Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[NairWizard]

I don't think camping Kazuya is correct in many MUs. You can camp him, but the really good Kazuyas are so fast with great ground movement that camping is often too risky because from distanced positions your potential reward on Kazuya is much lower. Why space d-tilts with Lucina when I can land a riskier n-air and take his stock from edgeguarding + ledgetrapping?

I watched sparg0 vs. acola and saw Cloud kill Kazuya at 3% in grand finals.

3%. One limit Cross-Slash read offstage.

This game's reward numbers are just too huge. If you have good advantage state, you can 1-player-game Kazuya just like he can do to you.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

3%. One limit Cross-Slash read offstage.

This is a bit of an overstatement. Sparg0 got one neutral win when acola was at 3%, then got another neutral win a couple seconds later with f-air into dash attack at 24.9% to knock Kazuya offstage and get limit. Then he got the limit cross-slash read to kill at 56% in Town and City.

 

[NairWizard]

This is a bit of an overstatement. Sparg0 got one neutral win when acola was at 3%, then got another neutral win a couple seconds later with f-air into dash attack at 24.9% to knock Kazuya offstage and get limit. Then he got the limit cross-slash read to kill at 56% in Town and City.

the cross-up f-air conditioning into fadeback f-air is an extension of the soft advantage state from the first cross slash at 3%, even if Kazuya had more stage control here. You have to look at the whole sequence.

but even if you disregard that and focus only on "real" advantage state (offstage/in the air), that's still a kill starting at 25% with one read in advantage.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

In general, Sparg0's advantage state, speed and the pressure he puts on is probably the best out of any player, even more so then Light. He plays extremely quick, aggressive, and isn't afraid to go deep and edgeguard despite using characters with "poor recoveries". There's times where he'll be losing, and still make the comeback due to playing so fast and getting so much off of hit, even if it's not a true combo. His decision making is also really fast, and his spacing with Cloud's sword hitboxes makes it very hard to punish him for his back airs and forward airs.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

There was an invitational today in Japan, the tournament doesn't count for UltRank but I thought I'd do a results thread anyway because it would be B tier if it wasn't for not counting (which was by request of TOs).

1. Miya
2. Snow
3. Doramigi
4. showers
5. acola
5. Kome
7. alice
7. Ryuoh

 

[L9999]

Miya's Steve is a work of art. His block placement reminded me a lot of custom Villager, placing them on the way to force options. He used a lot of the triple wall block to use as an approach response to hit them with an FSmash knowing he cannot really be punished for it. Thought his most brilliant (and evil) were the ledgetraps and edgeguards. Miya built a lot of complex deadly traps that ended so many stocks, or he just did the Sonic of using Minecart -> Fair as a Spin Dash. Compared to acola who threw some of his matches Miya seemed like he was out for blood, as if losing to Sparg0 unlocked some demon in him.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Capitancito putting in work with

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Low Tide City 2023

1. MuteAce
2. Capitancito
3. Maister
4. Shoe
5. ApolloKage
5. Beastly
7. Jonhy
7. Teaser
9. SHADIC
9. Orex
9. Syrup
9. Gamerdog
13. Pelca
13. Ray
13. Skyjay
13. Niko

 

[Sucumbio]

Armadillo makes Lucario look viable lol

 

[The_Bookworm]

Battle of BC 5 Top 24

Winner's
acola vs Sisqui
Zomba vs Miya
Sparg0 vs Armadillo
Maister vs Glutonny

Loser's
Light vs Yaura
Tweek vs Riddles
Shuton vs JDV
MuteAce vs Kola
Onin vs Kameme
MkLeo vs Skyjay
Yoshidora vs BassMage
Dabuz vs Tarik


Some crazy stuff this bracket, the craziest of which being Armadillo's run with Lucario, a character seen as very lackluster in Ultimate. He has had some good flashes of success before, but never in this magnitude.

