Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Thinkaman]

What would you say 's hardest MUs are and how his spread looks in general?

I asked this a page or so back. Due to his nature, PT is pretty resistant to to bad matchups.

But bothersome ones mentioned by various people here or elesewhere include .

Thinkaman I am really curious about what you think about Villager. With all that I said above, I still can't see how Isabelle could be a better character. Obviously I am biased, but when I try her, her zoning game just seems to have a gigantic rocket-shaped hole right in the middle.

If you play Isabelle like Villager, she's going to be an underwhelming Villager. She's similar, mostly because of slingshot, but different from there. It's also easy to fall into the trap of comparing individual moves, where Villager's high profile moves are better or more noteworthy than Isabelle's.

The first big difference is easy to miss on paper: Isabelle has higher airspeed, which is a huge deal to slingshot spam. She's safer, chases better, and able to get multi-slingshot chains in more situations.

Now go watch Bocci vs. Ally again, and pay attention to what she's doing that is so effective. Hint: Besides slingshot and Pocket, it's Isabelle's unique options.

• Lloid trap is secretly a good move, particularly in 4.0 now that it's not half-broken. Ally is not stupid, he's not walking into traps--she's using it like a grab counter. Count how many times she hit the #6 PGR player with this move. (And then add one, because in one instance the 4.0 trap would have hit...)
• Fishing rod is a surprisingly high reward, surprisingly low-risk hard read option for a variety of spaced approaches or defensive options.
• F-smash is so important as a KO option in her game. Bowling Ball is cute, but in most matchups Villager would kill for an f-smash that was 14f instead of 25f. Seriously, look how many of her KOs were f-smash.
• Look how often she gets u-tilt (or 2) into an aerial.

But this pre-4.0 match doesn't showcase Isabelle's best new toy: Jab. Now Isabelle's 3f jab:

• Any-%: properly combos into itself (meh)
• Mid-%s: combos into that u-tilt combo starter (pretty cool)
• High-%s: kill-confirms into d-smash (holy ****)

This is a big deal!

Before, she couldn't d-smash until like 150% on most characters. Now it's 110%-120% or so. And before, by the time she was able to u-tilt, most opponents were too high of a percent for real followups. Now she can do strings on less floaty characters.

So hopefully that's giving you an overall picture of what Isabelle plays like, and it's only half Villager. While Villager pressures harder via Rocket, Isabelle is more interested in calling out the opponent's response and converting non-shield melee situations into strings/kills. She's definitely more read-focused and better equipped to play around the opponent's game with her airspeed and close-range emergency tools.

Keep this in mind when you play her, try to not think like a Villager. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

 

[ProfessorVincent]

I asked this a page or so back. Due to his nature, PT is pretty resistant to to bad matchups.

But bothersome ones mentioned by various people here or elesewhere include .



If you play Isabelle like Villager, she's going to be an underwhelming Villager. She's similar, mostly because of slingshot, but different from there. It's also easy to fall into the trap of comparing individual moves, where Villager's high profile moves are better or more noteworthy than Isabelle's.

The first big difference is easy to miss on paper: Isabelle has higher airspeed, which is a huge deal to slingshot spam. She's safer, chases better, and able to get multi-slingshot chains in more situations.

Now go watch Bocci vs. Ally again, and pay attention to what she's doing that is so effective. Hint: Besides slingshot and Pocket, it's Isabelle's unique options.

• Lloid trap is secretly a good move, particularly in 4.0 now that it's not half-broken. Ally is not stupid, he's not walking into traps--she's using it like a grab counter. Count how many times she hit the #6 PGR player with this move. (And then add one, because in one instance the 4.0 trap would have hit...)
• Fishing rod is a surprisingly high reward, surprisingly low-risk hard read option for a variety of spaced approaches or defensive options.
• F-smash is so important as a KO option in her game. Bowling Ball is cute, but in most matchups Villager would kill for an f-smash that was 14f instead of 25f. Seriously, look how many of her KOs were f-smash.
• Look how often she gets u-tilt (or 2) into an aerial.

