Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Ziodyne 21]

Cosmos vs Maister was so close, with Cosmos emerging victorious. Nice job to both of them, and I think Maister may have put G&W into public attention.

In the meantime, possibility of ZSS taking another fairly big event?

Possibility cofirmed. Marss wins 3-1 over Cosmos to win Full Bloom. With the suicide dair spike to boot

Man I have never seen Cosmos look and play so shook in a long time while. He was throwing out unsafe smash attacks way too often those last games

 

[The Jim Jims]

I wanna talk about ZSS. She's a character that's very precise, more spacing oriented, and not at all the character she used to be, and yet Marss just won two majors in a row. Just based on that alone, he'll probably be Top 10 for the season. It's just a matter of whether it's a result of his character or his skill, and I'm willing to say it's his character. ZSS looks incredibly difficult to play. Your spacing has to be fantastic and you have to flip heads on a lot of high risk high reward plays. Yet, those seem to be possible, even at the top level. Marss played incredibly throughout, and PG definitely made a good choice in signing Marss to their team. After his two major wins, I guarantee that ZSS is going to be on people's watch list, so we'll have to wait a few tournaments to see if ZSS is Top 15-ish or Marss is relying on matchup unfamiliarity.

 

[Diabolique]

Okay, so I main G&W in Ultimate and anyone who thinks he is high mid tier clearly hasn't played him at length. Let me fix some common misconceptions:

- UpB is not safe. You basically exchange being shield pressured to be above your opponent at which point you are very easily killed off the top. There is some lag in which you cannot do anything at the top (when parachute comes out) that makes you vulnerable. I have died at like 70% to a ROB Uair when he shielded an UpB. If you see many Maister sets, a lot of times he gets UpBs for free when he does not hit someone. This should not happen.

- Drag down Nair combos are not always true. Dtilt can very easily wiff because of the small vertical range and of course you need to aim it on the right side for it to do anything.

- Bair and Dair are not safe on shield, as long as you are prepared for the landing hitbox. The landing hitboxs are also probably the easiest non-projectile to parry in the game.
- G&W has no approach. He has the worst landing lag in the game. If you thought was bad, look at G&W's landing lag. Aside from Nair, all of them are 12+ frames. The best (only?) option is Nair, which is very slow since it starts above him (1st horizontal hitbox is frame 17 lol)

- Chef is is extremely good in like a handful of match ups, but worthless in others because of high end lag and some hitboxes characeters have just clank right through it and beat it. It is horrible at forcing approaches.

- Lack of kill moves in the air. Bair is not killing mid stage until like 150~ if fresh. Dair sends at a really bad angle, Dsmash is good but unsafe. Usmash lost a lot of invincibility and therefore only good for call outs.

- TERRIBLE ROLLS. Seriously like Isabelle level. They go no where and have like no invincibility.

- Upair juggles fail against anyone that has higher air speed than DeDeDe. Most people want to directional air dodge because that is instinct, but don't. If you just normal air dodge and have a high fall speed, you can actually punish the Uair since its end lag was increased from Smash 4.


He might end up low mid tier, but he has really bad match ups.

 

[Heracr055]

"ZSS is mid tier guys"

Good stuff to Maister showing his stuff with Game & Watch, despite the stigma attached to his forward air nerf and supposed "lack of explosiveness." I hope to see more great things from him

Edit: Pretty sure Collision and this event were not majors (Full Bloom might be). Anyways I expect people to attribute the wins to "just Marss" and not ZSS, and continue to bash her. I invite you guys to see what happens at Prime Saga, where all the hardworking ZSS mains (minus Choco, unfortunately) will be taking names. See you then

 

[Frihetsanka]

[...]Marss just won two majors in a row.

A tournament with 253 entrants and a general lack of top players isn't really a major. Who did Marss beat to win? In top 48, Engine (who I don't know who it is), yeti, Cosmos (barely), Maister (barely), and then Cosmos again. The most notable players who attended the tournament were Cosmos, Marss, Seth, yeti, ESAM, Ned, Maister, MVD, and DarkShad, hardly a major.

