Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[SwagGuy99]

I thought a lot of people thought that Lucas was mid tier and that Ness was better. I don’t know that much about Lucas but I’m just wondering where high tier status comes from.

Lucas has a lot of good things about him, and while Ness is better, it doesn't mean Lucas is low tier or anything.

• Best directional air dodge in the game (tied with Ness).
• Decent recovery in general due to PK Thunder 2's far travel distance, having a z-air, and having the best directional air dodge. Having this many options allows for lots of recovery mixups.
• Lucas's z-air is fast for a tether grab and he has 3 kill throws.
• Lucas has decent kill power with his smash attacks, sweetspotted f-air, PK Thunder 2, and his 3 kill throws.
• Lucas has decent range for a character who lacks a sword, with many of his attacks such as up-smash, down-smash, f-air, b-air, up-tilt, f-tilt, and d-air having large PSI hitboxes.
• Lucas's combo potential was nerfed from Smash 4, but his combo potential is still decent with many attacks stringing together very well.
• PK Fire LOL.
• Lucas has his down-b which is a good counter to characters with energy based projectiles like Snake, Robin, and others.
• Lucas has very good edgeguarding. His edgeguarding is probably his best strength with all of his aerials and PK Fire being strong edgeguarding options.
• Lucas has above average air speed and air acceleration.

Lucas does have weaknesses, but none of them (to me anyways) seem to significantly limit his strengths (like DK's trouble landing does for him).

• Lucas gets outranged by characters with swords or long ranged attacks. PK Fire can help alleviate that a bit, but it's still an issue.
• Lucas doesn't deal with physical projectiles as well as energy based ones.
• Lucas has a below average dash speed and initial dash.
• Lucas's recovery becomes somewhat vulnerable during PK Thunder 2's startup.
• Lucas lacks any real kill confirms since down-throw was nerfed from Smash 4.
• Lucas's hitboxs on his non PSI attacks are really bad (fortunately, most of his better attacks do use PSI) with up-air's hitbox being hilariously bad.

Lucas's weaknesses don't seem limiting enough for me to put him any lower than high mid tier and I would never even think about putting him in low tier unless all of his best moves were to get some major nerfs.

 

[Nebunera]

Speaking of Lucas, I don't even know why this is a hot take that is top 15, which means he is top tier. This character's kit is godlike.

 

[blackghost]

Speaking of Lucas, I don't even know why this is a hot take that is top 15, which means he is top tier. This character's kit is godlike.

wait you have top tier as 15 characters??? that's massive.

 

[Minordeth]

I’m... kind of tired of Pika (and Pichu, to an extent) being the default “hardest MU” for a lot of characters.

Pika is rare. He’s also got great buttons. That combo tends to inflate how difficult he is to fight against, and how good he actually is. It doesn’t help that ESAM wasted no time at all in breathlessly propping up Pika as the best character in the game.

When ZeRo retired, Diddy was still a top tier character with top tier results in Smash to back him up, even if his results predictably dropped.

How would Pika realistically be viewed if ESAM wasn’t such a powerful community voice? How would Pika be viewed if ESAM wasn’t also such a phenom?

Maybe, Pika would be viewed as another rare, high tier character that needed to be worked out as just another MU, rather than “omg so small! so good! [insert your main here] has such a hard time! Quick attack is so broken!”

Disclaimer: I do say this as a guy who mains Falco, for whom Pika actually isn’t a great MU.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Now that Minordeth mentions it, something else similar that's been bothering me is that I've often been seeing the reverse of this, namely with . Kirby's not a good character, but citing the primary reason he loses a certain match-up is because "lol does Kirby beat anyone in this game?" (looking at you, Samsora's Peach Match-Up Video) isn't helpful and actually doesn't say anything about the match-up or Kirby's viability for that matter.

I believe Palutena has been demoted to a secondary for Abadango. He primarily uses Inkling these days in most of his tournament sets and his secondaries tend to heavily rotate between Wario, MK and Palutena.

Ah yeah, based off of the Smash Wiki, it looks like Abadango mains Inkling mostly and switches between MK, Wario, and Palutena.

Hopefully he manages to stick with Inkling mostly, Abadango as a whole sort of screams "character crisis" to me, but it does look like he's finally found his footing for the most part.

 

[SwagGuy99]

How would Pika realistically be viewed if ESAM wasn’t such a powerful community voice? How would Pika be viewed if ESAM wasn’t also such a phenom?

