Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[TDK]

Also Steve and Sepiroth still seems to be the best performing FP2 characters offline "so far'


So has Scatt dropped MM for Sepiroth now?

Scatt has used mostly Snake this bracket and has counterpicked Mega Man from time to time. No Sephiroth to speak of.

 

[Sucumbio]

i think kazuya will get a playerbase from a few unexpected places: i think some bayonetta players will give him a shot, some peach players, mac, and maybe terry more so than ryu/ken.
bayonetta players are used to a combo character with slow buttons (but if his offstage game is truly as bad as i tihnk it will be bayo players wont like him. peach players ebcuase they enjoy execution plus combos. mac becuase hes gonna hit hard and might be similiar to mac moreso than we think as a few posts predicted. terry is laso a c ombo character with slower normals but the execution on terry is prob a lot easier than kazuya will be.

My biggest hope is that he feels natural in the hands of a Tekken player.

 

[blackghost]

My biggest hope is that he feels natural in the hands of a Tekken player.

Let put it this way: I think tekken players will struggle.more with the GameCube controller than what Kazuya feels like. Ryu and Ken players knew by instinct how to play him. There's a video of diago and some.other so players using ryu it's pure gold. They were doing everything within a few minutes.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Here's the results from the Georgia Invitational

1. Kola
2. Fatality
3. Wrath
4. DDee
5. Vendetta
5. Sonido
7. MVG Scatt
7. Mugen

Edit: As I guess we're also talking about FGCs with Kazuya's reveal trailer I guess Vendetta's Ryu matchup chart is partially relevant.

I've been asked about it for a while now, so here is my current perspective on the Shotos matchups. I'll post Ken's tomorrow.

The meta is progressing every day. Everything is subject to change. They are simply my opinions at the end of the day. pic.twitter.com/gy9Tjp0MpM

— SmU5h | Vendetta (@Vendetta_FGC) June 21, 2021

 

[Sucumbio]

Let put it this way: I think tekken players will struggle.more with the GameCube controller than what Kazuya feels like. Ryu and Ken players knew by instinct how to play him. There's a video of diago and some.other so players using ryu it's pure gold. They were doing everything within a few minutes.

Yeah see one glaring issue for me will be having to reprogram my muscle memory especially considering when I play Tekken I hold the playstation controller overhand claw for 1 2 3 4.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Some notes on watching the Georgia Invitational vods; specifically speaking, I wanted to touch on two highlights that stood out to me this invitational:

- Welp, DDee and Jake are placing well at tourneys, and they're both getting PGR wins... and we're offline lol.

Okay, to actually say something beyond petty "I told you so!!" statements, I normally don't like suggesting "archetypes" (i.e. zoners, swordies, etc.) that beat/lose to characters because I feel like that grossly oversimplifies MUs, but with any sort of platforms to hide under looks like an utter nightmare to fight with as anyone without a disjoint or an over-abundance of projectiles. It could definitely be that players like Wrath or Mugen take the hook-line-and-sinker too easily, but it looks genuinely rough for characters like to poke at Steve's fortress of solitude while also staying out of ripe range for easy FSmash/Minecart pickings. Fatality and his character seemed like the one exception here, though I think Fatality's win was more on Fatality here: Compared to everyone else, he focused more on baiting out early reactionary options out of DDee to force him out of hiding and then getting the punish when Steve was in a more uncomfortable position. That said, Captain Falcon's oppressive aggressive play did help in ensuring that Fatality didn't need to win neutral more than a couple of times to get the lead. Aside from guessing games or counterpicking stages, though, I can't really see other stubby boxers like or faring all that well against him (at least right now anyway), especially compared to someone like or who doesn't have to worry about guessing wrong since they safely play outside of Steve's burst range. I am curious to see how counterplay against Steve is going to turn out going forward, and I imagine it's going to involve a LOT of waiting out the clock or finding convenient ways to break blocks. On the flip side, I am curious to see how Steve mains will deal with large disjoint characters and what approach they'll take fighting them, because the "hiding behind blocks" tactic isn't really panning out that well so far against them.

