Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Nobie]

MKLeo is way better at recovering as Ike than anyone ought to be.

 

[Idon]

MKLeo is way better at recovering as Ike than anyone ought to be.

That man came back from the depths of hell and smacked toad on the way back.

 

[KamikazePotato]

I'd be all for re-balancing Ike's moveset to be as Nair-dependent, but nerfing it and doing nothing else will pretty much dumpster him. That's probably what happens, so for now, I'm going to ride the high of Ike actually being temporarily good. I've been waiting for 10 years.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I'd be all for re-balancing Ike's moveset to be as Nair-dependent, but nerfing it and doing nothing else will pretty much dumpster him. That's probably what happens, so for now, I'm going to ride the high of Ike actually being temporarily good. I've been waiting for 10 years.

The proper attitude to have.

Strong chars get dumpstered.

That is the harsh reality.

Although Nintendo is pretty good at toning down strong chars without killing them.

 

[MG_3989]

I'd be all for re-balancing Ike's moveset to be as Nair-dependent, but nerfing it and doing nothing else will pretty much dumpster him. That's probably what happens, so for now, I'm going to ride the high of Ike actually being temporarily good. I've been waiting for 10 years.

Unfortunately nerfing is easier than rebalancing and Nintendo always seems to take the easy route with this kind of thing. Since we haven’t had any balance patches with Ultimate maybe it will be different but I don’t see that happening. I hope it does though because Ike does deserve to be a good character after ten years

 

[Aaron1997]

Sumabato SP 1 (314 Entrants)

1. Zackray
2. Tea
3. Shogun
4. Akasa
5. Hayato
5. Oishiitofu
7. Repo
7. Sigma
9. Masashi
9. Yoshidora
9. Komorikiri
9. Ri-ma
13. NoLuck
13. Abadango
13. Tatsutsuyo
13. Aki
17. Souther
17. You3
17. DIO
17. TMK
17. Kie
17. Kept
17. YOC
17. Edge/Etsuji
25. Komugiko
25. Karoegu
25. Kome
25. Lunamado
25. Yamanyon
25. Logix
25. Zaki
25. Fuji
33. HIKARU
65. Raito

Note's:

1. Tea picking up right where he left off. Fruit nerfs not affecting him at all. Only dropped 1 game till grands

2. Inkling is not looking good right now. You3 Beat Abadango in winner's and Raito lol

3. Japan love's Wolf

4. All the Japanese Brawl Snakes are back.

5. Toon Link is more popular then Young link in Japan

6. This a major according to Das Koopa

 

[Browny]

How to solve Ike in one easy step: Increase KBG on nair slightly. I mean, its not like hes unique in being defined by a single move and Ridley will have something to say about who gets the king of the nairs crown. It's just absurd that Ikes nair keeps comboing into kill moves for a ridiculous range of %'s. Its OK for a character to have safe moves combo into kill moves. Its not OK when its so free, that the move effectively has its damage and knockback doubled.

It reminds me of ganons dthrow in PM. Always combod into bair/downb for a large range to the point that his dthrow was a kill move that worked on everyone from like 90 onwards. For all intents and purposes, his dthrow was the strongest KO throw in the game by a significant margin.

That's not 'balanced' any more than it is balancing Little mac by making his ftilt do 30% and KO at 90%.

 

[Tri Knight]

I really hope Ike doesnt get nerfed too hard. He's the only FE character I actually like... well, maybe Roy too. That being said, I have never seen so many N-airs used in my life from MKLeo... the move may be a little too centralized to Ike's game. I'd like to see his F-air at least be adjusted to make it worth using more during neutral. Either way, MKLeo's Ike was a monster. Ike deserves those heights.

Peach... all you can do is pray for your stock if she gets you offstage. Like others, she's a great character made fantastic through the mechanical changes of Ultimate. Samsora was an absolute nightmare to watch tonight. I was more afraid of Peach tonight than I was of MKLeo's Ike. The nerf to air dodge has been incredible.