Maybe, Pika would be viewed as another rare, high tier character that needed to be worked out as just another MU, rather than “omg so small! so good! [insert your main here] has such a hard time! Quick attack is so broken!”

Disclaimer: I do say this as a guy who mains Falco, for whom Pika actually isn’t a great MU.

Interesting question. Some characters have enough obvious good tools that are clearly effective against the other really good characters can be considered a Top Tier like Smash 4 Ryu even if they don't have the results of the rest of the Top Tier characters (not saying that his results were bad, but they weren't nearly as good as the Top Tiers and High High Tiers of Smash 4).

However, on the other end of the spectrum, Pikachu was generally considered to have a very good matchup spread (possibly one equivalent to a Top Tier) by most people and while he wasn't the absolute worst matchup for a lot of characters, he was still very good against the large majority of the cast. However, Pikachu wasn't nearly as common during most of Smash 4's lifespan as he currently is in Ultimate, and if I had to guess, a lot of people didn't know nearly as much about him in that game because of that.

 

[Deleted member]

Now that Minordeth mentions it, something else similar that's been bothering me is that I've often been seeing the reverse of this, namely with . Kirby's not a good character, but citing the primary reason he loses a certain match-up is because "lol does Kirby beat anyone in this game?" (looking at you, Samsora's Peach Match-Up Video) isn't helpful and actually doesn't say anything about the match-up or Kirby's viability for that matter.



Ah yeah, based off of the Smash Wiki, it looks like Abadango mains Inkling mostly and switches between MK, Wario, and Palutena.

Hopefully he manages to stick with Inkling mostly, Abadango as a whole sort of screams "character crisis" to me, but it does look like he's finally found his footing for the most part.

I think people just let the stigma from allow them to form very negative opinions on him. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, and even Twitch Streams are filled with suggestions to buff his air speed. It’s unusual on how nobody cares about ; they have lower air speeds yet nobody really says anything about that. If you ask someone about specific things to buff, THIS will be all over the place. Nobody seems to prioritize his archetype on how his gameplan generally follows the second the game starts.

 

[|RK|]

I think people just let the stigma from allow them to form very negative opinions on him. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit, and even Twitch Streams are filled with suggestions to buff his air speed. It’s unusual on how nobody cares about ; they have lower air speeds yet nobody really says anything about that. If you ask someone about specific things to buff, THIS will be all over the place. Nobody seems to prioritize his archetype on how his gameplan generally follows the second the game starts.

Thannnkkk you

Do they think Luigi should have faster airspeed too? *shivers*

 

[Minordeth]

Thannnkkk you

Do they think Luigi should have faster airspeed too? *shivers*

Sure... on the condition they give Wolf’s airspeed to Falco

 

[Thinkaman]

First off, a kitten dies every time someone compares Ness and Lucas arbitrarily.

Second, Ganon has high horizontal jumping acceleration + is Ganon, while ICs have various types of range--it's okay for them to have crappy speed. What's Kirby gonna do, shake his bair at you? I'm not saying we should take to the streets calling for buffs (much less this specific one), but this is a bad comparison. (Whereas Luigi is a great comparison)

Third, I was playing Sheik today and felt really underwhelmed. No matter how much damage I took, I never got Arsene? Character will probably remain overlooked until this bug is fixed.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Numbers 31-40 is here:

PGRU Season 1 (Will update as it continues)

31: Dark Wizzy
32: CaptainZack()
33: Ryuga
34: yeti()
35: LeoN
36: Mr.R()
37: Prodigy
38: Mr E()
39: Goblin
40: Abadango()

Spoiler: Numbers 41-A51

41: ScAtt
42: Umeki
43: The Great Gonzales()
44: Tsu()
45: Nietono
46: Frozen()
47: T()
48: Fatality
49: Suarez
50: Captain L()
A51: ZD()
A51: Sonido
A51: SDX
A51: Gen()
A51: 8BitMan

 

[Lacrimosa]

Looks like all the people repping one "mid-tier" character didn't make it. Probably because Elegant, Maister and Ven didn't do all that well at the beginning of Ultimate. Not sure about Maister, though. He has some questionable placings, though.
Unless one of them gets a sneaky 30th placing but I really doubt that. Maybe this PGR season, although Ven will probably go to even less tournaments this time.

