Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Frihetsanka]

The thing about naming top 5 players, is there are about ten of them. Acola and Spargo are ahead of the others but then there's a handful of talented players who are hard to order. Miya, Tweek, Light, Zomba, Gluttony, MKLeo, and probably a few others from Japan, who I'm having trouble thinking of. It's very easy to say any of them deserve to be in the top 5.

Funny how you forgot Sonix, but that helps prove your point.

 

[Rizen]

Funny how you forgot Sonix, but that helps prove your point.

Oh yeah. How could I forget about Sonix?

 

[NairWizard]

OK, let me phrase it in a different way. This might even be an interesting discussion.

What would each of the top 8 have to do in order to pull ahead in a clear bid for #1 (besides acola since he's #1 already)?

1. sparg0 - It's no secret that sparg0 has consistency issues when he puts too much pressure on himself, but there are concrete gameplay things that he can do to shore up this weakness and overtake acola. sparg0's unexpected losses are usually from strong whiff-punishing characters (Sheik, Joker, Diddy, Sonic). He has counterplay to all of them already, but this is also a natural weakness of Cloud and top-level sword gameplay.

sparg0's gameplan against these characters is frequently quite aggressive. Look at how he uses full hops against Tweek and spaces f-airs and b-airs. This is a trap that I fall into vs. characters of this category too. I usually use Cloud against Inkling in bracket and rely on full hops to get by that matchup with superior reads, because otherwise it's really hard to get anything going from reaction alone.

To help here, sparg0 could invest in better whiff punishing strats of his own against these characters. We saw shades of it against Mkleo at smash factor, but it can be very effective against the smaller hitboxes that such characters usually have. Those characters can't play purely reactively all the time; they do have to swing sometimes, and you can whiff-punish those swings with Cloud d-tilts, up-tilts, Cross Slash, and up-b.

sparg0 could also invest in his item play, to improve the ROB/Diddy matchups for additional consistency.

2. Miya - Miya's already nearly there; he has some consistency problems due to his frequency of attendance that I think he could shore up by attending less and preparing more for individual players, particularly in neutral. His advantage state is so strong that he doesn't really need to prepare for players like Light to beat them currently, so he should have a lot of prep time to invest into chipping away at Luma or dealing with acola's block mixups. If I were coaching Miya, I'd have him focus on stage-specific counterplay (stop going FD). He needs that deep, deep MU knowledge to lock it away.

3. Sonix - This one's hard, or well, sort of. I thought about it for a bit, and Sonix is just so good at generally everything that the path for #1 seems pretty clear cut to me -- just keep getting better overall, step by step, inch by inch. Hey, that sounds like Sonic gameplay!

4. Tweek - He should focus on set-long conditioning. He often loses grueling game 5s that exhaust him mentally because he comes very frontloaded into matches. Easing up on the game 1s and game 2s and saving some tricks for the last game of a set can work wonders for these kinds of sets. Diddy has a huge bag of tricks; building a solid conditioning gameplan can be done in less than an hour per matchup per player

6. Light - Despite the very intimidating strength of his advantage state, I think Light could advance it even further in some matchups, focusing on more late dash attack setups (that move is so good). Characters like Wario, Cloud, and Diddy have to die fast for Fox to really enjoy advantages in those matchups, and Tweek/Gluto/sparg0 have pushed the nuances of hitbox placement in those MUs quite far. More kill set ups and conditioning into kill set ups (game-length conditioning, rather than set-wide) is likely the path ahead. Better punishes on Cloud airdodge would go a long way too -- I often see sparg0 getting out of disadvantage too easily against Light.

A secondary for Luigi/Ice Climbers/Game and Watch (Lucina?) would almost certainly help Light too, but I think a secondary is not enough by itself, since Light has some issues vs. the very top players as well.

7. Mkleo -- there are like a dozen different paths for Leo to be #1 again. It's a "choose your own adventure" thing, since Leo doesn't have glaring weaknesses in his play or skillset, other than being slower than sparg0 if you count that.

Gluto is not in this top 8, but he's the only one for whom I would say, "pick up a secondary," full stop.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Glutto being the best, as in most skilled player has crossed my mind many times. No one else has wins as impressive as he does. He wins losing matchups all the time because he's more adaptive than any other player.How other top of the top players speak of him also says a lot.

However he's an extreme character specialist. I'm not sure he even could pick up a secondary and play it at a sufficiently high level. I think it would take a lot of effort and time. And I also don't think he wants to do it, he wants to be the iconic Wario main who can never be counted out.

 

[Hotcakes]

A character specialist derives too much of their competitive drive from their character choice to see significant improvement from swapping to a "better option." Passion is what drives improvement and if a player loses their main source of the stuff, they have nowhere to go but backwards. Players are more naturally aligned with certain characters or archetypes than others, otherwise you'd see Steve dittos in grand finals of every major.

The truth is that Gluto's results would not improve if he started playing Mythra, aMSa's would not improve by playing Fox, and your local superheavy player would not start sweeping tournaments if he just picked a top tier. These players have had ample time to figure out what motivates them, and they've learned to tap into it.

 

[Hippieslayer]

If he were to pick up a secondary I think he'd be better of with a more pure whiff punisher than aegis, ie joker. He should be able to be a very good joker player if he were motivated. But it's not gonna happen. He is Wario. Especially in Europe.

 

[Aligo]

If he were to pick up a secondary I think he'd be better of with a more pure whiff punisher than aegis, ie joker. He should be able to be a very good joker player if he were motivated. But it's not gonna happen. He is Wario. Especially in Europe.

Joker is pretty stressful/intensive for co maining as far as I remember.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Glutonny is also well known, at least back in SSB4/early Ultimate, for pulling out a lot of random secondaries in pools or smaller events just for fun. He is fully capable of playing other characters, but none will come near to the same caliber of his Wario. Sometimes it is more than just simply picking a character higher in the tier list (and Wario is a very good character in his own right); sometimes in terms of playstyle and mentality, you simply embody the character you play.

And Glutto has mained the character since the Brawl days, being the best player of the character both in SSB4 and now in Ultimate, the #1 player in Europe in Ultimate, and the #2 player in Europe in SSB4 with a character seen as a mid tier at best. He the embodiment of Wario, and the character is strong enough to where he can solo main him and win major events or come close to, in a Smash game notorious for being difficult to stay consistent.

