Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[DJ3DS]

Do you know if Gabriel went ROB or Ryu against Sharp?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Do you know if Gabriel went ROB or Ryu against Sharp?

He never fought against Sharp.

He beat MkLeo in winner's finals 3-2 with .
In grand finals set 1, Leo beat Gabriel 3-1.
In set 2, Leo beat Gabriel 3-0.

Epic_Gabriel set wins with Ryu came from pools.

 

[DJ3DS]

He never fought against Sharp.

He beat MkLeo in winner's finals 3-2 with .
In grand finals set 1, Leo beat Gabriel 3-1.
In set 2, Leo beat Gabriel 3-0.

Epic_Gabriel set wins with Ryu came from pools.

Awesome, thanks for the detailed reply!

 

[sleepy_Nex]

I agree with DJ3DS

Palu's generally consider rob as only a +1 mu because of his insane boxing game and extreme advantage state it's not a mu set in stone. Especially the nerf hit the mu hard for palu because her most consistent Killoptions vs rob got gutted. Rob is really heavy so it can take palu quite some time now to ko him if the rob knows what he does which just means he has more time to get into advantage. (also that dair spike that lasts7 frames vs a easy to 2 frame recovery. Yes at some point palu will be forced to recover low)

Not saying it's even or she loses but rob has multiple things going for him that keep it really volatile.

 

[DJ3DS]

I agree with DJ3DS

Palu's generally consider rob as only a +1 mu because of his insane boxing game and extreme advantage state it's not a mu set in stone. Especially the nerf hit the mu hard for palu because her most consistent Killoptions vs rob got gutted. Rob is really heavy so it can take palu quite some time now to ko him if the rob knows what he does which just means he has more time to get into advantage. (also that dair spike that lasts7 frames vs a easy to 2 frame recovery. Yes at some point palu will be forced to recover low)

Not saying it's even or she loses but rob has multiple things going for him that keep it really volatile.

I'm not sure if we are really agreeing - I singled out Palu as the common matchup ROB loses that isn't as volatile. A large part of this is that he can't edgeguard Palutena to nearly the degree he can everyone else.

Take your example of Down Air - ROBs down air isn't particularly fast (nor should it be, this isn't a complaint) which means you aren't going to be spiking Palutenas teleport on reaction. When a ROB player does this it is a read, and (whilst safe) a more difficult one given Palutenas ability to mix up timing and/or go for edge cancels.

Compare this to Fox; whose horizontal recovery options are stuffed by Gyro and deleted completely by Arm Rotor, and whose Up B can be spiked on reaction - a good Fox has to mix up their up b timing with weird angles to avoid a good Rob spiking them.

That's not to say ROB can't occasionally blow Palutena up, but it's significantly harder to do to Palutena than to other characters. I think +1 Palu is probably fair; a lot of lower level ROBs (including myself there) would argue that it's worse but we are too prone to shielding and do not whiff punish enough which is incredibly dangerous against Palu with the lack of OOS options we have

 

[sleepy_Nex]

Actually i think at a lower level it should not be worse but better because low-midlevel palu's have a harder time walling and spacing correctly allowing rob to box her and get combos starting.

 

[Nemesis561]

I'm not sure if we are really agreeing - I singled out Palu as the common matchup ROB loses that isn't as volatile. A large part of this is that he can't edgeguard Palutena to nearly the degree he can everyone else.

Take your example of Down Air - ROBs down air isn't particularly fast (nor should it be, this isn't a complaint) which means you aren't going to be spiking Palutenas teleport on reaction. When a ROB player does this it is a read, and (whilst safe) a more difficult one given Palutenas ability to mix up timing and/or go for edge cancels.

Compare this to Fox; whose horizontal recovery options are stuffed by Gyro and deleted completely by Arm Rotor, and whose Up B can be spiked on reaction - a good Fox has to mix up their up b timing with weird angles to avoid a good Rob spiking them.

That's not to say ROB can't occasionally blow Palutena up, but it's significantly harder to do to Palutena than to other characters. I think +1 Palu is probably fair; a lot of lower level ROBs (including myself there) would argue that it's worse but we are too prone to shielding and do not whiff punish enough which is incredibly dangerous against Palu with the lack of OOS options we have

If Palu ends up in a spot where she doesn't have her double jump offstage, the down air spike from ROB is really free since Palu doesn't have much in the way of mixups especially if she has to recover low

 

[DJ3DS]

If Palu ends up in a spot where she doesn't have her double jump offstage, the down air spike from ROB is really free since Palu doesn't have much in the way of mixups especially if she has to recover low

Palutena reappears from Up B on Frame 33. Including Jump Squat, ROBs Down Air has 23 frames of startup. That gives you 10 frames to react to Palutena warping and she has some degree of freedom on when to do it. That isn't reactable. Spiking teleport is a read and it isn't free though the duration of ROBs spike does make it a little more lenient than others.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Welp.
We have found 's new worst matchup.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

"This character is so OP!"
"Ban!"
"Ban!"

...and then she ends up mid tier :D

 

[The_Bookworm]

Ok, so a more detailed analysis on Min Min from what I see.