I said earlier that I wanted Salem to back up all his talk about his Link, and he certainly proved himself today. Gotta give the man props. Link's performing so much better than I thought he would. Hit 3rd place today with Salem. 9th in a couple other highly populated tournaments (~240 and 500+ entrants) from Izaw and someone else in SoCal. I love to see this more than anything. Keep it up Link mains.

 

[Ghidorah14]

Leave Ike alone and git gud. We are NOT about to have a repeat of smash 4 little mac.

 

[Game7a1]

How to solve Ike in one easy step: Increase KBG on nair slightly. I mean, its not like hes unique in being defined by a single move and Ridley will have something to say about who gets the king of the nairs crown. It's just absurd that Ikes nair keeps comboing into kill moves for a ridiculous range of %'s. Its OK for a character to have safe moves combo into kill moves. Its not OK when its so free, that the move effectively has its damage and knockback doubled.

It reminds me of ganons dthrow in PM. Always combod into bair/downb for a large range to the point that his dthrow was a kill move that worked on everyone from like 90 onwards. For all intents and purposes, his dthrow was the strongest KO throw in the game by a significant margin.

That's not 'balanced' any more than it is balancing Little mac by making his ftilt do 30% and KO at 90%.

I think that solution would be a good idea. Ike's N-air reminds me of Bowser's Up-Throw in Smash 4 when it became a (probably too powerful) combo throw. The balance team decided to nerf it by adding more KBG to the move, making it less powerful, but still pretty good. So I can see the increase in KBG on Ike's N-air as a good start towards balancing him.

 

[Ffamran]

How to solve Ike in one easy step: Increase KBG on nair slightly. I mean, its not like hes unique in being defined by a single move and Ridley will have something to say about who gets the king of the nairs crown. It's just absurd that Ikes nair keeps comboing into kill moves for a ridiculous range of %'s. Its OK for a character to have safe moves combo into kill moves. Its not OK when its so free, that the move effective has its damage and knockback doubled.

It reminds me of ganons dthrow in PM. Always combod into bair/downb for a large range to the point that his dthrow was a kill move that worked on everyone from like 90 onwards. For all intents and purposes, his dthrow was the strongest KO throw in the game by a significant margin.

That's not 'balanced' any more than it is balancing Little mac by making his ftilt do 30% and KO at 90%.

Alternatively, they could increase the damage for the clean hit. From Smash 4 to Ultimate, Ike's Nair clean hit damage was reduced from 10% to 7.5%. The late hit also dropped from 7% to 6%. The unfortunate part is we don't know what the knockback values for Ultimate Ike's Nair, but for reference, Smash 4 Ike's Nair had 35 base and 105 growth for both the clean and late hits. If the knockback is the same in Ultimate, reverting its damage could make it do too much knockback with the clean hit. It would probably still be able to combo into whatever, but the window would be tighter. The late hit would probably work the same as it does now, but it would be slower.

Another option is to change the hit angle. Once again, we don't know what the exact hit angle is for his Nair in Ultimate, but it's probably the same 80 degrees as in the previous game(s) considering it's popping people up and allowing him to combo into Uair. Dropping it to 70 or more would probably gut Nair, though. I don't think Ike would be able to follow up with another Nair or Fair. Dropping it to 40 degrees, the same as Smash Cloud's Nair hit angle, could be even worse since its current damage values would make it a Cloud Nair with doubled startup and less damage for better hitbox coverage and active frames.

Leave Ike alone and git gud. We are NOT about to have a repeat of smash 4 little mac.

I think what people are trying to argue is that Ike's Nair is a little overtuned compared to his aerials and that while they want Nair to be weaker or less of a Swiss Army knife, they also want Ike's other moves to be better to counter that. Smash 4 Ike had Nair, Uair, Fair, and Bair as all good moves while Ultimate Ike's more like Nair is amazing, Uair is good, and Fair and Bair are okay.

