Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[blackghost]

Are people actually watching kazuya or are they just speculating?
the fact people continue to post about "poor mobility"from kazuya is the most confusing thing currently happening on this forum. Its simply isn't true like at all.
We are watching kazuya beat zoners, rushdowns, and camping runaway characters. he has mobility to handle all types of matchups.

I have a feeling Kazuya will be about as good as being incredibly hard to pick up and play but also incredibly rewarding when doing so, as well as having insane kill power and damage output (Like how Ryu could kill at 60% back in Smash 4 with a jab into Heavy Shoryuken) in exchange for poor mobility.

Sorry man way off for a number of reasons. Smash 4 ryu was not hard to play he was an incredibly linear character looking for uptilt into shoryuken and not much else. Smash ultimate ryu is a lot more of learning curve due to movement cancels and a moveset that requires a lot more deliberate thought.

Ok for the bayo vs kazuya matchup: in a nutshell its pretty bad for bayonetta.

Since what bayonetta is good at continues to be subject to people's huge bias from smash 4 and just genral misinformation, let me be clear: bayonetta is essentially a walking anti air of a character and that strength is not relevant when facing kazuya. Witch twist, jump abk, uptilt, jumping fair 1 none of those moves strengths will matter vs kazuya. Im gonna breakdown the matchup into the game states of neutral, disadvantage for bayo, and advantage.

Nuetral

Bayonetta has nothing to consistently make kazuya prove he has dashing execution or timing thus lowering the bar for a lower level kazuya to pressure her. bayonetta doesnt have a safe poke or projectile to play the game with. Kazuya can wlak towards her and apply pressure that she has to respect: command grab, lazer, and electric alone are huge pressure tools. Kazuya can anti air bayo abk with a diagonal back kicking normal where he jumps baclward and kicks beating her abk and spacing for free. Tombstone crusher (still uinderrated move and twin pistons also can be used to challenge abk. Electric in gneral is free pressure. Sure bayo could try a raw guess (and it would be a guess as electric is frame 8 and witchtime is frame 8. A blocked heelslide results in bayontta taking 80 plus.


Advantage state bayonetta

she can cut loose here. If bayo can consistly get under kazuya either platfirms or he's aairborne she can take advanatge. However kazuya armor will not be broken by bayonetta easily. rememebr bayonetta cannot even get snake off his up b without a bair due to that armor effect. kazuya for kazuya its even worse. Kazuya recovery is not easily exploitable bayonetta has th eoption to witchtime up b (but like ness up b that is a risk reward many people wont want to do) and lazer is a nuace even when he is offstage. A bayonetta that has mastered offstage movement to the level of lima in ultimate the past has all kinds of options howver that player doesnt currently exist. There are in theory a huge amount of options bayonetta could exploit in advantge but the fact that this is her strongest moment of the matchup and it still has massive question marks doesnt bode well.
Bayonetta combo game vs kazuya is strong he is susceptible to pseudo set-ups and true combos due to his jump. but bayonetta has a huge killing problem and after 2 full combos kazuya is just enraged and now has a killing command grab or a free 40 percent on deck.

Disadvantage for bayonetta

Ok first and foremost bat within is essentnially dead in this mu. kazuya combos executed correctly are true and as a bayo yoi are just hoping they ess up if you get hit with EWGF. Witch time isnt a threat to players and characters that use true combos (this has always been true). Bayonetta doesnt snap ledge and kazuya has the option to down smash for free and armor will protect from witch twist hits. Offtsgae bayo will likely get harassed by lazers and take more damage for free as well. Using abk and specials to escape just results in RCO recovery on the gorund and Kazuya gets what ever he wants. Even with bayonetta burst movement options kazuya dash cnacels and movement is more than enough to catch here and repsond with at minimal a grab and at worst a while rising punch into crumple.

disclaimer i dont know everything about kazuya or bayo if i missed somethin let me know. if i had to make a guess, id say right now its 6.5-3.5 with potential to creep worse.

 

[Sucumbio]

Are people actually watching kazuya or are they just speculating?
the fact people continue to post about "poor mobility"from kazuya is the most confusing thing currently happening on this forum. Its simply isbt true like at all.
We are wayching kazuya beat zoners, rushdowns, and cmaping runaway characters. he has mobility to handle all types of matchups.



