Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Kokiden]

its partially speed and paetially this character didnt truly start at zero he started at like -100 in perception. People watched sakurai play (he lost to the AI i think or it was close) and people didnt want byleth like vocally. so a character that didnt have a storng showing that wasnt well recived and by extension never got a fair chance in many players eyes. I saw a short on youtube of mars playing byleth and him being outright shocked at what byleth could do. i dont think many players even have tried learning byleth.

Ah I see.

I gave them a go when they first dropped, and even though I didn't really want more FE characters, Byleth was good in my eyes even back then. They've got a lot to work with.

The series gets flack for being overrepresented (I do still think that), but I gotta give props to Byleth for playing differently compared to the other FE characters.

 

[Nah]

Then again, I have no idea why the she is performing so well. Mythra doesn't do that well against sheilds, and Pyra is just bad in general for the most part.

As much as I don't care for the "Aegis is the new " train people have superglued themselves to, if Pyra really was overall bad, people wouldn't consider getting on that train in the first place, Mythra likely could not hit top 3 (or arguably even top tier) on her own.

There's long been a loose correlation between speed (in terms of both frame data and mobility) and viability, with Ganondorf long acting as the poster child for being slow not working out, as he's been mediocre at best in ever game he's been in, and usually ends up being more like low or bottom tier. But it's also still just a loose association, and so things are a little more complicated than that. The question to me pre-release was "will Pyra be dead weight like Zelda was back when Zelda+Shiek were a duo?". Wasn't any way to be certain before release day, trailer footage has very limited use, but by the end of week 1 it seemed clear enough that, no, Pyra is not useless, and so Aegis is top tier.

What's Pythra's biggest strength and a part of the reason why they're so successful is that you're playing two solid, functional characters and can quickly switch between them. This is kind of to be expected though, since having more options/a complete toolkit at your disposal is very helpful for probably obvious reasons, especially in a series where a lot of the cast usually doesn't--and I don't know why anybody expects anybody to succeed in literally anything when they don't have all the tools they need. Pretty much any character would be a lot better if they could instantly switch to another mid-battle really. Imagine if, like, idk, Mac could switch to [insert character that handles something that Mac doesn't like here] or something.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Charles said on the latest Tweek Talks podcast (that happened 2 days ago) that he thinks Pyra is seriously underrated in the community. You need a good Pyra to have a good Aegis as a whole, Cosmos's Aegis only started looking really strong when he levelled up his Pyra after Mainstage, and Sparg0's Aegis is the best and is the one who understands how to use both characters simultaneously.
(Here is a link, it's on EE's channel as Tweek is taking a break)

 

[Myollnir]

would be terrible on her own, but works because she's an extension of 's advantage state. This is directly tied to the fact that DownB only takes 32 frames. This is in no way comparable to the / situation where you couldn't switch just for a specific situation (or switch back if things didn't go your way).
I'd argue that would be one of the absolute worst characters in the game, but she's a great DownB.

 

[Aligo]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. I would agree that Pyra is probably the worst character in a vacuum, but is a lot more effective in practice as she is generally ultilized in advantage or other specific scenarios, helping to nullify her substantial shortcomings. Now that I think about it, a transformation character with a fast swap and characters with better options would be overwhelming.

 

[PK Gaming]

Pyra is absolutely not the worst character by herself and that's the crux is problem, haha.

She has her flaws mitigated by Mythra and vice versa, but the reason Aegis is a problem is due to how effective Pyra is during advantage. Mythra wouldn't be nearly as good if she was tethered to Ganondorf

 

[Sucumbio]

Pyra is absolutely not the worst character by herself and that's the crux is problem, haha.

This.

Solo Pyra is mid tier really due to her recovery and I feel Solo Mythra is lowest high tier or top mid with Foresight and super strong neutral. Her kill options and recovery put her outside of true high tier. But put them together and the only options left are hard reads and trying for gimps. Which is what I expect players to do to deal with her in tournament.

 

[Arthur97]

I do kinda agree that the Byleths did not get a super fair start. Far too much bias from influencers (which also kinda help keep the Aegis is gonna kill the game thing going). However, really, outside of Marth, Roy, Lucina, and Chrom, they're all pretty different. Even then, try playing Marth like Roy and see how far that gets you. I mean, even looking at Marth and Lucina it shows what such a minor change can mean even if I want more out of Lucina.

