Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hippieslayer]

Oh definitely. Solid disadvantage. Doesn't take uncecessary damage either.

 

[NairWizard]

Let's start with Hurt vs. Sparg0. This is a fun one, and I think looking at a play by play of the first minute or so of one of the games will give a lot of insight into Hurt's general playstyle.

Here's Winners Finals.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

I'm choosing game 3 since some people were saying that sparg0 adapted in game 3.


First, you'll notice we're on FD. FD is the traditional choice against Snake, because there aren't really other good stages to fight Snake on given the current ruleset. Here's the stagelist for BOBC6:





2 bans apparently.

Battlefield and Smashville are way too strong for Snake, giving him landing options and under-the-platform camping. Hollow Bastion is a very marginally better pick than Smashville thanks to more space to maneuver, but that platform is still really strong (and I believe even closer to the main central stage than the Smashville one, which is good for Snake even if only slightly).

If Hurt bans Town and PS2, that only really leaves sparg0 with FD to choose. In theory, it does make sense -- FD makes it easier to punish Snake's landings with dash attack, and most Snakes aren't comfortable there. Unfortunately for sparg0, Hurt was born on FD, so the stage list ends up being really insane to navigate for this set. With this ruleset against a Snake, it feels like you're being counterpicked every game, even if you're the one doing the counterpicking.

So we're already off to a bad start for sparg0. Let's take a look at the game itself now.

A lot of people are talking about Hurt being aggressive, but let's not get it twisted: his initial gameplan is camping, and camping very hard. Hurt might use CQC if sparg0 gets too close, but Hurt's gameplan is essentially grenade, and he won't deviate from it until it's necessary.

So sparg0's gameplan here has to be aggressing and minimizing time to set up shop; that's why he starts by dashing in at 8:39.

Now, right from the start, you might pick up on Hurt's biggest innovation in the matchup -- pulling a grounded grenade while facing away from Cloud.
Why is this good?

First, Grenade gets pulled on frame 1, but it spawns behind Snake, so with your back facing Cloud, grenade appears immediately to stop any kind of aggressive pressure option. If you face Cloud while pulling grenade, then you have to drop it first and pick it up before it can shut down attacks.

Second, facing away gives you access to b-air, both on hit confirm if Cloud hits the grenade and as an anti-air if Cloud just empty jumps and is weaving around.

As we see at 8:39, this tactic is hard to prevent: sparg0 tries to f-tilt Hurt before he can start the camping, but the turn-around grenade frame 1 is so fast that it just gets sparg0 hit instead. Snake's camping is so strong that it can literally start on frame 1 or 2 of the game. In fact, it's so fast that by the time sparg0 has landed at 8:41, only a second after getting hit by grenade and b-air, Snake is already facing away again pulling another grenade, while sparg0 has taken 30%.


Just take a second to think about what kind of pressure that is. This is like if Samus had fully charged Charge Shot available from the get-go and recharged it instantly.


sparg0 tries to start dashing in again immediately to prevent more setup. This time, perhaps expecting a grab instead, Hurt rolls out of the way, and leaves the grenade in place. This also is very strong, like Samus down-b but with fewer obvious workarounds. The grenade in the way prevents patience, as you can't just pressure Snake in the corner with it about to explode, so sparg0 is forced to pick an option. He only gets a split second to shield before he has to run in and choose, or just back away and retreat.

Hurt knows this and approaches with shield, ready to grab if sparg0 just holds shield or d-air OOS if sparg0 aggresses. Instead, sparg0 does something smart and creative. He picks up the grenade and tosses it down, forcing an option from Hurt so that sparg0 can get something started. This moment is one of my favorites from the set.




From this position, they both have to choose an option. sparg0 chooses to use f-air to attack. Hurt chooses to defensively jump back and b-reverse a grenade to once again have his back facing sparg0 with a grenade in hand. Since jumpsquat is frame 3 and grenade is frame 1, Hurt has his option out before sparg0 can even start the f-air animation. Look at this:





Airtight camping, absolutely no vulnerability here.

sparg0 swings the f-air but hits a grenade and takes damage while Hurt isn't even around -- he's long rolled out of the way.

