Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[TennisBall]

Simply having more buffs than nerfs or otherwise increasing the mean strength in the game is not automatically powercreep. For it to be creep, it has to diverge rather than converge.

Smash patches are rather conservative, and haven't had a single case of buffed characters leapfrogging high-tiers into a new echelon of power.

The worst they did was the half-ham-fisted d-throw combos they gave Bowser/DK/Charizard/Robin in 4; I'm glad they walked these back and are being more measured, this time.


With regard to "who do we expect to get buffed", beyond the obvious (people who got buffed 2-3 patches ago and are ready for round 2) and the Ganon question, I think Falco and DDD are solid possibilities. Both did quite well upon release, but have fallen off hard. DK followed a similar but more rapid trajectory, and was obviously touched up.

Mewtwo is a weird case. On a theory level, and from playing good Mewtwos, the character is obviously not bad. But, where are the results? Where is the usage? Lifetime VOD win-rate is a pretty terrible statistic to fixate on (on multiple levels), but that he's the lowest by a massive margin is telling of something.


And yeah, I'd like to see Pit nair fixed. The rest of Pit's hitboxes are honestly fine size-wise. (Maybe fair is a bit conservative; it could be bigger and no one would complain.) It really is just nair that is incorrect, and should be sized comparably to Simon's.

Power creep was the wrong term to put it, for that I apologize. I more or less meant that as other characters got better, characters that were once on their same level are now slowly being left to rot and it's a pity to watch.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Tier list average done from 35 of the 50 PGR members. The main thing that surprised me is being higher than , and considering that a lot of the top level lists always have them higher than Palutena, so I'm confused about that one.

Prior to 7.0.0, was almost unanimously regarded as a Top 5 character to Europe, Japan, and America. While and are also all regarded as among the best in the game by most, where they rank among the best depends a lot more on reigion IMO, although I'll be surprised if doesn't start being ranked a slight bit lower on tier lists in the (near?) future.

 

[Thinkaman]

Edit: Corrected image posted a few posts down.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

I'm actually stunned that PT has such amazing results. According to the stats he's on the cusp of being right up there with the top of the top tiers like Wario! Can someone explain to me again what makes him so good?

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm actually stunned that PT has such amazing results. According to the stats he's on the cusp of being right up there with the top of the top tiers like Wario! Can someone explain to me again what makes him so good?

First, PT is the most popular competitive character in the game, and the abundance of results are going to partly reflect that reality.

Second, PT has very few bad matchups, since they can rig the matchup deck. Opponent can deal with getting camped just fine? So you just spend more time as Squirtle. Opponent has safe harass and juggles abusively? So don't spend free time as Charizard, problem solved. This is on top of the 3 Pokemon being pretty solid characters who compliment each other very well, all packaged with a great "bonus air dodge" that is faster + stalls which any character would love to have.

The two only meaningful common weakness across all 3 Pokemon is landing, and being overwhelmed by the subset of zoners rapid enough to suffocate any of them. (Really just Mega Man, Young/Toon Link, and maybe Pika.) But PT seems more than capable against common top tier threats, from Joker to Palu to Wolf to Snake to ROB.

 

[ARISTOS]

View attachment 262912

Damn I can't believe Pokemon Trainer is good enough to have two sets of results

(But really, this is cool). It'll be interesting to see what happens as we get closer to the end of phase 3.

 

[SwagGuy99]

OrionStats was updated today and there are several things sticking out to me:

• is sitting down at 5th, much lower than he ever was during PGR S2.
• and are now battling for the position of the best Fire Emblem character as Roy's results increase and Lucina's drop.
• has skyrocketed since PGR S2 (likely due to the fact that his buffs from 3.1.0 and 7.0.0 are starting to be used to their full potential) and is now sitting at #16.
• has also climbed up the list a bit, likely due to the renewed interest of his old mains and their increased results after 7.0.0.
• is still at #40 despite the the general perception of him still being largely negative.
• is also quite high at #45 despite the low opinions of him.
• Byleth is sitting comfortably at #50. Overall, not too bad for a character only released a few weeks ago.
• is still sitting significantly lower than Ken at #54.
• is the only character that was buffed in 7.0.0 who seems to be dropping overtime rather than remaining consistent or rising.
• has dropped a bit to #61. Curious to see if she continues to drop.
• and are tied for last place.
• Edit: Oh yeah, and has finally taken 1st place back. Curious to see how long this lasts.

