Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Impax]

puff ultimate match-ups, February 2019 (ver 2.0.0) pic.twitter.com/XS4Z6A2Feo

— hungrybox (@LiquidHbox) February 20, 2019

MU charts are the new hotness it seems.
Here's puffs, according to hbox.

I don't agree at all on where WFT is.
I just cannot imagine a way for Jiggs to deal with WFT's camping, especially where WFT kills at 60% with deep breathing.

I agree with this. Plus wii fit can deal with puff in the air and can punish puff for pursuing her off stage

Edit: Makes me wonder though. Is puffs matchup spread really that bad?
I would of thought she would go even with more characters due to her edgeguarding prowess

 

[Untouch]

Probably not the place to talk about it, but utilt deals with almost every approach option Jiggs has.
Seriously, WFT's utilt is broken, I'd argue it is one of the best in the game if not the best.

Comes out frame 5, combos into itself like Smash 4 Mario, has pretty decent range, the arm is intangible so it covers almost every aerial from above WFT.
So far the only aerial that the WFT discord has found that it doesn't beat is Ivy Dair and nothing beats that.

I think if WFT utilt was on a character that people actually play, they'd be calling for an instant nerf of it.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Probably not the place to talk about it, but utilt deals with almost every approach option Jiggs has.
Seriously, WFT's utilt is broken, I'd argue it is one of the best in the game if not the best.

Comes out frame 5, combos into itself like Smash 4 Mario, has pretty decent range, the arm is intangible so it covers almost every aerial from above WFT.
So far the only aerial that the WFT discord has found that it doesn't beat is Ivy Dair and nothing beats that.

I think if WFT utilt was on a character that people actually play, they'd be calling for an instant nerf of it.

From what I am about to say I am not saying WFT a bad character. In fact I think she can easily be upper-mid. But otherwise really powerful or broken moves on otherwise umimpressive characters is nothing new. Which is why they are not usasully brought up as top-tiers strongest or most overtuned moves.

For example in Smash 4, Falco's and Plautena has borderline-broken bairs, but since they were attached to otherwise barley functonal characters in that game otherwise, it really did not matter.

Likewise Gannondorf had, or still has one of the best spiking d-airs in the game. But unfortunately its potential is held backited to Dorfs own terrible mobility and he himself is super expoitable offstage. If Falcon had Dorf's dair properties. it would legit be broken AF on him.

Also Little Mac, there is little point on discussing how unfortunate his situation is anymore

So very good moves get more attention if they are from very good characters, who are at least very solid in most other areas.

That is why people are talking about other overtuned moves like Wolf's blaster, Inklings roller, Ike's nair and Pichu's f-tilt as opposed to anything WFT has. They have more rep and thys getting more results. So they are in the main focus of the community.

 

[Diddy Kong]

So Akashic recently posted some of his thoughts on froggo.

TBH.

Greninja can't answer shulk, Pichu, or leaf shield.

He struggles greatly with Pika, peach, Ike

Struggles slightly with Snake, the rest of mega Man, Mario, (hot take) Lucina, Marth, and Ness.

He wins a majority of remaining mus. He's really good, but I need a secondary.

— Paragon | Akashic (@AkashicGaming) February 13, 2019

The rest of his thoughts are on the twitter thread if anyone wants to read them, he concludes that Greninja is high tier but not viable as a solo main and benefits from a sword secondary. Venia then gave a slew of responses basically debunking all the bad MUs Akashic had mentioned.

I can see where Akashic is coming from. My concern for Greninja is that whilst he has a lot of buffed tools for offense/pressure, he’s still not throwing massive safe hitboxes which the opponent is forced to respect. This results in him relying on bait and punish strats, which are fine, except he doesn’t have the range to consistently punish stupidly safe buttons like Ike/ROB/Ridley Nair without overcommitting, leading to him having to respect to the opponent’s buttons in several MUs more than the top tiers who can throw equally stupid buttons themselves.

More importantly, bait and punish relies on the opponent messing up. This is huge, and gets more and more important the higher the level of play. This is why even S4 Greninja was able to body bad players(/characters) like a top tier yet faltered at high level.

The most direct comparison I can make to Greninja’s play style is Smash 4 ZSS, who could throw good hitboxes and punish opponents hard but really wasn’t an oppressor. Greninja’s Fair for example has a similar front hitbox, similar frame data and operates in almost exactly the same way as S4 ZSS Nair (right down to comboing at low percent and killing at high percent; ZSS had to combo Nair to flip kick and Gren Fair kills by itself but w/e).

Greninja may very well be the best bait and punish character in the game. Actually, with Sonic nerfed, he almost certainly is. No other b&p character is as fast or clinical with such a diverse (true) combo tree, high damage output, decent kill power and ruthless edgeguarding. The question is - does this playstyle cut the mustard at top level Ultimate?

Right now, I’m skeptical. As others have been discussing lately, Ultimate’s neutral favours characters who are able to throw out massive lagless hitboxes (usually aerials) and oppress the opponent to death. Who out of the top tiers doesn’t fit this description? This of course encompasses swordies with good frame data but also includes characters like Wolf (Nair, Bair) Inkling (Fair) and Peach (-insertletterofyourchoice-air) who have incredibly good buttons with great range in the context of not having swords. The thunder rats have bad range but their attack safety and mobility allows them to oppress in the same way.

Greninja can be oppressive against mid tiers and below (save for random anomalies like Ridley and Sheik who can still outbutton him but they still lose solidly to his b&p style overall) hence I can see him acting as a gatekeeper of sorts, however I fear that he’s forced onto the back foot against the top tiers capable of pressuring him to death and essentially ignoring his pressure options whilst remaining safe enough to avoid his punishes. Going back to Akashic’s tweet and in terms of MU specifics, Pichu and Shulk are great examples of characters that can do this, albeit in slightly different ways. A lot of the top tiers can abuse Greninja’s lack of oppressive tools.

Enter Venia. He’s getting a little ESAM-y with his comments regarding the character’s MUs and he doesn’t have strong national level results to back up his claims.

However.

This guy pretty much singlehandedly debunks everything I’ve just written by continuing to play button-vs-button with top tiers when he is able to, and seamlessly transitioning into a more defensive playstyle when required. It’s honestly amazing to watch and similar to what Leffen does with Melee Fox. Not to say Venia is as good as Leffen, but he emulates a playstyle which has proved incredibly effective. Retaining the ability to rush down the best characters whilst being able to disengage and “fall back” on his natural bait and punish status is, I believe, what Greninja needs to do to succeed at top level. Venia’s Greninja playstyle is certainly not easy, but it’s gonna be the way forward if this character is gonna crack the top tiers.