- Other highlight for me for this tourney was Vendetta, who did a really good job of highlighting 's and 's individual strengths through his tournament play. Ken has the greater movement specs as well as the stronger punish game do plow through someone like's normally oppressive walling and capatalize on his mediocre disadvantage, especially when he's pushed into a corner/forced to land, which is what we say in his set against Kola. On the flipside, Ryu had the projectiles to contest someone like 's grenade play and capitalized on his reliance in setting up his projectiles to continuously poke at him with Hadokens from a distance, forcing him to eventually approach. And said approach is all Ryu needs to start tacking on the pain with an advantage state that - while not as scary as Ken's - is still very threatening in its own right.

Great play overall, looking forward to more offline events!

 

[Game7a1]

Speaking of offline events, the Smash World Tour is adjusting their Regional Tournament schedule. No regional tournaments happening next month, but the South American in-person regional is still cancelled in favor of an online regional on August 1st.

Welp, got to say, I was not expecting this and was way wrong on in-person regionals for Central American and Japan potentially being cancelled for online. But hey, that means more high quality offline action.

 

[Nobie]

Wadi recently won a 100+ entrant local going almost all Mewtwo (with a bit of ROB assist).

A local is small beans compared to a regional, of course, but we so rarely see Mewtwo results of any kind. What these matches are showing me is that while Mewtwo has a ton of tech and combo optimization possibilities, smarts and fundamentals are far, far more important to the character because of how frail it is. Simple clever movement is the name of the game, as is good use of up air to make ROB pay for throwing out nairs willy nilly.

That's not to say long Mewtwo combos and tech are useless. It just looks to me that they're a poor substitute for good gameplay.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Here's Vendetta's MU chart for Ken

As promised

My opinions and my opinions alone. pic.twitter.com/X8tA9cHBGx

— SmU5h | Vendetta (@Vendetta_FGC) June 21, 2021

 

[Emblem Lord]

Hot take: Peach should not be top tier any longer or at least is hanging around the bottom of top tier imo. Her combos and neutral are strong, but who does she slap in the top tier? Mario? Who else? I am genuinely curious. I think people put her in top tier because she is overtuned. Not because she has a significant influence on the meta or has an amazing match-up spread vs other higher tiered characters.

With Sephiorth and Bae Blades being more prominent and offline coming back I see Peach struggling to find a place in the meta. Not to mention other popular sword wielders such as Roy and Cloud.

This is not her meta imo.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

am starting to wonder if is actually going to be that popular or big in the competitive meta. Because many of the top players who said he would be top-tier offline planned to push him, but well, unm suddenly changed thier minds I guess?

Tweek seems happy just to mostly main Diddy now and maybe use Wolf for any of Diddy's bad MU's. So far its been working very well for him

Zackray seemed interested in using Sepiroth too, but has not really used in in any recent offline Japan competitions

Nairo has expressed on his streams that he does not plan to go back to competive smash anytime soon. Not that he really has too much choice anyway since he is still banned on Twich


So umm, what happened to the Seph hype, maybe players just want more offline practice with Sepiroth before they bring him in actual competive stakes

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I've been asked about it for a while now, so here is my current perspective on the Shotos matchups. I'll post Ken's tomorrow.

The meta is progressing every day. Everything is subject to change. They are simply my opinions at the end of the day. pic.twitter.com/gy9Tjp0MpM

— SmU5h | Vendetta (@Vendetta_FGC) June 21, 2021

It should be noted he made a few errors in that MU chart. (They're listed in his replies)

"Dr. Mario... His neutral is nothing to scoff at..."

What neutral?
He has some of the worst mobility and burst options, his attacks are short-ranged, and while pills can sometimes help, most characters can easily get around them/invalid their usage.

Despite his great frame data, he can have a really hard time landing hits, and worst-case scenario the opponent can even effortlessly camp him, which isn't much of a risk since Doc is too slow to catch them or regain stage control.

So yeah, his neutral is something to scoff at.



They also put Corrin in the same tier as him...
Yikes.

