Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hydreigonfan01]

Someone made a chart showing character usage off of the LumiRank top 150 ranking. It's counting both mains and secondaries.

 

[NairWizard]

Isn't the popularly perceived top 5 characters right now Snake, ROB, Game and Watch, Steve, and Sonic? Not that I agree at all, but if that's the perception, that means you're going to run into a lot of those characters commonly.

ZSS beats all 5 of those characters imo.

And with other slow characters like Corrin and Samus on the rise, this is a ZSS meta for sure. ZSS loves those kinds of matchups since she can avoid the ledgetrap and frametrap so much more easily than other characters.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Isn't the popularly perceived top 5 characters right now Snake, ROB, Game and Watch, Steve, and Sonic? Not that I agree at all, but if that's the perception, that means you're going to run into a lot of those characters commonly.

ZSS beats all 5 of those characters imo.

And with other slow characters like Corrin and Samus on the rise, this is a ZSS meta for sure. ZSS loves those kinds of matchups since she can avoid the ledgetrap and frametrap so much more easily than other characters.

ZSS would be a great anti-meta character if someone actually played her and went to a lot of events. Marss is going to locals/monthlies as of recent, but I still don't think he's going full back into competition. That being said I don't think Sonic loses to ZSS but I haven't seen it at a top level post-quarantine and the Snake MU is very player opinionated. ApolloKage and Marss thinks ZSS vs Snake is even while MVD hates the matchup and thinks it's losing for Snake.

 

[Rizen]

I've said this before, ZSS is a top tier; why doesn't she have more reps?

Can someone link me Orion stats please?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I've said this before, ZSS is a top tier; why doesn't she have more reps?

Can someone link me Orion stats please?

Here you go
ZSS is at #53. I think she dropped in reps by a lot due to her nerfs, Marss attending less events and Kuro, Choco and Shky started performing far worse in Japan and either switched mains or retired completely.

 

[NairWizard]

After a few years of intermittent attempts, I finally completed an Elite Smash IronMan. I couldn't find a "final stats" page but here was a highest GSP splash page, at least. I think it only shows the rating the very last time I played the character, though, so most of these numbers are like 50-100k lower than current (so Aegis and co are at like 14.1 m or something), since I did the IronMan over a period of several weeks. Last character was Ridley, so that's why he snuck up to #5.

To tie this to character competitive impressions, I actually don't think Elite Smash is that bad for practice. In fact, I think it's pretty good.

Online is still very different from offline (probably part of why sparg0's Game and Watch is better vs. ShinyMark than Maister's for example), but if you have a good gameplan on what you want to learn you can use online to learn key offline skills, like sparg0 and Sonix do.

I think by far the most important skill you can learn is speed. Since opponents aren't going to punish you for pushing buttons quite as much onlinem you can learn to play very fast. Although in offline play people are going to react to those presses better, you will retain your comfortability with moving and thinking quickly and can feel more at ease kicking things up a few gears and keeping pace when up against a fast player in bracket.

It's also great for building anti-camp strategies. No one ever approaches on Elite so if you have a gaping hole in your playstyle against that kind of play you can shore up your counterplay.

You won't get practice against seasoned ledgetrapping or generally polished advantage states, but put some time into Elite if the local Chrom mashing buttons or the local Samus Charge Shot camping under a platform is hard for you to react to. Really good use of your practice time!

 

[Frihetsanka]

Charles, PinkFresh, Hazmatt, and Tweek made tier lists on the latest Tweek Talk. I haven't watched the video yet (it's almost 2 hours long) but I looked at the end results:

Some things worth noting: The top 3 is mostly the same (Steve, Sonic, G&W). They all think very highly of Aegis as well. All of them put Corrin relatively high (Charles #13, PinkFresh #18, Haz #18, Tweek #27). Bayonetta seems to be a somewhat mixed bag (Charles #27, PinkFresh #13, Haz #16, Tweek #31), personally I think this character is super good in this game (although not as good as in Smash 4, obviously). Wolf seems to have fallen off (Charles #23, PinkFresh #17, Haz #26, Tweek #25).

Sheik seems to be considered a sleeper top tier? Charles #17, PinkFresh #14, Haz #8, Tweek #4. Huh. I suppose her biggest issue is killing (and some meta MUs are really hard for her, like Steve). Still, a strong Sheik player might be able to play around that weakness, and Sheik has amazing disadvantage and so many safe moves.

What about Sephiroth? Charles #46, PinkFresh #37, Haz #38, Tweek #34. As much as they like talking about how much Sephiroth sucks, all of them except Charles still put him in high tier (albeit not super high in high tier). Diddy Kong Charles #16, PinkFresh #12, Haz #13, Tweek #12.

Lucina seems to have fallen off quite a bit. Charles #24, PinkFresh #31 (Marth #20!), Haz #32, Tweek #32.

Unsurprisingly, Pikachu has also fallen off compared to 2019 tier lists (Charles #7, PinkFresh #15, Haz #14, Tweek #9). Same with Palutena (although she did get nerfed a fair bit): Charles #22, PinkFresh #27, Haz #19, Tweek #18 (all but Tweek put Corrin higher than Palutena).

Also, another character we don't see played too often but many top player views as really good is Sora. Charles #15, PinkFresh #5 (!), Haz #21, Tweek #17. I also think this character is really good (but probably not top 5).

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

EazyFreezie did a video on the current meta of Ultimate and it's problems, and did data analysis on the problem characters in Steve, Sonic and G&W.

