Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[williamsga555]

Does Ryu still manage to do well at taking grenades out of the equation? I know that was starting to feel like the case a few years back but grenade play has changed a lot since then, so I'm not sure about how that matchup looks at this point in the game's life.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Does Ryu still manage to do well at taking grenades out of the equation? I know that was starting to feel like the case a few years back but grenade play has changed a lot since then, so I'm not sure about how that matchup looks at this point in the game's life.

Asimo does do very well against Hurt and Hurt considers the MU even, so maybe? Hurt could be playing the MU wrong though.

Some YouTuber did a retrospective of Snake in Ultimate, and the video is pretty good (clickbait thumbnail aside)

 

[NairWizard]

A romanticized hypothetical perhaps, but if Snake can play solid footsies against the likes of G&W and Ness like you suggest then that's in most ways kind of an ideal scenario considering I can't think of any other characters on the roster that invalidate Snake's reliance on grenade as a neutral option; Incineroar? Maybe Lucas has some advantages that Ness doesn't?

I'm actually kind of surprised that G&W can even consider to "work" in favor of Snake consider G&W outclasses Snake in pretty much every mobility category while having just as many meaty hitboxes or frame data to spare.

Joker and Min Min also handle grenade pretty well. Min Min punishes Snake for setting up with a 0 to death, and Joker gets Arsene, which can lead to 0 to deaths against Snake's unique disadvantage options as well. Min Min probably wins the MU while Joker is even, though, since Snake's edgeguards on Joker are pretty potent over the course of a set (might not get anything in an individual game though since you do have to read his option; Joker can be slippery).

I'm actually kind of surprised that G&W can even consider to "work" in favor of Snake consider G&W outclasses Snake in pretty much every mobility category while having just as many meaty hitboxes or frame data to spare.

Everyone, or nearly everyone, has more mobility than Snake without grenade. It's the amount of mobility you have that matters. G&W is faster than Snake, but it's not by enough to feel the difference.



For the thread and video, the meta development that made Snake so much better is that Snakes started getting better at camping. All the modern Snakes are grenade-heavy, but Hurt's grenade play is out of this world, very clean and airtight. The camping is so good that Snake started beating other zoners, and started having +2 MUs on all the swordies, which were previously considered even or losing MUs for him.


I always tell you guys, neutral is still the most important game state. All of the current characters soaring to the top are doing so off the back of significant neutral advancements.
Miya's advantage state is better than Maister's, but Miya's optimization of getting that advantage state via fully spaced n-airs is what really holds his gameplan together at top level.
Hurt's grenade play is by far the main thing that distinguishes him most from other Snakes.
Sonix? Do we even need to say anything there?
sparg0's Cloud evolved from sword spacing to realizing that you can just mash options like up-smash in neutral and not get punished in many scenarios.


Sometimes it doesn't feel like a neutral improvement because it's simple, just pressing a button faster in X or Y scenario, but neutral is the heart of the game still.

At this point everyone is 0 to deathing you at all levels. What really sets you apart is minimizing risk in neutral. Hurt's Snake does that, which makes it extra beautiful when he does take a risk, like vs. GnW and in game 5 set 1 against acola at Kagaribi.


It's why I still believe in Aegis. I can't remember who said this, but Aegis is just waiting for a CodySchwab figure, someone who can take the character and minimize risk with her.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Miya posted an updated MU Chart

Important to note that this seems heavily influenced by who Miya has lost too, for example Pit and Dark Pit are considered bad MUs after Miya lost badly to Zackray and his first G&W MU Chart had Corrin as a good MU for G&W before he lost to SHADIC, same with Mega Man and Peabnut.

 

[Rizen]

Miya posted an updated MU Chart
View attachment 389023
Important to note that this seems heavily influenced by who Miya has lost too, for example Pit and Dark Pit are considered bad MUs after Miya lost badly to Zackray and his first G&W MU Chart had Corrin as a good MU for G&W before he lost to SHADIC, same with Mega Man and Peabnut.