 

[TennisBall]

am starting to wonder if is actually going to be that popular or big in the competitive meta. Because many of the top players who said he would be top-tier offline planned to push him, but well, unm suddenly changed thier minds I guess?

Tweek seems happy just to mostly main Diddy now and maybe use Wolf for any of Diddy's bad MU's. So far its been working very well for him

Zackray seemed interested in using Sepiroth too, but has not really used in in any recent offline Japan competitions

Nairo has expressed on his streams that he does not plan to go back to competive smash anytime soon. Not that he really has too much choice anyway since he is still banned on Twich


So umm, what happened to the Seph hype, maybe players just want more offline practice with Sepiroth before they bring him in actual competive stakes

He has been making appearances as a pocket/secondary character offline. Sharp used him in conjection with his other characters and got 2nd at his invitational only losing to Marss twice over, Ned uses Sephiroth primarily and uses PT and is thinking on a third character to counter Diddy Kong specifically, Scatt uses Sephiroth a bit with his other characters and has made good placings at the events in Georgia.

May end up serving a counterpick role as time goes on.

 

[Nobie]

am starting to wonder if is actually going to be that popular or big in the competitive meta. Because many of the top players who said he would be top-tier offline planned to push him, but well, unm suddenly changed thier minds I guess?

Tweek seems happy just to mostly main Diddy now and maybe use Wolf for any of Diddy's bad MU's. So far its been working very well for him

Zackray seemed interested in using Sepiroth too, but has not really used in in any recent offline Japan competitions

Nairo has expressed on his streams that he does not plan to go back to competive smash anytime soon. Not that he really has too much choice anyway since he is still banned on Twich


So umm, what happened to the Seph hype, maybe players just want more offline practice with Sepiroth before they bring him in actual competive stakes

In Zackray's reaction to Kazuya, he expressed a pretty strong familiarity, even knowing attacks by name and stating that he can execute everything Kazuya has in Tekken. He also seems to think Kazuya is gonna be a strong character.

While he didn't confirm anything, it makes me wonder if we might see the Zackray Kazuya.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

L4st decided to post his thoughts on which North American players could make it to PGR.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Sucumbio]

am starting to wonder if is actually going to be that popular or big in the competitive meta. Because many of the top players who said he would be top-tier offline planned to push him, but well, unm suddenly changed thier minds I guess?

Tweek seems happy just to mostly main Diddy now and maybe use Wolf for any of Diddy's bad MU's. So far its been working very well for him

Zackray seemed interested in using Sepiroth too, but has not really used in in any recent offline Japan competitions

Nairo has expressed on his streams that he does not plan to go back to competive smash anytime soon. Not that he really has too much choice anyway since he is still banned on Twich


So umm, what happened to the Seph hype, maybe players just want more offline practice with Sepiroth before they bring him in actual competive stakes

I'm hoping it's because many pros are welcoming a gimp machine on stage in Kazuya bc there being no ledges in Tekken he'll play to his strengths and stock you for one clip from a hell sweep.
.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

So umm, what happened to the Seph hype, maybe players just want more offline practice with Sepiroth before they bring him in actual competive stakes

I think its mainly due to how Sephiroth is a character of extremes.

Sephiroth either does really well or really poorly. And that's intended by his design. Don't let the long reach and immense power fool you, he is a glass canon.

I imagine a lot of players are just gravitating towards more consistent characters.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Wadi recently won a 100+ entrant local going almost all Mewtwo (with a bit of ROB assist).

A local is small beans compared to a regional, of course, but we so rarely see Mewtwo results of any kind. What these matches are showing me is that while Mewtwo has a ton of tech and combo optimization possibilities, smarts and fundamentals are far, far more important to the character because of how frail it is. Simple clever movement is the name of the game, as is good use of up air to make ROB pay for throwing out nairs willy nilly.

That's not to say long Mewtwo combos and tech are useless. It just looks to me that they're a poor substitute for good gameplay.

