Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[BlackInk]

They are slow by design, not every character is built to zip around the stage. Robin would be ridiculous if they made them faster that’s obvious by looking at the character’s kit.

Having low mobility isn’t a mid tier sentence. Mobility is one of the most important things to have in smash but it’s not mandatory.

(Air mobility ) all don’t have anything to write home about when it comes to overall mobility. Palu has fast ground speed but her air speed is quite low. But they all excel in other aspects that make their overall mobility a weakness but not a handicap. Characters like Robin need changes to their moveset not a speed overhaul.

Robin already has the inherit weakness of their meters, Byleth already has laggy moves that are risky to use and the struggle of hitting horizontally, and Corrin doesn’t have the pin boost anymore or the kill power. They have very clear weaknesses even with decent speed. Do I have to mention how all four all of those characters you mention have better overall mobility than Byleth, Robin, and Corrin and have really stupid moves that come out insanely quickly, a float mechanic, a teleport, and being small?

 

[Minordeth]

Leo's Byleth chart is interesting, if wildly speculative.

Like, for instance:

That Byleth somehow has a +2 advantage over Ridley - the 10th faster character in the game, with a projectile she has no answer to, who can circle camp her rather easily, who wrecks her recovery with the previously mentioned projectile, and who can get in her zone and abuse her mediocre OoS - is a little hard to believe.

 

[BlackInk]

Leo's Byleth chart is interesting, if wildly speculative.

Like, for instance:

That Byleth somehow has a +2 advantage over Ridley - the 10th faster character in the game, with a projectile she has no answer to, who can circle camp her rather easily, who wrecks her recovery with the previously mentioned projectile, and who can get in her zone and abuse her mediocre OoS - is a little hard to believe.

It’s Ridley, he sucks.

 

[Megamang]

I never thought wed get this much diversity, only to have it decried in the CCD. Lol.

its honestly great. I enjoy it

 

[Thinkaman]

When are we going to be honest and admit that what we mean by "honest" is actually "weak"?

Some people use it that way, and I thought of that when I used the word actually. But I'd say that's a useless definition.

I always thought of it as referred to not having a "crutch", which isn't the same as not having or exploiting advantages. Pretty much every top tier character in every smash game had some "game-breaking" strengths that could be fallen back on in this way to at least somewhat reliably beat similarly-skilled players with inferior characters. was just numerically superior in disjoint and speed in an engine that allowed minimal counterplay to either. all had at least 2 things apiece that marginalized the bottom half of the roster. had plenty going for him, but he could always shrug and Shuttle Loop safely if things started going poorly. 's defensive options were an outlier and bypassed a lot of traditional gameplay on that end, and his disjoint made up for lots of lazy spacing. , man, I can't tell you how many bad Brawl Falco players I played that couldn't do anything but beat weak players by virtue of lasers + the cg alone. , duh. , duh.

Great/easy grabs, consistent throw combos, KO grab options. Many characters get one, some grapplers get two, got all 3. had her ladder but more importantly flip jump. had her egregious ladders that she was nothing without, though Witch Time was nothing to dismiss. and were probably "more honest" than any previous Smash top-tiers in that they merely had multiple overtuned moves attached to a great mobility set.


In Ultimate, very few characters really have singular, exploitable strengths to that extent. There's no waveshine or Falco cg or Bayo ladder you can go practice to beat your slightly better friends who play Yoshi and Ganon. still has Flip Jump, had nair I guess, had (Arsene) bair, and has her float strings. All of these feel like watered down "exploitables" compared to even the less extreme Smash 4 characters. Even and still has to out-play you for half the game.

But then, what do you call and 's "crutch"? Don't answer that, don't be a scrub. Don't be the guy who whines about d-tilt like it's Shuttle Loop; no one is beating their friends with ROB strictly because of d-tilt. nades are good, but if you are actually complaining about them you'll probably complain about anything. ? ? ? Gimmie a break.


Now for a fun fact: No one, least of all me, cares to parse out the Official CCI Rankings of Honesty. In fact, doing so will get you modded. Forgive my need to enumerate examples in this post, but this falls squarely within the realm of opinions-like-butts.

Go back to talking about Greninja all weekend, and comparing him to Joker for God-only-knows reasons.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Leo's Byleth chart is interesting, if wildly speculative.

Like, for instance:

That Byleth somehow has a +2 advantage over Ridley - the 10th faster character in the game, with a projectile she has no answer to, who can circle camp her rather easily, who wrecks her recovery with the previously mentioned projectile, and who can get in her zone and abuse her mediocre OoS - is a little hard to believe.