7.0.0 has shaken things up a little bit, but there do seem to be other changes happening outside of that. and are on the rise while continues to fall, despite none of these characters having been changed in the last patch. I do predict that this list may change a lot after Frostbite, but we'll have to wait to see that.

 

[Thinkaman]

Damn I can't believe Pokemon Trainer is good enough to have two sets of results

Whoops--the lower, "weaker" one should be Chrom, I think. No idea how that happened.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

First, PT is the most popular competitive character in the game, and the abundance of results are going to partly reflect that reality.

Second, PT has very few bad matchups, since they can rig the matchup deck. Opponent can deal with getting camped just fine? So you just spend more time as Squirtle. Opponent has safe harass and juggles abusively? So don't spend free time as Charizard, problem solved. This is on top of the 3 Pokemon being pretty solid characters who compliment each other very well, all packaged with a great "bonus air dodge" that is faster + stalls which any character would love to have.

The two only meaningful common weakness across all 3 Pokemon is landing, and being overwhelmed by the subset of zoners rapid enough to suffocate any of them. (Really just Mega Man, Young/Toon Link, and maybe Pika.) But PT seems more than capable against common top tier threats, from Joker to Palu to Wolf to Snake to ROB.

Yeah I can verify that young link is a pain to face. It's not just the fire arrows, it's the fire arrows on top of the boomerang on top of the bombs. Even if you can avoid one aspect you have to worry about the others. After which the landing problems come to the fore.

 

[Firox]

Yeah I can verify that young link is a pain to face. It's not just the fire arrows, it's the fire arrows on top of the boomerang on top of the bombs. Even if you can avoid one aspect you have to worry about the others. After which the landing problems come to the fore.

From my experience with Greninja, I've found that superior mobility is the key to getting around Link's projectile spam. That said, Squirtle is probably PT's best bet for dealing with him.

 

[Thinkaman]

Fixed it; there was a bug where PT was missing, and his icon was put on Chrom and Lucina. (I didn't notice because PT's correct placement is almost identical to Lucina's.)

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

OrionStats was updated today and there are several things sticking out to me:

• is sitting down at 5th, much lower than he ever was during PGR S2.
• and are now battling for the position of the best Fire Emblem character as Roy's results increase and Lucina's drop.
• has skyrocketed since PGR S2 (likely due to the fact that his buffs from 3.1.0 and 7.0.0 are starting to be used to their full potential) and is now sitting at #16.
• has also climbed up the list a bit, likely due to the renewed interest of his old mains and their increased results after 7.0.0.
• is still at #40 despite the the general perception of him still being largely negative.
• is also quite high at #45 despite the low opinions of him.
• Byleth is sitting comfortably at #50. Overall, not too bad for a character only released a few weeks ago.
• is still sitting significantly lower than Ken at #54.
• is the only character that was buffed in 7.0.0 who seems to be dropping overtime rather than remaining consistent or rising.
• has dropped a bit to #61. Curious to see if she continues to drop.
• and are tied for last place.
• Edit: Oh yeah, and has finally taken 1st place back. Curious to see how long this lasts.

7.0.0 has shaken things up a little bit, but there do seem to be other changes happening outside of that. and are on the rise while continues to fall, despite none of these characters having been changed in the last patch. I do predict that this list may change a lot after Frostbite, but we'll have to wait to see that.