 

[Nekoo]

Funny thing you're all talking about Joker, because gluto, a few years ago, did try to co-main/main Joker.
He stopped because he just didn't have fun with him, simple as that, but he still rolled on our locals like crazy lmao.

 

[Sucumbio]

I guess historically it seems like co-maining is the norm but there's plenty of examples among specialists that defy that trend, just less so in Ultimate, which I mean why not it's a giant roster lol.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Glutonny is also well known, at least back in SSB4/early Ultimate, for pulling out a lot of random secondaries in pools or smaller events just for fun. He is fully capable of playing other characters, but none will come near to the same caliber of his Wario. Sometimes it is more than just simply picking a character higher in the tier list (and Wario is a very good character in his own right); sometimes in terms of playstyle and mentality, you simply embody the character you play.

And Glutto has mained the character since the Brawl days, being the best player of the character both in SSB4 and now in Ultimate, the #1 player in Europe in Ultimate, and the #2 player in Europe in SSB4 with a character seen as a mid tier at best. He the embodiment of Wario, and the character is strong enough to where he can solo main him and win major events or come close to, in a Smash game notorious for being difficult to stay consistent.

Yeah, there's just such a massive difference between the early meta and the late meta. Nowadays you need to have it all down and refined with tricks of your own on top for there to be any point in using a secondary. I guess there may be exceptions, but generally this is the case. If you pull out a character you can play decently well and you rely on fundamentals you get destroyed.

But like just in theory.. what would happen if Gluto picked up joker and perfected him? It would be a sight to behold. Gluto as a Steve main would also be hilarious.

One thing with Gluto though, when he does run into a wall and he doesn't know what to do he sometimes just keeps going doing the same thing with slightly different timing or spacing even if he's getting repeatedly destroyed, like he has too much faith in his own ability to figure things out on the fly. One example is when he first fought Tilde. And in brawl he oftentimes got destroyed during the first part of the set, in a banging his head against a wall kind of fashion, then he would usually adapt and win anyway. This seems to have changed a bit, I think him having played like that has taught him things that no other players know, I think it's part of the reason he's so good at adapting. I think he finally has enough matchup experience vs the cast to know when he can't go in aggressively and learn while getting destroyed, and I think the late meta doesn't allow him to do that either and he knows it. Wario for all his faults is a pretty adaptable character who is really good at microspacing. Gluto is able to turn games into the kind of fights he can win by being very patient and focusing on his opponents actions moreso than planning his own, because he does not need to think about his own actions, they all come naturally to him because of how extreme a character specialist he is.

Also: Glutonny being good with banana probs has something to do with him using tires back in the brawl days.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I guess historically it seems like co-maining is the norm but there's plenty of examples among specialists that defy that trend, just less so in Ultimate, which I mean why not it's a giant roster lol.

Imo co-maining has gotten harder and harder. Or rather picking up a secondary isn't something a lot of players can realistically do anymore without a lot more effort and time than it used to take, and probably not without sacrificing some degree of results in the process. The ones who co main generally have been doing so for a while (like Dabuz). Maybe I'm totally wrong about this but that's my impression. Off the top of my head I can list a couple of fairly successful co mainers and all of them have been doing it for a while. Mind you this is at top level only.

Edit: Aligo Yes Joker is stressful. But Glutonny has demonstrated he can play like a zen master, Whatever he character he should use as a secondary -if he should- is one who can kill and who doesn't to need to play in a very specific, beyond patient way to have a chance in its losing matchups. I think Glutto would be good at both Pikachu and Mario as well, they have their projectiles and confirms, I think they are better than Wario, and Glutonny is someone who squeezes every bit he can out of his main. He has to in this meta, and he had to in Sm4sh where he also had impressive wins despite Wario being trash in that game. He would consistently and frequently do advanced combos, usually with pristine execution. If he could do that with characters like Mario or Pikachu I think the result would be brutal, like there should be a "zackray effect" because as of now no one plays those characters close to perfect.. I'm also mentioning those characters assuming Glutonny is not interested in the top of the dlc gang. think they would suit him fairly well and they both have great projectiles and imo an easier time starting their combos, they also don't need waft to kill, and they move somewhat similarly to Wario. Though perhaps he should just pick Samus? High reward low effort character. If I had 10 million dollars I would make him main Mii Swordfighter who I think is a mid tier that almost no one knows how to play or play against,

 

[Hotcakes]

I'd love to see Gluto pull a Bloom4Eva and just randomly counterpick with Swordfighter against a top 10 player. Weirdly enough, the character would actually help him out, likely doing better against Cloud and Steve than his own main. I know I argued against the likelihood of Gluto successfully counterpicking his bad matchups, but I'd still like to see him try.

 

[Twiranitar]

How big should my toolkit be?

Our NairWizard said something about sparg0 having a "small and precise toolkit" with Cloud, and it got me thinking...

Should I forego the use of 's side-B at high percents, given that it won't kill?

I think there's a trade-off here: either you have a small toolkit, allowing you to react quickly when the right situation arises,
or you have a big toolkit, which gives you a chance to solve a greater variety of situations.

((in my pyra example, thinking only about dash attack and fair frees up your mental RAM to observe the game and catch a bad retreating dj with da, for instance, but you'd miss a bad landing on a platform that side b would've caught, netting you some damage))

I'm a simple guy myself, and I'd rather have a few tools and make do, but maybe there are players that are able to juggle many moves inside their heads

 

[NairWizard]

When building a neutral toolkit, you start with the move that maximizes reward and minimizes risk, then build around that, rather than with a size in mind.

Let's say we're playing Palutena. One of our best moves at low % is n-air; it's got plenty of followups and does decent damage.
But how do we get a n-air if our opponent doesn't jump or just shields the n-air?
Or even worse, a smart opponent can realize how easy it is to whiff punish Palutena n-air and just dash back out of range and then dash in while Palutena is stuck in the animation.

So now we gotta add moves to our neutral toolkit to get them to jump into n-air position.