Sorry man way off for a number of reasons. Smash 4 ryu was not hard to play he was an incribly linear character lookin for uptilt into shoryuken and not much else. Smash ultimate ryu is a lot more of leanring curve due tomovement cancels and a moveset that requires a lot more deliberate thought.

Ok for the bayo vs kazuya matchup: in a utshell its pretty bad for bayonetta.

Since what bayonetta is good at continues to be subject to people's huge bias from smash 4 and just genral misinformation let me be clear: bayonetta is essentially a wlaking antyi air of a character and that strength is not relevant when facing kazuya. Witchtwist, jump abk, uptilt, jumping fair 1 none of those moves strengths will matter vs kazuya. Im gonna breakdown the matchup into the game states of nuetral, disadvantage for bayo, and advantage.

Nuetral

Bayonetta has nothing to consistently make kazuya prove he has dashing execution or timing thus lowering the bar for a lower level kazuya to pressure her. bayonetta doesnt have a safe poke or projectile to play the game with. Kazuya can wlak towards her and apply pressure that she has to respect: command grab, lazer, and electric alone are huge pressure tools. Kazuya can anti air bayo abk with a diagonal back kicking normal where he jumps baclward and kicks beating her abk and spacing for free. Tombstone crusher (still uinderrated move and twin pistons also can be used to challenge abk. Electric in gneral is free pressure. Sure bayo could try a raw guess (and it would be a guess as electric is frame 8 and witchtime is frame 8. A blocked heelslide results in bayontta taking 80 plus.


Advanatge state bayonetta

she can cut loose here. If bayo can consistly get under kazuya either platfirms or he's aairborne she can take advanatge. However kazuya armor will not be broken by bayonetta easily. rememebr bayonetta cannot even get snake off his up b without a bair due to that armor effect. kazuya for kazuya its even worse. Kazuya recovery is not easily exploitable bayonetta has th eoption to witchtime up b (but like ness up b that is a risk reward many epople wont want to do) and lazer is a nuace even when he is offstage. A bayonetta that has mastered offstage movement to the level of lima in ultimate the past has all kinds of options howver that player doesnt currently exist. There are in theory a huge amount of options bayonetta could exploit in advantge but the fact that this is her strongest moment of the matchup and it still has massive question marks doesnt bode well.
Bayonetta combo game vs kazuya is strong he is sustetible to psuedo set ups and true combos due to his jump. but bayonetta has a huge killing problem and after 2 full combos kazuya is just enraged and now has a killing command grab or a free 40 percent on deck.

Disadvantage for bayonetta

Ok first and foremost bat within is essentnially dead in this mu. kazuya combos executed correctly are true and as a bayo yoi are just hoping they ess up if you get hit with EWGF. Witch time isnt a threat to players and characters that use true combos (this has always been true). Bayonetta doesnt snap ledge and kazuya has the option to down smash for free and armor will protect from witch twist hits. Offtsgae bayo will likely get harassed by lazers and take more damage for free as well. Using abk and specials to escape just results in RCO recovery on the gorund and Kazuya gets what ever he wants. Even with bayonetta burst movement options kazuya dash cnacels and movement is more than enough to catch here and repsond with at minimal a grab and at worst a while rising punch into crumple.

disclaimer i dont know everything about kazuya or bayo if i missed somethin let me know. if i had to make a guess id say right now its 6.5-3.5 with potential to creep worse.

I don't think anyone is underestimating Kazuya's ability... All these videos we've shared shows he's stupid powerful. But unlike pyra who also has really heavy damage potential, Kazuya has way more ways to mess up. So on paper he obviously should never lose, really but in tournament he's vulnerable to missed inputs like anyone else but suffers more for it. And he's definitely weak directly underneath especially with plats speaking of which anyone try him on lylat?

But on mobility oh yeah he can move he's like a giant bat and his vertical range is huge. His horizontal movement is designed just like in Tekken so it requires use of command inputs in addition to normal buttons to cover the ranges expected of top tiers. His tools fit every necessary component to a great character with little exceptions.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Apparently Axiom has just won a tournament as well.

Smash 4 Ryu was not hard to pick up and play at all.

He just had no neutral and was forced to bet it all on "Hail Mary" plays.

I would not call him "good". Just scary and explosive. I do not even consider him a real character per say.

 

[blackghost]

riddles won a tournament the other night as well. Beating a gunner, fox, and snake.
this match was very interesting to see riddles get through the obsticle course.