The more I watch Mewtwo, the more I simply think it needs more reward on each hit. Mewtwo already hits like a truck, and has combo potential plenty, but can't seem to hold advantage too long always. And it's hard to make comebacks due to how much commitment and risk it takes to get there. This risk taking with Mewtwo is also easily punished. Mewtwo needs to bait and wait for a right moment to strike. The lack of defensive capacities wouldn't be as bad if they'd just make Mewtwo kill earlier. I doubt Mewtwo would be broken if they'd make it the easiest character to land KOs with even.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

The more I watch Mewtwo, the more I simply think it needs more reward on each hit.

How so?

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I think its mainly due to how Sephiroth is a character of extremes.

Sephiroth either does really well or really poorly. And that's intended by his design. Don't let the long reach and immense power fool you, he is a glass canon.

I imagine a lot of players are just gravitating towards more consistent characters.

Being a Glass Cannos that can sometimes just has not stopped and from having pretty decent playerbases. Heck I would say is another character that either seems to do very well or fall short sometimes and he is skyrocketing in popularity and resutls as of late

 

[Frihetsanka]

am starting to wonder if is actually going to be that popular or big in the competitive meta. Because many of the top players who said he would be top-tier offline planned to push him, but well, unm suddenly changed thier minds I guess?

Sephiroth currently has a good amount of players who secondary him but not that many solo mains or even mains. I suspect this has a few reasons: Firstly, he's very light and yet partly relies on living long enough to get Wing, this can make him feel a bit inconsistent, though it's not nearly as bad as Lucario or Pichu. Secondly, many people already had a main when Sephiroth was released, and he was released during the online era, where he's significantly less powerful.

The lack of actual mains at a top level is troubling, though. Pyra/Mythra and Min Min both got some notable mains, even Steve did. Sephiroth? Bunch of strong secondaries, but the best main is, Niko? Not to be confused with Nicko. Maybe Ned would consider maining him, although I've heard someone say that Ned considers him a secondary and Pokémon Trainer his main.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Seeding for Kagaribi #4

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

 

[Diddy Kong]

How so?

Mewtwo died sooner than it kills it often seems, unless with hard reads. Dash attack, F Air, and his Smashes should be more safe and kill earlier I feel so it's worth the risk. Mewtwo is designed around this glass canon archetype, but doesn't really have the speed and safety many other characters of this archetype have. They won't buff it's weight, that's for sure... So I think it's better to just increase fire power, range, and amount of disjoints Mewtwo has. Then maybe it'll work better.

 

[Sucumbio]

Initial Seeding for top 32 of Kagaribi #4

1. Zackray
2. Tea
3. Kome
4. Atelier
5. shky
6. KEN
7. Akakikusu
   
8. Shuton
9. tk3
10. Huto
11. Kameme
12. Tsu
13. Gackt
14. Eim
15. yuzu
16. kept
17. chicken
18. Jagaimo
19. Natsu
20. Kuro
21. Lea
22. Repo
23. Tet
24. Raito
25. HERO
26. Nietono
27. Nukoeru
28. Etsuji
29. Abadango
30. Choco
31. ProtoBanham
32. Umeki

Hot take it takes an army of secondaries, 3irdies, 4!to beat Tea .

 

[The_Bookworm]

【お知らせ】
近日中に更新データVer. 12.0を配信します。更新すると、それまで保存していたリプレイが再生できなくなる場合がありますのでご注意ください。残したいリプレイがある場合、「コレクション」→「リプレイ」→「リプレイデータ」→「動画にする」で動画に変換してください。#スマブラSP

— 大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ【スマブラ公式】 (@SmashBrosJP) June 25, 2021

Seems like Kazuya will be released shortly after Monday's direct.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Mewtwo died sooner than it kills it often seems, unless with hard reads. Dash attack, F Air, and his Smashes should be more safe and kill earlier I feel so it's worth the risk. Mewtwo is designed around this glass canon archetype, but doesn't really have the speed and safety many other characters of this archetype have. They won't buff it's weight, that's for sure... So I think it's better to just increase fire power, range, and amount of disjoints Mewtwo has. Then maybe it'll work better.

Mewtwo's kill power is actually really good.