But this pre-4.0 match doesn't showcase Isabelle's best new toy: Jab. Now Isabelle's 3f jab:

• Any-%: properly combos into itself (meh)
• Mid-%s: combos into that u-tilt combo starter (pretty cool)
• High-%s: kill-confirms into d-smash (holy ****)

This is a big deal!

Before, she couldn't d-smash until like 150% on most characters. Now it's 110%-120% or so. And before, by the time she was able to u-tilt, most opponents were too high of a percent for real followups. Now she can do strings on less floaty characters.

So hopefully that's giving you an overall picture of what Isabelle plays like, and it's only half Villager. While Villager pressures harder via Rocket, Isabelle is more interested in calling out the opponent's response and converting non-shield melee situations into strings/kills. She's definitely more read-focused and better equipped to play around the opponent's game with her airspeed and close-range emergency tools.

Keep this in mind when you play her, try to not think like a Villager. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Thanks. I'm looking forward to trying her again now.

Worth noting that Ally could have held his grenades for longer before throwing. Pocket doesn't reset the grenade's timer, so if snake holds before throwing, by the time villager/Isabelle pulls it out it just explodes. Not saying the result of the set would have been different, just a way people have found around my villager's pocket.

 

[Thinkaman]

Worth noting that Ally could have held his grenades for longer before throwing. Pocket doesn't reset the grenade's timer, so if snake holds before throwing, by the time villager/Isabelle pulls it out it just explodes. Not saying the result of the set would have been different, just a way people have found around my villager's pocket.

True, but can't you just slingshot that tall boi while he is sitting in neutral cooking nades? Even if he is shielding, regrabbing, and then throwing, that's a lot of vulnerability for questionable gain. I don't think Pocketing nades was actually super pivotal to Bocci's play in that set. (Taking Nikita off the table seems like a nice perk though.)

 

[Krysco]

Before, she couldn't d-smash until like 150% on most characters. Now it's 110%-120% or so.

Frame perfectly, it actually starts connecting as early as 77% on Pichu, 112% on Bowser and somewhere in between for everyone else. Not 100% sure on when jab -> dsmash kills but that's also positioning dependent. I never bothered to do testing for the old jab confirms but if it went from +2 to +4 at 0% then I imagine frame 8 dsmash wouldn't have connected till when her frame 10 dash attack can now connect which is 125% for Pichu and 182% for Bowser. These numbers could potentially get better with rage too which I still need to get around to testing.

Gonna link the thread I made about her jab combos in case you or anyone else are interested and maybe didn't see my previous post: https://smashboards.com/threads/isabelle-jab-combos.487689/

 

[ARISTOS]

Shows how much I know about the character. Each charge level makes the projectile faster?

Somewhat.

Frizz and Frizzle go at a constant speed with Frizzle being faster though sending at a more horizontal angle.

Kafrizz starts out slow, then rapidly speeds up. The slowness in front of Hero gives the move more time to catch characters right in front of Hero but it's a huge cost to whiff of course.

 

[ProfessorVincent]

True, but can't you just slingshot that tall boi while he is sitting in neutral cooking nades? Even if he is shielding, regrabbing, and then throwing, that's a lot of vulnerability for questionable gain. I don't think Pocketing nades was actually super pivotal to Bocci's play in that set. (Taking Nikita off the table seems like a nice perk though.)

If the Animal Crossers had no answer to Nikita, they'd NEVER make it back on stage against Snake. Especially with their nerfed recovery in Ultimate.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I still can't see how Isabelle could be a better character. Obviously I am biased, but when I try her, her zoning game just seems to have a gigantic rocket-shaped hole right in the middle.

Yeah, is trash. is probably somewhere near the middle of mid tier while is barely a low tier and there's an argument that could be made for her being a bottom tier along with .