• As expected, she will be extra vulnerable when her moves are shielded, but not nearly as vulnerable as we predicted.
• Her mobility doesn't even seem all too bad at all, which is huge considering that this is the thing used to counterbalance both Byleth and the Belmonts.
• The fact that she has access to retreating tilts, as well as the speed of her Ramram, seems like the character has a powerful neutral game, and an expert on whiff punishing.
• She also has access to some rather quick normals, albeit they are short ranged, including an up smash reflector (which is funny to see). Having access to quick buttons while having all that range is very nice, and which is a reason why Byleth doesn't completely fall apart up close while the Belmonts do.
• Her long ranged buttons' hitboxes seems somewhat narrow, although she can use them both on the ground and on the air, while being able to slightly angle them. Combined this with extra reach, the special properties of the individual arms, and the ability to retreat while using a long-ranged normal, I don't think this is as big of an issue as with the Belmonts.
• Her long ranged normal moves does seem to be slow on startup, which is something the Belmonts does have over her even though their own startup frames is not that great either.
• Her edgeguarding game, especially with Ramram's arc and Dragon's lasers seems disgustingly potent.
• Her neutral air seems like an upgraded Mii Swordfighter/Hero neutral air. The Ramram version seems like it will be a useful tool, while the Megawatt version has extra reach and more power to look out for, although this version is slow so this is probably more situational.
• Her recovery seems identical to Joker's, which is cool.
• My main concern of her is securing KOs outside of edgeguarding. If she has to rely on Megawatt to secure KOs, then this could be a weakness that Min Min players have to work around. This is another point in favor of the Belmonts.
• Characters with extra good ground mobility, such as Sonic, Falcon, Sheik, Fox, and Mewtwo does seem like annoying matchups to deal with, although she doesn't seem completely helpless against these characters.

Right now, I do have a positive impression on Min Min right now. I don't think she is going to be a top tier superstar, but she does seem to have noticeably more tools than other characters of her archetype.

However, this can all change when she comes out in a week.

Her stage looks very fun to play with, although it is obviously not competitively viable.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Takeaways from this:

• They don't seem to be very fast, it was pretty obvious when was onscreen that they didn't seem to be moving much faster than him.
• Most of their grounded moves and some of their aerials seem to have a lot of endlag and are unsafe on shield.
• Their recovery might be amazing.
• Their close up options are really bad and they seem to lack coverage against approaches from above.
• 's final smash dealt very little knockback to them, so maybe they are a heavyweight? Not too sure on this one but maybe.
• They have a similar n-air to or .
• Their up-smash is a reflector.
• Their playstyle seems somewhat like a weird cross between and but lacks the close up options of either of them.
• We've found a new -2 matchup for I think. and may also struggle a bit against this character. Not sure about and , but I think Yoshi at least could be fine due to his air speed and range on a few of his moves like n-air and up-air.
• This character may lose heavily to characters who have range, a good OOS game, and can rush them down like and .
• They may also struggle against characters who can low profile their moves like and .
• While I'm not confident in saying this since they aren't out and I'll likely change my mind once they are, they could be pretty good overall.

Regarding my personal opinions, it's cool that their design is unique but I really don't like how it seems to so heavily based on zoning and keep away.

Edit: A friend who is watching H-box's stream where he is breaking down the frame data just told me their up-smash is frame 8, jab is frame 4, n-air is frame 7 or 8. A frame 8 up-smash is 1 frame faster than //'s, which is really good, especially since they seem to lack other good OOS options.

Some more thoughts that are just kind of popping up:

• Their disadvantage might be pretty bad if they are heavy and lack any sort of good escape options.
• Their ledgetrapping potential seems really strong, since they have a lot of moves that can cover the ledge, similarly to and .
• Their grab range is amazing, but has a lot of endlag if missed.
• They low key might do fine against , I think being able to hit his hydrant from far away is a pretty big deal, but I could be completely wrong on this one.
• A frame 8 up-smash and frame 4 jab is pretty good, and might make their close range game better than Sakurai made it seem.
• We didn't see Sakurai's cat in the presentation RIP.

 

[FruitLoop]

Alright so Min Min got announced, just a few things I want to note:

- Her Out of Shield looks quite bad. Judging from the Youtube Frame by Frames, even the Ram Ram Nair comes out around Frame 8. The Dragon ironically comes out around the same time (Though from my analysis it looks Frame 9) while it possesses better range meaning that it could be her best Out of Shield Option technically for covering people who space around safe hitboxes. Even with that it's not really fast enough to hit a lot of notable moves. So a lot of the times I feel like she'll have to retreat a lot. Her Up-Smash Out of Shield looks decent but even with that it's not a good sign and will only be relevant in a few mus.

- I'm assuming she's generally fast, which is a genuinely good thing going for Min-Min so she can have actual ways to runaway from pressure, though I doubt she'll be as fast as most conventional rushdown characters.

- Her Jump-Ins obviously Look Awful.
- Her CQC OBVIOUSLY looks atrocious. It's probably not as bad as the likes of and since her jab probably looks decently fast as a get off me tool? However since Sakurai noted how bad their CQC is and how they want to be at mid-range and long-range then again it's not looking too good.

- Mega-Watt looks like a SOLID 2 framing move. If the downwards angle can beat out most recoveries.

