Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Tri Knight]

Again it's blind talk, but ESAM has dedication. Maybe proof of that dedication... outside of pouring his life into the character... is his unwillingness to accept that Pikachu isn't the best. Maybe he tells himself that so he has more motivation to prove it. Seems pretty dedicated to me.

To say he's not dedicated to a character he has solely mained since basically forever is just flat out wrong. And he's at least proven that Pika is not a character to be taken lightly.

 

[Nobie]

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I watched a video from Abadango where he goes over his thoughts on DLC and especially Pyra/Mythra.

First, he thinks Pyra/Mythra, Sephiroth, Min Min, and (probably) Steve all lose to Pikachu, so he's okay sticking with Palutena.

As for Pyra/Mythra in particular, he basically thinks the character is very good but not ridiculous: a little worse than Sephiroth and about as good as Ken and Terry.

The flaws he describes are interesting, mainly focused on Mythra. He says that while Mythra has a ton of mobility and a fantastic neutral, you can't be the strongest character just by having good neutral. She lacks attacks that are distinctly powerful in neutral, having no projectile nor any good attacks that are meant to preemptively cover space rather than in response. By comparison, Sheik has needles, which make a huge difference.

Her iffy landing lag, good but not great range on tilts and aerials, and low damage makes it so that she doesn't feel safe throwing out attacks or while trying to get in on her opponent. The term he uses is "sashikomi," which roughly means "pokes," but also include things with lots of invincibility you can just toss at your opponent.

Another flaw mentioned is that Mythra is defensively weak at and around the ledge due to her poor spot dodge. While she has Foresight, grabs don't trigger it, and her first regular invincibility frame is frame 7, in a game where most characters' grabs are frame 6 or 7. Against characters with strong throw games, it removes get-up spot dodge or spot dodge while cornered as a viable option.

While not stated outright, the impression I get is that Abadango thinks Mythra is good at whiff punishing but is not especially suited to being proactive.

 

[NotLiquid]

ESAM is pound-for-pound one of the hardest labbers in Smash. Very few players put as much effort as he does into memorizing and understanding the technical aspects of the game, and that's not something to take for granted, hence why I'm often interested in his analysis on characters. That doesn't make him immune to tunnel vision, nor does the executional and theoretical assimilation escape being put into a vacuum of sorts - in part because he's very much a player who often gives the impression of arguing from a standpoint of perpetual perfect play. Pikachu has been the perennial case in this regard ever since he began playing the character in Brawl. It's hard to disagree on the surface that Pikachu has most of everything you'd want from a top tier (including pancake privilege as probably the most egregious factor), yet the fact that neither a top 5 player has opted for them, or a top adjacent player has managed to statistically court the amount of results you'd expect in a proportional ratio of quantity and positioning, makes it strange that the notion of Pikachu as not #1 has been become a somewhat iconoclastic line of thinking.

It's kind of the alternate timeline Inkling in a sense, where both of them are really good, were thought to be (one of) the best characters at separate points in time, and even have somewhat comparable game plans (only one is better at camping while the other opts for quicker damage), though people only wised up to one of them, perhaps because of their comparative overall ubiquity. Pikachu is a character that requires a ton of maintenance by comparison, but if the benefits pay off only incrementally more, then there's a sincere argument to be made about how that affects the top.

As an aside, if you want to compare ESAM's new list with his previous one (because he'd already made one recently right before Sephiroth dropped), feel free to have a gander below.

 

[SKX31]

I remember someone (Zachmac, I think?) mentioning a while god that high tier/top tier at times feel quite big for what both terms constitute (particularly top tier, which is meant to be an "extreme", like how bottom tier is), and this honestly doesn't feel anymore apparent than with both Ramin's and ESAM's tier lists. Is top tier really "top tier", if, as an extreme, it covers up nearly 1/3rd of the cast (heck it's bigger than his high tier section)? Compare this to ESAM's bottom tier section, another extreme that actually looks like one, where he's only covering up 3 characters. And while Ramin's top tier section is far more condensed than ESAM's (unless you count BL as top tier), Ramin's high tier really doesn't feel high tier when you consider that it starts nearing bottom 25 the farther you go down, which, if we're considering mid-tier as the... well, midsection, is well below that threshold.

Granted, I get why their tier lists are formatted like this. For example, I feel like any of the characters ESAM has in "top tier" (barring maybe Captain Falcon, Inkling, and Chrom, although I do think all three are underrated) make a decent enough case for being a part of that threshold. I don't really mind the structure of the lists themselves or even the placements to a lesser extent despite nitpicks. My main thing is that our current labels used to evaluate each characters's prowess (top tier, high tier, etc.) - more specifically within the context of Ultimate's power gaps and the constant vouches made for nearly every characters' viability - feel arbitrary at best, and misleading at worst.

I feel like categorizing characters in such a way that doesn't artificially limit how many characters belong in that section within the confounds of our current labels might actually be the way to go. I remember someone on Twitter mentioning that characters should instead be categorized as ultra-viable, viable, and non-viable, and while I feel like that definition still feels a little too broad, I think it's a better format than what we currently have. Perhaps one category could be labeled as "capable of winning/consistently place at top 8 without a secondary", while the next one could be labeled as "capable of winning but might require a secondary for harder MUs"? Then ESAM's highest tier would feel more explanatory and also less jarring:

Ultra-viable (i.e. Can win tourneys/place top 8 consistently without a secondary):
(pretend this is Pythra)

I'm not quite sure if this is the perfect solution (I feel like you can do even more in terms of explanations). I'm not even fully sure if it's a big enough problem to merit a solution, but I do think more explanatory labels would help justify the structure of our current lists and it also gives audiences a better idea of a top player's mindset when they design such gaps between characters.

I’ve always advocated that a tier grid is more relevant and accurate for placing characters viability than dated and traditional tier lists. Something to keep in mind is that this game has ALOT of characters, tiers are absolutely going to feel bloated as a result, especially when a large percentage of the roster aren’t considered even weak characters that you’d see in traditional “low” or “bottom”. If you have a roster of 1000 characters and take top 10% of the roster as a top tier that’s still 100 characters, that’s a large top tier!

I’m just saying this to say I’d rather focus on the contents of the tier rather the name or number of characters in the tier. Is Mario better than all but 10 characters in this game is more relevant to discussion than is Mario number 10 and top tier or number 11 and therefore high tier.