And since Hurt rolled, instead of b-air he can actually hit confirm into n-air from the grenade. Once again, before sparg0 lands at 8:46 and techs in place (the fastest tech option), Hurt already has his back turned and has pulled another grenade. Now, not only is sparg0 getting camped, but he's also in the corner, so he has to choose something defensive. He can't shield because f-throw -> Nikita is deadly from this position, so he jumps up. This ends up being the smartest option, since it gets him out of the corner and puts Snake on ledge.

sparg0 tries to capitalize on this -- the first real opening of the game, but since the grenade is there, it's a red herring. There's not enough time to punish neutral getup -> shield, so instead, sparg0 gets hit and Hurt retains stage. What looked like an opening was really just another trap, and sparg0 would have been better off waiting.

Unable to stop Hurt from setting up, sparg0 turns to lesser-used Cloud options, like d-tilt at 8:51.

In case you don't know, Cloud d-tilt is a pretty bad move. It does lower Cloud's hurtbox but the functional benefits really stop there; it's low damage, the hitbox is vulnerable, and there are usually better options with more coverage. But here, it's just the only thing that hits Snake's feet in this position. Cloud doesn't have a poking d-tilt like Lucina or Aegis would in the same situation, so Cloud has to choose the riskier burst to stop Hurt from setting up. The d-tilt does hit, but look at the reward sparg0 gets for it -- 8% and doesn't even get stage control since the grenade explodes immediately afterwards anyway and blocks off progress.

This is overall just bad odds. If sparg0 guesses wrong he takes 30, and if he guesses right he deals 8, so d-tilt will clearly not work as an option to stop Hurt from setting up.


At 8:54, sparg0 turns to another typically weak Cloud option: grab. Once again he gets no follow-up, but he realizes that if he gets a grab in the right position he can get more damage. Sure enough, at 8:58, sparg0 just grabs Hurt as he tries to set up and b-throws him into a grenade, following up with up-tilt to get him to 44. It's not bad damage, but sparg0 overextends, trying to read Hurt's air drift with a f-air. Cloud f-air is pretty slow and Snake b-air is f7, though, so Hurt perfectly times an airdodge and resets to neutral with a b-air to hit sparg0 at 9:01.


Take note of how Hurt uses stage control. He is camping, but he will camp at midrange rather than zone at the far end of the stage. When sparg0 is sent flying, Hurt uses that time to close the distance to set up shop closer to the target. The only times he doesn't do this are when sparg0 has limit, such as 9:09. In these situations, Limit can be very dangerous for Snake. But at a distance, the only thing sparg0 can threaten with is Limit Blade Beam, which gets completely blocked by a single grenade, so giving up stage control to mitigate the threat is a reasonable call.

Even at long range, Hurt's pretty smart about his zoning. He understands that even as a long-range zoner you need to mix in some dash attacks sometimes, because it challenges your opponent's mental stack if they have to fear random burst from you while trying to penetrate your defenses.



9:13 gives us insight into Hurt's ledgetrapping plan. Most Snakes are preemptive on ledge: they like to use mortar at different timings and hope that the blast catches an opponent. It does, often, but it's not the most consistent plan, and it can be vulnerable to reversal, so Hurt elides it. If Hurt can't find time to use Nikita, then he places one mortar and then uses the forced option that the mortar elicits to try to react to something.

In this moment, Hurt uses a mortar, which makes sparg0 jump -- sparg0 doesn't want to grab ledge or land on the stage since he might get hit by the mortar here. Hurt dashes back, to give himself time to b-air if sparg0 chooses to drift in and airdodge past the mortar. But since sparg0 hangs in the air longer, Hurt uses dash in and dash out to keep himself close enough to react until sparg0 makes a decision. Note that Hurt only briefly flashes shield -- just in case there's a n-air or f-air coming, then dashes back in preparation to react to something. sparg0 gives up the airdodge, and Hurt up-tilts for the stock.


Why was this ledgetrap so effective?

1. Snake's dash back and forth is actually quite short, so it doesn't pry Snake away from the action.
2. Since he didn't waste time on using more explosives past the one mortar, Hurt didn't risk a reversal here. Instead, he just patiently waited for any panic option at all, and when the first one came, he was ready.
3. He didn't waste a lot of time in shield allowing sparg0 to roll past him. He only briefly used the shield to prevent a reversal.

Now, you'll notice that on sparg0's second stock, Hurt is scrapping rather than continuing to camp with his grenade. He's trying to whiff punish sparg0's landing. Why is he doing this?

First, sparg0 isn't swinging into it any more, so Hurt isn't racking up any damage by camping right now. At the same time, since sparg0 isn't swinging, it also gives Snake more room to maneuever.