 

[NairWizard]

I saw a short on youtube of mars playing byleth and him being outright shocked at what byleth could do. i dont think many players even have tried learning byleth.

I think this is why (arguments like these) I have trouble taking the Byleth is top tier bandwagon seriously. If Marss knows so little about Byleth that he's playing Byleth and then getting shocked by what Byleth can do, how on earth do you expect him to be counterplaying Byleth? I'm very surprised to see this argument in particular from you, blackghost, given how little Bayonetta counterplay was ever developed in S4.

You're right, though, few understand what Byleth is capable of, and Leo keeps getting away with a lot that he shouldn't be. We literally see it every tourney, half of his opponents don't even realize that his up-b prioritizes ledge and so just let him recover for free (you can even see some top players like Nairo talk about how badly people play this part of the MU on his stream).

This.

Solo Pyra is mid tier really due to her recovery and I feel Solo Mythra is lowest high tier or top mid with Foresight and super strong neutral. Her kill options and recovery put her outside of true high tier. But put them together and the only options left are hard reads and trying for gimps. Which is what I expect players to do to deal with her in tournament.

Agree.

A good point of comparison for Pyra is probably Ike. Ike has big arcing hitboxes and is generally slow. Compared to Ike, Pyra has:

• Faster CQC (f3 jab vs. f4, better grab)
• Better ledgetrapping
• More active hitboxes with better arcs for e.g., sniping short hops without commitment
• A way better dashgrab against run-in shield
• Better OOS game thanks to up-b
• An actual projectile for some matchups where it's helpful to have a hitbox to throw across stage
• Better platform camping with d-air (Ike isn't bad at camping the platform against short-ranged characters, so this is a notable strength)
• Way better landing normals (d-air and n-air are better than Ike n-air, even taking into account Ike side-b mixups; Pyra n-air sometimes just reversals you)
• Better tools to get off of ledge (side-b/f-air), though to be fair Ike can sometimes avoid even having to try by side-bing high to recover

Ike has better base stats (slightly better walk/run/dash speed; way better gravity/short hop fastfall timing), and a better recovery (without Mythra), so it's not a blowout by any means, but it's pretty easy to see that if Ike isn't the worst character, solo Pyra isn't either, of course assuming that you gave her any functional down-b to replace not being able to swap to Mythra, or just allowed her to swap for recovery/landing only (without using Mythra hitboxes, that is).

Pyra is around bottom tier without swap for recovery; allow yourself swap, and Pyra is around high tier by herself. Mythra is also high tier in the same way (allow yourself swap to recover/get out of disadvantage). Sakurai said that one of the design goals was to enable you to use both independently. I think they achieved that.

 

[blackghost]

This.

Solo Pyra is mid tier really due to her recovery and I feel Solo Mythra is lowest high tier or top mid with Foresight and super strong neutral. Her kill options and recovery put her outside of true high tier. But put them together and the only options left are hard reads and trying for gimps. Which is what I expect players to do to deal with her in tournament.

I'm with you . pyra would actually be fine as a solo character. she wouldnt be some showstopper amazing character but kill power like that and a solid array of buttons she'd be fine. her recovery would screw her viability up in high level. shes a better ike in a vacuum. and thats a solid place to be. as long as her new down b special itsnt melee sing shhe only gets better.

mythra would be a character that has to paper cut you to death and it wouldnt work. same reason it doesnt work for shiek. Charactersm with killing problems dont do well in ultimate on consistency.

I do kinda agree that the Byleths did not get a super fair start. Far too much bias from influencers (which also kinda help keep the Aegis is gonna kill the game thing going). However, really, outside of Marth, Roy, Lucina, and Chrom, they're all pretty different. Even then, try playing Marth like Roy and see how far that gets you. I mean, even looking at Marth and Lucina it shows what such a minor change can mean even if I want more out of Lucina.

and thats the funny part FE got inflated because this community begged for chrom and roy to get in. the FE characters the creator wanted are all very unique characters. byleth and robin do the best job demonstrating FE. marth is just the OG.