This MU chart reflects something I said, G&W has an amazing advantage state with amazing ledgetrapping and offstage interception. Look at his losing MUs: all of them except Aegis (who are outrageous in their own way) have good disadvantage states with good recoveries that can bypass ledge trapping. MK and Pit have excellent recoveries with multiple jumps, ZSS has flip kick, Yoshi has an armored double jump, Diddy can upB under the stage to the opposite ledge in several stages, Hero has zoom which completely bypasses the ledge, then Sonic and Rosalina both have good recoveries where they can aim high to avoid the ledge. G&W gets a ton of damage in advantage but when he can't do that suddenly he's an extremely light character who isn't killing as early as the opponent. I feel like this MU chart is a good indication of a top tier character but with a healthy amount of losing MUs.


Edit, after watching Kagaribi 12 Miya's win makes a lot more sense. He got really lucky in bracket. Spargo, Zachray and Acola, all the top threats to him, under preformed and were taken out by other players. The best player he had to beat was Hurt and G&W probably has a winning MU vs Snake. It's still an impressive win but not as much as I first assumed.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for KOWLOON 11.

1. Hurt
2. Glutonny
3. Ryuoh
4. Marcos
5. Nyonoknb
5. Gorioka
7. Sigma
7. Rokki
9. TomiTomi
9. Karoegu
9. SUZUNE
9. 33PeranBox

This was an extremely top heavy event with the top 4 seeds being Hurt, Gluto, Asimo and Goblin with Asimo DQ'ing and Goblin getting 17th. I believe it came at a B Tier due to the amount of Japan depth + Glutonny and Hurt giving a lot of points on the LumiRank TTS.

 

[NairWizard]

Haven't worked out the Lucina video quite yet, but there is a topic that's been on my mind recently: Bayonetta seems to be just as good as the very best characters.

Gameplaywise, she has all the tools she needs: the 0 to deaths, plenty of neutral finesse, and a disadvantage state that would make any sword character jealous. It's hard to enumerate all her great traits, but the best thing by far is her ability to slow down the game pace to a crawl and force you off your gameplan.

I don't personally care much for results when evaluating top characters, but if you do want to look at results, a unique lens you can look at Bayo through is regional difference: there is a successful top Bayo in NA, a successful top Bayo in EU, and a successful top Bayo in JP. Compare this to some other characters often seen as top meta threats -- you don't see Yoshi or Fox succeed in every region like that; not even Corrin or Sonic are excelling quite to the same degree across continents.

It's almost like Bayo doesn't care what meta she's in; she's going to win regardless.

And that characteristic is very, very indicative of a top character.

 

[williamsga555]

Yeah, I think Bayo's another instance of a character that would be difficult to make "bad" without unreasonably bad numbers slapped on her kit, and I think side b is the primary lynchpin.

It's such an amazing burst mobility tool that her opponents basically always have to be ready for it in neutral -yes, it's punishable if blocked, but if you're playing Ultimate neutral based around shielding you're not playing it optimally. She has other ways of shifting the pacing into her favor (offstage stalling, bats within from disadvantage, etc) but I think that being able to dictate the "comfort zone" of neutral in almost all matchups gives her a huge boost in overall potency.

It directly leading into Bayo advantage state certainly doesn't hurt either!

 

[NairWizard]

Yeah, that's such a good observation. You have to run up and shield against Bayo basically all the time unless you have some very strong projectile zoning (and Bayo eats some projectile zoners like Samus for breakfast anyway). That doesn't leave a lot of room for your own neutral finessing, while Bayo just gets all of the stage to herself to zoom around on.


Right after we posted talking about this, SHADIC is out of LTC at 7th due to losing to Geist, and Lima is in winners finals beating Teaser (who beat SHADIC).

Bayo is crazy strong, and I think only has room to get better. The counterplay doesn't have much wiggle room because you always have to respect ABK and Heel Slide, but Bayo herself has lots of room to keep growing.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Yeah, I think Bayo's another instance of a character that would be difficult to make "bad" without unreasonably bad numbers slapped on her kit, and I think side b is the primary lynchpin.

Well Bayo at the launch of the game was pretty bad, as she had virtually no kill power and most of her toolkit did not work properly.
She got super buffed by game updates, giving her more kill power and significantly improved the consistency of her toolkit, which greatly improved her combo game and kill power by itself.

I do agree that as long as her toolkit is functional and doesn't have Brawl Samus kill power, Bayo is a difficult character to make bad due to the nature of her character design.

Bayo is crazy strong, and I think only has room to get better. The counterplay doesn't have much wiggle room because you always have to respect ABK and Heel Slide, but Bayo herself has lots of room to keep growing.

