Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[KirbySquad101]

I'd honestly be surprised to see Luigi or Falco drop considering this is by far the best they've performed since the beginning of the game (especially considering Elegant's and Tilde's increasingly dominant performances), and I'm even more skeptic at this point about lumping them with Kazuya as the "all-advantage, no neutral" beings they're constantly propped up to be.

People will point to camping them out when they're behind as a failsafe solution to beating them, but no one seems to mentions the prelude to that strategy that requires you get a lead against them in the first place. And unless you've got camping tools on par with Belmont's whip or ZSS' Flip Jump, have fun risking your stock for that (and even then such tools aren't failsafe either considering the recent wins Elegant and Tilde got on players like Tweek and Marss respectively).

 

[Hotcakes]

Wonderwing is already a high risk move at higher level play If you block or foxtrot away fast enough, you can greatly punish Banjo, so a true Banjo main would never just spam Wonderwing, but the fact that a counter can now work against it for the first time (second time? Need to double check that on Mii Swordfighter) threw me off. Feels odd.

If I'm not mistaken, brawler's counter throw also works against wonderwing.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

If I'm not mistaken, brawler's counter throw also works against wonderwing.

Yes as it is a grab attack and grabs were told would work against Wonderwing by Sakurai in Banjo’s demonstration

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Hold the Line.

1. Zomba
2. Tilde
3. LingLing
4. Atomsk
5. PkChris
5. Suarez
7. Light
7. John Numbers
9. Scot
9. WebbJP
9. Don
9. Yoda Cage
13. Beast
13. Craftis
13. Tal
13. DM

Well we got a non-Zackray ROB who didn't just get into Top 8, but actually won a tournament. Granted, it's either a regional at worst or a super regional at best.

I'd honestly be surprised to see Luigi or Falco drop considering this is by far the best they've performed since the beginning of the game (especially considering Elegant's and Tilde's increasingly dominant performances), and I'm even more skeptic at this point about lumping them with Kazuya as the "all-advantage, no neutral" beings they're constantly propped up to be.

People will point to camping them out when they're behind as a failsafe solution to beating them, but no one seems to mentions the prelude to that strategy that requires you get a lead against them in the first place. And unless you've got camping tools on par with Belmont's whip or ZSS' Flip Jump, have fun risking your stock for that (and even then such tools aren't failsafe either considering the recent wins Elegant and Tilde got on players like Tweek and Marss respectively).

I don't think Falco's going to drop off, he's doing decently well and I stand that he's a high tier. I will say I think that Falco does have a mediocre neutral, but not one of the worst neutrals in the game like . Kazuya's neutral is pretty bad and it's really only his Crouch Dash that gives him a better neutral then Ganondorf or Incineroar. Falco has his lasers that cause stun which helps his neutral tremendously and he's generally much faster then Kazuya even if he's on the average side for ground speed and his air speed isn't as good as Wolf's to make up for it other then his great double jump height.

Edit: Larry Lurr posted about the buffs.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Falco really does have good hitboxes, several of them last long and have good coverage too, nair and utilt are pretty annoying unless you have big sword

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Seeding for Port Priority 6

1. MkLeo
2. Tweek
3. Sparg0
4. Kola
5. MVD
6. Elegant
7. Lui$
8. Chag
9. LeoN
10. Kurama
11. Fatality
12. moxi
13. Scend
14. Myran
15. Dark Wizzy
16. BigBoss
17. TonyZTank
18. Stroder
19. Javi
20. BassMage
21. Ned
22. Legit
23. joe
24. varun
25. Middy
26. Dominique
27. Skyjay
28. Remi
29. Ludo
30. Phuzix
31. Deci
32. Klaatu

Other players seeded below this are JeJaJeJa (Seed 35), EMass (Seed 42) and BONK! (Seed 43). Big gap between the top 8 seeds and everyone else. Maister's not going due to Dental Surgery and neither are Light, Marss, Dabuz or ESAM.

Oh and new OrionStats update.