 

[Thinkaman]

Glad I didn't have to type all that about Pyra = Alter-Ike.

Passing Christmas thoughts, let's see:

• I think people keep overlooking that Sparg0's did better in the aegis matchup than running the ditto, even if it lost set 2. All this talk about Byleth and Aegis, when we gonna talk about this third character that is just as much in the mix?
• Unless it's about Aegis comparisons to of course. On one hand, good, S4 Cloud is the vastly better analogy than S4 Bayo. (Which is an absurd comparison, but everyone seems to know that.) But on the other hand, S4 Cloud vs. Aegis is still a little forced. S4 Cloud was an incredibly easy character to pick up; Mythra requires way more precision, Pyra requires a bit tighter reads, and performing at a high level requires both. Like they ain't Kazuya, but it's not the easiest character in the universe either.
• I actually don't think the odds of a closing 1.1.6-style Aegis-only bonus patch are 0%, though I don't think it's likely. Just because the balance team is no longer meeting regularly (essentially disbanded), and no further balance work was scheduled, does not preclude the absolute possibility of changes. If there is a sentiment that something should be changed while they push out amiibo support, whether it's a bug or balance, no one is going to put them in jail for doing so.
• Not sure how anyone can have watched Proto's performance and been like "Yeah, this character is trash now."
  • We also should have crossed the point of accepting that is really really good with zero qualifiers, buts, or hedging.
• The biggest tragedy is that no one paid any attention to the (completely unstreamed?) Squad Strike and doubles brackets. Lui$ took the former, while Justice and Mystery Sol (Min Min & Incineroar?) took doubles.
  • On one hand, participants were mostly LCQ losers who didn't have to compete against the "top 40" players in the world in these events. On the other hand, it was still stacked, basically a North America who's who of everyone just outside that limit, including ESAM. Both events were like the world's toughest Arcadian, and a fascinating glimpse into an alternate universe where we took away the top ~50 players as outliers for a weekend.

NairWizard already spoiled that privately I mentioned a few weeks ago (pre-patch) I would have nerfed Pyra tilts; I think that (Pyra ledge strength) is what most maximizes their combined value. I might also nerf Mythra u-smash (and f-smash, which they did), if I wanted to be more even. I think nerfing Pyra aerial startup or landing would be more effective and surgical, but would serve more to nerf just Pyra individually which isn't anyone's desire afaik.

I agree with judgements that Mythra and Pyra aren't great individually. (I mean how does Mythra kill consistently? U-smash? Her damage is amazing 0-50%, but beyond that it's not good enough if she has to kill at 150%+...) Hell, forget the other character, just swap itself is one of the only things keeping either of their recoveries functional.

But they aren't the worst character in the game either. Solo-Pyra is probably worse than Ike, but not by all that much; mostly just more polarized matchups than anything. Solo-Mythra remains plenty functional in the hands of a precise player who can brute force her neutral advantage and just win more interactions by whatever handicap the matchup requires. (And in matchups where she can gimp opponents as much as they can her, it's game on.)

Abrupt change of topic: Whatever happened to ?

 

[Arthur97]

I'm with you . pyra would actually be fine as a solo character. she wouldnt be some showstopper amazing character but kill power like that and a solid array of buttons she'd be fine. her recovery would screw her viability up in high level. shes a better ike in a vacuum. and thats a solid place to be. as long as her new down b special itsnt melee sing shhe only gets better.

mythra would be a character that has to paper cut you to death and it wouldnt work. same reason it doesnt work for shiek. Charactersm with killing problems dont do well in ultimate on consistency.



and thats the funny part FE got inflated because this community begged for chrom and roy to get in. the FE characters the creator wanted are all very unique characters. byleth and robin do the best job demonstrating FE. marth is just the OG.

I think Roy adds enough. He's different enough, and the rankings should demonstrate that enough. Chrom isn't super unique, but it should be noted that Chrom and Lucina are the only echoes outside Ken who have significant difference in their ability to the originals. More so Lucina to Marth, but its there. As far as echoes go they are fine inclusions of minimal effort (again, I wish they had more effort, particularly Lucina, but what can I do?). They're obviously still clones, but even then they aren't as bad as say, Daisy gameplay wise. However, in a community where people think Ike is too similar to Marth, what are you supposed to do other than ignore the haters?