 

[Sucumbio]

I was legit terrible at using Ryu and still am lol he didn't translate well for me from super Nintendo controller which is the only way I can play street fighter...

...but ewgf comes out so .... Maybe I should try again?

Lol commentators speechless as to how to

Bye! That ftilt tho

 

[Sinister Slush]

No Man's Land (147 entrants) (Wichita Falls, Texas)
Texoma eSports ... | Brackets (smash.gg)

1. MuteAce
2. Epic_Gabriel
3. Stroder Ame |
4. Teaser
5. Gidy
5. Goblin |
7. Jama
7. Kazma
9. Niko
9. Vapor
9. Ronnichu
9. Ismon

The vod you accidentally linked for No Man's Land was their squad strike, here's the tourney we all wanted.

Twitch

Twitch is the world's leading video platform and community for gamers.

www.twitch.tv

Off that though, looks like Muteace is still continuing his reign in TX, had no idea this tournament was even going down in the state.
Two weeks before he got double eliminated by San Antonio's local PR'd DDD Whiteout, which I'm sure a lot of people recognize the name from Smash 4 days. But Muteace has since adapted the next week and been solidly winning everything in SA since he's gonna be here for another 2 weeks I believe before he leaves.

 

[Das Koopa]

https://twitter.com/LoopBarnard/status/1420215256140374021

TTS updated through July. Interesting things;

-Doc continues to defy tier lists at 44th out of 81. Tsumusuto and Sem put up a lot for him, and more players exist in the wings; BacoN, Oryon (as a secondary), etc. I don't think this character is bottom 3. I get his recovery is awful and his mobility is bad but he has a lot of Mario's positive attributes.

-Mythra is climbing pretty fast. Not an unknown trend - DLC starts behind, and regionally she's doing pretty well.

-Georgia seems to be influencing a lot of results. I can't be certain, but I think that's why Roy is trending #1 and it probably explains some of Falcon's edge right now. Still, Japan backs these numbers a bit - Jogibu, Nishiya contribute for Falcon, while HIKARU is making a case for best solo Roy main. Kola also won InfinityCON, but that was a very small major.

-Kazuya gets some points on the board with Axiom XL's 2nd as PTL 12, New England's biggest monthly series. He got 17th at CrossXUp, but people may or may not recognize him from as far back as 2016 when OrionRank started as an honorable mention, so Axiom's a pretty good player. He's definitely big for Kazuya's meta.

-Kirby languishes at 81st. Not sure what to say; Jesuischoq hasn't attended many events, Ferretkuma's MIA, and Ron doesn't use him offline. JeJaJeJa might be worth noting since the PNW is a region to watch, as well.

-Marth's bad results era seems over; Rizeasu and Kreeg have pushed him out of his nonexistent results.

-Sephiroth seems like one of the better DLC characters. He's easily keeping up and has a big playerbase. I'm interested to see PRs going forward.

-The tendency towards intl results for this TTS has heavily benefitted Toon Link. He's popular in Japan and Mexico, and I don't expect him to ever really fade much since Sigma has continued to be successful with him since the late Brawl era. Hyuga still attends events, Ang is in a strong MX subregion, and we event have some USA mains popping up like SoCal's Marvelous Marco and PNW's JoJoDaHobo.

-Samus has also benefitted from foreign results. Japan is the current hotspot. Even without YB, we have Yaura - the most accomplished Shikoku player since Ginko - and a lot of region mains like Toura and haya making an impact. None of these results iirc include quik or Joker, two prominent #1 Samus contenders, and of course this lacks YB since he works a lot. I think Samus is a contender for most underrated character in the game.

-Incineroar had a pretty good month. MRW and Misai did well at b-tier equivalents and he had some secondary results. I think of Incin as a bottom 5 contender due to his abysmal mobility, but he has a real fanbase, and Mexico really likes him, so he's not even remotely maxed out.

-Min Min had a great June but got nothing in July. I'm interested to see Pink Fresh at a major since he was a pioneer of PM Lucas and Sm4sh Bayonetta, with his KTAR Saga run really being one of the most ahead-of-its-time runs ever. I think she has way more potential than her stagnant July results indicate, and I'm serious - MDVA was a bit of a meme in sm4sh but they're solid now. An east coast major with high mdva attendance could prove critical.

