Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Lacrimosa]

This cannot work in tumble, is a niche mix up against some characters, and all of these characters are fast enough to still pressure you in disadvantage do people seriously want to waste their double jump against Mario, fox and palutena?? why are smash content creator so clickbaity.

You still haven'T seen any practical usage of this.

Why so dimissive? If it's nothing, then it's nothing.

 

[Anomika]

An interesting case where tap jump might be more viable. But also... this isn't the first demonstration of footstool intangibility exploit. Captain L made a video about it about 9 months ago:

 

[SwagGuy99]

You really see something in Sheik. May I ask what it is?

Maybe she isn't that much higher than where she is (still at least 10-15 spots higher), but her edgeguarding, speed, and frame data are still among the best in the game in their respective categories. However, I will say that the amount of skill it takes to play her and the fact that she has several poor matchups against various high/top tiers means that she's low high tier at best.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

You still haven'T seen any practical usage of this.

Why so dimissive? If it's nothing, then it's nothing.

Well some characters already use this tech, like ZZS in particular, but there is a big difference between a niche mix up(I never said that the tech was useless) and tech that will morph the metagame around it, like gimr claim or leffen claims.

 

[NotLiquid]

Burning your double jump against Mario sounds like a recipe for disaster. Do you want to make FLUDD stronger than it is?

 

[BitBitio]

This tech, I think it’s cool and a good mixup, but is it game-changing? No. It can help circle camp, maybe escape a juggle or untrue combo, but realistically, this tech is just a mixup. Everyone benefits at least a bit. Plus, If you’re playing as Mario and your juggle isn’t a true combo, you’re not playing right.
Also, this tech is nonviable against swords and disjoints, which happen to be quite common in the meta, so it becomes even less of a mixup with that factor.

Again, this is a cool tech and props to GimR, Leffen, VoiD, and Captain L for doing stuff with it (VoiD did stuff with it right? IDK) but I think it’s just a mixup that adds a bit to the game.

 

[SwagGuy99]

So Armada just made a tier list for Ultimate today it seems fairly reasonable to me with a few odd placings:

 

[Arthur97]

Why are people even still bringing these up?

 

[TennisBall]

Why are people even still bringing these up?

Because we wanna discuss it.
Pac Man's looking a bit low there mate.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Because we wanna discuss it.
Pac Man's looking a bit low there mate.

Yeah, both PAC-MAN, Bowser, and Luigi are looking a bit low.

Also, Armada noted that while the new footstool spamming (IDK what we're calling it yet) may affect some characters (Mario was the example he kept using) and may affect the game more than MKLeo thinks it will, it probably won't kill the game or anything. Just another take on the footstooling thing.

Edit:

I have been thinking about the footstool thing and from what I can tell, it buffs characters with poor disadvantage states, characters with strong disjoints, and specifically who's arms are unable to be footstooled for whatever reason despite not being disjointed. I think in particular might benefit from both sides of this as this might make his disadvantage a bit more bearable and (if his arms still count as disjoints and are unable to be footstooled like swords) this tech will not be able to be used against him very much either.

However, this does nerf characters with strong anti-airs, good moves with more vertical hitboxes, and characters with short range. I've already seen people talking about how this nerfs and they might be right although it's too early to tell.

Something I haven't seen people talking about though is how characters who fall faster may not be able to utilize this tech as much since they won't be able to footstool as much before landing where they are open to being punished.

However, characters who fall slower with more options to extend their air time will be buffed by the ability to stall and look for an opening for longer.

Specific characters I see benefiting from using this tech are:

Specific characters I see benefiting because this tech is not good against them are:

Specific characters I can see being nerfed by this tech are:

All of my thoughts here could turn out to be completely wrong, but this tech may results in changes for some character's metas moving forward.

 

[BitBitio]

actually benefits IMO because he still has multiple mid air jumps and is easy to juggle. So yeah he loses out a bit in advantage but his disadvantage is among the most buffed.
Also, if you time it right, you can escape the attacker and punish directly with buffered Stone.

 

[Myollnir]

I think this footstool discussion is a very interesting topic.

Before GIMR released the video, we regularly saw players using footstools to mix up their landings (a good recent example would be VoiD vs Nicko).

I've personally been using footstool to get away from landing traps (especially against shields) when I used my double jump previously (it worked even before Ultimate), but I didn't realize it was consistent in Ultimate (due to i-frames) and just considered myself lucky if I got away from an attack. Because I mashed jump to do this, I unconsciously used this technique and probably escaped some attacks with the i-frames without realizing it, and I didn't use it as much as I could have (because it's counter-intuitive to aim for the opponent while landing).

So what's my point? Well, I just wanted to show that you don't need in-depth information about something to already be using it. Similarly, even if you never checked it, you probably have an idea of your character's frame data : their fastest move, which move lingers, etc...).

Even if you don't know why something works, if it works, you're going to keep doing it subconsciously. You don't need to have data about something to have it implemented in your gameplay. However, having more information about it allows you to actually think about the specific situations where it's worth going for.