 

[PK Gaming]

Abrupt change of topic: Whatever happened to ?

Sora's definitely got a ton of promise, I just think it's incredibly difficult to build yourself using a brand new character in this incredibly demanding metagame right now. You sacrifice so much by picking up Sora and grinding out those matchups (comparatively, Mkleo had a much easier time picking up Joker back when he came out). I don't think Sora is DLC enough to muscle his way through some of the metagame staples either.

That said, Sora just feels... good to play, at least for me. Definitely annoyingly floaty, but he's so good at building up damage, and not too shabby when it comes to KOing.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Abrupt change of topic: Whatever happened to ?

Zackray doesn't seem to want to play him anymore (Has been going and at weeklies after EPI 2), the Japanese Sora players didn't attend SWT other then Lea who went solo Greninja and Aaron wasn't able to qualify to the main SWT bracket as he didn't make top 8 at the LCQ.

That might be the fastest a character has fallen off, going from winning a supermajor to being seen very rarely in about a month and a half. I think he's strong, but not enough to be a meta defining character. Plus there's just better sword characters.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Final OrionStats update of the year.

Final character update for the year! R.O.B closes out at a 100 point lead, Pyra skyrockets, Sonic forms a gap between 8th and 9th, and Young Link moves from 25th to 18th. pic.twitter.com/iW9j7rfR5J

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

 

[blackghost]

Abrupt change of topic: Whatever happened to ?

I'll say it: i was wrong on this guy. i don't think he'll be relevant. And i don't think he's very good.

i'll die on the hill thinking sepiroth and kazuya are good and elite charatcers. but im not seeing any glimpse of potential from sora. Everything i see him do comes from a better player just using better fundamentals vs another player form what ive seen.

People get up in arms about the "fair character" discussion. but i think sora is in that area. his offstage game was thought to be close to bayo and other elite guarders ( i was in that group) watching him pay i dont think he does that nearly at the level he should even as he gets more optimized i still dont see it.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Final OrionStats update of the year.

Final character update for the year! R.O.B closes out at a 100 point lead, Pyra skyrockets, Sonic forms a gap between 8th and 9th, and Young Link moves from 25th to 18th. pic.twitter.com/iW9j7rfR5J

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

After getting the most amount of points he had for the entirety of Smash Ultimate, being above the bottom 15 at one point, things look promising for . However, the character stagnated for the rest of 2021, so he ended up being the 6th lowest in the end. From the tournaments I have seen in the last few months of the year, I don't really see this change too much.
Also, being the 7th lowest is an all-time low for the character, usually being ranked in the middle of the rankings. The character looked so promising in the last few months prior to quarantine, but post-quarantine has not been kind to this character.

Not quite sure what he means by "Pyra skyrockets", since she was ranked 5th in the previous update. I guess the gap between her and Wolf is shrinking? I noticed that Snake is also creeping up towards that territory very quickly as well.


The next seasons of OrionRank for now on is going to have no new characters, and there will be a 3-4 month gap between the new character (Sora) and the next rankings so there won't be much "new toy syndrome" moving into 2022.

Edit: I will post my full thoughts on later. To give a summary: he has some good stuff (as all characters in this game do), but he feels kinda eh overall.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Not quite sure what he means by "Pyra skyrockets", since she was ranked 5th in the previous update. I guess the gap between her and Wolf is shrinking? I noticed that Snake is also creeping up towards that territory very quickly as well.

Pyra/Mythra were 399 before, now they're 454. That's what he means, their points went up by 55. Wasn't enough to surpass Wolf though.

 

[SapphSabre777]

I've got nothing better to do while I'm on the last days of mild COVID (Omicron do be annoying, tho). Might as well share my thoughts of what I think will happen on a game I've moved on from.