There are some pros to playing her over Villager, but not much. She's slightly faster, f-air and b-air hit opponents closer to the ground I think, she has a better up-tilt for comboing, and that's about it.

Down-b is good in theory, but it's oftentimes too slow to hit opponents jumping over it (even when manually triggered), can't hit every character reliably when it is automatically triggered, can be destroyed once it's placed, and it kills much later than you might think. Heavier characters can sometimes live until 150% or higher. Also, due to lacking Villager's side-b, Isabelle lacks options to force her opponents near Lloyd Rocket, especially if the opponent has high ranged attacks or a strong camping game.

Side-b isn't a horrible move, but it's not spectacular. It's a very poor trade-off for losing Villager's side-b. It kills and it gives her an extra recovery mix-up but it doesn't do much else. It's too slow and it's negated by shields so landing it on the opponent can oftentimes be a chore.

She's lighter than Villager so she dies earlier.

Her kill options are all either slower, kill later (or at similar percents), lack range, or some combination of these three things.

So yeah, Isabelle has some unique tools, but they fit very poorly into her kit and don't serve much use most of the time.

Edit: I forgot, Isabelle's jab is low key busted and it actually a pretty good move now. So she might be near the higher end of low tier as she does get some good confirms off of it at various percents.

 

[Arthur97]

Isn't Isabelle's forward smash also a good bit faster? Sure, you can't chuck it off ledges, but I'm not sure it would be a straight downgrade.

 

[Krysco]

Thinkaman has already mentioned this on this very page but Isabelle's fsmash is f14 compared to Villager's f25 fsmash. Their horizontal range is comparable though Isabelle's is weaker at the tip of the range than the base and of course it doesn't drop below ledge like Villager's does.

There's also Isabelle's f8 dsmash that can hit and kill aerial opponents, sends at a horizontal angle and can't be mashed out of compared to Villager's f9 dsmash.

Fishing Rod can kill offstage with the forward throw or at high percents with the up throw while Lloid Rocket only really kills if Villager is riding it, although these moves are used in completely different ways.

Isabelle usmash is f11 compared to Villager's f12 usmash with the latters hitting higher up but killing slightly later.

Villager does have an utilt that kills earlier than Isabelle's.

Isabelle's jab can't kill but can confirm into kill moves.

Villager's uair and dair can kill earlier than Isabelle's if he gets 3 turnips.

Isabelle's nair comes out f5 compared to Villager's f3 nair but also kills slightly sooner.

Lloid Trap itself doesn't kill too early but Isabelle can follow it up with an uair or Fishing Rod up throw. Meanwhile Timber kills with the tree growing, the tree falling and the axe swing itself. Like the side specials, these two moves are used in completely different ways.

Pretty sure fair, bair, ftilt, bthrow and Pocket Throw are the same for both of them. Dtilt is slightly different with Isabelle's doing a bit more damage. Dash grab is also a frame faster for Isabelle while the other 2 grabs are tied.

 

[Frihetsanka]

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I've said it before and I said it again: I think people overstate Hero's weaknesses and underestimate his strengths. His specials are all super good (up-B is good when you consider that it's an alternative to Zoom, so if you think you're getting edgeguarded you can probably fish for Zoom instead, and if you're not getting edgeguarded you could up-B, it also seems like a decent OoS option from watching Parappa). He's probably high-tier or top-tier when mastered, from what I've seen so far Parappa seems like the best Hero player at utilizing Hero's down-B (Salem used it too slowly vs Leffen and didn't use it often enough).

 

[DungeonMaster]

Riddles is no different from Samsora, Zackray and Tweek in this regard - all of them experts in their own characters, but their character experience in perfectly serviceable MUs did not prevent them from croaking against someone who's just way more composed and indomitable

You are treading close to "cult of personality" territory with that last panegyric.