You should probably know this, but nothing is going to change the meta or be - litterally - gamebreaking. But with this approach, GIMR made players do some research & labbing so that this trick gets optimized quickly and used in actual games, thus allowing us so see how good it is in competitive play. So I think it was a good move from him, it benefits him (views & stuff) and players (unlike most clickbait stuff like ZeRo when he was still talking about the game).

With that being said, let's talk about the tech in itself.

I think it's insanely good in some match-ups, it makes expending your double jump not a bad thing and forces another read by your opponent to catch you. People saying "try this against me, please use your double jump" are COMPLETELY missing the point. This is a mix-up to land, again, in certain match-ups. In the same vein, people dismissing this trick saying "I'll just hit you from the side or something" don't understand that if the existence of it changes their way of juggling, it has already fulfilled its role and potentially changed the outcome of the game.

It is NOT meant to be used to stall for 7 minutes, BUT it can definitely help time out strategies in certain match-ups on certain stages (for the record, I'm fairly certain Kalos is going to have to go as soon as someone has the mental fortitude to play lame enough with a good character, as it invalidates all slow characters). It is meant to add a layer of depth in terms of how people play advantage & disadvantage.

Most of the time, anything that advances the meta benefits already good characters and nerf bad ones.
This tech is no exception, as it makes :
- not having disjoints even more detrimental. This one is pretty obvious.
- having good air mobility even better. If your character outmanoeuvers your opponent's, you already have an easy time playing evasive, and with this, it makes catching you even harder (potentially impossible in some match-ups on tri-plats / large stages). Your opponent can't counterplay this by aiming for the sides / spacing their juggling attempts, because you'll outdrift them, and if they get overzealous and you have a better fall speed than them, you can even be in a juggling situation yourself after getting out of disadvantage for free.

Some characters that are already fast enough to abuse this even have the luxury of having a D-air that makes them fall instantly to whiff punish (yesyou're one of the big winners). And being a fastfaller is already broken (seriously, who had the idea to give them a better frame data on airdodges despite high fall speed already being such a good trait?).

I'm not even including the free escape that this tech is for untrue strings (see Captain L's video). Making combo based characters less reliable isn't a good idea in a game where good characters are usually the ones with an easy, straightforward and still rewarding neutral game (for instance, 's F-air + its follow-ups deal more damage than most combos, despite the former being a neutral king and the latter being supposedly a combo based character).

Good characters (speed, range) can pressure outside of combos and strings, but bad characters can't.

Funnily enough, can't use this tech to help him land (due to multi-jumps and obnoxious air and fall speed), and it's one of the better candidates to get timed out by this, but if we're talking about using the foostool as a combo breaker, he's probably the one that benefits the most from this frame 2 (or frame3-4 depending on your execution, since it can't be buffered), due to having no offensive combo breaker, a F3 airdodge, and multi-jumps (meaning that he doesn't really care about getting his double jump snatched if he gets hit before the footstool comes out).

In the end, I think intangible phantom footstools on attacks are very unhealthy. For the most part, they benefit already good characters and hinder bad characters and can encourage a very lame gameplay to invalidate the most unfortunate characters. This game already has serious balance problems (we are all biased because we will always compare Ultimate to past smash games, but in soon 2020, this really shouldn't be acceptable for a competitive game - I mean, take a look at OrionStats and watch for yourselves), and intangible phantom footstools are very much unneeded in my opinion.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Yeah, both PAC-MAN, Bowser, and Luigi are looking a bit low.

Also, Armada noted that while the new footstool spamming (IDK what we're calling it yet) may affect some characters (Mario was the example he kept using) and may affect the game more than MKLeo thinks it will, it probably won't kill the game or anything. Just another take on the footstooling thing.

Edit:

I have been thinking about the footstool thing and from what I can tell, it buffs characters with poor disadvantage states, characters with strong disjoints, and specifically who's arms are unable to be footstooled for whatever reason despite not being disjointed. I think in particular might benefit from both sides of this as this might make his disadvantage a bit more bearable and (if his arms still count as disjoints and are unable to be footstooled like swords) this tech will not be able to be used against him very much either.

However, this does nerf characters with strong anti-airs, good moves with more vertical hitboxes, and characters with short range. I've already seen people talking about how this nerfs and they might be right although it's too early to tell.

Something I haven't seen people talking about though is how characters who fall faster may not be able to utilize this tech as much since they won't be able to footstool as much before landing where they are open to being punished.

However, characters who fall slower with more options to extend their air time will be buffed by the ability to stall and look for an opening for longer.

Specific characters I see benefiting from using this tech are:

Specific characters I see benefiting because this tech is not good against them are:

Specific characters I can see being nerfed by this tech are:

All of my thoughts here could turn out to be completely wrong, but this tech may results in changes for some character's metas moving forward.

Palutena's upAir is also footstool-able.
Don't know if that will affect her that much but it's still a move that creates vortexes and it's a really good juggling tool. I can see Palu being nerfed when this tech will be developed further.