Yeah I noticed that similar angled "falling projectiles" can absolutely wreak havoc on Byleths Recovery attempts. fireballs and gordos also do the trick. If you can hit them out of their up-b and they already used their jump, there basically f*****

It strange that other characters with tether recoveries are not as vulnerable to those type of moves ()

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Robin already has the inherit weakness of their meters, Byleth already has laggy moves that are risky to use and the struggle of hitting horizontally, and Corrin doesn’t have the pin boost anymore or the kill power. They have very clear weaknesses even with decent speed. Do I have to mention how all four all of those characters you mention have better overall mobility than Byleth, Robin, and Corrin and have really stupid moves that come out insanely quickly, a float mechanic, a teleport, and being small?

In short, the devs tired to balance out the other FE reps key strengths with slower mobility and overdid it, the same can be said for and most other lower tiers essentially.

I looked over the patch notes. A handful of characters were buffed who didn't need them as much as others so it shows Nintendo's trying to bring the game to the state they want. With that said, I'm happy with the changes. The only thing that didn't happen is Wario's waft didn't get nerfed when it should have, imo.

I guess this is a better time now to look over patch 7.0.0 considering that I'm later to the party.

For starters, I've expressed in the past that I wasn't happy how shield-poking affected the game and the devs seemed to agree, so the bigger shields are appreciated and I'm glad about the improvements to most of the off-meta characters pushing their key niches and can't wait to see them in tournament.

Now I'm not trying to step on any toes, but the only grip I had was buffing 's kill power, which not only goes against his design of fast moves and projectiles over weak KO power but also just makes an annoying character even more annoying, which this game did not need more of. Yink is in the case of having good enough strengths to make up for his downside and you can't say the same thing for most lower tiers I've mentioned earlier. So this didn't feel needed IMO.

It also pulls the spotlight away from who IMO didn't get enough to complement what his counterpart got, so IDK what's in for him...

It's cool for Yink mains, but I'm certain this character will make top tier again one day and I'm not on board with that future...

 

[BlackInk]

In short, the devs tired to balance out the other FE reps key strengths with slower mobility and overdid it, the same can be said for and most lower tiers essentially.



I guess this is a better time now to look over patch 7.0.0 considering that I'm later to the party.

For starters, I've expressed in the past that I wasn't happy how shield-poking affected the game and the devs seemed to agree, so the bigger shields are appreciated and I'm glad about the improvements to most of the off-meta characters pushing their key niches and can't wait to see them in tournament.

Now I'm not trying to step on any toes, but the only grip I had was buffing 's kill power, which not only goes against his design of fast moves and projectiles over weak KO power but also just makes an annoying character even more annoying, which this game did not need more of. Yink is in the case of having good enough strengths to make up for his downside and you can't say the same thing for most lower tiers I've mentioned earlier. So this didn't feel needed IMO.

It also pulls the spotlight away from who IMO didn't get enough to complement what his counterpart got, so IDK what's in for him...

It's cool for Yink mains, but I'm certain this character will make top tier again one day and I'm not on board with that future...

The lower tiers are composed of really annoying characters or characters with really big hurtboxes. Plus, I think the ultimate devs want Byleth, Robin, and Corrin to work as they have buffed Robin and Corrin in the past. The problem is that they have too many characters in the game and are developing six new ones, so they can’t carefully analyze the three slowsmans.

Oh my god, why in the hell did they buff Yink? That character is zoner game and watch, he enjoys playing the game while you don’t.

 

[TennisBall]

I'd still like to mention how happy I am they buffed Doctor Mario. I've always been extremely pessimistic about the character, but these buffs help so much.
Doc mains, you've earned it.
Sorry that was late.

I hear the fire arrows from here.

 

[Centicerise]

Yeah I noticed that similar angled "falling projectiles" can absolutely wreak havoc on Byleths Recovery attempts. fireballs and gordos also do the trick. If you can hit them out of their up-b and they already used their jump, there basically f*****

It strange that other characters with tether recoveries are not as vulnerable to those type of moves ()

This is due to two factors which make even tiny bumps fatal to Byleth if they are offstage.
1) Their aerial speed and acceleration is extremely slow.
2) A nontrivial amount of the distance they recover is due to a mini jump they do when using up-b in the air for the first time. Subsequent up-b attempts after this first attempt cover a lot less distance for this reason.

Byleth's vulnerability to being edgeguarded compounds their weak disadvantage state. Due to their large hitbox and poor aerial mobility, going to the edge is often their best option when being juggled, which puts them in prime position for edgeguarding attempts that can seal their stock at even low percentages. It's likely that exploiting this weakness will be a big part of learning the Byleth MU. As for Byleth players, there are several options for mixing it up, such as swatting away approaching opponents with side-b. Unfortunately they are all pretty committal, with side-b in particular being a very laggy option. A big part of learning this character is resigning yourself to the fact that you'll have an abysmal disadvantage state.