I'm not sure if there is one perfect solution, but those are pretty good solutions given that we're dealing with 50-60 characters who people argue have some good / great stuff to them at the very minimum. Most importantly, it might be a good idea to encourage people to clarify which methodologies they're using and basing their sections off of said methodologies. Are they going by percieved MU spread primarily? Potential (as much as that word is ill-defined)? Results?

It might also be a good idea to take a page out of the "Top tier/borderline top tier" book and define it further into "Favourites to win / Consistent Contenders" or similar language. While it isn't a perfect solution either - it can be difficult to draw the line between a favorite sitting around 10th and say a contender that's top 15ish /20ish - it would reduce clutter and give people incentive to clarify where they percieve the boundaries to be. Whether it's percieced MU strength across the board, how detrimental weaknesses are etc. And whether we're using lists or grids (after your post, Envoy, I'm starting to lean more towards grids).

 

[Djmarcus44]

Going by that MU chart, Mii Gunner sure looks like a character that is at least top 15. That's a very interesting take, one that I would be reluctant to agree with. Seems that's what Katakiri actually thinks though, "Top 20 free". Is Mii Gunner slept on, or is it another case of a mid tier main overrating their character?

Pokecheese is not as optimistic:

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I feel like most mid tier characters will have people preaching how their character is actually a secret high tier. Characters like Ike, Corrin, Villager, Mewtwo, Pit, Toon Link, Falco, Duck Hunt, Luigi, Mii Brawler, Robin, Bowser, Meta Knight, Rosalina, Steve, Terry, Link, Ness, etc etc... Sure, some of them might be high tier, but unless you consider like, top 50 high tier, then a lot of characters will not be high tier (personally I draw the line around top 30, meaning that many characters that are pretty good and are like #33 would be mid tier rather than high tier).

Is Mii Gunner a high tier? So far I have little reason to believe that they are. They are probably a mid tier that feels good to play, have some good stuff, and then people look at that sick stuff and think that "Wow, this character is really good, secret high tier!". But the thing is, you have like 50-60 characters that have some really good stuff, even Lucas has some really good stuff (and some people thinking he's a secret high tier). I can respect having faith in your character, but realistically speaking there's a limited amount of high tier spots, and some characters are not good enough to be high tier.

(Yeah, I think Corrin is a mid tier. I might do a writeup later with my reasoning why.)

Eh. Don't sleep on them, but there are better characters out there. Mii Brawler is kind of cool (I play him occasionally), Gunner and Swordfighter I'm not a fan of (zoners but their zoning game isn't that interesting in my opinion).

At least Mii Legality is pretty much universally accepted this time. In Smash 4 many Mii players were restricted to 1111 Miis...

Pokecheese has some knowledge of Gunner's combos, but he doesn't really seem to have Gunner's kill confirms, grab combos, or missile combos down. In this set against Chad for example, he misses almost everything he does after the grab because he doesn't IDJ after the throw. He misses some kill confirm opportunities including one at 4:40 when he had the grab at kill confirm percents. He still had a good victory in this set, but stronger conversions would have given him an easier time winning. https://youtu.be/H0VuEzjqRIU

Gunner having a good combos and kill confirms matters a lot because top players usually put Gunner in mid tier or lower because they incorrectly assume that the character has low damage output and no kill confirms. On one of ESAM's tier lists, he said that Gunner would be mid high tier if the character had a kill confirm. Gunner has a better neutral than most of the characters you mentioned if not all of them so having a good advantage state helps Gunner compare more favorably to those characters.

I also look up the combos for other characters in order to see how Gunner's combos compare to the rest of the cast. I know that a vast majority of the cast can do 50+ damage combos, and pretty much every character has at least one kill confirm. 1332 Gunner is capable of at least one known 70+ damage combo while having easy access to 40-50 damage combos regardless of percents. Some other movesets are capable of even more combo damage, but I can explain why I think 1332 is best in another post. Gunner also has a variety of strong kill confirms whether or not charge blast is full.

Top 30 is also my standard for high tier, and I think that Gunner has the tools for that category. I am not assuming perfect play, the combos that I emphasize are combos that I personally use (for refrence, I don't know how to combo into RAR aerials or AC aerials). I have come to this assessment based on comparisons to characters considered high tier and my thoughts on Gunner's matchups.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Going to gather my thoughts on the Header change shenanigans, because was an interesting development was discovered last Friday.

For starters, Header had a glitch where it would be temporarily disabled after using Header in the air, charging Sun Salutation or using Deep Breathing while still airborne, and canceling the move as Wii Fit Trainer lands.

Patch 11.0 fixed this glitch thanks to the Header landing lag removal, so either it was an unintentional side effect to fixing the glitch, or it was done to fix it.

However last Friday, this was discovered.

またなんか変な副産物を発見しました
どうやらジャンプから最速で横Bをしてから地上スレスレで空Jをすると横Bが再度出せるみたいです
おそらくウルフのリフ３段ジャンプと同じく技の硬直後地上に付く数F手前でジャンプ入力をすると地上についた扱いで空Jに移行できるというやつですかね pic.twitter.com/guJZHCcjzX

— しゅれん (@beni_ssb) March 19, 2021

Turns out, the Header change inadvertently introduced a new glitch where where Wii Fit Trainer can jump out of Header's endlag just before landing on the stage, regardless of whether she currently has a double jump or not, and then regain the ability to Header (and consequently double jump) without touching the ground.
Apparently, this can be repeated to refresh her jump and Header infinitely.

The recently dropped patch 11.0.1 reverted the Header landing lag buff, so we don't need to worry about that. The Header endlag cancel thing is probably fixed, but I am not sure if the original glitch of the move being temporarily disabled is back or not. Either way, this pretty much confirmed that the change wasn't intentional and was probably a side effect of the them fixing the original glitch.

Not sure if 11.0.1 fixed any other glitches, like the Pyra/Mythra Century Smash softlock.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

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I watched a video from Abadango where he goes over his thoughts on DLC and especially Pyra/Mythra.

First, he thinks Pyra/Mythra, Sephiroth, Min Min, and (probably) Steve all lose to Pikachu, so he's okay sticking with Palutena.

As for Pyra/Mythra in particular, he basically thinks the character is very good but not ridiculous: a little worse than Sephiroth and about as good as Ken and Terry.

