Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[PK Gaming]

I don't think we can use Dark Wizzy's performance this tournament for anything

He was very very clearly out of practice (by his own admission, he didn't practice at all the entire pandemic)

 

[The_Bookworm]

We have our next casualties. These four players are out at 9th. I sound like some twisted game show host LMAO

VoiD 3-2 Charliedaking
Riddles 2-3 Aaron
Kola 3-2 Maister
MkLeo 3-0 Dabuz

Note that I haven't watched any of the matches yet, so I don't know which characters they used. This is purely my assumptions.

 

[PK Gaming]

Pyra/Mythra are such cool/fun characters, and come from an awesome game

— Jason Zimmerman (@MVG_Mew2King) August 29, 2021

Most good characters seem to have to play a certain campy and/or projectile based style (I could be biased from playing online), but these characters reward interaction and microspacing, it's fun/rewarding and deep to the levels of mastery that can happen, feels Melee-esque to me

— Jason Zimmerman (@MVG_Mew2King) August 29, 2021

Mhm

 

[Kokiden]

Just started watching the tourney.

I see Pyra/Mythra are popping up here as well. I never played the games that they're in, but all I know now is that they're quite annoying to watch and play against. Doubt they'll get nerfed, but anyway.

I see even MkLeo is using them. He doesn't seem to be using Joker a lot. Maybe because Mythra/Pyra are seen as better generally speaking? They've definitely had a great surge in usage across the fanbase from what I've followed so far (which isn't a lot admittedly since I've dipped out of smash for some time now).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Winners Semi-Finals casualties

Sparg0 3-0 Zackray
Tweek 3-0 Marss

 

[ARISTOS]

Diddy is interesting. He wins a lot of very relevant matchups, but loses to a lot of random mid tiers that it's kinda hard to really place him. In most cases he'll definitely seem like one of the best characters until people start counterpicking.

Reminds me a lot of SFV Honda lol. Extremely strong against the meta and just inherently deals with so much of what the game enables, but just struggles too much when it's the occasional niche zoner.

I feel this might be cap on Diddy players part lol, who does Diddy lose to that is not meta

Pyra/Mythra are such cool/fun characters, and come from an awesome game

— Jason Zimmerman (@MVG_Mew2King) August 29, 2021

Most good characters seem to have to play a certain campy and/or projectile based style (I could be biased from playing online), but these characters reward interaction and microspacing, it's fun/rewarding and deep to the levels of mastery that can happen, feels Melee-esque to me

— Jason Zimmerman (@MVG_Mew2King) August 29, 2021

Mhm

Ehh

It'd be one thing if Aegis whiffing was generally very counterproductive for them, but I feel they get a lot of leeway on their buttons - way moreso than more sword characters. Playing against Mythra seems relatively uninteractive, in that the only real response is to hold shield a lot less Mythra neutral runs over you

EDIT: God Leo is so ****ing good

 

[The_Bookworm]

After all the craziness this summit has provided, especially character-wise, the tournament is going to conclude with a quite fitting finale: MkLeo vs Tweek.
MkLeo finally breaking out the Joker in order to defeat Sparg0 was the extra spice to this.
Sadly going to bed now so I won't be able to catch the finals, but can't wait to check the YouTube VoD later.

 

[PK Gaming]

I feel this might be cap on Diddy players part lol, who does Diddy lose to that is not meta



Ehh

It'd be one thing if Aegis whiffing was generally very counterproductive for them, but I feel they get a lot of leeway on their buttons - way moreso than more sword characters. Playing against Mythra seems relatively uninteractive, in that the only real response is to hold shield a lot less Mythra neutral runs over you

EDIT: God Leo is so ****ing good

Yeah I kinda take it back lol

 

[PK Gaming]

That was the best summit ever

Top class play, so many nail-biting matches, cathartic comebacks and goddamn, Tweek earned that win

So happy for him

 

[Kokiden]

Well that was a disappointing grand finals.

No idea why Leo didn't use Joker since he wasn't doing well with Pyra/Mythra.