And it gives characters that are combo-food in the air one good option to escape to pressure from below. This also affects Zelda since her disadvantage state is fairly bad. I think I like this tech, but I really wonder if that's an intended mechanic. It's possible that the i-frames on the footstool will be removed in the next patch. It doesn't seem to be hard to fix.

 

[Emblem Lord]

This is easily fixable.

It makes me feel this is intentional.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

I think this footstool discussion is a very interesting topic.

Before GIMR released the video, we regularly saw players using footstools to mix up their landings (a good recent example would be VoiD vs Nicko).

I've personally been using footstool to get away from landing traps (especially against shields) when I used my double jump previously (it worked even before Ultimate), but I didn't realize it was consistent in Ultimate (due to i-frames) and just considered myself lucky if I got away from an attack. Because I mashed jump to do this, I unconsciously used this technique and probably escaped some attacks with the i-frames without realizing it, and I didn't use it as much as I could have (because it's counter-intuitive to aim for the opponent while landing).

So what's my point? Well, I just wanted to show that you don't need in-depth information about something to already be using it. Similarly, even if you never checked it, you probably have an idea of your character's frame data : their fastest move, which move lingers, etc...).

Even if you don't know why something works, if it works, you're going to keep doing it subconsciously. You don't need to have data about something to have it implemented in your gameplay. However, having more information about it allows you to actually think about the specific situations where it's worth going for.

You should probably know this, but nothing is going to change the meta or be - litterally - gamebreaking. But with this approach, GIMR made players do some research & labbing so that this trick gets optimized quickly and used in actual games, thus allowing us so see how good it is in competitive play. So I think it was a good move from him, it benefits him (views & stuff) and players (unlike most clickbait stuff like ZeRo when he was still talking about the game).

With that being said, let's talk about the tech in itself.

I think it's insanely good in some match-ups, it makes expending your double jump not a bad thing and forces another read by your opponent to catch you. People saying "try this against me, please use your double jump" are COMPLETELY missing the point. This is a mix-up to land, again, in certain match-ups. In the same vein, people dismissing this trick saying "I'll just hit you from the side or something" don't understand that if the existence of it changes their way of juggling, it has already fulfilled its role and potentially changed the outcome of the game.

It is NOT meant to be used to stall for 7 minutes, BUT it can definitely help time out strategies in certain match-ups on certain stages (for the record, I'm fairly certain Kalos is going to have to go as soon as someone has the mental fortitude to play lame enough with a good character, as it invalidates all slow characters). It is meant to add a layer of depth in terms of how people play advantage & disadvantage.

Most of the time, anything that advances the meta benefits already good characters and nerf bad ones.
This tech is no exception, as it makes :
- not having disjoints even more detrimental. This one is pretty obvious.
- having good air mobility even better. If your character outmanoeuvers your opponent's, you already have an easy time playing evasive, and with this, it makes catching you even harder (potentially impossible in some match-ups on tri-plats / large stages). Your opponent can't counterplay this by aiming for the sides / spacing their juggling attempts, because you'll outdrift them, and if they get overzealous and you have a better fall speed than them, you can even be in a juggling situation yourself after getting out of disadvantage for free.

Some characters that are already fast enough to abuse this even have the luxury of having a D-air that makes them fall instantly to whiff punish (yesyou're one of the big winners). And being a fastfaller is already broken (seriously, who had the idea to give them a better frame data on airdodges despite high fall speed already being such a good trait?).

I'm not even including the free escape that this tech is for untrue strings (see Captain L's video). Making combo based characters less reliable isn't a good idea in a game where good characters are usually the ones with an easy, straightforward and still rewarding neutral game (for instance, 's F-air + its follow-ups deal more damage than most combos, despite the former being a neutral king and the latter being supposedly a combo based character).

Good characters (speed, range) can pressure outside of combos and strings, but bad characters can't.

Funnily enough, can't use this tech to help him land (due to multi-jumps and obnoxious air and fall speed), and it's one of the better candidates to get timed out by this, but if we're talking about using the foostool as a combo breaker, he's probably the one that benefits the most from this frame 2 (or frame3-4 depending on your execution, since it can't be buffered), due to having no offensive combo breaker, a F3 airdodge, and multi-jumps (meaning that he doesn't really care about getting his double jump snatched if he gets hit before the footstool comes out).

In the end, I think intangible phantom footstools on attacks are very unhealthy. For the most part, they benefit already good characters and hinder bad characters and can encourage a very lame gameplay to invalidate the most unfortunate characters. This game already has serious balance problems (we are all biased because we will always compare Ultimate to past smash games, but in soon 2020, this really shouldn't be acceptable for a competitive game - I mean, take a look at OrionStats and watch for yourselves), and intangible phantom footstools are very much unneeded in my opinion.

You have me until the very end, this game doesn't have serious balance problems this game have good balance compared to other modern games in their genre, please explain what games have better balance that this game, I see games with the roster in their mid 30 having worse balance that this game.