That is a strong characteristic about Bayo that is true in both SSB4 and Ultimate; her toolkit grants her playerbase more expression than most other characters in the roster on what they want to do, whether it is playstyle or gameplan. No single Bayo player plays the same; how you approach the Bayo matchup varies quite a lot depending on who exactly you are fighting.
Also helps that the Bayo playerbase is one of the most dedicated and specialized playerbases there is. Even when dealing with the atrocious state of vanilla Bayo in Ultimate, a lot of her playerbase still stick with the character and continues to squeeze out her gameplan and advantage state as much as possible. No one else in the entire roster plays like Bayo, with Sora being the closest we have to replicating Bayo's character design, but they are both still leagues different from eachother.

 

[Aaron1997]

Miya Talks about G&W I got Translation from reddit.


I'll list some main points from this video. Please try not to read too deep into meanings behind the words. Also note that not everything is translated. Just things I thought were interesting.

• 1:10 In terms of being consistent or not, (GnW is) in the middle or leaning on not being consistent
• In general, I don't think any character is inherently consistent or not, but if I had to say, then I think (GnW is) on the side of inconsistent

He then talks about why characters are called inconsistent

• 1:30 Characters like Cloud and Aegis are strong offensively, which is overlooked in talking about consistency. In return, they are weak defensively off the stage.
• They are inconsistent because if they get edge guarded, then they will have a hard time with that game.

Wraps it back around to Game and Watch

• 2:00 Game and Watch has an easy time recovering, so he will not lose a stock early from recovering.
• However, he is the 3rd lightest in the game next to Pichu and Jigglypuff. Realistically, he's about the same as Pichu because his air dodge is frame 3, so he cannot get out of combos like Pichu can on frame 2.
• What makes him different from characters such as Jigglypuff and Olimar is that Game and Watch has a hard time killing
• Everyone says you can get others to 150% easily, but if you get your opponent to 150%, then they will get rage. Shows 150% Ryu Shoryuken killing Game and Watch at 60%
• Game and Watch has an easier time getting out of combos against characters that try to maintain advantage, but a really hard time against characters that have true combos
• 3:30 Also, his hit animation is terrible. He spreads his hands and arms outwards in all directions.
• Him having slow fall speed can lead to him getting hit too. Being light should make getting out of combos easier but Game and Watch doesn't.
• There are many situations where I get the opponent to 150, cannot get a ledge trap read, get one combo'd to 50, and then die.

Game and Watch Neutral

• 4:15 Game and Watch is not good at going in, so his neutral gameplan tends to be more basic/clean
• GnW can't hold forward.
• Hard to make a comeback, especially characters that can time you out
• Game and Watch has a hard time killing, but is strong defensively
• I think consistency ultimately comes down to the person

Burst Options

• 5:00 Characters that can skip ledge are really difficult. They often get to 150%.
• Characters that have a hard time at ledge are easier, so if those are the only characters you face in bracket, then he is more consistent, but if you can't read their ledge option, then GnW gets blown up, so its hard to say he is consistent.
• GnW has to read the opponent's habits at ledge to reliably kill, so it's easier against opponents you know. This is why I am consistent in Japan.
• Overseas, maybe I wasn't playing well, but I don't really know the players.
• I think given more time, I can get up to a 50% win rate against Sparg0 and Sonix, even though they've beaten me a lot
• Ledge trapping is just reading habits at the end of the day.
• I used to lose a lot to Tsubaki and Jogibu, but after I studied them, I stopped losing. I lost to Toriguri like 7 times in a row on Tamisuma(Online tournament), and I've won twice at Maesuma now.

"Do top players not change their habits?"

• 6:55 They can change, but I tend to adapt during the set
• I hope I can win against Zackray with this same thought process

Also

• 7:10 Two characters I tried really hard to deal with but couldn't were Yoshi and Rosa
• I can win sometimes, but not consistently, so I started using Steve against them
• I'm starting to think Sonic is also not possible, so I've been studying Steve vs Sonic. I've been watching KEN, Onin, and Sonix's matches a lot.
• Oh yeah also Metaknight. That character will kill you off one hit at any percent, so it's very inconsistent.
• More than half the reason I'm consistent is because I have secondaries. Solo GnW won't get you consistent results.
• I used to not care about character weight that much. I even thought it was normal, but people started preparing for the matchup by killing GnW early, so good players would instantly take stocks over and over and it was really difficult
• Characters with bad mobility are easy, but characters with good mobility are hard to deal with. Neutral is hard, and they can catch your landing and Up B OOS. I lost Umebura SP9 to DIO upairing my up B.
• GnW is actually exploitable. It's just his recovery.
• I still think this character is probably in the top 5. Also great as a secondary.
• I think at the end of the day, it comes down to the person

 

[Sucumbio]

• Oh yeah also Metaknight. That character will kill you off one hit at any percent, so it's very inconsistent.