Seems like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of using them.

I normally never feel this way towards characters in general since I don't care generally speaking, but it's irksome seeing Pyra/Mythra. I think they're the most ridiculous DLC character we've got so in Ultimate. They're just extremely frustrating to watch and play against.

 

[Trunks159]

Biggest takeaway from Summit for me was VoiD's . That was some of the most amazing play I've seen out of anyone.

 

[TennisBall]

Excellent Summit.

That is all.

 

[blackghost]

riddles impressed me the most this event. i know people are starting to complain/***** about pyra and mythra now, but kazuya still isnt optimized and is doing stuff like this. the character is insane.
at this point mexico is either the best or second best region imo just a great showing from them.

we had some weird character choices all throughout summit.

not into eecuses everyone had to deal with pandemic if you didnt want to go you couldve withdrawn. dont confuse names with who is actually the best some of these guys that are big names did not have a good showing.

 

[Kokiden]

It seems like the balance team are just.. I dunno, out of wack with balancing in general, especially with the latest DLC characters.

They just make the strangest decisions, and characters just end up either very annoying, wtf, or underwhelming.

 

[blackghost]

It seems like the balance team are just.. I dunno, out of wack with balancing in general, especially with the latest DLC characters.

They just make the strangest decisions, and characters just end up either very annoying, wtf, or underwhelming.

sorry dude if you cant be happy with the job the balancing team has done with this game you just need to get away from fighting games in general. It doesnt get much better than smash ultimate from a balancing perspective.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Smash Ultimate Summit 3.

1. Tweek
2. MkLeo
3. Sparg0
4. Marss
5. Zackray
5. VoiD
7. Kola
7. Aaron
9. Charliedaking
9. Maister
9. Dabuz
9. Riddles
13. Atomsk
13. Cosmos
13. KEN
13. Dark Wizzy

Tweek, Leo and Sparg0 were playing out of their minds this weekend.

 

[BlazGreen]

It seems like the balance team are just.. I dunno, out of wack with balancing in general, especially with the latest DLC characters.

They just make the strangest decisions, and characters just end up either very annoying, wtf, or underwhelming.

I'd take a Fighter's pass of high/top tier characters than the mediocrity we got with FP1. I actually stopped watching the game during 2019 because aside from , none of the characters shook up the meta. This time though we've seen every FP2 character have some degree of use and success and I for one enjoy watching and .

 

[toonito]

tbh if become the best character in Ultimate they'd be my favorite #1 to play

> >> >

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

When I watch the Aegis is don’t see a character that’s oppressive or busted. I just see a very strong sword character doing...well sword character things that we’ve seen before. They are probably the best sword character for sure which is why people want to use them. Them being anime girls and the average smash player being a young impressionable teen/young impressionable early twenties also absolutely is playing a factor here but that’s more icing on the cake. But I’m not really sold they are even top five at this point, top players make characters look good, Atomsk made D3 look plenty viable this weekend for example, that’s what top level smash does.

I think you can start to panic once you see the Aegis start becoming more common at high and mid level and winning at those levels at much more frequent rates that they are now. We just started getting tournaments back it takes time to develop counterplay especially when the character your trying to counterplay are actually really good characters.

Also I find it funny it took this long for people to realize Diddy was just as ridiculous as before. His up b nerf was rather significant but he never lost his banana which alone makes the character better than half the roster

 

[The_Bookworm]

I'd take a Fighter's pass of high/top tier characters than the mediocrity we got with FP1. I actually stopped watching the game during 2019 because aside from , none of the characters shook up the meta. This time though we've seen every FP2 character have some degree of use and success and I for one enjoy watching and .

Degree of usage for FP2 is still kinda wonky and not as big as some people says.