To express how stacked this tournament is, Light, Tweek, Riddles, MuteAce, Shuton, and MkLeo are already in the loser's bracket. Riddles ended up getting upset by Sisqui (Samus is a very annoying matchup for Kazuya) and MkLeo got upset by Zomba in Aegis vs ROB. Now Leo fights vs Skyjay. This seems like a set that looks somewhat promising for Skyjay, but note that Shuton's Aegis is the one who sent Skyjay to loser's in the first place.

The top 2 Game & Watch players in the world are currently in the winner's side of top 24, and their chances of both making it into winner's top 8 is somewhat likely.

 

[NairWizard]

Some crazy stuff this bracket, the craziest of which being Armadillo's run with Lucario, a character seen as very lackluster in Ultimate. He has had some good flashes of success before, but never in this magnitude

Sadly, he faces Sparg0. I'm not as bullish on Cloud as most of you, but that matchup is absolutely garbage. I'd rather 2v1 acola/Miya as Lucario.

 

[Cheryl~]

• Sparg0 has a pretty great chance to repeat his success from Kagaribi 10 if things go as projected. Very likely to beat Armadillo into Maister/Glutonny, players who can put up a fight but generally lose to Sparg0 on his A game, and then projected into Acola/Miya, both players who lost to Sparg0 at Kagaribi! This tournament is shaping up to be the "Who can beat Acola?" show, and Sparg0 is easily the person who can do that most handily out of anyone left in the bracket.
• Acola, the projected favorite to win the event, has honestly only been playing "good enough" so far. Not to say it's a bad thing, cause "good enough" for Acola still means you coast into top 24 winners and likely top 8, but he's already had close calls with Dark Wizzy and Dabuz. Acola's gonna have to show some real adaptation when it comes to Sparg0 as well, as their fight in the NA vs the World crew battle looked like a mirror of their Kagaribi sets (bad for Acola!)
• A decent chance for Samus to break into a supermajor top 8, which I don't think has happened outside of Japan? Unfortunately, Sisqui and Yaura both have notoriously bad Samus matchups to start their days, so we'll have to see if dreams come true.
• Tarik's Greninja breaking into top 24 is almost more exciting than Lucario making it to top 24 for me. Greninja's metagame has felt absolutely dormant in the major scene for so long...

 

[NotLiquid]

While Winners bracket is looking like business as usual, the Losers bracket is already off to an incredibly heated start.

• Kameme and MuteAce won their sets against Onin and Kola respectively in violent 3-0 fashion.
• Sets that were expected to be a lot more of a landslide than they wound up being in practice were Yoshidora winning his set against BassMage in a last stock 3-2 situation, and ditto Light taking a 3-2 win against Yaura .
• In more anticipated lopsided Losers bracket wins, Tweek also took his set against Riddles in a 3-1 set, and MKLeo went pretty dominant against Skyjay in a 3-0.

 

[NairWizard]

Kinda of hilarious that both LG Maister and LG Tweek are outperforming Mkleo right now. This is probably the biggest fall any #1 player has ever seen, from being consistently #1 by a huge margin to possibly being below top 10 caliber? (9th 9th 2nd 13th are his recent results post-Genesis, so he's still top 10 with Genesis in consideration but poised to fall out)

 

[Cheryl~]

Yaura losing to Light is one thing, but Sisqui losing to Acola's Steve into going RIGHT into Shuton's Olimar (Samus' worst MU by far) is so sad. The Samus curse continues...

 

[The_Bookworm]

Top 8

Winner's
acola vs Miya
Sparg0 vs Maister

Loser's
Shuton vs Zomba
Yoshidora vs Kameme


Yep, the double Game & Watch in winner's top 8 is real. Other than that, it seems that as long as Sparg0 continues to play as well as he has been, he has a clear shot of winning the whole tournament.


Edit: Pls someone put down a comment so I can post the results.

 

[NairWizard]

Edit: Pls someone put down a comment so I can post the results.

I got you.

