Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hydreigonfan01]

Someone turned the Barnard Loop post into a tier list and with Twitter embeds no longer working I thought I'd post it here.

 

[Rizen]

Someone turned the Barnard Loop post into a tier list and with Twitter embeds no longer working I thought I'd post it here.

A few observations about this. Aegis and Joker are not falling off; they've only move up in rankings. It's weird to see Luigi, Bayo and Falco that high. They've really shot up despite being imo unremarkable characters. On the other end of the spectrum, it's weird to see ZSS that low. I guess Marrs wasn't the only one who dropped her. This slightly supports what I was saying about Ganon being a bottom 5 character but not the worst in the game. Sephiroth is certainly not as good as people first thought; I noticed that at Watch the Throne too. He's too slow to keep characters out despite his huge reach and being as light as Kirby doesn't help either. I don't think he's as bad as he's ranked here but he's not great. I would have thought Terry and especially Wario would be up a tier. I guess Glutonny really carries Wario. He seems like lower top tier to me. The meta's really pulled away from strong neutrals; Young Link isn't even top 30 anymore. The exception to this is Diddy Kong but his disadvantage state is leagues better than YL's. Palutena's still as top tier as ever despite not having a top 10 player.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for the recent Coinbox. I'll do results for Coinbox IRL as well unless someone beats me too it

1. Sparg0
2. Sonix
3. Wrath
4. Lima
5. X'avier / Maister
7. JaZaR / Candle
9. Scend / Doorstop / JeJaJeJa / Vendetta

Yep, Sparg0 won the event going solo Corrin, taking out Sonix, Wrath and Lima. The Lima win impressed me the most as Lima has a long history of beating SHADIC.

 

[Hippieslayer]

About the whole standing under platforms and camping thing. It really is an issue imo. Shouldn't the stage list kind of be revised? Because it encourages this strategy imo as well as other forms of sleep inducing gameplay. I suppose though that it would just not be possible. Getting people to agree on a revised stage list that would have to include stages of varying degrees of various dubious natures would be impossible. From a viewer perspective it would definitely be desirable though, and Ultimate needs more viewers. Watching Acola stand under a platform mining does not make for a game thats exciting to watch. I agree with Coney who recently made a video on this topic. It gets hard when you try to come up with alternatives though, there just aren't any "good" stages to expand the current stagelist with. But do they really need to be good at this point? I'd settle for functional stages that make it harder to play campy or even just lead to gameplay that isn't so very stale.

On another note, big agree on Mythra nair being overused. It's a great move but people seem to just autopilot with it. A prime example of this was when Sparg0 brought out the Aegis vs Sonix in grand finals he kept doing Nair after Nair getting punished every time; like come on dude? I guess Sparg0 wasn't really trying his hardest that game but he's not the only one I've seen throwing out Mythra nairs as if though its safe and then getting punished for it then doing the same thing again. Mythra cannot afford that type of sloppy gameplay.

Cloud is looking strong imo. He does well vs GnW, Steve and Sonic. And while he may be flawed I think this new meta fits him really well. I watch Sparg0 and see him overwhelm people, sacrificing precision for volume, he throws out move after move, many of which end up being far from perfectly timed or spaced and which are punishable, yet go unpunished because its really hard to react correctly and capitalize on small openings when Cloud is throwing out fairs and bairs on you non stop while also having moves that are very good for stuffing counterattacks and approaches in his up-b and the abomination that is cross slash. Once Cloud gets you into disadvantage he can really push it too as we all know.

I don't like this new meta. It feels dumb to not be able to punish stuff that you would have easily dealt with in Sm4sh because ultimate is laggy so you don't have time to react unless you also successfully predict how a move will land just before it does.

I look at Aegis and I don't see them being able to play like this. Mythra can certainly overwhelm you with volume, but she has to do it successfully for much longer than Cloud and Aegis are not able to rob people of Stocks the way Cloud can. Perhaps they could if Aegis players got better at using their down-b. But as of now.. nope. And Aegis recovery seems to be on a whole other level of bad compared to Clouds too.

 

[NairWizard]

On the note of Aegis, I think pretty much every top Aegis is playing the character wrong. Is anyone interested in a detailed study of the matter?

 

[True Blue Warrior]

Looking at this video, one of the best ways to buff K. Rool is by giving his Up B frames of super armour so that his recovery is less exploitable.

On the note of Aegis, I think pretty much every top Aegis is playing the character wrong. Is anyone interested in a detailed study of the matter?

Sure, why not?

 

[Rizen]

Looking at this video, one of the best ways to buff K. Rool is by giving his Up B frames of super armour so that his recovery is less exploitable.




Sure, why not?

Speaking as a Krool player, his recovery isn't really the issue. His recovery is above average. It actually goes really far and has hitboxes above it. Sure opponents can drop down and Bair you but that's easy to tech. IMO his real issue stems from just having such a huge hurtbox. His attacks all have a relatively small area of effect and are pinned onto this massive beach ball of a hurtbox. It's extremely hard to approach zoners and get out of combos. Yes Krool has tools for these situations in belly armor, crown armor and a reflecting counter but they're all slow and committal. You can destroy scrubs with Krool but as soon as you run into someone good, he can be very difficult to maneuver. Sadly Krool doesn't have an easy fix. It's just the price he pays for being such a massive character. TBH all huge characters have this problem to some extent. It's very easy to vortex them.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

ESAM is going to be playing more in tournament and is focusing less on . He doesn't like how Pikachu has to play more passive in this current metagame because he doesn't enjoy playing campy.

 

[Cheryl~]

ESAM is going to be playing more in tournament and is focusing less on . He doesn't like how Pikachu has to play more passive in this current metagame because he doesn't enjoy playing campy.

This would be more interesting if ESAM's tournament schedule over the past two years wasn't like 2-3 tournaments a year at max lol. Nice to see him succeeding in content creation but he's definitely not a big-time tourney guy anymore. Gone the way of Marss.

 

[toonito]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Updated character results stats from July-December

 

[NairWizard]

Let's try a little game. I'm gonna generate some random pairs of characters. How good are these characters as co-mains? What matchups would you struggle against with this pair? What matchups would be easy? Stages? Shared strengths? Which pair is the best? Which pair is the worst? Any other thoughts?
You can assume you're a top 10 player with strong fundamentals if it makes it easier.

Gonna withhold my own opinions until the end to let other people have a shot.