However, it seems FOW is going to more tournaments this time. Also good :3.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Looks like all the people repping one "mid-tier" character didn't make it. Probably because Elegant, Maister and Ven didn't do all that well at the beginning of Ultimate. Not sure about Maister, though. He has some questionable placings, though.
Unless one of them gets a sneaky 30th placing but I really doubt that. Maybe this PGR season, although Ven will probably go to even less tournaments this time.

However, it seems FOW is going to more tournaments this time. Also good :3.

Well that is if you count Bowser as a "high-mid tier" than there is LeoN sitting at #35

 

[Lacrimosa]

Well that is if you count Bowser as a "high-mid tier" than there is LeoN sitting at #35

I don't know. Isn't the majority considering Bowser a solid high-tier?
I know there was a discussion here some days ago but to me the consensus was more "Bowser is high-tier instead of mid-tier".

 

[NotLiquid]

The jury's out on Bowser until several of these players either rematch Leon or start showing whether or not they are more cognizant of the MU. Whether we want to admit it or not, Leon has a huge advantage right now against most players - including top pros - due to a lot of inexperience. He isn't playing a conventional character, nor does he play him per a conventional superheavy approach. Again, I'll point to Samsora as the prime example; despite the bad MU, Leon had no trouble taking him to game five in their first encounter and succeed in three stocking him. In their subsequent rematches it wasn't even a contest; Samsora only got better and sent him back home in a bodybag.

I think Bowser is very good but it remains to be seen how much of a "high tier" he'll be when it's probably the most frontloaded distinction in the game right now. I think it's inevitable that some characters will be forcibly pushed to a lower than anticipated position, the question is who drowns first.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here is my personal predictions for top 1-30. Secondaries are mostly based off of what they used throughout the season.

Spoiler: Predictions

1. MkLeo()
2. Tweek ()
3. Marss()
4. Samsora()
5. Ally()
6. Nairo()
7. Shuton
8. Dabuz()
9. Cosmos
10. VoiD()
11. Glutonny
12. Zackray()
13. MVD
14. Salem()
15. Shoyo James
16. Light
17. ESAM()
18. Myran
19. Kameme()
20. Tea
21. Wishes()
22. ProtoBanham
23. Sinji
24. Lea
25. MuteAce()
26. Puppeh()
27. NAKAT()
28. Stroder()
29. Tachyon
30. Larry Lurr()

Can't wait to see how well this ages. lol

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Here is my personal predictions for top 1-30. Secondaries are mostly based off of what they used throughout the season.

Spoiler: Predictions

1. MkLeo()
2. Tweek ()
3. Marss()
4. Samsora()
5. Ally()
6. Nairo()
7. Shuton
8. Dabuz()
9. Cosmos
10. VoiD()
11. Glutonny
12. Zackray()
13. MVD
14. Salem()
15. Shoyo James
16. Light
17. ESAM()
18. Myran
19. Kameme()
20. Tea
21. Wishes()
22. ProtoBanham
23. Sinji
24. Lea
25. MuteAce()
26. Puppeh()
27. NAKAT()
28. Stroder()
29. Tachyon
30. Larry Lurr()

Can't wait to see how well this ages. lol

I'm um, not so sure Ally will be ranked for obvious reasons.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I'm um, not so sure Ally will be ranked for obvious reasons.

Who knows? It is sort of a dice roll whether he is in or not.
However, I do think his contributions to the season should at least be noted.

 

[Laken64]

I believe they said that he will be excluded but matches/set records against him will still be factored for everyone else (whether that being visible or not idk)

 

[Tri Knight]

The jury's out on Bowser until several of these players either rematch Leon or start showing whether or not they are more cognizant of the MU. Whether we want to admit it or not, Leon has a huge advantage right now against most players - including top pros - due to a lot of inexperience. He isn't playing a conventional character, nor does he play him per a conventional superheavy approach. Again, I'll point to Samsora as the prime example; despite the bad MU, Leon had no trouble taking him to game five in their first encounter and succeed in three stocking him. In their subsequent rematches it wasn't even a contest; Samsora only got better and sent him back home in a bodybag.

I think Bowser is very good but it remains to be seen how much of a "high tier" he'll be when it's probably the most frontloaded distinction in the game right now. I think it's inevitable that some characters will be forcibly pushed to a lower than anticipated position, the question is who drowns first.

Lets not forget LeoN took many top tier names in that tournament. Gotta give him credit for that.