OrionStats character update #4 for October. Not much shifting at the top, but Ken and Samus have a good week. Toon Link has also stopped being stagnant due to recent results out of Japan. pic.twitter.com/mem8QcwWWH

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) October 25, 2021

 

[SKX31]

I don't think Falco's going to drop off, he's doing decently well and I stand that he's a high tier. I will say I think that Falco does have a mediocre neutral, but not one of the worst neutrals in the game like . Kazuya's neutral is pretty bad and it's really only his Crouch Dash that gives him a better neutral then Ganondorf or Incineroar. Falco has his lasers that cause stun which helps his neutral tremendously and he's generally much faster then Kazuya even if he's on the average side for ground speed and his air speed isn't as good as Wolf's to make up for it other then his great double jump height.

I really feel this is being a bit premature - yeah Kazuya's neutral is not great, but he still has quite a lot of ground left to be explored and he does not neccessarily need to rely 100 % on CD in order to get anywhere. Down Tilt (Neiji Uraken) is a good example since it shifts him forward some and is a good combo starter on hit (even if it is punishable on shield). Now yes EWGF is so important to him that hitting / missing it can determine a lot, but his movepool is so large I'd imagine that his players still can find ways to compensate for the neutral or even the detrimental jumpsquat if enough time passes.

Also, it took quite a while for Elegant to get results on par with his Wii U days in Ultimate. I'm not sure entirely sure why that is the case, but I don't wanna call "Muscular Luigi" (as Protobanham's called him) out if the original Luigi was once considered a zero-to-death combo machine and not much else.

And yes I know I'm using the ever so vague and nebolous argument called "Potential" - but I think it applies to Kazuya. Just as it did to Shulk back when Ultimate released and IIRC a lot of people were not sure if he was going to stay relevant. Sure, Kazuya might wind up not reaching top tier - I'm not arguing that that's an inevitability - but there's still a lot of ground for him and his playerbase to cover.

(FWIW, Tarik got 3rd at a recent German 100-man local (Category 2) complementing his Greninja with Kazuya, in particular beating Tru4's Shulk 3-1. Not that significant, but still notable.)

Oh and new OrionStats update.

OrionStats character update #4 for October. Not much shifting at the top, but Ken and Samus have a good week. Toon Link has also stopped being stagnant due to recent results out of Japan. pic.twitter.com/mem8QcwWWH

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) October 25, 2021

So and continue to gather lots of points and in ROB's case widen the gap - it's up to almost 90 points above Roy, Other gaps remain more or less consistent.

As for FP2:

• / holding steady at 6th and gained slightly compared to - but haven't managed to catch up to as of yet,
• overtook for 15th,
• 's in a near-threeway tie but solidifying his hold on a top 20 spot.
• 's holding steady and climbed slightly, he's in that pack where 14.5 points separate 21st from 30th.
• 's continuing a slow but steady climb, he's T-44th and less then 10 points away from ,
• 's gotten his first points, but he'll probably start climbing this week onward.

Additional notes:

• The fact that , and are almost in a three way tie too is kinda amazing, especially as high up as the #8-#10.
• , and are tied at 32nd with the exact same points. Only 1.5 points away from being a four-way tie with .
• Is it just me or did make a major jump in positions? They were not 50th last time I checked.
• Skyjay's etc. successes are starting to pull upward.

(Also slight goof where is ranked #53 when he should be #56 assuming the points are correct.)

 

[NairWizard]

Characters who focus exclusively on spacing and zoning don't do so well in this meta.

The patterns of swordie dominance are a good lens through which to see this.

In an interview some months back, Protobanham mentioned that he picked up Min Min to deal with Lucina's bad matchups like Luigi and Ice Climbers. That statement should sound some alarm bells for you. Luigi? The hardest matchup for a sword zoner? Definitely doesn't sound normal.

You can see the same kind of reasoning in MKLeo's character choices. He was using Ike, and then what happened? Lost to Nairo's Palutena and switched to Lucina. Then his Lucina dropped to Tweek's Wario, typically a character who struggles with being outranged, and later ESAM's Pikachu, another character often touted as having low range, and Leo transitioned to using Joker, who is not an exclusively zoning/spacing character. It's clear that traditional sword zoning wasn't really working, if the characters most vulnerable to it weren't losing.