DAMN SKIPPY

 

[NotLiquid]

In a game where character skill is so transferrable because of how 90% of every character is so uniform in utility (how many times have you come across the complaint that you really notice how similar every character's aerial is because of how aerial mashy Ultimate is) Game & Watch is one of those characters that particularly stands positively in terms of how little that's the case thanks to his unique aerial traits. That certainly has a knock-on effect on how to play consistently with him; beyond just always having to face away from your opponent in neutral you basically have to be fully cognizant of when to do full hop forward aerials to get the most out of the frame advantage from bombs. That's also really fickle to do against characters with really good neutral aerials, and while he has an absolutely devastating combo/advantage state, you need to both be able to respond to the opponent's DI and drift accurately with your neutral aerials in order to keep opponents trapped in his huge combos and juggles. Part of the reason Miya's G&W is so excellent is because his advantage state is probably the most polished among Ultimate's players and he complements that with excellent neutral conditioning, which is necessary when your character doesn't exactly excel in burst compared to the competition.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Goml day one sucked. Why do those types of crews when you have so many great well known and entertaining players attending? Where you could put on something amazing that people would want to watch?

"The local talent deserves exposure or whatever the reasoning behind it was" No. If the local talent is sufficiently talented it will get exposure anyway. The smash scene is doing poorly and it needs good watchable events.

Stream also didn't show up on Twitch for me for some reason. And in doubles production would consistently swap over to matches 1-2 seconds after they started so that you would miss the initial scuffle or whatever.

This lack of rudimentary professionalism at a big event is stupid.

Japanese tournaments are more watchable but you usually have to put up with mediocre to poor commentary unless you watch it in Japanese. Then you get good commentary that you can't understand. What with how the talent distribution is looking like right now I think Japanese tournaments should have better commentary. But I guess its not feasible.

 

[NairWizard]

Well, my favorite topic, Corrin Competitive Impressions. Probably won't be too much of a debate this time, just thought I'd post my observation on the storyline. As quickly as Corrin came into the metagame, exactly that quickly she's started running into struggles.

• SHADIC 13th here and 7th last week. Still pretty good at a big tournament like GOML, but an underperformance for his recent standards. The 3rd at Diamond Dust combined with today's loss to Syrup also showed that he's got some work to do in the Steve MU (which, as acola predicted, looks Steve-favored outside of Neo just having great reads for the MU).
• Neo has been getting results in the double digits like 65th here; he probably needs a playstyle adjustment to get consistency again (also life things but everyone has life things, many worse, like Light, so we'll skip the discussion on that).
• sparg0 hasn't made it to the parts of bracket where we would even see a Corrin while in Japan and didn't compete at GOML. He is practicing Corrin and Aegis actively, though, so it's clear that he wants to rely less on Cloud.

There was a world in which Corrin surged to #1 after the last few months, but it seems Corrin is heading the other way instead, at least for the moment.

So what's going on?

My take: it's hard to be a mainstay in this meta unless you can force the other guy to come to you, and that's tough for pure swordies. Cloud and Corrin are both sometimes weak in this regard; they have to go in and space at some point. Or, well, I suppose Cloud could limit camp the platform, but sparg0 isn't going to play that way.

They'll all recover as players; they won't just fade into obscurity, but they do have to re-invent things a bit for now, while the other meta characters can keep their current gameplan and just refine.

 

[The_Bookworm]

GOML X Top 8

Winner's
Riddles vs Big D
Syrup vs Tweek

Loser's
Sonix vs MkLeo
Onin vs Sisqui

Crazy tourney so far with upsets all over the place.
The highlight set of the tournament so far is Riddles vs Sonix. Riddles is playing on fire today (pretty sure he is top 8 in the SF6 bracket too) and the Terry went ham against his bracket demon. He now fights is other bracket demon, in Big D.