Now, if there's one overtuned move that I feel like should be straight up nerfed, it's Pichu's Ftilt. That stupid thing should not have 8 active frames. 4 at most, but not 8 goddamn frames. Its damage, knockback, and other frame data are fine, but 8 active frames is ridiculous.

Pichu's Ftilt is frame 5 on startup, has 8 active frames, 13 recovery frames, does 8%, has a hit angle of 361, 5 base knockback, and 150 knockback growth. Here's the tweet about its hit angle and knockback: https://twitter.com/Ruben_dal/status/1078549549680087042.

 

[KamikazePotato]

Calling for direct nerfs so soon seems...kneejerk-y? The Top 48 was hardly flooded with Ikes. He didn't even place in Japan.

Then again, if Samsora had completed the runback, this topic would be two pages of "how do we nerf Peach?" so I guess that's the price of victory.

 

[J0eyboi]

Y'know, I get that Corrin is basically never seen anymore, but how has she not popped up once in the discussion of best Nair?

Anyway, I think Ike's win today is less a product of Ike being amazing, top tier, or whatever else than it is of MKLeo being great, with a bit of bracket luck mixed in (Peach is a pretty good matchup for Ike imo). Ike's Nair is a great move, yes, but it's not enough to shore up his multitude of other weaknesses, and all the nerfs he received in the transition make me especially skeptical. Seriously, who thought making Fair no longer autocancel in a shorthop and gutting its kill power was at all necessary?

 

[san.]

Increasing knockback growth on nair will be a poor change. That will let Ike kill confirm even earlier, then at 90-120% he will fish for late hit nair instead of 110-140% for the late hit. I think nair is fine, just that his other moves except for uair are weaker due to nerfs, and players will need to learn to counterplay by catching his jumps. Quite a few moves are better, considering Pikachu can loop with his nair drag down, and in the same set you see Peach getting 70+% conversions, comapred to Ike's 20-30% or more with some tech chase reads.

Ike has an extremely situational landing uair->uair confirm on low ceiling stages like FD, and increasing KB on nair will be reminiscent of that.

 

[Tri Knight]

Calling for direct nerfs so soon seems...kneejerk-y? The Top 48 was hardly flooded with Ikes. He didn't even place in Japan.

Then again, if Samsora had completed the runback, this topic would be two pages of "how do we nerf Peach?" so I guess that's the price of victory.

I mean Peach was converting upwards of 70% pretty consistently. Surprised were not talking about that. Samsora was the scary one imo.

 

[KamikazePotato]

Anyway, I think Ike's win today is less a product of Ike being amazing, top tier, or whatever else than it is of MKLeo being great, with a bit of bracket luck mixed in (Peach is a pretty good matchup for Ike imo)

The closest MKLeo came to losing, outside of the finals, was his match against 8BitMan's ROB back at the very start of the Winner's Bracket. After that he faced Olimar, Palutena, Link, and then finally Peach. Take of that what you will.

 

[Browny]

Calling for direct nerfs so soon seems...kneejerk-y? The Top 48 was hardly flooded with Ikes. He didn't even place in Japan.

Then again, if Samsora had completed the runback, this topic would be two pages of "how do we nerf Peach?" so I guess that's the price of victory.

You don't have to hang around competitive smash players for very long to know that when someone demonstrates how a character can use a single, easy to land move, to dismantle the entire cast, that the scene is going to be flooded with people swapping mains, looking for the easiest win possible and will copy that strategy.

I fully expect a significant amount of Inkling and Palutena players to suddenly switch to Ike. This would not be the case had peach won, since she needs a whole variety of moves and tricks to do well. Ikes nair could probably single-handedly win a lot of small local tournaments.

 

[Ffamran]

Calling for direct nerfs so soon seems...kneejerk-y? The Top 48 was hardly flooded with Ikes. He didn't even place in Japan.

Then again, if Samsora had completed the runback, this topic would be two pages of "how do we nerf Peach?" so I guess that's the price of victory.