Fast-forward to today, and the swordies who have taken over at the very highest level are Roy and Byleth. But why? What do Roy and Byleth have in common. As I see it, two things:

1) Super strong advantage checkmates. Byleth's gameplan isn't to space you out with f-airs and b-airs, it's to kill you with up-b after conditioning you to DI poorly, and don't let the Byleths convince you otherwise. Similarly, Roy's real gameplan is to set you up for a d-tilt tech-chase and kill you sub-80, not to repeatedly pressure your shield with f-air until he can eke out an advantaged position and ledgetrap/juggle you.

2) Strong close-range option. For Byleth, it's n-air. For Roy, it's jab. When the spacing plan fails, these characters don't retreat. They follow the gameplan in #1 all the way through with their close-range options, continuing to condition you long after they've stopped zoning you.

Most other sword zoners have one of these but not the other. Ike has advantage checkmates, but not a strong up-close option. Lucina has up-b at close range, but no advantage checkmates.

Traditional projectile zoners are in the same boat. Who are the best projectile zoners? Snake and ROB, and even Pacman at top level, all characters with strong close-range options (Snake's tilts, ROB's d-tilt, Pacman's everything) and broadly applicable advantage-state checkmates (Nikita/up-smash setups, ROB side-b, Pacman Bell).

 

[sleepy_Nex]

You should definitely switch byleth with Pythra/Aegis there.

Byleths main gameplan certainly is not cheesing you with upb considering that di'ing it is reactable. Also while nair is good it's still unsafe on shield and can be easily whiffpunished like Palu nair because byleth lacks the airspeed to threaten enough space with it in neutral. It's very good oos because of byleths low jump but you can also outspace it.

It's not even like byleth likes to approach like a roy because her approach sux. She is forced to do so often though because a frame44 projectile doesn't help in neutral.

 

[toonito]

Seeding for Port Priority 6

1. MkLeo
2. Tweek
3. Sparg0
4. Kola
5. MVD
6. Elegant
7. Lui$
8. Chag
9. LeoN
10. Kurama
11. Fatality
12. moxi
13. Scend
14. Myran
15. Dark Wizzy
16. BigBoss
17. TonyZTank
18. Stroder
19. Javi
20. BassMage
21. Ned
22. Legit
23. joe
24. varun
25. Middy
26. Dominique
27. Skyjay
28. Remi
29. Ludo
30. Phuzix
31. Deci
32. Klaatu

Other players seeded below this are JeJaJeJa (Seed 35), EMass (Seed 42) and BONK! (Seed 43). Big gap between the top 8 seeds and everyone else. Maister's not going due to Dental Surgery and neither are Light, Marss, Dabuz or ESAM.

Oh and new OrionStats update.

OrionStats character update #4 for October. Not much shifting at the top, but Ken and Samus have a good week. Toon Link has also stopped being stagnant due to recent results out of Japan. pic.twitter.com/mem8QcwWWH

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) October 25, 2021

biggest gain = +10
biggest drop = -4

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

You should definitely switch byleth with Pythra/Aegis there.

Byleths main gameplan certainly is not cheesing you with upb considering that di'ing it is reactable. Also while nair is good it's still unsafe on shield and can be easily whiffpunished like Palu nair because byleth lacks the airspeed to threaten enough space with it in neutral. It's very good oos because of byleths low jump but you can also outspace it.

It's not even like byleth likes to approach like a roy because her approach sux. She is forced to do so often though because a frame44 projectile doesn't help in neutral.

Feels weird for him to ignore Lucina still doing well at the moment too and then put focus on Byleth when Byleth's results are only carried by MkLeo.

 

[blackghost]

Sora will be good

Kazuya is still a gimmick

And if the game were to be left off as is balance wise... well I wouldn't be thrilled, but I'd be more than satisfied

Define gimmick. smash players dont us ethat word the same ever. Kazyu is not a gimmick in the traditional sense everytime you lose to one you should one exactly what went wrong.

and IDK where all this doubt for kazuya comes from. The character is already outplacing many others and his top players havent had much time to really dive into everything he has to offer. As for his nuetral having an invicible dash and several incibile and safe moves and the threat fo a reflector doesnt put you on gannon or incin low level of nuetral. also due to the stage list restrictions the jump squat really doesnt matter as much as people liek to claim. right now the only thing holding back kazuya are the players execution and familiarity with the character. He's in a much different space than a character like banjo is whose limitations are clearly producing a ceiling on the character.