And second, since Hurt's in the lead, he has the percent to go for reads. Jump read n-airs, grabs, face-forward grenades -- it's all on the table when you're already in the lead.

It's a riskier playstyle, for sure, and is probably what gives people the impression that Hurt is aggressive.

But this is an interesting aspect of Snake that isn't often talked about -- taking risks like this when in the lead is not just possible -- it's actually optimal.

You see, when Snake is in the lead, he can't really pull a Megaman or a Samus and just camp at the corner. If he does that, he puts himself at risk of damaging himself with his own projectiles and losing his lead. How many times have you seen a Snake die to his own C4 or pop offstage due to his own grenade and make the stock count even again, forfeiting a lead?

Snake is an unusual zoner in that when he has the lead he's actually better off fighting it out to make the lead even bigger. If you throw some grenades in the mix and also start pressing your strong normals with a big lead, then you'll usually end up trading stocks -- and when you have a lead, trading stocks means you're winning the game.

At 9:56 the risky play loses Hurt the stock: he tries to get sparg0 with a C4 while falling and it doesn't pan out. But there's still a sizable lead here, so he keeps fighting. Note how he's fighting, though. It's not just straight CQC. He's mixing some zoning in there, because any grenade that hits both Snake and Cloud is a win for Hurt right now since he's in the lead.

It's also worth noting that Hurt treats stock leads as slightly different from percent leads.

Hurt has the stock lead? Minimize explosives, don't leave room to lose your stock by hitting yourself with your own explosive.
Hurt has the percent lead but no stock lead? Explosives mixed with CQC, ensure Cloud dies first.

At 10:12 for instance he goes for a grab read, fails, and then immediately jumps and b-reverses a grenade -- facing forward, instead of facing away.

Even his ledgetrapping shows signs of this: at 10:24, he doesn't even bother with mortar, he just literally waits to react to roll or neutral getup with dash attack. He unfortunately gets the sour spot here, but the mixup is important. It forces sparg0 to make aggressive plays despite being at high %, and a following Cross Slash leads to an up-tilt that seals sparg0's second stock.

Imagine if Hurt were any other Snake and was just camping grenade and mortar in this spot. sparg0 could play the high % patiently and just not touch the grenades and hope that Hurt self-damages and creates an opening. Hurt doesn't give him that chance, though, and instead just keeps mixing up between CQC and defense.


The final stock of WF is actually quite strange, relative to all the other games. Hurt trades in his next stock entirely with explosive exchanges in order to get to the last stock. I have the feeling he only did this because he was up 2-0, as he doesn't do it in any other game. He probably wanted the set to be over at this point, and as a result of that decision-making, he even comes close to losing the game -- thankfully for Hurt, the lead he built up ends up translating into a narrow margin of victory.

 

[Hippieslayer]

This step by step analysis is really good. I hope you have somewhere else where you are posting it too since the audience here is pretty small albeit appreciative. It could function as a basis for a youtube video too. It's better than anything else that's out there at the moment. This has been the case with the other match analyses you've made too. But this one is particularly poignant imo. I mean there are top players who would benefit from reading it.

 

[NotLiquid]

Looking at the Battle of BC6 bracket, I think the remarkable thing about Toriguri's bracket run is that all of his losses were Game 5's, and those were specifically losses against Hurt (1st place) and Yoshidora (3rd place). He never scored a winning set where he allowed the opponent to win more than one game which is pretty big when your opponents are people like BassMage and MkLeo, and he's the only one the entire tournament who managed to take Hurt to Game 5.

This was a great tournament for Banjo, not just because of how far he got, but because those losses were probably the hardest fought ones in the tournament. A drift-to-center-of-stage attempt to grab his own grenade getting intercepted by a run-up Snake up tilt is the one thing that stopped TG from completely reversing the last stock on Hurt and make it into Top 8 on winners side, where he might have faced an easier side of the bracket. People were joking that Doramigi was a lock for winning the tournament after he beat BassMage (and his Min Min is just as much a spectacular breath of fresh air that validates the high opinions people still have of her), but the way Toriguri played this tournament struck me as someone who absolutely could have won the entire thing if he'd clutched things together at the most critical moments.

 

[NairWizard]

This step by step analysis is really good. I hope you have somewhere else where you are posting it too since the audience here is pretty small albeit appreciative. It could function as a basis for a youtube video too. It's better than anything else that's out there at the moment. This has been the case with the other match analyses you've made too. But this one is particularly poignant imo. I mean there are top players who would benefit from reading it.