I'm surprised that it took this long for to finally be seen in a good light akin to her more luminescent other. Maybe it is the F-Smash nerf on Mythra? Regardless, it seems like the meta for them will revolve around learning both of them and abusing their absolutely cracked attributes. As far as placing goes, it wouldn't be a stretch to say Aegis is the best character in the game. By far though...that's kind of the issue. People have been mentioning a lot about Byleth's counterplay getting developed, but I think there isn't a lot of Aegis counterplay present at the moment. Though the pessimistic lenses and flashbacks of S4 Cloud are there, I don't think they are at that point. Yet. They very well could be at that spot, but the big thing is the counterplay, which is at a slower pace than the character meta, imo.

is honestly in no-mans-land at the moment, outside of JPN's frequent reps and the occasional reps at EU and the US. A lot of the top reps that I have talked with think that US Kirby Jeja's list is overexaggeratingly negative on the character; however, considering his near-total absence in events and his once-in-a-blue-moon placings, it is safe to say that the buffs for this puffball were not enough, with some top players, such as Fatality, naming Kirby the 2nd worst character in the game, only behind Mac. Kirby's issues with his weaknesses of his kit are exacerbated by the fact that no one is playing him and many mains of him are fleeing and playing better characters, leaving him in virtual limbo that might be more damning than any other character in the game, considering his negative public outlook, especially in MU charts, where Kirby virtually always loses according to the opposing player. So you have a character with rather glaring flaws despite having his upsides not being played at all, which only makes everyone else view the character and see the character as completely worthless, compounded by his own players displaying such despair in the game entirely. To be fairly honest, I would not be surprised if Kirby were seen in the near future as the worst character in the game by virtue of him being overshadowed in placements, frequency in bracket, and public opinion of him sinking to the bottom, even amidst some of the best Kirbys trying to show his upsides.

Edit: Did not know Jeja's opinions have shifted that much in regards to the character. I'm dumb. This year is dumb. Ignore the slashed section.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

This was posted yesterday, but OrionRank 2021 will be early January

Final TTS Update of 2021 will be done tomorrow; OrionRank 2021 is currently aimed for a early January release!

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

This includes...
Top 100 Worldwide
Top 100 NA
Top 50 EU
Top 50 JP
...and if I find the time best of every character https://t.co/RIp9kNCWtJ

— EazyFreezie (@EazyFreezie) December 22, 2021

 

[Aligo]

Do you think Kirby would improve alot from a inhale reflect+ a good burst movement side special (like wheel or jet)? I feel that would make it harder to keep Kirby out of his effective range and make many matchups less miserable.

 

[Kokiden]

Sora fell off because he's not very good.

People wouldn't want to use him when there are better alternatives available, so I can't blame them.

Been watching some weeklies, and the tourneys we've had recently and, well, he's not relevant from what I can see. Being extremely floaty doesn't feel good in a fast paced match. I tried him out myself and he was frustrating to play.

 

[toonito]

Final OrionStats update of the year.

Final character update for the year! R.O.B closes out at a 100 point lead, Pyra skyrockets, Sonic forms a gap between 8th and 9th, and Young Link moves from 25th to 18th. pic.twitter.com/iW9j7rfR5J

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

biggest jump from last data (12/13): +7
biggest drop from last data (12/13):-4
biggest jump from 1st offline data (3/30): +61
biggest drop from 1st offline data (3/30): -45

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

DM did a Pyra/Mythra matchup chart

Pyra Mythra MU chart I made in like 15 minutes, for the end of 2021.

Not answering questions, cuz it's annoying and I don't feel like arguing. Rn I feel like Pyra Mythra is probably the best in the game. I feel like they lose less mus than Pika and Joker. pic.twitter.com/k1lIUIsJC0

— DM (@DM_SSB) December 24, 2021

 

[SapphSabre777]

Do you think Kirby would improve alot from a inhale reflect+ a good burst movement side special (like wheel or jet)? I feel that would make it harder to keep Kirby out of his effective range and make many matchups less miserable.

