Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Nobie]

This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but I wonder if playing an overall strong character with a few really bad matchups can be more mentally devastating than just playing a straight-up "bad" character.

Larry Lurr released a video today about how players are dropping Fox due to what he suspects is a combination of reasons. One is a more exploitable recovery compared to easier games (shield stopping Fox Illusion, Fire Fox being easier to two-frame, stronger edge guarding across the cast, a lack of Fox Illusion shortening, etc.). Another is that there's a certain baseline that a Fox has to be with in terms of consistency that requires players to be on point or else suffer the consequences). The character is really good until he isn't.

I also think about a character like G&W, who's basically strong against most of the cast, but hates swords with a passion. Maister can work most opponents, while it's no coincidence that the best sword user in MKLeo is his bane. It's like G&W is on the cusp of being perfect, but that slight faltering is all the more frustrating as a result.

But then take a character like Ganon or Incineroar, and their players are rarely overly optimistic. They'll acknowledge that the matchups aren't great and are probably asking for buffs, yet I wonder if the fact that almost every matchup is an uphill battle means players don't experience as much of a mental whiplash between games.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but I wonder if playing an overall strong character with a few really bad matchups can be more mentally devastating than just playing a straight-up "bad" character.

Larry Lurr released a video today about how players are dropping Fox due to what he suspects is a combination of reasons. One is a more exploitable recovery compared to easier games (shield stopping Fox Illusion, Fire Fox being easier to two-frame, stronger edge guarding across the cast, a lack of Fox Illusion shortening, etc.). Another is that there's a certain baseline that a Fox has to be with in terms of consistency that requires players to be on point or else suffer the consequences). The character is really good until he isn't.

I also think about a character like G&W, who's basically strong against most of the cast, but hates swords with a passion. Maister can work most opponents, while it's no coincidence that the best sword user in MKLeo is his bane. It's like G&W is on the cusp of being perfect, but that slight faltering is all the more frustrating as a result.

But then take a character like Ganon or Incineroar, and their players are rarely overly optimistic. They'll acknowledge that the matchups aren't great and are probably asking for buffs, yet I wonder if the fact that almost every matchup is an uphill battle means players don't experience as much of a mental whiplash between games.

I dont think its the resutls were posted here. But Light a decenty sized tournament on CT Gamers besting Dark Wizzy in GF. All after getting Upset pretty early by a player going by Scot. Its a fairly good win for Light who has been kinda stuggling in the post-pandemic offline era.

But still better than Dark Wizzy, who seemed to be entering a redemption arc after his rather..unfortunate time at Smash Summit 3. But seemed to fall apart after Light reset the bracket om him

 

[Minordeth]

So, the post-shutdown era of the pandemic has clarified at least two things:

1.) Practice is important. Dark Wizzy went into Summit acknowledging his lack of practice during the shutdown era and performed about as well as he predicted. Marss still retains exceptional fundamentals, but his life-improving pivot to content creation and subsequent lack of interest in taking WiFi Smash at all seriously led to deficiencies in matchup knowledge and eventual technical execution decay.

2.) WiFi is trash, but it turns out you can turn trash into gold. Spargo entered the WiFi era a top 50 player, and emerged a top 10 player. Previously a WiFi warrior, Akakikusu exploded onto the world stage with two back to back top 8s at Kagabiri 3 and 4. WiFi Ultimate may be a different game, but it’s iterative rather than a completely new entry. Development in one can, indeed, carry over to the other.

That said, it is only a matter of time before the technical cobwebs are swept out of any given top player’s attic. For instance, much like MKLeo came back with a vengeance after Summit, I doubt Marss and Light will stay passive about their own development.

The new offline era only truly begins when the jet lag of the WiFi era wears off for all the passengers on the pandemic plane.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Glitch 8.5 Top 32 seeding.

1. MkLeo
2. Maister
3. Marss
4. Light
5. Dabuz
6. Kola
7. Charliedaking
8. ESAM
9. WaDi
10. Dark Wizzy
11. LeoN
12. Cosmos
13. Ned
14. Naitosharp
15. Tilde
16. Pink Fresh
17. Puppeh
18. T3 DOM
19. yonni
20. BigBoss
21. ZD
22. Larry Lurr
23. Chag
24. Rivers
25. Jakal
26. LingLing
27. Zinoto
28. 8BitMan
29. Zomba
30. DM
31. Suarez
32. John Numbers

Tweek and Sparg0 aren't going, which is disappointing because those two seem to be the big storylines at the moment.