And to be fair, I think Peach should be a bad MU for Bowser (ironically). One bad top tier MU doesnt mean hes any less high tier though, regardless of if he actually is or is not. How he can stack up against the entire top tier roster as a whole is what we should be talking about when associating Bowser with high tier.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Looks like all the people repping one "mid-tier" character didn't make it. Probably because Elegant, Maister and Ven didn't do all that well at the beginning of Ultimate. Not sure about Maister, though. He has some questionable placings, though.
Unless one of them gets a sneaky 30th placing but I really doubt that. Maybe this PGR season, although Ven will probably go to even less tournaments this time.

However, it seems FOW is going to more tournaments this time. Also good :3.

Yeeeaahhhh, Maister's done extremely well at B/C Tier tournaments, but for A/S Tier tournaments... well, he get 129th place at G6, and then 49th place at Smash n' Splash, and that's about it (this is also pretty much why I can't in good faith see GnW as more than an upper-mid tier, at least atm); with those kinds of results, I don't think Maister made it, and he himself believes so too.

From the sounds of it, Nicko or Sparg0 most likely didn't make it either; if that is the case, then that would make zero Shulks or Clouds in the PGR as well (aside from Salem's secondary Shulk).

Then again, Nicko has a pretty decent track record, placing 13th at Prime Saga and 33rd at MomoCon. Then THEN again, it doesn't seem nearly on par with people like Dark Wizzy or Ryuga, so I'm not too sure anyways.

 

[Iridium]

Yeeeaahhhh, Maister's done extremely well at B/C Tier tournaments, but for A/S Tier tournaments... well, he get 129th place at G6, and then 49th place at Smash n' Splash, and that's about it (this is also pretty much why I can't in good faith see GnW as more than an upper-mid tier, at least atm); with those kinds of results, I don't think Maister made it, and he himself believes so too.

From the sounds of it, Nicko or Sparg0 most likely didn't make it either; if that is the case, then that would make zero Shulks or Clouds in the PGR as well (aside from Salem's secondary Shulk).

Then again, Nicko has a pretty decent track record, placing 13th at Prime Saga and 33rd at MomoCon. Then THEN again, it doesn't seem nearly on par with people like Dark Wizzy or Ryuga, so I'm not too sure anyways.

If Maister was listed under yeti's wins/losses on his card, that would have basically confirmed him. Genesis was huge for these rankings, and his poor performances at the few S/A tier tournaments he attended definitely hold him back. It's unfortunate, he does have a decent win list to boot.

 

[Nebunera]

i swear these two are so bad holy ****, i can't be the only one who thinks they are low tier

 

[Rizen]

i swear these two are so bad holy ****, i can't be the only one who thinks they are low tier

Nitro makes Belmont look legit. You should check him out:

Belmont hasn't preformed as well as we first thought but he's got some powerful tools and probably the best ledge trapping in the game. I can see belmont having a niche as a counterpick character or secondary.

 

[KirbySquad101]

If Maister was listed under yeti's wins/losses on his card, that would have basically confirmed him. Genesis was huge for these rankings, and his poor performances at the few S/A tier tournaments he attended definitely hold him back. It's unfortunate, he does have a decent win list to boot.

This is what his card looks like:

Granted there is a possibility that the "lose" list could've been too short to include Maister, but that does sort of sound too good to be true.

Maister winning a B-Tier tournament and 2 C Tier tournaments certainly helps and he's got a solid set of wins over quite a few players (yeti, MVD, ESAM), but enough to propel him above Dark Wizzy? I'm admittedly pretty skeptical about that.

 

[Aaron1997]

You know what, I'm going to do a quick analysis on why Tea might be top 10 (Or close to it). Now I doubt he is top 10 but with some treads that the PGR has currently showed its not impossible.

Points

- He has a winning record on 3 top 5 (Or potentially top 5) players. Tweek, Marss, Dabuz. (Yes Marss does have a winning record over tea but those set's took place at a MSM (Doesn't count) while Tea's one win over Marss took place at Frostbite)

- Tea's worst PGR Placement was 13th at Frostbite (S Tier). Something that no other top 10 player has done.

- Has a ton of B/A tier 2nd places and a top 5 at a (S-tier)

I'm not going to touch on the last 2 points because they are self explanatory.

The thing about the first point is that PGR seems to favor players that got wins on really high ranked players. Frozen and TGG PGR placement is almost single handedly carried by their wins on Tweek and some other upsets (Light and Cosmos for Frozen, James for TGG). You can also say the same for Umeki with his only big PGR win being MKleo.