The flaws he describes are interesting, mainly focused on Mythra. He says that while Mythra has a ton of mobility and a fantastic neutral, you can't be the strongest character just by having good neutral. She lacks attacks that are distinctly powerful in neutral, having no projectile nor any good attacks that are meant to preemptively cover space rather than in response. By comparison, Sheik has needles, which make a huge difference.

Her iffy landing lag, good but not great range on tilts and aerials, and low damage makes it so that she doesn't feel safe throwing out attacks or while trying to get in on her opponent. The term he uses is "sashikomi," which roughly means "pokes," but also include things with lots of invincibility you can just toss at your opponent.

Another flaw mentioned is that Mythra is defensively weak at and around the ledge due to her poor spot dodge. While she has Foresight, grabs don't trigger it, and her first regular invincibility frame is frame 7, in a game where most characters' grabs are frame 6 or 7. Against characters with strong throw games, it removes get-up spot dodge or spot dodge while cornered as a viable option.

While not stated outright, the impression I get is that Abadango thinks Mythra is good at whiff punishing but is not especially suited to being proactive.

Yeah this is why I cant quite believe in Dabuz when he thinks that Pyra/Mythra are worse online. Not when Sepiroth exists..

Mythra's neutral does seem very dominating but there are brief gaps that can be found in her pressure due to landing lag or when Mythra players end up overextending themselves. Of course trying to exploit the lag on her air moves is extremely more difficult online to to increased input lag. Plus edgeuarding/trapping recoveries on reaction is basicially impossible online anyway. Negating one of her key weaknesses

.You could also make the argument that Mythra's more advanced combos and Tech setups
are more difficult online, as well as Foresight being much stronger offline. However many of Mythra;s bnb standard low % combos seem to be fairly lenient as far as timing goes.


Pyra though ugh she basically becomes and even more annoying and dangerous Gannon in online lag, being able to throw out her huge powerful hitboxes on all her best tools with the window to react and punish them being reduced significantly

So in other words. I think Pyra benefits a fair bit online, while Mythra gets some clear benefits but also some potential notable drawbacks.

 

[KirbySquad101]

I'm not sure if there is one perfect solution, but those are pretty good solutions given that we're dealing with 50-60 characters who people argue have some good / great stuff to them at the very minimum. Most importantly, it might be a good idea to encourage people to clarify which methodologies they're using and basing their sections off of said methodologies. Are they going by percieved MU spread primarily? Potential (as much as that word is ill-defined)? Results?

It might also be a good idea to take a page out of the "Top tier/borderline top tier" book and define it further into "Favourites to win / Consistent Contenders" or similar language. While it isn't a perfect solution either - it can be difficult to draw the line between a favorite sitting around 10th and say a contender that's top 15ish /20ish - it would reduce clutter and give people incentive to clarify where they percieve the boundaries to be. Whether it's percieced MU strength across the board, how detrimental weaknesses are etc. And whether we're using lists or grids (after your post, Envoy, I'm starting to lean more towards grids).

I can definitely see a grid-based tier list working out, especially in terms of its potential in perpetuating more robust conversations instead of the "why is X character ranked X placement" mentality that traditional number-based tier lists actively encourage. My only concern is that while traditional tier lists only focus on one dimension (the character's ranking spot), grid-based tier lists cover two dimensions, and what variables each axis should cover is a mystery to me atm.

One fighting game that I am experienced with that often uses grid-based tier lists (though not all the time) is UMVC3. And in that game, the axises for each tier list would either be "well-rounded vs. has flaws" and "low tier vs. top tier" or "strong anchor vs. strong lead" and "strong support vs. weak support" respectively. I like the second set of labels more as that gives more of an idea of what each character's role should be, but it also doesn't really "rank" characters either given "strong anchor vs. strong lead" doesn't really have a negative tip of the scale the same way "strong support vs. weak support" does. And obviously, stuff like "strong anchor vs. strong lead" doesn't really translate well to games that aren't team-based like Smash Ultimate. That leaves us with our first set, which obviously translates better to Ultimate's framework (heck, Leffen once did a tier list in that format a long time ago). That said, this set plays more like a traditional graph where I feel like you would only use it in the advent you want to argue that there is or isn't a direct correlation between an attribute of a character (how fast they are, how well-rounded they are, etc.) and their overall viability. It could be the route to go, though; it is definitely more informative than just a plain-old tier list at the very least.

There's also another issue I noticed, that being the accessibility of grid-based tier list (specifically for Ultimate). Through my google searches I was only able to find one grid-based tier list maker, and it was beyond outdated (not having a single DLC character). In that regard, I can see why most top players stick to traditional tier lists.

 

[Tri Knight]

Ive seen a couple of grid-based rankings done before on Reddit I believe but not very well thought out from what I remember. I like the idea of it though.

The Smash community has a very distinct obsession with character results and potential of a character's overall kit. Maybe a grid based on "Potential vs Results"? Essentially being what a character can do in theory on the X axis vs what the character's actual results are on the Y axis?

I'm not sure how players would handle this type of tier list to be honest.

 

[blackghost]

I can definitely see a grid-based tier list working out, especially in terms of its potential in perpetuating more robust conversations instead of the "why is X character ranked X placement" mentality that traditional number-based tier lists actively encourage. My only concern is that while traditional tier lists only focus on one dimension (the character's ranking spot), grid-based tier lists cover two dimensions, and what variables each axis should cover is a mystery to me atm.

One fighting game that I am experienced with that often uses grid-based tier lists (though not all the time) is UMVC3. And in that game, the axises for each tier list would either be "well-rounded vs. has flaws" and "low tier vs. top tier" or "strong anchor vs. strong lead" and "strong support vs. weak support" respectively. I like the second set of labels more as that gives more of an idea of what each character's role should be, but it also doesn't really "rank" characters either given "strong anchor vs. strong lead" doesn't really have a negative tip of the scale the same way "strong support vs. weak support" does. And obviously, stuff like "strong anchor vs. strong lead" doesn't really translate well to games that aren't team-based like Smash Ultimate. That leaves us with our first set, which obviously translates better to Ultimate's framework (heck, Leffen once did a tier list in that format a long time ago). That said, this set plays more like a traditional graph where I feel like you would only use it in the advent you want to argue that there is or isn't a direct correlation between an attribute of a character (how fast they are, how well-rounded they are, etc.) and their overall viability. It could be the route to go, though; it is definitely more informative than just a plain-old tier list at the very least.