 

[toonito]

now that a best character has been firmly established as the best in Ultimate we're 5 games deep I wonder if we can see if there's any common traits that share. Like a unofficial Smash 6 best character predictor.

the only thing I can think of for the games with DLC (4 and Ult) both the best characters came from DLC and late in the patch cycle, Bayo being Smash 4's last character and Steve was 4th from last. I wonder if the best character = DLC continue for Smash 6.

 

[Rizen]

now that a best character has been firmly established as the best in Ultimate we're 5 games deep I wonder if we can see if there's any common traits that share. Like a unofficial Smash 6 best character predictor.

the only thing I can think of for the games with DLC (4 and Ult) both the best characters came from DLC and late in the patch cycle, Bayo being Smash 4's last character and Steve was 4th from last. I wonder if the best character = DLC continue for Smash 6.

The problem with DLC is Nintendo always stops releasing balance patches prematurely. Ultimate Steve and Smash 4 Bayo could have both used some more fine tuning.

 

[NotLiquid]

Let's try a little game. I'm gonna generate some random pairs of characters. How good are these characters as co-mains? What matchups would you struggle against with this pair? What matchups would be easy? Stages? Shared strengths? Which pair is the best? Which pair is the worst? Any other thoughts?
You can assume you're a top 10 player with strong fundamentals if it makes it easier.

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Gonna withhold my own opinions until the end to let other people have a shot.

I don't have nearly enough character knowledge to confidently assume how much coverage each of these characters have. Personally I think Sonic and DK come across as the strongest "pairing" but also the most arbitrary one, if only because Sonic is generally not thought to have many negative matchups in the cast, if any at all. Most of his annoying MUs are usually projectile campers who can play neutral attrition against Sonic reasonably well because it's often hard for Sonic to convert into KOs, but while DK has similar issues he at least benefits strongly from rage, survives longer, can armor through some weaker neutral options, and can confirm into KOs pretty easily once he gets in. While I don't think it's necessary to pair these two given how strong Sonic is, I could imagine DK seeing preferential fringe usage against some characters like Sheik or maybe even Rosalina.

I'd like to think Roy and Pac-Man might actually be the best on paper given that Roy's disadvantage is even more of a liability in matchups where he gets walled out easily and denied of his sweetspots. That said I don't know how well Pac-Man handles Steve and especially G&W.

Byleth and Palutena seem like the weakest to me? I feel like both these characters are generally trying to achieve the same thing in their MUs, which is just keepaway disjoints and strong aerial burst. I suppose Byleth has more of an X-factor with his spikes and sweetspots but I don't think they make a material difference enough to necessitate a co-main or secondary.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The problem with DLC is Nintendo always stops releasing balance patches prematurely. Ultimate Steve and Smash 4 Bayo could have both used some more fine tuning.

I guess that is true for SSB4, but I don't blame them for thinking that they are wrapped up with Ultimate. Remember that unlike Bayo, Steve is far from the last DLC character released from the pack; he is the 2nd character from FP2 with four more characters coming after him, thus resulting in a 14+ month gap between his release and the final balance patch of the game, giving the devs more than plenty of time to fine tune him.

The problem is that Steve in particular is a very late bloomer character; the stuff that was discovered to make him the #1 character in the game was discovered a long, long time after his release, and about half a year after the final balance patch. For reference, he was released at October 2020, and discussions about him being #1 started in Spring 2022. SSB4 Bayo was discovered to be busted pretty much immediately after release, thus was treated with an emergency balance patch, and discussion about her being the best again wouldn't resurface until over a year after the nerfs (when Salem won EVO 2017). It took the collective Smash community a very long time to discover Steve being problematically strong, thus he dodged over a year of active balance patches.

Then again with a 80+ character roster, it is easier than the other Smash games for a potentially strong character to slip through the cracks. Sonic wasn't discovered to be a problematic top 2 character until long after the final balance patch in the game, and he is a base roster character.

 

[L9999]

now that a best character has been firmly established as the best in Ultimate we're 5 games deep I wonder if we can see if there's any common traits that share. Like a unofficial Smash 6 best character predictor.

the only thing I can think of for the games with DLC (4 and Ult) both the best characters came from DLC and late in the patch cycle, Bayo being Smash 4's last character and Steve was 4th from last. I wonder if the best character = DLC continue for Smash 6.

1) Frame data

• Pikachu has a very safe standing grab and dashgrab, with Z-cancel his aerials have 0 landing lag.
• Fox has his infamous frame 1 Shine, his aerials and tilts have good frame data too.
• MK has a frame 2 Uair, he can spam DSmash like it's nothing, he can throw out DTilts and Dairs very safely.
• Where it counts Bayo's frame data is decent (Uair, Bair, Fair, Nair)
• Steve has walking Jab, UTilt, FSmash, and Bair as remarkably spammable moves.

2) Mobility

• Pikachu has very good air speed (which was nerfed in subsequent Smash games), he has good ground speed, and he has Quick Attack to zip around.
• Fox has very good ground speed, he has good dashdance and wavedash to compliment it.
• MK can safely walk around or use his five jumps to spam Dair. Even though his air speed is kinda garbo he makes up for it with Shuttle Loop, Dimensional Cape, and Tornado.
• Bayonetta has kinda garbo base movement but makes up for it with her aerial side B.
• Steve also has garbo movement but he has the minecart to zip around and blocks to jump around and use the cart.

3) Recovery

* Pikachu has the best recovery in Smash 64 by far, being able to recover from very far away and from many different angles, characters have to Hail Mary Bair to clip him on the way back, and he can plank the ledge with Up B.

*Fox has an exploitable recovery but he has too many mixups to handle all at once (shine stall, Fox Fire angles, Fox Fire drift, Side B, side B shorten). Compared to Sheik, Marth, and Peach whose recoveries range from meh to garbo Fox is pretty well set. Fox can plank but it isn't that safe.

* MK can recover almost for free, Shuttle Loop glide with the threat of glide attack, Tornado, Dimensional Cape, drill, 5 jumps with Uair protection, and between the 5 jumps he can use any of his specials. He is so good at planking Brawl's ruleset penalizes MK planking.

* Bayonetta was notorious for recovering for free in Smash 4, being able to use her Side B and Up B multiple times, with which she could also plank the ledge, and she can jump Witch Time from the ledge so ledgetrapping her isn't quite safe.

* Steve can glide back to the stage, can use the minecart, and he can use blocks to jump then use his other options or to plank.