It's not all a bleak picture though. While Byleth is vulnerable to edgeguarding, they also sport very robust edgeguarding tools themselves. Despite having poor aerial mobility, the threat of neutral b and forward smash complements how up-b, side b/fair/bair, neutral air, and down air all cover giant swathes of space from all angles against an opponent trying to get back to the ledge. Just as edgeguarding will be a big factor in facing off against Byleth, optimal Byleth play will likely see them pushing the limits of their tools to seal early kills with edgeguarding of their own.

 

[PK Gaming]

Leo's Byleth chart is interesting, if wildly speculative.

Like, for instance:

That Byleth somehow has a +2 advantage over Ridley - the 10th faster character in the game, with a projectile she has no answer to, who can circle camp her rather easily, who wrecks her recovery with the previously mentioned projectile, and who can get in her zone and abuse her mediocre OoS - is a little hard to believe.

Byleth is extremely good at punishing, Ridley's disadvantage is complete garbage.

I don't think she particularly struggles with fireball on-stage, since it's not really a pressure tool. Offstage for sure, but I don't really think it's that huge of a problem for her. Her OoS isn't that bad either considering she has Nair out of shield. I don't know about +2, but it's definitely not one of her harder matchups.

 

[BlackInk]

This is due to two factors which make even tiny bumps fatal to Byleth if they are offstage.
1) Their aerial speed and acceleration is extremely slow.
2) A nontrivial amount of the distance they recover is due to a mini jump they do when using up-b in the air for the first time. Subsequent up-b attempts after this first attempt cover a lot less distance for this reason.

Byleth's vulnerability to being edgeguarded compounds their weak disadvantage state. Due to their large hitbox and poor aerial mobility, going to the edge is often their best option when being juggled, which puts them in prime position for edgeguarding attempts that can seal their stock at even low percentages. It's likely that exploiting this weakness will be a big part of learning the Byleth MU. As for Byleth players, there are several options for mixing it up, such as swatting away approaching opponents with side-b. Unfortunately they are all pretty committal, with side-b in particular being a very laggy option. A big part of learning this character is resigning yourself to the fact that you'll have an abysmal disadvantage state.

It's not all a bleak picture though. While Byleth is vulnerable to edgeguarding, they also sport very robust edgeguarding tools themselves. Despite having poor aerial mobility, the threat of neutral b and forward smash complements how up-b, side b/fair/bair, neutral air, and down air all cover giant swathes of space from all angles against an opponent trying to get back to the ledge. Just as edgeguarding will be a big factor in facing off against Byleth, optimal Byleth play will likely see them pushing the limits of their tools to seal early kills with edgeguarding of their own.

A high risk and high reward character against characters with low risk and high rewards (Palutena)? Yeah, that sounds really dumb. They honestly didn’t need to give Byelth god awful speed when their kit was inherently risky (meaning that they need more mobility to space their main nuetral tools). Plus, they would be far more capable of getting to the ledge if they had better horizontal mobility to reach it and they would still have a weak disadvantage state even with better mobility, it just wouldn’t get the character destroyed so hard. Christ, the dlc designs are so wonky that buying them is laughable. Why did they think that six more dlc characters were a good idea when five the of the previous six dlc characters end up with messy as hell designs that really need refinements?

 

[meleebrawler]

This is due to two factors which make even tiny bumps fatal to Byleth if they are offstage.
1) Their aerial speed and acceleration is extremely slow.
2) A nontrivial amount of the distance they recover is due to a mini jump they do when using up-b in the air for the first time. Subsequent up-b attempts after this first attempt cover a lot less distance for this reason.

Byleth's vulnerability to being edgeguarded compounds their weak disadvantage state. Due to their large hitbox and poor aerial mobility, going to the edge is often their best option when being juggled, which puts them in prime position for edgeguarding attempts that can seal their stock at even low percentages. It's likely that exploiting this weakness will be a big part of learning the Byleth MU. As for Byleth players, there are several options for mixing it up, such as swatting away approaching opponents with side-b. Unfortunately they are all pretty committal, with side-b in particular being a very laggy option. A big part of learning this character is resigning yourself to the fact that you'll have an abysmal disadvantage state.

It's not all a bleak picture though. While Byleth is vulnerable to edgeguarding, they also sport very robust edgeguarding tools themselves. Despite having poor aerial mobility, the threat of neutral b and forward smash complements how up-b, side b/fair/bair, neutral air, and down air all cover giant swathes of space from all angles against an opponent trying to get back to the ledge. Just as edgeguarding will be a big factor in facing off against Byleth, optimal Byleth play will likely see them pushing the limits of their tools to seal early kills with edgeguarding of their own.

I mostly just use the lance swing when recovering for the stall it gives you. Actually hitting away opponents or their projectiles is just a bonus.

Leo's Byleth chart is interesting, if wildly speculative.