Spaced f-air is pretty good for a starter! You can shield pressure when they shield and maintain positioning, and overshoot if you anticipate that they'll give up stage positioning to whiff punish your n-air. Now they gotta contest the f-air, which might mean they'll jump, which is what you want.
But if they don't jump, then they'll probably run in and shield to get you to misspace your f-air, and then you have to mix in tomahawk grabs to get them off the ground.

So your neutral toolkit is [n-air, f-air, grab] in this case. There's no need to expand from that unless your opponent starts doing more.

You'll notice that we didn't even consider Palutena's other great moves like b-air and dash attack when building this particular neutral toolkit.
But that doesn't mean that we'll never use b-air and dash attack! We'll rotate those moves in over the course of the match and set as the opponent switches tactics and as our own n-air becomes less rewarding in different situations. For example, if our opponent is trying to call out our tomahawks with hitboxes, we can dash attack to beat those hitboxes out.

It's also matchup-dependent. In some matchups, like vs. Chrom, getting a grab -> b-air can be more rewarding than getting a n-air because of Chrom's issues getting back onstage, so you could start your neutral toolkit with [grab] and build around that.

But wait, that's not all! You also have to think about what your opponent wants to do -- sometimes the play isn't to go for what your best move is, but to ward off your opponent's best move, such as if you're fighting DK and don't want to get grabbed. Sometimes you build your neutral toolkit to not get hit instead of getting hits yourself.

All of this is the essence of yomi, and expertise with this kind of thing is the difference between high-level players and top-level players.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Hurt was an inch from defeating Acola. Nice to see Snake on board again among the top of the top.

Edit: This hasn't really happened since Ally was banned. Apollokage was looking like he had the potential for a little while with some impressive wins but has since proven highly inconsistent. MVD is where he's always been at a gatekeeper level, and Shogun while the most impressive of the the three similarly isn't quite up there. I have no idea what Shoguns results are but imo his style of Snake is the closest to optimal not considering Hurt, but I don't really think he's trying to be the best, he's just a veteran who is playing because he likes it.

Apollokage is too wild, when it works it looks great, but far too often it doesn't work when it matters, and then it looks stupid, like he's throwing games away, which he does and has done.
MVD is too focused on keeping up a constant flow of projectiles. His output can overwhelm many, but real top players can handle it and punish him for it.

There were shades of Ally in the gameplay of hurt imo. The confidence in tech situations, the awareness of the power of Snakes normals and subsequent usage of them. The lack of going for fancy stuff, favoring a more basic and effective approach. Ofc Hurts grenade gameplay is more developed than Ally's was but that's to be expected this late in the meta. Ally's Nikita usage still holds up today though imo.

I really hope Hurt is here to stay and that we get to see him overseas, a snake mainstay in the real top would be great.

 

[Cheryl~]

Hurt was an inch from defeating Acola. Nice to see Snake on board again among the top of the top.

Edit: This hasn't really happened since Ally was banned. Apollokage was looking like he had the potential for a little while with some impressive wins but has since proven highly inconsistent. MVD is where he's always been at a gatekeeper level, and Shogun while the most impressive of the the three similarly isn't quite up there. I have no idea what Shoguns results are but imo his style of Snake is the closest to optimal not considering Hurt, but I don't really think he's trying to be the best, he's just a veteran who is playing because he likes it.

Apollokage is too wild, when it works it looks great, but far too often it doesn't work when it matters, and then it looks stupid, like he's throwing games away, which he does and has done.
MVD is too focused on keeping up a constant flow of projectiles. His output can overwhelm many, but real top players can handle it and punish him for it.

There were shades of Ally in the gameplay of hurt imo. The confidence in tech situations, the awareness of the power of Snakes normals and subsequent usage of them. The lack of going for fancy stuff, favoring a more basic and effective approach. Ofc Hurts grenade gameplay is more developed than Ally's was but that's to be expected this late in the meta. Ally's Nikita usage still holds up today though imo.

I really hope Hurt is here to stay and that we get to see him overseas, a snake mainstay in the real top would be great.

Luckily thanks to his performance at DELTA, Hurt got a free trip to Port Priority 8 (the highest placing JP player that wasn't already going got that trip) which is happening in November. I'm excited to see how he performs overseas, I first saw his play in his set against Dabuz at Kagaribi and his playstyle impressed me immediately, I knew he would pop off like this eventually.

 

[Hippieslayer]

This is cause for celebration. I was unsure of how it worked, if you had to get 1st place no matter what, and I only watched the games. The commentators probably explained it more than once but I was only focused on the gameplay. Having to beat Acola to get 1st place makes no sense for several reasons, but whatever, I was unsure.


What are Snakes worst matchups btw?

 

[NairWizard]

Javi got 1st at a Mexican regional tonight, after getting DQ'ed in Winners, he beat BigBoss, MKLeo, and Chagx2 to take the tournament from losers, using mostly Roy and a little bit of Cloud in the grand finals matches for Chag's Bayonetta (which was the Roy counterpick when Palutena didn't work).

Javi is a very underrated player, and I still believe fully in Roy.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Javi has always been good and the scene could use more Roy for sure

I'm trying to think of which character or characters that give Snake the most trouble and I'm coming up short, I assume its the characters who are most able to kill him when hes in disadvantage, whether it's fastfalling down to the stage, or airdodging to the ledge, or hitting him as he is on the way up with his Cipher to set up for a high recovery; that sort of thing. Preferably while doing alright in neutral vs him at the same time.

Mkleo's Joker used to beat Ally soundly. That character comes to mind. Can counter the nades and other explosives. Or block them with his own projetile. Arsene can kill Snake early. Is mobile and thus capable of threatening Snake in disadvantage to a larger degree than most of the cast. How do the spacies fare against snake? Marss thinks Game & Watch does really well vs Snake, I'm not sure about that. Sure GnW bullies Snake and has tools that let him threaten Snake in disadvantage where other other characters can't. But he's also really light and Snake doesn't need a lot of conversion for his normals to kill GnW. And Snake players know how to deal with reflectors and other things that nullify his explosive.

Granted, bucket is far from any old reflector, its one of the most broken ones. I guess if the GnW players knows the counterplay to Snake's bucket counterplay then the MU might just be really bad for Snake. Nonetheless adaptations happen mid set and Snake doesn't need that many successfull adaptations to win; again, because of the huge weight discrepancy.