So yeah. Greninja’s solid. He gets outbuttoned but needs to mix pressure with b&p to succeed, which the top tiers can stop him from doing. His ability to get over this hurdle and continue to play his game against the top tiers, as Venia has shown might be possible, is what will ultimately define his viability in my opinion.

If he wants to keep with his main's character archetype, Diddy might solve his problems. I have no problem with the characters he apperantly feels Greninja struggles against. And to be honest, I think Greninja does look pretty sexy in Ultimate, so I would like to try him out a little but I don't really know how his bread and butter, and gameplan.

I actually have a pretty easy time against all the current estimated Top Tiers except for Inkling (**** them) Wario, Wolf and Snake. All other matchups SEEM even to me, except for maybe Fox. Pichu struggles to get in due to low range, Diddy having similar high speed and his amazing neutral. Diddy also likes being able to KO early, and overall I think he does better vs the lighter weight characters than heavy weights.

Am still of the opinion that Diddy is at least a High Tier character, probably just a little worse than R.O.B. and probably around as viable as Ness is.

 

[Planty]

While I don't think Rosa is a bad as people have made her out to be this is overly optimistic and a character that's commonly seen as a middle of the pack character does not beat 47 out of the 77 characters in this game. This reads like a top tier gatekeeper seeing as that's all she loses to.

Rosalina Discord needs to share some of that dank space ganja so we too can see why she apparently has the MU spread of a Top 10 character.

It's not a perfect MU chart by any means, but it's not a bad chart if you go through it character by character rather than just saying "No way this is right"
In the advantageous section, Olimar, Belmonts, Megaman, and Rob should probably be moved down to even/disadvantageous, but otherwise her good matchups are very reasonable.
In the "even" section, you can argue that characters like Falco or Bayonetta should be advantageous, or that Greninja or Shulk are disadvantageous, but again there's nothing too radical here.
There's not really any characters in the disadvantage section that shouldn't be there.

If Rosalina is not considered a great character, it's not because she struggles with random mid tiers, but because her top tier matchups are generally unimpressive. She's not a bad character by any means. If Luma survivability was improved a bit, Rosalina would be a very solid character.

 

[Foie]

I agree with this. Plus wii fit can deal with puff in the air and can punish puff for pursuing her off stage

Edit: Makes me wonder though. Is puffs matchup spread really that bad?
I would of thought she would go even with more characters due to her edgeguarding prowess

Yes, Puff's matchup spread probably is this bad. Her bait and punish playstyle falls apart against characters with large disjointed hitboxes with little endlag (over half the cast). She just has a hard time getting in against so many characters faster and stronger than her. Basically once people stop running into pound she loses. Heck, even ganondorf can outbutton her with many moves -_-

She definitely benefits some from online lag though, so she has that going for her...

 

[|RK|]

"Really good but needs a secondary" seems to be every top tier/character in this game tbh. The only players who don't have secondaries to my knowledge are Samsora (Peach) and Cosmos (Inkling), and I may just not know about those secondaries.

 

[KakuCP9]

So Akashic recently posted some of his thoughts on froggo.

TBH.

Greninja can't answer shulk, Pichu, or leaf shield.

He struggles greatly with Pika, peach, Ike

Struggles slightly with Snake, the rest of mega Man, Mario, (hot take) Lucina, Marth, and Ness.

He wins a majority of remaining mus. He's really good, but I need a secondary.

— Paragon | Akashic (@AkashicGaming) February 13, 2019

The rest of his thoughts are on the twitter thread if anyone wants to read them, he concludes that Greninja is high tier but not viable as a solo main and benefits from a sword secondary. Venia then gave a slew of responses basically debunking all the bad MUs Akashic had mentioned.

I can see where Akashic is coming from. My concern for Greninja is that whilst he has a lot of buffed tools for offense/pressure, he’s still not throwing massive safe hitboxes which the opponent is forced to respect. This results in him relying on bait and punish strats, which are fine, except he doesn’t have the range to consistently punish stupidly safe buttons like Ike/ROB/Ridley Nair without overcommitting, leading to him having to respect to the opponent’s buttons in several MUs more than the top tiers who can throw equally stupid buttons themselves.

More importantly, bait and punish relies on the opponent messing up. This is huge, and gets more and more important the higher the level of play. This is why even S4 Greninja was able to body bad players(/characters) like a top tier yet faltered at high level.

The most direct comparison I can make to Greninja’s play style is Smash 4 ZSS, who could throw good hitboxes and punish opponents hard but really wasn’t an oppressor. Greninja’s Fair for example has a similar front hitbox, similar frame data and operates in almost exactly the same way as S4 ZSS Nair (right down to comboing at low percent and killing at high percent; ZSS had to combo Nair to flip kick and Gren Fair kills by itself but w/e).

Greninja may very well be the best bait and punish character in the game. Actually, with Sonic nerfed, he almost certainly is. No other b&p character is as fast or clinical with such a diverse (true) combo tree, high damage output, decent kill power and ruthless edgeguarding. The question is - does this playstyle cut the mustard at top level Ultimate?

Right now, I’m skeptical. As others have been discussing lately, Ultimate’s neutral favours characters who are able to throw out massive lagless hitboxes (usually aerials) and oppress the opponent to death. Who out of the top tiers doesn’t fit this description? This of course encompasses swordies with good frame data but also includes characters like Wolf (Nair, Bair) Inkling (Fair) and Peach (-insertletterofyourchoice-air) who have incredibly good buttons with great range in the context of not having swords. The thunder rats have bad range but their attack safety and mobility allows them to oppress in the same way.

Greninja can be oppressive against mid tiers and below (save for random anomalies like Ridley and Sheik who can still outbutton him but they still lose solidly to his b&p style overall) hence I can see him acting as a gatekeeper of sorts, however I fear that he’s forced onto the back foot against the top tiers capable of pressuring him to death and essentially ignoring his pressure options whilst remaining safe enough to avoid his punishes. Going back to Akashic’s tweet and in terms of MU specifics, Pichu and Shulk are great examples of characters that can do this, albeit in slightly different ways. A lot of the top tiers can abuse Greninja’s lack of oppressive tools.

Enter Venia. He’s getting a little ESAM-y with his comments regarding the character’s MUs and he doesn’t have strong national level results to back up his claims.

However.