 

[Rizen]

Question: What do people think of ? He was seen as pretty good early on but now he's fallen out of the top 30 on Orion stats. He has an amazing neutral but balanced by light weight and poor kill power. Aside from Diddy Kong the meta doesn't seem favorable to this type of character and rather favors strong explosive advantage states with early kill potential, point in case Kazuya is doing much better than YL.

I played YL for several years in local tournaments and my impressions of him are that he's a counterpick character. He slightly beats (+1) and goes even with out of the meta relevant threats plus does well against many lower characters. A big part of this is YL's amazing neutral can out neutral characters who traditionally dominate there like Sheik, Diddy and the rats. He can be a good answer for fighting game characters and big body characters due to not having to engage and being able to zone them with projectiles. It should be noted that he doesn't beat any character super hard. The reason for this usually goes one of two ways: YL wins neutral but he dies at 80% and can't kill until 130%+ so it ends up more of even or he wins neutral but gets destroyed offstage and not vice versa so it ends up more of even.

The downside is he loses to most sword characters and several other meta relevant threats: -1 and -2 . What he hates the most are big disjoints on characters with better mobility than his very middle of the road mobility. They destroy him in disadvantage, kill earlier and get to him fast. As such he's not really solo-viable, there's too much bracket luck involved. This is why you never see YL in top 8 in anything bigger than regionals. Note I never played the steve MU but it's likely he slightly loses due to how lopsided the damage and kill potential are.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

SchuStats did a discussion on what people think the characters whose tier placement would rise the most for 2024

Question: What do people think of ? He was seen as pretty good early on but now he's fallen out of the top 30 on Orion stats. He has an amazing neutral but balanced by light weight and poor kill power. Aside from Diddy Kong the meta doesn't seem favorable to this type of character and rather favors strong explosive advantage states with early kill potential, point in case Kazuya is doing much better than YL.

I played YL for several years in local tournaments and my impressions of him are that he's a counterpick character. He slightly beats (+1) and goes even with out of the meta relevant threats plus does well against many lower characters. A big part of this is YL's amazing neutral can out neutral characters who traditionally dominate there like Sheik, Diddy and the rats. He can be a good answer for fighting game characters and big body characters due to not having to engage and being able to zone them with projectiles. It should be noted that he doesn't beat any character super hard. The reason for this usually goes one of two ways: YL wins neutral but he dies at 80% and can't kill until 130%+ so it ends up more of even or he wins neutral but gets destroyed offstage and not vice versa so it ends up more of even.

The downside is he loses to most sword characters and several other meta relevant threats: -1 and -2 . What he hates the most are big disjoints on characters with better mobility than his very middle of the road mobility. They destroy him in disadvantage, kill earlier and get to him fast. As such he's not really solo-viable, there's too much bracket luck involved. This is why you never see YL in top 8 in anything bigger than regionals. Note I never played the steve MU but it's likely he slightly loses due to how lopsided the damage and kill potential are.

Yeah, I think YL has fallen off after quarantine, I feel like neutral monster characters that have a difficult time getting kills are doing worse as the meta goes on. Even Pyra/Mythra, who I still think are top 5, used to be considered number 1/number 2 in the game once offline came back alongside . Sheik and Fox are doing well but that's because they have a lot of ways to kill confirm while also having good neutral. Also I don't think YL's recovery is that impressive in a game where recoveries are really good. Up-B doesn't go that far and bombs + good air speed can only help so much.

When it comes to zoners too, I think I'd rather have a character like , and where the damage output and kill power is at least strong, they have good recoveries and good off-me options and great buttons when you get close to them.

 

[Rizen]

When it comes to zoners too, I think I'd rather have a character like , and where the damage output and kill power is at least strong, they have good recoveries and good off-me options and great buttons when you get close to them.

That's something I've said before: there's no reason to play any of the Links when the characters you mentioned do the same things just as well but with better recoveries and kill power.

 

[NairWizard]

What I like about their tier lists is that Pink goes out of his way to call out what the basis of the tier list is for every player. Tweek is rating characters by how well they'd do in a single match, whereas Pink is rating them by solo viability in a tournament/likelihood of winning a supermajor.

That's very important to make clear when you post a tier list. Many tier lists/placements feel hollow to me since the person posting them doesn't tell us what they're thinking. Okay, so Bowser is #40. #40 in terms of what? Everyone just assumes that everyone else is talking about the same thing, but it's never the case.

So kudos to these guys.


As for the content of the lists, my general impression is that there has been a trend lately of ranking low-mobility characters higher and high-mobility characters lower. Characters like Steve, Snake, and Kazuya are going higher over time, and characters like Aegis, ZSS, and Palutena are going lower over time.

I believe strongly in mobility in smash. I think mobile characters usually find a way to come up with counterplay to the field even when the odds are stacked against them. Characters like Aegis, Roy, ZSS, Palutena, and more have meta developments waiting to be found, if only the right player pushes them.

And similar to the Byleth story (but perhaps to lesser degrees), I believe that all of the low-mobility top characters are currently a bit overhyped, with the possible exception of Steve since burst Minecart makes up for the lack of mobility in many situations. There is counterplay waiting to be found to all of those characters and their strong metas.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I have a fun thought experiment here: imagining how a version of a character would fare if he/she is slapped into a different Smash game's engine.

For example imagining what would happen if was slapped into the SSB4 engine for example. It oftentimes makes you think of how much a game's engine completely changes the viability of a character from time to time. For example, and are both characters with solid enough, if not outright good, toolkits and attributes, but ends up getting absolutely and completely screwed over by simply existing in Brawl's engine.