Then of course there's Steve too Acola said he's been going back and forth with Hurt. That their record on that online bracket whatever japanese thing is 50/50 maybe leaning towards Hurt favourably. But the Snake MU is one of those that takes time to learn. Either way either Acola is not well versed enough in the MU or it's at least approaching even which would be nice. Hopefully Hurt has some more to learn as well. The details of their set escape me, would need to watch it again to say something remotely educated about it. And even then I think it's hard for me to spot and point more than the obvious stuff while remaining accurate because of the level that my own understanding of Smash is at, which is annoying.

 

[Rizen]

I noticed has been getting 3rd place a lot lately. By Miya losing to Debuz and Acola, Miya losing to Hurt and Acola (sorry I can't remember the tournament names), and Maister losing to Skyjay and MKLeo in Maingame Fest Mini. G&W's really good but not quite at the top of the tier list like Steve, Aegis and Joker. An 'Always the bride's maid, never the bride' kind of character. This is still better than most of the cast though. He gets consistent results. Remember when people thought G&W was low tier? That did not age well.

Another thing: ReWired Fest is happening and has a lot of big names. It's here on Youtube.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think Joker as a top 5 character might've been carried by MkLeo to some extent. The second best Joker is likely Tsubaki, #44 on LumiRank Mid-Year. Interestingly enough, from a LumiRank perspective the G&W players got #3 (Miya) and #18 (Maister), while the Joker players got #7 (MkLeo) and #44 (Tsubaki). Zackray sometimes uses Joker too. G&W also has Abadango 91-100 while Joker has Luminous 101-110 and TamaPDaifuku 121-150.

Steve has #1 (acola), #30 (Onin), and Quandale Dinglelingleton (DDog) 71-80, Riku 81-90, 33Peranbox 111-120, Jake and Syrup 121-150.

As for Aegis, for solo mains she has Cosmos #51, Space 111-120, and... That's it. Sparg0 uses her as a secondary for some MUs (like Sonic), Shuton uses her fairly often (co-main with Olimar?), MkLeo uses her from time to time, etc. Oh, and acola is working on an Aegis secondary.

Is Aegis as a character better as a secondary than as a main? How come the only solo mains are Cosmos and Space (I'm not even 100% sure Space is a solo main, he might use Inkling as a secondary, and lately Cosmos has been trying Inkling and some Corrin as well). Aegis looks really good on paper, yet few top players seem interested in going all in on them. Tweek tried Aegis for a little bit but dropped them quickly. Even Cosmos seems to be having some doubts. What's up with that? Her being DLC might be a factor, I suppose. Shuton seems to be the most successful Aegis player, but he plays both Aegis and Olimar.

There's so much variety in this game, so many different characters viable. Even with Steve potentially becoming more common there are probably like 40 or so characters that go even, slightly beat, or only slightly loses to Steve. And hey, even -2 MUs are doable, even if they're difficult. I'm not sure if Steve even has any +3 MUs, and if he does they're probably vs low tiers anyways. There's so much variety in this game that seeing two of the same character at a major is a rarify, and three almost never happens.

 

[Kalashnikov]

Javi has always been good and the scene could use more Roy for sure

I'm trying to think of which character or characters that give Snake the most trouble and I'm coming up short, I assume its the characters who are most able to kill him when hes in disadvantage, whether it's fastfalling down to the stage, or airdodging to the ledge, or hitting him as he is on the way up with his Cipher to set up for a high recovery; that sort of thing. Preferably while doing alright in neutral vs him at the same time.

Mkleo's Joker used to beat Ally soundly. That character comes to mind. Can counter the nades and other explosives. Or block them with his own projetile. Arsene can kill Snake early. Is mobile and thus capable of threatening Snake in disadvantage to a larger degree than most of the cast. How do the spacies fare against snake? Marss thinks Game & Watch does really well vs Snake, I'm not sure about that. Sure GnW bullies Snake and has tools that let him threaten Snake in disadvantage where other other characters can't. But he's also really light and Snake doesn't need a lot of conversion for his normals to kill GnW. And Snake players know how to deal with reflectors and other things that nullify his explosive.

Granted, bucket is far from any old reflector, its one of the most broken ones. I guess if the GnW players knows the counterplay to Snake's bucket counterplay then the MU might just be really bad for Snake. Nonetheless adaptations happen mid set and Snake doesn't need that many successfull adaptations to win; again, because of the huge weight discrepancy.

Then of course there's Steve too Acola said he's been going back and forth with Hurt. That their record on that online bracket whatever japanese thing is 50/50 maybe leaning towards Hurt favourably. But the Snake MU is one of those that takes time to learn. Either way either Acola is not well versed enough in the MU or it's at least approaching even which would be nice. Hopefully Hurt has some more to learn as well. The details of their set escape me, would need to watch it again to say something remotely educated about it. And even then I think it's hard for me to spot and point more than the obvious stuff while remaining accurate because of the level that my own understanding of Smash is at, which is annoying.

It depends who you ask, but 99% of snakes agree that Mega Man and Inkling are by far his worst. He can also struggle with characters like G&W, the PK kids, Joker, Incineroar and other characters who can exploit his grenades. keep him in disadvantage, and out-box him. Generally, his biggest weakness is being juggled; if your character is good at juggling and has ways to play around nades, you'll do well into Snake.

So... pretty much the same weaknesses he's always had ROFL. (Funnily enough, 15 years later in Ultimate where he sucks, King Dedede still does quite well against Snake. Time is a flat circle.)

Anyways, in spite of all this, Snake has no "unwinnable" matchups at high level. AlanDiss cleanly 3-0'ing Kameme's Mega Man proves this. Snake has one of the best kits in the entire game, and is adept at making the opponent play his game. He is an unbelievably consistent character because he controls the pace of every single match he's in. Plus, even beyond how ****ed nades are, he has a whole lot of cheese/X-Factor and snowball potential where he can steal out games in a few interactions. You ever see ApolloKage vs Goblin at Battle for the South? **** was ridiculous.