This is a broader topic on competition and success, apropriate for this forum because it's too little discussed. Time spent fighting is the single most important predictor of victory. It's the 98% compared to the 2% of "natural ability". Your claim is that this early in the game it's the 2% that is determining victory at the highest levels and that the pros have had sufficient time to become perfect outside of natural ability. This is patently false, not merely because it's a straight up simple example of execution error, but also because the game keeps changing regularly with patches - and Ken specifically changed an enormous amount very recently.

People are too often willing to beleive in some sort of magic ("composure" is your magic), prodigy, annointed by the gods, etc... when in truth it's countless hours that actually make the difference.
You're not going to lose to a pro because they're special. You're going to lose to a pro first and foremost because they literally spend all day training and playing. They may be special, prodigy does happen, but it's very rare and with roughly 5 million smash players it's probably not even enough people to statistically have a prodigy (like a Bethoven, a Newton).


When I went online in Ultimate for the first time I played a half hour and my Samus was elite smash. That's not because I'm "special". It's because I played 20k smash 4 matches and the engine is quite similar. Zero is the closest thing smash has had to an actual prodigy, Guinness book of records level. He played 20k smash4 games before his *first* APEX victory. So my entire time playing 4 was his warm up to his first major. Food for thought for the amateurs.

So no you're not going to convince me that mystical "composure" is the dominant determinant of smash ultimate competitive play currently. Not buying it.

 

[KakuCP9]

Rubbish politics aside, Hero's up-b is a low-key busted OOS given it comes out on frame 7, has generous hitboxes on both sides and lingers for a good bit so there's some leeway when curbing your opponent's offense which really good for its low cost. On top of that, it grants them one of, if not the best 2-framing/edge-guarding in the game

I can't think of a single character bar Yoshi who can recover low against that and not die. Hell, if they recover high, Hero has beefy enough hitboxes with bair or his specials to cover that option and at worst put them in another edge-guarding situation or just KO outright. I still think they have blind spots in their neutral due to difficulty reactively anti-airing or pressuring opponents from above compared to their other swordsmen peers, but with their strong OOS game, general utility in their specials and super busted edge-guarding, they can definitely carve a place in high tier for themselves.

 

[NotLiquid]

So no you're not going to convince me that mystical "composure" is the dominant determinant of smash ultimate competitive play currently. Not buying it.

I don't have to convince you of this because I never once claimed that it's the "dominant determinant", nor is it my actual argument. You basically just composed a large word salad to try justifying a completely baseless supposition that Riddles dropping a set he was one dropped combo away from winning was because he also happens to play Richter, which is in no way a quantifiable metric and something that makes way too many assumptions about the player.

And if you don't think top competitive players have to deal with emotional resilience when we just saw two top ranked players get reverse 6-0'd by the same person in front of the largest crowds this series has ever seen and subsequently lose any semblance of momentum they had starting off, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

 

[blackghost]

Rubbish politics aside, Hero's up-b is a low-key busted OOS given it comes out on frame 7, has generous hitboxes on both sides and lingers for a good bit so there's some leeway when curbing your opponent's offense which really good for its low cost. On top of that, it grants them one of, if not the best 2-framing/edge-guarding in the game

I can't think of a single character bar Yoshi who can recover low against that and not die. Hell, if they recover high, Hero has beefy enough hitboxes with bair or his specials to cover that option and at worst put them in another edge-guarding situation or just KO outright. I still think they have blind spots in their neutral due to difficulty reactively anti-airing or pressuring opponents from above compared to their other swordsmen peers, but with their strong OOS game, general utility in their specials and super busted edge-guarding, they can definitely carve a place in high tier for themselves.

characters with poor recovery will struggle for sure but elite characters? not really. theres plenty of time to react while hero charges the wind attack. its a linear edge guard it will catch people the first time but i dont think it is an elite tactic or anything. recovering high beats the approach entirely.