 

[Nobie]

MKLeo released a video of him playing Mewtwo on stream, where he expressed the opinion that Mewtwo is a high tier who is kept out of top tier by its hurtbox. While I think everyone agrees that hurtbox is a big weakness, it's notable that he considers Mewtwo to be way better than pretty much every other big name player, all of whom place Mewtwo in low tier (with the caveat that the game is relatively well balanced).

But MKLeo expresses that he LIKES playing Mewtwo and thinks it has something as a character, so it's not just theorycrafting.

In the Mewtwo discord, some mention that it's like he plays an MKLeo-esque Mewtwo instead of basically a more optimized one, but I wonder if that's the key. Mewtwo is still great in neutral, is basically top 10 in movement, and tacks on big damage. Its weaknesses are being awful in disadvantage, that big hurtbox, and dying early. Maybe, as the player who wins neutral more than any other and a player who extends his advantage state probably better than any other, those weaknesses are not as big a deal.

 

[The_Bookworm]

ESAM released his end of the year tier list.

10:
9.5:
9:
8.5:
8:
*Above here is high tier and more confidently ordered*
7.5:
7:
6.5:
6:
5.5:
5:
*Gap*
4.5:
4:

Btw, he paired with .

There is of course some questionable placements (examples being Puff that high and Kirby that low), but that is nothing unusual from an ESAM tier list.
But for an ESAM tier list, it is actually not bad.

Something notable is how much higher Robin is in this list compared to previous ones.

MKLeo released a video of him playing Mewtwo on stream, where he expressed the opinion that Mewtwo is a high tier who is kept out of top tier by its hurtbox. While I think everyone agrees that hurtbox is a big weakness, it's notable that he considers Mewtwo to be way better than pretty much every other big name player, all of whom place Mewtwo in low tier (with the caveat that the game is relatively well balanced).

But MKLeo expresses that he LIKES playing Mewtwo and thinks it has something as a character, so it's not just theorycrafting.

In the Mewtwo discord, some mention that it's like he plays an MKLeo-esque Mewtwo instead of basically a more optimized one, but I wonder if that's the key. Mewtwo is still great in neutral, is basically top 10 in movement, and tacks on big damage. Its weaknesses are being awful in disadvantage, that big hurtbox, and dying early. Maybe, as the player who wins neutral more than any other and a player who extends his advantage state probably better than any other, those weaknesses are not as big a deal.

I have known that MkLeo has taken an interest in for the past few weeks, so it is cool to see some top players outside of ESAM put the character in recognition.
However, I find it interesting that Leo has now taken interest in him, considering that he never played , at least in serious play.

 

[Cheryl~]

ESAM released his end of the year tier list.

10:
9.5:
9:
8.5:
8:
*Above here is high tier and more confidently ordered*
7.5:
7:
6.5:
6:
5.5:
5:
*Gap*
4.5:
4:

Btw, he paired with .

There is of course some questionable placements (examples being Puff that high and Kirby that low), but that is nothing unusual from an ESAM tier list.
But for an ESAM tier list, it is actually not bad.

Something notable is how much higher Robin is in this list compared to previous ones.


I have known that MkLeo has taken an interest in for the past few weeks, so it is cool to see some top players outside of ESAM put the character in recognition.
However, I find it interesting that Leo has now taken interest in him, considering that he never played , at least in serious play.

ESAM’s new tier list is actually pretty good but the big outlier that I feel everyone here will point out is definitely King Dedede being a bottom 5 character and below King K Rool. While it’s no secret that Dedede is probably a low-mid tier at best nobody has placed him this low in their tier lists. While I can see Dedede being a bottom 10 pick I don’t really see him as bottom 5, although it is true that ZAKI’s results haven’t exactly been top notch recently and he’s basically the only crazy good Dedede main making results at majors. (Big D would also count but he mostly sticks to Ice Climbers now).

 

[Rizen]

ESAM released his end of the year tier list.

10:
9.5:
9:
8.5:
8:
*Above here is high tier and more confidently ordered*
7.5:
7:
6.5:
6:
5.5:
5:
*Gap*
4.5:
4:

Btw, he paired with .

There is of course some questionable placements (examples being Puff that high and Kirby that low), but that is nothing unusual from an ESAM tier list.
But for an ESAM tier list, it is actually not bad.

Something notable is how much higher Robin is in this list compared to previous ones.


I have known that MkLeo has taken an interest in for the past few weeks, so it is cool to see some top players outside of ESAM put the character in recognition.
However, I find it interesting that Leo has now taken interest in him, considering that he never played , at least in serious play.

ESAM's gonna ESAM putting as the best character when he can't even get top 20 results.

has some good attributes but he suffers from being very light and the same thing K.Rool suffers from: having fairly good hitboxes but on a huge hurtbox. The relative size matters a lot. These things are even worse together as Mewtwo doesn't want to trade but will soak up a lot of damage anyway. I feel like Mewtwo can only get so far with these limitations. Like any character he can be scary. It's just that characters like Joker are even scarier and without handicaps.