One case study is imagining what would happen if and directly transitioned over to the SSB4 engine.
The key thing here is that Mewtwo absolutely relied on SSB4's broken airdodging to be as strong as he is in that game. Without it, he can no longer contend on being a large, floaty lightweight character. Pre-patch SSB4 Mewtwo was weak despite having the funny airdodge because his offense was not strong enough back then to back up his extreme fragility. Ultimate Mewtwo has the exact opposite problem where he has all of the offensive ability in the world, but has virtually no defense to fall back on. So imagining Ultimate Mewtwo's toolkit and extra weight with SSB4's airdodging sounds extremely frightening.
DK received mostly buffs going into Ultimate, but still ends up being much less viable than in SSB4 primarily because of Ultimate's nerfs to shields, grabs, and airdodging being significant nerfs to his playstyle. He can still execute the same gameplan as in SSB4, but the main part of why this was strong in SSB4 was something NairWizard highlighted in a past comment: SSB4 was a game where shields can be used offensively. Shields and grabs, and by extension shield grabs, was overtuned enough to the point you can use shield grabs as a way to approach, which is obviously something DK loves. All of that getting the shaft in Ultimate is a massive nerf to DK. The changes to airdodges also greatly hurts DK's already shaky disadvantage, which overall results in DK's not-so-great state now. So imagining Ultimate DK in a game engine where his general playstyle is much more favored is a very frightening aspect to behold.

The most interesting case scenario imo, is what would happen if transitioned into other game engines.
I think she would be strong in Ultimate, but she is definitely in her peak with her home of SSB4's engine, as the cast has less inherent tools to maneuver and deal with her gameplan, while the game provided the jank (and lower ceilings) needed to exacerbate her strengths.
Melee's engine is very hit or miss due to how different the physics of that game is in comparison to every Smash game after it, so it is hard to imagine how her combo game and gameplan will translate to that game.
Conversely, I think she has a much, MUCH harder time succeeding if she is placed in Brawl's engine, even with pre-patch SSB4 Bayo. She fundamentally doesn't work in Brawl's far less combo friendly engine, which is very bad for a character entirely focused around combos. Between the game's much stronger hitstun canceling, less reliable autolink angles, and the much stronger SDI the game possesses makes it hard for the character to really start anything. It also makes it harder for her combos to actual lead to kill confirms, and thus because of this, I can imagine her having to rely on fishing for back airs in neutral to land kills, but that also comes with the downside of having to deal with Brawl's harsher stale move system in that regard. Her weaker combos also weakens the threat of Witch Time outside of Smash attack kill percents. While the character can work around her iffy neutral game in SSB4's engine, this becomes much harder to do in Brawl's even more neutral game focused metagame, with the game possessing some of the strongest neutral tools in Smash history. The only real caveat is that the stronger hitstun canceling does make her 1 frame airdodge even sillier, but that is realistically only really coming into play for certain niche scenarios.
Do mind that I don't she would be outright bad in Brawl, as her inherent tools is stronger than Brawl's low and bottom tiers; just not very strong and a character that now has to contend with plenty of characters with better risk-reward than her now.
Land a Witch Time against ICs?
Not resulting in their death thanks to Brawl's engine gutting her combos. Just decent damage.
Whiff a Witch Time against ICs?
She dies.

 

[Sucumbio]

I'd love to use DACUS in Ultimate with Snake or use Brawl MK for that matter...

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for King of Bombs, a B Tier Texas event

1. SHADIC
2. Anathema
3. MuteAce
4. Zie
5. Atomic / Spritzy
7. ToasT / Yalmanac
9. Jordan / Grayson / Shoe / Niko
13. Pugi / Geist / Xerzal / Beastly

 

[meleebrawler]

I have a fun thought experiment here: imagining how a version of a character would fare if he/she is slapped into a different Smash game's engine.

For example imagining what would happen if was slapped into the SSB4 engine for example. It oftentimes makes you think of how much a game's engine completely changes the viability of a character from time to time. For example, and are both characters with solid enough, if not outright good, toolkits and attributes, but ends up getting absolutely and completely screwed over by simply existing in Brawl's engine.

One case study is imagining what would happen if and directly transitioned over to the SSB4 engine.
The key thing here is that Mewtwo absolutely relied on SSB4's broken airdodging to be as strong as he is in that game. Without it, he can no longer contend on being a large, floaty lightweight character. Pre-patch SSB4 Mewtwo was weak despite having the funny airdodge because his offense was not strong enough back then to back up his extreme fragility. Ultimate Mewtwo has the exact opposite problem where he has all of the offensive ability in the world, but has virtually no defense to fall back on. So imagining Ultimate Mewtwo's toolkit and extra weight with SSB4's airdodging sounds extremely frightening.
DK received mostly buffs going into Ultimate, but still ends up being much less viable than in SSB4 primarily because of Ultimate's nerfs to shields, grabs, and airdodging being significant nerfs to his playstyle. He can still execute the same gameplan as in SSB4, but the main part of why this was strong in SSB4 was something NairWizard highlighted in a past comment: SSB4 was a game where shields can be used offensively. Shields and grabs, and by extension shield grabs, was overtuned enough to the point you can use shield grabs as a way to approach, which is obviously something DK loves. All of that getting the shaft in Ultimate is a massive nerf to DK. The changes to airdodges also greatly hurts DK's already shaky disadvantage, which overall results in DK's not-so-great state now. So imagining Ultimate DK in a game engine where his general playstyle is much more favored is a very frightening aspect to behold.