Down Smash has very low endlag for a Smash Attack, Fair is safe on block and kills at the ledge, B-throw and U-throw are both kill throws and Shadow Ball is Shadow Ball. Not to mention Mewtwo's strong edgeguard game and how early he can kill with Disable.

I wouldn't complain about U-throw killing a little earlier but Mewtwo's kill power is already second only to heavies (good heavies also don't usually kill as super-duper early without a read as people seem to think - just lool how often Bowser land an F-smash compared to an F-tilt at high level).

Also, while "glass canon" does describe him I consider Mewtwo an oppurtunistic zoner first and foremost. He doesn't want to rush you dowm with all out aggression, he wants to play the long game charging up Shadow Ball to force and approach and outmanuevering you with his ground movement.

If amything Mewtwo's really weakness is shaking you off when you get in his face. He doesm't have very good tools for breaking out of a string and has to rely almost entirely on his air dodge - double jumping with him is really risky. His poor OoS doesn't help either. Although its worth noting Teleport makes him better at getting out of the corner them you'd think.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

One thing interesting in discussion is how many high seeded players for Kagaribi #4 have a pocket or secondary /. For starters, casually they were some of the requested characters in Japan and by far the most popular a few months after they released according to a fan poll. But competitively it seems to be a very similar story, with 9 players in total playing the character in the top 128 seeding, and 6 of them are from players in the top 64 seeding.

Their ease of use combined with them being the best sword characters and their popularity has made them common pocket/secondary characters to pick up in Japan like with .

The crazy part is that this is just from Japan alone, we haven't even seen Sparg0, Leo, Cosmos or VoiD picking up the character in offline majors yet as they haven't travelled.

 

[WatwatBreton]

mewtwo stuff

Agreed with this overall, I'm not sure his kill power is his issue. Half his moveset (including 2 throws, a projectile, and a command grab) kills at high % and he has some cheese potential lol. I guess you could make the case that he'd be better if his advantage state was as absurd as fox/pichu? Which is true (buffing characters makes them better indeed lol), but I'd rather have his weaknesses fixed than have him blow up anyone in 2 hits.

The teleport buffs did help, especially against slower characters, but ledge still feels pretty rough for him overall. The lack of a good jump, giant hurtbox and light weight means it's so easy to get clipped by a random projectile/sword and explode, and you're constantly gambling for your life here. Especially since (at least from my experience lol) you spend quite some time on the ledge since his landing options are miserable so you're kinda forced to go there to reset. In some matchups it's fine coz you dominate neutral with speed + shadowball (this move is just gross) but in matchups where you don't win neutral - usually coz they have tools against shadow ball, or corner you and press buttons against you until they win trades - it feels pretty rough.

An other issue I feel like the character has is his anti air abilities, which feel a bit commital? Utilt is... fine but will lose to some buttons, and fair/nair are good at catching jumps but if you're wrong oops you're in the air as mewtwo good luck. Combine that with meh oos and a bad shield (it gets poked so often zzzzz)... All of that can make it hard to play against unga-bunga gameplans (chroy, gren nair spam...), since the risk reward is so skewed in their favor unless you have shadow ball and some space to dash back.

Dev team seems determined to make him decent though so I'm curious to see if anything will happen next patch. His offense seems at a good spot right now after all the buffs in term of raw numbers so the issue lies in his defensive tools. Teleport buff was a good start and also looks super cool, maybe there's more design space to improve it there? Like giving it some drift to make tp cancels easier like palutena.

My guesses/wishes would be either a shield size buff, airdodge lag buff, or side b reflector buff (it's a very good command grab but it's way too slow as a reflector, makes the midrange game very annoying against characters with projectiles + reflector like spacies or zelda). Usmash fix would be nice too, it's not bad coz it kills stupid early (you see Wadi use it fairly often) but it loses to every button ever coz the hitbox is horrible, would give him a better anti air tool.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

So I decided to analyse the Top 128 seeding for Kagaribi #4 to show usage statistics and which characters are the most popular and least popular in Japan, counting secondaries and pocket characters. These are my findings.