4) "Knowing the vibes"

* Pikachu can play very aggressive or camp, he has "The Wario," a strategy in which Pikachu planks the ledge with Quick Attack until the opponent goes to the other side of the stage and resets the game state or risks himself dying at the edge. Pikachu has deadly combos so he can come back from the vibes.

* Fox can afford to play very passive, dashdancing and using SHDLs to tack on damage and then go nuts with the first opening, or go aggro from the start then camp. Can flip the switch at any point, and can claw back if someone tries to vibe him.

* MK is known for being a "degeneracy killer," because he can air camp characters whose win condition relies on camping or grabbing (or both). Of course he can play "aggressive," or as aggressive as Brawl allows. MK can spam Shuttle Loop and DSmash to climb back from being camped.

* Bayo can do the Mistake, running into your opponent and jumping, setting up a 50/50 in which you prey on your opponent's fear of Witch Time, or she can camp by walking around and spamming SH Nair and DTilt bullets. Like Fox and Pikachu if she ever touches you it's likely she gets a stock, so she can come back from getting camped.

* Steve can camp REALLY hard, but sucks when someone gets the vibes on him. He can come back from the vibes but is nowhere near as powerful as the other best characters.

5) Edgeguarding and ledgetrapping

• Pikachu Uair train = death. Pikachu can do grab, Nair, and Uair spam near the edge.
• Fox Shine = almost certain death. Fox can fish out recoveries and ledge options with Bair, Nair, Shine, and UTilt.
• MK Dair = almost certain death. MK can spam DSmash at the edge to ledgetrap.
• Bayo Fair = almost certain death, guaranteed death against certain characters. Bayo has Nair, Uair, Fair, Up B, and Witch Time as ledgetrap options.
• Steve Fair and Minecart = possibly death. Blocktraps can result in certain death depending on the matchup and situation. Steve can ledgetrap by forming a wall that forces bad ledge options. Steve can spam DSmash, Bair, etc near the edge.

6) Kill power

* Pikachu Uair > Uair > Uair > Nair is a death combo on many characters. Pikachu's FThrow can kill raw or kill because the opponent's recovery is not good enough to come back. Pikachu Bair and BThrow can kill as well.

* Fox Uair and USmash are infamous for their uber power, they can be combo'd into by Fox's plentiful options (Jab, Shine, Dair, soft Nair, Bair/FTilt techchase, Uthrow). Nair, Dtilt, Bair, and DSmash can do the trick as well. His chaingrabs can sometimes lead to a kill.

* MK DSmash, FSmash, and Shuttle Loop hit REALLY hard. Uthrow can kill sometimes. Like Pikachu sometimes MK kills because the opponent can't come back to the stage.

* Witch Time alone is uber, she also has Fair trains, Uair trains, Dair and Bair raw, FThrow at high %, Up B ladders....she used to have the most braindead death combo in DABK > DABK > Up B but it got patched out.

* Steve can spam FSmash behind a wall of blocks, catch landings with USmash, 2 frame or ledgetrap with DSmash, Fair spike, minecart into imagination, Bair spam, footstool into Dair, and Dair read can also do the trick.

In all the above the best characters have the dumbest options, and can win on the spot just because of a single dumb move. Steve is the weakest because he has bad matchups, Fox is the second worst because he has evenish matchups. But all of them are dumb and obviously superior to most of the characters they share a game with.

You can also use that same frame of reference for former #1s like . They're the weakest best characters in Smash history (because they were butchered along the way) and they're still very powerful. None of the pre-DLC Ultimate characters impress me though, they all seem leagues worse than Steve in terms of dominant options, let alone Diddy and Sheik, those two invalidated almost every character in Smash 4 just by existing.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 8 of Coinbox IRL

 

[toonito]

1) Frame data

• Pikachu has a very safe standing grab and dashgrab, with Z-cancel his aerials have 0 landing lag.
• Fox has his infamous frame 1 Shine, his aerials and tilts have good frame data too.
• MK has a frame 2 Uair, he can spam DSmash like it's nothing, he can throw out DTilts and Dairs very safely.
• Where it counts Bayo's frame data is decent (Uair, Bair, Fair, Nair)
• Steve has walking Jab, UTilt, FSmash, and Bair as remarkably spammable moves.

2) Mobility

• Pikachu has very good air speed (which was nerfed in subsequent Smash games), he has good ground speed, and he has Quick Attack to zip around.
• Fox has very good ground speed, he has good dashdance and wavedash to compliment it.
• MK can safely walk around or use his five jumps to spam Dair. Even though his air speed is kinda garbo he makes up for it with Shuttle Loop, Dimensional Cape, and Tornado.
• Bayonetta has kinda garbo base movement but makes up for it with her aerial side B.
• Steve also has garbo movement but he has the minecart to zip around and blocks to jump around and use the cart.

3) Recovery

* Pikachu has the best recovery in Smash 64 by far, being able to recover from very far away and from many different angles, characters have to Hail Mary Bair to clip him on the way back, and he can plank the ledge with Up B.

*Fox has an exploitable recovery but he has too many mixups to handle all at once (shine stall, Fox Fire angles, Fox Fire drift, Side B, side B shorten). Compared to Sheik, Marth, and Peach whose recoveries range from meh to garbo Fox is pretty well set. Fox can plank but it isn't that safe.

* MK can recover almost for free, Shuttle Loop glide with the threat of glide attack, Tornado, Dimensional Cape, drill, 5 jumps with Uair protection, and between the 5 jumps he can use any of his specials. He is so good at planking Brawl's ruleset penalizes MK planking.

* Bayonetta was notorious for recovering for free in Smash 4, being able to use her Side B and Up B multiple times, with which she could also plank the ledge, and she can jump Witch Time from the ledge so ledgetrapping her isn't quite safe.

* Steve can glide back to the stage, can use the minecart, and he can use blocks to jump then use his other options or to plank.

4) "Knowing the vibes"

* Pikachu can play very aggressive or camp, he has "The Wario," a strategy in which Pikachu planks the ledge with Quick Attack until the opponent goes to the other side of the stage and resets the game state or risks himself dying at the edge. Pikachu has deadly combos so he can come back from the vibes.

* Fox can afford to play very passive, dashdancing and using SHDLs to tack on damage and then go nuts with the first opening, or go aggro from the start then camp. Can flip the switch at any point, and can claw back if someone tries to vibe him.

* MK is known for being a "degeneracy killer," because he can air camp characters whose win condition relies on camping or grabbing (or both). Of course he can play "aggressive," or as aggressive as Brawl allows. MK can spam Shuttle Loop and DSmash to climb back from being camped.