 

[PK Gaming]

Define gimmick. smash players dont us ethat word the same ever. Kazyu is not a gimmick in the traditional sense everytime you lose to one you should one exactly what went wrong.

and IDK where all this doubt for kazuya comes from. The character is already outplacing many others and his top players havent had much time to really dive into everything he has to offer. As for his nuetral having an invicible dash and several incibile and safe moves and the threat fo a reflector doesnt put you on gannon or incin low level of nuetral. also due to the stage list restrictions the jump squat really doesnt matter as much as people liek to claim. right now the only thing holding back kazuya are the players execution and familiarity with the character. He's in a much different space than a character like banjo is whose limitations are clearly producing a ceiling on the character.

Gimmick in the traditional sense. He plays differently from most characters and his whole pros and cons, but I don't find him particularly effective in the long run. Devastating if you're unaware of the matchup and /or using a certain character, but that's about it.

I could be very wrong though.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

My lack of faith in Kazuya is because Kazuya mains themselves don't have faith in the character (Brr and Riddles saying some matchups are basically unwinnable) and that the character has had generally poor results recently. AxiomXL and Riddles both got 33rd at Smash Con Fall Fest, with Riddles also underperforming at The Pinnacle 2021 for his actual seeding, to the point where Riddles is picking up Roy as a secondary. Nothing atm is suggesting the character is going to some big meta threat, there's been not a single Kazuya getting into top 8 of a major/supermajor and he's doing as well as Richter (who people consider a mid tier) on OrionStats rn.

The average results, combined with the average matchup charts/theorycrafting make this character seem a low high tier, which to me is like top 35 because there's a lot of good characters in this game.

If you want even more proof, Tea's was getting platform camped by HIKARU's Donkey Kong at Maesuma TOP 6. ****ING DONKEY KONG, a character that is considered to be a low tier, and not great at platform camping.

It doesn't matter if one hit from Kazuya = death when he struggles to get the hit in the first place.

 

[Sucumbio]

The problem with Kazuya is being forced to approach. His kit is clearly bait and punish and today's top Kazuya mains do an excellent job punishing when they don't miss inputs. Players have to approach in unconventional ways with Kazuya and it's becoming apparent Ultimate has a way of keeping strategies for approaches favoring characters with better aerial movement.

 

[NairWizard]

Byleth n-air is easy to whiff-punish depending on how the Byleth uses it.

Byleth is quite threatening at midrange, with f-air, b-air, instant dash attack that can low profile aerials, and d-tilt. If the opponent can't space outside of that range (like projectile zoners, Sephiroth, and Min Min can), then they have to quickly make their way inside once Byleth is in that position. That's when n-air becomes a good neutral tool. The opponent can't really whiff-punish n-air while approaching, there has to be some degree of fadeback.

For that reason, Byleth shouldn't be approaching with n-air. Byleth should be approaching with the intent to space at midrange, and then when that plan is likely to fail (opponent is in dash shield range, or opponent is narrowing in aerially), Byleth n-air opens up to a world of possibilities. There are enough fast-fall mixups that while punishing OOS is possible, it's not always guaranteed, unless you're Pikachu (small so some fastfall mixups don't work and has a super threatening b-air OOS) or Game and Watch.

In this regard, Byleth differs from other sword zoners like Ike because when someone penetrates their midrange spacing bubble, the other zoners have to try to retreat to make space to do it again. Byleth has a fallback.

Pyra and Mythra are an interesting case of being severely overrated, but I'm focusing on Byleth because the best player with the best results right now is almost solo-maining the character. I don't have much long-term faith in Byleth and I think the meta will steer away from them (e.g., I'd favor Tweek at Port Priority here), but it's hard to ignore what's in front of us right now.