A change in his character won't happen, so we have to settle with what we have, and wishlisting won't help the character. Ironically, his best bet on not being seen as total garbage is to get representatives to attend more often and have him become more frequent in nature. With 80+ characters, having a loyalist is a godsend for any character that is not in the higher echelons of the tier lists (see Bassmage, Peanut, Rickles, Skyjay, et cetera), as they can create an attractiveness to the character despite their obvious flaws, as well as pushing their characters to their optimized peaks, buffs or no buffs. Even just one player with that very character, such as Myolnir and Mii Swordfighter, can make a huge difference in terms of public opinion for the character, and how appealing they can be outside of the lenses of tiers. Kirby, unfortunately, lacks these qualities since, as explained by the first post, he lacks consistent representation and the most notable rep in Jeja is very negative upon his future and his prospects when compared to the top Kirbys from every other region. It creates a vicious cycle of sorts that puts Kirby's meta at a dead-lock, something that I don't think even Ganondorf and Mac's metas are experiencing at the moment thanks to them having key reps: why should I play this character when one of the most notable Kirby mains says he is so bad that it reinforces the MU commonality that everyone beats Kirby in their MU? It will be a miracle if Kirby comes out, but it'll have to be the very few remaining mains that'll have to do it.

This statement is moot with me being 8 months late to Jeja having more positive notions for the character. Still, one point is still relevant: his representation, like many characters, is what will raise him.

 

[Nekoo]

Abrupt change of topic: Whatever happened to ?

Honestly?
I think he's good to extremely good, and it seems to be the overall thought even amongst Top players in the world.

The issue is simple, why would you pick up and re-learn a character, seemingly simple on the surface that actually needs lots of learning when Majors are happening back to back in a short duratio after such a long drought.

He's not an Aegis character where you can just pick-up and play and overall just get quote on quote on the flow.

Basically, we'll have to wait the following months to see his impact, like most of fighter pass 2, and see his own "Hero player" that will pop-up and then you'll have everyone being like "Wow he's busted" or "nah that player was too good/MU inexperience" like every time a character proved to not be **** like most of the thread think

 

[Cheryl~]

A change in his character won't happen, so we have to settle with what we have, and wishlisting won't help the character. Ironically, his best bet on not being seen as total garbage is to get representatives to attend more often and have him become more frequent in nature. With 80+ characters, having a loyalist is a godsend for any character that is not in the higher echelons of the tier lists (see Bassmage, Peanut, Rickles, Skyjay, et cetera), as they can create an attractiveness to the character despite their obvious flaws, as well as pushing their characters to their optimized peaks, buffs or no buffs. Even just one player with that very character, such as Myolnir and Mii Swordfighter, can make a huge difference in terms of public opinion for the character, and how appealing they can be outside of the lenses of tiers. Kirby, unfortunately, lacks these qualities since, as explained by the first post, he lacks consistent representation and the most notable rep in Jeja is very negative upon his future and his prospects when compared to the top Kirbys from every other region. It creates a vicious cycle of sorts that puts Kirby's meta at a dead-lock, something that I don't think even Ganondorf and Mac's metas are experiencing at the moment thanks to them having key reps: why should I play this character when one of the most notable Kirby mains says he is so bad that it reinforces the MU commonality that everyone beats Kirby in their MU? It will be a miracle if Kirby comes out, but it'll have to be the very few remaining mains that'll have to do it.

Do you have any evidence on Jeja's opinions on Kirby? I'm surprised he'd be the one to have a negative outlook out of all the notable Kirby mains when he's the one who's been actually getting solid results in his region and is probably the best one in North America at the moment, and from looking at his Twitter he seems to push the "Kirby is underrated" notion more than that he's bad.

 

[SapphSabre777]

Do you have any evidence on Jeja's opinions on Kirby? I'm surprised he'd be the one to have a negative outlook out of all the notable Kirby mains when he's the one who's been actually getting solid results in his region and is probably the best one in North America at the moment, and from looking at his Twitter he seems to push the "Kirby is underrated" notion more than that he's bad.

>realises that the MU chart he made in referendum is 8 months old and that, indeed, he's pushing underrated tones now

My apologies for the negativity. A lot of these assessments are baseless due to me not knowing his opinion has changed that much. Bleh. Maybe I should start doing work instead of smack-talk. Would be more productive to these conversations if I got my facts straight and be less of an ass myself for perpetuating this viewpoint. Thanks for the correction.

 

[NairWizard]

Swords are my wheelhouse, so time to post again!