 

[PK Gaming]

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I've said it before and I said it again: I think people overstate Hero's weaknesses and underestimate his strengths. His specials are all super good (up-B is good when you consider that it's an alternative to Zoom, so if you think you're getting edgeguarded you can probably fish for Zoom instead, and if you're not getting edgeguarded you could up-B, it also seems like a decent OoS option from watching Parappa). He's probably high-tier or top-tier when mastered, from what I've seen so far Parappa seems like the best Hero player at utilizing Hero's down-B (Salem used it too slowly vs Leffen and didn't use it often enough).

I call absolute bull on that tweet

Retreating aerials are broken? How? His Fair and Bair have 14 & 18 frames of startup respectively, with average landing lag at best. That isn't to say that his aerials are bad (they're quite good), but the startup on Fair and Bair absolutely makes him vulnerable to rushdown.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I've said it before and I said it again: I think people overstate Hero's weaknesses and underestimate his strengths. His specials are all super good (up-B is good when you consider that it's an alternative to Zoom, so if you think you're getting edgeguarded you can probably fish for Zoom instead, and if you're not getting edgeguarded you could up-B, it also seems like a decent OoS option from watching Parappa). He's probably high-tier or top-tier when mastered, from what I've seen so far Parappa seems like the best Hero player at utilizing Hero's down-B (Salem used it too slowly vs Leffen and didn't use it often enough).

You mean those notoriously slow fair and bair that aren’t safe on shield unless spacing is perfect? On a character that has the 53rd slowest air accel and 54th slowest air speed, meaning it takes him a moment to actually make any needed adjustments airborne to ensure perfect spacing so he doesn’t get shield grabbed?

The moves are plenty powerful and aren’t bad by no means but they for sure don’t mitigate his issue any character getting close to him. Most of the roster can go through jump squat frames and still place an aerial out before an already airborne Hero can get his fair/bair off. Having rather below average air mobility and slow front and back facing aerials that aren’t safe on block doesn’t help him not get blown up by characters who get into his face often. He’d have much more success with just using Ftilt one, dtilt, jab or his zap spells for this purpose.

 

[KakuCP9]

characters with poor recovery will struggle for sure but elite characters? not really. theres plenty of time to react while hero charges the wind attack. its a linear edge guard it will catch people the first time but i dont think it is an elite tactic or anything. recovering high beats the approach entirely.

I disagree. Bair might be slow for the purposes of neutral and traditional edge-guarding, but it's hitbox is super large and can easily beat any attempt to recover high and then the cycle will repeat itself. This made possible by the fact they grab the ledge instantly and have ample time cover where the opponent will land with their normals or even their spells. Hell, sometimes characters are too far away to go high and thus get checkmated by kaswoosh.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here is some observations I made judging from the conversations from the last several pages.

It seems that Hero, in terms of where he is in competitive play, is a pretty polarizing/decisive character even among people in this thread, especially in comparison to PPlant and Joker. It is oftentimes between, in terms of viewpoints: a high tier character with top tier potential, or lower tiered character that is probably mid tier at best.

It is pretty easy to see why: Hero's moveset in general is so polarizing, it is hard to pin down where he is exactly (plus it being less than two weeks since his release). The one notable event that occurred where Hero is taken part of, Smash Con, he didn't so well (highest placement is Salem at 49th with no notable wins, and he didn't exactly solo used him).

I think it is a little bit too early to call where he is exactly. Little time has occurred since his release. For myself personally, I think he is a mid tier character with maybe high tier potential.

On that note, it seems that Hero has joined "Club Potential" (hi ) in terms of viewpoints. A lot of players (even a few top players) believe that the character is very frightening when mastered to the fullest. That being said, the reason why I put "maybe" under high tier potential, is because I have seen too many times in SSB4, where a perceived character of potential gets so hyped up, but was in the end nothing but false hopes. Whether Hero will be one of the many to fall to this fate remains to be seen, but tournament evidence right now is not in Hero's favor.

As a result, I have chosen to approach the claims that Hero has potential with absolute caution.