There's also another issue I noticed, that being the accessibility of grid-based tier list (specifically for Ultimate). Through my google searches I was only able to find one grid-based tier list maker, and it was beyond outdated (not having a single DLC character). In that regard, I can see why most top players stick to traditional tier lists.

smash doesnt really have a need for grid tier lists. characters all have the same job: take stocks. in other games you have asisst characters and anchors. zero in marvel 3 is an elite character. he is an average anchor. phoenix is the polar opposite. both zero and phoenix are elite characters. but they have very different jobs, to the point they actually have synergy together on teams. Marvel 3 you have doom that is objectively a bad character by his MU chart but he has the x factors of footdive into death on anyone and his assists are all elite. dbfz also had that same issue back when characters only had one assist (unrelated arcysystem seriously what the **** was that design choice?)

on the topic of esam i need Pikachu and shulk to really show up and show out and looking particularly at ESAM you cannot just spew this stuff with no results. being unquestionably the best is ALOT higher bar than just being the best in most people's opinions. that is Vergil, bayo, mk, im not sure melee fox is even that level.

on to abadongo i really think he's underestimating both sephiroth and mythra in his approach. especially when offline fully returns.

 

[Thinkaman]

The ESAM topic is a dead horse. Yes, his position is silly and it's silly that it's taken over parts of the zeitergeist. Yes, he puts his money where his mouth is and puts in incredible work; a great player by any metric. Yes, having a player not whine about how everyone overrates their top tier and instead say "Screw it--my guy is #1" is in many ways refreshing and even inspiring. (Regardless of how off-base it is or isn't)


Multi-axis tier lists make sense when you, well, have multiple axes. What would the axes in smash be? Please don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question with no answer-- blackghost is right.


Of course a legitimate matchup chart would be the ideal, but we are so, so far away from that. It was feasible to make a full chart for Melee's 325 matchups after only a few years. If you were an active, competitive Melee player, you probably had first-hand experience playing at least some meaningful amount against a proficient player for every character in the game. And even if Bowser or Ness slipped through the cracks for some people, a few debates on -3 vs -4 matchups isn't really that important at the end of the day.

Brawl's 666 matchups barely got a believable chart after 6 years. It was less than twice as many matchups, but in practical human terms on the order of 10x as much challenge. I played over 30,000 matches of Brawl, and while I think I did manage to check off every single character in my comeptitive experience, for almost half the cast it was only against 1 strong player each. My first-hand experience for plenty of mid-tier characters like was driven by a single top regional competitor, with all of their biases and quirks. Hell, I think I only played a "good" 1 set. was one of the best characters in the game, and I only played 3, maybe 4 ICs ever.

We never came close to a comprehensive matchup chart for Smash 4's 1596 matchups (if you ignore Dark Pit). That's like 10x harder again, only now also the game is way more balanced so the matchups are up for way more debate across the entire grid. The number of people who played at least one top 1000 player for every character is vanishingly small, maybe single digit. The number who played at least 3 of each might be zero! At best, after a few years we were able to assemble an okayish-matchup chart for just the top ~12 characters--just those 66 matchups, barely 4% of the game.

Ultimate will end at 3321 matchups (if you ignore 4 echoes), doubling things again. And improving balance significantly, again. Personal first-hand experience playing just 10 games of each matchup would take roughly 3000 straight hours. It's just way, way too much information to fit into human memory.


I believe this is the root problem behind "the decline of theory."

We have always had three pillars of information: Usage, Results, and Theory. Each is a limited perspective into the true reality that exists between them, the space of all games that have been played, could be played, and will be played. (Which is so incomprehensibly vast that we cannot deal with it directly, only look at it through these simplified portals.)

Usage, Results, and Theory were all understood to be flawed in their own individual ways. And over time, as we got more data, more experience, and more understanding, all 3 would converge towards the reality between them. Good results and promising theory would make people switch to a character, while bad results and pessimistic theory would encourage people to drop them. Strong usage and strong theory would enable good results, and visa-versa. The mistakes in theory would be corrected over time, looking at long-term trends in usage and results to realize things we had gotten wrong, overlooked, or misjudged.

But in the Melee and Brawl days, there was a general consensus that Theory was king, or at least some sort of leader. Usage and Theory would shift more towards the tier lists (and more quickly) than the tier lists would shift to be more like them. (I don't have numbers to quantify this; all I can say is that I lived it and feel very confident that this was the true status quo.)

But in Smash 4, the complexity of the game and its 1.6k matchups seemed to handicap Theory. It felt like tier lists and theory crafting in general was starting to lag behind, struggling to merely explain trends rather than predict them. With a more balanced and bigger cast, performance was increasingly driven by individual names, continuously confounding attempts to explain the metagame holistically.

And now we have Ultimate. In this post, when I looked back at OrionRank 1 and 2 vs Reddit community tier lists corresponding to those periods, I found that face-value results were actually now predicting changes in the tier lists more than the other way around! In fact, the tier lists were no better than a coin flip at predicting which chatacters would go up vs. down--and that's despite cases like whose trends were obvious, basically a freebie. (Their usage/results were plummeting 6 months in.) And that's face-value results, not even looking at the most basic trends or any other actual analysis.


So, that's basically my conclusion, my long-winded explaination for why I'm so down on macro-theorycraft in Smash Ultimate. I believe it is simply far too complex a problem space for humans to interact with via raw experience and heuristics, and believe that the observable low-quality of content created to this end is proof.

Theory will always be one of our "three pillars"--Usage and Results will never accurately tell us how good Marth is as long as Lucina exists--but it's no longer the "leader" driving most of the future and telling us the most about reality.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

So right now at top8 JuiceBox Ned using has beaten Chag 3-0 and MVD 3-1 to get into GF winners side


Maybe Seph is not quite as bad online as previously thought?

 

[Frihetsanka]

Maybe Seph is quite as bad online as previously thought?

I don't think Sephiroth is bad online, but losing easy ledgetrapping with f-tilt and having more difficulty landing fair and bair does hurt him quite a bit. If he's top tier offline he's probably high tier or mid tier online. If you can even do an online tier list, that is.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well MVD managed to reverse the bracket and win the 10 game set. But it still shows Sepiroth can still be a strong contender even online. Props to MVD for genius C4 setus and play that set


One thing i see is you better count your blessings Sephiroth is so light because he truly gets final boos level crazy when OWA gets activated. You see Ned's OWA Sept get stocks with stray up-airs and up smashed on heavyweight Snake at like 90%. An oh mo mention all the sheild Ned managed to get on MVD. Including in a single game. Holding sheild to long vs Sepiroth looks to be a Very bad idea in general.