He's a really tough matchup to learn, too, because outside of basic stuff and learning how to use nades against him (which 99% of non-Brawl vets don't/barely do), every single Snake player plays so different from one another. You have to construct gameplans on the fly, and adjust those gameplans radically in real time depending on where he and his explosives are positioned at any given moment. The bulk of the decision making is put on the opponent which -- in a high-stress environment like a tournament -- is a HUGE boon. Snake players can calmly create his labyrinth of BOOM and the burden is on the opponent to figure out how to deal with it.

Snake is really, really, REALLY strong. Always has been. Every matchup is winnable at absolute worst, and he does notably well into the important meta threats (like Steve). The only reason it took so long for him to take off was because Ally got banned. But now, there are multiple top level Snakes like AK, DIO, and Hurt to put the character back on the map.

And I, for one, am VERY excited.

 

[NotLiquid]

I noticed has been getting 3rd place a lot lately. By Miya losing to Debuz and Acola, Miya losing to Hurt and Acola (sorry I can't remember the tournament names), and Maister losing to Skyjay and MKLeo in Maingame Fest Mini. G&W's really good but not quite at the top of the tier list like Steve, Aegis and Joker. An 'Always the bride's maid, never the bride' kind of character.

https://twitter.com/PoorlyAgedStuff

 

[Frihetsanka]

https://twitter.com/PoorlyAgedStuff

I was thinking the same thing. I've actually been thinking G&W might be top 5 for a while. The character is light, sure, but he also has some of the best moves in the game, and is a character that is relativitely easy to play, which makes him more consistent than more complex characters like Joker and Peach.

Miya in 2023 has (based on ssbwiki): 15 1st places, 4 2nd places, 4 3rc places, 1 4th place (Seibugeki 14), 1 5th place (Battle of BC 5), 1 7th place (Kagaribi 10), 1 13th place (Umebura SP 9), and 1 49th place (Kagaribi 9). Also an online tournament win which I don't count since it's online. 15/28 are 1st places, and only 5/28 outside of top 3. (Though I did include the TOKYO SMASH BOOT CAMP which he won but it didn't count for ranking so I suppose you should probably discount that win)

In comparison, MkLeo has 3 1st places, 1 2nd place (MAJOR UPSET), 0 3rd, 2 4th, 1 5th (Crown the Third), 1 7th (Delfino Maza 2023), 3 9th, 1 13th (Battle of BC 5). 3/15 1st places, 8/15 outside of top 3.

Maister's consistency is not as good (probably because he's not a top 10 player in the world). His 2023: 3 1st places (regionals and superregionals, no major wins), 0 2nd, 2 3rd (superregionals), 1 4th (Collision 2023, supermajor), 1 5th (Battle of BC 5, supermajor), 0 7th 3 9ths (two supermajors and one major), 1 13th (Crown the Third, supermajor), 1 25th (GENESIS 9, supermajor). Still good and I could see him being a top 20 contender for the 2023 season if he keeps it up.

Overall, Mr. Game & Watch is a character that has some really busted options, is easy to play, isn't very mentally taxing for long bracket runs (unlike, say, Peach, Zero Suit Samus, Pikachu, etc), has some really busted moves, and a good MU spread if we are to believe Miya and Maister (Miya has ZSS, Diddy Kong, Sonic, Wolf, Rosa, Hero, and Aegis in his losing tier, Maister has Ike, ZSS, and Shulk as -1. DDee also made one with ZSS, Shulk, Aegis, Sonic in -1, Cloud, Rosa, Sephiroth in Even or -1).

We're also starting to see more top players place G&W more highly lately in their tier lists recently. Many Japanese top players have thought that G&W is top 5 for a while now, and it seems many NA top players are starting to think so as well, with ESAM putting him at #3, Mr R thinks he's top 5, and probably others as well (I seem to recall there were some others that put him in top 5 but I can't find them right now, MuteAce put him in top 4 of his "win tier list" but that wasn't a traditional tier list).

Sure, G&W has some flaws. He's very light, but... He's also hard to edgeguard, has a frame 3 up-B out of shield that's really safe, fairly disjointed aerials, etc, so how easy is he to kill really? He can sometimes struggle to kill, although he does have some strong kill options. Overall, this character is amazing, and I think there's a strong case that he's a top 5 character in the current meta.

 

[Rizen]

I think these characters / are better than and these characters are about equal to him , which places him just outside the top 5 range. And that's basically my top tier.

has a lot going for him. His upB gives him a F3 OoS, is invulnerable for the first part, and doesn't cause freefalling. Amazing move that makes his disadvantage state virtually nonexistent. Then he has chef for ledge trapping, a projectile Uair and a huge juggling Nair which all give him a great advantage state. His Neutral is a little weaker but still not bad with bucket that both absorbs energy and reflects non-energy projectiles and an Usmash that is slow to start but can't be punished on reaction. He has a really good kit.

But he does have a few disadvantages. Like I've said, big disjoints get around all that. If you look at characters he loses to they include sometimes (all big disjoints), which is why I said Tweek and Ken should have brought out Sephiroth when their Diddy and Sonic lost to Miya, respectively. He also trades all that great stuff for being tied with Squirtle as the 3rd lightest character in the game. He can't kill OoS or from a grab and his Usmash doesn't reach platforms.

 

[NairWizard]

Interesting to see Zackray comment that if you want to keep up with the new meta, you have to play 0 to deathers like ROB. It's a sentiment that's been growing in the community with the improvement of advantage states over the last year.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Interesting to see Zackray comment that if you want to keep up with the new meta, you have to play 0 to deathers like ROB. It's a sentiment that's been growing in the community with the improvement of advantage states over the last year.

I remember SSB4 progressing in quite a similar manner; in that game, the meta began to favor characters with strong advantage states rather than the neutral game that defined the early era of that game.
This coincided with the rise of post-nerf Bayonetta that started in mid-2017, over a year after her nerfs. Bayonetta is a character defined by a lackluster neutral game but obscene advantage state, so when the meta started shifting towards advantage state rather than neutral, then you know she will claim that opportunity to rise back to the throne.
Other advantage state characters like Fox, Luigi, and Donkey Kong trended up towards the end while characters like Villager and Pit trended downwards.
Sheik remained top 5 cause she retains a strong advantage state in-spite of her nerfs from patches.
Duck Hunt and Pac-Man trended upwards towards the end in-spite of being neglected neutral game-based characters, cause their best players started to really optimize their advantage states to keep up with the meta.
Ryu ironically trended a bit downward towards the end, because of the advantage state of everyone else more optimized. His advantage state was comparatively optimized early on, and thus it fell a bit behind when combined with his own lackluster disadvantage state.