All PGR players that Tea has took a set off this season. NAKAT, Dabuz, Marss, T, Tweek, Shuton, Raito.
Compare that to Zackray who is projected to be Top 10 or just outside has Tea, Shuton, Light, VoiD, Mr. R

Probably not going to be enough but I think its going to be closer then people think.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Some notable players that didn't make it to the PGR top 50 (or in the case for Fatality, low placed in the PGR) includes Elegant, Sonido, Fatality, and Maister (this comment may age poorly, because there is an outside chance that Maister has sneakily made it).


These four has amassed some impressive results right now, with them growing ever so more, but all four of their PGR placements are held down heavily by their rather lackluster showings early in the season. all play noticeably differently than their SSB4 counterparts, and it took time for these four players to adjust to their changes. It is paying off today, but since the PGR impacts their earlier performances, it affects their overall rankings for the entire season for the worst. If their performances today continues, these four could end up deep within the season 2 PGR rankings.


Two things to note:
1. LeoN placed very well in the PGR at 35th. However, the cool thing about this is that season 1 doesn't count his performance at Defend the North 2019, as that is a season 2 tournament. Things are looking well for LeoN's season 2 PGRU appearance, especially if he keeps up the good work.
2. sort of fall to the same category as the four characters listed above. However, SDX and Konga have both been inactive for a long time. Konga hasn't competed ever since Genesis 6, and despite SDX stringing impressive performances early on to the game (which is notably before Mewtwo's 3.0.0 buffs) which landed him the A51 spot, SDX decided to retire (sometimes poking his nose out in a few locals, but even that is rare).


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This here is completely my opinion, and some of you may disagree with me, but I don't really think the earlier events in Ultimate's lifespan should hold much weight to the overall rankings of season 1. Genesis 6 is one of the earliest events, yet holds one of the most value in the rankings. During that time period, the metagame was really young and players/characters were in a pretty underdeveloped state.

 

[Rizen]

This here is completely my opinion, and some of you may disagree with me, but I don't really think the earlier events in Ultimate's lifespan should hold much weight to the overall rankings of season 1. Genesis 6 is one of the earliest events, yet holds one of the most value in the rankings. During that time period, the metagame was really young and players/characters were in a pretty underdeveloped state.

Generally speaking, you can't take one early event and use it to support a character/player's placement in the meta but you can't say that earlier tournaments, big ones, suddenly don't count. There's no statute of limitations to a tournament's relevancy, especially considering the game's only been out under 9 months. Long term results are accumulated results that build up over time. If an early meta character isn't doing well anymore their results will be less by virtue of them dropping of but the earlier ones still count. It's characters with staying power that matter. Otherwise someone could look at phase 2 of the orion stats and say "Sonic's better than YL", which would be true ignoring phase 1. But he's not it's merely a shot term rise.

Edit, I kind of side tracked that but relevant to season 1 rankings, if it's in the time frame it counts.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Some notable players that didn't make it to the PGR top 50 (or in the case for Fatality, low placed in the PGR) includes Elegant, Sonido, Fatality, and Maister (this comment may age poorly, because there is an outside chance that Maister has sneakily made it).


These four has amassed some impressive results right now, with them growing ever so more, but all four of their PGR placements are held down heavily by their rather lackluster showings early in the season. all play noticeably differently than their SSB4 counterparts, and it took time for these four players to adjust to their changes. It is paying off today, but since the PGR impacts their earlier performances, it affects their overall rankings for the entire season for the worst. If their performances today continues, these four could end up deep within the season 2 PGR rankings.


Two things to note:
1. LeoN placed very well in the PGR at 35th. However, the cool thing about this is that season 1 doesn't count his performance at Defend the North 2019, as that is a season 2 tournament. Things are looking well for LeoN's season 2 PGRU appearance, especially if he keeps up the good work.
2. sort of fall to the same category as the four characters listed above. However, SDX and Konga have both been inactive for a long time. Konga hasn't competed ever since Genesis 6, and despite SDX stringing impressive performances early on to the game (which is notably before Mewtwo's 3.0.0 buffs) which landed him the A51 spot, SDX decided to retire (sometimes poking his nose out in a few locals, but even that is rare).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This here is completely my opinion, and some of you may disagree with me, but I don't really think the earlier events in Ultimate's lifespan should hold much weight to the overall rankings of season 1. Genesis 6 is one of the earliest events, yet holds one of the most value in the rankings. During that time period, the metagame was really young and players/characters were in a pretty underdeveloped state.