 

[Hippieslayer]

practice is especially important if you play a character like mario who is just weak if you dont got the punish game down real good

i mean it goes for all characters of course, but mario yeah

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

practice is especially important if you play a character like mario who is just weak if you dont got the punish game down real good

i mean it goes for all characters of course, but mario yeah

Eh, Mario is one of the most simple characters to pick and play, he's pretty fundamental based and Dark Wizzy doesn't really focus on advantage state and punish game like Kurama does, but instead likes to sit back and play defensive.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Eh, Mario is one of the most simple characters to pick and play, he's pretty fundamental based and Dark Wizzy doesn't really focus on advantage state and punish game like Kurama does, but instead likes to sit back and play defensive.

yeah and if he's only played as a fundamentals characters he's not that good, that might've worked earlier on but the meta has evolved and it takes more to keep up now

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

OrionStats update

OrionStats September Week 3 Update is live, ft last weekend + Riptide results. ROB continues to extend the lead while Aegis & Diddy Kong solidly in a top tier range. Wario additionally sees a return to form. pic.twitter.com/ywpbelKOyn

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

-Falco emerges as a new character to watch, seeing his results climb rapidly from Riptide.

-Steve's results find themselves nearly doubles, now at 32nd.

-Toon Link's multiweek languishing continues, falling below the top half of characters.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

For DLC, Banjo and Piranha Plant seem to truly be suffering the most, with Banjo at 75th and Plant at 80th. Kirby, Ganondorf, Mii Gunner, Mii Sword, Puff, and Corrin - all traditionally struggling with results - have seen better fortunes than Banjo/Plant as of late.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

 

[Thinkaman]

Brief commentary on the OrionStats update:

The deviation of results continues to go down + become more (log) normalized. In fact with this recent change the current data is very clearly log-normal, far more so than ever before.

In spite of this, --who was already performing disproportionately higher than any character at any point in this game's lifespan--has expanded his lead well beyond that. While the performance is holistically better on the whole, ROB is now almost an entire deviation (in raw OrionStats points) beyond either previous record held by Wolf or Joker, as well as the current #2 performance by Roy. ROB has almost 5% of the points by himself, and is responsible for greater than 5% of the total variation.


Remember when was "gutted" and made unplayable? Apparently neither do his players.

Other tidbits: Is going to finally pull away from ? They have been more-or-less neck-and-neck since release, even as the kings immediately above them rose and fell.

This could be 's lifetime low (#36) assuming ESAM steps up to the plate at Glitch 8.5 and stops the bleeding.

passing would be quite the twist, yet they are only 12 points apart atm.

has fallen to super low levels, and is only half a point away from taking the lowest FE character dunce cap away from Corrin.

Almost all low-tier characters are performing better than they did in either half of 2019 and on some vague idea of an upswing. The only exceptions I see are (who all had really sharp peaks in 2019H2) and (who have been in constant decline). is on the upswing from the crater he fell into but still far, far below his 2019 performances.

 

[SKX31]

I think there was only 3 sets Sparg0's Cloud had a major impact in, and that was against Lui$ (who he took 2 games off from with), LingLing (who he also took 2 games off from with), and Maister (who he managed to 3-0 with only Cloud). To my knowledge, he went all Pythra against Kobe, LeoN, Tweek, WaDi, Pandarian, and Elegant (outside of game 1 in that set).

For the record, I still think it's pretty easy to sell the Aegis as a top 3/5 character all things considered, but I do think fears that they would completely throw Ultimate's balance off kilter have been safely quelled for now at least.

Speaking of Sparg0, this tournament did make me confused as to why he was so ready to drop his Cloud now that I look back lol. His wins against LingLing and Maister with Cloud looked far more convincing than they did with Pythra, and it wasn't like he wasn't doing well at the tournaments where he mostly went the Buster Sword wielder. At the very least, he shows strong counterpick promise for future tournaments.

I'm willing to attribute the whole "dropping Cloud" thing to Sparg0 buying into the Aegis hype wholesale and thinking the gap between them and Cloud was bigger than it actually has turned out to be so far. Which TBF was looking really good a few weeks back, it's just that the results so far haven't been entirely to the really, really high bar set.