Nope, just here.

Competitive Smash is niche enough that I doubt a YouTube video would make enough money to make worth the expense of the time investment into making it. Editing takes a lot of time.

What would it get, 25k, 50k subscribers? Barely enough to cover the labor.

I post these here because I like this place. I have fond memories of it from the Smash4 days, even if it's changed a bunch since then (Shaya, Thinkaman, and others stopped posting here long ago). It's still a nice place; I like it a lot better than reddit or twitter, which are like monolithic hiveminds.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Nope, just here.

Competitive Smash is niche enough that I doubt a YouTube video would make enough money to make worth the expense of the time investment into making it. Editing takes a lot of time.

What would it get, 25k, 50k subscribers? Barely enough to cover the labor.

I post these here because I like this place. I have fond memories of it from the Smash4 days, even if it's changed a bunch since then (Shaya, Thinkaman, and others stopped posting here long ago). It's still a nice place; I like it a lot better than reddit or twitter, which are like monolithic hiveminds.

Understandable, but perhaps someone could do all that for you while you just provide the raw material? I suppose that if it was posted on reddit it would just get washed away with the ceaseless discharge. Unfortunately I do not have the skills and equipment (or time, being old and having stuff to do all the goddamn time is annoying) to turn it into a youtube video myself.


It would be interesting to hear more about what sets Hurt apart from the other Snake players. Do you think its fair to say that his basic approach to Snake is more like Ally's than the other top snakes or am I just seeing that because he's a new exciting Snake player who is better at the character than his brethren?

 

[NairWizard]

It would be interesting to hear more about what sets Hurt apart from the other Snake players. Do you think its fair to say that his basic approach to Snake is more like Ally's than the other top snakes or am I just seeing that because he's a new exciting Snake player who is better at the character than his brethren?

Hurt makes decisions faster than other Snakes, there's less dead time in his buttons and more purpose to the buttons that he does press. Another Snake can press buttons as fast as Hurt but the buttons won't necessarily be the correct ones - MVD and AK will grenade and mortar by default when there are much better options in those situations.

In general, Hurt is careful about when to use explosives, his risk-reward assessment on the fly is great and the macro strategy per matchup is always solid.

He's also good at all the stages. He can do the double grenade camping on Small Battlefield and PS2, but he can also do CQC with C4 mixups on Smashville, and he can do the horizontal single grenade camping we saw on FD and I imagine Hollow Bastion.

As Hydreigonfan mentioned, he's also great at recoveries and in disadvantage in general.



As for comparing to Ally, well, it's hard given that so many years have passed. Ally was much slower, of course, and more cerebral, but that's just because 2019 smash allowed you to be much slower. Hurt is also much campier -- but again, if Ally played today, he'd probably be campier too.

Ally used grenade as a conditioning tool, Hurt uses it as a pressure tool (which has some overlap). They're both good at CQC. I can see how you'd think that there are similarities.

 

[Scrimblo Bimblo]

Even though I play Smash a lot I don't follow the competitive scene much, but I've been following Toriguri for a whole year. Since I don't sleep much I used to watch his matches for some 30 minutes before getting out of bed and starting to get stuff done. Anyways I was really excited about his international debut, to the point this was the first time I've watched a full Smash top 8 live, and he didn't disappoint.
I have to say I predicted Hurt winning the whole thing, he just felt like he had the X factor. Aggressive and precise Snakes like that are always a threat, but it felt like watching a TAS sometimes. In fact Toriguri is the only one who managed to actually push him, or at least that's what it felt like to me.

But anyways, TG! What a player. It actually felt like he could win the whole thing.
I think he's really grown too. About one year ago I'd say he played Banjo kinda like me (though obviously with more precision and more intelligence), but now it actually feels like he's piloting a whole different character. He keeps his advantage on and on and on. He uses Breegull Blaster as a pressure tool despite the reduction in mobility and defensive options it forces you to undergo (I mostly just use it to punish landings, rolls, predictable approaches and projectile spam, which is fine but obviously more limited). His Wonderwings are scientific. He only throws out eggs when he can't be punished (with Banjo it's surprisingly easy to just shoot out a grenade as a "get off me!" measure and get hit for it) and his positioning is immaculate. His utilt reads are insane, his recoveries incredibly varied, and of course he uses all the crazy BB tech with no effort.
Looking forward to see him play out of Japan more and more. I believe he can win a major, the latest time he came awfully close already.