 

[NairWizard]

I would love to see Big D win a supermajor, but sadly that would involve him beating either Tweek (whose pocket Sephiroth can still clean up in the MU any day) or a Steve at some point, and both of those seem difficult. Such is the fate of Ice Climbers.

 

[Cheryl~]

Over in Japan this weekend, the next iteration of the Sumabato series occurred, Sumabato SP #47, which was an A tier. After many, many top seed upsets, including Miya falling at 9th (to Shion and yone_pi), a new major winner was crowned: Raru, which also means Luigi has won a major in Ultimate!

Here are the results:

1st: Raru
2nd: Kuroponzu
3rd: Asimo
4th: Eik
5th: Shupi
5th: Snow
7th: Rarikkusu
7th: yone_pi
9th: Yoshidora
9th: Nizemamo
9th: Raki
9th: Miya
13th: Ocha
13th: sssr
13th: Shion
13th: Fui

 

[Rizen]

One thing that's been shown time after time is it's hard to be consistent in Ultimate! This applies to everybody, even top players. There isn't one top player who dominates everything.

 

[Frihetsanka]

So what's going on?

Every character is just inconsistent in this game and it's especially hard to stay consistent with so many different MUs and strong players around. It's not like Peach, Aegis, Pikachu, Joker, Bayonetta, Yoshi, Palutena etc players are being super consistent either (and those characters are probably better than Corrin). Hey, even in Melee the #1 seed (Cody Schwab) lost to the #22 seed, a Samus player.

My take: it's hard to be a mainstay in this meta unless you can force the other guy to come to you, and that's tough for pure swordies.

It is one of Corrin's weaknesses for sure. Although even characters that can force approaches well (like Steve and Samus) aren't exactly super mega consistent. I think it's just hard to be consistent in this meta regardless of who you play. Or in this game in general. Not like SHADIC's losses were particularly bad (Syrup, who is popping off and is getting 5th minimum and is a contender for winning the tournament, and Light who is Light, and the Light set was fairly close).

Monte getting 9th with G&W is impressive. It seems fairly plausible to me that we could see three G&W players make top 50 this season, with Miya being a top 3 contender in the world right now (he just got 9th though so not even he is consistent).

Five Steve mains made top 32, with Quandale Dinglelingleton (DDee) and Soar 25th, jake 13th, and both Syrup and Onin making top 8 (Syrup winners side, fighting Tweek, decent shot at getting the upset given Tweek's track record vs Steve). Onin's loser bracket is Sisqui, and then either Big D or Riddles, and then MkLeo, Sonix, Syrup, or Tweek, and then either Riddles, Big D, Syrup, or Tweek. It's entirely possible that we'll see a Syrup vs Onin Grand Finals (Onin better hope Sonix loses to MkLeo or Tweek though, otherwise I don't think it'll happen).

 

[NairWizard]

It's not like Peach, Aegis, Pikachu, Joker, Bayonetta, Yoshi, Palutena etc players are being super consistent either

Well, sure, but those characters are not in the same spotlight that Corrin is in, with people claiming that she has winning/even MUs vs. Steve/Sonic/G&W/etc. and her stats at top level looking like a top 5 character's stats, nor are any of those characters backed by a top 5 caliber player with other top representation, so the comparison is sort of moot. Corrin's consistency is being tested right now, while those characters are trying to find a meta footing.

I still think she's going to end up relatively middle of the road, like most of the cast, including some of the characters you named, though there was a viable path for her to be #1 at some point. I had the same thoughts about Cloud and Byleth before -- characters like those tend to be strong in some metas, but not in every meta. The current meta is moving away from swordies, though I'm sure it'll move back again given enough time.
Also, Steve not consistent? Huh? Character has the most consistent cross-meta appearances in the game.

Meanwhile, on a related topic, Luigi actually seems pretty consistently strong (I.e., also in that middle pack) to me. He's appeared in almost every meta to some degree. I'd favor Luigi over Kazuya if I had to put them on a tier list, to be honest (Kazuya is significantly worse in metas where vertical spacing/platform camping characters are common, but slightly better if you look at the average meta, which I think shakes out to Luigi being better).

 

[Frihetsanka]

Who do you think is not in the middle of the pack, then? Aside from Sonic and Steve (and ROB and Snake)?