Like, for instance:

That Byleth somehow has a +2 advantage over Ridley - the 10th faster character in the game, with a projectile she has no answer to, who can circle camp her rather easily, who wrecks her recovery with the previously mentioned projectile, and who can get in her zone and abuse her mediocre OoS - is a little hard to believe.

It's even, honestly. Plasma Breath is too much of a commitment in neutral to keep even someone like Incineroar out for long, and Ridley is a huge target that can't change altitudes super quickly, which makes him an easy lance target. He isn't quite fast enough in the air to really circle camp either, and his landing options are almost as bad as Byleth's. In the end they're both equally capable of annihilating the other off of the tiniest mistakes.

It’s Ridley, he sucks.

Care to explain? We don't get a lot of Ridley talk in these parts.

 

[BlackInk]

I mostly just use the lance swing when recovering for the stall it gives you. Actually hitting away opponents or their projectiles is just a bonus.



It's even, honestly. Plasma Breath is too much of a commitment in neutral to keep even someone like Incineroar out for long, and Ridley is a huge target that can't change altitudes super quickly, which makes him an easy lance target. He isn't quite fast enough in the air to really circle camp either, and his landing options are almost as bad as Byleth's. In the end they're both equally capable of annihilating the other off of the tiniest mistakes.



Care to explain? We don't get a lot of Ridley talk in these parts.

Ridley is a heavy in a game series that doesn’t do a job at heavies in the slightest, so Ridley can’t abuse the air (which is supposed to be his biggest strength). This game is made by devs who still don’t remember that disjoint characters that directly attack their opponents and suck at landing need mobility to do the formal and the weaken the weaknesses of the latter by a reasonable margin. Hell, they give Pichu bigger hurtboxes (and increase their self-damage to a ridiculous amount, after making them the lightest character in the game.

 

[meleebrawler]

Ridley is a heavy in a game series that doesn’t do a job at heavies in the slightest, so Ridley can’t abuse the air (which is supposed to be his biggest strength). This game is made by devs who still don’t remember that disjoint characters that directly attack their opponents and suck at landing need mobility to do the formal and the weaken the weaknesses of the latter by a reasonable margin. Hell, they give Pichu bigger hurtboxes (and increase their self-damage to a ridiculous amount, after making them the lightest character in the game.

There's just nothing halfway for you, is there? Everything is either busted or terrible. And looking at your post history, you sure flip-flop a lot on whether Byleth is one or the other.

Ridley is probably the second-best "superheavy" (yes he doesn't have the actual weight but he ultimately still plays like one, warts and all). He is plenty strong in air combat (they are not putting actual flight mechanics worth anything outside of recovery after the Brawl gliding fiasco) with disjointed aerials that deal great damage with solid kill potential in the right situations, and is only very slightly slower than Bowser or DK, mainly in fall speed but he trades off with multiple jumps. Like Mewtwo, if you have the fortitude to not get discouraged by disadvantage, you can snatch victories that seem impossible at first glance with how much momentum he can build.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Leo's Byleth chart is interesting, if wildly speculative.

Like, for instance:

That Byleth somehow has a +2 advantage over Ridley - the 10th faster character in the game, with a projectile she has no answer to, who can circle camp her rather easily, who wrecks her recovery with the previously mentioned projectile, and who can get in her zone and abuse her mediocre OoS - is a little hard to believe.

Yeah, I think this is very speculative and extremely optimistic. These are the MU's I have the biggest issue with at a glance:

• is one of the faster characters in the game, can edgeguard Byleth efficiently, punishes most of Byleth's moves, is unaffected by rapid jab, but gets screwed over hard in disadvantage. I'm leaning towards even, but it might still be +1.
• I agree with Minordeth. Probably still winning for Byleth, but he's still way faster than her, and can abuse most of her weaknesses quite well.
• is probably losing for Byleth. She has no answer for lasers, she gets comboed incredibly hard by him, gets juggled really well, and his edgeguarding on her is really good. At least -1 for Byleth.
• is probably even or losing for Byleth. He can really just zone her out with bombs and he's fast enough to approach her and run away from her if the situation requires it.
• is losing for Byleth for similar reasons as Toon Link is IMO. He can camp Byleth really well and abuse her in disadvantage and he's another character with good edgeguarding options against her as well.
• may struggle against most swordies, but Byleth is so slow and her disadvantage is so bad (compared to Mario at least) that Byleth can lose a stock from just losing one neutral interaction.
• and probably need to be in a -2 section since I see all of these matchups being much worse than slight losing for Byleth.

 

[Thinkaman]

Speaking of the Belmonts, how do we feel about them? I'm still overall pessimistic, but they are sort of hanging in there.

What does everyone think of ? The last patch seemed big, but hasn't yielded any results. (It's hard to read into, since her results were so scant before.)

 

[The_Bookworm]

Something about Byleth that I needed to get off my chest, after some time analyzing the character, is that the character's moveset is, imo, both kind of crazy and underrated.