* Bayo can do the Mistake, running into your opponent and jumping, setting up a 50/50 in which you prey on your opponent's fear of Witch Time, or she can camp by walking around and spamming SH Nair and DTilt bullets. Like Fox and Pikachu if she ever touches you it's likely she gets a stock, so she can come back from getting camped.

* Steve can camp REALLY hard, but sucks when someone gets the vibes on him. He can come back from the vibes but is nowhere near as powerful as the other best characters.

5) Edgeguarding and ledgetrapping

• Pikachu Uair train = death. Pikachu can do grab, Nair, and Uair spam near the edge.
• Fox Shine = almost certain death. Fox can fish out recoveries and ledge options with Bair, Nair, Shine, and UTilt.
• MK Dair = almost certain death. MK can spam DSmash at the edge to ledgetrap.
• Bayo Fair = almost certain death, guaranteed death against certain characters. Bayo has Nair, Uair, Fair, Up B, and Witch Time as ledgetrap options.
• Steve Fair and Minecart = possibly death. Blocktraps can result in certain death depending on the matchup and situation. Steve can ledgetrap by forming a wall that forces bad ledge options. Steve can spam DSmash, Bair, etc near the edge.

6) Kill power

* Pikachu Uair > Uair > Uair > Nair is a death combo on many characters. Pikachu's FThrow can kill raw or kill because the opponent's recovery is not good enough to come back. Pikachu Bair and BThrow can kill as well.

* Fox Uair and USmash are infamous for their uber power, they can be combo'd into by Fox's plentiful options (Jab, Shine, Dair, soft Nair, Bair/FTilt techchase, Uthrow). Nair, Dtilt, Bair, and DSmash can do the trick as well. His chaingrabs can sometimes lead to a kill.

* MK DSmash, FSmash, and Shuttle Loop hit REALLY hard. Uthrow can kill sometimes. Like Pikachu sometimes MK kills because the opponent can't come back to the stage.

* Witch Time alone is uber, she also has Fair trains, Uair trains, Dair and Bair raw, FThrow at high %, Up B ladders....she used to have the most braindead death combo in DABK > DABK > Up B but it got patched out.

* Steve can spam FSmash behind a wall of blocks, catch landings with USmash, 2 frame or ledgetrap with DSmash, Fair spike, minecart into imagination, Bair spam, footstool into Dair, and Dair read can also do the trick.

In all the above the best characters have the dumbest options, and can win on the spot just because of a single dumb move. Steve is the weakest because he has bad matchups, Fox is the second worst because he has evenish matchups. But all of them are dumb and obviously superior to most of the characters they share a game with.

You can also use that same frame of reference for former #1s like . They're the weakest best characters in Smash history (because they were butchered along the way) and they're still very powerful. None of the pre-DLC Ultimate characters impress me though, they all seem leagues worse than Steve in terms of dominant options, let alone Diddy and Sheik, those two invalidated almost every character in Smash 4 just by existing.

first off amazing post thanks

so if im reading ur post correctly based on previous best characters the next best character to look out for in Smash 6 should have:

average to above-average frame data
average to above-average mobility
great recovery
diverse playstyle (can both camp and be aggressive effectively)
great edgeguarding and ledgetrapping
several potential kill moves or kill setups

we've had 3 1st party #1 characters and 2 3rd party #1 characters, the last 2 being DLC

previous #1 has gotten nerfed in the following game

so far no character or franchise has repeated being #1 so that presumably eliminates Pokemon, Star Fox, Kirby, Bayonetta, and Minecraft from hosting the best character again.

it was just a lil thought experiment i had for Smash 6, thanks for playing along

 

[L9999]

first off amazing post thanks

so if im reading ur post correctly based on previous best characters the next best character to look out for in Smash 6 should have:

average to above-average frame data
average to above-average mobility
great recovery
diverse playstyle (can both camp and be aggressive effectively)
great edgeguarding and ledgetrapping
several potential kill moves or kill setups

we've had 3 1st party #1 characters and 2 3rd party #1 characters, the last 2 being DLC

previous #1 has gotten nerfed in the following game

so far no character or franchise has repeated being #1 so that presumably eliminates Pokemon, Star Fox, Kirby, Bayonetta, and Minecraft from hosting the best character again.

it was just a lil thought experiment i had for Smash 6, thanks for playing along

Pretty much, all traits combined together to make a flexible and dangerous character. It also helps to have dumb hitboxes, MK and Bayonetta most notorious. The other thing is weaknesses and using the engine to their advantage.

Pikachu has death combos because of 64's high hitstun. His only weaknesses are his awful techroll and being vulnerable to death combos himself, but in every matchup Pikachu is favored because he's more likely to explode on his opponent than viceversa.

Fox can utilize wavedash and dashdance pretty well. His balance is that he can use his high fall speed to combo and land safely but characters can eat him alive with chaingrabbing and combos. Like Pikachu Fox is more favored in this dynamic of exploding on each other's faces. Sheik and Marth get most of their damage on Fox from chaingrabbing, fighting him head on is a challenge for non-Foxs.

MK's unironic weaknesses are that he cannot kill you with a death combo (like Ice Climbers can) and has to "respect" characters who have a better neutral than him (like Diddy). But MK is so uber he can just win and tear apart any gameplan. It helps that Brawl's awful staling system and hitstun cancelling benefit MK, because the other characters in Brawl have 1 or 2 kill moves, with hitstun cancelling they get stale fast while MK can just cycle through his plentiful kill moves that aren't stale.

Bayo's weaknesses.....Grab combos and kill throws she cannot Witch Time in between? And....SDI? The risk reward is almost always in her favor because of humanity's flawed nature and mathematics. No kidding, it's statistically easier to get a death combo once than guessing right against Bayo every time. She also heavily abuses rage and the low ceilings in Smash 4.

Steve's weakness is Cloud's Bair and Sonic timing him out. Lmao, Steve greatly abuses how low the power level is in Ultimate, and the craptacular stage list.

Though on the subject of weaknesses and power level, when Sparg0 is playing well it almost seems Cloud is the best character in the game, since he's a "degeneracy killer" like Meta Knight. He beats Steve and can beat Mr. Game & Watch, Wario, and Sonic. I still think Steve's meta is held back by lack of motivation, nobody wants to be cyberbullied and branded the scum of society for playing a funny blockman after all. When I see Miya play Steve I see him utilizing his ledge deathtraps better than acola. Other Steves had death combos figured out but they lacked the neutral Miya and acola have, and other Steves don't utilize the walling potential of blocks like acola does.