In Ultimate, we have always had 0-death characters since the start (ROB is a base game character after-all lol), but consistency in doing said 0-deaths (or really just holding advantage state) really began to get more prominent. The "ROB is big" meme had some merit early on, especially when considering that was the primary drawback of the character in previous games, but as his obscene advantage state became more optimized and the meta shifted more towards that, then that is where the character really soared into his own.

Incineroar, a character that on-paper has no right to be a good character due to his terrible mobility and lack of any projectiles to force approaches, finds success regardless thanks to his advantage state and great buttons. It is ironically hard to consistently zone out opponents in Ultimate thanks to the game's inherent mechanics, so when combined with Revenge, his weakness in getting zoned out isn't as bad as it should be. The zoners/set-up characters that are strong in Ultimate (Steve, Pac-Man, Samus, etc.) are only strong cause they are not pure zoner/set-up characters; rather they are hybrid characters.

Game & Watch is another example; even when Maister pushed the character to top tier status in late 2019, he is still a character who on-paper loses to characters with a solid disjoint and in general has a very bizarre neutral game, thus wasn't really considered top 10 by anyone in-spite of Maister's success. But as the meta shifted and his advantage state became more optimized as demonstrated by Miya, now suddenly he is potential top 5 contender.

There are many reasons to why Pichu fell off, but a major reason is that other character's advantage states really started to get pushed as the game progresses; Pichu's own advantage state was essentially solved from the first two months of the game due to its early popularity. As such, Pichu's advantage state became less and less impressive, characters are more easily exploiting Pichu's horrendous endurance, and the character's overall advantage-to-fragility ratio became more skewed towards the latter. Why play the great advantage state Pichu, when you can play other characters with similarly great advantage states while also not being made of paper and hurt yourself with every move?

Characters like Wolf and Palutena stopped being in many player's top 10 lists; two characters that have very solid advantage states and potent neutral, but doesn't have much that screams over-the-top.

Poor Villager is still paying for the loss of Ranai, trending downward in perception since towards the end of SSB4, and is now in a game where his toolkit doesn't really fit that well in-spite of being fundamentally the same character. He is a SSB4 character trapped in Ultimate's engine, and the advantage state shift of the meta is only going to make that worse.

These are but a mere few examples of this; the effects of the shifting meta can be felt throughout the entire roster.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Interesting to see Zackray comment that if you want to keep up with the new meta, you have to play 0 to deathers like ROB. It's a sentiment that's been growing in the community with the improvement of advantage states over the last year.

I watched a video where they called Lucina an early meta character and Corrin a late meta character and I think there's some truth to that. In the early meta combo games weren't as developed and parries weren't as frequent, and people were worse at recovering, so characters who did relativity short combos and were more focused towards one or a few hits and winning neutral over and over tended to do well, like Lucina, Palutena, Wolf, and Ike. These characters are still good (except for Ike) but they've all fallen off a bit (all of them got nerfed, too).

Corrin, however, is a sword character who can get decently long combos and strings for a swordie. Same with Sora. Corrin also does well versus many of the FP2 characters. We should remember that Corrin wasn't all that good until 2020, where she got massively buffed, but still flew under the radar since Cosmos dropped her in favor of Aegis, SHADIC was 13 years old and Neo hadn't started playing yet.

I think, broadly speaking, we're seeing three types of characters doing really well right now: Those who can get huge rewards from a few neutral wins (such as Steve, ROB, Kazuya, and Peach), those who can really control the neutral (such as Sonic, G&W kind of, Aegis kind of, Snake, Samus), and the anti-meta picks (like Cloud and Min Min). Other characters can still do well, of course.

 

[NairWizard]

Steve is like, you take Luigi's frame data and reward on hit, add a disjoint, add a burst option, add a much better recovery, and add a camping mechanic. Think about how powerful that sounds. That's exactly how powerful it is, and it has a lot to do with acola's consistency. To match consistency like that, you really need strong 0 to deaths of your own. Steve definitely dictates the nature of the meta -- 0 to deathing is a prominent part of the meta because of ripple effects from the popularity of Steve.

I watched a video where they called Lucina an early meta character and Corrin a late meta character and I think there's some truth to that.

I think Lucina's advantage state is quite incredible though, which isn't always evident given those who play her.
It's mostly tied together by her b-air. It's just so big and fast, and she can float out offstage with it for a long time to make sure she gets the kill. If she doesn't get the kill she's ledgetrapping you just as hard as she edgeguards.

As an aside, I don't really understand how so many people think that Cloud is better. I feel like they've never touched Cloud in their lives. Even Tweek seems to think so, but honestly, it's just sparg0 being great, like zackray with Pit.

Corrin is good too, of course, so you're right about her being a late-meta character.

This coincided with the rise of post-nerf Bayonetta that started in mid-2017, over a year after her nerfs. Bayonetta is a character defined by a lackluster neutral game but obscene advantage state

I agree with most of your post, but I don't think this part is true, even though I hear it all the time.

Bayo has the best neutral in S4. Heel Slide is an incredibly potent and self-sufficient mixup just by itself on 80% of the cast.
She has crazy burst in a game not known for burst, fast jumpsquat with witch twist, and a safe f-air that can 0 to death you across several different yomi layers. Like, Bayonetta f-air is still mind-boggling to me as a neutral tool.

Sheik and Diddy were strong in neutral, but banana and needles could never compare to the totality of Bayo's kit.

Bayo just had so many options. She would have gotten better and better and better in neutral relative to the cast with every passing year if the game's meta kept developing.

 

[L9999]

I think Joker as a top 5 character might've been carried by MkLeo to some extent. The second best Joker is likely Tsubaki, #44 on LumiRank Mid-Year. Interestingly enough, from a LumiRank perspective the G&W players got #3 (Miya) and #18 (Maister), while the Joker players got #7 (MkLeo) and #44 (Tsubaki). Zackray sometimes uses Joker too. G&W also has Abadango 91-100 while Joker has Luminous 101-110 and TamaPDaifuku 121-150.