The biggest ones are his upward-based attacks. His up air is a serious contender for the best up air in the game, with big, lingering hitboxes, surprisingly good KO power, and being somewhat quick (aside from landing lag).
Byleth's up smash is also one of the best up smash's in the game. Comparisons to up smash is easy to make, and that is valid. It is has relatively generous scoop hitbox, quick-to-the-point, covers a good amount above Byleth, and with some good KO power.

Byleth has, imo, one of the best set of tilts in the game. Up tilt covers a good reach above Byleth and is surprisingly fast. Forward tilt is, for the most part, a direct upgrade of Corrin's forward tilt. The move is good for basically the same reasons on why his up tilt is good. Down tilt is noticeably slower than the other two tilts, but has nice reach and combo ability.

Other moves to be noted is down smash, forward smash, and side B.
Down smash is a bit on the slow side, but it pretty much a better Ike down smash. It has insane power, coverage, and shield damage. Sometimes, it doesn't hurt to simply throw out the move to test the opponent's actions.
Forward smash is a great whiff-punishing and ledge coverage tool, imo, thanks to its great range and ridiculous power at the tip.
Side B: big hitbox that covers ledge, that has the potential to KO. Slow in terms of endlag. In the air, it can grab the ledge almost instantly with great coverage. Nice tool overall to have.

Even Byleth's version of Falcon/Warlock Punch, Aymr, is basically a straight upgrade from those two moves. Great KO power, not too much slower than Falcon Punch, can drop through platforms, has powerful armor through the second half of the move's duration, a shockwave hitbox, can be reversed, has some odd reverse hitbox shenanigans, and can hit certain characters at ledge.
Still a very lackluster move that is probably only going be useful only on online, but it definitely has some "DLC" stigma.

The rest of Byleth's tools, outside of Aymr, is at worst decent.

Honestly, Byleth could be a worst character contender if it weren't for the fact that his moveset has some great utility. Corrin would kill to have a moveset like Byleth. As such, I can expect Byleth's' standing to the cast to be rather volatile for the next few months, as the character has to fight against his moveset's great utility vs his own pitiful mobility issues.

The main thing keeping these moves back (aside from a few of them being slow in some areas), is that it is attached to a slow character like Byleth.
If a character like Chroy, Joker, or Pikachu has Byleth's up air alone, that would be borderline game-breaking.

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I think he is either at lower mid tier or upper low tier. I think he is noticeably better than at the moment (who I personally think is still bottom 10 despite the Cosmos vs Dabuz upset), but I think and are stronger, more consistent, options in the mid tiers.

What does everyone think of ? The last patch seemed big, but hasn't yielded any results. (It's hard to read into, since her results were so scant before.)

I have been always pessimistic about Puff's 6.0 buffs, because Puff's results has been very minimal despite the buffs. has wielded arguably slightly better results than Puff before 6.0, but 6.0 boosted Kirby's results to a significant level (not a get-out-of-low-tier level, but still pretty big).

Puff's buffs, while nice, didn't really address any of her core issues. Airdodge is faster, but it still the slowest by a wide margin. Puff's range and approaching issues was virtually untouched, and her new KO confirms is not even consistent enough to even help compensate for the approach issues.

Puff is probably the biggest example of an overhyped character of patch buffs. I getting some of the same vibes with Dr. Mario's and Sheik's 7.0 buffs as well, but I could be very wrong about that (I am more confident about Doc still being mediocre, than I do with Sheik, who is better than Doc to begin with).
ESAM and Dabuz was so quick to put the character so high in their list and significantly above Kirby, despite Puff doing nearly nothing (granted that ESAM has always been optimistic about Puff even as far back as SSB4).

In the current moment, Puff is probably bottom 5.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

View attachment 261472
Yeah, I think this is very speculative and extremely optimistic. These are the MU's I have the biggest issue with at a glance:

• is one of the faster characters in the game, can edgeguard Byleth efficiently, punishes most of Byleth's moves, is unaffected by rapid jab, but gets screwed over hard in disadvantage. I'm leaning towards even, but it might still be +1.
• I agree with Minordeth. Probably still winning for Byleth, but he's still way faster than her, and can abuse most of her weaknesses quite well.
• is probably losing for Byleth. She has no answer for lasers, she gets comboed incredibly hard by him, gets juggled really well, and his edgeguarding on her is really good. At least -1 for Byleth.
• is probably even or losing for Byleth. He can really just zone her out with bombs and he's fast enough to approach her and run away from her if the situation requires it.
• is losing for Byleth for similar reasons as Toon Link is IMO. He can camp Byleth really well and abuse her in disadvantage and he's another character with good edgeguarding options against her as well.
• may struggle against most swordies, but Byleth is so slow and her disadvantage is so bad (compared to Mario at least) that Byleth can lose a stock from just losing one neutral interaction.
• and probably need to be in a -2 section since I see all of these matchups being much worse than slight losing for Byleth.