Has some good reps and results from time-to-time, but the character has yet to do anything particularly interesting in tournaments. Last time we had Steve do decently well in an offline event has been a long time as well. Simply solid, but nothing special.
A lot of attention following several months after his release. However since then, this characters reps have been very limited. We have Ned and maybe Niko, but that is pretty much it. Situation made worse when Tweek has mostly put this character in the back-burner in favor of Diddy Kong (he never used Sephiroth at all in Summit bracket).
Another character with fairly meh reps. He is not even that recent anymore, since it has already been over 2 months since his release. We have Riddles, but even after his solid performance at Summit, he doesn't have much faith in the character. Outside of him, we have AxiomXL, and that is pretty much it. We also have almost zero representation from this character outside of USA, or at the very least, we have very little info on who has picked him up outside of USA.

In my opinion, and are the only two of FP2 that has actually really shaken up the meta, but even then, I think the former's poor disadvantage holds her back from top 10 imo.

 

[Trunks159]

Degree of usage for FP2 is still kinda wonky and not as big as some people says.

Has some good reps and results from time-to-time, but the character has yet to do anything particularly interesting in tournaments. Last time we had Steve do decently well in an offline event has been a long time as well. Simply solid, but nothing special.
A lot of attention following several months after his release. However since then, this characters reps have been very limited. We have Ned and maybe Niko, but that is pretty much it. Situation made worse when Tweek has mostly put this character in the back-burner in favor of Diddy Kong (he never used Sephiroth at all in Summit bracket).
Another character with fairly meh reps. He is not even that recent anymore, since it has already been over 2 months since his release. We have Riddles, but even after his solid performance at Summit, he doesn't have much faith in the character. Outside of him, we have AxiomXL, and that is pretty much it. We also have almost zero representation from this character outside of USA, or at the very least, we have very little info on who has picked him up outside of USA.

In my opinion, and are the only two of FP2 that has actually really shaken up the meta, but even then, I think the former's poor disadvantage holds her back from top 10 imo.

I think we'll see a lot of upsets from lower/mid level 's when we see non invitational majors come back.

did really well this event of course but it's been known that does particularly well against top tiers so since this is an invitational we got to see a lot of those. Who knows whether he can endure through a bracket of other characters like .

 

[BlazGreen]

Degree of usage for FP2 is still kinda wonky and not as big as some people says.

Has some good reps and results from time-to-time, but the character has yet to do anything particularly interesting in tournaments. Last time we had Steve do decently well in an offline event has been a long time as well. Simply solid, but nothing special.
A lot of attention following several months after his release. However since then, this characters reps have been very limited. We have Ned and maybe Niko, but that is pretty much it. Situation made worse when Tweek has mostly put this character in the back-burner in favor of Diddy Kong (he never used Sephiroth at all in Summit bracket).
Another character with fairly meh reps. He is not even that recent anymore, since it has already been over 2 months since his release. We have Riddles, but even after his solid performance at Summit, he doesn't have much faith in the character. Outside of him, we have AxiomXL, and that is pretty much it. We also have almost zero representation from this character outside of USA, or at the very least, we have very little info on who has picked him up outside of USA.

In my opinion, and are the only two of FP2 that has actually really shaken up the meta, but even then, I think the former's poor disadvantage holds her back from top 10 imo.

Compare the first few months of to and overall the former has had a stronger showing. Ned might be the only notable Sephiroth but he still got 2nd at fairly stacked MSM last week which is more than I can say for Banjo and up until recently, Hero.

 

[PK Gaming]

sorry dude if you cant be happy with the job the balancing team has done with this game you just need to get away from fighting games in general. It doesnt get much better than smash ultimate from a balancing perspective.

Yeah the overall balance in this game is quite frankly, ridiculous and solid

We've reached a point where "character specialists" can compete at the highest levels of play and win. MKleo ******* around with Byleth who (imo, is Mid tier at best) and was trashing strong players before Tweek brought him down to earth

"Top tier" is like 10+ characters. That generally doesn't happen in fighting games. The meta is usually centralized around far fewer characters

 

[blackghost]

Degree of usage for FP2 is still kinda wonky and not as big as some people says.