That the Aegis did get switched out with consistency does suggest that they're not as meta-breaking as initially thought. This is not to disparage the Aegis, the results are still really good and one could make a solid argument they're the best FP2 character so far - I'm just reiterating that I'm not entirely sure they're Top 3. One could certainly make the argument for them, though.

My personal opinion is that Cloud loses to too many relevant characters such as , , , , / , , , and possibly to be top tier. Struggling with a lot of relevant characters IMO stops you being a top tier just naturally.

Most of those are manageable for the Cloud (as are most MUs where a lot of players think it's say even to -1, again as subjective as that is). The only MUs where he really struggles are Joker, Pikachu and Shulk if you ask me - Inkling's borderline, but if the Cloud player avoids getting gimped the MU becomes easier (unlike Pika) since Inkling doesn't have many safe KO setups. Palu, Diddy and PT are even-ish (and I'll gladly die on those hills).

FWIW EnhancedPV did get 9th at the Comeback going solo Cloud, and he's around Sparg0's age. Sure, the character's not going to be this top tier threat, but he's still a really solid character at the end of the day.

Other stuff I noticed with the OrionStats update:

• The gap between #16 ( ) and #27 ( ) is just 21 points.
• Kazuya and Byleth apparently passed Terry. Yes, Riddles did mostly switch to Kazuya and Leo took a supermajor with mainly Byleth, but still.
• Don't think most people would expect the Belmonts to be within just 10 points of characters like and .

 

[toonito]

OrionStats update

OrionStats September Week 3 Update is live, ft last weekend + Riptide results. ROB continues to extend the lead while Aegis & Diddy Kong solidly in a top tier range. Wario additionally sees a return to form. pic.twitter.com/ywpbelKOyn

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

-Falco emerges as a new character to watch, seeing his results climb rapidly from Riptide.

-Steve's results find themselves nearly doubles, now at 32nd.

-Toon Link's multiweek languishing continues, falling below the top half of characters.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

For DLC, Banjo and Piranha Plant seem to truly be suffering the most, with Banjo at 75th and Plant at 80th. Kirby, Ganondorf, Mii Gunner, Mii Sword, Puff, and Corrin - all traditionally struggling with results - have seen better fortunes than Banjo/Plant as of late.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

biggest jump from last data (9/10): +16
biggest drop from last data (9/10): -8

 

[The_Bookworm]

OrionStats update

OrionStats September Week 3 Update is live, ft last weekend + Riptide results. ROB continues to extend the lead while Aegis & Diddy Kong solidly in a top tier range. Wario additionally sees a return to form. pic.twitter.com/ywpbelKOyn

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

-Falco emerges as a new character to watch, seeing his results climb rapidly from Riptide.

-Steve's results find themselves nearly doubles, now at 32nd.

-Toon Link's multiweek languishing continues, falling below the top half of characters.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

For DLC, Banjo and Piranha Plant seem to truly be suffering the most, with Banjo at 75th and Plant at 80th. Kirby, Ganondorf, Mii Gunner, Mii Sword, Puff, and Corrin - all traditionally struggling with results - have seen better fortunes than Banjo/Plant as of late.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 21, 2021

This is arguably the most significant OrionStats change so far. Some things to note not mentioned yet:

Everything above the Belmonts got HUGELY point crept. Before, around the #20 spot would be when the 100 points start. Now, it starts at #27. The end result is that MANY characters dropped significantly in placements.

• and I'm pretty sure dropped out of the top 20 (forgot if YLink and Fox was top 20 in past rankings).
• have endured huge drops, with most, if not all of them, leaving the top 30 (forgot if some were even top 30 in the first place). The latter two makes sense since their metas have stagnated significantly for a while, but this is quite notable on the former three.
• is also barely hanging on in the top 40, being ranked notably lower than in earlier updates.

Also, I am not quite sure how got as many points as he did. Ned did get 25th and Niko 49th, but that shouldn't be anywhere near enough to push him by that many points.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

This is arguably the most significant OrionStats change so far. Some things to note not mentioned yet:

Everything above the Belmonts got HUGELY point crept. Before, around the #20 spot would be when the 100 points start. Now, it starts at #27. The end result is that MANY characters dropped significantly in placements.