 

[blackghost]

where do people stand on shiek? im in larry's stream and there was a heated argument in chat (what else is new) regarding shiek. and the only result that was being floated around was void one finish at top 13 and one at 5th.
im not sold on shiek think shes just another mid tier

 

[Diddy Kong]

So I decided to analyse the Top 128 seeding for Kagaribi #4 to show usage statistics and which characters are the most popular and least popular in Japan, counting secondaries and pocket characters. These are my findings.
View attachment 320537

Japan plays Diddy a lot. Ranking amongst ZSS and Wolf is very very good. The amount of Pikachu and Sheik players is also surprising.

@Mewtwo stuff: Sure Mewtwo already hits hard, but it dies sooner than it kills. I don't see them change the design of the character to boost that. OoS is also a problem yeah, a faster jab could maybe work wonders, jab is actually amazing once it connects. Mewtwo would need to actually kill as soon as the super heavies I feel, and outside the heavies there's still hard hitters as Hero, Little Mac, Ike and C.Falcon who all hit as hard, or relatively as hard. I feel Mewtwo could use some serious cheese to make it worth maining. It's like nerfed Pichu from before, way too stressful to commit too.

 

[Sucumbio]

Japan plays Diddy a lot. Ranking amongst ZSS and Wolf is very very good. The amount of Pikachu and Sheik players is also surprising.

@Mewtwo stuff: Sure Mewtwo already hits hard, but it dies sooner than it kills. I don't see them change the design of the character to boost that. OoS is also a problem yeah, a faster jab could maybe work wonders, jab is actually amazing once it connects. Mewtwo would need to actually kill as soon as the super heavies I feel, and outside the heavies there's still hard hitters as Hero, Little Mac, Ike and C.Falcon who all hit as hard, or relatively as hard. I feel Mewtwo could use some serious cheese to make it worth maining. It's like nerfed Pichu from before, way too stressful to commit too.

I think Mewtwo took a riskier path but he's got a nice wall vs cf ironically but against mm a real waller it's like uh...

 

[Rizen]

The issue with Mewtwo isn't that he's an under-tuned glass cannon but rather that he's a big glass cannon. If he tries to dash dance his huge tail hurtbox hurts his runback. He can't maneuver like other characters without considerable risk. Then his double jump being slow and curvy doesn't help either. He can't get away from opponents effectively. Mewtwo's light but also a big punching bag.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

There is also the fact he can't cheat out of disadvantage compared to SSB4 with his air Dodge getting "normalized" and the fact that his tail has a hurtbox so he is not quite a "pseudo swordie" among all other tools.

Mewtwo is still a glass cannon but the glass/cannon ratio has shifted more towards the former

 

[Nobie]

I think everyone is a little correct when it comes to Mewtwo. Mewtwo doesn't kill quite as early as it did in Smash 4, and I think it has to do with a combination of weaker rage and taller ceilings. Final Destination is taller, T&C went from the lowest ceiling to one of the highest among legal stages. This compromises both up throw and fair

One result is that Mewtwo's ability to rob stocks is lessened, which influences everything else. The character is great at playing neutral and holding advantage, but doesn't necessarily swing matches suddenly. The big hurtbox also means it's vulnerable to getting robbed.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The thing about is that he has all the right ingredients for being a great character.
It is that it he simply stuck in the wrong game.

A few prominent weaknesses pointed out also has seen some improvements between SSB4 and Ultimate.

1. One is his rather sluggish double jump. They actually sped that up noticeably in Ultimate in comparison to its previous iterations, improving both its potential in recovery and combos.
2. Two is his weight. While still fairly light for his weight, he is regardless noticeably heavier in this game, going from being one unit lighter than Game & Watch, to on par with Pika, Kirby, Olimar, and Sephi (5 units heavier).
3. Third is out of shield. In comparison to SSB4, Mewtwo now has the universal frame 3 jumpsquat (from frame 5) and significantly higher traction. SSB4 Mewtwo had the 2nd worst traction in the game (tied with Zard), while Ultimate Mewtwo's is above average.* OoS is still not great for Mewtwo, but still notably better than SSB4 Mewtwo's.