I don't think SHADIC lost because of MUs in general today, anyways. He's had a lot on his mind recently and admitted himself that he wasn't playing his best today. The set vs Light was so close too (won game 1, game 2 was last hit last stock, game 3 he had a solid lead but died super early from a sick play from Light). I don't think SHADIC would've done better if he were an Aegis main instead of a Corrin main (MkLeo even lost to Big D with Aegis, which is supposedly a really bad MU for ICs).

 

[NairWizard]

I don't think SHADIC lost because of MUs in general today, anyways. He's had a lot on his mind recently and admitted himself that he wasn't playing his best today. The set vs Light was so close too (won game 1, game 2 was last hit last stock, game 3 he had a solid lead but died super early from a sick play from Light). I don't think SHADIC would've done better if he were an Aegis main instead of a Corrin main (MkLeo even lost to Big D with Aegis, which is supposedly a really bad MU for ICs).

Sometimes I wonder if you’re for real.

every time a Corrin loses you’re justifying it by talking about how close the set was, but I don’t see you doing it in the other direction when Corrin wins a close set like against Maister.

when the evidence is in your favor you conclude that you’re right and when it isn’t you dismiss the evidence

“SHADIC admitted he wasn’t playing his best” are you serious, this is the level of discussion we’ve devolves into? Maybe Miya wasn’t playing his best when he played SHADIC but you don’t talk about that.

Sorry, I don’t think I want to engage with you. Should have known better.

 

[Frihetsanka]

For the past 3-4 months or so, you're the one who keeps bringing up Corrin (and then you get a bit snippy when people don't agree with you). You claim that you're tired of talking about Corrin but in most cases recently you're the one bringing up the subject.

every time a Corrin loses you’re justifying it by talking about how close the set was, but I don’t see you doing it in the other direction when Corrin wins a close set like against Maister.

I'm pretty sure I've said that I think the MU is even so what is there to say? "He won a close set in an even MU"? I don't think that disproves my argument of the MU being even, does it?

“SHADIC admitted he wasn’t playing his best” are you serious, this is the level of discussion we’ve devolves into?

I wasn't sure if I should bring it up for a couple of reasons, but apparently his father has been in the hospital for almost a week now due to seizures. It's hard to know how much something like that affected him but it's plausible that it affected him negatively. And sometimes people just have bad days.

It's a bit unclear what you're trying to say. Do you think SHADIC lost because Fox is a bad MU for Corrin? Or did he lose because Light played better in some key interactions? I think you're putting too much weight into some individual results (Corrin likely loses to Fox to some degree but it's definitely not unwinnable).

Raru, which also means Luigi has won a major in Ultimate!

Japan sure has some interesting characters in top 8 at majors from time to time (like Falco, Donkey Kong, and Pichu). Luigi is a character I've been thinking is pretty good (high tier) for some time now. The character does have some bad MUs, but the explosiveness to make up for it. Multiple Luigi mains have gotten good results through Ultimate's lifespan now.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Sonix's 2nd place curse is apparently very real and still very apparent.

Tweek has emerged lately as a massive thorn to Sonix's bracket path.
Pretty sure Tweek has beaten him the past 3-4 times now, and the one today was a commanding victory.
I remember Diddy vs Sonic being obnoxious for Sonic back in SSB4, and I am starting to see big shades of that in Ultimate as well; banana control + frame 5 up smash + fast buttons + Monkey Flip all seems to be recipes on Diddy being able to put to a damper in Sonic's gameplan.

 

[Cheryl~]

Sonix's 2nd place curse is apparently very real and still very apparent.

Tweek has emerged lately as a massive thorn to Sonix's bracket path.
Pretty sure Tweek has beaten him the past 3-4 times now, and the one today was a commanding victory.
I remember Diddy vs Sonic being obnoxious for Sonic back in SSB4, and I am starting to see big shades of that in Ultimate as well; banana control + frame 5 up smash + fast buttons + Monkey Flip all seems to be recipes on Diddy being able to put to a damper in Sonic's gameplan.

Their set record is actually pretty mixed if we count only this year's sets. LMBM 2024 was really good for Tweek, with 2 winning sets over Sonix to win the tournament. But their next two offline sets, at Genesis X and LVL UP Expo, were pretty clean 3-1 victories for Sonix, the last set I'm pretty sure even featuring Tweek opting for the pocket Sephiroth indicating a lack of faith in the Diddy. Luckily he seems to have picked up the slack with this clean victory over Sonix at GOML using his trusty Diddy again, which is definitely the pick over Sephiroth.