Steve has #1 (acola), #30 (Onin), and Quandale Dinglelingleton (DDog) 71-80, Riku 81-90, 33Peranbox 111-120, Jake and Syrup 121-150.

As for Aegis, for solo mains she has Cosmos #51, Space 111-120, and... That's it. Sparg0 uses her as a secondary for some MUs (like Sonic), Shuton uses her fairly often (co-main with Olimar?), MkLeo uses her from time to time, etc. Oh, and acola is working on an Aegis secondary.

Is Aegis as a character better as a secondary than as a main? How come the only solo mains are Cosmos and Space (I'm not even 100% sure Space is a solo main, he might use Inkling as a secondary, and lately Cosmos has been trying Inkling and some Corrin as well). Aegis looks really good on paper, yet few top players seem interested in going all in on them. Tweek tried Aegis for a little bit but dropped them quickly. Even Cosmos seems to be having some doubts. What's up with that? Her being DLC might be a factor, I suppose. Shuton seems to be the most successful Aegis player, but he plays both Aegis and Olimar.

There's so much variety in this game, so many different characters viable. Even with Steve potentially becoming more common there are probably like 40 or so characters that go even, slightly beat, or only slightly loses to Steve. And hey, even -2 MUs are doable, even if they're difficult. I'm not sure if Steve even has any +3 MUs, and if he does they're probably vs low tiers anyways. There's so much variety in this game that seeing two of the same character at a major is a rarify, and three almost never happens.

Aegis seems to be just barely in the realm of reason if played by a human being, as in, how far can a human with flaws like nerves, finger speed, and cerebral functions play a character at top level.

With Aegis players they usually lose after getting their jump sniped or being sent an awkward angle with no hopes of coming back, coming from an error in judgment in a branching path in which they have no choice but to YOLO it. Airdodge to ledge, Airdodge up, Up B to ledge, etc.

Shuton doesn't tend to do stupid stuff that gets him killed like Chokemos, but he still falls to the YOLO situations. Perhaps that's why Aegis sees very little play, they rather use a character that 9/10s recovers for free. The less hard decisions the merrier.

Joker I think also falls on the "just barely playable by a human" thing. In all these recent Joker matches he looks very limited, he only really gets to do something impressive when he has Arsene, but people learned how to camp him out, or vortex him so hard he loses it right away. People DI his combos or the Joker player messes up the kill confirm.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think Lucina's advantage state is quite incredible though, which isn't always evident given those who play her.
It's mostly tied together by her b-air. It's just so big and fast, and she can float out offstage with it for a long time to make sure she gets the kill. If she doesn't get the kill she's ledgetrapping you just as hard as she edgeguards.

I think her advantage state is solid but it somewhat rests upon the assumption that she can either keep chasing or do well with edgeguarding or ledgetrapping. Characters like Steve or Kazuya can start a combo and do massive amounts of damage, Lucina has to work for it. Granted, she has strong tools for keeping the pressure up, but it's not quite the same level as characters who touch you once and then deal huge amounts of damage from it.

As an aside, I don't really understand how so many people think that Cloud is better.

I would consider Cloud an anti-meta character. He does well into Steve and Mr. Game & Watch, two of the strongest characters in the game. He also does well into Fox, Mario, Wario, Yoshi, potentially Samus. Granted, he also loses important MUs, but having good MUs into some of the strongest characters in the game is noteworthy. Lucina? She likely loses slightly to Steve (although it could be Even) and goes even vs G&W. She's a bit lacking in notable wins, with her best notable wins likely being Mario, Yoshi, Young Link, and Ness.

Lucina strikes me as a high-quality manual lawn mower. She has the tools to get it done, but the top-top tiers are more like electric lawn mowers (like Kazuya or Steve).

Aegis seems to be just barely in the realm of reason if played by a human being, as in, how far can a human with flaws like nerves, finger speed, and cerebral functions play a character at top level.

Sometimes I think Aegis is top 5, one of the best characters in the game, with busted options and MU spread, and sometimes I think the character is barely top 10 due to their recovery. I'm currently leaning towards top 5 but that may change... The character seems like it's better as a secondary or co-main rather than a solo main.

 

[NairWizard]

I would consider Cloud an anti-meta character. He does well into Steve and Mr. Game & Watch, two of the strongest characters in the game.
...
Lucina likely loses slightly to Steve (although it could be Even) and goes even vs G&W.

Hmm, I completely disagree. Cloud vs. Game and Watch feels even or even Game-and-Watch favored when I play it, and I have beaten all of the Steves I've played games against with Lucina. Obviously I'm not playing acola, but I've played decent Steves (like Bassmage's Steve).

There's a reason that sparg0 doesn't go Cloud in the MU any more. It's hard, and it relies on the Cloud limit-camping, which no Cloud can do effectively right now.
There's also a reason that Proto seems more comfortable with Lucina in the MU than Min Min.

I'd say Cloud is 0 vs. G&W and +1 vs. Steve, while Lucina is +1 vs. G&W and 0 vs. Steve.

 

[L9999]

As an aside, I don't really understand how so many people think that Cloud is better. I feel like they've never touched Cloud in their lives. Even Tweek seems to think so, but honestly, it's just sparg0 being great, like zackray with Pit.

Nobody wants to play Lucina besides Banham and Banham barely even plays at tournaments. Cloud gets more exposure, and he has a broken Bair. Though I go more with the route that Lucina is too honest among the likes of R.O.B, Steve, Wario, Fox, Mr. Game & Watch, etc. Cloud exchanges Lucina's "well-rounded-ness" for "dishonesty."

Tweek is likely comparing Cloud to Smash 4 Cloud, since he played him. Smash 4 Cloud is like Steve, he camps for free and punishes the opponent for camping, and he punishes the opponent for interacting with him with his broken Uair and Dair, and giving him limit Up B offstage or while ledgetrapping. His unlimited limit buff puts Wario Waft pressure on the table.