- Ram Ram at ledge looks FANTASTIC for ledge trapping. It's up-arching hitbox can probably beat out most ledge hops while it's disjointed property can beat out getup attack, getup roll, and even maybe neutral getup with Min-Min being able to condition Neutral Getup Shield. This also makes her not vulnerable to sharks. This might actually be one of her best qualities outside of range in optimal levels of play.

- Her Up-Air looks solid but I don't think she has the kit to fully utilize it outside of forcing a juggle scenario where she can frame trap or even force someone to airdodge away just to get hit by MegaWatt and die at 60.

- Having THAT amount of reach (She certainly has the best reach in the game) means that she'll be fantastic in advantage for frame traps.

- Her disadvantage doesn't look good. A landing down-air like and for instadrop and not really having any good get off me tools doesn't look to be a good combination for her. And her lack of jump ins drastically affect how she can deal with jumping off of ledge. Having a tether recovery does help a ton in terms of gimps but we don't know JUST how good it is yet. She's also quite tall and seems a bit on the floaty side.

- THANK GOD FOR THE FACT THAT SHE DOESNT HAVE EXTENDABLE HURTBOXES. That would make her by far the worst character in the game (Even worse than the likes of , , and . This also means that she might have safe shield pressure at further ranges which further incentivizes her gameplan.

- The Dragons probably don't look like decent camping tools. They can probably be good offstage but who knows at this point.

- I can tell she's going to be good on wifi eventhough ledge trapping is nerfed. She can kind of just circle camp and mash safe buttons at far ranges then runaway further or plat camp then just fish for her win conditions in hopes that the opponent misinputs.

- She's probably going to hate FD. Since she has to directly confront the opponent before playing runaway and retreating to further ranges and the fact that playing in disadvantage is the worst on that stage. It doesn't look to be a good stage for her unless we get her frame trapping shenanigans down then maybe she might benefit.

- Sakurai noted that she lacks ways to deal with people jumping, this is a BIG problem since many top tiers have fantastic jump ins and a ton of safe moves while likely being faster than Min-Min. Obviously I think she's going to lose to , , and most notably due to these changes.

- Her matchups with and looks nice since she can space around their shields and they also lack good jump ins to properly counterplay her while she has the mobility to runaway and play non-interactive (She can also just abuse Up-Smash vs eggs to reflect things then just continue to harass them through camping).

- From my first impressions, she looks about mid tier but on the lower end of it. I think she's just a gimmick check that gets harassed by a good majority of notable characters.

This is my analysis, thank you very much!

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Welp, her stage was legal, then came the ceiling:

 

[The_Bookworm]

• They don't seem to be very fast, it was pretty obvious when was onscreen that they didn't seem to be moving much faster than him.

Kirby's ground speed is actually about average. It is his air speed that is so slow about the character.

• Kirby's final smash dealt very little knockback to them, so maybe they are a heavyweight? Not too sure on this one but maybe.

It was Final Smash meter at very low percents. This is not really an accurate way to tell her weight.

- Sakurai noted that she lacks ways to deal with people jumping, this is a BIG problem since many top tiers have fantastic jump ins and a ton of safe moves while likely being faster than Min-Min. Obviously I think she's going to lose to , , and most notably due to these changes.

The thing is that while Sakurai address that she has issues with opponents jumping, the tools demonstrated in the presentation shows somewhat otherwise, with her frame 8 up smash, her frame 7/8 nair with long reach and disjoint, retreating tilts, and a very long grab range (albeit this tool is most likely going to be used for whiff punishing like SSB4 Link's grab) shows that she does have some ways to deal with opponents jumping.

It is far from top class tools to deal with them, but it is shown that she does have some ways to deal with them.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Also, geez heavies can't catch a break.
Another roadblock for them that nimble characters can get around...

 

[Lacrimosa]

Seems to be a character Zelda can just teleport into when she thinks she wants to stay away and spam her arms. Meaning she probably has to approach her which may not be good since Zelda struggles hard in the mid-range game.

Kinda frightened about this new match-up.

 

[FruitLoop]

Kirby's ground speed is actually about average. It is his air speed that is so slow about the character.


It was Final Smash meter at very low percents. This is not really an accurate way to tell her weight.


The thing is that while Sakurai address that she has issues with opponents jumping, the tools demonstrated in the presentation shows somewhat otherwise, with her frame 8 up smash, her frame 7/8 nair with long reach and disjoint, retreating tilts, and a very long grab range (albeit this tool is most likely going to be used for whiff punishing like SSB4 Link's grab) shows that she does have some ways to deal with opponents jumping.

It is far from top class tools to deal with them, but it is shown that she does have some ways to deal with them.

The Frame 8 Up-Smash looks promising. But outside of that even having retreating tilts doesn't look too great vs these kinds of characters since most of them can tomahawk and bait out those kinds of options or just use a fullhop then wait for Min-Min to either get A: Stuck in Shield or B: Runaway to attempt to use a runback Tilt then they can just beat out Min Min's grounded spacing and space around her Up-Smash usually. A frame 8ish Neutral-Air isn't actually that great for Air to Airs if she isn't accompanied by any other particularly fast Air to Airs so its a case of running back and outspacing most character's aerials when a lot of the characters I listed below have good failsafe conditions for when their aerial pressure stops working.

I'm not saying that she simply CAN'T deal with them, it's just that I feel like it's enough to be a notable weakness and that those characters simply just don't look like good matchups and it requires her to out-play her opponents just to break even.