As for Banjo himself, it feels vindicating to finally see the character get some actual results after so many years. I've always felt like people were underestimating him to a ridicolous amount. He's obviously not a top tier character or anything, but seeing him in bottom 5 in certain tier lists was insane. The character is very well-rounded.
I think what holds him back is that he's designed to win neutral very often, which he has the tools to do, but then to get the most out of his advantage he has to be very "mental" and successfully box out his opponent multiple times in order to get the most out of it. While other characters have a harder time winning neutral but once they do, they obliterate you; so in the end with Banjo you have to win more often. On the other hand, he's a heavy with a very good recovery so he can deal with some punishment, and Wonderwing can just steal some stocks.
I'm still not sure how much Banjo is actually decent and how much TG is just cracked, but more than anything I hope the character stops being misunderstood. No, he's not supposed to play like Mario just because they're both cartoony platformer mascots, and he's not supposed to play like Snake just because their main projectiles are grenade-shaped and they both kick upwards for their utilt either. Breegull Blaster combos, at least in their basic versions like egg-egg-egg-nair, are not hand-breaking at all and they're surprisingly consistent and easy to initialize due to the BB egg shot having super fast start-up and a pretty solid range.
I think the character is more unexplored (outside of TG and a few others) than anything. Looking forward to more players picking him up maybe?
But even more, looking forward to TG's next major

 

[The_Bookworm]

Not relevant to Ultimate, but HBox did a send-off online tournament to SSB4 since 3DS and Wii U servers are shutting down very soon. The tournament had Bayonetta soft banned, only letting players use her if they gentleman to her.
This ended up being the Grand Finals....

Ngl, this game was kinda cooked regardless if Bayo was in the game. lol (And yes, I know that online boosts Sonic, but still....)
Sonix would also then fight Mistake's Bayo in a thug finals in which Sonix won 3-1.

Mew2King joined in on the call during the set and put in some insightful stuff. He notably believes that Sonic is #2 in SSB4 and not Cloud.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Diamond Dust is the biggest event for the weekend at a B+ Tier, and we're seeing the debut of MkLeo's new secondary , so far it has been looking very nice, having only dropped one game in the tournament.

 

[NairWizard]

Roy was my original main in this game, first character I ever won a bracket with. I have a lot of faith in Roy.

But not against Pikachu. Pikachu is way too hard. Chrom is actually a better pick for that MU in particular.

It's a double Corrin event so the likelihood was always that a Corrin wins. Looking at winners side top 8 seems pretty unremarkable, too. It's Neo, SHADIC, BigBoss, and ShinyMark right? Some good names but it seems like either SHADIC or Neo auto-win from here unless Leo makes a deep losers run (and I'm not sure his new Roy could beat either of them, or Joker if he pulls it out after no practice this tournament). I expect SHADIC to win over Neo, but Neo's reads-based playstyle can result in surprising results sometimes.

Another thought, it's interesting to see that the acola Steve MU chart wasn't posted here or the three Yoshi MU charts. Found those very interesting and insightful into the state of the JP meta. Steve only having 1 losing MU according to acola (and it being aegis) was a neat example of a #1 player admitting that he's getting outplayed in MUs he's losing (such as vs. Cloud and Sonic) instead of just outmatch-upped.

Not really sure what to think of Yoshi overall. Seems like your run of the mill easy and good character.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 8 for Diamond Dust

Winners
SHADIC vs Neo
MKBigBoss vs ShinyMark

Losers
BeastModePaul vs Onin
Riddles vs MkLeo

Spoiler: Big images

Here's the Ron and Yoshidora Yoshi MU Charts

 

[NairWizard]

Never mind, was completely wrong, Pikachu still has some kick in this meta it seems.

 

[Cheryl~]

Pikachu isn't the top 5 contender people thought he was in 2019, but I think his potential is really only held back by ShinyMark's location which forces him to travel large distances to get anywhere notable. Not that this is any of his fault, but it's unfortunate because Pikachu's results would immediately skyrocket if ShinyMark had better opportunities to go to more majors.

Well, guess what happened when ShinyMark could travel?

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think this is the best I've ever seen a Pikachu play in this game. ShinyMark is clearly quite a bit better than peak ESAM, and would likely be a top 20 contender if he were able to travel more. The character is very difficult to pick up and play at a top level, but when you're pulling it off, wow...