-Pikachu is climbing a lot. A piece from Freeziebeatz has Pika top 5 for June/July which checks out - definitely a good time for the character.

-I hope Sheik is accepted as a high/top tier now. Character has immense traction to back up her incredible on-paper skills. Top 3 neutral, insane frame data, etc. This is all lacking potential VoiD/Mr. R results and she's still top 15. No reason to doubt this character anymore, imo.

-Mii Brawler has definitely emerged as a real character that acts as a mesh of Fox/Mario. Interested to see their meta's future.

 

[toonito]

Who would've thought Roy might become #1 ranked in Ultimate's meta even if only for a month? If so he will join as top dog on Orionstats

Biggest jump from previous entry (6/30): jumps 15 spots from #44 to #29

Biggest drop from previous entry (6/30): all dropped 8 spots from #51, #53, and #59 respectively

 

[The_Bookworm]

-I hope Sheik is accepted as a high/top tier now. Character has immense traction to back up her incredible on-paper skills. Top 3 neutral, insane frame data, etc. This is all lacking potential VoiD/Mr. R results and she's still top 15. No reason to doubt this character anymore, imo.

That actually does bring up a pretty good question: where is all these Sheik results coming from?

Even before quarantine times, I noticed that Sheik has racked up some good points in the TTS, but I cannot for the life of me figure out who is contributing to this, especially those who contribute to this much.
Something else to note is that Sheik had a pretty big head start at the very start of the season, alongside of few other characters you typically don't expect to be ranked this highly in the TTS.

-Sephiroth seems like one of the better DLC characters. He's easily keeping up and has a big playerbase. I'm interested to see PRs going forward.

Sephiroth is also another character that had a pretty big head start at the start of the season.
If my memory serves me correct, he was ranked top 10 when the season started.

In general, due to how early the season still is, characters that managed to benefit a lot from the scoring from the beginning portion of the season still holds a lot of influence in the current TTS. So current rankings right now, in my opinion anyways, should be taken with a grain of salt.


One final note, is that I am very surprised that Falcon managed to eclipse #5.

 

[KirbySquad101]

That actually does bring up a pretty good question: where is all these Sheik results coming from?

Even before quarantine times, I noticed that Sheik has racked up some good points in the TTS, but I cannot for the life of me figure out who is contributing to this, especially those who contribute to this much.
Something else to note is that Sheik had a pretty big head start at the very start of the season, alongside of few other characters you typically don't expect to be ranked this highly in the TTS.

If I were to take a guess, a lot of her success is coming from Japan and to a lesser extent, Mexico.

Kameme is pulling a lot of her weight (I'm guessing that's how she got a headstart in the beginning), but aside from that, Eim and Shachi have also been consistently placing well with her at Japan regionals, while other players like Hikari and Rox have chipped in a bit as well.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

That actually does bring up a pretty good question: where is all these Sheik results coming from?

Even before quarantine times, I noticed that Sheik has racked up some good points in the TTS, but I cannot for the life of me figure out who is contributing to this, especially those who contribute to this much.
Something else to note is that Sheik had a pretty big head start at the very start of the season, alongside of few other characters you typically don't expect to be ranked this highly in the TTS.

Eim, probably. He's been doing pretty well atm and he's been going a lot more Sheik than Joker lately.

On the topic of Pikachu's results skyrocketing, I had a feeling a lot of Pika players were simply wifi warriors that were good but weren't travelling (Examples being ShinyMark, Mr. L and DM). Now that they are starting to travel to offline events, it seems like his results are going up very quickly without ESAM, especially with Abadango doing much better with the character now then he was 4 weeks ago.

 

[Rizen]

It's important to keep in mind that Orion Stats are still in a weird order, skewed heavily by the Japanese offline meta taking off before the western meta. We see characters like Pikachu in 32nd place and Pythra in 39th. There also aren't a lot of points being distributed yet and characters like CFalcon are holding 5th place with only 96.5 points. IIRC previous Orion Stats had top characters with over 400 points. We're in a position where a lot can change very quickly after major tournaments.
With that said, it's nice to see the offline meta starting to get back on track. There are a few outliers but you can still get a general idea of who's good and who isn't.

 

[NotLiquid]

Thinkaman's old observation re: Min Min's tracking still seems to apply to this day. Beyond Pink Fresh's MDVA dominance of 128-cap locals throughout July, the main thing holding her back is less tourney underperformance and mostly just an absence of her key players.