Sepiroth as a character feels very similar to another uber-powered unstoppable boss in-lore to Street Fighters Akuma. To where they purposely give him crazy power, mobilty options and other uniuwe tools that would give big advantages over the cast. But give him the lowest health amount in the game to " balance" his character. .

Sepiroth in a nutshell. Huge power, range mobility that all get boosted further with OWA, But light weight combined with being mad tall means he is one of the overall squishiest characters in the entire roster

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

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Pyra and Mythra may end up being busted in doubles. VoiD has also recently found some tech allowing Mythra to kill at 50% in singles. Their strengths (overwhelming power, frame data, combo potential, large disjointed hitboxes and fast mobility) combined with their weakness of poor recovery reminds me of and them being broken in doubles may end up lending that comparison even further.

 

[Kiligar]

Yoshi is top tier. I don’t get why others avoid this being the case. He has so many strengths in comparison to the rest of the cast, such as a really good Oos, a shield which can’t be shield poked, the fastest air speed and great ground mobility, a good recovery, a decent projectile, armor on his double jump, amazing juggling combo game, good killpower, heavy and small for his weight which gives him great survivability alongside his recovery, several tech chase set ups, a high damage command grab and floatiness+double jump armor making Yoshi harder to combo than he should be. “But he loses to swords” is the non thinking response, Yoshi doesn’t have any -2 matchups, sword characters are fully beatable and only have a slight advantage against Yoshi.

 

[Firox]

Yoshi is top tier. I don’t get why others avoid this being the case. He has so many strengths in comparison to the rest of the cast, such as a really good Oos, a shield which can’t be shield poked, the fastest air speed and great ground mobility, a good recovery, a decent projectile, armor on his double jump, amazing juggling combo game, good killpower, heavy and small for his weight which gives him great survivability alongside his recovery, several tech chase set ups, a high damage command grab and floatiness+double jump armor making Yoshi harder to combo than he should be. “But he loses to swords” is the non thinking response, Yoshi doesn’t have any -2 matchups, sword characters are fully beatable and only have a slight advantage against Yoshi.

As much as I hate to admit it, I really do agree with almost all of this. I love and think he has a lot of slept-on strengths too, but I can't figure out why so many tier lists put him over . Yoshi is literally the #1 most savage character I've gone up against in the competitive scene, which I admit is kind of funny considering the top tier characters out there. His OoS Nair alone is oppressive as all hell being only 6 frames INCLUDING JUMPSQUAT and the hitbox is downright absurd. He's also heavy AF for his size and the extreme difficulty in edgeguarding him allows for some annoying stay power. I have to say though, he really does struggle against the better swordies though. I can usually counter pick with Cloud and equal the playing field. I assume Seph and Pythra do well against him too. That said, I do think he's heavily slept on and far better than I feel most people recognize.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Yoshi is top tier. I don’t get why others avoid this being the case. He has so many strengths in comparison to the rest of the cast, such as a really good Oos, a shield which can’t be shield poked, the fastest air speed and great ground mobility, a good recovery, a decent projectile, armor on his double jump, amazing juggling combo game, good killpower, heavy and small for his weight which gives him great survivability alongside his recovery, several tech chase set ups, a high damage command grab and floatiness+double jump armor making Yoshi harder to combo than he should be. “But he loses to swords” is the non thinking response, Yoshi doesn’t have any -2 matchups, sword characters are fully beatable and only have a slight advantage against Yoshi.

As much as I hate to admit it, I really do agree with almost all of this. I love and think he has a lot of slept-on strengths too, but I can't figure out why so many tier lists put him over . Yoshi is literally the #1 most savage character I've gone up against in the competitive scene, which I admit is kind of funny considering the top tier characters out there. His OoS Nair alone is oppressive as all hell being only 6 frames INCLUDING JUMPSQUAT and the hitbox is downright absurd. He's also heavy AF for his size and the extreme difficulty in edgeguarding him allows for some annoying stay power. I have to say though, he really does struggle against the better swordies though. I can usually counter pick with Cloud and equal the playing field. I assume Seph and Pythra do well against him too. That said, I do think he's heavily slept on and far better than I feel most people recognize.

Some of his main issues, is that outside of nair and up air, a lot of his moves are fairly laggy.
The grounded move that has the most plus frames on shield, is down tilt at -9 frames. Forward and up tilt are both -16 on shield. Dash attack and his smash attacks are all very punishable on block (outside of niche hurtbox jank situations), as dash attack no longer crosses-up people's shields and is -20 on block.
Forward and down airs are both 16 frame startup and back air is 11 frame startup. While the plus frames on shield is admittedly not that bad (outside of down air), they are all fairly laggy on whiff.

But most importantly, the character is very stubby when it comes to its range, which can make it difficult for Yoshi to approach characters with good range, especially disjoints.

Also, the hitbox on his neutral air, as big as it is, actually does a pretty poor job on covering the hurtbox on Yoshi's feet. This can make it very awkward at times to use it as an approach option, and forward air's frame 16 startup can make that a tricky approach option as well.

Spoiler: The First 4 Active Frames of the Move

The foot eventually shrinks down enough on the 7th active frame in order for the hitbox to fully cover the foot.

Finally, his grabs are fairly poor.
His normal grab is whopping 14 frame startup, with rather limited reach for a grab that slow. All variations of this grab are also very laggy, especially dash grab. None of his throws KO, and while his down throw is a notable combo throw, the reward isn't all that great to warrant throwing out such a slow grab.
His command grab is better since can lead to follow-ups, it can be executed midair, and since it is a special move, you can B-reverse it. However, it comes out on frame 19. While it's reach is similar to the normal grab (if not slightly longer), the reach is overall even more poor for the speed of the grab. The move also nets very low reward at low percents due to how quickly you can escape it at those percents.

While Yoshi is a pretty good character, he does possess glaring flaws that prevent him from being any higher than high tier.

 

[Rizen]

The grounded move that has the most plus frames on shield, is down tilt at -9 frames. Forward and up tilt are both -16 on shield. Dash attack and his smash attacks are all very punishable on block (outside of niche hurtbox jank situations), as dash attack no longer crosses-up people's shields and is -20 on block.