Another character with fairly meh reps. He is not even that recent anymore, since it has already been over 2 months since his release. We have Riddles, but even after his solid performance at Summit, he doesn't have much faith in the character. Outside of him, we have AxiomXL, and that is pretty much it. We also have almost zero representation from this character outside of USA, or at the very least, we have very little info on who has picked him up outside of USA.

did Riddles actually say this? i know he wasnt confident gioing into the event but i thought his showing was fine he placed 9th but watching the matches he had good matches. The only people I think that had a showing that makes people really rethink where they rank are dabuz, wizzy, and cosmos.

as for the baeblades they are ifne. they are very betabke and assuming they become the best character in the game at least you can compete soley on using smash fundamentals of edgegaurding and spacing as opposed to learning an entire new skillset to fight bayonetta or meta knight.

i will say fp1 having such a low poerlevel is prob a result of smash 4 and the community reaction to bayonetta combing a ridley (how DARE bayo combo a big body). but at least hero is fun to play but the rest of FP1 outside of joker just feels gimoed compared to fp2 where sakurai seemed to go: "**** it. we can fix it later." and they still havent missed in terms of balancing in pass 2.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

did Riddles actually say this? i know he wasnt confident gioing into the event but i thought his showing was fine he placed 9th but watching the matches he had good matches. The only people I think that had a showing that makes people really rethink where they rank are dabuz, wizzy, and cosmos.

as for the baeblades they are ifne. they are very betabke and assuming they become the best character in the game at least you can compete soley on using smash fundamentals of edgegaurding and spacing as opposed to learning an entire new skillset to fight bayonetta or meta knight.

i will say fp1 having such a low poerlevel is prob a result of smash 4 and the community reaction to bayonetta combing a ridley (how DARE bayo combo a big body). but at least hero is fun to play but the rest of FP1 outside of joker just feels gimoed compared to fp2 where sakurai seemed to go: "**** it. we can fix it later." and they still havent missed in terms of balancing in pass 2.

Riddles did make a post saying he was dropping all the FGC characters after getting 9th, but he then deleted the tweet. Probably just a knee-jerk reaction.

 

[Rizen]

Good for Tweek, finally beating his demon in MKLeo. Can someone please link the summit videos for me?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Good for Tweek, finally beating his demon in MKLeo. Can someone please link the summit videos for me?

They are all at the "Beyond the Summit - Smash" YouTube channel. Also has all the side activities involved at Summit as well.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

OrionStats update

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zTKrF1HOv70Pp8xdJKrRQy3QiMYKLTCstoVNgxymt0o/htmlview

• Pyra/Mythra hit the top 10 going to #9. They are the second highest sword character after
  
• Shulk drops to #16, the complete lack of Kome results during Japan’s state of emergency is hurting.
• Joker moves up to #5 overtaking Pokemon Trainer thanks to Zackray and MkLeo.
• Byleth hits top 60.
• Kazuya goes to #54 due to Riddles.
• Diddy Kong is at #13, before he was at #22.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Diddy is interesting. He wins a lot of very relevant matchups, but loses to a lot of random mid tiers that it's kinda hard to really place him. In most cases he'll definitely seem like one of the best characters until people start counterpicking.

Reminds me a lot of SFV Honda lol. Extremely strong against the meta and just inherently deals with so much of what the game enables, but just struggles too much when it's the occasional niche zoner.

Well, what counts heavier ? Winning the relevant matchups, or losing to mid tiers?

 

[Krysco]

In regards to Diddy losing to 'random mid tiers' which to my understanding is just that he can have a hard time against zoners or trap characters such as Duck Hunt? Anyway, I particularly recall Brawl ICies losing to 'random mid tiers' such as Peach and Toon Link. This clearly didn't matter much as they still ended up being 2nd best and being in a tier of their own by the end of that game's lifespan. Different games of course but just an example of how losing to mid tiers can end up not mattering.