• and I'm pretty sure dropped out of the top 20 (forgot if YLink and Fox was top 20 in past rankings).
• have endured huge drops, with most, if not all of them, leaving the top 30 (forgot if some were even top 30 in the first place). The latter two makes sense since their metas have stagnated significantly for a while, but this is quite notable on the former three.
• is also barely hanging on in the top 40, being ranked notably lower than in earlier updates.

Also, I am not quite sure how got as many points as he did. Ned did get 25th and Niko 49th, but that shouldn't be anywhere near enough to push him by that many points.

I'm actually surprised Olimar dropped so much when Dabuz was mostly using him and got 7th at Riptide and Myran got 33rd.

 

[B_Burg]

I don't know that saying the meta for has stagnated is entirely true.

I know when Dabuz was discussing the character in the Rosa matchup in the video posted on the last page, he mentioned how has fallen to power creep. I don't know if that's the exact right term for it, but I get what he's saying and that's definitely a factor that has hurt him more than a lot of the cast.

But moreover, I feel like the meta for Megaman is at least still being explored. If only thanks to a player like Repo, who is showing how viable Megaman can be even when played with a much more aggressive playstyle compared to someone like even Kameme before him. Not to say there hasn't been players who have tried an aggressive strategy with Megaman before, but Repo has been getting results that make it look at least somewhat viable even in the current meta.

I know it's only one player, but right now I feel like Repo is the best in the world and I think that's makes it noteworthy.

I'm hopeful there's still room to explore with the character, but I also understand he's pretty niche and has plenty of struggles with how the meta of the game overall has shaken out.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Something I'd be interested in is how much the results of each character are done by a specific top level player and how much that's affected things. E.g. by Tweek, by Sparg0, from Leo, from Glutonny, / from Zackray etc. I think that kind of project would be an interesting look overall, so we can see how much the top players use specific characters has affected the OrionStats placement of their chosen character.

 

[$.A.F.]

I know it’s a lukewarm take by this point but it’s clear to see that ROB is top 5 at this point.

 

[toonito]

I know it’s a lukewarm take by this point but it’s clear to see that ROB is top 5 at this point.

its kinda crazy how people still twist themselves in knots against this when the evidence has been available for over a year now

maybe it's because going from ->->->-> possibly ?! is super jarring lol but i fully believe you can't consistently performing this well on or offline across different skill levels and many people maining it and not be a top tier character

 

[Thinkaman]

I do think ROB is better at top 200 level than top 20. So asserting that you think ROB is overhyped signals status--it's an opinion representive of the elite. (And those who appreciate/understand them)

I probably don't have to say that I think this is silly. Either we care about results from more than just the peak player(s) and is the best, or we don't and is. We don't get to have it both ways to support whatever arbitrary opinion we want.

If we zoom out the real story is that came out of the online era and accelerated, while hit the brakes.

 

[Arthur97]

Tangentially related, but with the Direct tomorrow, place your bets on how busted/awful people are going to claim the final fighter will be based on little date.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

New Japanese Major called Seibu Geki on October 10th. Features Zackray, Tea, ProtoBanham, KEN, Kome, Atelier, Shuton and more.

【拡散希望】
10月10日西武撃の優先者リストがこちらとなります。
また、募集日程のアナウンスは下記となります。
9/26(日)22:00~　優先・スタッフ枠
10/3(日)22:00~　持参枠
10/4(月)22:00~　一般枠
大会詳細のアナウンスに関しましても急ピッチで作業を進めておりますので何卒宜しくお願い致します。 pic.twitter.com/oIgKWtotRu

— 西武撃 (@Seibugeki_Smash) September 23, 2021

Edit: Turns out these are just the players that could come and are prioritised, not definitive.

Tangentially related, but with the Direct tomorrow, place your bets on how busted/awful people are going to claim the final fighter will be based on little date.

A lot. It happened with every character other then Joker, Sephiroth and Banjo I'm pretty sure.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Something I'd be interested in is how much the results of each character are done by a specific top level player and how much that's affected things. E.g. by Tweek, by Sparg0, from Leo, from Glutonny, / from Zackray etc. I think that kind of project would be an interesting look overall, so we can see how much the top players use specific characters has affected the OrionStats placement of their chosen character.

Remember this? Well some of that data has been revealed for , and .