OrionStats lists Collision as a Major and Full Bloom 5 as a Super Regional, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AJs-mj5TTdkmkl7nhj4twJymVPTLTUdT0MBToL1cxDs/edit#gid=0.

Edit: I do believe ZSS is high tier though, and Marss is an incredibly skilled player as well.

He might end up low mid tier, but he has really bad match ups.

Maister believes that Mr. Game & Watch doesn't have any really bad MUs, and that his worst matchups are Slight Disadvantage, those being: Squirtle, Mega Man, Ike, Chrom, Cloud, Lucina, Meta Knight, Olimar, and Zero Suit Samus. He also believes that G&W goes even with some notable characters like Pichu, Palutena, Link, Shulk, Peach/Daisy, Pokémon Trainer, Greninja, Link, Roy, and Wolf, and that he beats Fox, Inkling, Young Link, Mario, Pikachu, and Wario (and others, of course, but those are the most notable).

Oh, and Snake is a "Big Advantage", he claims. So he's fairly optimistic about Mr. Game & Watch. He might be too optimistic, but Maister's MU chart makes him look really solid.

Which MUs do you think are "really bad"?

 

[Diabolique]

Maister believes that Mr. Game & Watch doesn't have any really bad MUs, and that his worst matchups are Slight Advantage, those being: Squirtle, Mega Man, Ike, Chrom, Cloud, Lucina, Meta Knight, Olimar, and Zero Suit Samus. He also believes that G&W goes even with some notable characters like Pichu, Palutena, Link, Shulk, Peach/Daisy, Pokémon Trainer, Greninja, Link, Roy, and Wolf, and that he beats Fox, Inkling, Young Link, Mario, Pikachu, and Wario (and others, of course, but those are the most notable).

Oh, and Snake is a "Big Advantage", he claims. So he's fairly optimistic about Mr. Game & Watch. He might be too optimistic, but Maister's MU chart makes him look really solid.

Which MUs do you think are "really bad"?

ZSS is probably the worst with olimar since flip kick denies UpAir juggles hard and her fair eats G&W alive because he can do nothing that fast from the front of him. Also her side B outranges everything G&W can do.

is way too fast and forces G&W to approach, and yet he has none. Upsmash is extremely good against G&W and kills him super early. Anyone who thinks G&W beats Fox is crazy. His side B and down B both beat UpAir juggles. Hell, he can air dodge and hit you out of an upair.

This is probably not very relevant but Isabelle Side B >>>>>> Game and Watch approach and UpBing to the ledge.

Your only hope here is landing with bucket because that is literally the only option against his Fsmash. Yellow Dsmash kills UpBing to the ledge as well. Reflected pikmin do nothing since he can just down B. Also G&W literally has no aerial that gets rid of pikmin, since Nair will get stick in hitlag so long the olimar can punish you lol. This is easily 65-35, I would personally say 70-30.Tied with ZSS for being worst.

This is a bad match up. Like I said, UpB is not safe.double jump Uair from Ivy WILL kill you early if you do not hit it. Also Ivy Dair is really good against his recovery. Reflected Razor Leaf goes no where.

This is pretty self explanatory. Mega Man is basically a better G&W.

G&W does not go even with Wolf. His air speed is too high to juggle with Uair and he even has his reflector as a mix up (though easy to bait). Again, he forces an approach but Game and Watch doesn't have one. The only way I see this as even is if he gets careless and lets you fill the bucket. His B goes through Chef so you need to approach. Also Wolf Upsmash >>>> Game and Watch aerials.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

A tournament with 253 entrants and a general lack of top players isn't really a major. Who did Marss beat to win? In top 48, Engine (who I don't know who it is), yeti, Cosmos (barely), Maister (barely), and then Cosmos again. The most notable players who attended the tournament were Cosmos, Marss, Seth, yeti, ESAM, Ned, Maister, MVD, and DarkShad, hardly a major.

OrionStats lists Collision as a Major and Full Bloom 5 as a Super Regional, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AJs-mj5TTdkmkl7nhj4twJymVPTLTUdT0MBToL1cxDs/edit#gid=0.