I can't recall if OrionStats tracking existed during Smash 4's tenure but I'd be interested in contrasting Min Min's progression with other high/top tier characters like Rosalina who similarly gave the impression of placing well whenever there were players in attendance. Obviously those comparisons would still languish as present attendance is dictated by post-quarantine recovery, but still.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Platinum Weekly.

1. Tweek
2. Rivers
3. boosk
4. YoutubeMan
5. King_Sean
5. PawnMaster
7. Corey
7. Bandit

Tweek went mostly Sephiroth, as he wanted to grind the Sephiroth up as he hasn't been practicing the character much compared to Diddy Kong. He did use Diddy in the ditto against Rivers though during the Grand Finals reset.

 

[Sucumbio]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Why!? Lol crazy. I've imagined something like this is possible... Doing it during an actual match tho that's impressive.

Edit glad to see Sephiroth is still winning!

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Why!? Lol crazy. I've imagined something like this is possible... Doing it during an actual match tho that's impressive.

Edit glad to see Sephiroth is still winning!

I presume you can Monado Smash out of it to take more knockback, but then you'd have to cancel the Monado Smash to not die from any follow up attack because Kazuya can kill so early and Monado Smash Shulk goes down to light breeze.

 

[Emblem Lord]

riddles won a tournament the other night as well. Beating a gunner, fox, and snake.
this match was very interesting to see riddles get through the obsticle course.

I need folks to really look at this match vs Mii Gunner.

Riddles was killing off 3 interactions tops. Usually 2. In game 3 he got an Electric and converted to F-smash. The commentators wondered if it was true.

It is. Kazuya can follow any DI thanks to the heavy hitstun of EWGF and just watching the blue DI line. If an opponent DI's away the sweetspot f-smash is death.

It's month 1 and Riddles is already showing an insane evolution of movement and punish game. Axiom is showing strong neutral. Neither player has really pushed Kazuya's edgegaurding game that hard even though he is actually amazing at it.

Keep in mind when Riddles and Axiom have stock leads they do not run from their opponents. They continue to engage. Unlike their opponents who often will camp them with the stock lead. So what happens when Kazuya players start camping their own leads and forcing potential interactions with Electrics?

People like to compare Kazuya to the other FG characters and say untrue things like Shotos and Terry only needing a few interactions to win as well, but that is not actually the case. Ken for example, on average kills at fairly normal damage percents because his Shoryu is heavily affected by DI. It only kills early if he catches you in a air mix-up/trap situation. Shoto/Terry damage is generally not high enough to mitigate the hard work they have to do in order to get going up close. And to top it off many top and high tiers rival their damage. YL can convert off bombs and arrows for 50% combos at low percents for example. Terry has top 5 burst game though so that flaw does not hurt him as much.

Kazuya? He can do 30% off one move. That's around Ryu's average combo output btw. He can do 55% off an UNOPTIMIZED combo. Terry needs GO! to do that kind of damage or platforms and a near perfect scenario. Look at these matches. Opponents put Kazuya in disadvantage for 35%. Kazuya gets in once and they die or take huge damage. It's almost laughable.

Kazuya has to guess but the reward is almost always worth the guess.

He must be an incredibly stressful character to fight lol.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I don't think anyone was underestimating Kazuya's punish game, it's up at the top for sure (alongside characters like , , and Pre-patch .)

Wario could get zero-to-deaths in his Waft Combos before he was nerfed.
Peach has a lot of zero-to-deaths that are all true as shown in this video

And Ice Climbers and Luigi both have their grab combos.

Only thing is, some of these aren't top tiers and Peach has a pretty poor MU chart for a top tier, with a lot of people believing they do even against the character.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Luigi and Ice Climbers both get hit hard by losing to zoners, and while Kazuya seems to do fine against the weaker zoners like Mii Gunner, I'm rather curious on how he'd do against , , , and .

 

[Emblem Lord]

Peach is not top tier and I stand on that.

 

[subterrestrial]

kazuya is dlc mac he has all the tools

definitely high tier at minimum

 

[Sucumbio]

Peach is not top tier and I stand on that.

Why not?