Also, Onin keeps getting better and better. I did not expect him to come out of this with a SHADIC win! Impressive stuff.

 

[NairWizard]

Seeing all the fuss about sparg0 completing an IronMan makes me wish I'd recorded mine. The Elite IronMan is a lot more accessible than it looks. Marss and Nairo sometimes struggle with it, but they are scrap-heavy players who are sometimes vulnerable to getting gimmicked because they're also trying to be entertaining for their streams while also getting stream-sniped -- but if you play matchups patiently and learn the basics of every character in the roster you can definitely do a full IronMan even if you aren't a top 10 player.

It did take me a couple of years of on-and-off attempts to do, and I think doing it in one sitting makes it much harder since you go on autopilot after a while, but if anyone else is trying it, I think the key is knowing how to camp with each character (and a few other things like learning the optimal spot to fastfall with every character in advantage, but that probably goes without saying). I have no issue with getting up on a platform and camping from the moment I see GO on the stage if I'm playing a character I'm not as comfortable on.

The comfort comes in once you scout out your opponent's playstyle a bit, and then you can scrap more freely.

You guys should try it! I think it's a lot of fun and a good way to gain insight into the cast.

On that note, if any of you guys play, I'd be happy to analyze your sets instead of tournament sets and help you out too.

 

[NairWizard]

For some more competitive impressions, what's a "bad" character you struggle with?
Mine, personally, is Isabelle, as weird as it sounds.

 

[Rizen]

For some more competitive impressions, what's a "bad" character you struggle with?
Mine, personally, is Isabelle, as weird as it sounds.

For a long time a top 8 player in my region used Pit. I never could beat him. Pit's a surprisingly good defensive character even though he's underwhelming offensively. Pit's multiple jumps and orbatars give him a really good disadvantage state. If he doesn't want to be hit, he's very hard to hit. I think that's why Zachray was able to beat Miya.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Sumabato SP 46 (A Tier)

1. Miya
2. Yaura
3. Raru
4. Umeki
5. Tsuna
5. Yoshidora
7. Asimo
7. Shirayuki
9. MASA
9. Shupi
9. Lv. 1
9. Snow
13. Kome
13. Kie
13. Nimba
13. Raki
17. Rearlet
17. Doramigi
17. Rarikkusu
17. Nizemamo
17. Niyae
17. Ryuoh
17. Tsumusuto
17. Karaage

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Raru did a Luigi matchup chart

2600達成記念で自分が作る、最後のルイージ相性表(オンラインver.)を作成しました！　
オフラインver.はまた今度どこかで作ろうと思います。
全キャラの位置の理由などは、配信で喋っているので見てもらえると嬉しいです！

配信URL↓https://t.co/rbwWGG2Tg8 pic.twitter.com/NDissmv1bN

— SOL/らる (@RaLuigi812) April 16, 2024

I can't read Japanese but I believe the upper sections are "Winning" and "Slight winning", and the lower sections are Luigi's bad matchups, with the light blue being even.

 

[NairWizard]

Raru did a Luigi matchup chart

2600達成記念で自分が作る、最後のルイージ相性表(オンラインver.)を作成しました！　
オフラインver.はまた今度どこかで作ろうと思います。
全キャラの位置の理由などは、配信で喋っているので見てもらえると嬉しいです！

配信URL↓https://t.co/rbwWGG2Tg8 pic.twitter.com/NDissmv1bN

— SOL/らる (@RaLuigi812) April 16, 2024

I can't read Japanese but I believe the upper sections are "Winning" and "Slight winning", and the lower sections are Luigi's bad matchups, with the light blue being even.

Important to note that this is online only. Raru says that he'll do a separate offline version later.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Important to note that this is online only. Raru says that he'll do a separate offline version later.

I forgot to translate it. Oops.
In any case, there's the Luminosity Invitational happening this weekend, and here are all 10 players.

• Dabuz
• Hungrybox
• Light
• Maister
• Marss
• MkLeo
• Riddles
• SHADIC
• Sonix
• Tweek

 

[Rizen]

I forgot to translate it. Oops.
In any case, there's the Luminosity Invitational happening this weekend, and here are all 10 players.