Edit: I do believe ZSS is high tier though, and Marss is an incredibly skilled player as well.

Maister believes that Mr. Game & Watch doesn't have any really bad MUs, and that his worst matchups are Slight Advantage, those being: Squirtle, Mega Man, Ike, Chrom, Cloud, Lucina, Meta Knight, Olimar, and Zero Suit Samus. He also believes that G&W goes even with some notable characters like Pichu, Palutena, Link, Shulk, Peach/Daisy, Pokémon Trainer, Greninja, Link, Roy, and Wolf, and that he beats Fox, Inkling, Young Link, Mario, Pikachu, and Wario (and others, of course, but those are the most notable).

Oh, and Snake is a "Big Advantage", he claims. So he's fairly optimistic about Mr. Game & Watch. He might be too optimistic, but Maister's MU chart makes him look really solid.

Which MUs do you think are "really bad"?

That's kinda funny that these top players claim that their character has no losing Mus. I wonder if they've really gridning all Mus in this game to be able to make these claims about these match ups. So far I've seen people say Shulk Snake Pikachu and now G&W have no losing MUs. Also if these guys do have experience in all of the MUs I'd love to see who is piloting some of the lesser explored characters. But it's prob better to ignore these guys when they puff up their character also ignore them when they talk em down hell it's just best to ignore them.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Most explanations I've seen for G&W's low-tier status seemed very knee-jerky, only looking at things he's lost and not new things he can do. Forward air is a common sticking point, but how much does it really matter when back air fills the same niche and is buffed to kill in the same situations his old fair usually did (edgeguarding)?

You can honestly make a drinking game out of all the times people claimed a veteran would suck in Ultimate due to losing a main tool from Smash 4 ever since E3. Bowser has no Showtime? Samus can't dash attack to five uairs? They've got no chance.

Well Full Bloom may not have been a paticularly large or stacked tournament. But yeah it proved your point about Smash 4 characters being dismissed that way.


Lost his Smash 4 fair . Maister got 3rd place at Full Bloom beating MVD and ESAM, and even took Marss and Cosmos right down to wire Take a shot

Lost her Smash 4 d-throw ladder death combos. Marss won his second tourament in two weeks. Take another shot.

 

[Frihetsanka]

That's kinda funny that these top players claim that their character has no losing Mus. I wonder if they've really gridning all Mus in this game to be able to make these claims about these match ups. So far I've seen people say Shulk Snake Pikachu and now G&W have no losing MUs.

I made a typo, it was supposed to be "Slight Disadvantage", not "Slight Advantage", my bad. So yes, Maister does believe G&W loses some MUs (slightly).

Add Olimar to the list, Myran thinks Olimar doesn't lose any MUs (and he might be right). Lucina is a very interesting case too since she seems to have very few losing MUs but she also seems to barely win any MUs +2 at all, she's basically full of +1 and Even MUs. Solid but not really overbearing.

 

[Rizen]

It's important to keep this in perspective. This is a good showing for G&W; he's certainly proved he can being viable. At the same time it's one placement and G&W has good tool for the Snake and Pikachu MUs in bucket. I'd rather look at tool interaction between characters and individual MUs than general tier list placements.

G&W's bucket has proven extremely useful in MUs like Snake the same way Ness' magnet has. Bucket reflecting other projectiles was a huge buff; it's a better shine in many ways. G&W is functional as a bait and punish semi-zoning character but still has fundamental issues of being out zoned by strong swordsmen and very light. I'm no G&W expert but I wonder what a different bracket with more Ike and Lucinas would have ended up like. I think Bucket is a polarizing move that can be extremely strong or useless depending on the MU.

There's also the element of unfamiliarity with the G&W MU. Remember Awestin beat MVD with Ness then MVD came back and beat him. It's also why Nairo's Ganon could beat light's Fox when his Palutena couldn't. This is something I've talked about before, it's hard to be consistent with a roster this large.