To counter my own point though, mid tiers were basically worthless at top level Brawl because of how common MK was and how much he destroyed them whereas in Ultimate, mid tiers are more common and worth using because the top tiers don't absolutely destroy them to the point of being obsolete. And a counter-counter point then being that Ultimate has 80~ characters and depending how many MUs Diddy loses, he may not even likely run into a losing MU in bracket just due to the sheer amount of characters and depending how common or uncommon his losing MU's are.

Just spitballing more food for thought in regards to the Diddy discussion.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Well, what counts heavier ? Winning the relevant matchups, or losing to mid tiers?

The former obviously, but there's a reason I mentioned counterpicking.

And besides, it's obviously not as a rigid as it sounds. There's obviously still really good characters he'll struggle against like Pac Man, going by Tweek's chart. Just like with Honda, he'll probably end up landing in high tier as mostly a strong anti-meta pick who gets to play a different game.

RE: Ice Climbers. I am not gonna compare to a character with an actual infinite.

 

[Minix0]

My boy Nair^ putting in some great work recently

 

[toonito]

OrionStats update

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zTKrF1HOv70Pp8xdJKrRQy3QiMYKLTCstoVNgxymt0o/htmlview

• Pyra/Mythra hit the top 10 going to #9. They are the second highest sword character after
  
• Shulk drops to #16, the complete lack of Kome results during Japan’s state of emergency is hurting.
• Joker moves up to #5 overtaking Pokemon Trainer thanks to Zackray and MkLeo.
• Byleth hits top 60.
• Kazuya goes to #54 due to Riddles.
• Diddy Kong is at #13, before he was at #22.

+9 from previous data
-3 from previous data

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Sparg0 tweeted about his very little usage of Cloud at Summit.

Cloud is not a good character at top level

— FaZe Sparg0 (@Sparg0ssb) August 31, 2021

 

[Gleam]

That's kind of the thing with Smash, even with one as balanced as Ultimate. There is still a gap between the good and the best. It's why Riddles can be so, concerned with his own losses or hardships with the likes of Kazuya and Terry. As much as he would love to use them, their issues at top level plays become more and more apparent.

I personally do not think Kazuya can last as a primary main in Top Level play. The difficulty, inconsistencies, relative character issues and just effort isn't something you can rely on entirely. But even when you look at Terry, you have someone who has mostly just stuck around the #40s of Orion. As for Riddles, even his results can be sporadic at times.

You'll see him get top results in very low attendee level tournaments, but get higher and don't be surprised to see him getting 25th or 33rd or higher. Getting 33rd in a 1,000+ attendee tournament may honestly not be bad, but for someone who probably wants to get Top 10s or higher, it may not be that great to Riddles.

And in the end, I think that is mindset behind the likes of Riddles and Sparg0. Some people just want to take their character as far as they can, but others, such as Riddles, really wants to win. I can't help but think that Riddle's mindset is basically. "I've pushed Terry further than anyone else, I'm the best Terry in the world, I'm the #1 player in Canada....

"AND I STILL CAN'T GET TOP 5"

We appreciate the effort these players put in with the characters but some of them do have higher goals in the end.

 

[PK Gaming]

Sparg0 tweeted about his very little usage of Cloud at Summit.

Cloud is not a good character at top level

— FaZe Sparg0 (@Sparg0ssb) August 31, 2021

He's right.

The hype Cloud gets is unreal considering his abysmal disadvantage state.

Also I firmly believe Diddy is Top Tier and will eventually become the meta. Doing well against ostensibly the best characters in the game is nuts and he's just a silly character on paper.

I think Marss might finally be right about ZSS. I still think she's meta but those nerfs definitely hurt her

 

[blackghost]

That's kind of the thing with Smash, even with one as balanced as Ultimate. There is still a gap between the good and the best. It's why Riddles can be so, concerned with his own losses or hardships with the likes of Kazuya and Terry. As much as he would love to use them, their issues at top level plays become more and more apparent.

I personally do not think Kazuya can last as a primary main in Top Level play. The difficulty, inconsistencies, relative character issues and just effort isn't something you can rely on entirely. But even when you look at Terry, you have someone who has mostly just stuck around the #40s of Orion. As for Riddles, even his results can be sporadic at times.