For Lucina, while it's true that Lucina deserves consideration as a rising meta star, it's very notable that the matchups in which her best rep doesn't use her are the ones in which you'd expect her archetype to excel. On the flipside, you see Proto using Lucina against Sheik, whom you'd expect to beat Lucina's archetype cleanly.

The big-picture pattern is that to succeed as zoners in this meta, sword-zoners and projectile-zoners both typically need a fallback close-range plan as well as the ability to take stocks quickly in advantage (often using that close-range "fallback"--you have to wonder at some point how much of a fallback it is when your KOs are coming from it).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Riddles posted a video explaining his thoughts on his Kazuya matchup chart

 

[SKX31]

So Kagaribi 5 released its seeding, and it's 128 man deep:

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/qgy1m2

• Apparently Tea picked up as at least a secondary. Edit: Thank you The_Bookworm for the correction.
• Proto's seeded to fight Tsu / Nietono, Yoshidora / Kome and HERO / Atelier.
• Tea meanwhile has the Sigma / Paseriman, Shuton / Gackt and Zackray / KEN gauntlet.
• Other potential clashes to look out for include: Akakikusu vs. Etsuji, Kameme vs. tk3, Kome vs. Eim (unless I'm completely misreading this)

 

[Nobie]

Discussing characters who specialize in mid to long-range zoning and their place in the meta, I actually think they're the ones who are going to give Sora trouble. The characters who wind up doing the best are probably gonna be those who can zone well AND can scrap adequately up close (Samus), but Sora's approach isn't great. Serviceable, yes, but not much beyond that.

When I watch matches, it just looks like people let Sora in, or they're using the kind of character who WANTS to be fairly close to fight Sora.

From a Mewtwo pov, I can't see the matchup being awful. While Mewtwo is combo food, it also jumps higher and faster AND farther than Sora, and has both a superior projectile and better mobility stats overall, with comparable frame data on normals.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Btw, with Riddles currently focusing on and a few other characters like , I am quite a bit worried for 's meta.

When you think about it, it is only really Riddles that was singlehandely pushing Terry's meta. The other three FGC characters are currently receiving more attention than him by the playerbase that plays FGC characters.

He hasn't dropped Terry per say, but it is definitely not much of a focus for him right now + he hasn't used him much as of late, and since he was the only person that is really pushing Terry's meta, that will really hurt Terry's standing in the meta in the long run in my opinion.

• Apparently Tea picked up as at least a secondary. Makes quite a lot of sense intuitively akin to people having to prep for Proto's Lucina / Min Min combination -also, Kazuya might help to cover some MUs Tea etc. see as rough for Pac-Man ( , , , ).

That is... not new news. We have known about the Kazuya secondary ever since Temple: Hermes Edition almost two months back.

 

[Idon]

Discussing characters who specialize in mid to long-range zoning and their place in the meta, I actually think they're the ones who are going to give Sora trouble. The characters who wind up doing the best are probably gonna be those who can zone well AND can scrap adequately up close (Samus), but Sora's approach isn't great. Serviceable, yes, but not much beyond that.

When I watch matches, it just looks like people let Sora in, or they're using the kind of character who WANTS to be fairly close to fight Sora.

From a Mewtwo pov, I can't see the matchup being awful. While Mewtwo is combo food, it also jumps higher and faster AND farther than Sora, and has both a superior projectile and better mobility stats overall, with comparable frame data on normals.

Yeah my Sora has a bit of trouble with projectiles that are essentially just "giant slow moving walls."

His grounded and air mobility (including the overall floatiness and 'psychic' double jump) simply isn't enough to out-maneuver the projectiles and Side B has zero priority despite the blade being in front meaning it is pretty easily beaten out by anything, not to mention the inherent risk it carries with its stacking endlag the more you dash.

Once he gets in, he can do all his aerial nair/fair nonsense and all that but otherwise it's quite an uphill battle until he actually "gets in."

 

[NairWizard]

Is there a comprehensive list of how to SDI various extended combos, like Bayonetta combos or MK ladders? Or even just Bayonetta. I have no idea and it's driving me insane every time I play one in friendlies.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Is there a comprehrensive list of how to SDI various extended combos, like Bayonetta combos or MK ladders? Or even just Bayonetta. I have no idea and it's driving me insane every time I play one in friendlies.