 

[NairWizard]

I don't have nearly enough character knowledge to confidently assume how much coverage each of these characters have. Personally I think Sonic and DK come across as the strongest "pairing" but also the most arbitrary one, if only because Sonic is generally not thought to have many negative matchups in the cast, if any at all. Most of his annoying MUs are usually projectile campers who can play neutral attrition against Sonic reasonably well because it's often hard for Sonic to convert into KOs, but while DK has similar issues he at least benefits strongly from rage, survives longer, can armor through some weaker neutral options, and can confirm into KOs pretty easily once he gets in. While I don't think it's necessary to pair these two given how strong Sonic is, I could imagine DK seeing preferential fringe usage against some characters like Sheik or maybe even Rosalina.

I'd like to think Roy and Pac-Man might actually be the best on paper given that Roy's disadvantage is even more of a liability in matchups where he gets walled out easily and denied of his sweetspots. That said I don't know how well Pac-Man handles Steve and especially G&W.

Byleth and Palutena seem like the weakest to me? I feel like both these characters are generally trying to achieve the same thing in their MUs, which is just keepaway disjoints and strong aerial burst. I suppose Byleth has more of an X-factor with his spikes and sweetspots but I don't think they make a material difference enough to necessitate a co-main or secondary.

I really like this answer. Good point, what does DK provide when you're already maining Sonic?

The most interesting pair to me was Lucario-Pichu. So interesting to get two characters paired who both suffer from being killed too early for their gameplans. But sometimes stacking weaknesses can be a good way to play the game, too. You'd use Pichu for heavy characters and Lucario for zoners like Snake and Samus and you might be alright! These are two mid-or-worse characters, but between the two of them they have a decent spread.


This thought experiment makes me wonder what is the "worst" possible pairing of characters who can cover all matchups with at least an even. I feel like it would almost have to involve Ridley at some level, because of how specialized that character is against swords. But maybe you can actually get away with an Ice Climbers pairing.

 

[The_Bookworm]

You can also use that same frame of reference for former #1s like . They're the weakest best characters in Smash history (because they were butchered along the way) and they're still very powerful. None of the pre-DLC Ultimate characters impress me though, they all seem leagues worse than Steve in terms of dominant options, let alone Diddy and Sheik, those two invalidated almost every character in Smash 4 just by existing.

Honorable mention to pre-patch . That character competes with pre-patch for the most busted/game-breaking character in SSB4's history.

Shorter Luma respawn, more Luma HP, stronger Luma jab finisher (akin to Ultimate Rosa), much stronger forward and back throws, much less endlag on grabs, stronger smash attacks, larger and stronger neutral air, larger down tilt that comes out 1 frame sooner, uncharged neutral B having nearly twice the amount of active hitboxes, and to top it all off, Luma had the ability to interrupt characters during their throw animations.

Probably the most forgotten busted character in Smash history, mainly because she only lasted until patch 1.0.4, only about 2 months or so during the 3DS era. If she and Bayo were left in their vanilla states the whole way through, they definitely would've been banned.

Even though we give the final version of SSB4 a lot of flak, particularly for , and for good reason, it is quite easy to forget in retrospect how much of an unbalanced mess vanilla SSB4 was.

 

[L9999]

Honorable mention to pre-patch . That character competes with pre-patch for the most busted/game-breaking character in SSB4's history.

Shorter Luma respawn, more Luma HP, stronger Luma jab finisher (akin to Ultimate Rosa), much stronger forward and back throws, much less endlag on grabs, stronger smash attacks, larger and stronger neutral air, larger down tilt that comes out 1 frame sooner, uncharged neutral B having nearly twice the amount of active hitboxes, and to top it all off, Luma had the ability to interrupt characters during their throw animations.

Probably the most forgotten busted character in Smash history, mainly because she only lasted until patch 1.0.4, only about 2 months or so during the 3DS era. If she and Bayo were left in their vanilla states the whole way through, they definitely would've been banned.

Even though we give the final version of SSB4 a lot of flak, particularly for , and for good reason, it is quite easy to forget in retrospect how much of an unbalanced mess vanilla SSB4 was.

Right, Rosa USED to be the best before Sheik and Diddy, good catch right there. Though the Hoohah and Sheik's kill moves were still there I can see a case for Rosa being better. After all one prevalent theory about Rosa during the Hoohah/Needle metas was that she invalidated all the cast just on her own, and she could do well against Sheik and Diddy. Custom Rosa was also disgusting with Shooting Star Bit creating heavily favored situations. And there's the whole tale about Mii Brawler getting banned because he could kill at 22%. Yeah, Smash 4 was dead on arrival. hahaha

EDIT: Sonic was also really degenerate. Spin Dash to shield and an uber BThrow.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Custom Rosa was also disgusting with Shooting Star Bit creating heavily favored situations. And there's the whole tale about Mii Brawler getting banned because he could kill at 22%. Yeah, Smash 4 was dead on arrival. hahaha

Custom Rosa also has Luma Warp, a neutral B variation that makes Luma reappear at a set distance with a hitbox. Instant way to set-up Luma, and the reappearing hitbox can also true combo into a smash attack if you know that it is going to hit.

I do not know about the Mii Brawler getting banned story. I did hear that 3DS era Mii Brawler's Piston Punch having some multi-hit jank that can kill opponents very early, but I did not know of any ban revolving around that. Checking SmashWiki, it makes no mention of any ban that has happened. Miis were restricted to 1111 movesets and default custom moves eventually, but that applied to all Miis and goes along with the universal ban to custom moves.

 

[toonito]

Pretty much, all traits combined together to make a flexible and dangerous character. It also helps to have dumb hitboxes, MK and Bayonetta most notorious. The other thing is weaknesses and using the engine to their advantage.

Pikachu has death combos because of 64's high hitstun. His only weaknesses are his awful techroll and being vulnerable to death combos himself, but in every matchup Pikachu is favored because he's more likely to explode on his opponent than viceversa.

Fox can utilize wavedash and dashdance pretty well. His balance is that he can use his high fall speed to combo and land safely but characters can eat him alive with chaingrabbing and combos. Like Pikachu Fox is more favored in this dynamic of exploding on each other's faces. Sheik and Marth get most of their damage on Fox from chaingrabbing, fighting him head on is a challenge for non-Foxs.