Pretty sure has decreased for a couple of factors. For starters MKLeo has only gone to a single tournament and he didn't win that one. Then there's stuff like Wishes retiring and Tweek not using the character anymore so most of the results are coming from Zackray and Eim at the moment (As well as lower level Jokers hanging around in Japan).

 

[SwagGuy99]

One major addition was losing his nutty Smash 4 airdodge. It was undoubtedly the best airdodge in the game intangibility started from frame 2-24 and active for only 28 frames(the lowest amount in the game).

Yes. I feel like and would both be much better characters if they had access to their Smash 4 air dodges. It allowed their disadvantage states to be much more manageable and made landing with them much easier. They both get juggled and comboed much harder in Ultimate compared to Smash 4 and they don't have very many opportunities to play in advantage state, despite their advantage states being quite good overall.

 

[Thinkaman]

That's an interesting topic--most characters' disadvantage state improved thanks to access to the directional air dodge. (Particularly those who badly needed a ledge mixup)

But then you've got a few characters (floatier ones come to mind) who would happily give up the directional air dodge for their Smash 4 timings back. I think Jigglypuff would benefit the most from this trade, easily.

 

[Das Koopa]

Fixed it; there was a bug where PT was missing, and his icon was put on Chrom and Lucina. (I didn't notice because PT's correct placement is almost identical to Lucina's.)

View attachment 262928

wonderful graph

Mewtwo is imo the biggest outlier here. The objective one is Marth (but we know why, this phenomenon of the much worse echo being unused used has been known since sm4sh) but it's clear Mewtwo isn't a bottom tier. Most circles I run in agree he's good and players seem to agree besides his terrible disadvantage, he's solid (good neutral/advantage) but for whatever reason, like Sheik, nobody really uses him anymore.

I think it'll happen though. We're seeing a sort of correction with Meta Knight where Yei (the best active Meta Knight) clearly demonstrates the character's viability, and MKs are popping up more lately. Much like Corrin eventually getting tangible results, I expect Mewtwo to eventually nab some, either by an up & comer or a vet experimenting.

It's all the more likely we see a newcomer breaking through some ceiling with M2 since there are so many active regions in Ult.

 

[Thinkaman]

Mewtwo is imo the biggest outlier here. The objective one is Marth (but we know why, this phenomenon of the much worse echo being unused used has been known since sm4sh) but it's clear Mewtwo isn't a bottom tier. Most circles I run in agree he's good and players seem to agree besides his terrible disadvantage, he's solid (good neutral/advantage) but for whatever reason, like Sheik, nobody really uses him anymore.

I think it'll happen though. We're seeing a sort of correction with Meta Knight where Yei (the best active Meta Knight) clearly demonstrates the character's viability, and MKs are popping up more lately. Much like Corrin eventually getting tangible results, I expect Mewtwo to eventually nab some, either by an up & comer or a vet experimenting.

It's all the more likely we see a newcomer breaking through some ceiling with M2 since there are so many active regions in Ult.

The night before I left for Genesis, I played a lot with one of the better local players, a Mewtwo main. It's just so obvious that he's a robust character, and surprisingly well-rounded in contrast to Mr. D-tilt from Smash 4. I play a lot of the cast, but the only character I felt like I had a favorable matchup against his Mewtwo with was actually Ness.


Also, my chart currently cheats and fudges the x-positions for Jiggs/Marth/Mewtwo/Swordfighter to make the log axis work. I thought it was important to do so though, so as to still represent their y-position rather than exclude them altogether.