The most interesting case scenario imo, is what would happen if transitioned into other game engines.
I think she would be strong in Ultimate, but she is definitely in her peak with her home of SSB4's engine, as the cast has less inherent tools to maneuver and deal with her gameplan, while the game provided the jank (and lower ceilings) needed to exacerbate her strengths.
Melee's engine is very hit or miss due to how different the physics of that game is in comparison to every Smash game after it, so it is hard to imagine how her combo game and gameplan will translate to that game.
Conversely, I think she has a much, MUCH harder time succeeding if she is placed in Brawl's engine, even with pre-patch SSB4 Bayo. She fundamentally doesn't work in Brawl's far less combo friendly engine, which is very bad for a character entirely focused around combos. Between the game's much stronger hitstun canceling, less reliable autolink angles, and the much stronger SDI the game possesses makes it hard for the character to really start anything. It also makes it harder for her combos to actual lead to kill confirms, and thus because of this, I can imagine her having to rely on fishing for back airs in neutral to land kills, but that also comes with the downside of having to deal with Brawl's harsher stale move system in that regard. Her weaker combos also weakens the threat of Witch Time outside of Smash attack kill percents. While the character can work around her iffy neutral game in SSB4's engine, this becomes much harder to do in Brawl's even more neutral game focused metagame, with the game possessing some of the strongest neutral tools in Smash history. The only real caveat is that the stronger hitstun canceling does make her 1 frame airdodge even sillier, but that is realistically only really coming into play for certain niche scenarios.
Do mind that I don't she would be outright bad in Brawl, as her inherent tools is stronger than Brawl's low and bottom tiers; just not very strong and a character that now has to contend with plenty of characters with better risk-reward than her now.
Land a Witch Time against ICs?
Not resulting in their death thanks to Brawl's engine gutting her combos. Just decent damage.
Whiff a Witch Time against ICs?
She dies.

I think is the only character that would still be ridiculously strong no matter what game you put him in. Even if you take away gliding and his glitches his recovery is still really good and you just can't challenge his transcendent everything and stupid frame data.

The funny thing is, the vast majority of Ultimate's roster are probably their best versions in a vacuum. But in Ultimate's context that can mean you still end up worse off, if not due to engine changes then just due to everyone else getting even more better.

Is better than ? The Melee tier list would suggest not, but looking at their kits the only two noteworthy ways the Melee version stands out is stronger (Super) Missiles that can actually kill and a more standard nair for combo-breaking.

Is really the best Dedede, or did he just coast by on Brawl's chaingrabbing?

is hard to argue as not being the objectively worst version of the character at face value, being treated as a joke and not having her trademark aerial agility, yet still does OK in a game with weak shields, no airdodging and worse recoveries on average, faring better than in Brawl and 4 at least.

Either version of Little Mac would probably appreciate the more tame engines of Brawl and games prior, where his bad recovery and to a lesser extent weak aerials aren't quite as much in a class of suckiness of their own. At the very least he'd probably pop shields in 64 for free.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Is better than ? The Melee tier list would suggest not, but looking at their kits the only two noteworthy ways the Melee version stands out is stronger (Super) Missiles that can actually kill and a more standard nair for combo-breaking.

Is really the best Dedede, or did he just coast by on Brawl's chaingrabbing?

is hard to argue as not being the objectively worst version of the character at face value, being treated as a joke and not having her trademark aerial agility, yet still does OK in a game with weak shields, no airdodging and worse recoveries on average, faring better than in Brawl and 4 at least.

Melee Samus has kinda fallen off in comparison to how she fared in the early 2010s; at the very least, her being top 10 is highly debatable now. Ultimate Samus' standing in the meta is noticeably stronger in comparison, especially impressive in a 80 character roster. When looking in a vacuum, then Ultimate Samus is absolutely def better.

Brawl Dedede loves Brawl's chaingrabbing, but he also has quite a lot of dirt outside of it that his future versions either lacks or is toned down in comparison; a forward tilt that reaches super far; an up tilt that is strong, fast, and has a huge sweetspot; a really silly back air; an enormous grab range; a spotdodge that puts him so far in the Z-axis that you only have a 2 frame window to punish; the list goes on. He may have no Gordo Toss, but that also means that his gameplan doesn't revolve around a projectile that can backfire against the character. He is def the best Dedede even without the chaingrab being put into account.

64 Puff is very good in the context of its own game, not because of the lack of airdodging or weak shields, but because its ability to 0-death is so easy and strong, even stronger than Melee Puff. If 64 Puff has its Melee onwards mobility, than it would be even better than Melee Puff. That being said, it would be significantly worse if it was slapped into another Smash game, like you said.

 

[NairWizard]

Is really the best Dedede, or did he just coast by on Brawl's chaingrabbing?

Dedede with Brawl b-air would jump like 2 tiers in any game.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Valhalla IV, a B Tier in Europe

1. Zomba
2. Luugi
3. Lancelot
4. Mezcaul
5. THE SCHMIXTAPE / Tarik
7. Pipwolf / iRefuse
9. Anbil / Faifre / +HOPE+ / Nibodax
13. tsun / Daphung / MelihMegron / Dia

 

[Rizen]

Results for Valhalla IV, a B Tier in Europe

1. Zomba
2. Luugi
3. Lancelot
4. Mezcaul
5. THE SCHMIXTAPE / Tarik
7. Pipwolf / iRefuse
9. Anbil / Faifre / +HOPE+ / Nibodax
13. tsun / Daphung / MelihMegron / Dia

Zomba continues to be a big fish in small ponds. He also won Failsafe Winter 2024, which had a few good players like Syrup.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Brawl DDD also had a way more useful dair than his current. Also think the projectiles he had in brawl were arguably better but not completely sure. Definitely a far superior character irregardless of chains grab though.