This guy pretty much singlehandedly debunks everything I’ve just written by continuing to play button-vs-button with top tiers when he is able to, and seamlessly transitioning into a more defensive playstyle when required. It’s honestly amazing to watch and similar to what Leffen does with Melee Fox. Not to say Venia is as good as Leffen, but he emulates a playstyle which has proved incredibly effective. Retaining the ability to rush down the best characters whilst being able to disengage and “fall back” on his natural bait and punish status is, I believe, what Greninja needs to do to succeed at top level. Venia’s Greninja playstyle is certainly not easy, but it’s gonna be the way forward if this character is gonna crack the top tiers.

So yeah. Greninja’s solid. He gets outbuttoned but needs to mix pressure with b&p to succeed, which the top tiers can stop him from doing. His ability to get over this hurdle and continue to play his game against the top tiers, as Venia has shown might be possible, is what will ultimately define his viability in my opinion.

On the subject of Gren's losing match-ups, I don't think he loses to Pichu. I spoke with another Gren player on Twitter saying how Pichu lack of ways to force an approach and her overall weak approach options make her vulnerable to good defensive play. Gren has the mobility and buttons to check Pichu on the ground while Pichu's weak air mobility makes her aerial approaches rather weak in-spite of the frame data of her aerials. Her main method to force herself in is with either dash attack/dash grab and both are a death sentence when whiffed. The way Pichu circumvented these issues with t-jolt is also a liability since Gren can either trade with his shuriken, parry and let Pichu hurt herself or in some cases, punish with substitute. The only edge Pichu has over Greninja is at the ledge since she can bully him with f-tilt and d-smash while Greninja lacks a surefire/reliable way to bully opponents at the ledge outside of d-tilt->f-air. The only time Greninja should ever approach Pichu is if he has a stock deficit. Pikachu is similar, but quick attack is a decent zone-breaking tool in a pinch and can be difficult to punish without a read if used properly so the strat that can fend off Pichu might get you quick attacked by Pika and then you may find yourself in a shotgun shack eating a u-tilt loop.

The Megaman MU the other hand sounds like it legitimately sucks since between pellets and leaf shield, he's one the few characters that can force Gren to shield making his out of shield weakness non-trivial and ripe for Metal blade abuse. To add insult to injury, he has one the best recoveries in the game and can be difficult to pressure thanks to his up-b. Also I find it wild how with one move, Ike somehow beats Gren in all states of the match-up (though tbh, I'm still kinda skeptical.).

 

[G. Stache]

The one thing that really surprises me about HBox’s chart is him saying that Puff goes even with Young Link and Toon Link. I’m not gonna pretend I’m some puff expert, but I just don’t see it. Her air mobility should help against projectile camping to an extent I guess and none of the links have a great recovery so edgeguarding them should be more than possible, but how does puff handle either of their damage output, disjoint and overall neutral games? How can puff force anything in either matchup that forces the links to play her game instead of theirs?

 

[zeldasmash]

I agree with this. Plus wii fit can deal with puff in the air and can punish puff for pursuing her off stage

Edit: Makes me wonder though. Is puffs matchup spread really that bad?
I would of thought she would go even with more characters due to her edgeguarding prowess

Ganondorf losing to Jiggs? Not gonna lie, I always thought Ganondorf beats Jiggs here. Jiggs hates Ganondorf's smashes and 2 hits from him and she dies plus he outranges her by the lot. Does Jiggs edge-guarding him really side the match that much into her favor?

 

[NotLiquid]

"Really good but needs a secondary" seems to be every top tier/character in this game tbh. The only players who don't have secondaries to my knowledge are Samsora (Peach) and Cosmos (Inkling), and I may just not know about those secondaries.

Cosmos has played Lucina on stream and still goofs around with Corrin from time to time but has admitted that he finds Corrin's nerfs completely irreconcilable. He was also bracing himself for Ver 2.0.0 to completely butcher Inkling and was preparing to pick up Mega Man instead. Funny how that worked out.

Out of the characters right now that I can see unequivocally working as a solo main it'd be Peach, Inkling, Wolf, Fox and big maybe Pichu. Possibly Lucina as well, but it's hard to say right now with how many players utilize her predominantly as a secondary. I used to think Palutena would work, but after Genesis 6 I'm not so sure. Despite also fluctuating somewhere between high-tier and high mid-tier I also think Snake might work decently as a solo, because with him I feel the issues comes less down to matchups and more to just having to work around the unique pace of his kit.

 

[Foie]

The one thing that really surprises me about HBox’s chart is him saying that Puff goes even with Young Link and Toon Link. I’m not gonna pretend I’m some puff expert, but I just don’t see it. Her air mobility should help against projectile camping to an extent I guess and none of the links have a great recovery so edgeguarding them should be more than possible, but how does puff handle either of their damage output, disjoint and overall neutral games? How can puff force anything in either matchup that forces the links to play her game instead of theirs?

Against the links Puff is surprisingly adept at canceling out projectiles with her arials (fair and Nair), and can put in some work on them once she does get in. She just doesn't have to respect their zoning as much as you think she should, and can actually capitalize on their slower attacks and shorter disjoint than other swordies and then harass them offstage.

She definitely doesn't body them, but it's actually one of the matchups I don't dread (which is most matchups lol).

Ganondorf losing to Jiggs? Not gonna lie, I always thought Ganondorf beats Jiggs here. Jiggs hates Ganondorf's smashes and 2 hits from him and she dies plus he outranges her by the lot. Does Jiggs edge-guarding him really side the match that much into her favor?

I agree with you here, ganondorf is not an easy matchup for puff. It's basically extreme in either direction. I played a good ganondorf recently and 3 stocked him, then the next game he 3 stocked me. I feel that encapsulates the matchup pretty nicely. It's definitely a harder matchup for Puff in Ultimate than previous smash games due to ganondorf buffs this time around, he's harder to punish and has longer range. Jigglypuff is pretty good against his specials but struggles against his normals.

I actually prefer the Bowser, DK, and Krool matchups to Ganondorf.

 

[ARISTOS]

Speaking on the thing that really hurts him in this game is grabs being much worse overall, as down throw is his main way of initiating damage-he doesn't convert off of normals too well, unlike many of the other top tiers (except maybe after utilt but good luck hitting that raw lmao). Everytime he attempts to dash grab you he's throwing himself at a ton of risk that didn't exist in 4.