Sora is okay, combining great whiff punishing on the ground with high damage output. There are even a few standout moves, like f-tilt and d-smash (full-body intangibility!). The problem is that he's really campy, and most top players don't like playing a character like that, so they naturally gravitate toward more versatile styles that let them switch between camping and aggressive reads. Sora doesn't have the speed/hitbox combination to play aggressively without hard callouts, and optimal Sora involves a little bit of platform camping, a little bit of air camping, a little bit of ledgestalling, a little bit of neutral-b pressure, and a little bit of sword zoning, besides all the dash-in whiff punishing. I think that's a hard playstyle to stick to if you're unfamiliar with it.


On Cloud, since Thinkaman brought him up... way back when Ultimate was released, I believed that Cloud would someday be the best character in the game, or at least top 10. There have been DLC, there have been nerfs and buffs (Cloud up-smash was a big one), there have been crazy meta developments but in general, despite years having passed, I am still just as bullish on Cloud as ever (top 20-30 range with potential to be better). Even in the very saturated swordsman archetype, Cloud is fantastic, surprisingly versatile with big reward and a gameplan against every archetype, with only big grapplers being hard. His speed + Limit camping shuts down most zoners, he can fight other sword characters pretty well (minus maybe Byleth who would likely murder Cloud twenty different ways), and he can zone out most brawlers. Heck, Cloud has an arguably better matchup spread than Roy when you look only at archetypes.

Cloud does have some really hard matchups (DK/Bowser/Meta Knight), but like, you want to shut down the stubby likes of Ness and Wario? Zone out with Cloud b-air/side-b.
You want to beat zoners like Young Link? Anti-zone with Limit and then wall out with your big sword.
You want to beat sword zoners like Lucina? d-tilt and side-b whiff punishing.
Need a Peach answer? Cloud is your man.
Tweek even thinks that Cloud does fine vs. Diddy.

Cloud's neutral is so versatile that he just has answers for everything. In fact, he's so strong in neutral that he has an arguably even matchup (according to sparg0) with Pyra and Mythra.

Cloud's the real deal; you can't go wrong with a Cloud pick. Just... have a Byleth in your pocket for those DKs and Bowsers, if you're a sword main.

 

[StrangeKitten]

The recent Pyra discourse is reminding me of early Ultimate, when Leffen would routinely rag on Charizard, going as far as to call him the worst character in the game when played solo. Meanwhile, I could tell Zard was pretty good, and that the key to playing PT well was to have a good Zard. Fast forward a couple months or so, and what did I see? PTs doing well thanks to Zard's high weight and great kill power. PTs winning when they otherwise wouldn't have because of Zard utilization. This was before Ivy got nerfed and Zard got buffed, even.

I think the same is going to apply to Pyra & Mythra. To have a good one, you need a good Pyra.

 

[Space thing]

The recent Pyra discourse is reminding me of early Ultimate, when Leffen would routinely rag on Charizard, going as far as to call him the worst character in the game when played solo. Meanwhile, I could tell Zard was pretty good, and that the key to playing PT well was to have a good Zard. Fast forward a couple months or so, and what did I see? PTs doing well thanks to Zard's high weight and great kill power. PTs winning when they otherwise wouldn't have because of Zard utilization. This was before Ivy got nerfed and Zard got buffed, even.

I think the same is going to apply to Pyra & Mythra. To have a good one, you need a good Pyra.

I've had very similar thoughts and even assumed this is the situation we would end up in when the character was announced due to the same analogy. Just thinking about team fighting games (or tag games) as a reference point, the most important character is often the support. I think zard and Pyra fill that role well. Yes, they have issues by themselves, but you choose when to deal with those issues, and outside of that, they offer so much. Recovery benefits in both cases, kill power, added survivability, oos for zard, range for Pyra along with a projectile, etc.

Beyond that, they require the opponent to change how they approach the match up on a dime. Sure, you can often just take some risks and get hit against Mythra without getting punished too hard, but against Pyra? You're gonna have a bad time. Whether or not taking advantage of that is necessary to succeed, the benefits of doing so are undeniable and recent results reflect that. Unsurprisingly, having a heavy or an Ike you can switch to whenever you want is a pretty valuable trait to have.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

VoiD's new tier list

There was a problem fetching the tweet

, and are on the row below this one and are considered bottom 3.