For , it usually depends on which part you get hit by Witch Twist. For normal circumstances, I actually SDI/DI Witch Twist down and away. This is even more effective pre-8.0.0 before they lowered the SDI multiplier on Witch Twist, but it still works today. If you get hit by the upper portion of Witch Twist, DI/SDI'ing up and away from Bayo is usually the key there. Unlike in SSB4, rage doesn't scale with autolink angle moves, so you are at a much less risk of randomly dying off the top to SDI'ing off of Witch Twist.

It is actually extremely hard for one to legitimately escape Witch Twist in Ultimate with SDI. When people fall of Witch Twist during a combo, it just kinda happens whenever it wants to. SDI/DI does influence her combo routes greatly however, but don't try to break your control stick over it.

For ABK, I actually DI down and towards Bayo's starting position. This is surprisingly effective to disrupt ABK combos I find.

I don't know where you can find comprehensive list on how to DI/SDI Bayo's moves sadly.

I don't get hit by combos enough to know how to get out of his combos, but my hunch would be to simply mix up your DI/SDI.

 

[Rizen]

Fun facts about : his jab 1 hits above him first then travels down in front so he's not actually hitting in front of him on frame 5 making it worse than the frame data suggests. He has a pretty sluggish boxing game. Sora's so floaty that he can jump out of Wolf's Dthrow without hitting the ground and being comboed by DA.
Sora - Ultimate Frame Data

 

[Aaron1997]

BTW Raito is all in with now. Only uses DH vs a hand full of characters now.

 

[TennisBall]

Is there a comprehensive list of how to SDI various extended combos, like Bayonetta combos or MK ladders? Or even just Bayonetta. I have no idea and it's driving me insane every time I play one in friendlies.

most reliable is asking the charactercord of the character u need to know it vs

 

[Cheryl~]

BTW Raito is all in with now. Only uses DH vs a hand full of characters now.

Interesting considering everyone's opinions of Banjo have only seemed to have gotten lower as the game's gone on. Not that Duck Hunt is amazing or... even very good in the first place, but I feel like he'd have a bit more stuff than Banjo.

 

[Idon]

Interesting considering everyone's opinions of Banjo have only seemed to have gotten lower as the game's gone on. Not that Duck Hunt is amazing or... even very good in the first place, but I feel like he'd have a bit more stuff than Banjo.

Yeah Duck Hunt's not spectacular as a character or anything but he does have the can. I don't know what Banjo has that comes close to that move's utility.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

So you know how a couple of weeks ago Sparg0 said he was playing Byleth? We got to see it in action at this Lunch Box wifi tourney before Port Priority 6.

1. WaKa
2. Sparg0
3. Sonix
4. naitosharp
5. ShinyMark
5. SuperGirlKels
7. ven
7. WaDi

Obviously it is wifi so it's not as good as offline events, but we could still attempt to compare Leo's to Sparg0's and discuss the similarities and differences.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

BTW Raito is all in with now. Only uses DH vs a hand full of characters now.

I’m glad. Banjo’s a bit underrated as a lot of people picked him up, played him wrong, wrote him off, and moved on. I think it makes since that a player like Raito would pick him up, as the duo has an interesting zoning game, but with better up close options thank the Dog and Bird.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for WINNER! #4

Zackray's Sora is levelling up after he got 3-0'd by Paseriman last week at an invitational using the character. I'm presuming he's going to be using , and at Kagaribi 5 as he seems to be really serious on trying the character out compared to other DLC characters aside from .
1. Shuton
2. Zackray
3. Mao
4. Umeki
5. shky
5. Raito
7. Paseriman
7. HIKARU

 

[NotLiquid]

The way I see it, Duck Hunt is a zoner who's extremely liable to get out-zoned himself the moment his setplay fails him, and considering how meticulous and lengthy it is to set up his brand of disaster dominos, that's especially bad for him to put up with given where the meta is headed. Trick Shot is his most versatile move, and it's a double edged sword practically all the time. It carries the character much the same way Plant is carried by Ptooie, but the risk/reward states are far more lopsided. If none of his projectiles work, he's quite literally a sitting duck most of the time. It was already brought up earlier that focusing on pure spacing/zoning is less than ideal, and in that sense there's characters like Snake on the roster that fulfill basically every niche Duck Hunt would hope to cover but with far more optimal coverage.