 

[DJ3DS]

My gut feeling is that Min Min may struggle with ROB too. Her moves seem reasonably reactable from a distance, and ROB has the perfect answer in his transcendent laser. Between his edgeguarding, his avoiding those ledgetraps with a high recovery she may struggle to contest and his options up close and this may be another common matchup she struggles with - though all that is hearsay until next week.

Really cool character design though, I really like the choices they made. The stage looks super fun as well.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Also, geez heavies can't catch a break.
Another roadblock for them that nimble characters can get around...

Yeah, I don't seen any of them outside of doing too good here.

• may be fine as long as Min-Min's moves are as punishable as they look and if here CQC is as lackluster as it was made out to be (which it might not). Bowser's ability to rush her down effectively due to his superior move speed and his ability to up-b OOS against a lot of her moves makes me think he probably does fine enough here for him to at least be usable in the matchup. I expect his biggest hurtle in the matchup to be how he gets around her ledgetrapping, but that alone doesn't make this matchup bad for him (I mean, look at the / matchup if you want an example of why that doesn't matter as much as it seems).

The rest of them I don't see doing very well here though:

• is going to have some trouble approaching Min-Min and will likely get ledgetrapped and edgeguarded hard. I can actually see his juggling game being alright against her, since she seems to lack a good escape option, but I feel like his approach game most likely being fairly mediocre here will make it hard for him to start a juggle scenario to begin with.
• will be easily outranged and will probably get ledgetrapped and edgeguarded just like DK. He doesn't have as good of move speed as DK or Bowser so I don't really see how he would be able to approach her. And once he gets in, his juggling game really isn't that great and his frame data isn't that amazing either, so outside of hitting her with n-air a few times, he can't do much. Setting up an edgeguarding scenario likely won't work either since her recovery is so good.
• , like Ganon, suffers from all of the same issues. Revenge is a good tool to have as always, but Min-Min will be playing at long range most of the time so the actual counter hitbox of the move won't hit her. And even once he does get Revenge, Min-Min has enough range on her grab to just grab him (which gets rid of his Revenge), probably f-throw or back throw him, which puts him right back in a position where he can't approach.
• isn't as simple as Ganon and Incineroar and he might do the second best of the superheavyweights overall. His belly armor on his n-air may be incredibly helpful in letting him approach and he can likely do some damage when he gets in. If Min-Min didn't have a reflector, K. Rool might actually do decent overall, since he could throw out a neutral b or side-b and run in with n-air or f-air and (given that her CQC is supposedly mediocre and she isn't very fast) she may lack an option to avoid both the projectile and K. Rool. However, her having a reflector makes trying to approach with a projectile much less effective for K. Rool and with her range, she should be able to deal with his recovery much easier than a lot of other characters. I don't think K. Rool will be absolutely destroyed in this matchup, but he probably loses as well.
• will likely lose the matchup (but like K. Rool, it might not be terrible overall). His ledgetrapping, edgeguarding, ability to recovery, and juggling will all be fairly helpful in this matchup as they usually are. However, due to Min-Min's range and reflector (which would allow her to easily deal with Gordos) as well as Dedede's poor air speed and mediocre frame data, his approach game will be awful. Of all of the super heavyweights outside of Bowser and DK, he probably has the best options against Min-Min once he gets in, but he will probably struggle to get in almost as much as DK/Ganon/Incineroar do.

So yeah, I see all of them losing to her, especially Ganon and Incineroar, except Bowser, who honestly could be anywhere from a slight loss to a slight win, depending on how effective his gameplan turns out to be against her (currently I feel like it will be pretty effective but who knows, the character isn't even out yet) but I don't feel like the matchup will be unwinnable at all.

 

[Nate1080]

Just like the flow of play in ARMS, you can’t just throw out attacks with Min Min. You have to bait and punish; throw out one arm at a time, rarely both, and then punish with the other arm if you whiff.

The mechanic of changing the curvature (just like in ARMS) with the mechanic of using separate limbs looks to make some sick nasty frame traps.


Also thank god she doesn’t have Dhalsim like hurtboxes. Her arms look to be treated as projectiles. Of course, we won’t know for 100% sure until she drops, but it looks that way.

 

[NotLiquid]

Preliminary frame count. ESAM thinks (for what the moves are) that she seems really good in this regard.

MIN MIN FRAME DATA THAT I COULD TELL

Dragon jab 14-24
Dragon Smash 16-28 laser on 38
charged dragon smash - 17-29 laser on 39
Ramram Jab 14-29/30
if already jabbing, 11-25
Ramram Smash 16-33 f8 charge release
megawatt Jab 16-37
Megawatt Smash 18-39 f8 charge release
1/2

— ESAM (@imESAM) June 22, 2020

Honestly don't know what to make of her yet! She's so different from everything that's come before, I think she runs the risk of having a really lopsided MU spread.

 

[Nate1080]

For those counting frames, was the presentation playing back at 60 frames?

If not, I’d just wait until the character drops before looking at frames.

 

[NotLiquid]

For those counting frames, was the presentation playing back at 60 frames?

If not, I’d just wait until the character drops before looking at frames.

The footage is at 60 frames, yes.