Ultimate Cloud can fall prey to what Joker falls to, people timing out the limit or vortexing him so hard he never gets to use his limit break. Cloud has it a little better than Joker because he has a big sword rather than a crappy knife and more deadly attacks than Joker, but still, same principle.

He also has some of that Aegis stench of being forced to YOLO it when coming back to the stage. More recently Sparg0 has been dying offstage the same way Shuton dies as Aegis. Miss-spacing Up B drop trying to get to ledge safely, getting his jump sniped, being sent at an awkward angle, etc. Cloud has it a bit better with Cross Slash stalls, Fair serving as protection, and Limit Up B, but it's a considerable weakness.

 

[NairWizard]

Here's the issue with Cloud.

Certainly, Cloud's advantage state is crazy; Limit Ledgetrapping is one of the most broken things in the game. But we just got done talking about how great advantage states in this game are, and Lucina's advantage is pretty strong in its own right.

We have to look to their neutrals, and this is where Cloud struggles.

Against characters who are inclined to jump, like Wario, Cloud is very strong, because you can consistently use up-tilt and rising b-air to piece together a ground game.
Against very slow characters, Cloud is also pretty strong, because you have plenty of time to drift in and space and they can't do anything about it. This is part of the reason that he's so strong against Steve.

But against fast, grounded characters, Cloud has issues.

In many matchups, you're not really going to be spacing with Cloud in neutral, because there's so much great burst whiff-punishing in this game. Plus, his moves just aren't made for it:

• Spacing f-air in general is kinda hard. If you full hop f-air, Cloud lingers in the air for a long time and can be sniped out of his jump, and the opponent can parry it pretty consistently given the startup. In a meta where the typical advantage state is often 0 to 60 or 0 to death, getting your f-air parried can be pretty bad, so you often have to dash up short hop f-air.
• Cloud doesn't have a traditional swordie poking d-tilt
• f-tilt unfortunately lacks the arc of Byleth or Lucina f-tilt
• If you're spacing Cloud d-air in neutral you're doing something wrong; it has a hitbox that can only be used in hard-read situations, or for landing
• let's not even get started on Cloud n-air

You basically have b-air, and despite how safe and strong b-air is, it will stale fast, there are only so many mixups you can do on a shield with it. It's also not enough to pressure the opponent's shield with b-air either. You have to do something after, and Cloud isn't in a great position after the b-air to do something.

To make things worse, Cloud's grab is bad.

It's very different from Lucina. With Lucina, you can actually run up and space f-air or n-air, or d-tilt or f-tilt, or even reverse up-tilt or d-air. Lucina doesn't need the opponent to jump in order to start playing the game. Lucina's grab is also better, and she has shieldbreaker as a callout if the opponent is just dashing around and shielding.

Against fast characters who can stay grounded (Squirtle, Pikachu, Diddy Kong, Sheik, heck even characters like Pit), Cloud has to start conditioning them from the moment the match begins. Lucina doesn't have to do that. Lucina can play the game right away.

So what do you do as Cloud? Well, you charge a bit of limit, then use your movement to bait a grounded dash in and then Cross Slash to begin your advantage state. Cross Slash is the defining move in Cloud's neutral -- and also one of the most baitable moves in the game, so you also mix this in with dash in shields and up-b out of shield. Is that strong? Yes, it can be hard to deal with, but Cloud still loses the matchups where he has to rely on that.

That's the issue with Cloud. His neutral looks oppressive, but it just... isn't.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Sure but while cross slash is baitable it's also ridiculously huge move that beats out pretty much all aerial approaches with some exceptions, does solid damage and can be cancelled. Cloud also has a functional dash attack that beats out most things unlike Lucina who has a never use this move bad dash attack, and Cloud has a much better up smash as well.

But I think the main thing is that Clouds weaknesses dissipate quite a bit when he's played at the pace and with the refinement of Sparg0. There are holes and stuff but Sparg0 is typically able to overwhelm opponents to the point where they are struggling too hard to capitalize on those holes. But yeah I think Sparg0s uneven results reflect the limitations of Cloud.

Also think Lucinas advantage state pales in comparison to Clouds overall because she's less mobile, but it's especially noticeable at low percentages where she needs to win more interactions than Cloud before she becomes dangerous. Cloud is noticeably more explosive but Lucina can actually edgeguard without too much risk.

 

[NotLiquid]

What is it about Mario that turns him into the character Leo has lost to more than just about any other character? At this point he's lost to Kurama, Zenyou, Superdog, and now at Rise n Grind the latest on the list is Skinny the Pooh, who's #6 PR in DFW and managed to send him to losers in Pools, before Top 64. Leo has openly expressed disdain having to fight characters like Min Min, but Mario continue to be his actual kryptonite.

 

[NairWizard]

Leo is honestly just not as top-level any more, that's all there is to it. The meta left his style of play behind quite some time ago, and some of that is percolating down to the lower ranks.

Spacing and midrange play aren't as good in this meta, outside of some matchups like Cloud vs. Steve. This is definitely more of a "mashing" era, and your physical athleticism/play speed matters a lot more -- Miya, acola, sparg0, Light are all some of the fastest players to ever touch the controller.

The best way to play this game right now is to mash your win button until you get a hit, with very few exceptions, and Leo doesn't play characters with a win button. Even when he played Aegis, he was... spacing d-air and f-air with Mythra? Yeah, that's not mashing. Not gonna cut it.

edit: I still think that Leo could win this tournament from Losers, though. He's still very good, even if he's not as good as he was relative to the field, and his Joker is playing well.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Rise N' Grind 2023 Top 8

Winner's
Miya vs MuteAce
Glutonny vs Lima

Loser's
SHADIC vs Tarik
Geist vs Anathema

Players like MkLeo, Riddles, Dabuz, and more got eliminated before top 8. Overall, a very odd event indeed.

 

[Rizen]

Rise N' Grind 2023 Top 8

Winner's
Miya vs MuteAce
Glutonny vs Lima

Loser's
SHADIC vs Tarik
Geist vs Anathema

Players like MkLeo, Riddles, Dabuz, and more got eliminated before top 8. Overall, a very odd event indeed.

I'm betting on Glutonny, although Miya has been on fire recently beating Acola in the last tournament. That's how I see grand finals playing out: with those two.