• Dabuz
• Hungrybox
• Light
• Maister
• Marss
• MkLeo
• Riddles
• SHADIC
• Sonix
• Tweek

The safest bet is on Sonix but it's possible Tweek, Light or Shadic win this too. It will be interesting to see if Shadic can keep up his top 5 player performances.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Here are the round robin pools for the Luminosity Invitational and the H2Hs from 2023-2024 onwards

 

[Hippieslayer]

It's a shame they didn't throw a Steve player in there instead of Hungrybox.

 

[NairWizard]

It's a shame they didn't throw a Steve player in there instead of Hungrybox.

I'm guessing it's because HBox will bring in a lot of views. Views = money = more events in the future = more chances for a Steve player to actually participate (maybe in a 16-man event), so long-term value proposition is pretty good

 

[Hippieslayer]

I suppose that makes sense. I just think the invitational has some top players who need to get on with learning to deal with Steve. I don't like Steve but I'm more annoyed by people still not having the matchup down and/or a solid counterpick for dealing with him if their particular matchup is terrible. I mean its been years. Watching people lose because they just don't seem to care about winning enough to do what they need to do is lame.

 

[Minix0]

Not relevant to Ultimate, but HBox did a send-off online tournament to SSB4 since 3DS and Wii U servers are shutting down very soon. The tournament had Bayonetta soft banned, only letting players use her if they gentleman to her.
This ended up being the Grand Finals....

Ngl, this game was kinda cooked regardless if Bayo was in the game. lol (And yes, I know that online boosts Sonic, but still....)
Sonix would also then fight Mistake's Bayo in a thug finals in which Sonix won 3-1.

Mew2King joined in on the call during the set and put in some insightful stuff. He notably believes that Sonic is #2 in SSB4 and not Cloud.

I find it so funny to hear people whine about Ultimate Sonic and how Ultimate is bad and stuff because they don't know how to adapt. They should go play Smash 4 and learn the pain of a Sonic that can back throw you at 90 and kill.

Smash 4 in general is a terrible game. Bayonetta didn't kill the game. She just pulled out the cord of a game on life support. I remember watching live streams of 4 in like 2017 before Ultimate came out and I noticed how most of the games the players were just running away the whole time. I also remember Twitch chat complaining about Sonic.

I played the game before it went offline a few weeks ago and wow. People complain that Ultimate is stiff and lacks movement? Smash 4 feels like that and more. It's like you're forced to enter a skid animation no matter what you do every time you turn. And its honestly embarrassing how good airdodging, shielding and rolling is in that game.

And all of that completely is forgetting Smash 4 rage, which to be honest is the worst mechanic in the franchise. Especially in a 2 stock meta, it just made Cloud running away and limit camping all the stronger.

Fundamentally, Smash 4 is a slow, boring game that more or less doesn't even really have combos. Bayo just is the straw that broke the camel's back. I find it funny that the game was called by Sakurai as a "balance between Melee and Brawl", because as someone who played it for 6 years its like 90% Brawl.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Hurt did a Snake MU Chart for both offline and online while doing a collab with another JP Snake player called Ryopei

りょぺいとスネークの相性表作ってみました。
1枚目がオフ基準で2枚目がオン基準です。対策積んだらこんな感じになる。

アーカイブhttps://t.co/NmEuUdQ8pV pic.twitter.com/VnmV3wq8ss

— E36/Hurt (@Hurt_ssb) April 18, 2024

There's a lot of good characters in the +2 tier, such as, , , , , , and . (Though I am not surprised to see either Bayo or Corrin in +2) is in the +1 tier, and he considers Snake to only have 5 -1 matchups and no -2 matchups. This is a MU Chart of a top 5 character.

 

[NairWizard]

Snake is definitely oppressive if you don't have great projectiles, but it seems like even with great projectiles it isn't enough. It does seem a bit biased, like Ryu being even offline due to Hurt's issues with Asimo (I guess fireball does make a big difference though; as I said, projectiles are by default good Snake counterplay), and Greninja, Hurt's secondary, being in even, despite this MU being seen as one of Greninja's hardest historically.

Consider me skeptical of the optimism here, but the key takeaway is that once Snakes learn how to camp as efficiently as Hurt with the grenade placement, all the swordie matchups could become favored. All of them, even Aegis. And most of the zoners like the Links also could become favored -- those were always considered hard for Snake too, but none of those MUs can be very hard if you just outcamp all the zoners by default.

I mean, Megaman is in winning here. Megaman.

Add in great CQC skills and all the -1s are perfectly doable.