I hesitate to call Banjo an unequivocally great character that can keep up with the upper ends of the cast, but in most situations he has a much easier and flexible time to play in neutral. He's forced to be an "aggressive camper" much of the time yet his ability to engage/disengage between his consistent moves and solid vertical mobility is fairly understated, even though his horizontal burst is somewhat lacking. For Raito's playstyle, I think Banjo is more than adequate that he'd get the most out of the character's unique cancels and stymieing pressure. The big thing Banjo loses compared to Duck Hunt is a better grab game.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I agree, considering some of Banjo’s best KO options come out of his throws, his grab game is his biggest flaw design that could be and should be fixed in future patches

 

[Rizen]

The way I see it, Duck Hunt is a zoner who's extremely liable to get out-zoned himself the moment his setplay fails him, and considering how meticulous and lengthy it is to set up his brand of disaster dominos, that's especially bad for him to put up with given where the meta is headed. Trick Shot is his most versatile move, and it's a double edged sword practically all the time. It carries the character much the same way Plant is carried by Ptooie, but the risk/reward states are far more lopsided. If none of his projectiles work, he's quite literally a sitting duck most of the time. It was already brought up earlier that focusing on pure spacing/zoning is less than ideal, and in that sense there's characters like Snake on the roster that fulfill basically every niche Duck Hunt would hope to cover but with far more optimal coverage.

I hesitate to call Banjo an unequivocally great character that can keep up with the upper ends of the cast, but in most situations he has a much easier and flexible time to play in neutral. He's forced to be an "aggressive camper" much of the time yet his ability to engage/disengage between his consistent moves and solid vertical mobility is fairly understated, even though his horizontal burst is somewhat lacking. For Raito's playstyle, I think Banjo is more than adequate that he'd get the most out of the character's unique cancels and stymieing pressure. The big thing Banjo loses compared to Duck Hunt is a better grab game.

I agree with this. has a pretty good MU vs for example because YL's projectile game is better. DH's camping is more about setting up walls for the opponent to get over but YL can shoot his projectiles through and around that with little risk. When DH gets shut down they don't have very good options.

is kind of like DLC DH in the sense that he does basically what DH does but with some better options and a big, invulnerable DLC nuke attack in wonder wing. Similarly Terry is like DLC shotos, doing what they can do but also gets powerful Go! moves.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Duck Hunt Dog is just depressingly underpowered overall. Could use a lot of buffs to a lot of moves. The character sucks if the opponent knows what to do. Banjo is better. With Banjo it's just wonder wing that's depressingly bad considering it's obviously supposed to be really good given it's limited uses. With the end lag it has there's no reason for it to even have limited uses.

 

[WatwatBreton]

Duck Hunt is... weird. I'm not entiiirely an expert on the character (I just play a local dhd fairly often) but from what I saw of my games and other people playing him he's just completely hopeless without can lol. If it ever gets stuck on a plat somewhere you can just unga bunga him and you'll probably have better risk/reward on anything you do. His recovery is also kinda disastrous, the only thing not making it a free edgegard every time is... can (again!).

I'm not sure he likes DLCs either, swords are a nice tool to have in the matchup coz you can hit can to deflect it/just button at him for free. Maybe he can deal with sephiroth coz he's light and covers less angles than most swordies? But anytime I try to think about how his mu against pythra would look like I just see blood lol, I'm curious on whether anyone witness that matchup.

I heard he beats samus coz can > charge shot though. Funny how zoner toolkits interact (he however gets murdered by Megaman, metal blade just wins).

Can't speak to why Raito prefers Banjo nowadays (he might just like bears), but if I had to predict I'd say that playing 4D can chess in every matchup for middling results might be less appealing in the long term than a character that's less reliant on his neutral b for... everything. Pretty bad for the character reps though, I haven't looked at orion stats lately but I assume he's already fairly low there.