 

[The_Bookworm]

OrionStats was updated today and there are several things sticking out to me:

• is sitting down at 5th, much lower than he ever was during PGR S2.
• and are now battling for the position of the best Fire Emblem character as Roy's results increase and Lucina's drop.
• has skyrocketed since PGR S2 (likely due to the fact that his buffs from 3.1.0 and 7.0.0 are starting to be used to their full potential) and is now sitting at #16.
• has also climbed up the list a bit, likely due to the renewed interest of his old mains and their increased results after 7.0.0.
• is still at #40 despite the the general perception of him still being largely negative.
• is also quite high at #45 despite the low opinions of him.
• Byleth is sitting comfortably at #50. Overall, not too bad for a character only released a few weeks ago.
• is still sitting significantly lower than Ken at #54.
• is the only character that was buffed in 7.0.0 who seems to be dropping overtime rather than remaining consistent or rising.
• has dropped a bit to #61. Curious to see if she continues to drop.
• and are tied for last place.
• Edit: Oh yeah, and has finally taken 1st place back. Curious to see how long this lasts.

7.0.0 has shaken things up a little bit, but there do seem to be other changes happening outside of that. and are on the rise while continues to fall, despite none of these characters having been changed in the last patch. I do predict that this list may change a lot after Frostbite, but we'll have to wait to see that.

Other things to note:
Currently holding steady of 23rd, the placement is pretty good on its own, but pretty bad for a supposed top 5 (even top 10) character. The point gap between it and Chrom is still pretty large (who currently sits directly above him), while it only has one point less than Pichu (who can easily overtake it) and only 3 points behind Sonic and Cloud.
We will see if ESAM will grant Pikachu a performance at Frostbite that can potentially change this.
Ever since reaching the lower top 20s, Rosa has been dropping off, currently at a still pretty good 27th. Kind of expected considering that her top 20 placement was so early in the season.
I am actually kinda surprised that Incineroar is this high. Incineroar have only dreamed of being this high in the previous season.
Has somehow managed to reclaim a spot at the top 50 after falling short of it last week. Currently sitting at 48th (tied with ).
With Hero's metagame stagnating, as well as Salem being the only real notable player doing stuff with him (all of Hero's points comes from his popularity in lower levels of play), Hero has dropped to 52nd (tied with MK), which drops him 2 spots below Byleth.
With Sheik's drop to 51st (still confused why she was ranked highly to begin with), she is only two points (and a 2 spot gap) ahead of .
Unless VoiD manages to do something huge with her, the way things are projecting, Zelda may overtake her counterpart soon enough.
Yikes! Where did this character's results from season 2 go? Falco seems to be season 3's version of from season 2.


Also on a sidenote, 's points is currently 11, but he is ranked higher than , despite having higher points than him.
Probably either a typo on Doc's points or them incorrectly placing him (most likely the former).


DLC Rankings (2/18/20):
(5th) > (41st) > Byleth (50th) > (52nd) > (58th) > (70th)


Seriously, where the heck is Byleth's stock icon?

 

[Thinkaman]

Das Koopa , did you have any insight into Incineroar and DK pulling ahead? I feel like I wasn't paying attention; I have no idea who or where these results were. Am I just missing Hikaru and Magister doing well or what?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Das Koopa , did you have any insight into Incineroar and DK pulling ahead? I feel like I wasn't paying attention; I have no idea who or where these results were. Am I just missing Hikaru and Magister doing well or what?

HIKARU got 5th at Sumabato SP 12 with solo DK, and Magister got 33rd at Glitch 8 and 49th at Genesis 7.

Still confused on how both of them are ranked so high outside of that (especially Incineroar).
Something to note is that DK's results have been in the come-up shortly before HIKARU's performance.

 

[Das Koopa]

Das Koopa , did you have any insight into Incineroar and DK pulling ahead? I feel like I wasn't paying attention; I have no idea who or where these results were. Am I just missing Hikaru and Magister doing well or what?

SkyJay has been propelling the Incineroar metagame. A lot of points can be attributed to him (from Vertex/Chillhouse) - he's a Central MX player who does well in-region. People who follow my content are probably aware I rank MX very highly and have since Smash 4. Since several recent central mx events have ranked as category 3s, SkyJay pops up a lot, and as a result, incineroar's representation has increased.