 

[Anomika]

Retreating aerials with Hero are all nice and that but one who plays Hero must not allow to use them predicably, lest their slow, one-hit aerials get parried and punished (or just approach him at the right time from below to hit the blindspots). Thankfully, he has a fast grab so tomahawks can somewhat mitigate the problem, though the grab range leaves something to be desired (not just Hero either).

 

[Aaron1997]

Umebura SP 4 (512 Entrants) (A-tier) Top 32 seeding plus other notable's

1. Shuton
2. zackray(?)
3. Kameme
4. Raito
5. Tea
6. Lea
7. Abadando
8. HIKARU
9. Zaki
10. Tsu
11. Atelier
12. Gackt
13. Choco
14. Ri-ma
15. T
16. Sigma
17. KEN
18. Lunamado
19. Shogun
20. DIO
21. Masashi
22. Kome
23. Akasa
24. OCEAN
25. Yamanyonn
26. Kept
27. Paseriman
28. Rotsuku
29. Kuro
30. Kirihara
31. Logix
32. AIR
34. Shky
36. DoubleA
38. YOC
39. Some
40. Brood
41. Ke-ya
43. Rain
50. Arika
69. Songn
77. Fuwa
93. Takara



Notable's not attending

Protobanham
Nietono
Eim
YB
Ron
Rizeasu
Umeki(This is his own event but he's not on the entrants list so IDK)

 

[$.A.F.]

I know this is common consensus now but Olimar is still a top tier or at the very least still very good. The only Olimar whose results were severely impacted by the patch is Myran. He’s still good if not a contender for top 1

 

[Rizen]

I know this is common consensus now but Olimar is still a top tier or at the very least still very good. The only Olimar whose results were severely impacted by the patch is Myran. He’s still good if not a contender for top 1

I wonder how many Olimars, if any, have been gimped as a result of the recovery nerf. It seems largely irrelevant as Olimar's agile enough offstage to avoid interceptions by doing things like traveling under SV.

I agree he's still top tier.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I wonder how many Olimars, if any, have been gimped as a result of the recovery nerf. It seems largely irrelevant as Olimar's agile enough offstage to avoid interceptions by doing things like traveling under SV.

I have literally seen no instances of Olimar's recovery nerf from 3.1.0 actually doing anything at all. lol
When the patch first dropped, people thought it would significantly harm his recovery, but in the end it literally did nothing to his recovery.

In other words, the thing that people thought would harm him the most (recovery nerf) is pretty much negligible, but the thing that people thought would harm him the least (hurtbox increase) actually hurt him the most.

Ironic, if I say so myself.

 

[Krysco]

Got around to testing how much rage affects Isabelle's jab combos on a few characters and it's actually pretty impactful
Sheik

Spoiler

Jab -> utilt: 9%, down from 31%
Jab -> ftilt, nair, dsmash: 57%, down from 84%
Jab -> dtilt, Pocket Throw: 81%, down from 111%
Jab -> dash attack: 105%, down from 138%
Jab -> usmash: 129%, down from 164%
Jab -> fair: 177%, down from 217%
Jab -> grab: 177%, down from 217%
Jab -> fsmash: 201%, down from 243%

Robin

Spoiler

Jab -> utilt: 11%, down from 34%
Jab -> ftilt, nair, dsmash: 63%, down from 93%
Jab -> dtilt, Pocket Throw: 89%, down from 122%
Jab -> dash attack: 115%, down from 151%
Jab -> usmash: 141%, down from 180%
Jab -> fair: 194%, down from 238%
Jab -> grab: 168%, down from 209%
Jab -> fsmash: 220%, down from 268%

SamusDark Samus

Spoiler

Jab -> utilt: 11%, down from 37%
Jab -> ftilt, nair, dsmash: 67%, down from 99%
Jab -> dtilt, Pocket Throw: 95%, down from 130%
Jab -> dash attack: 123%, down from 161%
Jab -> usmash: 151%, down from 192%
Jab -> fair: 207%, down from 254%
Jab -> grab: 179%, down from 223%
Jab -> fsmash: 235%, down from 285%

Jab -> utilt practically starts working immediately, jab => Pocket Throw becomes an even easier kill confirm for the characters it matters against, Jab -> usmash goes from a kill cap confirm to something that can be landed at practical percents and jab -> grab goes from being mostly unrealistic (except against Bayonetta) to being a kill cap option.