A breakdown of Pac-Man's current data, just as a fun aside. Tea makes up nearly 2/3rds of all Pac-Man results in the period used (Mid-2020 to Present.) pic.twitter.com/0SEHSmhW5B

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 22, 2021

While I do want to have a full breakdown of character to player results, I'll give out the Pikachu numbers since Pika's by far the most commonly talked about character when I post weekly updates. pic.twitter.com/ryL2hONmgL

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 22, 2021

What's going on with Palutena?! Well, her results are split across a wide variety of players, peaking with Raflow, Chag, and Lui$. pic.twitter.com/rPdLF0ngPQ

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 23, 2021

 

[Rizen]

Remember this? Well some of that data has been revealed for , and .

A breakdown of Pac-Man's current data, just as a fun aside. Tea makes up nearly 2/3rds of all Pac-Man results in the period used (Mid-2020 to Present.) pic.twitter.com/0SEHSmhW5B

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 22, 2021

While I do want to have a full breakdown of character to player results, I'll give out the Pikachu numbers since Pika's by far the most commonly talked about character when I post weekly updates. pic.twitter.com/ryL2hONmgL

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 22, 2021

What's going on with Palutena?! Well, her results are split across a wide variety of players, peaking with Raflow, Chag, and Lui$. pic.twitter.com/rPdLF0ngPQ

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 23, 2021

This is a good way to look at results. If one player is carrying a character it's more likely they're an outlier, winning by skill, and the character isn't as good as they make it seem. If results come from several people it's more likely the character is good. And of course, the more results the stronger the case.

On that note, what does everyone think about after MKLeo's big win? Leo's definitely pushing his meta; I've never seen upB setups like Leo used before. I have a Byleth secondary and am going to have to work those into my game. Leo makes Byleth look top tier but is he? Byleth is the kind of character with strong kill power and high rewards for outplaying the opponent but can struggle to do that. You have to be good at spacing tippers, although it's easier than with Marth, and compensate for Byleth's somewhat slow move set. Byleth can struggle in neutral and when being juggled but destroys opponents in advantage. Nair is a big saving grace keeping Byleth from losing neutral too hard. As such, Byleth has some rough MUs vs small opponents who can get in and stay in, vortexing him. I think there's truth to what Leo said about people not knowing the MU at Riptide. Diddy probably should beat byleth. IMO he's better than I first thought and his buffs were big improvements. Good Byleths can be scary. I wouldn't go so far as to put him in top tier though. IMO Byleth falls into the lower end of a rather large high tier.

 

[Thinkaman]

I recommend the Glitch 8.5 doubles sets; Tilde's was in great form and worked really well with sharp's . They were able to play off each other's vertical combos so well, it was a solid pairing.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

As The Grind 156 was a bit more stacked then usual due to being before a major, similarly to an MSM after a SoCal major, I'm doing results for it.

1. Maister
2. LingLing
3. ESAM
4. BigBoss
5. Zomba
5. Puppeh
7. Sandstorm
7. Chag
9. Beast
9. Mpg
9. 8BitMan
9. WebbJP
13. DDog
13. Skyjay
13. yonni
13. Jiggs
17. Kain
17. martz
17. Creepooba
17. Ferf
17. tyler
17. TheMightyDialga
17. Peanut
17. DM

Couple of things to discuss, first off, ESAM was doing very well until he faced against his two character demons, G&W and Peach. Even though he's been labbing pretty hard, it seems he still can't get past those characters. Secondly LingLing is now seemingly the best / after Samsora's ban. In recent tournaments he's only lost to two top 10 players (Sparg0 and Maister), Light (Who could also be top 10 again if he continues grinding), Elegant, Zomba and Dill. Also, DM's Pikachu flopped in tourney and basically didn't accomplish anything whatsoever compared to the Pyra/Mythra.

 

[NotLiquid]

Phase 1 pools underway for Glitch and two fairly big early upsets already happened

Nhan 2 - 1 LeoN
Bacon 2 - 1 Charliedaking

 

[The_Bookworm]

First major upset for today:

WaDi 0-2 BONK!

Don't know who WaDi played today as I wasn't watching the streams. He does move on to top 32.

Both Charliedaking and LeoN, our upsetted top players from yesterday, has successfully secured a spot at top 32.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Another few major upsets today

Cosmos 3-0 Dabuz
Chag 2-1 Dark Wizzy

 

[SKX31]

ESAM beats up MKLeo 3 - 1 , securing a top 8 spot.

Game 4 in particular was a masterpiece of pure art.