You'll see him get top results in very low attendee level tournaments, but get higher and don't be surprised to see him getting 25th or 33rd or higher. Getting 33rd in a 1,000+ attendee tournament may honestly not be bad, but for someone who probably wants to get Top 10s or higher, it may not be that great to Riddles.

And in the end, I think that is mindset behind the likes of Riddles and Sparg0. Some people just want to take their character as far as they can, but others, such as Riddles, really wants to win. I can't help but think that Riddle's mindset is basically. "I've pushed Terry further than anyone else, I'm the best Terry in the world, I'm the #1 player in Canada....

"AND I STILL CAN'T GET TOP 5"

We appreciate the effort these players put in with the characters but some of them do have higher goals in the end.

I think you have it backwards. I think terry is the character with the clear ceiling on what he can do. He is exponentially easier than the other characters like him but his immediate reward for using him pales compared to what kazuya can offer long term to a player that invests in him. Kazuya is just objectively a better character than terry according to not only riddles but many other players. more options as a character and harder to fight. And what issues at high level? riddles lost to what a top 10 minmin and the best shiek? and the games werent blow outs at all. this was also the first tiem riddle ssaw and had to deal with kazuya counterplay from other high level players. He did fine and he will only get better in the future his kazuya still hasnt applied many techniqures on movement that are shown to be possible and he still underuses the crouching attacks.

Smash players at high level mentally flip flop far more than players in games that would encourage that mentality more in games like sfv and dbfz these top players are blind loyal to characters they picked up early in the game lifespan almost to a fault. They want to be the ones that prove people wrong and often they have.
I think you are highly underrating what riddles can do i would expect him to be top 16 or better with more kazuya experience expecting him to be at 33rd is really low. That where people carrying low tiers like kirby end up depsite all their talents as players. Often it sems like smash players dont expect counter play to be developed. idk if thats the mentality of the scene as a whole or just that we dont expect people to adapt and di correctly or have answers for top characters.
Riddles should hopefully at least play kazuya as long as he did terry before jumping ship.

 

[Rizen]

I've been thinking about why and are so good and a big reason is they complement each other so well. They seem like they started the design process as they same character but Mythra's moves were made for juggling and Pyra's for killing. Mythra has amazing combos/chains from all her tilts, Nair and Uair then upB acts as a finisher for damage. When you switch to Pyra, all these moves become kill moves except Dtilt, which combos into Uair for kills. With Mythra's fast, low endlag moves she has one of the best advantage and neutral states in the game and Pyra's huge hitboxes give her some of the best kills off stray hits.
Another way they complement each other is because they can switch very quickly you can use Mythra's foresight to get out of juggle disadvantage situations. IDK why they thought giving her this was a good idea. Pyra's disadvantage would be considerably worse without Mythra.
The same principle works offstage. If you need Mythra's sideB to recover you can switch to her with minimal risk. Similarly if you'd rather use Pyra's upB that doesn't hang in the air like Mythra's you can swap to her. I've seen a lot of pro players do this.
They're both great characters but end up amazing paired together.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I think you have it backwards. I think terry is the character with the clear ceiling on what he can do. He is exponentially easier than the other characters like him but his immediate reward for using him pales compared to what kazuya can offer long term to a player that invests in him. Kazuya is just objectively a better character than terry according to not only riddles but many other players. more options as a character and harder to fight. And what issues at high level? riddles lost to what a top 10 minmin and the best shiek? and the games werent blow outs at all. this was also the first tiem riddle ssaw and had to deal with kazuya counterplay from other high level players. He did fine and he will only get better in the future his kazuya still hasnt applied many techniqures on movement that are shown to be possible and he still underuses the crouching attacks.