I agree with most of what you said but this rarely matters. Yoshi's going maybe UTilt you a few times at early %s and go for fairly safe smash reads from advantage. I forgot Yoshi even has a Ftilt. Otherwise Yoshi's air pokes are some of the safest because his amazing air mobility. Yoshi 95% of the time can come in with an aerial and drift far enough away that he won't be punished for it OoS. A big part of shield safety is how far away your character can be when a move ends. His air drift gives him a lot of freedom to throw out moves safely. The only time ground moves should be punished is if a smash read is shielded but that applies to the majority of smashes.

 

[Firox]

I agree with most of what you said but this rarely matters. Yoshi's going maybe UTilt you a few times at early %s and go for fairly safe smash reads from advantage. I forgot Yoshi even has a Ftilt. Otherwise Yoshi's air pokes are some of the safest because his amazing air mobility. Yoshi 95% of the time can come in with an aerial and drift far enough away that he won't be punished for it OoS. A big part of shield safety is how far away your character can be when a move ends. His air drift gives him a lot of freedom to throw out moves safely. The only time ground moves should be punished is if a smash read is shielded but that applies to the majority of smashes.

Not only this, but when platforms are involved, Yoshi can jump up from below, throw out a Dair or Fair and drift out and under before the opponent has any chance of punishing him. Suffice to say, Yoshi is a good example of character whose frame data looks kinda trashy on paper, but is actually much better in practice. Also note that his Down Special is a kill move that gets off the initial hit on frame 6 which is pretty great for how fast/strong the rest of the move is. It can also break shields really easy. It's like a faster, more compact version of Bowser's Down special.

 

[Nah]

Yoshi is top tier. I don’t get why others avoid this being the case. He has so many strengths in comparison to the rest of the cast, such as a really good Oos, a shield which can’t be shield poked, the fastest air speed and great ground mobility, a good recovery, a decent projectile, armor on his double jump, amazing juggling combo game, good killpower, heavy and small for his weight which gives him great survivability alongside his recovery, several tech chase set ups, a high damage command grab and floatiness+double jump armor making Yoshi harder to combo than he should be. “But he loses to swords” is the non thinking response, Yoshi doesn’t have any -2 matchups, sword characters are fully beatable and only have a slight advantage against Yoshi.

I'm not gonna say anything about how good/not good Yoshi is, but simply listing a character's strengths doesn't really mean much, it's better to look at the whole picture, how the parts interact, etc.

In the event that Yoshi is underrated, it probably has to do in part with how nobody plays the character.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I agree with most of what you said but this rarely matters. Yoshi's going maybe UTilt you a few times at early %s and go for fairly safe smash reads from advantage. I forgot Yoshi even has a Ftilt. Otherwise Yoshi's air pokes are some of the safest because his amazing air mobility. Yoshi 95% of the time can come in with an aerial and drift far enough away that he won't be punished for it OoS. A big part of shield safety is how far away your character can be when a move ends. His air drift gives him a lot of freedom to throw out moves safely. The only time ground moves should be punished is if a smash read is shielded but that applies to the majority of smashes.

Not only this, but when platforms are involved, Yoshi can jump up from below, throw out a Dair or Fair and drift out and under before the opponent has any chance of punishing him. Suffice to say, Yoshi is a good example of character whose frame data looks kinda trashy on paper, but is actually much better in practice. Also note that his Down Special is a kill move that gets off the initial hit on frame 6 which is pretty great for how fast/strong the rest of the move is. It can also break shields really easy. It's like a faster, more compact version of Bowser's Down special.

Both points are true. Guess I kinda exaggerated those aspects of Yoshi in my explanation.
I have the tendency to sometimes overexaggerate a character's weaknesses. I like to be very cautious when analyzing a character.

 

[Thinkaman]

In the event that Yoshi is underrated, it probably has to do in part with how nobody plays the character.

Yoshi is actually overplayed, both in general and relative to results. Last smash.gg dataset I have on hand has him at the #11 most played in the game in competitive sets.

Yoshi has historically been seen as having a "wall"--no, not that Wall--preventing him from breaking into tip-top-level play/results. He's shared this perception for two games now with the other best-performing-overused characters, like ect.

and pre-buff exhibited a similar, lower plateau--tons of players, but unusually low results to show for it. (Whose top mains are talented but do not outperform the typical outlier--contrast with /quik, /Leo, or /anyone)

Finally, holds a third, extra-low plateau. It could be argued that show a similar ceiling, but I don't think the data supports that. (For example, Mac isn't used nearly as much as Ganon, and has superior Japanese results that are often overlooked.)

 

[Nobie]

Everyone who has fought Yoshi, online or offline, knows what a menace he is. All the good qualities everyone described are there, and the issue is that while his weaknesses are real, it requires you to basically be patient and not get fed up with his seeming ability to avoid and punish everything.

Swords aside, I think an indicator of Yoshi's flaws as a character is the fact that he has a fairly even matchup against Incineroar of all characters. On paper, it should be a stomp, but Yoshi's slow grab, Incineroar's ability to get easy Revenges off of Egg Toss and a buttons-heavy play style, and the need for Yoshi to get in close to do anything significant means he gets suplexed and hit by lariats surprisingly often.

 

[Firox]

Everyone who has fought Yoshi, online or offline, knows what a menace he is. All the good qualities everyone described are there, and the issue is that while his weaknesses are real, it requires you to basically be patient and not get fed up with his seeming ability to avoid and punish everything.

Swords aside, I think an indicator of Yoshi's flaws as a character is the fact that he has a fairly even matchup against Incineroar of all characters. On paper, it should be a stomp, but Yoshi's slow grab, Incineroar's ability to get easy Revenges off of Egg Toss and a buttons-heavy play style, and the need for Yoshi to get in close to do anything significant means he gets suplexed and hit by lariats surprisingly often.

These are some excellent points. Some characters are simply better at playing Yoshi's game. The trick is to find a pick or playstyle that meshes your strengths with his weaknesses. In that sense, I can understand why Yoshi could have issue with characters that trump his frame data and priority at close range.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I also fear we may see a sort of "DLC Plateau" or gatekeeping that can shake up the MU list. With all shown to potential be top-tier contenders. Of course it will be nowhere near as bad as the case of Smash 4 where combined basically invalidated most of the low, middle of even many high tiers. But these DLC characters have many things that even high or top-tier characters can struggle with and can shake up the meta a signifigant amount. Is likely not going to likely going not like Seph and the Agies pair since they have the combo of high mobility and big disjoints he can struggle with.
I can imagine Min-Min also being kinda bad for G&W This also includes other potentially good characters like and who kinda have that same issues.