This is unfortunately too common and it happens with any character and in any game. It makes sense, though, when you think about it from their point of view. If you weaken something so much, then there's a chance you won't have to deal with them. At the same time, it's horribly misguided as they're not learning or overcoming something, but trying to find a way to avoid it. That said, there are times when things do need direct nerfs if they're too good.

 

[LightLV]

The proper attitude to have.

Strong chars get dumpstered.

That is the harsh reality.

Although Nintendo is pretty good at toning down strong chars without killing them.

mmm, tell that to Kirby

Was godlike in 64, been dumpster ever since lol

 

[Omastar]

Man it must suck being an Ike main right now. Knowing a ton of people are going to play the character now and potentially getting him nerfed down the line especially since he is finally good now. Quite the unordiNAIRy situation.




Thanks folks, I'll be here all night.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

You don't have to hang around competitive smash players for very long to know that when someone demonstrates how a character can use a single, easy to land move, to dismantle the entire cast, that the scene is going to be flooded with people swapping mains, looking for the easiest win possible and will copy that strategy.

I fully expect a significant amount of Inkling and Palutena players to suddenly switch to Ike. This would not be the case had peach won, since she needs a whole variety of moves and tricks to do well. Ikes nair could probably single-handedly win a lot of small local tournaments.

The thing is, as pointed out by San... its beatable. You have to know what you're doing, but its beatable. Its not like Diddy back in SSB4 where it was "alright I gotta dodge the grab, with limited options because of where the banana is placed, and if he reads me avoiding the grab he's going to hit me with something that can lead into grab anyways". And its not like Bayonetta or Brawl!MK just... breaking the game's rules. Its a fantastic move yes, but no more centralizing than say Marth's Fair in previous versions of Smash. You're going to see it a lot, the good Ike players will use it less because they know how to use his other moves because using it too much will get you punished against players who know what to do.

I can tell you right now I've had Nair stuffed hard at the last local tournament I went to. Heck I had one match up where I almost couldn't ever land the stupid thing, I had to just about play like it was Brawl again with the amount of jabs I landed because that's all I could land.

People need to do less complaining/jumping on bandwagons, more labbing. The only thing I've seriously believed that needs fixing so far in SSBU this early on is Inkling's Up B ledgesnap range because that just seems like a bug compared to everyone else's snap range. Have trouble believing that the extra large magnet hands on it were intentional and not say, left over from an older build that they forget to correct.

 

[Kellojolly]

I know Ike is the new flavor of the week, but what are your thoughts on Link and Cloud from watching the recent tournament(s)?

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Characters are allowed to have great moves as long as other characters have the tools to combat them, there is a difference between smash 4 witch time , or melee shine and the new ike n-air remember that this is how smash 4 patch culture began of tuning down good options until there nothing that stand out about your character and praying that your good character doesn't get hit with one

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

You don't have to hang around competitive smash players for very long to know that when someone demonstrates how a character can use a single, easy to land move, to dismantle the entire cast, that the scene is going to be flooded with people swapping mains, looking for the easiest win possible and will copy that strategy.

I fully expect a significant amount of Inkling and Palutena players to suddenly switch to Ike. This would not be the case had peach won, since she needs a whole variety of moves and tricks to do well. Ikes nair could probably single-handedly win a lot of small local tournaments.

Even if Muteace and Samsora somehow took 2nd and 1st respectively; you still wouldn't see that many Peach players anyway (those that would be any threat). That characters is mad hard to play and getting them d-tilt conversions is not easy at all, not to mention the execution. Samsora practices that combo for hours with peach in training mode. Samsora also showcased that Peach can still deal with disjoints by weaving in with her float. My biggest takeaway on the Peach vs Ike MU atm is that Peach may need to experiment with countering Ike's Quick-Draw with Toad along with using Turnips as well. Quick-Draw literally prevents Peach from going ham on Ike off-stage like she should.