The amount of effort you need to make work means forgoing a secondary, it's just too much to try and both play Peach to her best while also aiming to maintain a decent secondary

 

[Frihetsanka]

"Really good but needs a secondary" seems to be every top tier/character in this game tbh. The only players who don't have secondaries to my knowledge are Samsora (Peach) and Cosmos (Inkling), and I may just not know about those secondaries.

Seems Samsora is working on finding a secondary. It seems likely that if you're good enough at the game having a secondary to cover bad MUs is optimal, though good players can win -1 MUs.

Which characters might not have any losing MUs? Last I checked, Olimar (according to Myran) and Shulk (according to Nicko). Aside from that, every character seems to have at least one losing MU (and probably multiple in most cases).

Out of the characters right now that I can see unequivocally working as a solo main it'd be Peach, Inkling, Wolf, Fox and big maybe Pichu.

At a top level, Pichu's poor MU vs Snake and Olimar will really hurt him, considering there are lots of skilled Snake and Olimar players. Those MUs are still doable but it might be easier to just pick up a Wolf secondary or something in order to have an easier time.

I think Pichu is, right now, slightly overrated, although if lightning loops is improved upon and pushed Pichu could improve a lot. Without lightning loops he's still a top tier but probably not top 5. If players start to master lightning loops he might become top tier, time will tell I suppose (and lightning loops are fairly likely to get nerfed or removed anyway, the balancing team doesn't seem to like combos like that).

 

[Y2Kay]

Enter Venia. He’s getting a little ESAM-y with his comments regarding the character’s MUs and he doesn’t have strong national level results to back up his claims.

However.

This guy pretty much singlehandedly debunks everything I’ve just written by continuing to play button-vs-button with top tiers when he is able to, and seamlessly transitioning into a more defensive playstyle when required. It’s honestly amazing to watch and similar to what Leffen does with Melee Fox. Not to say Venia is as good as Leffen, but he emulates a playstyle which has proved incredibly effective. Retaining the ability to rush down the best characters whilst being able to disengage and “fall back” on his natural bait and punish status is, I believe, what Greninja needs to do to succeed at top level. Venia’s Greninja playstyle is certainly not easy, but it’s gonna be the way forward if this character is gonna crack the top tiers.

So yeah. Greninja’s solid. He gets outbuttoned but needs to mix pressure with b&p to succeed, which the top tiers can stop him from doing. His ability to get over this hurdle and continue to play his game against the top tiers, as Venia has shown might be possible, is what will ultimately define his viability in my opinion.

Venia's handle on Greninja is indeed incredible. Over the past few months, I have played with him a lot and talked about Greninja a lot as well. I've picked his mind about Gren, and have gotten to know him better as a player and a person. I've been trying to discover what separates my (unsuccessful) play style from his. Here are some observations of mine:

His advantage state is the best out of the Greninja playerbase, hands down. Nobody can consistently get so much damage off of a hit as he can. His handling of back air extensions to carry opponents offstage is particularly impressive.

The guy's footsies are remarkable. He effortlessly positions himself aggressively with his opponents. He constantly weaves in and out of your range. It can be very hard to tell when its safe to actually swing at him, making it very scary to attack him. If you play a character that's forced to dance with Venia, it can feel like you're already toast.

He views the game heavily in terms of risk vs reward. While this isn't particularly unique to him, one thing that stands about his play is that he sticks closely to his own gameplan for each matchup, and he rarely gets tilted when the risks he takes don't work out. He's not trying to JV4 his opponent, he's only trying to win. He doesn't fish for kills; he always just keeps playing neutral and let the opportunities come naturally.

Venia almost never shields. Watch him win GF of this local cleanly against bowser without shielding a single time:

Venia is also is super confident, which, to be honest, is very rare in our nerdy little community, and definitely projects into (and enhances) his play.

What do I think of Greninja? I think he's top tier, yeah. I disagree a lot with Aka's opinions on Gren MU's. At worst, I think we lose to Pichu, Megaman, and Fox. I personally feel fox is even.

 

[Siledh]

Against the links Puff is surprisingly adept at canceling out projectiles with her arials (fair and Nair), and can put in some work on them once she does get in. She just doesn't have to respect their zoning as much as you think she should, and can actually capitalize on their slower attacks and shorter disjoint than other swordies and then harass them offstage.

She definitely doesn't body them, but it's actually one of the matchups I don't dread (which is most matchups lol).

I main Link and find Puff an even MU to be honest. But as soon as Puff gets me off stage, I am pretty much dead. So as soon as they start stringing aerials on Link it becomes an uphill battle, but I can keep neutral pretty well.

Plus, I find it hard to kill Puff due to floatiness.

 

[Rizen]

I think a large reason why Ike and Lucina are so successful is space control. Ike's Nair is like Cloud's with a huge circle around him. Lucina has crescent slashes. They both can create a sphere of influence around then that's dangerous to enter.
By contrast, several characters' hitbubbles poke out in a strait line. Link and YL's air attacks and many of Greninja's attacks either stab out or follow the z axis. By the nature of this they're not as oppressive.

**** I GTG, will finish later.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Glutonny and ZD getting into Summit, so we'll see some more Wario and Fox (Prodigy was so close to taking ZD's spot though, would've been fun to see Mario but well, ZD's good too).

I think one of the reasons Lucina is doing so well is because she's pretty easy to play if you played her in Smash 4, so it's no big surprise she's doing well in an early meta. She's obviously a good character but she doesn't seem to be really overpowering like, say, Smash 4 Cloud, or Smash 4 Fox, or Smash 4 Diddy Kong, etc. Top 5? Maybe, but not really "please nerf"-tier, in my opinion.

 

[Siledh]

Might add that floaty characters and ones with multijumps are pretty hard for Link's projectiles. It takes really good timing to land a boomerang or arrow when Puff or DDD is returning to the stage, for example.

Puff's rollout also cancels his projectiles, to a degree, and can be useful for getting in if the Link is not careful.

 

[bc1910]

On the subject of Gren's losing match-ups, I don't think he loses to Pichu. I spoke with another Gren player on Twitter saying how Pichu lack of ways to force an approach and her overall weak approach options make her vulnerable to good defensive play. Gren has the mobility and buttons to check Pichu on the ground while Pichu's weak air mobility makes her aerial approaches rather weak in-spite of the frame data of her aerials. Her main method to force herself in is with either dash attack/dash grab and both are a death sentence when whiffed. The way Pichu circumvented these issues with t-jolt is also a liability since Gren can either trade with his shuriken, parry and let Pichu hurt herself or in some cases, punish with substitute. The only edge Pichu has over Greninja is at the ledge since she can bully him with f-tilt and d-smash while Greninja lacks a surefire/reliable way to bully opponents at the ledge outside of d-tilt->f-air. The only time Greninja should ever approach Pichu is if he has a stock deficit. Pikachu is similar, but quick attack is a decent zone-breaking tool in a pinch and can be difficult to punish without a read if used properly so the strat that can fend off Pichu might get you quick attacked by Pika and then you may find yourself in a shotgun shack eating a u-tilt loop.