Donkey Kong is more incidental. A lot of scattered regional results just cropped up. HIKARU added 4 points, but the rest are varied between players like Nalga, Duon, etc.

 

[Dream Cancel]

OrionStats was updated today and there are several things sticking out to me:

• and are now battling for the position of the best Fire Emblem character as Roy's results increase and Lucina's drop.

Lucina's placement has increased from S2 to S3, from #15 -> #12. Although she has dropped from her peak placement of #6 in Season 1, she has at least stabilized with a slight rise.

If anything, it's mainly a spike in Roy's results. In both Seasons 1 and 2, he was #18, but he has grown to #13, to just behind Lucina.

He's also managed to maintain his separation from Chrom going into Season 3, which is what I find more interesting, personally. The lack of prominent Pikachus outside of ESAM is certainly helpful (to not just him, I imagine). Pichu is a more threatening MU almost exclusively due to his popularity.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Yikes! Where did this character's results from season 2 go? Falco seems to be season 3's version of from season 2.

seems to be dropping off hard, probably due to how polarizing his matchup spread is and due to his mains losing interest due to the lack of minor fixes that a lot of Falco mains have been asking for for months now. The only change he got in the patches so far was the shield buff in 7.0.0.

In terms of matchups, he's really polarizing. He wins against which is pretty good. He might also win against but I'm not as sure about that and he does OK vs and as well. All things considered, that looks pretty good.

However, he loses hard to a lot of the good characters as well: are all really hard for him to deal with and some of these characters are not too uncommon picks at larger tournaments, like and .


Outside of matchups, I know that many of his mains have expressed their dissatisfaction about the lack of fixes to the hitboxes of side-b and reflector as well as the lack of consistancy on up-smash and his throws and I'm guessing a lot of them are starting to lose interest in the character because of that.
He might actually be the least changed character in the patches now that has finally been changed which is a shame, since most of the fixes he needs are kind of obvious and would probably help him at least a little bit.

Falco mains also seem to want increased movement speed and neutral tools but this character has to have weaknesses and Larry Lurr has pointed out that Falco would be an incredibly easy character to over tune if buffed in the wrong way, so I'd rather he just gets the minor changes he needs instead of fixing his most notable weaknesses.

I wouldn't be surprised if his results increase at some point down the line since I don't think this character is all that bad and has potential, but I think giving him the buffs his mains want would help a lot.

 

[DJ3DS]

He might also win against but I'm not as sure about that

The reason this is seen as potentially winning is because Falco has a really, really strong advantage against ROB, and his excellent midair jump makes him moderately more difficult for ROB to delete offstage than Fox. As such, he spent some time being a "go to" counterpick for Fox players, most notably ZD and (at one point) Larry Lurr.

With this said, the matchup is incredibly volatile and ROB also has all of the tools to kill Falco insanely early. It is an uncomfortable counterpick for players and others (like G&W, Mario, and Palutena) with simpler combo trees and less exploitable disadvantages are likely to be more popular as counterpicks in general.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Falco has a really really strong advantage state in general, the character is pure advantage. Sure he can be railroaded in getting into his advantage but the moment you’ve been hit your very likely taking an obscene amount of damage. He doesn’t have a hard time killing either his setups require a bit of risk but he also has fantastic edge guarding and that Bair he can throw out rather freely if things start getting out of hand.

Larry is absolutely right it’s very easy to overtune Falco with just one or two moderate changes, if he needs anything it’s just multihit changes that most multihits in this game need and up smash to work. The only thing holding Falco results back are a lack of top level players who consistently travel to events outside of their region and the few he does have aren’t top 50 level players aside the few occasions he gets pulled out as a counterpick.

 

[SwagGuy99]

The reason this is seen as potentially winning is because Falco has a really, really strong advantage against ROB, and his excellent midair jump makes him moderately more difficult for ROB to delete offstage than Fox. As such, he spent some time being a "go to" counterpick for Fox players, most notably ZD and (at one point) Larry Lurr.