Edit: Nah the brawl projectiles were definitely better, they were reliable, and they turned into stage hazards if they weren't dealt with, and the odd gordo's were lethal.

The gordo's in ultimate can be thrown back surprisingly fast to counter them getting reflected but when they get reflected they move so fast that you basically have to anticipate them getting reflected to pull it off.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

How much better would be if his Gordos needed an attack to deal 15% damage in a single hit to reflect back instead of 2%?

 

[Rizen]

How much better would be if his Gordos needed an attack to deal 15% damage in a single hit to reflect back instead of 2%?

That would mean a huge improvement. DDD would probably go from low to mid tier. As they are, Gordos aren't very good for anything but ledge trapping. I know YL's projectiles reflect gordos back and DDD has a hell of a time in that MU. If they powered through it would be much better for him.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

ShinyMark recently tweeted about Pyra and Mythra and I find the tweet interesting, but I also agree with it.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

 

[Emblem Lord]

I agree completely. They have the potential.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Second official tier list dropped

 

[Frihetsanka]

Corrin higher than Lucina, you love to see it. Gone are the days where people would say "Why play Corrin when you can play Lucina".

Overall I think this tier list is significantly better than the old one, which is nice to see.

Top 6 I mostly agree with. Aegis I disagree with, I think that character is a bit overrated and probably more like the lower end of top 10 than top 5. MkLeo seems to think she's not even top 10. Diddy Kong #9 I'm not sold on just yet.

A+ seems fine. Yoshi #14 seems high, Samus #15 also seems high considering she has some really bad MUs vs some top tiers. I'm glad to see that Pikachu is no longer significantly overrated (#17 sounds fair enough to me). I'm glad to see Sora is rising, #18 sounds much closer to his real placement compared to the previous list (where he was #31). The character is really good.

Roy is down from #8 to #19 and I suspect he's going to keep falling unless something happens. Shulk is down from #19 to #25, seems like "potential" won't carry him forever. Bayonetta is up from #45 to #26, I think she's still really underrated and should be significantly higher.

Corrin is up from #42 to #27. I find this to be acceptable. I personally think she's better than that (and presumably did some other voters) but given how long it took for people to stop viewing her as a mid tier I find #27 to be acceptable for now. Maybe she'll be top 20 for the next tier list.

Lucina #28, down from #22. Marth went from #54 to #55. I'd argue that Lucina is rated a bit too high and Marth much too low. Lately I've been thinking that Marth and Lucina are close in viability, with Lucina perhaps having the slight edge due to ease of use, but Marth has more comeback potential, X-factor, and can "cheat" more easily (which is valuable in the current meta). So Lucina a bit overrated, Marth significantly underrated.

Ness #47 and Mega Man #48 both seem way too low to me (Ness down from #40 and Mega Man #38).

Ice Climbers at #50 seems a bit odd as well, especially since Japanese Ice Climbers have started to do well too.

Lower tiers are lower tiers, I don't know if there's too much to say about them. Some of them might be underrated but I won't fault people for underrating these characters.

 

[NairWizard]

MkLeo seems to think she's not even top 10.

True, but you can't selectively use his opinion without full context. He also thinks that Corrin is like mid 30s and a full tier below Lucina.

Aegis and Corrin are very similar characters in gameplay style, so when Leo is saying that Aegis isn't that good, you have to understand it from his frame of view of the game, which is totally different from another top player's frame of mind or the average spectator's frame of mind.

----


To springboard from my comment (not directed at you Frihetsanka , don't want to make you feel targeted or something, you're cool), this is why I really, really hate tier lists. I have never made one in over 10 years competing, spectating, and analyzing this game. The issue is that everyone thinks they're talking about the same thing, but they're not. Tweek might be talking about ability to win one match, whereas another player (PinkFresh?) might be talking about ability to win a tournament, and so on.


Looking at that official tier list, I can't say what's wrong or right about it -- because I don't know what it's measuring (most likely, solo-main viability in the current meta at a top 100 level, but I bet every single responder had a slightly different view of what the metrics are).


It reminds me of that one time where Thinkaman used an anonymous account to post a tier list based on raw results and everyone decried it as terrible. How can we judge someone's tier list without even understanding what the basis of their list is? It boggles my mind.


If I made a tier list, ROB wouldn't even be in my top 10. Steve wouldn't be #1.

Why? Because what I value is not solo-main viability in the current meta, and I don't care about results--my own tier list would be a projection-based view of best characters to invest in today if you were picking up the game fresh and trying to compete and get top 8s within a year or two, and it'd look nothing like anyone else's.

There are so many more ways to understand this game. The game is huge, with 86 characters, over 7,000 matchups played across 5+ stages, and so many fundamental ways to play. Realistically, we haven't even approached 10% understanding of the game in total yet over these last 5 years. If the game's competitive meta continued for another 15 years, many characters would shift 30+ spots--imagine that!

 

[Emblem Lord]

I love that despite every effort by the community every Smash game will always be dominated by the characters that have to interact the least, while also being able to maximize every interaction in ways most of the cast cannot.

It is a fate that no Smash game can avoid imo. Especially if Sonic is strong.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Corrin higher than Lucina, you love to see it. Gone are the days where people would say "Why play Corrin when you can play Lucina".

Overall I think this tier list is significantly better than the old one, which is nice to see.

Top 6 I mostly agree with. Aegis I disagree with, I think that character is a bit overrated and probably more like the lower end of top 10 than top 5. MkLeo seems to think she's not even top 10. Diddy Kong #9 I'm not sold on just yet.