Man, all 3 of the top placers today used Aegis in important matches (though acola didn't win a set with Aegis). People are talking about Game and Watch, but Aegis was the star of this tourney imo, glued together so many key results. and sparg0's Cloud is always impressive to watch.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Battle of BC 5 (652 Entrants)

1st: Sparg0
2nd: acola
3rd: Shuton
4th: Kameme
5th: Miya
5th: Maister
7th: Yoshidora
7th: Zomba

Spoiler: Top 24

9th: Glutonny
9th: Armadillo
9th: Tweek
9th: Sisqui

13th: Dabuz
13th: MkLeo
13th: MuteAce
13th: Light

17th: Tarik
17th: BassMage
17th: Yaura
17th: Skyjay
17th: JDV
17th: Onin
17th: Kola
17th: Riddles

Spoiler: Top 65

25th: Chag
25th: Dark Wizzy
25th: Goblin
25th: KEN
25th: AndresFn
25th: Luugi
25th: Chronos
25th: Mr. E

33rd: Yoda Cage
33rd: Ryuoh
33rd: quiK
33rd: Dmitri
33rd: ApolloKage
33rd: Jahzz0
33rd: SPARKLE
33rd: Ouch!?
33rd: Peru
33rd: Soar
33rd: Big D
33rd: Marvelous_Marco
33rd: Neo
33rd: Felix
33rd: moxi
33rd: Slime

49th: Gidy
49th: Lemmon
49th: JW
49th: JoJoDaHoBo
49th: Smokk
49th: Adam
49th: Sho
49th: pacstreet
49th: Justice
49th: ShinyMark
49th: Nessboy12
49th: Blacktwins13
49th: Z
49th: Liam
49th: Larry Lurr
49th: Capitancito

To be honest, winner's side of top 8 went 100% completely the way it was expected. At the very least, acola's Aegis made Sparg0 sweat some bullets, and his DK nearly took game 1 of grand's, pretty impressive since acola almost never brings out his secondaries in any context.

There is a strong chance now that Sparg0 is now the #1 ranked player in the world. acola must now bring out some heavy developments to the table cause he seems completely lost in effectively dealing with Sparg0.

Man, all 3 of the top placers today used Aegis in important matches (though acola didn't win a set with Aegis). People are talking about Game and Watch, but Aegis was the star of this tourney imo, glued together so many key results. and sparg0's Cloud is always impressive to watch.

True, although Sparg0 only used them for the Maister set. It was pretty much Cloud all the way for everyone else.

 

[Rizen]

I agree, Spargo's the best in the world, followed by Acola. Never count MKLeo out though; he could always go on a rampage and come roaring back. But who's the best G&W in the world? They both got 5th so we'll never know.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I agree, Spargo's the best in the world, followed by Acola. Never count MKLeo out though; he could always go on a rampage and come roaring back. But who's the best G&W in the world? They both got 5th so we'll never know.

Miya's overall placements at other tournaments suggests that it's Miya pretty convincingly.

 

[NotLiquid]

For my money, the highlight of this tournament was Kameme's run.

Even if you ascribe to the idea that MkLeo wasn't playing at max capacity today, he still forced his way through a gauntlet of Big D, Onin, Glutonny, Yoshidora, and Miya. These are all players who have been top 3 threats at majors, even winning some of them -- not just across general Ultimate history, but very recent Ultimate history. The only bracket run that was comparable at all to Kameme's was Shuton's, but the only real obstacle in his side of the Losers bracket was MuteAce, and unlike Kameme he was sent into Losers bracket later, at the beginning of Top 24.

Anyone placing in the Top 16 cut is deserving of their dues; placing that high at what was a melting pot of worldwide talent is nothing short of impressive. Kameme did this while also sporting one of the more brutal brackets of the top placements. His Sora play was exquisite on the whole; lots of unique options like reverse up-airs to cover late jumps and out-of-shield options (up air does so much work in the Steve match up). He's also really nailed how to make the best of Sora's advantage state with his bevy of loops and coverage against opponent landings, but the crown jewel is his neutral play; outspacing Miya's G&W who has not only wide hitboxes but faster frame data and an absorb move isn't something I thought was possible for this character to actually do. He might not have fully replicated his Glitch Regen run but it is a monumental turnaround from Kagaribi 10 where some were concerned that he was running out of juice.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

I agree, Spargo's the best in the world, followed by Acola. Never count MKLeo out though; he could always go on a rampage and come roaring back. But who's the best G&W in the world? They both got 5th so we'll never know.