Also some of my own thoughts
I have no idea why MKLeo put the MU as even as I think its going to easily be one of Byleth's Worst MU's. What answer does Byleth even have to all of YL's zoning? YL will camp them out all day

This MU may actullay be not too bad for Kirby at all, possibly even. Byleth can have a really hard time hitting short characters with most of thier disjointed moves. Kirby can possibly slip though the wall Byleth wants to put up despite having poor air mobility himself. Plus he has the frame data and combo ability to really pressure Byleth hard in disadvantage

MKLeo put as unknown but I think its?losing for Byleth. Speed art alone is going to be a miserable time for Byleth. Plus Shulk can escape any possible follow ups off up-b just?by opening the Monado arts menu

Yeah forget his sword weakness Mario has the edge here. Byleth may be able to keep Mario out for a "while" but one Mario gets in he will just be able to compeltely overwhelm Byleth and prey on all her weakness. Plus Mario has all the tools needed to edgeguard and gimp Byleths recovery without eveb needing to put himself at too much risk. FLUDD, cape and his even his fireballs can compeley wreck her offstage

 

[Tri Knight]

I'm not trying to step on any toes, but the only grip I had was buffing 's kill power, which not only goes against his design of fast moves and projectiles over weak KO power but also just makes an annoying character even more annoying

As I've said, despite kill power buffs, Young Link's flaw is still found in his ability to KO. The few moves that got buffed were rightly buffed; these moves were just far too weak, plain and simple. He's tough to deal with online for most casual players I'm sure but the fact is, he was heavily held back due to his inability to KO at all and his inability to really deal with rushdown.

The reality of Young Link is that he was doing double the work of his opponents per stock, and despite still being a solid character, was simply a massive flaw in design which ultimately held him back.

The mindset was to make YL be capable of both brawling and zoning in a way that emphasizes combos for damage while sacrificing KO power and sword reach. Deapite the buffs, this did not change. In fact, these buffs emphasizes that point even more now. And now he can officially be considered a solid high tier imo. He's technically the tournament-ready Link that most Link mains of old wanted.

 

[BitBitio]

Leo's Byleth chart is interesting, if wildly speculative.

Like, for instance:

That Byleth somehow has a +2 advantage over Ridley - the 10th faster character in the game, with a projectile she has no answer to, who can circle camp her rather easily, who wrecks her recovery with the previously mentioned projectile, and who can get in her zone and abuse her mediocre OoS - is a little hard to believe.

Yeah so the MU is a solid Kirby win. He can crouch everything, outpaces her mobility, has faster framedata, and can keep her in disadvantage for ages, whether offstage, in combos, or in juggles. She can't touch him in neutral unless she catches him with one of the Aymr moves on shield. She can't keep him in disadvantage too long either.

Speaking of the Belmonts, how do we feel about them? I'm still overall pessimistic, but they are sort of hanging in there.

What does everyone think of ? The last patch seemed big, but hasn't yielded any results. (It's hard to read into, since her results were so scant before.)

is bad. Everyone was hyped for a while (because Puff has never been buffed in patches before) but honestly they did very little. 's flaws were well addressed, with him finally getting decent aerial framedata, consistent KO power, and Inhale functioning to a ssemi-viable degree.

 

[Thinkaman]

My personal experience with Jigglypuff buffs in retrospect, is that I never go for the drill rest, but DO get a lot of Pound conversions that otherwise wouldn't have been true. The damage + offstage positioning adds up quite a bit.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

So a couple big upsets have happened in the top 128 at Sumabato SP 12 A B-Tier tournament going on in Japan right now

Compact 2-1 Zackray
にくきゅう(no english translation) 2-0 KEN

It is currently unknown what characters were used in the Zackray vs Compact set yet as it was not streamed

 

[Thinkaman]

にくきゅう(no english translation)

Read literally, that's "Nikukiyuu", but it's probably meant as a small ゅ so "Nikukyū", which means paw or pawpad, maybe pawprint? That concept.

I'd call him Nikukyū; if he wanted to be called Paw by English speakers, that's his call to make.

 

[Nobie]

Sumabato 12 had some crazy results.

Sumabato SP 12 - Results!
Bracket: https://t.co/Aru9r0UkMr
Stream: https://t.co/f0KQ5TDHhK pic.twitter.com/yMys10qaYC

— Justin (juddy96) (@juddy_96) February 8, 2020

Kuro apparently got 4th going ZSS and Pit. Videos aren't up yet, so I can't see how Pit did, but Kuro himself is not exactly bullish.

今日ゼロサムの動き悪くてピット出したけど撃沈.....