The Megaman MU the other hand sounds like it legitimately sucks since between pellets and leaf shield, he's one the few characters that can force Gren to shield making his out of shield weakness non-trivial and ripe for Metal blade abuse. To add insult to injury, he has one the best recoveries in the game and can be difficult to pressure thanks to his up-b. Also I find it wild how with one move, Ike somehow beats Gren in all states of the match-up (though tbh, I'm still kinda skeptical.).

Yeah, I steered clear of discussing the MUs themselves since it wasn’t the point of my post but I don’t agree with a lot of his assertions.

Pichu seems really bad at first because it plays out like Sm4sh Sheik/Fox, until you realise his mobility is actually worse than Gren’s in every stat unlike those characters and his camping is also a lot worse so he struggles to catch Greninja or lock him down. Similar to what you said, he has to approach the entire time and Gren has the appropriate tools to punish this because his burst range allows him to punish the (small) pockets of lag in Pichu’s aerials unlike with most of the sword characters. Pichu’s approach is still pretty good though and he’s tiny and hard to hit; if he’s jumping around with Tjolts outside Gren’s aerial range it can be tricky to deal with and getting hit by Tjolt gives him a chance to start some ridiculous combo. Gren can keep him out though, and his edgeguarding isn’t that good against us so we can outlast him for sure.

That said, there’s no question Gren works harder in the MU than Pichu, he has to be constantly aware of Pichu’s position and looking for small opportunities to punish whereas Pichu can just keep approaching and pressing buttons. If one character has to work harder than the other then it’s probably a losing MU so idk. To be completely honest I don’t see Pichu dodging the nerf bat for much longer so this MU could change a lot through patches.

I don’t agree that Gren loses to Marcina, their range and landing lag data is just sensible enough for Gren to be able to consistently punish. Running under their jumping isn’t particularly dangerous either since their Dairs are laggy and not that rewarding unless hit perfectly. He also edgeguards them hard and doesn’t get edgeguarded easily until their Fair outright kills, so he kind of neuters their cheesy aspects and it comes down to a battle of baits, punishes and fundamentals. I don’t think he loses to Ike either; Nair is ridiculous and very hard to punish, nor can you run under it, but Gren’s way faster overall and bodies Ike’s recovery (spam shurikens to hit him out of side B, if he ever has to up B he’s dead because of downward sub on reaction, he ends up forced to recover really high) so you don’t need many opportunities to take his stocks. All three are probably evenish.

Mario is a really random take and I can’t see how Gren would lose, he probably already won in Sm4sh and Gren’s strictly better now while Mario is kind of worse off. Ness throws hitboxes but they’re simply not as good as the top tiers’ hitboxes, he also has to respect Gren’s range at times, weave and punish smartly and it’s probably even or slightly Gren favoured.

I agree that Snake is tough although he has to be fought so differently that it could just come down to practice. From my perspective other tough MUs for Gren include ROB, Mega Man, Pikachu and sometimes Inkling. Sonic remains really annoying but thankfully isn’t seen much.

What do I think of Greninja? I think he's top tier, yeah. I disagree a lot with Aka's opinions on Gren MU's. At worst, I think we lose to Pichu, Megaman, and Fox. I personally feel fox is even.

Fox is def even.

Tier-wise I think he’s in limbo. He struggles with top tiers for sure and characters like Pichu, Wolf, Peach and Inkling deserve to be above him even if he doesn’t strictly lose those MUs. His top tier MU spread isn’t stellar. On the other hand I feel he’s significantly better than several characters he’s usually lumped into high tier with like Link, PT and maybe Chroy. He feels like he skates the line between high and top tier to me.

Side note - input lag sucks balls for Greninja, but Venia’s playstyle even helps mitigate that since effective and consistent use of Greninja’s pokes makes them harder to punish for the opponent too.

Just don’t keep dash attacking into their shield.

 

[Rizen]

^I agree Greninja's better than Link. One of the reasons I have Link in upper mid-tier is I don't think he's as good as high tiers like Gren and Ike.

I think a large reason why Ike and Lucina are so successful is space control. Ike's Nair is like Cloud's with a huge circle around him. Lucina has crescent slashes. They both can create a sphere of influence around then that's dangerous to enter.
By contrast, several characters' hitbubbles poke out in a strait line. Link and YL's air attacks and many of Greninja's attacks either stab out or follow the z axis. By the nature of this they're not as oppressive.

**** I GTG, will finish later.

...This is why I think Gren's high but not top tier. He has great mobility and bait and punish options but can't control space very well. He gets outcamped/zoned too. Gren's not as oppressive as the top tiers are.

 

[Siledh]

Haven't played many Greninja, but he hasn't given my Link much trouble so far. But that could be an issue of player.

 

[Scarlet Spyder]

^I agree Greninja's better than Link. One of the reasons I have Link in upper mid-tier is I don't think he's as good as high tiers like Gren and Ike.

...This is why I think Gren's high but not top tier. He has great mobility and bait and punish options but can't control space very well. He gets outcamped/zoned too. Gren's not as oppressive as the top tiers are.

I played Greninja a bit and I disagree that he gets outcamped/zoned. His mobility is one of the best in the game and Greninja can maneuver around most zoners with ease. He's definitely not as oppressive as the top tiers but I don't see how he can be less than high tier with the tools he has. As many players have mentioned before, he is a difficult character to master and one reason why I dropped him was because of how perfect you have to play as a Greninja. Many of his best combos have to be close to or frame-perfect and I can see why a lot of top players wouldn't want to invest in Greninja: there are better characters that require less work. In my opinion, he goes at least even with the Fire Emblem swordies due to his quick Shuriken and the (rare) ability to disrupt their recoveries with Hydro Pump and/or Substitute.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

^I agree Greninja's better than Link. One of the reasons I have Link in upper mid-tier is I don't think he's as good as high tiers like Gren and Ike.

...This is why I think Gren's high but not top tier. He has great mobility and bait and punish options but can't control space very well. He gets outcamped/zoned too. Gren's not as oppressive as the top tiers are.