 

[Arthur97]

Of course, MKLeo being himself might have a heightened view of the fighter just because he's so good.

Oh good, another tier list.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

ESAM's gonna ESAM putting as the best character when he can't even get top 20 results.

has some good attributes but he suffers from being very light and the same thing K.Rool suffers from: having fairly good hitboxes but on a huge hurtbox. The relative size matters a lot. These things are even worse together as Mewtwo doesn't want to trade but will soak up a lot of damage anyway. I feel like Mewtwo can only get so far with these limitations. Like any character he can be scary. It's just that characters like Joker are even scarier and without handicaps.

Welll Mew2king placed Pikachu as #2 and Armada at #1 in thier recent tier lists. Plus many other top-level Ultimate players are claming Pika is #1 . So its definetly not just a #ESAMopinions thing anymore.

Pikachu is kinda becoming the new Shulk. Where on paper and look god-like and would be among the best in the game. But the actual results dont quite match that.

Then again Shulk actullay has started to get results now with some B-Rank tournament wins. Then again you can also say Shulk has a lot more high/top level represntation than Pikachu

 

[PK Gaming]

I don't think many of ESAM's non-top tier placements are all that egregious, and I agree with his top 10*

But ESAM having the temerity to place Pikachu at #1, without the results or relevant top players wins to warrant is absolutely bonkers

Nevermind the fact that "Pikachu being the best or 2nd best" character is an untenable statement as far as the current metagame, but I can't people are still blindly buying into Pikachu hype

 

[FruitLoop]

ESAM’s new tier list is actually pretty good but the big outlier that I feel everyone here will point out is definitely King Dedede being a bottom 5 character and below King K Rool. While it’s no secret that Dedede is probably a low-mid tier at best nobody has placed him this low in their tier lists. While I can see Dedede being a bottom 10 pick I don’t really see him as bottom 5, although it is true that ZAKI’s results haven’t exactly been top notch recently and he’s basically the only crazy good Dedede main making results at majors. (Big D would also count but he mostly sticks to Ice Climbers now).

I on the contrary, don't disagree much with ESAM's ddd placement the more I think about it. ZAKI has never really made big waves with DDD and every other notable DDD main dropped him. Zaki did perform WELL with DDD whenever he used him, but it was never anything particularly huge with DDD not even placing particularly high on the OrionStats.

Also the main thing to note is the fact that it's been increasingly shown as the meta became more defensive and more optimized in advantage that DDD struggles to kill as he has to rely on a VERY limited amount of moves to kill which are also his neutral tools which makes him very prone to staling. The character doesn't really have much going for him is really the issue since a lot of his "top tier niches" against characters like Snake, Inkling, Lucina, Ness, and Peach overall got subsided once the matchup got figured out better for those particular characters since it was commonly agreed back then that characters regardless of how good they were had to be good at facing gordo otherwise the mu was even at best for them. However the discovery of just rolling behind DDD when he does it or just hitting him out of gordo due to the move being frame 29 with his limited mobility preventing mixups just makes his mu spread turn from genuine secondary potential to just being plain bad.

Most of the things that people thought DDD had going for him ended up being his downfall. His neutral win to opponent neutral-win ratio turned out to be very bad despite the original perception that DDD had to win less neutral interactions to get his gameplan going which is SUPER problematic as a heavy, his survivability isn't as good as most people thought it was as like ESAM said he often takes a ton of damage in disadvantage due to his nonexistent air speed with not even his multiple jumps saving him due to their absurdly low height and his lack of other tools in disadvantage. And even his recovery has been shown to be not NEARLY as good as it was once thought as many charcters can just hit him before he up-bs for free due to how he's forced to always jump and grab the ledge under the stage due to Up-B's linearity with Up-B onstage's mixup potential being less viable with good mu experience.


Most of DDD's kit outside of his fast fall air camping mixups and a few individually good moves + gordo setups just feels genuinely awful as DDD doesn't really accomplish anything that any other heavy or character can do. K Rool AT LEAST can kill with his bury confirms and he at least HAS approach options in neutral such as a shorthop fair approach thanks to its buffs and the fact that he has an Out of Shield option which gives him much better ways to deal with pressure and situations when compared to DDD. Also the fact that K Rool has a frame 4 reflector in exchange with DDD's frame 17 reflector with more endlag than all counters in the game while still having an absurdly impractical spitting animation also means that he's better at anti-zoning. K Rool at least HAS something for his gameplan and that's why he's usually the better character now.

So yea DDD can def be bottom 3/5 as of this meta especially with everyone else getting better and DDD getting pretty sizeable nerfs.

 

[|RK|]

It's amusing if not sad how DDD seems to keep getting nerfed at the beginning of the game's meta. His airspeed in S4 would have done wonders for him, as would his Gordo size in Ultimate. However, I feel the character is just... incredibly oppressive online, and then they try to make him more bearable without giving him anything in return.