— クロ/Kuro⚫️ (@_kuro258) February 8, 2020

というかピット盾関係なしに撃墜できないっす

— クロ/Kuro⚫️ (@_kuro258) February 8, 2020

ピットの差し合いの楽しさを思い出してしまったけどまたボックス行きです....
アプデ待機キャラや

— クロ/Kuro⚫️ (@_kuro258) February 8, 2020

"My ZSS wasn't moving around well today, so I decided to bring out Pit, but I got taken out..."

"Actually, regardless of shields [I assume he means the shield buffs], Pit can't KO."

"This made me remember how fun Pit's neutral and footsies are [liberal transition of the Japanese sashiai], I'm putting Pit back in the box. He's a character waiting for an update."

 

[Daisycakes]

It’s funny because Pit can actually KO better than Lucina can.

 

[Lacrimosa]

It’s funny because Pit can actually KO better than Lucina can.

Why?
Stronger knockback on attacks aren't enough (if that's even the case).
Now that I look at Pit, all aerials and grounded moves are rather unsafe on shield, except bAir which is -4 but the move has slow start-up. Heck, even Zelda is safer on shield...
Speaking of aerials, Pit's air mobility is one of the worst on the game and their acceleration is only mediocre.

You have to take into account how the characters gets kills. For example Sheik might be a monster in neutral, but damage output is low and confirms into killmoves are hard, even with the needle buff.
Lucina has a very large disjoint and a very good neutral game as well, decent mobility and somewhat safe attacks on shield.

What of Pits aerials do kill? What of Lucina's aerial do kill?
Ledgetrapping/edgeguarding capabilities?
What about dangerous OoS option that put the opponent into a disadvantageous position.
How good is their advantage state?
What are their kill confirms and how easy are they to get?
What about combo-game so the opponent gets to kill percent fast?
What about their mobility?

I really doubt that Pit kills earlier than Lucina. Otherwise he would be in the upper part of top-tier if that were the case and while not all top-players are good for providing their theoretical inputs, some of them would've figured out that Pit's a threat by now.

All in all, it seems Pits has small hitboxes, unsafe attacks that can get easily punishes, nothing to stuff out shield pressure except nAir which doesn't kill.
While not all of that describes their kill power, it should be obvious that this character has a hard time getting these kills, especially with below avarage mobility.
I can see where Kuro is coming from.

 

[AxelVDP]

On top of all that, it's hard to punish on reaction since it's -10 on shield (and it's even harder to punish if he does jab1 > jab2 since the latter is -7 on shield, giving him more mix-ups)

being -10 on shield does not mean you have only 10 frames to react and punish the move, you still have to account for the move's startup and the actual shieldlag (or hitlag) of hitting the shield. also moves make a distinct sound and vibration when hitting a shield, and non-visual stimulus are faster to react to

 

[The_Bookworm]

Sumabato 12 had some crazy results.

Sumabato SP 12 - Results!
Bracket: https://t.co/Aru9r0UkMr
Stream: https://t.co/f0KQ5TDHhK pic.twitter.com/yMys10qaYC

— Justin (juddy96) (@juddy_96) February 8, 2020

Los of crazy shenanigans in this tournament.

Sigma was actually very close to beating Zackray in loser's finals.
The return of HIKARU's DK, as well as placing high with him solo.
A doc player placed rather high here, which is interesting to see.
Byleth Zackray had a very nice loser's bracket run after losing so early, but dang his character selection is enormous.

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

On that note on Byleth, we still haven't gotten his (and female counterpart's) stock icons. I also noticed that he haven't gotten the stock icons for the other three Heroes (Erdrick, Solo, and Eight).

So right now, we got 5 stock icons missing in this site.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Los of crazy shenanigans in this tournament.

Sigma was actually very close to beating Zackray in loser's finals.
The return of HIKARU's DK, as well as placing high with him solo.
A doc player placed rather high here, which is interesting to see.
Byleth Zackray had a very nice loser's bracket run after losing so early, but dang his character selection is enormous.

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

On that note on Byleth, we still haven't gotten his (and female counterpart's) stock icons. I also noticed that he haven't gotten the stock icons for the other three Heroes (Erdrick, Solo, and Eight).

So right now, we got 5 stock icons missing in this site.

Honestly, Zackray has had 4 loser runs since Big House 9 now, at this point I'd expect it to happen more than I wouldn't. And yeah, he's using the entire Smash roster again. The big thing is HIKARU's DK doing well, and two Doc mains placing well. Maybe the buffs for Doc from this recent patch, and DK from the Terry patch are better than thought?

 

[KirbySquad101]

Aside from two s in Top 16 at this event (wowzers), Masashi went back to solo for this tourney instead of using alongside him.