 

[The_Bookworm]

After re-watching her trailers, here are some other thing I noted:

• Min Min's long reach normals can beat out weak projectiles, or at least it does in Megawatt. In her reveal trailer, her B attack in the air beat-out Villager's slingshot.
• Her grounded up B does not put her in freefall. Combined with the mechanic that she reverse her arms in the opposite direction, this can provide some potential mixups.
• She possesses a dash attack similar to Sonic's (but faster with slightly less reach) and a down tilt similar to Cloud's, which can be good.

 

[Lacrimosa]

At least she has no hitbox on her grounded upB.
Doesn't make her shield untouchable, unlike GnW's. It's like Sonic's in that regard.

(Not that my char cares about OoS options most of the time)

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

R.I.P

heavy mains watching the Min Min reveal pic.twitter.com/hlcjHiFbNv

— Tylor (@theSirToasty) June 22, 2020

 

[DungeonMaster]

Looks better then Belmont at first glance, but that statement is true for 95% of the cast so not much said there. Still less reasons to play Belmont...
Will likely suffer horribly vs shotos who get in with aerials and do 60+ in one conversion.
Probably cannot deal with with Samus and other high damage projectiles with arm attacks, but let's see how clanks work out in practice. Up-smash as a reflector is not that useful since it can't be used in the air.
I think actually she may struggle with Banjo, DDD and other characters that can hover at height and rain projectiles downwards. I feel there's a blind angle there just looking at the few interactions we have.
OOS game is fairly bad. Dive kick looks Belmont terrible, but hard to tell.
In all likelihood a counterpick, niche character with some fun stuff and will require considerable skill to get good at. Not a top tier threat, or a threat to most of high tier, but lets see!

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Hrmm what are the thoughts onvs. min min? I mean by itself ignoring the other pokemon? Being a character that thrives on bait and punish but hates long range combatants and is anchored to the ground I think it's slightly losing.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Looks better then Belmont at first glance, but that statement is true for 95% of the cast so not much said there. Still less reasons to play Belmont...
Will likely suffer horribly vs shotos who get in with aerials and do 60+ in one conversion.
Probably cannot deal with with Samus and other high damage projectiles with arm attacks, but let's see how clanks work out in practice. Up-smash as a reflector is not that useful since it can't be used in the air.
I think actually she may struggle with Banjo, DDD and other characters that can hover at height and rain projectiles downwards. I feel there's a blind angle there just looking at the few interactions we have.
OOS game is fairly bad. Dive kick looks Belmont terrible, but hard to tell.
In all likelihood a counterpick, niche character with some fun stuff and will require considerable skill to get good at. Not a top tier threat, or a threat to most of high tier, but lets see!

Question is how her arms will interact with Gordos. I can imagine that it will be super rought for DD since he's slow in the air, meaning he can't get away from the bending ring arm fast enough and he's super big and Gordos are usually reflected when hit. I assume she will keep him out completely.

 

[FruitLoop]

Looks better then Belmont at first glance, but that statement is true for 95% of the cast so not much said there. Still less reasons to play Belmont...
Will likely suffer horribly vs shotos who get in with aerials and do 60+ in one conversion.
Probably cannot deal with with Samus and other high damage projectiles with arm attacks, but let's see how clanks work out in practice. Up-smash as a reflector is not that useful since it can't be used in the air.
I think actually she may struggle with Banjo, DDD and other characters that can hover at height and rain projectiles downwards. I feel there's a blind angle there just looking at the few interactions we have.
OOS game is fairly bad. Dive kick looks Belmont terrible, but hard to tell.
In all likelihood a counterpick, niche character with some fun stuff and will require considerable skill to get good at. Not a top tier threat, or a threat to most of high tier, but lets see!

Honestly she's not going to struggle vs DDD, in fact it'll be the opposite. The thing is eventhough DDD can jump camp to avoid her blindspots. Since he's so slow in the air she's going to likely spend most of her time doing fadeback tilts and using her ability to maneuver while throwing out moves. Mix this with her being able to consistently circle camp D3 and just Up-Smash OoS spam vs any sort of pressure and we get a pretty bad mu for the penguin. D3 only wins like what? Two matchups? I don't think she makes a good case of being his third or being an even mu either.

 

[KakuCP9]

I think Usmash being a ground only reflector is fine since 90% Min min's neutral is played grounded keeping her opponents at outrageous arm's length coupled with the fact that the arms tilts/smashes can dispel weak projectiles while Usmash can reflect strong and slow ones. The question is when does Usmash start reflecting (hopefully relatively quickly). Also, I don't get how people are saying her OOS game is weak. Her Usmash has range and speed comparable to Cloud's and coupled with the fact that it reflects projectiles, it gives the move alot of utility making her OOS game decent at worst.
The main thing that separates her from the Bylethes and Belmonts aside from mobility is that Min min doesn't have blatant blind spots diagonally above her like the other two. Thanks to RamRam bending, she can cover angles most characters like approach from while being able to move during the attack. While it doesn't completely patch up the hole in her range, she at least has reasonable answers to alot of aerial approaches without overextending. Granted she doesn't enjoy having her attacks shielded, she at least has a 9 yard grab range to keep people from getting too comfortable blocking even though it's risky (I wonder her pivot grab range is like...). Don't know if she gets anything off of throws, but she can definitely chuck you offstage for vicious edge-guarding or set up ledge-trapping that's borderline un-contestable thanks to her absurd range (her dragon arm also gets a buff when she throws someone IIRC so grabs are their own reward I guess).
Overall, I quite pleased with this character and I think she has the tools to deal with almost anything that comes her way.