<-- [Person who's maining Peach]

Another thing I want to mention is Shielding was more nerfed than I imagined pre-release which is something I am very pleased with.

Biggest thing I want back into the meta in a patch is Jab Mix-ups tbh. This really affected me as previous Sheik main to see one of my main options to be removed and caused me to drop the character along with other various factors about this foreign Sheik.

 

[Gladiat0r]

Haven't seen a single decent showing from a Ken or Ryu. Guessing they kind of suck in this game. Bad edge guarding, pretty bad recovery. Why would you ever pick them over Wario for example?

 

[Rizen]

This is very well done. Great work. A few questions:

Do you feel each Link provide strengths against other characters?
Can maining 1 Link allows transferable skills to another?
If so, can 1 type of Link that gets countered, allows another link to counter that counter? (lol)

I feel like Link does better on BF, due to his huge reach he can control the stage really well. Link is basically a heavyweight who trades some weight for tools like projectiles. This was somewhat true in SSB4 and even more now. YL does better on larger stages with better zoning and mobility.

IDK MUs; all I've played is wifi and lv9 cpus. Weeklies start up in my region soon so I'll have a better answer then.

I don't play TL but Link and YL do have some transferable skills. Both can combo from Dtilt and boomerang. Most of their moves function identically but YL's are faster and Link's have more range so the spacing is completely different. They have a fair share of differences too. YL plays like a quick character who combos off everything and Link like a heavyweight with big slow hits.

 

[Yonder]

Haven't seen a single decent showing from a Ken or Ryu. Guessing they kind of suck in this game. Bad edge guarding, pretty bad recovery. Why would you ever pick them over Wario for example?

I mean...Locus dropped Ryu for Ridley. Who do we have left for him? Trela plays Ridley too.

Kind of funny actually.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

It'd be awful if they nerfed Ike this early, he's an easy to use character who one of the best players in the world picked up, while he's no doubt a great character he still has several weaknesses and a gameplan that's easily readable, it's not easily dealt with yet mind you, but gutting his entire playstyle is definitely not the answer. I want to emphasize the easy to use part, because in a game's early days that's the type of characters which have the opportunity to shine, who knows how Ike will do in even half a year when more complicated characters have developed further, there are character which have a lot more potential longterm than him imo (one of which already placed second here).

I don't think there's anything wrong with the character, not even his playstyle tbh, there's a place for characters like this in a game with as big a cast as Ultimate has. I know that every major won is going to seem like a much bigger deal atm since we've had so few, but try not to let that fact influence too much.

 

[Zinith]

I highly doubt they will nerf a character due to one win in a major. I only see that with characters that win majors consistently...

 

[NotLiquid]

Thoughts on this week's results

- Obviously, the big winner here seems to be Peach - though while eyes are mostly darting towards MuteAce and Samsora, people shouldn't be discounting Meru's performance at Valhalla II either, who was no slouch going through a stacked major. This man reverse 2-0'd Leffen in Top 8 and made Pokémon Trainer's ever flexible gameplan look like cottage cheese. To this day I hold that these boards had a tendency to underrate this character in Smash 4 by a significant margin and it wasn't until late in Smash 4's life when Samsora finally made some real waves. Much of that late-meta Smash 4 knowledge seems to have transferred more than swimmingly to Ultimate. It's amazing how a few tweaks to the engine and a new DTilt now has everyone agreeing she's the new queen of the ball.

Starting to think that Inkling isn't the best character in the game, recently Peach and Pichu performance has been too good.

- Glad people are finally starting to come around on this. I'll still buy an argument for why they're somewhere in the Top 10 though, and they haven't had too bad of a week going by the Tournament Results thread. Issue with Inkling is that as far as top tier material goes, despite what you'll get out of wi-fi warriors, their kit is probably the most "balanced" when put under the scope, and is probably why some of their results will occasionally be a bit shaky despite high representation. Their momentum is unparalleled, but so many of their attacks carry some kind of caveat that they commonly flip between getting outboxed, outranged, or just generally outmatched in terms of killing. I expect this to be a character that'll really flip between having some good weeks and "decent" weeks. With their mobility and ability to rack up damage off of a few neutral exchanges, they're going to remain one of the most adaptable characters in the cast, assuming players will have the attrition to contend against characters with way more explosive advantage states.