It looked like it paid off, given that this was the highest he has ever placed at a Sumabato event since Sumabato SP3:

 

[TennisBall]

So uh, I found this thing about Peach here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rk4LXm1IOg
Whether it's true or not, it looks really cool.
The person in question who performed this currently holds the HRC WR, you may know them as Teitoku06142.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Pink Fresh (probably the best Byleth player outside of MKLeo right now) made a MU Chart for Byleth:

I agree with this one a lot more than MKLeo's. A lot closer to what I'd imagine a Byleth MU chart to look like. There are a few matchups I disagree with here like and , but it's not awful or anything.

Edit: While I don't have any major disagreements like with MKLeos (there aren't characters I wanted to move around by 2 tiers or more or anything) I do think that several of the +1 matchups could move to even and some of the even ones could move to -1.

 

[Thinkaman]

Byleth +2 against Ivysaur seems bold. I've also had, in my limited experience, a not-hard-time against Byleth as Isabelle and an at-least-decent time as Incineroar.

Neutral against Palu and Cloud seem really suspect to me. Some of the others, like ROB or Chrom, I'm more likely to accept. PAC-MAN seems dubious.

This matchup chart seems like just a slipperiness chart.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

It seems somewhat more realistic that Leo's MU chart for sure, but it still seems pretty speculative .

Id say and maybe are -1

Id even go to say / are also -2 level bad for Byleth.

You can tell that many Pro players reeeeealllly want to make Byleth work. Considering we had the Top 10 ranked players, MKLeo, Zackray and Gluttony also try them in competitions. I mean, yeah using Byleth can be pretty fun to use. But at high competive levels, why him/her?

 

[Lacrimosa]

It seems somewhat more realistic that Leo's MU chart for sure, but it still seems pretty speculative .

Id say and maybe are -1

Id even go to say / are also -2 level bad for Byleth.

You can tell that many Pro players reeeeealllly want to make Byleth work. Considering we had the Top 10 ranked players, MKLeo, Zackray and Gluttony also try them in competitions. I mean, yeah using Byleth can be pretty fun to use. But at high competive levels, why them?

Glutonny got bopped at yesterday's WANTED when he used Byleth.
It wasn't a very beautiful sight.

's also -1, I dare say.

 

[Untouch]

Byleth beating WFT is extremely optimistic to say the least.
Does he have explanations for these placements? Header basically invalidates all of Byleth's edgeguards.

 

[KirbySquad101]

's placement does make more sense to me on Pink Fresh's list than MKLeo's. He won't be ducking under everything like or , but he's got more than enough mobility to prevent Byleth from poking him at a distance for too long, and Captain Falcon can solidly match Byleth's raw damage output/advantage with his own high damaging combos and KO confirms.

That said, I know I'll sound bias here, but after watching MKLeo's and Maister's sets, the MU looks very even, if not a volatile even. Byleth's range can keep him out well, and getting in can be tricky given that Byleth's dash attack is a surprisingly decent burst option and hits REALLY hard when sweetspotted. That said, Byleth's poor mobility makes it hard for him to keep GnW out for long, and from a disadvantage viewpoint (offstage, at the ledge, above GnW), he has it about as bad as the super-heavyweights do in the MU with none of their big boy mass to boot.

 

[Tri Knight]

It seems somewhat more realistic that Leo's MU chart for sure, but it still seems pretty speculative .

Id say and maybe are -1

Id even go to say / are also -2 level bad for Byleth.

You can tell that many Pro players reeeeealllly want to make Byleth work. Considering we had the Top 10 ranked players, MKLeo, Zackray and Gluttony also try them in competitions. I mean, yeah using Byleth can be pretty fun to use. But at high competive levels, why him/her?

I can at least speak for Young Link, Fox and Greninja being awful match ups for Byleth. From what I've seen, they all seem like a mountain for him to climb.

 

[Wigglerman]

Pac-Man player here and I can tell you Byleth is not much of a threat to the living, all consuming hockey puck. Fruits just stuff so much of her limited approach options, he can hide behind hydrant and lob that to cover a lot of her options (Or make her deal with the water to push her back or force jumps). Even his slower grab can be used to punish even well spaced attacks and she struggles to deal with his unpredictable recovery options (he can stall for so long at all heights to wait out a charging smash attack to try to 2 frame or just zoop under or over the stage, depending on stage choice and punish the move they committed too since she is too slow to punish well on reaction). She's chunky and slow so she gets juggled by him pretty easily. A single galaga flower just eats a large portion of her percentage even it isn't the biggest most optimal combo (I can't do Tea level of craziness but even then a single flower can net me an easy 40%, more if I successfully recaught the flower and follow up). He can edgeguard in the most braindead way like all tethers (Just drop hydrant off the side of the stage) and you'll likely kill her the first time she's off stage and is forced to recover low (Which is basically her only option). Fruit in general just make Byleth's life a living Hell.

At best it's -1 for her. At highest level I wouldn't be surprised if it proves to be -2. There is no way it's an even spread from the experience I've had thus far.