A+ seems fine. Yoshi #14 seems high, Samus #15 also seems high considering she has some really bad MUs vs some top tiers. I'm glad to see that Pikachu is no longer significantly overrated (#17 sounds fair enough to me). I'm glad to see Sora is rising, #18 sounds much closer to his real placement compared to the previous list (where he was #31). The character is really good.

I'm guessing Yoshi is high because of Japan having 3 really good Yoshi players in Yoshidora, Ron and Fui. They think Yoshi is top 10 over there, and Europe also has a good Yoshi in THE SCHMIXTAPE. The tier list had a lot of different opinions from people all in different regions.
Here's an article on how LumiRank made the official tier list.

 

[The_Bookworm]

As a bonus, I am going to list the characters, showing how much they increased/decreased from the last list (man, I missed doing stuff like this).

S (Top - Top 10)
+ 0 +2
0 +15 +11 -3 0
- +2 -3 +3 -7

A (High - Top 30)
+ -4 +4 -3 +6
0 +10 +1 -4 +13 -11 +4 -10 -1 -9
- -1 -6 +19 +15 -6 +1 -4

B (Upper Mid - Top 50)
+ +4 +4 -5 -1 +6 +1 -10 -9 +8
- -1 +11 -10 +5 0 -11 +3 -7 -10 -3 +1

C (Lower Mid - Top 65)
+ +5 +12 +2 -11 -1 -3 +14 +3 -9 -1
- -3 +4 -6 -4 +2

D (Low - Top 78)
+ -3 -5 +2 +4
- +2 -6 -3 +2 -6 +1 +2 0 +1

E (Bottom)
+ +1 -6 0
- 0


Due to note that the "top, high, middle, low, bottom" labels are not given by LumiRank. I made them, as LumiRank did not give any official labels for each of these from what I found.
I simply assume that the S, A, B, C, D ranks are similar to the ones the previous tier list. I do think that A tier being "top" and B tier being "high" is a realistic possibility, but I don't know for sure.

Big thing to note off the bat is the existence of a new E tier (definitely exists as a "bottom" tier), and the S tier is much smaller than the previous one, only now being concentrated for the top 10 characters in the game (previously, it went nearly up to the top 20). This results in a massive shift in the letter placement for the characters, including a larger D tier (low tier) than the previous list. Quite a few characters in the A- tier, for instance, did not change too much from the previous list, but regardless of this, they are now in the B+ tier.

I do like that the far more concentrated S tier; the comically large S tier from the previous list felt like a bit of a mess.


The same:
are the only characters in the list that did not change at all in position from the previous list. Something to note for Little Mac is that he is technically at a higher standing than last list, as he no longer shares the bottom of the list with Ganondorf. Poor Ganon is now all alone at the bottom in his own tier.

Rises:
Bayonetta has by far the largest increase from the previous list, with a +19 increase to the A tiers, going from a character not even ranked as top 40, now being a top 30 character. The obvious source comes from continuous strong results from Lima and Bloom4Eva, as well as the increased prominence of the character from a regional level. The character has come a long way since the launch of the game.
Game & Watch and Corrin are tied for the second longest increase, with a +15. Game & Watch is now S tier (from A-) and Corrin is now A- tier (from B+).
I do think Game & Watch was quite underranked in the previous list, but in the end, the obvious reason why he has ascended to top 3 status from the previous list is Miya. General metagame shift from the previous year also favors the character for reasons already mentioned a lot lately. If you would tell players from the first year of the game that Game & Watch and Sonic would be top 3 characters with no significant buffs, they would think that you would go crazy. #FixUltimateSonic was a thing for the first year of the game as a reference.
As for Corrin, it is largely due to a much larger tournament presence; SHADIC and Neo were already performing decently well when the last list was made, but their performances with the character only got better as the year went by, especially in Neo's case. Some players such as Sparg0 considering to pick up the character also contributes to the character's improved standing.
Lucario has risen significantly from the last list, a +14 increase to put him in the C+ tier (from C-), an even larger increase when you consider the shorter S tier and the larger D tier. While Armadillo has an inconsistent attendance and placements from time to time, he had some explosive tournament runs the previous year, such as 17th at LMBM 2023, 9th at Battle of BC 5, 13th at GOML 2023, and 9th at Coinbox IRL. There are also a few instances of players getting upset by a random Lucario in bracket from my recollection. Still not considered to be super great, but still a much better standing than last year.
Sora also undertook a massive standing increase, +13 to put him into the A tier (from A-) and into the top 20 (from not even being top 30). Kameme continues to place incredibly well with the character, and he possesses solid results from Unleashed in Europe. The character has far more solid place in the meta in comparison to the previous list, but I think the significant rise comes from there being a lot of believers in Sora's potential for the future.
Incineroar got a fairly large increase by +12, but still in C+. Skyjay does funny wrestler cat stuff.
Snake and Pit both got a +11 increase, with the former now being a top 5 character (from top 20) and the latter almost top 40 (from not being top 50).
Snake's increase honestly really comes to him being ranked a bit too low in the previous list, but there is no doubt that Snake ascended up this year. This is from the combination of strong placements from ApolloKage especially early on in the year, and the strong Snake players in Japan like Hurt and DIO. The character continues to be one of the most popular and successful characters since the start of Ultimate, and the character adapted very well to the current meta shifts.
Pit's increase is thanks to Zackray's performances with the character throughout the year. He continues to be the single most pivotal player for the character's metagame, similar to Earth in the previous Smash games. Wonder if this will continue going into 2024: he still continues to play Pit a lot, but he starting to reach into his ROB and Joker a bit more often than previously.
The final increase I want to mention; Samus got a +10 increase from the previous year, now being a top 20 character in the game. This is by far the strongest Samus has ever been in any competitive metagame, even in comparison to earlier Melee metagames where she was stronger in comparison to the modern Melee meta. The character continues to be a highly represented and effective character in high level play, with players like Yaura, Sisqui, quik. IcyMist, the list goes on.