I would actullay argue Luigi has really not changed much at all from Smash 4 depsite seemingly getting a lot of alterations from that game.
I mean his basic gameplan from Smash 4 is still the same. Try to get a grab or other confirm and then some competely crazy combos. The fact he has a tether grab really did not "nerf" that in any way considering it still comes out very fast for one. It may have even benefited him in some ways.
The biggest change is his recovery is somewhat worse now, but all in all hes still the same Luigi.
I guess will have to see if any can reach the levels of sucess or consitency as Marss has with who is a character who also plays differently from Smash 4.

 

[KirbySquad101]

's gameplan is fundamentally the same between 4 and Ultimate, but the routes he takes to reach his nutty combos and damage output has changed. Shield grabbing - which was Luigi's primary approach option in SSB4 and the most surefire way to get his combos started - as a whole is much worse than in SSB4, and when combined with Luigi's slower grab, the chances of him actually getting a successful shield grab is extremely minuscule, especially at higher levels of play.

In Ultimate, Luigi has to play much more aggressively, and rely far more on midrange tools such as Fireballs, grab, and his Z-Attack to get the drop on the opponent. I think it took a while for Elegant and other Luigi mains to realize this, which is why he was doing so poorly in the beginning of Ultimate's meta game.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Some notable players that didn't make it to the PGR top 50 (or in the case for Fatality, low placed in the PGR) includes Elegant, Sonido, Fatality, and Maister (this comment may age poorly, because there is an outside chance that Maister has sneakily made it).


These four has amassed some impressive results right now, with them growing ever so more, but all four of their PGR placements are held down heavily by their rather lackluster showings early in the season. all play noticeably differently than their SSB4 counterparts, and it took time for these four players to adjust to their changes. It is paying off today, but since the PGR impacts their earlier performances, it affects their overall rankings for the entire season for the worst. If their performances today continues, these four could end up deep within the season 2 PGR rankings.


Two things to note:
1. LeoN placed very well in the PGR at 35th. However, the cool thing about this is that season 1 doesn't count his performance at Defend the North 2019, as that is a season 2 tournament. Things are looking well for LeoN's season 2 PGRU appearance, especially if he keeps up the good work.
2. sort of fall to the same category as the four characters listed above. However, SDX and Konga have both been inactive for a long time. Konga hasn't competed ever since Genesis 6, and despite SDX stringing impressive performances early on to the game (which is notably before Mewtwo's 3.0.0 buffs) which landed him the A51 spot, SDX decided to retire (sometimes poking his nose out in a few locals, but even that is rare).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This here is completely my opinion, and some of you may disagree with me, but I don't really think the earlier events in Ultimate's lifespan should hold much weight to the overall rankings of season 1. Genesis 6 is one of the earliest events, yet holds one of the most value in the rankings. During that time period, the metagame was really young and players/characters were in a pretty underdeveloped state.

Where would a character like fall into this in your opinion? I know she probably comes from the other side (she was just awful bad in earlier Smash games).
I already stated mine and think that Ven pretty much falls into the same category with Elegant and Maister that do have good peak performances but struggle to get them consistently, especially at the beginning (128th place at G6 for Ven isn't that great).
Anyway, I think it's a good time know to ask what other non-mains think where she'll go (assuming there are no changes to her with the 4.0 update).

 

[Deleted member]

I think Zelda, assuming she leaves untouched, will probably fall lower (slightly) since:
1. She’s not the most popular character to pick, and her popularity appears to diminish right now.
2. Her buffs weren’t as significant (though it’s still pretty big) as someone like Dedede or Wario.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Where would a character like fall into this in your opinion? I know she probably comes from the other side (she was just awful bad in earlier Smash games).
I already stated mine and think that Ven pretty much falls into the same category with Elegant and Maister that do have good peak performances but struggle to get them consistently, especially at the beginning (128th place at G6 for Ven isn't that great).
Anyway, I think it's a good time know to ask what other non-mains think where she'll go (assuming there are no changes to her with the 4.0 update).

Zelda may be part of that category, but she suffers far less than the others because of how terrible her other iterations are.