 

[Cheryl~]

I love Raito but he is definitely held back by liking setplay mid tiers in every game he plays lol. Imagine his skill on a better trapper-zoner type, like Snake or even better, R.O.B.. A Raito R.O.B. would be pretty damn nasty.

 

[KirbySquad101]

From what I've gathered from other tweets and posts (courtesy mainly of Reddit's Bootikens and PLOXYPRO), what's drawing Raito to Banjo currently over DH is twofold:

• Raito dislikes DH's weak get-up options and vulnerable recovery compared to Banjo's, who has a fairly well-equipped ledge game along with a versatile mix of recovery options.
• Playing as DH for prolonged amounts of time in a tournament setting is stressful considering the character's setplay and the ease of the character SD'ing offstage to one simple mistake. In comparison, he doesn't find Banjo nearly as punishing for screwing up, and as a whole, finds him more suitable for tournament play.

While I don't think very highly of Banjo (I'd honestly go as far as to consider him a potential bottom 10 candidate), I think the element of execution of play is an angle to ponder over. When a character that even at his peak (at least the one we've witnessed) is muddling endlessly between Top 48 and Top 16 and is as demanding as a character like DH, it would make sense to go for an alternative that isn't as mentally taxing to play, especially in a prolonged setting such as majors.

I'm definitely hoping Raito can prove me wrong on Banjo, it's been quite a long while since the character hasn't been in the shadow of other more successful Smash Ultimate DLC characters.

 

[The_Bookworm]

When a character that even at his peak (at least the one we've witnessed) is muddling endlessly between Top 48 and Top 16 and is as demanding as a character like DH, it would make sense to go for an alternative that isn't as mentally taxing to play, especially in a prolonged setting such as majors.

His results hasn't been very consistent as of late, but there was a time era where he was getting amazing results with solo Duck Hunt.

During most of 2019, he was getting consistent high placements at major events, chief among-them was a 5th placement at EVO 2019. He ended up being ranked as 20th on the Spring 2019 PGRU and 17th on the Fall 2019 PGRU. There was a time period were Duck Hunt was considered much more highly than they are now.

This momentum doesn't seem to be kept in the post-quarantine era though.

 

[DougEfresh]

It's going to be interesting to see how Raito may change the perception of Banjo if he does in fact commit to using him as a main in the long-term instead of a rare secondary for DH. While there are a couple active mains that do well regionally (TearBear in SoCal and Owlbbs in UK, the latter of which is currently best Banjo main in the world imo), neither have (to my knowledge, anyway) traveled to majors or super majors much if at all to truly showcase what the character is capable of.

The way I see it, Banjo is held back in a similar way to , but less dramatically: his kit is actually pretty solid, but it comes with rather sluggish mobility stats that can diminish how effectively that kit can be applied. But unlike the big buff cat, Banjo at least has his projectiles to force approaches and condition opponents, which alleviates the burden of his horrid air speed and sucky initial dash that, if even marginally better, would make his horizontal burst range significantly better.

Banjo's low damage output can definitely be a liability, but his frame trapping ability with uairs and nairs, corner pressure, and edgeguarding can be so free and potent against a decent chunk of the cast that his low damage output almost doesn't matter as long as you get stage control. I think getting a handle on the various creative ways Banjo can do all these things takes time, but puts him firmly in mid tier conservatively, and even upper mid tier/lower high tier reasonably (especially with KFC kill confirms into fsmash and WW mastered, which I believe actually can be possible with a top 20 PGR player).

At any rate, it'll be intriguing (if not exciting) to see what Raito comes up with using his prior expert set play and trapping game from using DH, but having more survivability with Banjo's weight and more disjoints to space out opponents (especially in MUs with using grenegg and egg shot/breegull blaster isn't as viable in neutral). Might be a long time before we see anything come to fruition since international competition at super majors again seems like a far way off from now, but with no more DLC left to be added to the game, I'm down for some meta shake-ups and greater character diversity being represented in high level competitive play!