Isabelle's pretty light, only being heavier than 19 characters and those percents shown were with max rage so they specifically won't matter too much aside from MUs where the opponent struggles to kill but rage does definitely have an effect on her jab combos. That jab buff is the biggest game changer for her out of all the buffs she got, not to say the other buffs were worthless.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I noticed that in the case of , most Olimar players just hug the sides of the stage with him when reaching the edge; it makes it really hard to interrupt him given that there's not a lot of characters who have the hitboxes/curvatures to reliable cover most of the side of the stage (some swords maybe able to do this, like ).

Luna (really solid Cloud player) has started incorporating this technique in by using reverse Climhazzard near the edge to prevent 2-framing and "Cloudcrocking". Here's an example of him utilizing it in his set against Razo (particularly at 7:13)

For anyone who doesn't know what "Cloudcrocking" is, it's basically when an opponent uses their body to stop Cloud's horizontal momentum during Climhazzard; it's pretty much the successor to and 's variant of this edgeguarding technique.

This is what I like to call this 'Cloudcrocking.' Normally, Cloud would've made it back but since you can't freely cross up opponents in Ultimate, Richter's collision box pushes him out of range. This happens even if Cloud is drifting as hard as possible towards ledge #SSBU_CLOUD pic.twitter.com/sRVEnmtE9G

— #1 Sora Hater 🍑 (@FRKSCHEEKS) July 18, 2019

On a side note, a lot of highly seed players are in Loser's Side of Umebura SP4 as early as in the pools:

T (lost to Akira)
Logix (lost to shky)
zackray (lost to chicken)
Masashi (lost to OMNaoto)
AIR
Ke-ya (lost to OCEAN )

 

[Lacrimosa]

Everytime I see Hero on stream at Umebura he gets bodied really hard. Just again with Tsu vs. Abadango ().

 

[Aaron1997]

Meanwhile in Japan

Brood2-0 shuton

Also this is not even the only plant in top 32

 

[KirbySquad101]

Huh, we're really about to see a (Gackt) going up against a (Brood) in Top 8 Winners in an A Category tournament.

Funny enough, these two fought each other before, but let's see if Gackt has learned some new tricks against Brood.

Also, holy cow, Brood's making Piranha Plant's ledge trapping look so scary right now; Ptooie covers jumping and stalling at the edge, dash attack is massively long ranged to cover normal and roll get-ups, and if you somehow get past the Ptooie while jumping, there's still a possibility you're dying from an USmash at 80%.

 

[$.A.F.]

I told y’all not to sleep on the Plant. I said he was a threat. And I said he wasn’t bottom tier. Does this change opinions on Plant’s viability for y’all?

 

[KirbySquad101]

Spoiler: Top 8 Umebura SP4

Winners Side:

Brood vs Gackt
Abadango vs Kameme

Losers Side:

Choco vs DIO
KEN vs kome

 

[$.A.F.]

PLANT IN WF! EDIT: A plant is guaranteed third or higher at an A tier and another got 17th at the same tournament. Does this change your opinions on his viability? Personally it definitely does. You don’t fluke your way through some of the worlds best players at an A tier in a stacked region. Especially since they know the MU more than anyone else in the world because of Brood playing Plant there since release. And yet his results have only improved so far. And another Plant Rai got 17th too. This doesn’t sound like a bottom tier to me.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Kinda proves to me that again there are no bad characters in this game but only bad player decisions which are deciding games.
And Brood is currently up against Kameme, who for some weird reason played Wario in game 3.