Heck Min-Min is already a Nightmare MU for superheavies . Characters getting new -1 MU's does lave an impact

 

[Thinkaman]

Swords aside, I think an indicator of Yoshi's flaws as a character is the fact that he has a fairly even matchup against Incineroar of all characters. On paper, it should be a stomp, but Yoshi's slow grab, Incineroar's ability to get easy Revenges off of Egg Toss and a buttons-heavy play style, and the need for Yoshi to get in close to do anything significant means he gets suplexed and hit by lariats surprisingly often.

Incineroar is probably my most played character, "best" for some limited definition of the label. I think of every Incineroar matchup in terms of how "dominant" the other character is--how much their game is built around them comfortably running at me and doing their favorite, safest, most broadly-rewarding moves. Incineroar is built for foiling that stuff, as opposed to slippery whiff-punishers.

In my head I just consider how "dominant" their kit is and "divide it" by how good their grab game is, including command grabs. So someone like Yoshi is a great time for big kitty. Someone like Sheik is not.

is the exception that proves the rule. She is absurdly "dominant" and has a super slow/risky grab, but her unique mechanics wreck Incineroar. Possibly his worst matchup.

Mythra/Pyra are pretty reasonable, I've found so far. (Though Incineroar's speed does make Blazing End a real problem.) and seem fine. is a big pain.

I've always though Incineroar does surprisingly great against (a very "dominant" character used to getting his way), all things considered. Having a great command grab and killing early does wonders against Rebel Guard/Arsene. The only surprisingly part, honestly, is that Joker's grab doesn't give me more trouble than it does.

 

[Firox]

Incineroar is probably my most played character, "best" for some limited definition of the label. I think of every Incineroar matchup in terms of how "dominant" the other character is--how much their game is built around them comfortably running at me and doing their favorite, safest, most broadly-rewarding moves. Incineroar is built for foiling that stuff, as opposed to slippery whiff-punishers.

In my head I just consider how "dominant" their kit is and "divide it" by how good their grab game is, including command grabs. So someone like Yoshi is a great time for big kitty. Someone like Sheik is not.

is the exception that proves the rule. She is absurdly "dominant" and has a super slow/risky grab, but her unique mechanics wreck Incineroar. Possibly his worst matchup.

Mythra/Pyra are pretty reasonable, I've found so far. (Though Incineroar's speed does make Blazing End a real problem.) and seem fine. is a big pain.

I've always though Incineroar does surprisingly great against (a very "dominant" character used to getting his way), all things considered. Having a great command grab and killing early does wonders against Rebel Guard/Arsene. The only surprisingly part, honestly, is that Joker's grab doesn't give me more trouble than it does.

Of course wouldn't like . Terry plays very similar to Incineroar's "touch me and die" playstyle, except that I would argue that Terry can probably profit way more off a shield punish. Couple that with BUSTAH WORUF for a surprise burst option and the kitty's poor mobility...yeah, that's an uphill battle.

 

[Thinkaman]

Terry plays very similar to Incineroar's "touch me and die" playstyle,

To me that describes the Shotos way more, or perhaps someone with a top-tier shield game like .

Terry's oops-you-hit-a-button-in-neutral-here's-45% game is more similar to other bait punishers like . Honestly, the same is true for Incineroar, though the cat is built more around harder reads instead of footsies + punishes based on reaction. (For that reason I don't tend to think of Incineroar when I think of that category.)

But yeah, reading Lucina or Joker or Palu trying to YOLO you isn't that hard. Reading a whiff punisher (who isn't even doing attacks 90% of the time anyway) is all but impossible.

 

[meleebrawler]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Pyra and Mythra may end up being busted in doubles. VoiD has also recently found some tech allowing Mythra to kill at 50% in singles. Their strengths (overwhelming power, frame data, combo potential, large disjointed hitboxes and fast mobility) combined with their weakness of poor recovery reminds me of and them being broken in doubles may end up lending that comparison even further.

Again, Smash 4 Cloud got to have all those traits at once, in a game where mediocre recoveries meant less than in any other game (which his perma-limit fixed anyway), whereas the Aegis only has half of them at any given point. Cloud also had the non-nerfed aerial Finishing Touch that pushed him over the top.

Twitter doubles combos don't mean much to me when almost every character has far more devastating combos with the addition of a partner. At worst they'll be used a lot in doubles just because their dual nature helps them fit in more team compositions, like their partner in crime Pokemon Trainer here. And while it's certainly enlightening how Ray Of Punishment can be used in combos like this, it's still an up special with the helplessness that implies.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Theoretically, Pyra/Mythra will do very well in doubles. Theoretically, Sephiroth will also do very well in doubles. What about Min Min and Steve? I haven't really thought about them much (since I don't play them). Would they do well in doubles?

 

[duxx]

Min Min feels like a pretty clunky character in doubles tbh. In singles, her incredible range and edgeguarding (without going off stage mind you) make her good, but when there's twice as many people on screen to focus, including a partner that can (and will proabably) be hit, she feels a lot less effective due to her less than stellar movement speed/frame data.


she still seems pretty good for low level doubles where punishing spam/whiffs is significantly harder, but i dont think she'll see much success at a top level of play

 

[blackghost]

Theoretically, Pyra/Mythra will do very well in doubles. Theoretically, Sephiroth will also do very well in doubles. What about Min Min and Steve? I haven't really thought about them much (since I don't play them). Would they do well in doubles?

People really havent even concluded what Steve is in singles. Doubles is gonna make heads peoples explode.
Sepiroth is easier to theorize in doubles he needs a partner that wants to go in. But that sword is gonna do work in doubles.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Yoshi's a strong character, but one that feels like he lacks that certain something to be top tier. I think it's that he has these issues here and there: not much range (it's not that bad and swords don't feel as bad as you'd think, but still), bad grab, awkward approach when fair is slow and nair lacks range, doesn't have a good time against projectiles, can struggle to kill sometimes due to lack of safe kill moves, doesn't have the best recovery. These aren't big weaknesses or anything, and Yoshi's still a very good high tier. But he doesn't quite cut it for top tier imo

 

[Tri Knight]

Sometimes it's the type of weakness or downside that can keep a character out of top tier rather than a plethora of issues and it all depends on how the game plays. Or if the character's strengths can overshadow its flaws. Yoshi has always been one at the forefront of this discussion. I would personally put him at the top of high tier at absolute best but no more than that.