I wonder what are like the top tiers now. The ones that can stay oppressive just about most of the time with only around 5 or less MU's where it can be more difficult and are "losing"

/ are the only ones I think that really seem that way, and even they can be exploited in certian MU's.

Even characters considered high tier can just get totally railroaded by certain characters and players that know how to capitalize on their weaknesses

Its no wonder why almost all pro smash players have at least one secondary now

 

[Rizen]

I played Greninja a bit and I disagree that he gets outcamped/zoned. His mobility is one of the best in the game and Greninja can maneuver around most zoners with ease. He's definitely not as oppressive as the top tiers but I don't see how he can be less than high tier with the tools he has. As many players have mentioned before, he is a difficult character to master and one reason why I dropped him was because of how perfect you have to play as a Greninja. Many of his best combos have to be close to or frame-perfect and I can see why a lot of top players wouldn't want to invest in Greninja: there are better characters that require less work. In my opinion, he goes at least even with the Fire Emblem swordies due to his quick Shuriken and the (rare) ability to disrupt their recoveries with Hydro Pump and/or Substitute.

I agree he gets around projectiles well but that doesn't mean he's not out-zoned. Against Wolf for example, Wolf completely controlled midrange with blaster in the games I've see. There are definitely characters who force gren to approach.

 

[bc1910]

^I agree Greninja's better than Link. One of the reasons I have Link in upper mid-tier is I don't think he's as good as high tiers like Gren and Ike.

...This is why I think Gren's high but not top tier. He has great mobility and bait and punish options but can't control space very well. He gets outcamped/zoned too. Gren's not as oppressive as the top tiers are.

Gren doesn’t get camped that hard to be honest, it’s more of a player thing. A lot of Greninja players like to run into projectiles or rely too much on shielding them then complain about them. Shurikens have great frame data for camping, the fully charged version literally halts grounded camping from any character who lacks a reflector and Gren has more than enough mobility to weave around projectiles. He has sub and Shadow Sneak as high risk high reward punishes as well. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of characters he’s better off approaching but zoners don’t exactly force him to play their game, he has the tools to combat them (and often prefers to approach even non-zoners anyway). Wolf is probably the only character who can force Gren to approach nearly 100% of the time.

You’re right about his lacklustre oppression though. As mentioned, Venia is the only player to really show that top tier oppression is possible with Greninja. It remains to be seen whether this comes down to the player or the character as well.

FWIW my rough (unordered) top tier would be Pichu, Peach, Olimar, Wolf, Inkling, Pikachu, Fox, Lucina, Snake, Palu, and probably Ike, Wario, ROB and Mega Man, with Shulk as my “potential!!!” pick. That’s a decent chunk of characters (I think the top tier is pretty balanced) but I‘m not sure there are any others in the game better than Greninja.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I don’t agree that Gren loses to Marcina, their range and landing lag data is just sensible enough for Gren to be able to consistently punish.

Greninja seems to be considered the worst matchup for Lucina by many people in the Marcina Discord.

Gren's not as oppressive as the top tiers are.

Most of the top tiers in this game don't seem all that oppressive to me, certainly less so than Smash 4 top tiers. We might be in an era where the difference between a top 10 character and a top 20 character won't be nearly as significant as in previous games (though lower tiered characters are still worse, of course).

FWIW my rough (unordered) top tier would be Pichu, Peach, Olimar, Wolf, Inkling, Pikachu, Fox, Lucina, Snake, Palu, and probably Ike, Wario, ROB and Mega Man, with Shulk as my “potential!!!” pick.

Pretty similar to my list, though I don't think R.O.B. or Mega Man are strong contenders right now, Shulk and Greninja (and Marth, I suppose) might be.

 

[The_Bookworm]

ESAM has released his new tier list today. Being an ESAM tier list, it does have some questionable placements here and there.

There are also a few instances in which he ranked a character incorrectly by the way he described them. For example, he thinks that Ness is absolutely ridiculous and will steamroll through characters that cannot properly deal with his recovery, and overall is very optimistic over him. Despite speaking about him like a top 15, even top 10 character, he puts him in the lower high tier. Find that kind of strange, but there is that. The other main example is that he puts Bayonetta in the lower mid tier, despite describing her a non-functional character.

However, the most important thing about this list that he does bring up, is the characters he thinks is underrated. He puts Ice Climbers in the upper mid tier, and he puts Meta Knight and Mewtwo pretty high (in the upper high tiers) in this list. His explanations for those characters is also very noteworthy to talk about, particularly MK's and Mewtwo's placements.

Edit: I am not saying that Mewtwo and MK are bad characters. I think both of them are really good, but many players outside of him thinks lowly of them, and that is what is notable of this.

 

[MG_3989]

ESAM has released his new tier list today. Being an ESAM tier list, it does have some questionable placements here and there.

There are also a few instances in which he ranked a character incorrectly by the way he described them. For example, he thinks that Ness is absolutely ridiculous and will steamroll through characters that cannot properly deal with his recovery, and overall is very optimistic over him. Despite speaking about him like a top 15, even top 10 character, he puts him in the lower high tier. Find that kind of strange, but there is that. The other main example is that he puts Bayonetta in the lower mid tier, despite describing her a non-functional character.

However, the most important thing about this list that he does bring up, is the characters he thinks is underrated. He puts Ice Climbers in the upper mid tier, and he puts Meta Knight and Mewtwo pretty high (in the upper high tiers) in this list. His explanations for those characters is also very noteworthy to talk about, particularly MK's and Mewtwo's placements.

I haven’t watched yet but I will because for everything ESAM is he’s entertaining. I know he said Ness will never rise above lower high tier in his pre-release video because of his recovery (although Ness’s recovery has proven to be far less of a liability this game) so idk if that’s why he did that but I doubt it. I’m really interested to hear what he has to say about the underrated characters especially IC’s who I’ve been following recently

 

[Y2Kay]

Greninja doesn't really need to outzone or outcamp other characters because he already is pretty competent at zone breaking already. His mobility allows him to approach zoners at unorthdox angles that their zoning can't cover.

I can understand why people may not think he's top tier. Greninja is not the kind of character that can get by in most matchups by exerting his will on to you. Greninja is strong for a different reason. Greninja's power lies in the way that he's able to adapt to virtually every play style in the game. Greninja's kit is essentially an offensive swiss knife. He always has a tool available to him that he can leverage to his advantage to win against a character. There are no characters in the cast that can rival or challenge his speed, range, zoning, whiff punish game, edgeguarding, and damage output all at the same time.