* For reference, Ultimate Mii Gunner and Banjo, who are tied for the lowest traction in Ultimate, has slightly higher traction than SSB4 Lucario, who has the highest traction in SSB4. This is the main reason why traction is fairly unimportant in Ultimate unless talking about how one transitioned from SSB4 to Ultimate: everyone has, at a baseline, very good traction.

A common misconception is that they "added" a tail hurtbox in Ultimate, but he always had one, about half-way across the tail.

I mentioned all of this in a post in the past, but Mewtwo in the end of the day is simply the game's poster boy of getting screwed over by Ultimate's engine.

OoS is super important in Ultimate, or at the very least moreso than in SSB4. Everyone is pressing buttons on your shield scot-free, due to the generally fast ground-to-air transitioning thanks to universal frame 3 jumpsquat, cast-wide reduction of aerial landing lag, weaker shields, and the universal nerfs to grabs. Mewtwo's OoS is better than in SSB4, but it is still not great. Being such a tall hurtbox sitting on shield sometimes, as characters like Roy and Mario swing their buttons on your face, is not a favorable position in this game.

Dashing is super important in Ultimate. Mewtwo possesses some of the best mobility in the game, and gains a lot (a lot moreso than most other characters) of the option to cancel your dash, on top of having significantly faster initial dash speed. Then... this is where the tail hurtbox comes in. I believe that the increased tail hurtbox wouldn't have much of an impact on SSB4 Mewtwo, aside from making down tilt spam slightly less free, but it hurts him in Ultimate since dashing backwards is far more important in Ultimate, and the increased hurtbox hurts him in that regard.

They also added a backwards-facing hurting animation to everyone in this game, including Mewtwo who simply just sticks his tail out. Doesn't affect him much at all, but it simply just feels like extra insult to injury.

Then, there is the big one: airdodges. The more I analyze/think about , the more I realize how much his broken airdodge in SSB4 absolutely carried that character.
You had a version of the character that:

• Remains very big, regardless of smaller tail hurtbox or not.
• Very floaty.
• Super light, even lighter than in Ultimate, in a game where jank rage KOs ran rampant.
• Laggier Teleport than in Ultimate (although has easier ledge-cancels).
• A down air with lesser range.

Oh wait... you can just mash the R button and negate all of that.
If SSB4 Mewtwo had a slower airdodge, or at the very least an airdodge more like the rest of the cast, suddenly Mewtwo's fundamental flaws when it comes to disadvantage as mentioned above, and is currently plaguing him in Ultimate, would easily affect him in that game and he would be a MUCH worse character as a result.
However, SSB4 Mewtwo was lucky to be in a game where airdodge spam was not only a notoriously strong thing to do in disadvantage, but be in a class above everyone else's.

Now Ultimate, unfortunately for Mewtwo, has the slower, not repeatable, directional airdodges. Now Mewtwo has to deal with the full force of tall, light, floaty in Ultimate. An extra slap to the face is that he has one of Ultimate's slower airdodges, due to how floaty he is.
Ness, another floaty character with a notoriously strong airdodge in SSB4, got the VIP treatment by getting an airdodge that travels farther than anyone else's aside from Lucas.

There are also a few other pesky things that indirectly hurt him in Ultimate: the universally higher traction has the unfortunate side effect of making Teleport ledge-cancels much harder to do, the suction hitbox of up smash being much harder to land in Ultimate due to this higher traction and also the jostle mechanics of Ultimate being combined with his large hurtbox, and as it will talked about below, the higher overall ceilings of Ultimate.

I think everyone is a little correct when it comes to Mewtwo. Mewtwo doesn't kill quite as early as it did in Smash 4, and I think it has to do with a combination of weaker rage and taller ceilings. Final Destination is taller, T&C went from the lowest ceiling to one of the highest among legal stages. This compromises both up throw and fair

One result is that Mewtwo's ability to rob stocks is lessened, which influences everything else. The character is great at playing neutral and holding advantage, but doesn't necessarily swing matches suddenly. The big hurtbox also means it's vulnerable to getting robbed.

