From what I gathered from ultimateframedata.com, most of
's specials on block are -15 frames or worse; the major exception to this is his Kaboom, which is +2 on block (basically another reason why it's one of the best spells to get from the Command Selection). As far as I know, the only other projectile attack that's plus on block is
's
nearly fully charged Charge Shot, which is +4 on block (oh yeah, can we talk about Samus and why in the world is this move so damn good?).
To be fair, most projectiles in the game don't really lose to shields in general, especially with Power Shields cut; it's a large part of what makes zoning characters like
,
,
,
(and
if you consider Thunder Jolts enough to make him a zoning character) work as well as they do: Even if you do shield their stuff, you're still not out of the woods. You still need to find a way to break their wall, and if you don't know how to do it, the zoner will most certainly profit off of it, which in turn is what makes certain match-ups like Duck Hunt or Zelda such a frustrating experience, even if it feels like it shouldn't be one.
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On the subject of tier lists and stuff, I have to give props to VoiD and Armada in showing restraint when ranking
; I imagine Kome's recent performances would've made it really tempting to start labeling him as an easy top tier. Outside of a few bizarre placements in Armada's tier lis (I wouldn't rate
or
that low), I think his in particular gives a pretty good gist of what our meta looks like.
I'm not too surprised that he finds
to be the best Link given his experience with Izaw, but it's an interesting thing to think about, nonetheless; out of all the three Links, he has the least representation, but he arguably has the strongest player out of all them in the form of T, who continues to do very well in Japan tournaments (for the most part).
I think T's usage and handling of Link's Remote Bomb in tournaments is probably why Armada thinks so highly of it compared to
's and
's Bombs. T doesn't use it all the time, but the times that he does use it, he incorporates it so well into his gameplay, whether it's to use it as a KO confirm into Spin Attack, a ledge trapping option, or what looks to be a really hard-to-interrupt recovery option, just because of how fast Link flies from the thing (something I feel makes
's version of this recovery tactic more exploitable in comparison). It's a large contribution to why T has such a good Link and why he's basically the only Link around making it far in the big leagues.
Because of this, I do agree that Link doesn't seem very natural as a secondary, especially if you're specifically looking for a secondary to cover up problematic match-ups in particular. Outside of the fact that I can't really think of a lot of match-ups Link hard wins in (except maybe
or
?), Link is a very technical character that does require the player to consistently pull off his Bomb shenanigans effectively, something that even Link mains haven't fully gotten the hang of (i.e. Bernie at Smash Factor 8, or heck, T at Prime Saga); for a more simple, but effective secondary,
(and maybe
?) are all characters who fit this mold pretty well.