- So, Ridley huh? Vreyvus beasted through bracket up until Glutonny's convincing reset in Grand Finals. I don't feel too bad about that given how Glu in general was on a whole other comeback level that evening, though there's definitely a moment in that Top 8 where you notice Vrey going from playing how Ridley should be played to falling on some bad wi-fi habits. He hasn't gone to a lot of majors though, so it's no less impressive that he made it so far - and shocking that he did so with such a character no less.

- I'll welcome a nerf to Ike's NAir, though that shouldn't be taken as a statement that I want to see the character in general nerfed. I just don't enjoy characters who's kit are overcentralized on one specific move, and you'd be forgiven for thinking Ike has no other move except the NAir. In the words of Mr. Stark, if you're nothing without it, then you shouldn't have it. That having been said, assuming it ultimately does get nerfed, I would hope the remainder of his kit is improved to compensate, if necessary (as it's hard to accurately gauge how his moveset coalesces without it).

 

[Minordeth]

- Ridley is a good character, guys. He also has something of a Clutch Factor, which can facilitate oppressive wins, or insane comebacks.

- Loved watching Salem's Link do work.

- While it's cool seeing all this character variety, I'm more interested to see what happens when the West Coast/Tri-State Spacies meet the Southern Swordsmen.

- Wolf is really good. But more importantly, Zackray is really, really, really good.

- Wolf feels like Ultimate's version of Smash 4 Sheik, but on steroids and with 100% more 90's antihero. He has a safe Fair that can combo, a dumb nair, a dumb projectile, and despite slow run speed, is pretty quick. He can casually get you to 150% and wait for you to mess up, because he has no solid confirms.

- Don't forget that Palutena is still good and most of them haven't implemented Cake Mode edge guarding with her yet.

- I can't tell if Yoshi is really, truly good, or we don't know how to defend against rapid buttons.

- To recap: Ike, Wario, and Wolf take some majors. Everyone joked about Ultimate being Sm4sh 2.0, but little did they know that Ultimate was really Brawl 2.0.

 

[MG_3989]

This is unfortunately too common and it happens with any character and in any game. It makes sense, though, when you think about it from their point of view. If you weaken something so much, then there's a chance you won't have to deal with them. At the same time, it's horribly misguided as they're not learning or overcoming something, but trying to find a way to avoid it. That said, there are times when things do need direct nerfs if they're too good.

That’s just such a bad attitude though. Yeah of course there are things that need to be nerfed but not a month into the game after one tournament that honestly could’ve gone either way. Finding strategies to play around good moves and characters in the early meta is how a meta develops. Don’t neuter the meta before it even has a chance to develop because one player won one big tournament using a good move. Like somebody else said if Samarosa won people would be calling for Peach nerfs which would be ridiculous because it takes a ton of work to be good with her, your inputs need to be perfect, and you can play around her too. I just don’t like this early nerf culture. Of course if something is broken and dominating the game and every tournament and oppressing the meta (like Brawl Meta Knight and Smash 4 Bayonetta) then of course nerf them, but this is nowhere close to that. Let’s just please hold of on the nerfs for a little while and let a meta develop. If it becomes unhealthy then we can think about nerfs

 

[PK Gaming]

Ike's Nair being overtuned isn't just a problem for his opponents, it's a problem for Ike players as well. Smash Ultimate went out of its way to avoid having characters centralized around a single move, and I feel like his Nair goes against that idea.

On the other hand, it isn't fair to Ike players if the move gets carelessly dumpstered. I still think it should be a strong move, but it could definitely use some tweaking, specifically in the moves landing lag (which is 8 frames now, if I recall correctly). I'm fine with the fact that it can confirm into Uair KO, but it should be less safe on shield.