 

[The_Bookworm]

MkLeo 1-3 ESAM

After taking the first 2 games against Leo's Byleth, Leo came roaring back with Joker to win via 2 stock at game 3. ESAM narrowly won game 4. Feel like this set could've been different if Leo whiffed out the Joker earlier in the set.

This is also technically the first time ESAM has ever taken a set off of Leo's Joker, even though it was only half Joker.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Alright, will this thread now start saying Pikachu is underrated?

 

[Nemesis561]

Can't wait to see how some of yall decide to downplay Pikachu this time Very impressive for "not that great of a character" to get a win on the best player in the world. Oh and btw. Pikachu has a winning matchup on the consensus 2 best characters in the game (joker, aegis), but tell me how he's overrated because muh results

 

[Thinkaman]

Mate, the anti-Pikachu agenda is just people reading results. If Pikachu starts winning as much as Melee Fox, we'll keep reading results exactly the same.

 

[NotLiquid]

Kinda quaint that this is the second major in a row where Pink Fresh was more or less one or two hits away at taking a set against one of Ultimate's best players. His set with Leo was probably one of the most exhilarating sets of the day, along with Kola vs Zinoto.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

After getting upset early in Pools, CharlieDaKing has been on a losers bracket rampage defeating Dark Wizzy, Pink Fresh and BigBoss. He now has to face Maister to qualify for top 8. Imagine if Charlie manages to get a win of him.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

After getting upset early in Pools, CharlieDaKing has been on a losers bracket rampage defeating Dark Wizzy, Pink Fresh and BigBoss. He now has to face Maister to qualify for top 8. Imagine if Charlie manages to get a win of him.

I think every set they’ve played before went to Game 5

 

[Nemesis561]

Mate, the anti-Pikachu agenda is just people reading results. If Pikachu starts winning as much as Melee Fox, we'll keep reading results exactly the same.

Almost like a characters results won't be as good when his best rep and multiple other strong reps are not present many other characters' results wouldn't be nearly as good if you took out their best rep.

 

[NairWizard]

How much confirmation bias do you need to have to see Byleth win a tournament and go, "That's just Leo" and then see ESAM get top 8 and say "Ah, Pikachu is broken"?

Pikachu rocking Byleth says very little about the competitive relevance of either. It's just one (infrequently played) matchup, and it isn't hard to see why it's so atrocious. Byleth's neutral is based entirely on n-air mixups, and you can't n-air a Pikachu's shield regardless of when you fast fall because b-air just eats you alive OOS for free. Usually you don't have matchups where the characters involved have such polarizing tools against each other.

Joker-Pikachu looked pretty fine, though probably a slight advantage for Pikachu.

I think literally no one is saying that Pikachu is a bad character though. It's "easily top 2" claims that people are disputing. Even if ESAM wins this entire tournament, there isn't enough data to conclusively say that Pikachu is top 2 with nearly half the conviction that some people seem to have. We'll just have to see.

 

[Rran]

I think we all kinda have varying methods in which we formulate a character's ranking (e.g. matchup spread, tournament placements, etc.).

Personally--for the most part--I tend to judge a character based on how much I want to see their smug, intimidating face on the pre-battle screen: the lower they place on that list, the higher their ranking (again, for the most part) on my own personal tier list

Spoiler: 2 characters i most hate fighting against

Pikachu and Pythra

EDIT:

I think literally no one is saying that Pikachu is a bad character though. It's "easily top 2" claims that people are disputing.

Tbf, I believe someone stated a few pages back that Pikachu "isn't very good"

But regarding the crux of your post, I'm not hearing so much that Pikachu is "easily top 2," but moreso that a good number of players simply believe he's "top 2." I don't think any one character is "easily" ranked in that position--the game's simply too well balanced to make that claim. Ultimately (heh... ha... :|), what is the meaningful difference between top 2 and top 5 (or 6, or 7...), anyway?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Top 8

Winner's
ESAM vs Light
Chag vs Kola


Loser's
MkLeo vs Cosmos
Maister vs Marss


Loser's bracket is such a slugfest, while winner's is filled with players you don't see often there, especially since offline returned.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 8

Winner's
ESAM vs Light
Chag vs Kola


Loser's
MkLeo vs Cosmos
Maister vs Marss


Loser's bracket is such a slugfest, while winner's is filled with players you don't see often there, especially since offline returned.

It feels like Losers and Winners should be swapped