 

[NotLiquid]

Amidst all the hullabaloo that Ultimate is a "hard game to be consistent at", Sonix's record against Steve players was clearly not included into that memo.

 

[Hippieslayer]

He's also very consistent at choking in Grands as of lately.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Amidst all the hullabaloo that Ultimate is a "hard game to be consistent at", Sonix's record against Steve players was clearly not included into that memo.

Sonix in general has been super consistent since like, 2022 (and he was consistent during the online era of 2021 and 2020). Part of it is likely due to him playing Sonic, commonly considered the second best character with few losing MUs (and contender for Steve's worst MU in particular), but I think another factor is that Sonix is a super hard worker, other Sonic players aren't nearly as consistent. Furthermore, Sonix rarely loses outside of like, top 10 players, and the only Steve who is close to that atm is acola. Sonix seems pretty much set for a top 3 finish this season, along with acola and Miya.

Something interesting about GOML: Nearly everyone in top 8 did it as solo mains (MkLeo used Aegis vs Big D and lost, and Riddles used both Kazuya and Terry.

 

[Rizen]

Sonix in general has been super consistent since like, 2022 (and he was consistent during the online era of 2021 and 2020). Part of it is likely due to him playing Sonic, commonly considered the second best character with few losing MUs (and contender for Steve's worst MU in particular), but I think another factor is that Sonix is a super hard worker, other Sonic players aren't nearly as consistent. Furthermore, Sonix rarely loses outside of like, top 10 players, and the only Steve who is close to that atm is acola. Sonix seems pretty much set for a top 3 finish this season, along with acola and Miya.

Something interesting about GOML: Nearly everyone in top 8 did it as solo mains (MkLeo used Aegis vs Big D and lost, and Riddles used both Kazuya and Terry.

IMO Sonix is the best player in the world right now. He might get 2nd a lot but he's more consistent than even players like Miya. IMO Sonix can beat Miya and Acola and he has before.

Add GOML X to the long list of international tournaments a US player has won. The problem is this, like Kagaribi, didn't have much of a mix of Japanese and American players. Most tournaments feature heavily one or the other. IMO Tweek and Light beating Sonix is more impressive than Miya beating Hurt in Kagaribi. Whatever you believe, it's pretty clear that the USA and Japan are the 2 best countries in the world.

The big loser in recent events is Spargo. He was looking strong for #1 but really fell off. Don't count him out though; if anyone can bounce back it's Spargo.

 

[Frihetsanka]

IMO Sonix is the best player in the world right now. He might get 2nd a lot but he's more consistent than even players like Miya.

I agree that he's more consistent, but Miya has seven major wins this season (two of them super majors), so I think I'd probably rank Miya over Sonix for now. acola has two supermajor wins and 3rd at another supermajor (and two regional and a superregional win, though I imagine those don't count for too much).

Those three seem like the clear top 3 now, exact order not determined. Then Hurt is likely #4. Then SHADIC, Tweek, Light, and Sparg0 all fighting for #5 (atm I'd give the edge to Tweek). I agree that Sparg0 used to be a contender for #1, and now he might not even be top 5... Tough competition right now!

He might not be quite top 10 just yet, but Raru's season has been super impressive. He's clearly the best Luigi right now, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he made top 15 this season.

 

[The_Bookworm]

acola is such an odd player to rank right now.

As mentioned above: 2 supermajor wins, 3rd at another supermajor, and a few regional victories. But the problem lies in that his tournament attendance is so low in comparison to the other top contenders right now. He may have done amazingly well in 3 P tier events, but those are the only events he attended that is above a B tier, and he only attended 3 other small tournaments outside of that.

acola is undeniably in the top running right now, but his very low attendance in might end up hurting his rank considerably in the long run.

 

[Rizen]

Speaking of it being hard to be consistent, Light got upset in Momocon by Kobe's YL and Chunky Kong's DK. Wrath ended up winning it with Sonic. I think Light's held back a bit by Fox. Fox is really good but he's the 4th lightest character in the game with the fastest fall speed so he's combo food and an exploitable however long distance recovery. Fox in general is an inconsistent character. He has really high points but also gets blown up at the drop of a hat. He can struggle with characters like YL and Ice Climbers. In my experience as a YL player, the Fox MU is even btw.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think Light's held back a bit by Fox.