 

[KirbySquad101]

We'll have to see what the future bodes for G&W before making any quick assumptions; in terms of locals, Maister's been tearing it up at his, Dingus Joe has been consistently placing at top 8 as well, and twrkmaster has made a few upsets as well. I think a lot of people's concerns were with his presence on the bigger scope of Ultimate; before this, all he mostly had was Maister's 24th placement at Glitch 6 and Regi's 33rd placement at Genesis 6, with Maister failing to break top 65. While I don't think Maister 3rd placement cements G&W as an instant high tier, it definitely shows a promising future for him, as well as a lot of what he has going for him in general.

As for my thoughts on him, I think he could most likely be a mid tier, though I can't really give any certainties on his placements, as it requires me to also evaluate how well he stacks up against everyone else, and that's not really possible with what we have so far. I think Diabloque did give a pretty good assessment of what's generally wrong with him, though there is a few things I disagree with. The good thing about his juggles is that he can mix things up between UAir and NAir as he has a good lingering vertical hitboxes on the latter, and he's got top 20 air mobility to boot which means he'll most likely be able to out-weave the opponent. I think NAir to FTilt is also true in most cases, though I'm not too sure about this. He does a few good options in neutral, such as Chef, cross-ups with NAir, and bait Fair, though I'll agree it is generally poor for the most part and I think that's the main thing holding him back, aside from meh anti-airs. To be honest, if they did change his FAir to not die to everything, gave UTilt range worth a crud, and possibly shave a few frames of landing lag off of BAir, I think most, if not, all of his current issues would be fixed.

All I can say for sure atm is that he certainly ain't a bottom 2 character lol

 

[NotLiquid]

Man, Cosmos is such a good player but he's like the complete opposite of Light where rather than powering up at a deficit, he's instead got the nastiest habit of choking where it counts, to the point of becoming a bit of a meme. It's already happened against players like Tweek who he's run extremely close sets with, and now that Winners Semis round against Marss where he could've taken Game 4 handily if he didn't screw up some plays. Grands was a gg for the most of the part though.

But on that note I'm glad Marss has managed to recoup some of his lost glory after an early performance lull. I'm gonna agree with whoever said that he had a fairly easy bracket for the most of the part, this being a super regional you're gonna see most players get where they're expected to get up until Top 8, but between Full Bloom and Collision he's shown a stronger resilience against the top of the food chain. ZSS is still looking high tier as hell, and I think a lot of that is off of side B. She's encouraged to play more of a spacing game with it, which is on top of her already good CQC.

As for Maister, I think he's good, and I think he's done more than enough to prove G&W ain't just some low tier meme, but I think the lack of G&W players in competitive Smash means MU knowledge is worth taking into account. For one thing I think people are a little more intimidated by FAir than they ought to be, especially if you have any multihit attacks, and Maister was abusing that move generously throughout his sets. You could tell players had cold feet trying to challenge it, which is on top of the laundry list of issues Diabolique mention.

 

[Phoenix_is_OK]

So MVD vs Maister just happened, and oh my god MVD got handled that set. Snake’s neutral is crippled against Game and Watch because of the bucket absorbing projectiles (it gets 2 out of its 3 charges for full oil from a single grenade...) and Game and Watch’s amazing juggling game with Up-Air against Snake’s trashy disadvantage allows him to get a crap ton of percent just off of a stray grab or Up-B. Also apparently you can confirm a N-Air into full bucket and it killed MVD at like 18% in Game 1.

G&W might not be a good character but damn the Snake matchup looks free. Like free free!

I find it almost ironic that Snake is capable of completely shutting down certain characters, and is at an immediate disadvantage against Ness, Lucas, and Game and Watch due to absorbing.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Most explanations I've seen for G&W's low-tier status seemed very knee-jerky, only looking at things he's lost and not new things he can do. Forward air is a common sticking point, but how much does it really matter when back air fills the same niche and is buffed to kill in the same situations his old fair usually did (edgeguarding)?

You can honestly make a drinking game out of all the times people claimed a veteran would suck in Ultimate due to losing a main tool from Smash 4 ever since E3. Bowser has no Showtime? Samus can't dash attack to five uairs? They've got no chance.