Yeah. ROB can kill Falco incredibly early and Falco's disadvantage state against ROB isn't great, but Falco's advantage state on ROB is kind of comparable to Mario where ROB can't do very much once Falco hits him. Falco can also deal with his camping game better than most characters as well, which helps too.

 

[Megamang]

Calling it volatile isn't a new take, but I'll add something about consistency in these very advantage-focused matchups. It is much less likely for you to be consistent, if the first hit in neutral were to result in a ton of damage or a kill each time you have a lot less mistakes to make through a bracket of a few ROBS than a slower, more campy matchup that you have time to adapt to each player on.


That said, it is less mentally tiring.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Other things to note:
Currently holding steady of 23rd, the placement is pretty good on its own, but pretty bad for a supposed top 5 (even top 10) character. The point gap between it and Chrom is still pretty large (who currently sits directly above him), while it only has one point less than Pichu (who can easily overtake it) and only 3 points behind Sonic and Cloud.
We will see if ESAM will grant Pikachu a performance at Frostbite that can potentially change this.

ESAM isn't going to Frostbite. Pretty sure he's one of two very few Americans who aren't going. Don't know who the other is, but I think it's LeoN.

 

[SwagGuy99]

ESAM isn't going to Frostbite. Pretty sure he's one of two very few Americans who aren't going. Don't know who the other is, but I think it's LeoN.

LeoN is going. As far as I know it's just ESAM and Nicko who aren't going to be there.

 

[BitBitio]

Interesting thing I see a lot of on MU charts these days: Misconceptions. For example, beats soundly on paper, having the reach and mobility to box him out. Most people put it as 65:35 in Lucina’s favor. But, watching sets of top level play between the two shows a different story. Kirby’s solid framedata and ground speed lets him win neutral more often than expected and he can really oppress her in disadvantage. Especially in some sets with Jesuischoq vs Leon (Europe’s best Lucina), Choq is able to consistently outplay in neutral and win by tacking in damage from stray hits and conversions. Likewise, supposedly dies to every combo character but actually has results that do not back this up. Lastly, Byleth loses to half the cast according to this thread yet we see Pink Fresh taking down ZD’s Wolf and Fox.
Just an interesting thing I noticed. It applies to most MU charts in general but I especially see it right now with the recent patch. Lol

 

[Rizen]

I wrote a guide on counterplay to . He's definitely a more solo-viable now after the buffs but there are strategies against him.

 

[Arthur97]

Concerning Kirby and the Byleths at least, how much of that is inexperience? Kirby isn't exactly super common at high levels, and the Byleths haven't been out for long (though, this thread may also have been exceptionally harsh). Player skill is also something to consider. Is the Kirby player just better? At least at the matchup as Lucina is a more common fighter to face. Obviously, everything doesn't always go according to the "plan," and R.O.B. in particular seems to defy how things are "supposed" to go, but experience is also something to consider and may be a factor as to why sometimes the plan on paper doesn't match reality.

 

[BitBitio]

Concerning Kirby and the Byleths at least, how much of that is inexperience? Kirby isn't exactly super common at high levels, and the Byleths haven't been out for long (though, this thread may also have been exceptionally harsh). Player skill is also something to consider. Is the Kirby player just better? At least at the matchup as Lucina is a more common fighter to face. Obviously, everything doesn't always go according to the "plan," and R.O.B. in particular seems to defy how things are "supposed" to go, but experience is also something to consider and may be a factor as to why sometimes the plan on paper doesn't match reality.

The Lucina attends the same weekly as the Kirby. Plus, apparently Mr E was defeated by a different Kirby and recently the Marcinacord was swept by the Kirbycord in a crew battle

MU inexperience is a real factor but sometimes knowing the MU doesn’t save you. Every top player knows the Joker matchup by now but so far Leo has only been eliminated by Marss, Nairo, and Samsora since season 2 started. True that MKLeo is #1 but several PGR players have taken sets off him so idk.