And yet, Samus stays the same, funny how that goes.

I don't think the dev team wants DDD to be good. But with a character like him, it takes just one or two tweaks to make him insufferable. Pre-patch Gordo size and dthrow uair being a kill confirm (which it was in early S4, I think - I could be remembering wrong). All of a sudden, it's "abandon hope all ye who enter."

 

[Rizen]

Welll Mew2king placed Pikachu as #2 and Armada at #1 in thier recent tier lists. Plus many other top-level Ultimate players are claming Pika is #1 . So its definetly not just a #ESAMopinions thing anymore.

Oh good it's spreading -_- It kind of bugs me that Tweek picked ESAM over Debuz for the USA vs the World crew battle (Which was one of the hypest matches if you're from the USA go watch it). Tweek also thinks "ESAM's character doesn't lose to anyone". But to be fair IDK all Tweek's reasons.

Most of DDD's kit outside of his fast fall air camping mixups and a few individually good moves + gordo setups just feels genuinely awful as DDD doesn't really accomplish anything that any other heavy or character can do. K Rool AT LEAST can kill with his bury confirms and he at least HAS approach options in neutral such as a shorthop fair approach thanks to its buffs and the fact that he has an Out of Shield option which gives him much better ways to deal with pressure and situations when compared to DDD. Also the fact that K Rool has a frame 4 reflector in exchange with DDD's frame 17 reflector with more endlag than all counters in the game while still having an absurdly impractical spitting animation also means that he's better at anti-zoning. K Rool at least HAS something for his gameplan and that's why he's usually the better character now.

So yea DDD can def be bottom 3/5 as of this meta especially with everyone else getting better and DDD getting pretty sizeable nerfs.

Alright, I'm not the only one who thinks K.Rool isn't complete trash.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Not gonna comment too much on ESAM's list, but the 30-spot gap between and does confuse me the most about his list, especially when post-patch Kirby pretty much upstaged post-patch Jiggs for the rest of Season 2 results-wise (Jesuischoq's 13th at a B Tier and FerretKuma's 17th at an A Tier vs. Arika's 97th at an A Tier and BassMage's 33rd at a C Tier).

I feel like the gap is more of ESAM putting Jiggs WAY too high rather than putting Kirby too low, but maybe we'll see something different in Season 3.

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Welll Mew2king placed Pikachu as #2 and Armada at #1 in thier recent tier lists. Plus many other top-level Ultimate players are claming Pika is #1 . So its definetly not just a #ESAMopinions thing anymore.

Pikachu is kinda becoming the new Shulk. Where on paper and look god-like and would be among the best in the game. But the actual results dont quite match that.

Then again Shulk actullay has started to get results now with some B-Rank tournament wins. Then again you can also say Shulk has a lot more high/top level represntation than Pikachu

To play off of this, off the top of my head, these are the opinions that a small chunk of high level players have on :

- Samsora: Thinks he's top 2.
- Tweek: Thinks he's top 2.
- Armada: Thinks he's the best character in the game.
- Mew2King: Thinks he's top 2.
- ESAM: Thinks he's the best character in the game.
- Dark Wizzy: Thinks he's the best character in the game (by a long shot).
- Pandarian: Thinks he's the best character in the game and needs to be nerfed.
- Leffen: Thinks he's top 8.
- Dabuz: Thinks he's top 4.
- Zackray: Thinks he's top 5.

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As for footstool jumping (or phantom foots tooling?), in terms of how much it affects characters' up aerials, I'm predicting:

Possibly affected less:
Possibly affected more:
Maybe affected? :

In other words, pretty much disjoints that don't involve intangible limbs (i.e. explosions, projectiles, swords/hammers, Palutena's goddess light thing). Wario, Mewtwo, and Ridley are weird because they use limb attacks, but with limbs that generally don't have hurtboxes to begin with, and I have no clue how this mechanic works in terms of interactions with Olimar's Pikmin or Rosalina's Luma. and I feel will probably be the least affected by this as the former two shoot projectiles for their up aerials, while the latter two's up aerials are massively disjointed.

That said, there's a ton of workarounds for characters in the middle category. "Phantom" hopping against sounds good, but then you forget that F.L.U.D.D. singlehandedly wins him neutral against hop-happy players, has a disjointed NAir that start above him, 's got a nice Ptooie for you to sit on, etc.


I feel like footstool jumping won't actually change too much, but there has been early testing of it in actual matches from Fatality (these are mostly friendlies however, so take that with a grain of salt):

Fatality makes good use of the technique to escape out of disadvantage quite often. is looking to be a possible beneficiary from the tech, as he has a strong enough air speed/fall speed to quickly reset neutral after footstool jumping. On the flip side, escaping his UAir set-ups is generally easier thanks to this technique.

 

[Lacrimosa]

ESAM's tier-list looks more like a Pikachu MU-chart.
Yes, he is a Pikachu player but it seems that everything he talks about is froma Pikachu PoV. Not necessarily bad but that has nothing to do with a a properly done tier-list.