Smash players at high level mentally flip flop far more than players in games that would encourage that mentality more in games like sfv and dbfz these top players are blind loyal to characters they picked up early in the game lifespan almost to a fault. They want to be the ones that prove people wrong and often they have.
I think you are highly underrating what riddles can do i would expect him to be top 16 or better with more kazuya experience expecting him to be at 33rd is really low. That where people carrying low tiers like kirby end up depsite all their talents as players. Often it sems like smash players dont expect counter play to be developed. idk if thats the mentality of the scene as a whole or just that we dont expect people to adapt and di correctly or have answers for top characters.
Riddles should hopefully at least play kazuya as long as he did terry before jumping ship.

I think it kinda works the other way around like that as well.

While it is clear that Riddles could integrate some more stuff into his play, I think at the same time, Kazuya counterplay is hilariously underdeveloped.

I think prior to practicing with Riddles with friendlies and stuff, barely anyone in Summit had any high level Kazuya experience.
The only one invited to Summit that had any, as far as I can tell, is Marss, thanks to his sets with AxiomXL, where he is 1-1 in terms of sets with him.
Heck we still don't know who in Japan uses the character, so who knows if KEN and Zackray ever fought a good one before outside of quickplay.

This is the most clear with his set with Charliedaking. Judging from Charlie's expressions and the way he approached the matchup, it is quite clear that he had no idea what he was doing against him (and I think he says so in the post-interview).
Charlie did say that this weekend was his first time dealing with top level Aegis as well with greater success. However, despite the Aegis being the best out of FP2, I think they are the most straightforward to deal with due to having the attributes and characteristics similar to a normal (top tier) Smash character. Experience fighting Joker, Palutena, Roy, etc. carries over better vs the Aegis than it does against Min Min, Steve, or Kazuya.

Of course, Riddles will always find success cause he is an amazing player, and I think Kazuya is pretty solid character, but I think it is important to look at both sides of the spectrum when it comes to experience. As of right now, experience is hilariously skewed in Kazuya's benefit.

riddles lost to what a top 10 minmin and the best shiek?

Minor corrections: Riddles never fought Dabuz in bracket. Riddles lost to VoiD's Sheik, Sparg0's Cloud, and Aaron's Diddy, all of them being close 3-2 sets.

I've been thinking about why and are so good and a big reason is they complement each other so well. They seem like they started the design process as they same character but Mythra's moves were made for juggling and Pyra's for killing. Mythra has amazing combos/chains from all her tilts, Nair and Uair then upB acts as a finisher for damage. When you switch to Pyra, all these moves become kill moves except Dtilt, which combos into Uair for kills. With Mythra's fast, low endlag moves she has one of the best advantage and neutral states in the game and Pyra's huge hitboxes give her some of the best kills off stray hits.
Another way they complement each other is because they can switch very quickly you can use Mythra's foresight to get out of juggle disadvantage situations. IDK why they thought giving her this was a good idea. Pyra's disadvantage would be considerably worse without Mythra.
The same principle works offstage. If you need Mythra's sideB to recover you can switch to her with minimal risk. Similarly if you'd rather use Pyra's upB that doesn't hang in the air like Mythra's you can swap to her. I've seen a lot of pro players do this.
They're both great characters but end up amazing paired together.

That is another thing on why I believe that balancing the Aegis is a difficult task: neither of them, especially Pyra, are particularly strong by themselves.

The Aegis is only as strong as they are because they can swap to another to compliment their weaknesses quite well, an observation made immediately obvious since their release, and it is exactly the way they are designed to be.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Temple Hermès Edition Top 32 provisional seeds:

1. 🇯🇵@chibiT2169
2. 🇫🇷@GlutonnySSB
3. 🇯🇵@KENisbg
4. 🇺🇸@DLeon420
5. 🇯🇵@komesuma
6. 🇺🇸@CharlieHaruno
7. 🇺🇸@Tilde_Fox
8. 🇳🇱@Mr_RSmash pic.twitter.com/Ztn9dnct1g

— Pikana (@Pikanatox) August 31, 2021

Seeding for an upcoming tournament.

Event will take place on the 5th in France.