When you can combine this with his advantage state, which I feel is monstrous in this game with weaker airdodges and better Greninja frametraps, I think you have a recipe for character that should be considered for top tier. I definitely feel like Greninja doubters don't fully grasp how devastating Greninja can be once he gets that first hit in. I would say its on par with Fox, just not as good Peach, Pichu, and Oli.

This is how I'm currently feeling about "top tier MUs" atm:

+1:
0:
-1:

There is some room for change, it's only two months in. I feel like Pichu is only really a -1 because Greninja has work hard and be more careful about how he gets his damage compared to Pichu who just tjolts and spams combo starters. Megaman is the only MU where Greninja actually HAS to shield, but I don't think his post patch damage building is as good as Gren. It's an MU I need to explore and practice more.


At the very least, Greninja is a character you need to watch out for in the long term. If top tiers start to get nerfed, and Gren is left alone........we might have a monster on are hands.

 

[Rocketjay8]

Greninja doesn't really need to outzone or outcamp other characters because he already is pretty competent at zone breaking already. His mobility allows him to approach zoners at unorthdox angles that their zoning can't cover.

I can understand why people may not think he's top tier. Greninja is not the kind of character that can get by in most matchups by exerting his will on to you. Greninja is strong for a different reason. Greninja's power lies in the way that he's able to adapt to virtually every play style in the game. Greninja's kit is essentially an offensive swiss knife. He always has a tool available to him that he can leverage to his advantage to win against a character. There are no characters in the cast that can rival or challenge his speed, range, zoning, whiff punish game, edgeguarding, and damage output all at the same time.

When you can combine this with his advantage state, which I feel is monstrous in this game with weaker airdodges and better Greninja frametraps, I think you have a recipe for character that should be considered for top tier. I definitely feel like Greninja doubters don't fully grasp how devastating Greninja can be once he gets that first hit in. I would say its on par with Fox, just not as good Peach, Pichu, and Oli.

This is how I'm currently feeling about "top tier MUs" atm:

+1:
0:
-1:

There is some room for change, it's only two months in. I feel like Pichu is only really a -1 because Greninja has work hard and be more careful about how he gets his damage compared to Pichu who just tjolts and spams combo starters. Megaman is the only MU where Greninja actually HAS to shield, but I don't think his post patch damage building is as good as Gren. It's an MU I need to explore and practice more.


At the very least, Greninja is a character you need to watch out for in the long term. If top tiers start to get nerfed, and Gren is left alone........we might have a monster on are hands.

Not if Grenjninja gets nerfed first. And we all know how much they loved to nerf Greninja last game.

 

[Shaya]

I'd kinda disagree about marcina dair being unrewarding, the move is very similar to ike's nair with 6 more frames landing lag.
The varying angles either sets up for a tech chase, a juggle/up air confirm, or in marth's case outright kos reasonably well.
The up to 2x the damage on the move helps shield pushback/etc too, and it's relatively easy to space well due to the arc.

 

[meleebrawler]

ESAM has released his new tier list today. Being an ESAM tier list, it does have some questionable placements here and there.

There are also a few instances in which he ranked a character incorrectly by the way he described them. For example, he thinks that Ness is absolutely ridiculous and will steamroll through characters that cannot properly deal with his recovery, and overall is very optimistic over him. Despite speaking about him like a top 15, even top 10 character, he puts him in the lower high tier. Find that kind of strange, but there is that. The other main example is that he puts Bayonetta in the lower mid tier, despite describing her a non-functional character.

However, the most important thing about this list that he does bring up, is the characters he thinks is underrated. He puts Ice Climbers in the upper mid tier, and he puts Meta Knight and Mewtwo pretty high (in the upper high tiers) in this list. His explanations for those characters is also very noteworthy to talk about, particularly MK's and Mewtwo's placements.

Edit: I am not saying that Mewtwo and MK are bad characters. I think both of them are really good, but many players outside of him thinks lowly of them, and that is what is notable of this.

Mewtwo's got that same ''not Smash 4'' syndrome that Falcon is going through, where the stuff that made him tick in that game just doesn't fly anymore and the risks involved in using them make most people unwilling to stick with them to learn new tricks.

... His offense has been greatly buffed, being able to start combos and chains from almost any of his moves, not just his nerfed best options from 4 (dtilt and landing nair mainly). His increased speed makes Shadow Ball even more scary despite the move in of itself being little different from before, because he's fast enough to chase even charged shots now, tying into the the more varied followup potential mentioned above. His edgeguarding is even more fearsome in a limited airdodge environment and yet his recovery is still one of the best in the game. Finally, smart use of his teleport can help mitigate the loss of his formerly impressive airdodge. I find it hard to believe he is anything worse than slightly nerfed overall compared to 4, if anything it's just more of the cast has caught up with him.

 

[fozzy fosbourne]

What’s the biggest event Venia has played in, or next upcoming event?

 

[Frihetsanka]

At the very least, Greninja is a character you need to watch out for in the long term. If top tiers start to get nerfed, and Gren is left alone........we might have a monster on are hands.

Greninja and Shulk are two of the reasons why I think they shouldn't start nerfing top tiers just yet, and I don't think we've really seen the current top 5 characters being all that dominant anyway, not yet.

I know he said Ness will never rise above lower high tier in his pre-release video because of his recovery (although Ness’s recovery has proven to be far less of a liability this game) so idk if that’s why he did that but I doubt it.

He put Ness in #25, which is borderline high-mid tier in my opinion (and I also put Ness around that spot). Chrom at #29 is noticeable, I don't think #29 really is high tier, but I guess people draw their lines at different spots (and I guess ESAM would get more flack if he called Chrom a Mid Tier, which I think he essentially does by putting him in the #29 spot).

Fox outside of top 10 is noteworthy, Zero Suit Samus not in high tier is noteworthy, Yoshi as #10 is a bit odd, Shulk in top 10 is noteworthy but fairly plausible, Marth that much lower than Lucina is pretty noteworthy too, Snake #5 is as well (because of MVD?), Robin, Ken and Ryu in bottom 11 is very noteworthy as well.

Oh, and I guess he has more faith in Meta Knight than most of us do. He might be right about that I guess, Meta Knight was a high tier in Smash 4, after all.

Keep in mind that Mid Tier and Low Tier are not ordered.

 

[Shaya]

I dont think Mii Brawler's some secret top tier or anything, but ... is perhaps one of the more underrated, and also unique characters out there.

The way it seems to look like is, he has a lot of "Starfox" esque confirms and normals of course, but beyond that seems to have this extended trap / string tree that just may be too complex (for me) to ever figure out fully.