It's hilarious that they both got 5th in the exact same manner—sent to losers in the first round of top 8 and then instantly eliminated. What I wouldn't give to see them face each other in bracket. Ah well, at least we got the crew battle.

 

[Rizen]

Miya's overall placements at other tournaments suggests that it's Miya pretty convincingly.

I think Miya, and Japan in general, has been more active lately. If you're going by the last few months then yes, but Maister has a longer history of preforming very well at supermajors so it's hard to say.

 

[NairWizard]

I'm going to ignore results and focus on analysis like I always do. Maister looked way better here as a player. Like, convincingly better. Even sparg0 said as much in the after interview, that Maister was a much harder match than Miya has been.

Miya is better at n-air mixups, but Maister's reactive up-bs and dash placements were actually so beautiful this tourney.

If I had to guess which one would do better at their next tourney, I'd guess Miya, but if today's Maister shows up again, there's no contest in my mind.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I'm going to ignore results and focus on analysis like I always do. Maister looked way better here as a player. Like, convincingly better. Even sparg0 said as much in the after interview, that Maister was a much harder match than Miya has been.

Miya is better at n-air mixups, but Maister's reactive up-bs and dash placements were actually so beautiful this tourney.

If I had to guess which one would do better at their next tourney, I'd guess Miya, but if today's Maister shows up again, there's no contest in my mind.

Yeah, I will say that Maister did play better this tourney slightly. He had overall better wins, Tweek and Glutonny wins are no joke. In comparison Miya got wins on Zomba and Onin. That's still strong, but I'd say worse because Zomba is not as good as those two, and Onin hasn't been attending many majors these days. Maister just looked to be better gameplay wise this tourney, his set against Sparg0 (one of Maister's worst MUs alongside Leo and Dabuz) was actually pretty close for a 3-1 set.

Is Miya going to be more consistent on a ranking for the overall season? Absolutely, he has top 5 results atm. But he did play slightly worse then Maister overall at this specific tourney.

 

[Cheryl~]

For my money, the highlight of this tournament was Kameme's run.

Even if you ascribe to the idea that MkLeo wasn't playing at max capacity today, he still forced his way through a gauntlet of Big D, Onin, Glutonny, Yoshidora, and Miya. These are all players who have been top 3 threats at majors, even winning some of them -- not just across general Ultimate history, but very recent Ultimate history. The only bracket run that was comparable at all to Kameme's was Shuton's, but the only real obstacle in his side of the Losers bracket was MuteAce, and unlike Kameme he was sent into Losers bracket later, at the beginning of Top 24.

Anyone placing in the Top 16 cut is deserving of their dues; placing that high at what was a melting pot of worldwide talent is nothing short of impressive. Kameme did this while also sporting one of the more brutal brackets of the top placements. His Sora play was exquisite on the whole; lots of unique options like reverse up-airs to cover late jumps and out-of-shield options (up air does so much work in the Steve match up). He's also really nailed how to make the best of Sora's advantage state with his bevy of loops and coverage against opponent landings, but the crown jewel is his neutral play; outspacing Miya's G&W who has not only wide hitboxes but faster frame data and an absorb move isn't something I thought was possible for this character to actually do. He might not have fully replicated his Glitch Regen run but it is a monumental turnaround from Kagaribi 10 where some were concerned that he was running out of juice.