KirbySquad101 As mentioned above, Palutena's upAir is affected by the phantom footstool and given it's one of her biggest combo-tools I can see that Palutena is majorly affected by this. She also doesn'T have have Fludd (which I think won't do anything for Mario but ok).

 

[Cheryl~]

Just saying that if you’re actually going to try to use the footstool technique on Palu’s Up-Air, you’re going to not only have to land the footstool in the first place and not get punished on landing with Palutena’s amazing air accel and decent ground speed, but you’re also going to have to avoid getting hit on the sides of her Up-Air, as that is where it’s actually a disjoint.

 

[|RK|]

I should note that while good, many of the char's affected by it negatively can just hit the side of their opponents instead. I don't think there's a single character who doesn't have alternative counterplay to an opponent without a jump resetting disadvantage.

It may be more productive to determine which characters can abuse it best, then comparing it to the characters it would affect negatively.

For example, Falcon is still getting trapped. Yoshi, however, has high airspeed, down b, a projectile, and neutral b as a landing mixup.

The characters this is going to affect will care about Yoshi more than Falcon.

 

[Krysco]

Of the characters I use, Chrom has high air speed, high fall speed and disjoints so he should be able to abuse both sides of the footstool tech.

Isabelle has a disjointed uair and has a number of means of attacking from the side from a distance like an already set up Lloid Trap, Fishing Rod and fair/bair. Can't make too much use of it herself though as her air speed isn't the greatest nor is her fall speed and she doesn't have a quick way down.

I imagine Hero can be easily footstooled if he's in the air since uair is a kick and while nair is a disjoint that starts above him, the hitbox is only above him for frames 8, 9 and 10. I find Hero is far better at trapping landings anyway with his absurdly disjointed utilt, Zapple, Frizz spells, menu projectiles and to a lesser extent usmash. As for Hero abusing it, he also doesn't have a quick way down aside from Kaclang although I suppose you could access the menu to try and get Acceleratle or Zoom.

I'm not actually sure how much this will affect Ridley. His utilt and usmash have intangibility so footstooling them wouldn't be easy but none of his aerials have intangibility and they all make use of his body so I'm not sure if he were to use uair if someone would be able to just jump off his extended wings. He could abuse it himself thanks to dair getting him to the ground quickly.

 

[Arthur97]

Don't forget that apparently some things it just won't work with apparently (I think Bowser's fists, maybe the entire arm, were given as an example). There may be things that just beat it out that are mostly unknown at this point.

 

[Game7a1]

Not gonna comment too much on ESAM's list, but the 30-spot gap between and does confuse me the most about his list, especially when post-patch Kirby pretty much upstaged post-patch Jiggs for the rest of Season 2 results-wise (Jesuischoq's 13th at a B Tier and FerretKuma's 17th at an A Tier vs. Arika's 97th at an A Tier and BassMage's 33rd at a C Tier).

I feel like the gap is more of ESAM putting Jiggs WAY too high rather than putting Kirby too low, but maybe we'll see something different in Season 3.

His opinion on Puff could be influenced from playing against Cannon Red, a Puff main from Oklahoma (or is it Texas?). Either way, he made an impression on ESAM, and I guess that leads to ESAM thinking higher of Puff than the norm.

 

[Lacrimosa]

His opinion on Puff could be influenced from playing against Cannon Red, a Puff main from Oklahoma (or is it Texas?). Either way, he made an impression on ESAM, and I guess that leads to ESAM thinking higher of Puff than the norm.

He still thinks rather low of Zelda despite Ven defeating him and taking a set off MKLeo at Kongo Saga which btw was the 2nd time Leo met Ven, so Leo should have had some MU knowledge and Zelda apparently suffers from "getting find out". Granted. it was at the Kongo Saga kick-off but Leo went 2-0 there).
Pff, however, was buffed quite a bit. Dair into Rest confirms seem real but she may have trouble actually getting these. It is still a very potent option. On the other hand, there is still not a single player that made any lasting impact with Puff, even after the buffs.

ESAM has characters that he thinks won't do good in any way. Kirby seems to be one of them, even though results after buffs may suggest other things. Hier tier-list lack what M2K's tier-list has too much off: Results.

I don't know. I've never liked how ESAM handles tier-lists, mostly because of that last section. I had the same qualms with Armada's first tier-list but the last one is actually done pretty well (and he still placed Zelda fairly low, so I don't think there's much main bias but there probably is).

 

[Diddy Kong]

So, Tweek has an amazing Diddy Kong. Anyone took notice of that? Heard the commentators at Kongo Saga tell of how Tweek picked up Diddy about 2 days prior to the tournament, and that's just crazy!! He's playing him almost perfectly. Am pretty sure that Tweek is showing the most potential of Diddy in Ultimate as of yet. And there's still room to improve. Just makes me happy that Tweek is probably solidifying Diddy's rightful and hard-fought place in High Tier.