Being held back by a character would imply that he would do better with another character. I don't see Light doing better with any other character. Not only is Fox a very strong character (decently likely top 10, and I'd say minimum top 15).

I don't know which other character Light would excel at. Steve, Sonic, G&W, ROB, Snake? They don't seem to fit his playstyle. Neither do Aegis, Joker, Peach, Bayonetta, Yoshi, Min Min, Palutena, Cloud, Kazuya, Sora, Diddy Kong, Corrin, etc. Maybe you could make a case for him pushing a more aggressive Pikachu, but most top level Pikachu players seem to play fairly defensively. Roy seems like the only realistic alternative to Fox for Light, and I'm not convinced Roy is better than Fox.

So yeah, being consistent is fairly hard in this game. Few top players manage to pull it off. Currently, the best characters for consistency at a top level seem to be Steve, Sonic, Snake, and maybe G&W.

 

[Kalashnikov]

I think the ideas can coexist. Fox is, by a mile, the best character suited for Light. He is Fox. But he can still be "held back" by the character in the sense that Fox's natural inconsistencies and aforementioned upset potential are dragging him down in a way not consistent with his perceived skill.

It's a much more hypothetical "held back" than it is a literal "Light needs to pick a different character."

 

[Rizen]

I know how it is. I stuck with Young Link for years even though he didn't even end up a top 30 character. A big part of who you play isn't how good they are but rather how good they fit you. Still, I think Light would benefit from a secondary. Sometimes you're just faced with a frustrating MU and need to change gears.

 

[Sucumbio]

New tier list from ESAM Ganondorf gets his own tier!

 

[Frihetsanka]

So obviously, Corrin and Samus stand out as top 10. Top 20 would fit them better, probably? He's also a believer in Mii Brawler still, I think the character is good but is he really that good? Joker, Snake, Bayonetta, and Yoshi seem surprisingly low. Pit seems high. Luigi and Ice Climbers seem low. Sephiroth seems a bit low, Upper Mid Tier might fit him better.

 

[L9999]

Can't say I disagree much with ESAM's list (shocking to be sure). All the usual suspects who make long tournament runs are in the first 2 tiers. The lower you go the more the player needs to be cracked and avoid bad matchups.

So obviously, Corrin and Samus stand out as top 10. Top 20 would fit them better, probably? He's also a believer in Mii Brawler still, I think the character is good but is he really that good? Joker, Snake, Bayonetta, and Yoshi seem surprisingly low. Pit seems high. Luigi and Ice Climbers seem low. Sephiroth seems a bit low, Upper Mid Tier might fit him better.

Mii Brawler is turning into the new Pikachu, too much theory, too little action. We know for a fact Mii Brawler has a dumb & cheese kill combo but no player has taken him to the next level. They're like Bayo and Corrin players, they REALLY like their character but they have a bigger ladder to climb. Before they got good Corrin and Bayo were considered trash tiers, when they started getting top 64 and top 8 at regionals it was like "bleh, they still suck." Only when they started getting top 8 at majors they were getting respect. Difference is that I'm not sure if anyone on Earth REALLY likes Mii Brawler as a character enough to put in the effort, Corrin and Bayo had that going for them.

 

[Kalashnikov]

Everyone seems to forget that Corrin and Bayonetta also got buffed really hard over the game's patch history. (Same with Cloud, but to a lesser extent.) It's not like we just missed some hidden gem for the longest time; these characters did legitimately struggle until patches smoothed them over.

Difference is that I'm not sure if anyone on Earth REALLY likes Mii Brawler as a character enough to put in the effort, Corrin and Bayo had that going for them.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, I'm almost certain nobody is playing Corrin because they like them as a character, lol. As much as the community loves the "win with your faves!11!" angle, personal attachment has very, very little to do with the willingness of a playerbase to put in the work to improve beyond mid level. We may have picked our initial characters because of some attachment, but the reason we stick with them is because we like how they are as functions. Maybe it took time to adapt to unfamiliar playstyles, and you gritted your teeth for the love of the character, but we still adapted to the function. Attachment to the function and compatability with your playstyle is significantly more important.

If anything, the Brawler playerbase (on average) has an advantage in this regard: Nobody is gonna thug it out despite conflicting playstyles because of some deep spiritual connection to Wii Sports. They like Brawler because they like how he plays, full stop.