While I feel that Mewtwo's potential to rob stocks away has been lowered since SSB4, the character's overall KO power has been greatly increased.

Most of its finishers got noticeably increased KO potential, between dash attack, all three smash attacks, forward air (due to knockback angle adjusted), and Shadow Ball getting stronger, Disable being a more consistent move to land, and forward tilt, back air, and up air getting brand new potent KO power. Each of these aren't that difficult to land.

However, vertical KOs are typically the more consistent way to KO opponents, since they are less affected by DI and aren't affected by any momentum canceling tactics (especially relevant in Brawl). Mewtwo's up throw did not get any adjustments, which means that higher ceilings are the cause of it KO'ing later. Up throw and up smash getting indirectly less effective KO options hurts the character's consistency in KO'ing opponents despite possessing much higher KO potential overall.


has one of the game's most favorable movement attributes, movesets, and overall strengths. However, simply existing in Ultimate hurt this character in so many ways, that it simply hurts his overall amazing moveset so much to the point where he is often considered mid tier at best.


The most extreme example of this in the series, and my overall most favorite example of this is .

He has everything you'd come to expect for Falcon: amazing frame data, very potent raw KO power, amazing mobility, you know it. Recovery, while still weak overall, is still a significant improvement over his recovery in Melee.
But uh oh.... he is now in Brawl's engine. Aka, he is now in a game where mobility can feel somewhat restrictive (especially given the chance to trip), non-grab combos are nearly nonexistent outside of a handful of characters due to how strong hitstun canceling is in that game, and entire matchups can be determined purely out of the level of ease of chaingrabbing someone.
Falcon thrives off of mobility, his entire combo game got shot thanks to the strength of hitstun canceling (indirectly hurts his consistency in KO'ing as well), and he is one of the easiest characters to chaingrab in the game.
Brawl's meta also encourages a more campy playstyle, encouraging tools to camp or to deal with camping. Falcon has historically, in all Smash games, have notable issues dealing with camping between his lack of projectiles and lack of ways to deal with projectiles. In Brawl, good characters typically one or the other (usually both), which Falcon lacks.

I often call Brawl Falcon a high tier character, trapped in Brawl's engine.
He has fundamentally everything a character needs to succeed, but is in the wrong game. At the very least, I am confident in saying that Brawl Falcon is a much better character in casual play than he is in competitive singles/doubles.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

SNIP

It should be noted that Ultimate stronger combo game took its toll on M2 since he's slightly heavier to combo more, but not enough to live them while being an even larger target.

All those kill confirms suck for him.

However, simply existing in Ultimate hurt this character in so many ways, that it simply hurts his overall amazing moveset so much to the point where he is often considered mid tier at best.

I don't know what group you hang around, but that is not the general consensus for him. Most got him in around Mid/Upper Mid on average, sometimes even Lower-High.

That description would fit DK of all characters, he's often considered Low/Low-Mid tier.

 

[PURGE THEM LIKE THE]

Not the most important change ever but it's also worth noting that Mewtwo lost a few combos going into ultimate because of the change to nair's frame data. In this game the launcher hit is active on frames 27-28 and the move ends on frame 49. In the previous game the launcher hit was active on frames 39-40 and the move ended on frame 46. This change effectively gave nair 15 frames of cooldown in the air. That killed combos ending with nair -> another aerial. In particular, down tilt -> nair -> up air -> fair is no longer possible. It was a kill confirm around 30% near the ledge on most characters.

Of course, Mewtwo also has shadow ball and confusion kill confirms now, so I guess it's ok. I would probably use the character again if it got some way to escape pressure better.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Top 64 for Kagaribi 4:

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/o8dfzq
List of Upsets:

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/o820o5
Definitely the bloodbath peeps were expecting, but still no less exciting lol. Not even the top seeds have much room to breath with their close calls (most notably Zackray in his game 5 set against Sojo, a 256th seeded player).

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I notice may pro players how have picked up FP2 characters with the exception of ProtoBaham have not tried using them

I guess it could be an issue of getting used to offline play again in general and mossy players want to stick with characters they already know