 

[KirbySquad101]

An abscence of key players and a high-scoring event for them to attend is most likely a good explanation for a LOT of characters' dip in points currently, especially when considering the lack of major events outside of Japan (and even then, there is some notable Japanese players not attending either). That said, this one last post should give a good idea of which players or characters to look out for:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

- 's situation seems dire at first glance, at least compared to his previous Orion placement (ranked 35th?), but I would say that's more of a consequence of a lack of Mexico events, and T's and Lean's abscence when Japan is currently at its peak in terms of regionals and events. Bernie has proven himself in the past before, however, and Rido - one of the best Japanese online Links - has plans to start attending offline events beginning in September.

- There is a strong possibility can pull his own weight without the need for HIKARU. There's YMCA who recently just Top 4'd at an MSM, but beyond that, ChunkyKong has Top 4'd nearly every local he's been to, and has even defeated players like uncivil ninja and MuteAce along the way. If his leap from 49th in Tampa Never Sleeps to 25th in Infinity TallyCon is anything to go by, he won't only be remembered as a "Wi-Fi Warrior".

- Something tells me that despite Georgia being responsible for a good chunk of points this month, 's dominance will only continue to grow as other states and countries open up even without Georgia being a major factor. We're having Cheeks successfully making the switch to Roy, winning two locals back to back, but on top of that, Nicko also has plans to switch from Shulk to Roy. It's funny how Chrom and Roy's viability gap is stated to be much smaller than Marth's and Lucina's, yet the point difference between the former two is somehow almost twice as great. There is a lot of factors influencing this (such as Mr. R being MiA, though the same can be said of Flow), and I wouldn't necesssarily chalk it up to Chrom being worse than Roy, at least not by that much of a margin. Rather, Roy's greater emphasis on fundamentals over combos/tech and his ability to afford more mistakes thanks to higher damage output and X-Factors like Double-Edged Dance are probably what makes him a more ideal choice for a lot of players over Chrom's higher skill barrier and even other sword characters like Cloud and Shulk who have "gimmicks" like Monados or Limit.

- has already surpassed his 2020 placement by quite a bit, but part of me wonders if he would fare even better if Larry Lurr had more faith in him and would commit to maining him, or at the very least, co-main him with Wolf. He's clearly had very strong performances with the character - we did see him take 3 games off of Sparg0's Cloud only a couple of weeks ago - but I don't know if we'll ever see it outside of counterpicks. It almost reminds me of Yei and in a way.

-'s not enjoying a dry land in Chile and Mexico for Maister, Frido, and Regi to remain starved in, and the lack of his stronger Japanese players like Take attending events isn't really helping either, leading to a fairly stagnant month. There is potential for him in the US however: Quark has been winning at his locals using him and Greninja both, and to my knowledge, Monteant (ranked Area 51 on the last WWR) has been consistently Top 8'ing at MSMs. and are also both out of Top 30 and have been wishing for their top 15 players as well, but a recent tide of events for players like DM and LingLing to do well in have alleviated things for them in comparison.

- I do think a lot of 's point accumalation in the long run and whether she'll end up being Top 5/10 will depend on top players' willingness to actually use her in tourneys given that she's been mostly relegated to secondary/co-main status for players like Kome, Tsu, Sparg0, MKLeo, and VoiD. Regardless, I am expecting her to make it Top 20 at the very least once solo players like Cloudy and Cosmos attend more events.

- sitting at bottom 20 stings to see given my optimism on the character, but it's expected given a lack of major events for Sekai Doggo or Wisdom to attend in. It's also not helping that Raito is performing just as inconsistencely as he was prior to quarantine, and his "peaks" aren't quite reaching the heights of previous performances like Top 5 at EVO.

I think the one thing that does speak a lot about Ultimate's balance is that very few characters look... "dead in the water" to me. Several characters have at least one instance of that "one main" backing them up, ande ven instances even where characters have little to no points like come more from a case of a lack of attendance from said mains, like Jesuischoq or a lack of major events for players like JeJaJeJa to attend in.

There's a LOT of things you can say about Ultimate's "Wi-Fi" era - and believe, people have had a LOT to say - but I think one thing it did great was introduce several hidden bosses like Jake, ChunkyKong, Rido, JeJaJeJa, etc. that are very capable of making breakthroughs. Heck, top players like Nairo have made their start online, whose to say these players will never be able to pull off such feats either?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Why not?

What top tiers do we feel she reliably has advantage against or beats?

I don't think she has the MU spread.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

What top tiers do we feel she reliably has advantage against or beats?

I don't think she has the MU spread.