 

[NotLiquid]

I think the possibility of Min Min lacking something like a kill throw or combo throw is entirely secondary to the fact she very much seems like Cloud in this regard. Throwing an opponent for them isn't necessarily going to net you any big conversions or kills but it does have the benefit of giving the character room to boost (part of the reason why Cloud is otherwise mostly justified in not getting much off of throws). We've yet to see how much reward Min Min gets off of a charged Dragon Arm, but the fact that it does give her a power boost of some sort - and places the opponent at her most comfortable proper operative distance - means throwing still has the potential of setting up a much stronger advantage state.

Given what we've seen so far there's a part of me that's wondering whether Sakurai is overselling her weaknesses given the amount of space and angles she covers. Won't know until she comes out obviously but I fear this is a character people are gonna hate if that potential is as good as it seems on paper, since her entire game plan is essentially "get away from me". She looks like a character Dabuz would probably play.

 

[Firox]

I gotta say, I've always struggled against skilled Cloud players that spam Up B out of shield and have the perfect spacing on their Bairs and Fairs. Hopefully Min Min will be the secondary I need to finally put a silver bullet in his spiky blond head. Thanks to her absurd grab range (and range in general) I shouldn't have to worry about OoS options, so as long as I can master her air to air game she should be able to wall him off fairly well. Her ranged ledge trapping/edge guarding should be able to give him trouble as well.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Also, geez heavies can't catch a break.
Another roadblock for them that nimble characters can get around...

R.I.P

heavy mains watching the Min Min reveal pic.twitter.com/hlcjHiFbNv

— Tylor (@theSirToasty) June 22, 2020

Well, yeah. She's a long-ranged zoner. Those kinds of characters do well against heavies by default. This isn't anything new.

It's something heavies just have to learn to deal with. But hey, maybe a couple heavies will get buffs in the next patch.

Hrmm what are the thoughts onvs. min min? I mean by itself ignoring the other pokemon? Being a character that thrives on bait and punish but hates long range combatants and is anchored to the ground I think it's slightly losing.

I think Charizard's down special is going to be really, really good in this match up.

But for when you do have to play as the Zard, I think he's really going to struggle in neutral or when forced back to the ledge, but his advantage state is going to be very strong against her, and he is going to be really good at keeping her in the air or back at the ledge. I think it'll be about timing your switch from Ivy -> Charizard so that you're already at a point where you have the advantage when you switch.

Ivysaur is the match up I'm most interested in. I think a lot of it will come down to how her ARMS interact with Razor Leaf. I do think Ivy will do okay if she gets in close and corners her though, as Min Min's kicks shouldn't be hard to outspace.

 

[Nate1080]

I think the possibility of Min Min lacking something like a kill throw or combo throw is entirely secondary to the fact she very much seems like Cloud in this regard.

Speaking of throws, we don’t really know what her throws look like outside of f-throw (I believe), since Sakruai really didn’t showcase them outside of just demonstrating Dragon Arm.

I doubt her throws really set up much or kill, since in ARMS her throws don’t do much damage and throws in ARMS sends the opponents far away (basically resets unless thrown into a corner), but you never know until she comes out.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Early general thoughts on some of Min Min's matchups (most of this is just educated speculation based on what we've seen, but we can get a good idea on some characters):

• She's going to lose to a characters who can play rushdown: and . and I can also see, but their recoveries are much more exploitable compared to the rest of the them, so it might not be as lopsided.
• Characters who struggle to get in and/or are slow will probably lose hard to her. and all stick out to me as characters who will struggle to get in against Min Min.
• Characters who have options to low profile her moves will probably be troublesome as well: and . All of these characters duck low when dashing, have a short crouch or crawl, or have a move that allows them to stay low to the ground that I think will help them to avoid a lot of Min Min's moves.

Now for two specific characters I wanted to talk about:

• doing good against Min Min may seem weird, but I'll try to explain my thoughts here. While Min Min does have a reflector, reflecting a laser usually just means you'll get hit by 2 more. And I actually think this is a matchup where lasers will matter a lot. He can tack on damage easily from a distance with them and wait for an opening to approach from above (since she seems to lack options overall to cover above her). From there, Falco can abuse her (what appears to be) her bad disadvantage and combo her forever.
• is going to suck against this character. This matchup feels like it will be very much like the Belmont's matchup. Good advantage state once you get in, but you have no way to get in so it hardely matters. While Belmonts are going to focus on keeping you out with their projectiles and range, Min Min is just going to use her range (which is somehow even longer than the Belmont's for some reason). I am not looking forward to playing this matchup in general (since I feel like this character will largely have to play a keep away game against most of the cast) and I will probably go Bowser for this matchup unless Luigi gets some kind of major change in the patch to make this matchup easier.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Given what has been shown in the presentation, the tools displayed, the frame data people displayed, and the attributes seen, I am going for this hot take: they finally nailed the "distance demon" archetype.
This archetype in Smash Bros., the term coined by Sakurai during the Byleth direct, is fairly new, but the attempts to create a character of this supposed archetype hasn't ended very well thus far.