Could you imagine if Link had faster frame data that was on par with other swordsmen? Or if his bombs exploded immediately on input? But he doesn't have that. He's got great sword reach, decent zoning, good defensive capabilities, high kill power and survability, and this game's engine has done wonders for him mechanically compared to what he was like in the past. But these flaws (still) drag him down just enough to not be on par with the top tiers. I guess he's had enough bite to be consider High Tier by most at least, but those flaws will always hold him back... then again, I feel like all 3 Links are great examples of perfect strengths/glaring flaws as well.

 

[Rocketjay8]

Sometimes it's the type of weakness or downside that can keep a character out of top tier rather than a plethora of issues and it all depends on how the game plays. Or if the character's strengths can overshadow its flaws. Yoshi has always been one at the forefront of this discussion. I would personally put him at the top of high tier at absolute best but no more than that.

Could you imagine if Link had faster frame data that was on par with other swordsmen? Or if his bombs exploded immediately on input? But he doesn't have that. He's got great sword reach, decent zoning, good defensive capabilities, high kill power and survability, and this game's engine has done wonders for him mechanically compared to what he was like in the past. But these flaws (still) drag him down just enough to not be on par with the top tiers. I guess he's had enough bite to be consider High Tier by most at least, but those flaws will always hold him back... then again, I feel like all 3 Links are great examples of perfect strengths/glaring flaws as well.

Kind of like Inkling. She had all of the strengths of being a top tier such as good damage, combos, mobility. And then she has trouble killing which is a major weakness that's almost as bad as being combo food IMO. I don't think there has been a top tier with a killing weakness in any smash game.

 

[meleebrawler]

Sometimes it's the type of weakness or downside that can keep a character out of top tier rather than a plethora of issues and it all depends on how the game plays. Or if the character's strengths can overshadow its flaws. Yoshi has always been one at the forefront of this discussion. I would personally put him at the top of high tier at absolute best but no more than that.

Could you imagine if Link had faster frame data that was on par with other swordsmen? Or if his bombs exploded immediately on input? But he doesn't have that. He's got great sword reach, decent zoning, good defensive capabilities, high kill power and survability, and this game's engine has done wonders for him mechanically compared to what he was like in the past. But these flaws (still) drag him down just enough to not be on par with the top tiers. I guess he's had enough bite to be consider High Tier by most at least, but those flaws will always hold him back... then again, I feel like all 3 Links are great examples of perfect strengths/glaring flaws as well.

Certainly Link's overall frame data is below average... But darn it if it doesn't feel like his neutral air of doom is the only fast button he needs at times, coupled with his radical shifts in fall speed.

I find him surprisingly challenging for the Aegis partly because of this, thanks to their mediocre out-of-shield options, and Link decisively outranging Mythra otherwise. Blazing Ends from Pyra don't faze him as much in neutral since he does not rely on zoning as much as you may think, and can fairly easily slip through Pyra's slow anti-airs.

 

[WatwatBreton]

I don't think there has been a top tier with a killing weakness in any smash game.

and (post nerfs, sheik dthrow/uair 50:50 and diddy uthrow uair confirms were nonsense lol) might arguably fit into that category? Really depends on your definition of "killing weakness" though it's a wide spectrum going from arsene to duck hunt. And also I guess you don't need kill confirms as much when you have a godlike neutral game and ledgetrapping I guess (which sheik and diddy definitely had) but I digress.
can also struggle to kill once opponents go past confirm % in certain matchups iirc, something known as "marthritis". Of course he makes up for it by having incredible low% confirms ranging from chaingrab on spacies to throw -> tippers on floaties and being an elite character in general.

 

[Tri Knight]

Link's overall frame data is below average... But darn it if it doesn't feel like his neutral air of doom is the only fast button he needs at times, coupled with his radical shifts in fall speed.

Ironically, technically his frame data is worse than it was in even Smash 4 aside from the grab, but he lost tether for that. One thing that hasn't changed is his godly Nair. But it's only so much more significant now because the engine of Ultimate gave him a jump squat equal to the rest of the cast. I want to say his jump squat was 7f(!) in Smash 4. He is still susceptible to rushdown, only now he has ways to fight back. This goes back to what I was saying about how the engine did wonders for Link.

And although I seemed negative about his bomb detonation (and even hated it in the beginning), the remote bomb has turned out to be an amazing mixup, pressure, edge guarding, and even recovery tool. He's definitely better than he's ever been in all of Smash.

 

[SKX31]

Everyone who has fought Yoshi, online or offline, knows what a menace he is. All the good qualities everyone described are there, and the issue is that while his weaknesses are real, it requires you to basically be patient and not get fed up with his seeming ability to avoid and punish everything.

Swords aside, I think an indicator of Yoshi's flaws as a character is the fact that he has a fairly even matchup against Incineroar of all characters. On paper, it should be a stomp, but Yoshi's slow grab, Incineroar's ability to get easy Revenges off of Egg Toss and a buttons-heavy play style, and the need for Yoshi to get in close to do anything significant means he gets suplexed and hit by lariats surprisingly often.

I honestly don't entirely buy the idea that Yoshi is particularily hurt by his matchup vs Incin. When we're dealing with an 80+ character roster, some matchups like that are going to happen where the top / high tier struggles vs. a character that's a lot lower. Looking through the Reddit matchup compilation for examples:

* Cloud has a fairly even matchup (or even losing, Sparg0 thinks so) vs. partly because he struggles with killing Ridley early while the Space Pirate doesn't need a whole lot of hits to put Cloud in a bad spot. That and Ridley can play a similar disjoint / OoS game as Cloud.

* Olimar has a really difficult time vs. because Zelda can play the range game vs. Olimar and can reflect the Pikmin. (Dabuz, Greward)

* Ron (the Japanese / player) thinks that Mario has a difficult time vs. . It's feasible where Mario has to account for the usual Icies grab shenaningas - the threat of which might stifle Mario's own grab game at certain situations - Blizzard can be rather annoying for Mario to deal with on its own and Icies do not need a lot of hits to put Mario at a dangerous %.

Cloud, Olimar and Mario are considered high or top tier in Mario's case. And there are other potential examples here.