Looking out to see more of Tweek's Diddy. He's making his Diddy awesome to watch as well, which is always a plus of course.

 

[KirbySquad101]

has gotten increasingly popular as a counterpick for a while now. Zinoto used him on occasion, Rivers has been practicing him more and more, and even Elegant now has a pocket Diddy to deal with the match-up.

EDIT: Oh yeah, one more thing; Suar (the director behind PGStats) said that the PGRU rankings for Season 2 will be revealed sometime around mid-January.

I should note that while good, many of the char's affected by it negatively can just hit the side of their opponents instead. I don't think there's a single character who doesn't have alternative counterplay to an opponent without a jump resetting disadvantage.

It may be more productive to determine which characters can abuse it best, then comparing it to the characters it would affect negatively.

For example, Falcon is still getting trapped. Yoshi, however, has high airspeed, down b, a projectile, and neutral b as a landing mixup.

The characters this is going to affect will care about Yoshi more than Falcon.

Wouldn't be able to abuse footstool jumping, though? He's got 's airspeed, the 7th fastest fall speed, and a dive kick of his own in the form of Falcon Kick. would most likely benefit more from it, but on paper Falcon sounds like one of the better candidates to use the technique.

I could be missing something, though, I don't really main/follow Falcon that much lol.

 

[|RK|]

Wouldn't be able to abuse footstool jumping, though? He's got 's airspeed, the 7th fastest fall speed, and a dive kick of his own in the form of Falcon Kick. would most likely benefit more from it, but on paper Falcon sounds like one of the better candidates to use the technique.

I could be missing something, though, I don't really main/follow Falcon that much lol.

Characters like Mario/Yoshi have good options to reverse their momentum, in addition to safe ways to stall, and safe ways to land.

Falcon... I could be wrong here, but after he bounces back up, he doesn't necessarily have mix. It's like "oh, well let's try this again."

 

[Diddy Kong]

Diddy also has quite good matchups against certain Top Tiers. He's beating Zero Suit Samus, and goes well against Palutena and Lucina too. He can also deal with Fox, Joker, Peach and Roy quite well. Only Top Tiers to really fear are Snake and Pikachu.

I'm certain Diddy will grow more after Kongo Saga.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Something notable is how much higher Robin is in this list compared to previous ones.

He specifically mentioned how he moved and after thinking about it more.

I agree with both and .

I'm still not really sure about , he's not the worst character in the game, but I still don't see him as being that good, but maybe I'm just focusing too much on the negative aspects.

As for footstool jumping (or phantom foots tooling?), in terms of how much it affects characters' up aerials, I'm predicting:
Possibly affected more: .

I've just been testing it a bit, and it appears to be difficult to footstool off of Luigi Cyclone consistently due to the windboxes. It's possible, but you do get pulled in or pushed slightly away most of the time. Keep in mind that not only is this move nearly impossible to phantom footstool on, but it's also invincible frame 4 to 8 grounded (1 to 7 in midair), can kill, and allows Luigi to move a little bit on the ground. If footstool teching is really the future of Ultimate (hopefully not), then this move will probably be thrown out a lot more by Luigi players.

Not only that, but Luigi being able to perform this tech helps him a lot in disadvantage, so I don't think it will affect him more than most characters at all actually.

Also, someone in the Luigi discord told me (take this with a grain of salt, I can neither confirm nor deny this) that up-smash is still a possible anti-air when spaced correctly against phantom footstools. So yeah, the only move of Luigi's that I can see being significantly worse now is up-air and maybe n-air.[/QUOTE]

 

[|RK|]

Diddy also has quite good matchups against certain Top Tiers. He's beating Zero Suit Samus, and goes well against Palutena and Lucina too. He can also deal with Fox, Joker, Peach and Roy quite well. Only Top Tiers to really fear are Snake and Pikachu.

I'm certain Diddy will grow more after Kongo Saga.

Maybe I missed it, but I would have expected you to have been talking about Rivers's Diddy!

Especially since he was last hit with Tweek's Joker at Tristate Showdown. But yes, it does appear Diddy does well vs Joker and such.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Maybe I missed it, but I would have expected you to have been talking about Rivers's Diddy!

Especially since he was last hit with Tweek's Joker at Tristate Showdown. But yes, it does appear Diddy does well vs Joker and such.

He does because Joker is much like Lucina and Palutena in a way, mobile and strong neutral but there's "gaps" in there with their lag that Diddy can punish easier due to shield / dodge plus Banana.

Rivers also has an amazing Diddy of course. No need to overlook him. But he always had a wicked Diddy but for some reason preferred Chrom. I just thought Tweek was amazing cause he never really used Diddy at all.

Honestly he's just one good buff away from being a Top Tier yet again I feel. If Banana was more safe on shield again, or F Air worked like Smash 4, it would make a huge difference already. Then again am certain that most of this new success is because of the U Smash buff. It's responsible for so many kills in Kongo Saga, both as punish and option out of D Tilt combos.