MK's unironic weaknesses are that he cannot kill you with a death combo (like Ice Climbers can) and has to "respect" characters who have a better neutral than him (like Diddy). But MK is so uber he can just win and tear apart any gameplan. It helps that Brawl's awful staling system and hitstun cancelling benefit MK, because the other characters in Brawl have 1 or 2 kill moves, with hitstun cancelling they get stale fast while MK can just cycle through his plentiful kill moves that aren't stale.

Bayo's weaknesses.....Grab combos and kill throws she cannot Witch Time in between? And....SDI? The risk reward is almost always in her favor because of humanity's flawed nature and mathematics. No kidding, it's statistically easier to get a death combo once than guessing right against Bayo every time. She also heavily abuses rage and the low ceilings in Smash 4.

Steve's weakness is Cloud's Bair and Sonic timing him out. Lmao, Steve greatly abuses how low the power level is in Ultimate, and the craptacular stage list.

Though on the subject of weaknesses and power level, when Sparg0 is playing well it almost seems Cloud is the best character in the game, since he's a "degeneracy killer" like Meta Knight. He beats Steve and can beat Mr. Game & Watch, Wario, and Sonic. I still think Steve's meta is held back by lack of motivation, nobody wants to be cyberbullied and branded the scum of society for playing a funny blockman after all. When I see Miya play Steve I see him utilizing his ledge deathtraps better than acola. Other Steves had death combos figured out but they lacked the neutral Miya and acola have, and other Steves don't utilize the walling potential of blocks like acola does.

since we don't know the engine for Smash 6 we still dont have a complete picture of the hypothetical best character yet. Good point on their weaknesses and how they took advantage of their respective game's engines.

I imagine the speed would be the same or slightly faster than Ultimate which IIRC is the 2nd fastest game after Melee. I dont think Sakurai will ever make a Smash game as fast as Melee again. I also don't think he'll ever make a Smash game as slow as Brawl either.

I'm grasping at straws here but another commonality between the 5 best characters is that except for Bayo they're on the shorter side in terms of height. Bayo is the only taller character so far to become the best. Probably doesnt mean anything, just an observation.

have projectiles; have swords

so heres my way too early Smash 6 #1 character prediction (dont take this seriously):

It's not from the 5 franchises that already reached #1
its a shorter/mid size character relative to the rest of the cast
might be late DLC
might be 3rd party
will have a projectile OR a sword
will have an above average recovery
will be a newcomer to Smash (with the exception of Fox every #1 character became the best in their debut game)

feel free to guess and add on!

 

[L9999]

Custom Rosa also has Luma Warp, a neutral B variation that makes Luma reappear at a set distance with a hitbox. Instant way to set-up Luma, and the reappearing hitbox can also true combo into a smash attack if you know that it is going to hit.

I do not know about the Mii Brawler getting banned story. I did hear that 3DS era Mii Brawler's Piston Punch having some multi-hit jank that can kill opponents very early, but I did not know of any ban revolving around that. Checking SmashWiki, it makes no mention of any ban that has happened. Miis were restricted to 1111 movesets and default custom moves eventually, but that applied to all Miis and goes along with the universal ban to custom moves.

Allegedly, in the dark ages of Smash 4 Komorikiri won so hard with small Mii Brawler that the people at his locals told him to not play Mii Brawler or else he would not be allowed to play at all. Whether that story is true or not Brawler in his "purest" form (small with Helicopter Kick and Feint Jump) eventually got banned, and he's still banned, Smashcon IIRC only allows middle size Brawler. It's curious because Mii Brawler is the only successful Smash Bros ban in history, because nobody in the mainstream of players could be bothered to play him before he got banned, people just heard tales of Mii Brawler's power and some guy got top 32 at EVO or something.

Also, Coinbox IRL stuff, Sonix won it quite convincingly. Sparg0 VS Sonix truly can go either way, a lot of Sparg0's deaths were for getting clipped by the spring.

 

[NairWizard]

Oh yeah, Coinbox. Just for some perspective from someone who has played as a high-level Cloud, that matchup is abysmal, like -2. It's really shocking that sparg0 even won it at WTT, because it's just that bad. He definitely is practicing the Corrin to play it just for Sonix, but it isn't quite polished enough yet.

Don't be fooled by sparg0's recent results, Cloud doesn't have the best tools to beat a Sonic that's playing on point. Sonic outrewards Cloud, whiff-punishes him both in the air and on the ground, and doesn't need to deal with Cloud's best tools -- Cross Slash and b-air -- if he just chooses to approach from certain angles. Let me put it this way, Sonic is one of only three characters (the other being Inkling and Pikachu) who can whiff-punish a fresh Cloud b-air by just going under it consistently, no projectile needed. That feels so bad when you're Cloud, because you just don't have enough options in neutral remaining to feel comfortable.

You have to rely on f-air, and how many mixups can there even be with that move? Fade back, full hop it, approaching f-air, and a few others at best, and all of them can lose to the right spin.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Oh yeah, Coinbox. Just for some perspective from someone who has played as a high-level Cloud, that matchup is abysmal, like -2. It's really shocking that sparg0 even won it at WTT, because it's just that bad. He definitely is practicing the Corrin to play it just for Sonix, but it isn't quite polished enough yet.

Don't be fooled by sparg0's recent results, Cloud doesn't have the best tools to beat a Sonic that's playing on point. Sonic outrewards Cloud, whiff-punishes him both in the air and on the ground, and doesn't need to deal with Cloud's best tools -- Cross Slash and b-air -- if he just chooses to approach from certain angles. Let me put it this way, Sonic is one of only three characters (the other being Inkling and Pikachu) who can whiff-punish a fresh Cloud b-air by just going under it consistently, no projectile needed. That feels so bad when you're Cloud, because you just don't have enough options in neutral remaining to feel comfortable.

You have to rely on f-air, and how many mixups can there even be with that move? Fade back, full hop it, approaching f-air, and a few others at best, and all of them can lose to the right spin.

That does make me curious: what do you think Sonix could've done differently based on the way he played at WTT? I think you did briefly touch-up on this when the tournament concluded, but perhaps a bit more detail here since you think the matchup is that one-sided for Sonic?

 

[NairWizard]

That does make me curious: what do you think Sonix could've done differently based on the way he played at WTT? I think you did briefly touch-up on this when the tournament concluded, but perhaps a bit more detail here since you think the matchup is that one-sided for Sonic?

Yeah, of course.