I agree with all of this, especially the part about how Kameme has really polished his advantage state with Sora. One of the best examples comes from this now popular clip from yesterday, the finishing string against Glutonny:

DUDE pic.twitter.com/gg6AjApIdR

— Moist | Aaron (@AaronFGC) May 21, 2023

The Kameme from this time in 2022/late 2022 would not have been able to perform this string, taking Gluto from 25% to 70% with the different Nair and F-Air timings and putting him offstage for a Down Smash 2-frame. As Sora players continue to develop their craft, I imagine that the advantage states are going to look even crazier than this one within 6 months to the next year. Really excited to see what the future holds for that character and Kameme.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

UltStats character update

Character update for the bulk of May, including both Premier events; ROB/Steve are well ahead of everybody else and are incredibly close! pic.twitter.com/bQGVA5usLg

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) May 25, 2023

Thought I'd mention a few things that interests me

• Wow, Lucina has fallen off compared to last year. There's obviously a few reasons as to why, such as ProtoBanham not attending many majors anymore, and it seems like the French Leon is less active as well, but even still she isn't doing well in the meta rn. Lucina has lower results then Byleth.
• Falco is getting some solid results thanks to MASA and M0tsunabE. Is #28 right now. That's pretty good considering his placement on the official tier list being in B+.
• Cloud's gone from #8 in April to #6 in May. This isn't surprising considering how Sparg0's looking like a contender for #1 alongside acola rn, but that implies to me that there are a lot of other Cloud's are also doing solidly at tournaments.
• Wario fell off. Glutonny is probably at his lowest results wise in NA, and he's not particularly dominant in Europe either, but also there's not many Wario players it feels like aside from crepe salee and Huto.
• The gap between Steve and ROB is very small, but compared to everyone else they have a large gap.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Character update for the bulk of May, including both Premier events; ROB/Steve are well ahead of everybody else and are incredibly close! pic.twitter.com/bQGVA5usLg

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) May 25, 2023

It's interesting how seemingly a few people can really push a character's placement (like Sparg0 and Cloud). Steve and ROB being so close to each other is also interesting, and with Zomba doing better lately I could see ROB potentially ending up #1 at some point (for this, that it).

 

[Rizen]

IMO ROB's the easiest character to pick up and win tournaments with (not to be confused with the best at top level). When my cousin started playing smash I started him on ROB. ROB's got great options, easy to use, good all around MUs with maybe a few slight disadvantages and a great recovery that's hard to SD with. He's just a great top tier.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Character update for the bulk of May, including both Premier events; ROB/Steve are well ahead of everybody else and are incredibly close! pic.twitter.com/bQGVA5usLg

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) May 25, 2023

It's interesting how seemingly a few people can really push a character's placement (like Sparg0 and Cloud). Steve and ROB being so close to each other is also interesting, and with Zomba doing better lately I could see ROB potentially ending up #1 at some point (for this, that it).

You got 'd my guy. I already posted the results from UltStats.

 

[Sucumbio]

The meta is definitely shifting, with Hydreigonfan01 and The_Bookworm shooting for number 1 but watch out for the surprise NotLiquid and Cheryl~ upset!

 

[Frihetsanka]

You got 'd my guy. I already posted the results from UltStats.

Ah, when I started writing the most recent post was from Monday, hah.

It would be interesting to see what a list like this would look like if the results from the #1 player of each character were discounted. Steve would drop quite a bit, same with Cloud. I imagine Aegis and Snake and ROB would still do fairly well, though.

 

[NairWizard]

Thought experiment: how many (and which) numbers on Game and Watch's Judgment hammer would you have to remove for Game and Watch to be bannable?

 

[Trunks159]

We had BoBC5 with 2 's flooding top 8 as well as other characters no one likes to watch like and , and this week we had some 's snoring up top 8.

Ultimate seems to always have phases like these where certain [boring/cringe/insert insult] characters that have always been good show up again and makes the smash community act like smash is dying or something. Typically it happens when Light, Leo, Spargo, Kola or whoever is having a slump.