As an aside, I think Peach's design in Smash Ultimate is bad for the game and I don't know how to go about fixing her.

 

[SiO2]

I know Ike is the new flavor of the week, but what are your thoughts on Link and Cloud from watching the recent tournament(s)?

Cloud is still as obnoxious as ever to fight against. He may have received a few nerfs here and there but he is still a damn good character.

As for Link, the tournament results speak for themselves.

 

[ARISTOS]

We should have all been scared of Peach when Umeki (who is very good but was never a tip top competitor) came in 3rd at Umebura awhile back, but it seems we were really ignorant.

doesn't really play too dis-similarly from - the main differences being that Nair went from being kinda safe to almost totally safe, and that she no longer has to make reads in advantage. In Smash 4 you would get the same juggle/off-stage scenarios, but because of how air dodge worked it was easy to get Peach to swing and miss and then you'd have an easy back to stage. If she jumped high to intercept, you would beat her back to the ground due to her low fall speed and be able to swing before her. Ultimate gets rid of all of that guess work and she can swing without fretting. Turnips being good is also very sweet.

She currently doesn't suffer the SH penalty for floated aerials and I expect that to be taken out at some point

 

[Twizman]

Rise up my Ike brothers.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Haven't seen a single decent showing from a Ken or Ryu. Guessing they kind of suck in this game. Bad edge guarding, pretty bad recovery. Why would you ever pick them over Wario for example?

So you basically just completely ignored what Ryu and Ken want to do and then randomly name dropped a strong character.

I will not get into how good either character might be because honestly, I have no idea. But what you said made no sense what so ever.

Ryu was never good at edge guarding and his recovery was always linear.

So are you saying it's better to play a character that is good at those things or?

The way you worded this sounds silly.

"Pichu is bad at zoning out characters with buttons even though that is not actually his game, so just play Chrom."

You read that? Sounds silly right?

 

[Guido65]

He's still putting some work in though.

Edit: He lost, but Peach is definitely a tough one for Link, I feel. Always seems to be right outside Link's hitboxes. And that twitch chat is toxic af lol

Link actually does really against peach. In linkcord I've seen people saying that Salem really didn't know the match up and Samsora has tons of experience in facing link. A notable link on the server directly said that "mu is even like smash 4". Plus he used a lot of fair 1 which is very unsafe so I think Salem did make some questionable plays that got him in trouble.

- Loved watching Salem's Link do work.

Agree absolutely. Other players like izaw and fatality are getting fairly good results with him with izaw getting 9th at a fairly large European tournament that players like leffen and gluttony attended.

 

[NotLiquid]

Yeah, Peach has always been a workable matchup for Link I feel, if only because projectiles like the boomerang are pretty good at stymieing her floats.

I'd be genuinely interested to read someone's writeup on why one would gravitate towards the different Links. It's not as if the difference can be as easily encapsulated as the differences between Marth and Lucina for instance. Personally I think there'd already been a fair share of decent Links in Smash 4 as a niche. He wasn't that bad of a character in the previous game and certain players like T already put in work. What I'm curious to know is whether or not he actually has any sort of notable game up against his clones. I have to assume there is, seeing how Salem and his years of research is confident that Link alone is a better character than Inkling for instance.

I'm also curious whether opinions on Young Link seem to be deteriorating a bit. I feel like the real notable advantage he has is his arrows, but on top of mobility, does Toon Link have any advantage with his buttons and normals?

 

[Kellojolly]

Cloud is still as obnoxious as ever to fight against. He may have received a few nerfs here and there but he is still a damn good character.

As for Link, the tournament results speak for themselves.

Link is cool but I’m still not sure if he’s really that good as of now. YL seems to be doing much better in tournaments also.

As for cloud, he does seem to be a solid character but zero’s showing against two peaches looked concerning lol.