Shotput is an amazing tool, coming in with a hurtbox to block projectiles, clanks with moves giving opponent's massive amounts of hit lag. Can successfully 0-death people with this move I'm not even being hyperbolic here. It's like Gordo but can be used on a much more mobile character and is absurdly brutal vs off stage opponents (there's a long list of chars anywhere between low to feasible top tier that are very prone to death vs this move).
Seems to be probably the intended move to work with as the base for all trap/pressure as it covers many options and can still be active after you regain control of your character.

Brawler's flip kick (jump thing) is a significantly worse Zero Suit Flip Jump on the surface, with it's massive amount of landing lag. But the kick itself is a lot different to how zero suit's flows (he can wait a lot longer than zero suit before inputting a kick) and can do all sorts of falling angles based on where you use it in the move. Surprisingly turns into a KO option... surprising because like, you hit someone with it at 110% and they go no where, but again at 130% and they fly off the top in a heartbeat (I think it might be a sweetspot the earlier in the kick you hit them?)
Because of the amount of angles/spaces/positions you can use with this move, when you start amassing pressure in advantage state, this can easily cover just about every disadvantage movement option in the book on reaction (that is, if you read such a defensive choice and start the flip; but shotput does gods work here).


The side-b I use which is the command grab is an insane amount of damage, brings people to the ground and knocks them up and behind you (so really really stupidly good for use in and around PLATFORMS or for reversing a position disadvantage). No true follow ups but the position is so bad that shotput, flip jump and your up-b of choice becomes pressure options you can use against them.
It's looking stupidly good to use mid air- people really gotta live/breathe the 50/50 of regular aerial pressure or take 19%.

I'm still using helicopter kick, but it mightn't be the optimal choice - you can't afford to go off stage with bair (which is solid) without death because of it. I need to see hitbox data on it, because like the flip kick, I sometimes see it KO very strong still or other times not really send them anywhere even at 150%+. From anecdote I think it has to do with you hitting with the foot/boot of the final hit .. it also sometimes KO's vertically or horizontally.
Either way it's a solid OoS option, and can confirm out of nair/fair/uair/etc

I might've found my "S4 Falco" replacement (because I legitimately cannot enjoy him in this game thanks to the back air start up change). Hella fun.
I'd rate him and G&W as the most interesting "designed to be janky and unique" characters I've seen in the game.

A lot of things on this character have a lot of lag, and I feel this is the general intention as to keep this character "difficult", even if mastered, as the tools are kinda bogus in a vacuum / scenario of proper use.
Like, you'll die if you whiff your forward smash or they shield it, but it'll ko centre stage at like 80% on heavyish characters. It feels completely worth dealing with the end lag as Brawler does a minor pop off in the cooldown animation - ****ing hella sick. YOU ARE ONE WITH YOUR MII IN THAT MOMENT.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I need to see hitbox data on it, because like the flip kick, I sometimes see it KO very strong still or other times not really send them anywhere even at 150%+.

Maybe you're already doing this, but I heard from the Brawler Discord that you need to hold towards the blastzone for the last hit in order to KO with Helicopter Kick.

 

[MG_3989]

ESAM has released his new tier list today. Being an ESAM tier list, it does have some questionable placements here and there.

There are also a few instances in which he ranked a character incorrectly by the way he described them. For example, he thinks that Ness is absolutely ridiculous and will steamroll through characters that cannot properly deal with his recovery, and overall is very optimistic over him. Despite speaking about him like a top 15, even top 10 character, he puts him in the lower high tier. Find that kind of strange, but there is that. The other main example is that he puts Bayonetta in the lower mid tier, despite describing her a non-functional character.

However, the most important thing about this list that he does bring up, is the characters he thinks is underrated. He puts Ice Climbers in the upper mid tier, and he puts Meta Knight and Mewtwo pretty high (in the upper high tiers) in this list. His explanations for those characters is also very noteworthy to talk about, particularly MK's and Mewtwo's placements.

Edit: I am not saying that Mewtwo and MK are bad characters. I think both of them are really good, but many players outside of him thinks lowly of them, and that is what is notable of this.

Ok now I see what you mean about him hyping Ness to oblivion and putting him at 25. ESAM loves that type of stringy, combo, rushdown, long combo type character that Ness is so it makes sense. He also did a good job of listing his strengths and he did mention that his recovery is better. I don’t understand why he doesn’t have him rated higher especially when he sounded a lot less hype about some of the characters above him. A little confusing especially because being edgeguarded at this point hasn’t been a huge problem for Ness but he’s right about that.

I think it’s also the fact that if ESAM likes a character and sees something positive in a character he’s just so enthusiastic but maybe stepping back and looking at it more objectively he put Ness where he put him because of that. But idk because he said he’s busted and he’ll roll through characters. I don’t really try to understand why ESAM does what he does logically

 

[Shaya]

Maybe you're already doing this, but I heard from the Brawler Discord that you need to hold towards the blastzone for the last hit in order to KO with Helicopter Kick.

THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH.

 

[N8than]

Greninja and Shulk are two of the reasons why I think they shouldn't start nerfing top tiers just yet, and I don't think we've really seen the current top 5 characters being all that dominant anyway, not yet.

He put Ness in #25, which is borderline high-mid tier in my opinion (and I also put Ness around that spot). Chrom at #29 is noticeable, I don't think #29 really is high tier, but I guess people draw their lines at different spots (and I guess ESAM would get more flack if he called Chrom a Mid Tier, which I think he essentially does by putting him in the #29 spot).

Fox outside of top 10 is noteworthy, Zero Suit Samus not in high tier is noteworthy, Yoshi as #10 is a bit odd, Shulk in top 10 is noteworthy but fairly plausible, Marth that much lower than Lucina is pretty noteworthy too, Snake #5 is as well (because of MVD?), Robin, Ken and Ryu in bottom 11 is very noteworthy as well.

Oh, and I guess he has more faith in Meta Knight than most of us do. He might be right about that I guess, Meta Knight was a high tier in Smash 4, after all.

Keep in mind that Mid Tier and Low Tier are not ordered.

I don't understand why you are so conservative with the number of characters that are high tier. Throughout all the smash games, the number of top and high tier characters have been made up of 40% of the roster. If you consider Ness to be around #25, but that means he's high mid tier, then according to you, only 31.58% of the roster are meta viable. I'm not trying to attack you because of your perspectives or beliefs; I'm simply trying to understand your perspective.