Depends on perspective too

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Personally I'm starting to think Byleth is becoming an anti-meta character.
Think about it. This game's meta revolves around versatility, momentum, and frame data. Byleth is lousy at nearly all of them but still gets wins.
Why? Ridiculous range, KB, Shield damage and a tether grab that appears to be one of the best tether recoveries in the game due to sheer range! This means Byleth gets a lot of extra chances to come back and get the win.
If you can't seal the stock early Byleth is just going to keep getting opportunities to seal your stock even with their somewhat predictable moves.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Think about it. This game's meta revolves around versatility, momentum, and frame data. Byleth is lousy at nearly all of them but still gets wins.

Where?

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Where?

Ahem, look roughly 7 posts up and you'll hear about Pink Fresh's Byleth taking down ZD's Wolf and Fox. Also in a previous post we were talking about MKLeo getting a victory in a local with solo Byleth (but I don't really count that one because A)It's a local so not as many players and B) This is MKLeo we're talking about)

 

[Lacrimosa]

Ahem, look roughly 7 posts up and you'll hear about Pink Fresh's Byleth taking down ZD's Wolf and Fox. Also in a previous post we were talking about MKLeo getting a victory in a local with solo Byleth (but I don't really count that one because A)It's a local so not as many players and B) This is MKLeo we're talking about)

That same PinkFresh got 7th(?) at the latest of their regionals (meaning that the MU inexperience time is over) and MKLeo isn't the best standard because he is the best player.
The other times I've seen Byleth (today at WNF with Nicko and Glutonny at an earlier WANTED) she couldn't do much and Nicko had to fight a Terry who apparantly is a good MU for Byleth.
I'd say that these results get overshadowed by not-so-great results as well, indicating that she's somewhere around mid-level of the cast but I don't see how she'll become abnti-meta character (anytime soon).

 

[Cheryl~]

I do support the notion that Byleth is a little more threatening than previously thought but Pink Fresh and MkLeo winning locals shouldn’t be the only achievements brought up when Blade (a Byleth/Roy player from Mexico) has gotten multiple wins over players such as Sparg0 and Chag and has placed 3rd at Smash Vertex and Chillhouse (PGR C tier) using quite a bit of Byleth alongside Roy and sometimes Joker. I feel like that’s a little more impressive than the other two results and about on par with Zackray winning his stacked weekly using solo Byleth. Either way, this character’s got surprisingly good results so far and I’m excited to see where their meta heads in the next few months.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Frostbite 2020 will be starting very soon, so here's the thread revealing the Top 100 seedings for it:

https://smashboards.com/threads/frostbite-2020-discussion-thread.500108/#post-23836148

In addition to Shuton , Gackt , Kameme , Zackray and Tea returning from last year, other major Japan players like Kome , Paseriman , kept , Etsuji , and Raito will also be attending.

 

[Tri Knight]

I wrote a guide on counterplay to . He's definitely a more solo-viable now after the buffs but there are strategies against him.

He's actually pretty threatening up close now. His jab is so fast now and zair especially is now a viable set up and spacer

 

[Rizen]

He's actually pretty threatening up close now. His jab is so fast now and zair especially is now a viable set up and spacer

Yeah his jab went from a bottom 10 jab to being tied with the fastest swordsmen jabs and Zair went from practically useless to a really good poke and kill confirm. These changes really ironed out his CQC game. With the additional boosted power in Usmash and Uair YL can kill off the top at decent %s. It's also nice to have a kill throw. He's a significantly improved character.

I haven't had a chance to play his really bad MUs like Ike and Robin yet but YL's options against reflectors with Zair are much better. He doesn't have as glaring of weaknesses anymore. Pre-patch I'd say YL was a counterpick character. One of the commentators I heard said he's a character of strengths and weaknesses, which sums it up pretty well. Now he has a lot better tools and earlier kills in his bad MUs.