's gameplan is fundamentally the same between 4 and Ultimate, but the routes he takes to reach his nutty combos and damage output has changed. Shield grabbing - which was Luigi's primary approach option in SSB4 and the most surefire way to get his combos started - as a whole is much worse than in SSB4, and when combined with Luigi's slower grab, the chances of him actually getting a successful shield grab is extremely minuscule, especially at higher levels of play.

In Ultimate, Luigi has to play much more aggressively, and rely far more on midrange tools such as Fireballs, grab, and his Z-Attack to get the drop on the opponent. I think it took a while for Elegant and other Luigi mains to realize this, which is why he was doing so poorly in the beginning of Ultimate's meta game.

I knew that Luigi's gameplan is fundamentally the same, but a lot about the character has changed regardless for reasons you and Ziodyne mentioned.

 

[DungeonMaster]

i swear these two are so bad holy ****, i can't be the only one who thinks they are low tier

You are not alone in thinking this. I'm on the record in these forums and discord as saying they may be bottom 5. I've gone into all the details elsewhere, but yes, beyond a certain skill and matchup unfamiliarity gap they are terrible. They need buffs, so many problems. Konami should ask for their money back as it stands. It's so sad too, my most wanted character ever in smash. Can't fight his way out of a paper bag. I am so, so very tired of not killing until 160+ with Conan. A pink balloon kills earlier then freaking Conan the Barbarian with a chain whip. The design flaws are too deep to see a rise to high tier, ever, he would require re-design which is not going to happen. If only they were to buff the kill power it would at least make the experience of playing Belmont less miserable. I think it would even make it better for the opponents because it's all hard reads as it stands and people don't enjoy being nickel and dimed with crap projectiles and a stale wet noodle whip for 7% a slap. Character as it stands has no competitive future and is miserable for player and opponent. I'm downgrading my earlier statements that he's good as a counterpick for certain matchups, I think he's good for nothing at the moment, look elsewhere for secondary or pocket.

 

[SwagGuy99]

i swear these two are so bad holy ****, i can't be the only one who thinks they are low tier

I'm not quite ready to say they are low tier yet, but they aren't high tier. They are really good when they can keep the opponent away from them, and against some characters, this works well.

However, if the opponent has a projectile in their arsenal and plays patiently, they will eventually be able to work around the wall of long ranged disjoints and projectiles. And once you are fighting the Belmonts at close range, they're dead. You can combo them, juggle them, knock the offstage, and they die either way. It may seem like a hard matchup for a lot of characters (like , for example) until you realize how defenseless the Belmonts are at close range.

To me, they are probably on the very edge of high mid tier, but could end up lower in the future.

Edit: I forgot about another issue that the Belmonts have: They can't hit smaller/shorter characters very well.

TBH, Kirby could actually do decently against the Belmonts because of this (and because he's really good up-close against the Belmonts). This may seem unrealistic, and I'm not even saying it's a winning matchup (Kirby still has terrible range), but he does have inhale to use against projectiles (it's not good but it's an option), he is too small for the Belmonts to hit, he can edgeguard them well, combo them well, juggle them well, and can generally exploit their weaknesses. People might not agree with this, but it seems worth mentioning as an afterthought.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I'm surprised Mr E was ranked so low, you would think placing top 24 at 4 A/S Tier events would earn him a little more brownie points. At the same time, his best placement shown at a major event (from C to S) was only 7th; I guess it really does go to show much credit you get for placing top 3 at events.

Here is my personal predictions for top 1-30. Secondaries are mostly based off of what they used throughout the season.

Spoiler: Predictions

1. MkLeo()
2. Tweek ()
3. Marss()
4. Samsora()
5. Ally()
6. Nairo()
7. Shuton
8. Dabuz()
9. Cosmos
10. VoiD()
11. Glutonny
12. Zackray()
13. MVD
14. Salem()
15. Shoyo James
16. Light
17. ESAM()
18. Myran
19. Kameme()
20. Tea
21. Wishes()
22. ProtoBanham
23. Sinji
24. Lea
25. MuteAce()
26. Puppeh()
27. NAKAT()
28. Stroder()
29. Tachyon
30. Larry Lurr()

Can't wait to see how well this ages. lol

Given that WaDi was mentioned in both Dark Wizzy's and Mr E's cards, I think he's definitely guaranteed to be on the PGR; where he would be, I'm not too sure: He didn't have the best start in Ultimate, but he's got a ton of notable wins and has placed well at CEO and MomoCon both. With that track record, I'd say either in the upper 20s or lower 10s.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Given that WaDi was mentioned in both Dark Wizzy's and Mr E's cards, I think he's definitely guaranteed to be on the PGR; where he would be, I'm not too sure: He didn't have the best start in Ultimate, but he's got a ton of notable wins and has placed well at CEO and MomoCon both. With that track record, I'd say either in the upper 20s or lower 10s.