Drops:
A three-way tie for the largest drop in the list at -11. I do find it hilarious that while Roy and Chrom are rated separately, they dropped by the exact same number of spots by absolute coincidence. Ken has dropped out of the top 40, now is in the B- tier (from A-), and is now significantly lower in placement in comparison to Ryu (13 spot difference). Roy is no longer in the top 10 (S tier), and is instead in the top 20 (A tier). Chrom dropped out of the top 50 and is now in the C+ tier (from B+).
Ken has fallen out of favor in comparison to his FGC brethren. The hilarious part is that I think the character is performing slightly better now in comparison to the previous list, but that more goes to show me thinking that Ken was overranked in the previous list. Ryu is performing much better in comparison with Asimo and Ikan on the wheel (which was the case in the previous list too, which is why I think Ken was overranked previously); Terry is getting stronger regional results by the minute; Kazuya continues to get incredible results thanks to Riddles. Ken still have some strong players and is still a pretty good character, but is a more average character overall.
Roy had an amazing 2022, but his 2023 has been rather lackluster in comparison. His best players are not placing as frequently and as consistently as he did in the past, and his weaker matchups got better in the meta.
Chrom barely exists anymore. He still has good players like Lancelot and Alice, but he is still a fairly low represented character. Roy's weaker matchups getting better means, for the most part, Chrom's is also getting better. The current meta is overall more bitter towards the duo.
A four-way tie for the second-largest drop in the list at -10. Wolf is turned from just outside the top 10 to just outside the top 20. Sephiroth is now a top 40 character (from top 30) and dropped in category to B+ (from A+). Byleth and Mega Man are both similar to Sephiroth but an octave lower (from top 40 to top 50; from A- to B-).
Wolf still performs very well in tournaments, but simply fell out of favor in comparison to the other top 25 characters. In a diverse and volatile metagame like Ultimate, that sort of thing will happen.
Sephiroth fell off in perception hard since the last tier list, now being seen as lower high tier at best by most players, and more often than not, a mid tier. Not many players play him anymore; Tweek and KEN barely play him anymore, and Ned has participated less frequently and placed less frequently. He is still a regional menace and still has good plethora of strengths, but he is now undisputedly the weakest of the FP2 characters.
Byleth's drop is fairly simple: MkLeo's pick rate and win rate with the character has gone down significantly the past year. While the character still has decent results in a regional level, the character is barely seen at high level play at all. Typically that also applies with Terry, since Riddles primarily plays Kazuya nowadays, but that character's regional representation and results has only gone up with time, while Byleth's have stagnated. Unless something changes, this drop is likely to continue in the future.
Mega Man's drop is kind of a question mark, similar to Ness who dropped 7 spots to be ranked next to him, but the area where they are in the tier list is largely shuffled from the previous year. I would personally put these two a higher in the B- tier, but they are still in the general tier I would consider them. There are so many good characters in Ultimate in the end of the day.
A two-way for the third-largest drop in the list at -9. Young Link dropped from top 30 to top 40, and from A- to B+ tier. Bowser dropped from 50th to 59th, and from B- to C+ tier.
Young Link's top and high level representation has gone done quite a lot from the past year, which is combined with other characters getting far more prominent screen time.
With LeoN's placement in tournaments getting less frequent and weaker, perception on Bowser has gone down significantly in the past year. HERO continues to place very well with the character, but with him being the main high level representative and HERO having less frequent attendance than with the previous list, Bowser lost a lot of his luster from the previous list, and has now lost of his title of best superheavy to Incineroar. I do think Bowser's drop is a little too harsh, but there is no denying that the character has seen better days in Ultimate's meta.

Miscellaneous Stuff:
Honestly one of the bigger question marks in the list. Diddy is undeniably a strong character, but I am a little torn if Diddy deserves the top 10 placement in the list. Wonder what all of you has to say about it.
Something that probably will shock several players, but Kazuya drops just outside of the top 10, no longer a S tier character, now being the leader of the A tiers. Still an incredibly strong character, but between his weaker matchups getting better and Riddles being the only real top level representative of the character, the drop seems very warranted.
After a very lackluster first half of the year with ProtoBanham being largely absent all year long, Min Min has risen up lately in the public eye thanks to Doramigi emerging as a rising star player with incredible results. At only 14 years of age, he has achieved something never seen before: top level results from a solo Min Min player. As such, while this rise would've felt weird a few months ago, it is now very much warranted.
JAPANNNNNNN....
Luigi got a fairly sizable increase this time around of +8. Another character that I thought was a little underranked in the previous list, thanks to Luugi and few other notable players, this character's standing in the meta has gotten better this year. Luigi has always been the Ultimate character where he strikes hard at tournaments at seemingly sporadic intervals.
Never thought I live to see the day where Isabelle gets the come up over Villager. Perception on Villager has only really gotten worse with time, now joining her in the low tiers, and dropping below her is only really because Isabelle has a playerbase that actually exists. Villager has one of the smallest playerbases in the entire game, which is saying a lot since Isabelle also has a very small playerbase.
Villager is kind of doomed to be a SSB4 character trapped in the wrong game.
Le bottom tier. Dedede, K. Rool, and Ganondorf all suffer from some of the lowest playerbases in the game, especially in higher levels of play, and all three possesses pretty much all of the textbook traits of a bottom tier heavyweight character we have seen time and time again throughout the Smash series.
K. Rool dropped significantly from the last list, as the character continues to receive very minimal (if not even worse) playerbase support, and even his best players like KirbyKid often run into games where he simply cannot play the game. Both he and Dedede are purely matchup check characters, where they rely on the character's lack of matchup knowledge to win games, and that is not indicative of a competitively viable character.
Mac has easily the strongest playerbase and results of the four, but he fundamentally suffers from the same shortcomings he has always suffered from.
Ganondorf is still Ganondorf, and is now at a tier by himself at the bottom.