I'm curious to see how top 8/32 will look at Crown this weekend.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Wow Steve has a metric ton of jank stuff. I'm not sure that these do warrant a ban, but it at least seems like far too little testing went into him. As far as pmlg, I am still of the opinion that it's what makes Steve bannable, And I don't trust the Steve mains when they try to act like pmlg is too hard to implement and won't be a factor. It's hard to do, but video game players have learned how to do even harder things consistently. I feel like it will eventually be a big problem if we don't take action. And the only action we really can take is a Steve ban, because it's too difficult to see whether pmlg was used in a lot of cases, and because it doesn't seem like Nintendo is gonna come in with an emergency patch.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I feel like it will eventually be a big problem if we don't take action.

If this is the case, then we ban after it has proven to be a big problem, not because people feel that it might one day be a big problem.

The video is mostly just showing off random tech that aren't really that practical? I feel like the video was made for comedic purposes, not as an actual take on the issue. We've also seen more and more tournaments in the US and Canada unbanning Steve and few majors seem interested in banning Steve. The way things are going right now, I'd say a Steve ban is highly unlikely. Some locals will probably keep Steve banned, but as a whole still will most likely remain unbanned.

I still think he's not as good as Smash 4 Bayonetta. As for overcentralization, on the most recent EtherRank (a ranking based on ELO, so not the most reliable but it's the most recent global ranking), there were 5 Steve mains in the top 150 (acola, Onin, Syrup, Jake, and DDog). I don't think 5 out of 150 (or 3.34%) is a big deal. Steve isn't a very common secondary either. The Smash 4 PGR 100 (not 150) had 10 Bayonetta mains, or 10%. Smash 4 PGR v5 had 7 out of 50 Bayonetta mains, or 14%. Oh, and if we look at the top 50 of the current EtherRank, Steve has 2 players (acola and Onin), or 4%.

The SSBMRank 2022 has 18 Fox mains (and 3 Fox secondaries) in top 50, 28 Fox mains in top 100 (and 10 Falco mains, a character fairly similar to Fox in Melee, people called him a "clone"). Only counting Fox mains, that's 36% in top 50, and 28% in top 100.

Oh, and Smash 64 Pikachu 20 out of 50 for top 50 (40%), with 9 Captain Falcon, 8 Yoshi, 4 Kirby, 3 Fox, 2 Jigglypuff, 1 Donkey Kong, 1 Samus, 1 Ness, 1 Luigi.

Obviously roster size is a factor, but it's telling how Steve is only making up for just a few % of the ranked top players whereas in other games you'd see the #1 character significantly more popular at the top level compared to the rest. I think much of the dislike comes from Steve being strange, not because he's too strong, maybe similar to how Jigglypuff gets hate in Melee despite having only two Jigglypuff mains in top 50 and 18 Fox mains and 6 Falco mains in top 50 (Fox/Falco 48% of top 50 mains).

In conclusion, Steve is not nearly as overrepresented in top 50/100/150 as people seem to think. He's not even the #1 character right now based on amount of top player mains (in top 150, there are 6 Snake, Wolf, ROB, and Palutena mains, 5 Steve, Mario, and Samus mains). He's probably the #1 character in the game, although one could probably argue for, say, Sonic being #1 (4 Sonic mains in top 150 and Sonic mains make really optimistic MU charts).

Link to EtherRank: https://twitter.com/etherssb/status/1663109095442771969 (updated weekly)

 

[Hippieslayer]

The argument for banning now is that trying to do it later might be too late. But banning based on speculation kind of sets a bad precedent.

If he's gonna get banned it should be because he's OP now not because of the potential impact of janky stuff.

And while he is a stupid overtuned character who dumps on most of the cast he clearly has a hard time with Cloud whose combination of good mobility and range seems to be the antidote to Steve letting him pressure Steve really hard in disadvantage while also having the edge in neutral. And there are several other characters who also do alright versus him.

He has at least one matchup that he loses and I feel more hopeful now about a bunch of other matchups than I did a little while back. Like people are getting gooder at handling his bull**** and exposing his weaknesses. Acola has had to work a bit harder lately. He may end up with more even matchups and hopefully a few losing ones too.