I guess their first attempt is technically , as the devs try to highlight her range being a main selling point of the character when she was initially introduced. However, she plays nothing like other characters of this archetype whatsoever, especially in SSB4, so I am going to pass on Corrin being considered a "distance demon". Either way, there is her current very sorry state in Ultimate, so it wouldn't really matter anyways.

1) The first true attempt of making a character of this archetype is . This character got a lot of hype at the beginning, and was considered high tier at the first few months of the game. Now obviously the game just came out, and we never had a character of their archetype up into that point, so we had no idea how to handle it at first and what is necessary for a character of their archetype to function.

We all now know that their first attempt at making a character of this archetype did not work whatsoever. This is due to the very unfortunate combination of being very slow, especially in the air, sluggish frame data, narrow hitboxes that can constantly whiff, a very slow grab that has very little range even for Ultimate's standard, awkward hitboxes all around, and one of the worst recoveries in the game.

Now applying pressure with Cross and forward tilt is something they do well, and their whiff punishing in the right hand can be potent. They also have a fairly good ledgetrapping game, although as time goes on, holes in their ledgetrapping is seen. It is kind of sad that the character has three special moves almost entirely dedicated to ledgetrapping, but Snake's ledgetrapping is superior with up smash alone.

This video below kind of highlights some of the oddities this character has, both the good and the bad:

To the Belmont's credit, they do have a few niche matchups in the higher tiers, such as Olimar, Luigi, and maybe Ness, that the character does do well against. However, then they introduced Byleth: a character of a similar archetype who also does well in the matchups the Belmonts have a niche against. However Byleth, spoiler alert, is superior to the Belmonts in almost every way. So yeah... attempt #1 did not do well at all, and are slowly becoming a main contender for the buff list as their holes are becoming more and more apparent by the average player.


2) The second attempt is , which is where the "distance demon" term was coined, or characters that tries to space out the character with their absurdly long reaching normals, but tends to have slow, narrow buttons. The character was introduced around the same time the Belmonts was falling steadily into the low tiers, so after we learned that the character has Belmont-esque attributes in terms of frame data and archetype, we all grew immediately skeptic on how good the character is. This here is where our newfound knowledge on how a "distance demon" functions turns into doubt.

However, this character does several things right that the Belmonts fail to achieve, things right that gives us a good glimpse on the kind of stuff a "distance demon" needs to be a good character. A main part is at least a semi-competent CQC game, which Byleth does bring to the table, to at least not be completely helpless against those close to him. Some of which includes a frame 4 jab (a rarity among sword characters in general), a frame 8 forward tilt (that is pretty much Corrin's but better), and a frame 9 up tilt, as well as a more practical down tilt that can be used spacing, whiff punishing, and a combo starter.

It also helps that Byleth directly addresses weaknesses that plagues the Belmonts, such as hitboxes that aren't as thick as a piece of yarn, an actual recovery (and a fairly solid one at that), more tools at landing safely, and more consistent KO potential. This is also boosted by the fact that Byleth straight up as DLC buttons, such as up air, up smash, grounded up B, and surprisingly neutral air (frame 6 startup, hard to fall out, and a landing hitbox makes it much better than initially seen). While his grab is not spectacular, it actually has somewhat respectable reach in the scope of Ultimate, and it's frame 6 startup (frame 10 if dash and frame 11 if pivot) is also good. Definitely not as bad the Belmonts and as Sakurai advertised it.

However, not all is going in Byleth favor. He is even slower than the Belmonts mobility wise, especially with the lack of the Belmont's down tilt, and he doesn't really have a spammable tool to space in neutral like the Belmont's forward tilt. His ledgetrapping is also not quite as potent as the Belmonts, although he does have his own strengths in that regard. While his buttons are not nearly as sluggish and narrow as the Belmonts, Byleth is not innocent on having rather slow numbers, and moves that would like a bit more coverage, specifically forward and back air.

Byleth came out on late January, which is slightly less than two months before quarantine began, so it sort of hard to gauge how truly good he would be in competitive play. However, he is generally average at best. Definitely not a metagame superstar, but can do some damage. So even if Byleth is not a great character, he is a pretty good step in the right direction for the archetype as a whole.


3) One DLC character later, but 6 months later, we now have the newest member of the "distance demon" squad: Min Min. This character, simply from showing on the presentation, seems like the accumulation of everything demonstrated so far with the new archetype, and the lessons learned from the release of the Belmonts and Byleth.

So this is the gist of it. This character brings extra range to the table. The ability to throw two arms out, the ability to angle it about halfway through the move, the speed and arc of Ramram arm, and the ability to retreat/advance while using these spacing tools, grants the character a neutral/spacing game unprecedented not only by other characters of her archetype, but arguably the entire cast. Granted that she cannot throw them out wily-nily as they do have some noticeable startup, and shielding the move does leave her vulnerable, although at a surprisingly little window than expected. Ramram, in particular, will be significant as it covers an arc that Byleth and especially the Belmonts have trouble covering.

Her mobility is another key part, as it does Another potentially useful tool is her grounded up B, as it somewhat quick, has invincibility at the start, and does not put her in freefall, which may provide with a nice escape option. It is obviously not Game & Watch levels, and there are some obvious flaws with the method, it may be a nice tool.