 

[NotLiquid]

Diddy Kong in the past has generally been held back by a very undeveloped meta. So many gimmick plays like his patched out pyramid scheme infinite buried the lede on a variety of unexplored confirms and combos that were high execution but high reward (d-tilt into stutter step FSmash, hard banana trips into 40-70% damage combos, DAir autocancel monkey flip kicks, peanut popgun cancels, etc.). The character is a swiss army knife that walks a tightrope of holding powerful tools that fall apart under bad habits, such as responsible usage of very specific landing aerials, OoS options, and monkey flip usage. Most of that isn't going to look appealing at the skill level Ultimate's player base was years ago, which is an issue shared with characters like Bayonetta and Sora. The player base's quality of play has overall improved in these regards though, and that extends to his banana/item play. On top of being slippery in neutral, he's also a ledge trapping menace when he has a banana in hand, who either piles on damage, holds advantage really well, steals kills off-stage early, and also taxes the opponent's mental stack because he's able to pressure enemies from above when he has banana as well. Only real flaw he has when optimized is that his air drift is really poor; that and because banana can be used against him it makes him a character who can easily be blown up if the player isn't careful, but outside of high-level ROB and Peach players I think the scale of people who master item play is probably favored toward high-level Diddy mains. I can see why he's believed to be Top 10, the only reason I question it is because his worst matchup (Steve) is still very meta relevant, and he loses to a few random characters across the span of the entire tier list.

I would by that token argue on a biased technicality that it'd have been apt for him and Joker to get bumped down to the A+ tier given that entire section of characters fittingly constitute "really good characters who get arbitrarily boned by a few unscratchable bad itches". Kazuya is self-evident of that; enough time has passed right now that I think it's fair to admit that his biggest issue is neither disadvantage or getting walled in neutral, but a lopsidedly ineffective advantage state. He'll kill you or do insane damage off of a combo, he'll harass you in neutral (unless you can keep him out), but once he's done sending you into a blender there's very little he can do to just immediately get you back in there. It's easy to reset neutral against him, most characters are able to respond to him in a ledgetrap situation, and none of that is alleviated by an equally suboptimal disadvantage. Kazuya might be the most "neutral" character in the roster; it's a neutral that's destructive as a tank, but neutral is where he always wants to be, and that can regularly work against him when multiple characters on the roster only fall because of being stymied by the opponent's advantage state.

Still, even if he were in that pantheon, Diddy probably fares the best out of that group on the whole.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I personally don't think Diddy Kong will ever be a truly horrible character in Smash unless they gut his recovery like in early Ultimate, and even then he was just mid. He's been top tier in previous Smash games for a reason, and most of those reasons are still there in Ultimate, even if they've been toned down. Diddy Kong is still a neutral monster with fantastic item play due to Banana being one of the best items in the game because it trips, he has great hurtbox shifting and is just hard to hit in general, Monkey Flip is a fantastic move, solid kill confirms, down-tilt has very little endlag, fast startup and combos or sets up into kill moves and z-drop dair is still a thing, even if it's seen less and less now.

He does have some bad matchups, but most of those are doable or mostly irrelevant characters with the exception of , and . I think bottom of S tier is fine, but top of A tier is also a fine take. He has a decent amount of representation too with players like Aaron, Ryuoh, Nietono and obviously Tweek.

That being said, what do people think about G&W vs Diddy? I remember Tweek believing it was favourable towards Diddy at some point, but I personally disagree nowadays, in large part due to Tweek's poor record against Miya and his back and forth record against Maister. It may be slightly winning for G&W or an even matchup IMO.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I personally don't think Diddy Kong will ever be a truly horrible character in Smash unless they gut his recovery like in early Ultimate, and even then he was just mid.

To clarify, players back in early Ultimate thought Diddy was straight up low tier. It the combination of both his much weaker recovery, but also his neutral and KO tools being weaker back then too. He had a much harder time killing while dying much sooner himself. The banana pyramid infinite was the only real thing going about vanilla Ultimate Diddy.

 

[Rizen]

GENESIS X is a big tournament that's happening.

 

[Rran]

Zackray apparently 3-0'd Miya w/ Dark Pit

I gotta track this set down...

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Upset thread for GENESIS X
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/1at8tpc

 

[The_Bookworm]

Genesis X Top 8

Winner's
Sonix vs Zomba
Light vs Sparg0

Loser's
Tea vs Tweek
SHADIC vs Neo


Corrin fans are feasting as we speak.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I get the feeling this is just setting up for another Coinbox Grands between Sparg0 and Sonix

 

[Rran]

Tweek humbled Riddles in game 3 oh my goodness; my man took <30% lol

EDIT: Anyone else surprised by the relative lack of Steves in this tournament? Maybe it's just the feed I was watching, but I'm struggling to recall any blockhead mains on stream today. Almost thought Genesis had taken a page out of the LMBM rulebook and banned him...