She does seem to struggle vs many top-tiers/possible top-tiers

to name a few.

Many FP2 MU's may also be suspect. and / have ways to keep her out and prevent her from starting her advantage state. She can possibly ledgeguard/trap them well. But otherwise I see those MU s being a struggle for Peach


Of course the #1 Peach player no longer being active will hurt her resutls and overall opinions on her as well

 

[Emblem Lord]

He needs it.

 

[Arthur97]

Perhaps you're just trying to counter the negatives, but, yes, he can kill super easy and has massive comeback potential, but let's not ignore the precision needed to play him well. He may be stressful to fight, but probably play to some degree as well. Plus, he is new and weird. Counterplay may take a bit.

 

[subterrestrial]

hot take: corrin high tier

lukewarm take: greninja top tier

pacman, steve, and wario are all also top tier

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Dabuz released his tier list.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Belmonts in high tier? You don’t see that every day

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Perhaps you're just trying to counter the negatives, but, yes, he can kill super easy and has massive comeback potential, but let's not ignore the precision needed to play him well. He may be stressful to fight, but probably play to some degree as well. Plus, he is new and weird. Counterplay may take a bit.

At the same time, isn't the point of competitive discussion about high level play, meaning in this scenario, we'd be talking about Kazuya's who can consistently land the monsterous move known as Electrics? Which may I remind you, is a frame 8 move that does 14.5 damage while being invincible and safe on shield which goes into kill confirms? As is typical for the Mishima archetype, he's high execution, but counterplaying a character with surprisingly good ground mobility who can chuck this out sounds pretty damn hard no matter who you're playing, and while counterplay does indeed take a while to develop, so does character optimization, like, we didn't see ROB do the kind of stuff ROBs typically do after a mere month, right? Especially when high execution high reward is the name of Kazuya's game

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 16 Seeding for The Comeback ft Tweek

1. Tweek
2. Cosmos
3. WaDi
4. Riddles
5. Puppeh
6. Mr. E
7. ZD
8. Atomsk
9. Mercury
10. BONK!
11. naitosharp
12. Pink Fresh
13. AoS
14. Mj
15. Nhan
16. Dexter

 

[Sucumbio]

Top 16 Seeding for The Comeback ft Tweek

1. Tweek
2. Cosmos
3. WaDi
4. Riddles
5. Puppeh
6. Mr. E
7. ZD
8. Atomsk
9. Mercury
10. BONK!
11. naitosharp
12. Pink Fresh
13. AoS
14. Mj
15. Nhan
16. Dexter

Nice! Gonna see some great sets here. Hoping for a riddles/tweek grand final!

 

[DJ3DS]

like, we didn't see ROB do the kind of stuff ROBs typically do after a mere month, right? Especially when high execution high reward is the name of Kazuya's game

For the most part... yeah, we actually did. The Beefy Smash Doods video on the standard gyronair combo ending in Arm Rotor was published January 3rd, 2019, less than a month after release.

There have been some optimisations since (burner boosting, gyro double toss) but these were still being done in the first year over in Europe.

 

[Arthur97]

At the same time, isn't the point of competitive discussion about high level play, meaning in this scenario, we'd be talking about Kazuya's who can consistently land the monsterous move known as Electrics? Which may I remind you, is a frame 8 move that does 14.5 damage while being invincible and safe on shield which goes into kill confirms? As is typical for the Mishima archetype, he's high execution, but counterplaying a character with surprisingly good ground mobility who can chuck this out sounds pretty damn hard no matter who you're playing, and while counterplay does indeed take a while to develop, so does character optimization, like, we didn't see ROB do the kind of stuff ROBs typically do after a mere month, right? Especially when high execution high reward is the name of Kazuya's game

Tier list conversations do have this odd level of are we talking perfect play versus perfect counterplay? In that case he should almost never land those starters. No, you have to take some bit of the human element into account, or at least you should, and I'm not sure that applies better to any other fighter.

Also, let's not get too carried away by early results. He's new and hits hard. Remember the surge fighters like Ganondorf often get when the game comes out. Let alone a Ganondorf made to combo. It's a recipe for early success, but we'll have to wait and see if people can figure him out.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 8 Seeding for the Mexican regional Cherry Glasmine: 001

1. Maister
2. Chag
3. Sparg0
4. BigBoss
5. Ariffo
6. Chick
7. Javi
8. Pineda

 

[Emblem Lord]

Tier list conversations do have this odd level of are we talking perfect play versus perfect counterplay? In that case he should almost never land those starters. No, you have to take some bit of the human element into account, or at least you should, and I'm not sure that applies better to any other fighter.