At WTT, Sonix forgot that Cloud is a positioning-dependent character. When Cloud is facing away from you in the air, you don't have to worry about f-air. When he is facing toward you, you don't have to worry about b-air. When he's off the ground, Cross Slash leaves his legs wide open.

Aerial Cloud should be whiff punished repeatedly by Sonic and this should lead to edgeguard opportunities on reaction, no prediction needed from the Sonic. Cloud's only real landing mixup that isn't dependent on his facing is d-air, and Sonic b-air plays around that move effortlessly, so what you have to do as Sonic is make sure that you are dealing with forward-facing Cloud by threatening a f-air interrupt, and you're dealing with backward-facing Cloud by threatening a spindash to hit his legs during b-air or reverse Cross-Slash. You should be able to quickly react to his position/facing and set yourself up to punish according to it.

On the ground, you deal with Blade Beam by jumping, which Sonix wasn't doing at WTT. If you Spindash, even if you hop over the beam, you get Cross Slashed or up-b'ed out of shield, and you don't have all your usual cancels and mixups because there's a beam coming at you. Today, Sonix was jumping over Blade Beam and waiting, while mixing in well-positioned dash-ins.

Another thing WTT Sonix was bad at was dealing with Cloud on a platform.

This isn't Roy, there's no fall through platform up-air to be worried about here; Cloud is a sitting duck on the platform.

When Cloud is on a platform, his only real option is to jump up and d-air or fall through and b-air. He's not going to f-air in most situations, and he's not going to drop through Cross Slash or drop through grab you or drop through d-air. At WTT Sonix didn't seem to have any semblance of platform pressure against Cloud's fairly limited off-platform options. Today, he was looking much better with the up-air timings against Cloud, closing off drop-through b-airs routinely.


In advantage against Cloud, you should force the double jump before committing to an edgeguard, which Sonix wasn't doing at WTT. Even in the winners finals set of Coinbox IRL, Sonix went after sparg0 to try to aggressively f-air him offstage while he still had a double jump, got reversaled, and lost a stock and the game for it.

You need to track Limit and set up your edgeguard according to how much meter sparg0 has. At WTT Sonix didn't even try tracking Limit, or if he did, he did a poor job of it, and today he kept an eye on it and scared sparg0 into early double jumps in situations where Limit couldn't help.


Some people play the matchup pretty poorly even at top level.

It reminds me a lot of how dominant Leo was with Byleth, except that Cloud is of course a much better character than Byleth so sparg0 still has several layers of counter-counterplay available even if you do play the matchup correctly. Cloud's relevance won't ever go away with sparg0 piloting the character, but if you know what you're doing, you should run over Cloud in general with characters like Sonic.



You know what the core issue is? People think "whiff punish" means "let me dash back, and then when he b-airs, I'll run in!" and then they get cross-slashed because Ultimate aerials are pretty safe. Whiff punishing Cloud doesn't mean you dash in to punish him for missing b-air. Whiff punishing Cloud means that you space around his b-air and f-air threat range because he is pretty linear in neutral and can only do whatever he's positioned for and then you hit him. So many people are so bad at this concept.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Allegedly, in the dark ages of Smash 4 Komorikiri won so hard with small Mii Brawler that the people at his locals told him to not play Mii Brawler or else he would not be allowed to play at all. Whether that story is true or not Brawler in his "purest" form (small with Helicopter Kick and Feint Jump) eventually got banned, and he's still banned, Smashcon IIRC only allows middle size Brawler. It's curious because Mii Brawler is the only successful Smash Bros ban in history, because nobody in the mainstream of players could be bothered to play him before he got banned, people just heard tales of Mii Brawler's power and some guy got top 32 at EVO or something.

To be fair regarding Miis, it's less "Small Miis are banned" and more "Guest size is the only size available". Creating a Mii in Smash 4 meant you had to leave the game and go into Mii Maker and make your Mii. That'd be noticeably trickier than just making a new Mii Brawler in the game using guest size. It'd also mean quite a bit of customization: Perhaps some Mii players would prefer something other than small Miis, and thus you'd have to learn to deal with many different Mii variations. Keeping them at guest size removed that issue.

From what we could see, small Mii Brawler in particular did seem overpowered, although it's hard to say for sure. Not many Mii players seem to object to keeping them guest size, and in Ultimate they standardized sizes (so that's not a factor anymore).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Coinbox IRL

1. Sonix
2. Sparg0
3. Lima
4. Sisqui
5. Wrath / Riddles
7. Dabuz / Maister
9. ChunkyKong / TM7_ZAP / Scend / Armadillo
13. Jake / Mr. E / Syrup / Skyjay

 

[Sucumbio]

Why didn't he go Cloud again after he'd done so well at wtt?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Why didn't he go Cloud again after he'd done so well at wtt?

He did. Sonix adapted to the Cloud and won. In fact the Cloud didn't win a single game against Sonix in Grands. The Corrin was what took a game.

 

[Sucumbio]

He did. Sonix adapted to the Cloud and won. In fact the Cloud didn't win a single game against Sonix in Grands. The Corrin was what took a game.

I haven't watched it yet wow haha Sonix is so good at preparing it's like you can tell when he gets surprised and it kinda deadlocks him into repeating the same mistakes. Sparg0 too they all do but at least Miya and Acola adapt during the match as quickly as the others adapt in hindsight.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Just for a fun thought experiment, I decided to come up with a list of some of the weakest and strongest Smash characters to exist (not in order).

Strongest
JPN 64 Pikachu, JPN 64 Kirby, NTSC Melee Fox, Brawl Meta Knight, Brawl Ice Climbers, Vanilla SSB4 Rosalina, Vanilla SSB4 Bayonetta, Vanilla SSB4 Sheik, Vanilla SSB4 Diddy Kong, Vanilla Ultimate Joker, Ultimate Steve

Was debating on whether or not to include JPN 64 Kirby, but considering that version of the character has nothing but winning matchups outside of Pikachu, and he is even stronger in the JPN version than in other versions of the game, that solidified my decision.
Even with how strong vanilla Joker and Steve is in Ultimate, they do not match anywhere close to the strength of the all of the characters listed before them (and honestly a lot of the top tiers in the previous games easily thwart these two).

For strongest of all time, and answer is very obvious and undisputed: Meta Knight da bess.


Since we have brought up the best characters of all time in previous discussions, here is where things get interesting: the weakest characters.