 

[StrangeKitten]

If this is the case, then we ban after it has proven to be a big problem, not because people feel that it might one day be a big problem.

The video is mostly just showing off random tech that aren't really that practical? I feel like the video was made for comedic purposes, not as an actual take on the issue. We've also seen more and more tournaments in the US and Canada unbanning Steve and few majors seem interested in banning Steve. The way things are going right now, I'd say a Steve ban is highly unlikely. Some locals will probably keep Steve banned, but as a whole still will most likely remain unbanned.

I still think he's not as good as Smash 4 Bayonetta. As for overcentralization, on the most recent EtherRank (a ranking based on ELO, so not the most reliable but it's the most recent global ranking), there were 5 Steve mains in the top 150 (acola, Onin, Syrup, Jake, and DDog). I don't think 5 out of 150 (or 3.34%) is a big deal. Steve isn't a very common secondary either. The Smash 4 PGR 100 (not 150) had 10 Bayonetta mains, or 10%. Smash 4 PGR v5 had 7 out of 50 Bayonetta mains, or 14%. Oh, and if we look at the top 50 of the current EtherRank, Steve has 2 players (acola and Onin), or 4%.

The SSBMRank 2022 has 18 Fox mains (and 3 Fox secondaries) in top 50, 28 Fox mains in top 100 (and 10 Falco mains, a character fairly similar to Fox in Melee, people called him a "clone"). Only counting Fox mains, that's 36% in top 50, and 28% in top 100.

Oh, and Smash 64 Pikachu 20 out of 50 for top 50 (40%), with 9 Captain Falcon, 8 Yoshi, 4 Kirby, 3 Fox, 2 Jigglypuff, 1 Donkey Kong, 1 Samus, 1 Ness, 1 Luigi.

Obviously roster size is a factor, but it's telling how Steve is only making up for just a few % of the ranked top players whereas in other games you'd see the #1 character significantly more popular at the top level compared to the rest. I think much of the dislike comes from Steve being strange, not because he's too strong, maybe similar to how Jigglypuff gets hate in Melee despite having only two Jigglypuff mains in top 50 and 18 Fox mains and 6 Falco mains in top 50 (Fox/Falco 48% of top 50 mains).

In conclusion, Steve is not nearly as overrepresented in top 50/100/150 as people seem to think. He's not even the #1 character right now based on amount of top player mains (in top 150, there are 6 Snake, Wolf, ROB, and Palutena mains, 5 Steve, Mario, and Samus mains). He's probably the #1 character in the game, although one could probably argue for, say, Sonic being #1 (4 Sonic mains in top 150 and Sonic mains make really optimistic MU charts).

Link to EtherRank: https://twitter.com/etherssb/status/1663109095442771969 (updated weekly)

Being strange probably also contributes to his being not used often among top players. He's not a simple pick-up-and-play, like Aegis, Wolf, and Palutena, nor does he have the benefit of having been in past Smash games like the rest of the common top 150 were. He's so unlike any other character. The closest I would say are Olimar or Snake, and they're still wildly different. Pair that with the fact that he came out rather late into Ultimate's life cycle, and many players didn't and aren't going to feel inclined to switch over to him when the main they've built up for years is still viable and even very good in the vast majority of cases. So he's not friendly to swapping over to, like a lot of the other DLC characters are.

Assuming Ultimate continues being the most recent game for another two or three years, it wouldn't surprise me to see a lot of Steves come out of the woodwork. He's popular with kids, who also probably haven't invested years into other mains yet, or at least not all that seriously. I could see a good amount of young players age into the character, moreso than any other character.

 

[Courageous Baka]

Random thoughts, but what did you think of MuteAce's WIN tier list from a while back, and do you think it's more interesting compared to conventional ones?

 

[Sucumbio]

The "Kencineroar" is legit scary (should have gone sonic vs mm tho imho).

Odd take perhaps but I find Ken's Sonic more exciting than not ...