 

[Rizen]

It figures, as soon as I say Snake's falling off, Hurt wins a major with him. I do think his MU chart is overly optimistic. Snake may very well be a top 5 character but I've noticed people are getting much better at harassing his disadvantage state. People realized they need to jump out there and attack him and what is Snake going to do about it? UpB gives him armor but he should take a lot of damage. It can be hard for Snake to get around characters with big hitboxes like Corrin. He's a large, slow moving target.

 

[Hippieslayer]

But he isn't that large. He's tall but thin and has a godlike crouch. He's vulnerable in the air. But not helpless. If he's able to go high and set up explosives to cover his descent it's not easy to juggle him.

I think people have known how to abuse his disadvantage. Hurts disadvantage is more optimized than the other Snakes though. Yes Snake can end up taking lots of damage sometimes, especially if pushed offstage at low to mid percents, but he can still come out on top so long as he doesn't die and gets back on stage because he's heavy, does a lot of damage and is hard to hit when back in neutral.

I struggle to think of more than 1 or 2 dash attack thats better than his. It gives him some wełl needed burst. We have other examples of slow lumbering characters doing quite well by having burst options you have to respect. Granted in the air he has no burst.

For whatever my personal experience is worth fighting him with a zoner feels far more fair than with other characters where it can be very unfun and frustrating because you need to be oh so disciplined and patient, if you ever let up you get destroyed for it, and you can't use the same basic gameplan you would vs most other characters, the matchup is so specific and so different that it feels like its own game in itself.

I don't quite understand why Corrin seems to do alright vs him. I would think that Lucina would be best suited for fighting him out of the swordies because she's well suited to baiting and spacing him out with her floatiness.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Luminosity Invitational has started and here are pool A's results

Sonix 4 - 0
SHADIC 3-1
Maister 2-2
Riddles 1-4
Marss 0-4

Pool B's results

Light 3-1 (7-2 Game Count)
Dabuz 3-1 (6-4 Game Count)
MkLeo 2-2 (5-4 Game Count)
Tweek 2-2 (5-5 Game Count)
Hungrybox 0-4

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here is top 8.

Winner's
Sonix vs Dabuz
Light vs SHADIC

Loser's
Tweek vs Maister
Riddles vs MkLeo

Marss and Hungrybox drowned in RR pools.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Here is top 8.

Winner's
Sonix vs Dabuz
Light vs SHADIC

Loser's
Tweek vs Maister
Riddles vs MkLeo

Marss and Hungrybox drowned in RR pools.

They changed top 8 bracket right after you posted it. They have it as Sonix vs Light, Dabuz vs SHADIC, MkLeo vs Maister and Tweek vs Riddles.

Edit: ...And then they changed it back to what you posted. I have no idea as to why.

 

[Rizen]

Tweek beat Maister at a coinbox recently but it was really close. It will be interesting to see that and the Light vs Shadic runbacks.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Luminosity Smash Invitational

1st: SHADIC
2nd: Sonix
3rd: Dabuz
4th: Maister
5th: Riddles
5th: Light
7th: Tweek
7th: MkLeo
9th: Marss
10th: Hungrybox


Yeah, there is no disputing that Shadic is the best player in the United States rn. Fun fact: he is the only other player aside from Miya who has won 2 or more majors this season.

Speaking of this season, Sonix is having a bit of a curse rn; in every major event he has showed up so far this season, he ended up placing 2nd. So close for first, but just shy of it.

 

[NairWizard]

It seems to me that Sonix keeps getting in his own head in grands and chokes each time. I saw some very uncharacteristically bad decisions from him in grands today. Was almost like watching a different player.

 

[Cheryl~]

Yeah, props to SHADIC's adaptations cause they definitely helped in bringing Sonix down but a lot of those stocks in the first set of Grands felt like Sonix just giving SHADIC a freebie with all of the Homing Attack misses (a move every Sonic main claims is trash yet they insist on using it in high-pressure situations, curious!), ESPECIALLY what happened in game 5 of grands set 1. I can imagine why Sonix would be nervous with SHADIC mounting that comeback and the timer looming and all, but man if he stayed as headstrong as he was playing literally every other set of the tournament he definitely could have won that.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I'm gonna be honest, I don't think SHADIC is just the best in the USA. I think he might be top 3 in the world alongside acola and Sparg0. His consistency in placements, high attendance, H2Hs, lack of bad losses and major wins make him have an incredible season thus far that feels comparable to those two.