not playing the mu correctly. often i see people excuse top players for not knowing nor executing a plan properly. My background in other fighting games makes me less forgiving. When leon ran into someone that understood how to safely keep bowser in disadvantage without making consistent mistakes that was in gf and samsora had it under control.
i'm not dismissing leon as a player but im not ignoring this reaction reminds me of people reacting to ganon. bowser is viable high mid-tier but he's not playing in the same tier as zss, palutena, and others.

You really don't place that high when you aren't a good player and don't play a good characters. Leo playing Mac would surely get him to Top 32 but after that it becomes really hard.
Bowser and LeoN have shown that he's a player to reckon with and that the character is truly dangerous. Like, he lives super long and builds up a good amount of rage, unless you get a lucky gimp. His recovery is way better than most people seem to think. At first glance, it's similar to DK's but he has much more vertical range in his upB. UpB is also a really good OoS option.
Anyway, having upB out of the way, don't you think that top players have started to look out for a counterstrategy versus Bowser? Of course they have but here the real fun begins: LeoN is also getting better with Bowser and I'm sure he knows the flaws about the character and he seems to be able to work around it quite well. Just like Elegant is able to get around 's weakness. Yes, the weaknesses are there but pro-players usually have something in mind when they play a character and try to work around these flaws.
I don't say these characters don't have these flaws but they have the tools to work around these. I think Luigi and Bowser are very good examples for this.

And yes, they only have one player, but so does , or when the seeding at EVO is anything to go by. I don't think that's a very compelling argument. If a characters has a good player repping them and they do well with them, then it's much more than just character loyalty. There you can look at the only Zelda main who's in Top 100 seeding at EVO. A character loyalist since Brawl but does actually well in Ultimate. At that level of play you don't get that high up with only skill alone but your character has to do something right even if you're the only person doing well.

Long story short: is a real beast who can get in your face when you aren't careful but even then he has good tools to work around his flaws and I don't think LeoN will fall ahort anytime soon because he's adapting to counterplay versus Bowser as well.

 

[KirbySquad101]

LeoN is definitely a strong player, and has a really good future going for him. It's clear that sleeping against Bowser is more often than not, gonna end up having you massacred.


That said, I'm not sure if I'm completely sold on Bowser being a high tier character yet; LeoN has been doing really well lately, but Bowser's noteworthy performances have really only been at 2 (3 if you count Come to Papa) tournaments lately; compared to the placements high tier threats like and have, or even compared to what's considered to be mid tier threats like or and what they currently have under their belt tournament-wise, I'm not sure if that's enough. If LeoN does continue this trend however, I can definitely see Bowser rapidly moving up along the ranks.


I do find it a little odd that when Elegant and Raito made similar noteworthy placements (4th at Low Tier City 7 and 3rd at Albion 4 respectively), people seemed more inclined to talk about 's and 's weaknesses rather than their successes, especially the former. Could be that I might've missed something though.

 

[Lacrimosa]

people seemed more inclined to talk about 's and 's weaknesses rather than their successes, especially the former. Could be that I might've missed something though.

I guess that's rather common. You have a few characters the top of the top-players play and they focus mostly on one character. And other characters are left behind and because there isn't that much exposure at the beginning they aren't really accepted as high- or top-tiers that easy anymore.
Who knows where Palu would be if Nairo didn't pick her up but instead, dunno, Lucina. Because she has a good nAir string but can struggle to get the kill when characters are out of combo percentage. There's also a flaw but because of Nairo it's not really a topic to talk about. Top players can actually/usually carry their character and it's most often not the other way round unless you are .

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

Wasn't it plus on shield or at least actually safe? That's a ridiculously good thing to have. She had dtilt to compensate for how slow it was, which is much worse now afaik.

As someone who primarily play Peach and dabbled with Zelda, her D-tilt is one of the most atrocious things I have ever seen. It's like a night and day difference. The one thing I hope they buff about Zelda is actually making D-tilt a move because that move has next to no reward on hit and it was one of her best moves in Smash 4.

 

[Rizen]

Who knows where Palu would be if Nairo didn't pick her up but instead, dunno, Lucina. Because she has a good nAir string but can struggle to get the kill when characters are out of combo percentage. There's also a flaw but because of Nairo it's not really a topic to talk about. Top players can actually/usually carry their character and it's most often not the other way round unless you are .

Palu would be fine; if you look at the results thread there are Palu faces everywhere:
Defend the North 2019 (437 entrants) (New York)


4. Gen |

13. Frozen

25. Phantom

25. Ice