Weakest
64 Luigi (all versions), JPN 64 Donkey Kong, AUS 64 Link, Melee Bowser, NTSC Melee Kirby, Brawl Ganondorf, Vanilla SSB4 Zelda, Vanilla SSB4 Charizard, Vanilla SSB4 Mii Swordfighter, 2.0 Ultimate King K. Rool

Brawl Ivysaur also belongs here, but by technicality of it being attached to Pokemon Trainer, it doesn't count.
Vanilla K. Rool is a garbage character, but even though patch 2.0 didn't really change K. Rool as significantly as people thought back then, it is technically still the weakest version of the character, which is why that version of the character is included in the list. He is the only Ultimate bottom tier that comes close to matching the stinky-ness of the other listed characters.
Melee Kirby is a dumpster character no matter which version of Melee, but he is technically better in PAL, so NTSC Melee Kirby is listed here.

For weakest of all time, it probably goes to either JPN 64 DK or Brawl Ganondorf; they are both abysmal characters that have 0 winning matchups, or even matchups in the case of JPN 64 DK. Melee Bowser is also another incredibly valid choice for this as well.


Wonder what your thoughts on this, cause I cannot wait to tell you all about AUS 64 Link, probably the most obscure Smash character of all time.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Placement percentages for the second half of the year

 

[Hippieslayer]

Brawl Ganondorf has a winning matchup?

Edit: I mean to say "even" not "winning"

 

[Sucumbio]

Brawl Ganondorf has a winning matchup?

Not that I'm aware. His best is -1 against Link...

 

[Hippieslayer]

On the note of Aegis, I think pretty much every top Aegis is playing the character wrong. Is anyone interested in a detailed study of the matter?

Well yeah. That'd be interesting. I also think so. Can't really say why. Other than that there are and have been several very different flavors of Aegis, we had Cosmos way back, his Aegis was sort of a mess, I like that he tried to push Mythra's potential but I think he couldn't quite keep up with Mythra mentally, he would also just make weird plays (usually to his own detriment), and he would overuse f-smash, but then he'd also get into flow states, play on point and just destroy people in impressive displays.

Then we have Sparg0 who has the best fundamentals but whose lack of commitment to the character clearly shows. Then we have Mkleo's who seems to really want to commit to the character but whose definition of commitment must be different than Sparg0s by now because his Aegis is also not optimal and remains very basic.

Then we have Shuton who demonstrates the lacking nature of Sparg0's and Leo's Aegis by having a larger bag of tricks than both of them combined, utilizing tools such as autocancel Dair with Pyra to (most of the time) great effect.

These are the ones that come to my mind, I'm sure there are other significant ones. They all play different (although Leo and Sparg0s playstyles seem similar to me) but only Cosmos and Shuton seemed to be trying to push the character. Cosmos may have really fallen off and Shuton may have fallen off, but the point still stands. If Sparg0 is the top Aegis player then the top Aegis player is someone who isn't even that commited to the character and is not trying to push its Meta and isn't even trying to use the full set of its tools hitherto discovered. So he's not playing close to optimal, and the other guys can't get it done so obviously they are all doing it wrong in different ways.

But you're saying there's a way of doing it wrong they have in common?

On Sparg0 and his Cloud you said:

It reminds me a lot of how dominant Leo was with Byleth, except that Cloud is of course a much better character than Byleth so sparg0 still has several layers of counter-counterplay available even if you do play the matchup correctly. Cloud's relevance won't ever go away with sparg0 piloting the character, but if you know what you're doing, you should run over Cloud in general with characters like Sonic.


These two statements do not go together to me. If Sparg0 has several layers of counter-counterplay available even if the matchup against him is played correctly then even across sets he should be able to shift organically between these layers to stay on top. I suppose the Sonic matchup is particularly bad perhaps. It didn't look good. Kinda hoping Sparg0 will give it another shot. Or step up his Aegis which he could easily do.

 

[NairWizard]

But you're saying there's a way of doing it wrong they have in common?

Yeah. I can go into more detail, but the essence is that whenever you are moving around with Pyra, there is an opportunity cost of not moving with Mythra and also a higher chance of getting reversaled since Pyra is more committal with her moves.
Aegis should move with Mythra and only attack with Pyra when it doesn't involve moving with Pyra and when the risk of reversal is low.

No Aegis plays this way, but once someone figures it out, it will translate into top-level dominance (if anyone ever commits, of course).

On Sparg0 and his Cloud you said:

It reminds me a lot of how dominant Leo was with Byleth, except that Cloud is of course a much better character than Byleth so sparg0 still has several layers of counter-counterplay available even if you do play the matchup correctly. Cloud's relevance won't ever go away with sparg0 piloting the character, but if you know what you're doing, you should run over Cloud in general with characters like Sonic.


These two statements do not go together to me. If Sparg0 has several layers of counter-counterplay available even if the matchup against him is played correctly then even across sets he should be able to shift organically between these layers to stay on top. I suppose the Sonic matchup is particularly bad perhaps. It didn't look good. Kinda hoping Sparg0 will give it another shot. Or step up his Aegis which he could easily do.

the idea is that Byleth stops at layer 1 counterplay, and Cloud can get to layer 2 or 3. But other characters who are even better can get to layers 4 or 5, do you get what I'm saying?

 

[Hippieslayer]

Yeah. I can go into more detail, but the essence is this whenever you are moving around with Pyra, there is an opportunity cost of not moving with Mythra and also a higher chance of getting reversaled since Pyra is more committal with her moves.
Aegis should move with Mythra and only attack with Pyra when it doesn't involve moving with Pyra and when the risk of reversal is low.

No Aegis plays this way, but once someone figures it out, it will translate into top-level dominance (if anyone ever commits, of course).



the idea is that Byleth stops at layer 1 counterplay, and Cloud can get to layer 2 or 3. But other characters who are even better can get to layers 4 or 5, do you get what I'm saying?

What you are saying about Aegis seems so obvious. I don't really get why no one really applies it. The essence you describe is something I thought about too. Plus players do not just not play like that, they will also stay Pyra in neutral, sometimes for ages, seemingly due to some unwarranted sense of self confidence or confidence about the other player not being able to exploit Pyra and it usually doesn't turn out well. Then it happens again. This is a mystery.

Yeah I get what you are saying about Cloud, I hope one of Clouds earlier layers happens to beat Sonics layer 5 even though it loses to 4 or something and then that makes the MU playable.

Edit: Btw I liked your idea with the pairs of characters. I just didn't like the pairs too much because Sonic and whoever it was that he was paired with felt like the obvious choice, even though that may be due to a slight but crucial misunderstanding of the question you were asking.