Also, let's not get too carried away by early results. He's new and hits hard. Remember the surge fighters like Ganondorf often get when the game comes out. Let alone a Ganondorf made to combo. It's a recipe for early success, but we'll have to wait and see if people can figure him out.

You are comparing a character's meta on release to a character getting released in a game where everyone else has a 3 year head start. These examples are not equivalent in any way.

Also there were entire paragraphs people were writing claiming Kazuya would die to counterplay such as camping and run away. Not to mention I myself have said many many times that disengagement is the number 1 gatekeeper for characters in this game. If you cannot force people to fight you or stop their runaway then you do not exist in the meta. Period. Kazuya THUS FAR is showing he has just enough to contend with it. That may change. But AxiomXL beating Marss does show Kazuya is not completely dead in the water vs runaway.

You mentioned the precision it takes to play him and my response is...alright.

There are characters that take precision in every smash game. Precision is just a matter of practice and focus. We are already seeing Riddles and AxiomXL do 0 to death combos. They will only get better with their combos in time. And since Electrics give you enough time to actually see your opponent's DI, it's really just a matter of reacting. Most of Kazuya's combo tools have low knockback and/or DI modifiers so the opponent's DI/SDI is less of a factor. D-throw is really the only combo tool that is greatly effected by damage, DI, weight, and character model shifting.

Comparison's to Wario do not make sense to me. Wario only has Waft some of the time. Anyone other time his conversions are fairly average. Peach is a more apt comparison and her massive damage conversions are probably the only thing keeping her in contention for top tier. Without those she would not even be in the conversation due to her overall MU spread not being that impressive especially vs sword characters and top tiers. As an aside Kazuya's combos are WAY easier to do than Peach. Hilarious that Kazuya despite the execution he takes is actually a symptom of Ultimate's biggest issue. Characters with equal or greater reward for less effort. Oh, well. Granted he and Peach are still on the high end of the execution and effort spectrum. Not to mention her neutral is baby food easy compared to his so I suppose it evens out.

Finally, I want to make it clear that the reason he is stressful to fight is that EWGF as well as WGF naturally counter the short hop aerial based meta as well as stuffing many ground buttons. These two moves lead to combos and kill confirms. This turns a potential neutral interaction into a massive gamble.

Characters that can attack Kazuya at certain angles that avoid those tools safely will do much better against him. He certainly has tools to counter this, but it's still better then risking an Electric into death.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Tier list conversations do have this odd level of are we talking perfect play versus perfect counterplay? In that case he should almost never land those starters. No, you have to take some bit of the human element into account, or at least you should, and I'm not sure that applies better to any other fighter.

Also, let's not get too carried away by early results. He's new and hits hard. Remember the surge fighters like Ganondorf often get when the game comes out. Let alone a Ganondorf made to combo. It's a recipe for early success, but we'll have to wait and see if people can figure him out.

As Emblem Lord already pointed out, Ganondorf comparisons don't work as early Ganon meta was early Ult meta as a whole, whereas people eyeing Kazuya already know how Ultimate works whereas with Ganon, nobody knew anything, the other keypoint os design, Ganon by design, has power and nothing else. Kazuya has power... Alongside ground mobility and tools to handle almost any situation, meaning that at high level play assuming both players are fully optimal, Kazuya can react to every option with the most optimal punish as is appropriate for Tekken's Mishima archetype, of which Kazuya specifically is a whiff punish variant iirc. Thirdly, I brought up Electrics, as Riddles showed, landing and converting off of Electrics can and will lead to devestating punishes at worst and stocks getting deleted at best, it's the kind of move you can slap onto any character and they'd instantly jump up the tier list regardless of how good they are without it

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

The invitees for Smash Ultimate Summit 3

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Firox]

The invitees for Smash Ultimate Summit 3

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I love how much Dabuz owns those giant lips of his. Does he seriously wear lipstick or something cuz those things just pop out of the screen.

 

[Sucumbio]

I love how much Dabuz owns those giant lips of his. Does he seriously wear lipstick or something cuz those things just pop out of the screen.

Maybe he ate a red popsicle before taking the picture? Lol!