 

[$.A.F.]

PLANT IN GRANDS WINNERS SIDE

 

[Anomika]

Japanese are very impressive. They clearly show that even weaker fighters can go so far in tournaments and get good results. Hopefully they keep advancing the meta of those fighters and the patches keep helping them further

 

[Spinosaurus]

That grand finals set was pretty brutal though. Once Abadango started to maneuver around Ptooie Brood seemed kinda helpless most of the time, but I guess most characters don't have Wario's air mobility to reliably do that though.

 

[Arthur97]

As much as I love seeing Plant do well, I don't think this means there are no bad fighters competitively. I mean, look at poor old K. Rool.

 

[DJ3DS]

That grand finals set was pretty brutal though. Once Abadango started to maneuver around Ptooie Brood seemed kinda helpless most of the time, but I guess most characters don't have Wario's air mobility to reliably do that though.

Pretty much this. As hype as Plant in grands is, the second set of it made it pretty clear that whilst the character might have slipped under the radar he still has issues.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Pretty much this. As hype as Plant in grands is, the second set of it made it pretty clear that whilst the character might have slipped under the radar he still has issues.

Tbh. Samsora also got pretty destroyed by Leo.
Does this mean Peach has issues? Probably, but you have to see that it wasn't Wario outplaying Plant but Abadango outplaying Brood. There have been some rather weird descisions by Brood the longer the set went on you didn't see him doing before.
That Brood SDed multiple times didn't help, either.

 

[blackghost]

Tbh. Samsora also got pretty destroyed by Leo.
Does this mean Peach has issues? Probably, but you have to see that it wasn't Wario outplaying Plant but Abadango outplaying Brood. There have been some rather weird descisions by Brood the longer the set went on you didn't see him doing before.
That Brood SDed multiple times didn't help, either.

think it just took a second for an unfamiliar matchup to click. like when lima played meister at ssc round one he looked confused and overwhelmed for game 1 and proceed to easily beat him in games 2 and 3.
Yes PP is bad. We've dissected why: bad normals, niche specials, bad disadvantage, and can get zoned being in GF at one event isnt enough to change that opinion. Is PP neutral B good? yes, but thats not enough to lift the character from the depths of low or bottom tier.
sometimes a good player can make a bad character overachieve its nothing new.
also at 4:24 enjoy.

 

[Lacrimosa]

think it just took a second for an unfamiliar matchup to click. like when lima played meister at ssc round one he looked confused and overwhelmed for game 1 and proceed to easily beat him in games 2 and 3.
Yes PP is bad. We've dissected why: bad normals, niche specials, bad disadvantage, and can get zoned being in GF at one event isnt enough to change that opinion. Is PP neutral B good? yes, but thats not enough to lift the character from the depths of low or bottom tier.
sometimes a good player can make a bad character overachieve its nothing new.

It's not like Brood is a total stranger to the playerbase in Japan, however he played the Belments at the beginning. Another character that excels at ledgetrapping.

I think it's likely that Wario is a rather bad MU for Plant. His high aerial mobility surely helps getting around the ledgeguarding.
Not sure what Kameme was doing but Abadango showed that Plant gets overwhelmed easily with a character like Wario and possibly Yoshi as well.
Anyway, I also doubt the japanese players aren't aware of that MU. Gackt is someone who fought Brood earlier at least once and while game 1 of their set was clearly in Ness's (Gackt) favor, Brood bounced back in game 2 and 3. So there should be some knowledge and they know that Brood is a player to look out for, so they should be at least aware of that MU.

I would like to see Brood compete in the US as well, but the commentators said that his work is keeping him back in Japan, so that's very unlikely.



And yes, Zelda hard counters Hero.
Every character with a reflect really because you can react to what Hero does with downB, taking out his gameplan-defining move and most things are projectiles: Snooze and Thwack got backfired once.