While these tools are pretty good and dandy, and she personifies the things that makes characters of her archetype be consider "distance demons" to the next level. She possesses another significant advantage: good normal buttons, especially in terms of speed.

Just as NotLiquid showed earlier, ESAM complied her frame data in a few posts:

jab kick frame 4 (minimum of 5 cuz hold?)
utilt 5-16
dtilt 10
Dash attack: 7
Usmash: 9-18
Dsmash: 8
grab: 17-23
nair dragon 10-20ish??
nair ramram 8-18
nair megawatt 14-26ish
uair: 7-15
dair 14-15
ground upb? iframe on 10
air upb: hit on 12
tether to ledge starts frame 7
2/3

— ESAM (@imESAM) June 22, 2020

This is significant. A character of her archetype having access to these buttons is really good. Up smash and neutral air in particular shines among them. This builds up on what Byleth started in terms of "distance demons" having a solid CQC game. It is not a top class CQC by any means, but having one alongside the already demonstrated potent keep-away game is pretty significant.

Recovery game seems to be solid, with a similar tether recovery to Byleth, which is pretty decent. Her floater nature, combined with her better airspeed, further helps her recovery in comparison to Byleth, although her up B lacks the fear factor of getting suddenly reverse edgeguarded like Byleth's.

Of course, it is not complete sunshine and rainbows. She still possesses the usual "distance demon" quirks of her long-range buttons being not very fast and having somewhat narrow hitboxes, although this issue isn't as bad as with Byleth and the Belmonts thanks retreating tilts and Ramram's arc. Her KO power without edgeguarding and her slow Megawatt also seems rather lacking in comparison to the other two.

Finally, her landing game may prove to be rather lacking, mostly due to the weak link of her moveset: her down air divekick. Down airs of her type are not really good, unless your name is Game & Watch, combined with her air apeed looking to be average at best, can give her some trouble, although her nair can potentially help out with this. It is not nearly as bad as Belmont's landing game with their non-existent air mobility and a down air that doesn't properly cover his foot, but not quite as good as Byleth with his shield breaking down air and landing nair.

Similar to what Kaku says, this character seems to have tools to deal with almost any situation, and even in situations that are particularly disadvantageous, she has some tools to try to fight her way of it. She doesn't seem to be a top tier superstar, given that she seems to have disadvantageous matchups against some common rushdown characters like Roy and Fox, as well as shorter characters like Pika to be a bit annoying to deal with, but given what was demonstrated, she seems have what it takes to take on the cast as of right now.

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Anyways, I can't wait to see how well this comment ages in a week.
But given the tools shown, as well as all of us now having experience on how this new-ish character archetype functions, I am holding hype that this character will the first of her archetype to truly break into the tournament scene, and not crash and burn with time like the Belmonts did.

 

[Nobie]

Min Min is the third character after Belmonts and Byleth to have the "long but thin" ranged hitboxes. They clearly do this to give these attacks a clear weakness, and I'm curious to find out how Min Min players work around this limitation.

 

[Thinkaman]

My top Min Min questions:

1. What are the numbers on uair? Really interested in her upwards coverage, because that's a concern for this archtype.
2. How safe is her general gameplan on block? We know it has some custom behavior, and we did see Sakurai comfortably wack a CPU who dropped shield after a tilt, but the specific math is going to matter A LOT for a slow ground-based character with a super slow grab.
3. I'm guessing her grab is less aobut kill throws and more about this dragon buff. All the numbers and behaviors of that matter a ton. (It's impossible to even begin to judge WFT if you don't understand Deep Breathing, or Shulk without Monado.)

Some random thoughts:

• Up-smash reflector is super cool, great design, exactly what she needs. Giving this character (or a Belmont) Wolf reflector would be super dumb, but this modest reflector should give her a (situational, risky) out against certain stuff that trumps her at range.
• Also glad u-smash is (in this footage) around f8. She would otherwise not really have a OoS option at all, pinching her core weakness in a bad way.
• Don't dismiss Megawatt. Shield break punishers are never a bad thing to have tucked into a kit.
• Glad she has a slide; it looks puny, but she'll make good use of it.
• Probably has a bad time being juggled; the heavy stall on dair is probably, in this extreme case, more of a blessing than a curse.
• Her one-two punch coverage lets her--from a distance--trap landings well in theory. We say a couple moments of this in the CPU battle.

I'm guessing she despises Mario, Terry, Joker, Fox, Pikachu, Pichu, Yoshi, Roy/Chrom, Wario. She's probably great against Luigi, K. Rool, DDD, Byleth, Incineroar, Ganon, Villager, Isabelle, Ice Climbers. Curious how the ROB and G&W matchups go. She probably hates Squirtle but holds her own against the other 2 relatively speaking.


In other news, I would have zero expectations for balance changes. Not saying to expect nothing; saying that we should have no idea what to expect. It's been 5 months, but the balance team almost certainly hasn't been meeting. (or at least playing in-person matches) And they certainly aren't hearing about results from offline tournaments that don't exist. It would be entirely plausible that they have decided to take a COVID pause and wait for things to resume. (And also plausible that they have a huge backlog of changes to push out. No way to know.)