 

[Arthur97]

Hmm, interesting, he isn't talked about that much, but how would you view Mario in Ultimate?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Hmm, interesting, he isn't talked about that much, but how would you view Mario in Ultimate?

A pretty easy to pick up and play top tier who's hard to master. His best strengths are his combo game and projectile in fireballs, but his big weakness is his lack of reliable kill options when his ladder combos stop working outside of up-smash. Dark Wizzy and Kurama have still been putting work in the character post-quarantine, hitting #21 at the end of 2021 OrionStats. Of course, he may have more trouble now then pre-quarantine because Mario heavily struggles with sword characters, and this is becoming a metagame full of sword characters (Leo, Sparg0, ProtoBanham and Kola all play sword characters and are top 10, with Leo and Sparg0 being #1 and #2 respectively).

 

[SapphSabre777]

VoiD's new tier list

There was a problem fetching the tweet

, and are on the row below this one and are considered bottom 3.

and are also on the row below and are considered the bottom 5. And while it is a tier list in name, the accessibility bit is a little awkward in definition, and kind of shoots itself in the foot with certain picks, such as Byleth being all the way in Top tier and characters like Ness and Yoshi being so low. Tier lists are making me more confused than anything else nowadays.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

A Pro-Player tier list that does not arbitrarily put at top tier regardless of it rep and resutls? Truly a Christmas miracle lol.


But at least people are also admitting is still very good thanks to Zomba reminding everyone the bot has absurd jank and comeback potential despite being "big" Although I am not sure bout top 4 but he is up there

 

[SKX31]

Abrupt change of topic: Whatever happened to ?

I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say that Sora could still be really good: even as his double jump and very wonky OoS means that he'll have to approach situations carefully. He still has some very generous hitboxes and has a very solid advantage state - something that is complimented by his ability to force opponents' airdodges, bait panic aerials and land quite a lot of kill confirms.

I think the main reason is that he might be very mentally demanding to master and play on a tournament level, especially over the course of a long run. In most MUs he's going to either have to deal with some very non-commital approaches or better OoS / landing aerials than he has. Which in turn regularily forces him into awkward situations. To draw a contrast with Aegis - who also have rather awkward landing aerials, specifically Mythra's B-Air being -7 on shields - both Mythra and Pyra can fall back on other positives to help compensate for landing aerials hitting shields (for example rising aerials), while Sora's rising aerials don't have great start up IIRC and can be difficult to properly chain if you haven't put the time in.

With those in mind I feel that once someone commits to the character long term and learns how to overcome those issues he'll see quite a lot of action honestly. If Lea, Stroder or NAKAT (assuming they actually use him) can make noise next year it'll be good for the character, or if someone else picks him up.

 

[Nobie]

Sora's been out for, what, two months? I know Pyra/Mythra skew things because they had such a rapid ascent and everyone could see their top-tier potential from a mile away, but you can't just expect that from every DLC character.

Not to say people can't have early impressions and predictions, but all we know is that Sora isn't busted enough to make people switch off their current mains entirely.

 

[Nekoo]

Sora's been out for, what, two months? I know Pyra/Mythra skew things because they had such a rapid ascent and everyone could see their top-tier potential from a mile away, but you can't just expect that from every DLC character.

Not to say people can't have early impressions and predictions, but all we know is that Sora isn't busted enough to make people switch off their current mains entirely.

Yup, and not only that I'd rather have Sora as a character ADDED to the Meta, than a character DEFINING the meta, like what might become of Aegis/R.O.B in the future.

A good character is a character who can be played in a meta with it's own strength, not a character Defining the Meta of the game for others to play, this is where for exemple, Bayo and Cloud S4 failed, but where Joker succeeded since you never saw or will never see a top 8 full of him, or a situation like we had in SWT with Aegis

 

[PK Gaming]

VoiD's new tier list

There was a problem fetching the tweet

, and are on the row below this one and are considered bottom 3.

Good to see him not fall into the cult of Pikachu and properly give Byleth his dues

Olimar needs to be way higher and I think there are a couple of characters in "Yeahhh" that can be see tournament play, but for the most part it's accurate