I actually kind of forgot about WaDi and Raito when making my predicted PGR list. These two are definitely going to make it.

If Maister isn't going to make it, then I am surprised that he didn't at least get A51. His track record seems better than some of the ones who did make A51.

 

[Iridium]

I can see a case for ProtoBanham at least being in the top 20-25 range. His win list includes Cosmos, WaDi, Tea, Raito, Abadango and Umeki. Only thing is he never fought or beat any likely top 5 players, like Leo, Tweek or Marss. Cosmos might be his best win for now.

The lowest he ever placed for the season was 13th at CEO, and came close to an S tier win. Not sure if his lack of results compared to other confirmed players will hurt him, but consistency like that does mean something.

This is what his card looks like:

Granted there is a possibility that the "lose" list could've been too short to include Maister, but that does sort of sound too good to be true.

Maister winning a B-Tier tournament and 2 C Tier tournaments certainly helps and he's got a solid set of wins over quite a few players (yeti, MVD, ESAM), but enough to propel him above Dark Wizzy? I'm admittedly pretty skeptical about that.

I was aware of the card, but I agree that it's unlikely he can make it. It's difficult to think Genesis won't hold him down, yet he does significantly better at smaller events.

I'm surprised Mr E was ranked so low, you would think placing top 24 at 4 A/S Tier events would earn him a little more brownie points. At the same time, his placement shown at a major event (from C to S) was only 7th; I guess it really does go to show much credit you get for placing top 3 at events.



Given that WaDi was mentioned in both Dark Wizzy's and Mr E's cards, I think he's definitely guaranteed to be on the PGR; where he would be, I'm not too sure: He didn't have the best start in Ultimate, but he's got a ton of notable wins and has placed well at CEO and MomoCon both. With that track record, I'd say either in the upper 20s or lower 10s.

The formula is interesting with how it works. I felt the same way seeing Nietono so low despite having won an A tier tourney, but he wasn't really able to get any borderline top 10 wins at the same time. I'm fairly certain being able to outplace other players was valued as well, which may have hurt him when you look his Genesis performance, at least that's what I got from suar during a stream.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I can see a case for ProtoBanham at least being in the top 20-25 range. His win list includes Cosmos, WaDi, Tea, Raito, Abadango and Umeki. Only thing is he never fought or beat any likely top 5 players, like Leo, Tweek or Marss. Cosmos might be his best win for now.

The lowest he ever placed for the season was 13th at CEO, and came close to an S tier win. Not sure if his lack of results compared to other confirmed players will hurt him, but consistency like that does mean something.

The formula is interesting with how it works. I felt the same way seeing Nietono so low despite having won an A tier tourney, but he wasn't really able to get any borderline top 10 wins at the same time. I'm fairly certain being able to outplace other players was valued as well, which may have hurt him when you look his Genesis performance, at least that's what I got from suar during a stream.

Something that also harmed Nietono (and that it may affect ProtoBanham as well) is that he didn't participate in much events this season, especially in comparison to others in his rankings range.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I can see belmont having a niche as a counterpick character or secondary.

Which is pretty bad, considering some people (like Armada) think using secondaries or dualmains can hold you back if you're not a top-top level player (see his video in this thread: https://smashboards.com/threads/solo-maining-vs-dual-maining.486922/ ).

I think that's one of Belmont's main issues. Belmont has some pretty solid matchups here and there, but some terrible matchups as well, so you're almost forced to use him as a secondary or together with a secondary... But then you're spreading yourself thin compared to character specialists who are focused on their main character. As such, Belmont's probably won't be used that much aside from people who really enjoy them, since the payoff isn't worth it.

Then again, you might not run into those bad MUs very often at all. You don't see Pikachu and Pichu as much as you'd think, despite them being some of the best characters in the game. Whoophee manages to be #1 in Norway despite maining Richter Belmont, so it's definitely doable to do well with Belmont at non-majors. If the Belmont main is lucky (or very skill) they might even do well at a major! It would be fun to see Riddles do well, but ultimately I think Bemonts are another mid tier character in a game with plenty of better characters.