This is true. People look at the downsides way more than what the character is still capable of. I think Diddy, Mewtwo and Sheik are currently the most underrated. Outside of maybe Marth, who has obvious potential but Lucina is just favored over him now due to how much easier she is. Top Tiers being so easy to pick up and play also has a whole lot to do with it.

 

[AxelVDP]

Regarding G&W, I find myself agreeing with what Diabolique posted, tho I am a little bit more optimistic
Also, I'd like to quote my old post which I feel is kind of relevant

[...]

Speaking of G&W bad matchups: he gets completely mauled by Ike lol, dunno if it's just me but that MU is basically free, G&W can NOT contest nair with its huge range, you don't get **** from parrying it (if spaced even half decently), you cannot contest it in the air thank to terrible (forward facing) aerials, lack the mobility to punish it in any way and eats through everything you try.
Same goes for his disadvantage state, Ike's sword is simply to big to avoid, and G&W terrible rolls (and ledge attack) make it so that he gets ledge trapped for days.
Also, one of the (few?) MUs where even upB oos is kinda bad because you can't land on Ike.
I also kinda feel G&W loses the Bayo matchup (!) though I might be kinda biased.

G&W is one of those character I feel get mobility camped HARD (again, mostly due to his "bad" aerials)

 

[Adamonado]

He might end up low mid tier, but he has really bad match ups.

Even if G&W has really bad matchups, Maister has shown that he can do some stuff, it's just whether you attribute his success to Maister himself, G&W, or MU inexperience. Even if G&W ends up being a low mid tier, he still can be used as a strong counterpick character, i.e., he does really really well against Snake, a fairly popular character in the current meta. Maister's huge win over MVD was not just MU inexperience imo, G&W can absorb all of Snake's explosions, nullifying Snake's strongest neutral tools. G&W also has a strong advantage state, oppressing Snake's infamously bad disadvantage. All in all, G&W may not be a very strong solo character, but he could potentially be a strong counterpick choice.

 

[Impax]

Why is it surprising a low mid to even low tier character is doing well? I thought the consensus was that this game is reasonably balanced.

 

[Jotun873]

Why is it surprising a low mid to even low tier character is doing well? I thought the consensus was that this game is reasonably balanced.

Its a character most pros have been placing in bottom five. While people say the game is reasonably balanced there are still a few standouts such as marth #3 (lucina) and little mac.

Add this to normal smash history where low tier meant you had almost no winnable MUs and its much more understandable.

 

[ARISTOS]

Its a character most pros have been placing in bottom five. While people say the game os reasonably balanced there are still a few standouts such as marth #3 (lucina) and little mac.

Add this to normal smash history where lpw tier meant you nearly no winnable MUs and its much more understandable.

I think it's clear we got that completely wrong though hahaha.

In a game where everyone's OOS game got largely worse in the transition to Ultimate, a frame 3 OOS option in Fire that covers crossups and does not put G&W into freefall is phenomenal-in fact, there's almost nothing better I would argue in terms of getting out of disadvantage

 

[meleebrawler]

Regarding G&W, I find myself agreeing with what Diabolique posted, tho I am a little bit more optimistic
Also, I'd like to quote my old post which I feel is kind of relevant


Speaking of G&W bad matchups: he gets completely mauled by Ike lol, dunno if it's just me but that MU is basically free, G&W can NOT contest nair with its huge range, you don't get **** from parrying it (if spaced even half decently), you cannot contest it in the air thank to terrible (forward facing) aerials, lack the mobility to punish it in any way and eats through everything you try.
Same goes for his disadvantage state, Ike's sword is simply to big to avoid, and G&W terrible rolls (and ledge attack) make it so that he gets ledge trapped for days.
Also, one of the (few?) MUs where even upB oos is kinda bad because you can't land on Ike.
I also kinda feel G&W loses the Bayo matchup (!) though I might be kinda biased.

G&W is one of those character I feel get mobility camped HARD (again, mostly due to his "bad" aerials)

I dunno, while it does feel like G&W is constantly dancing on a razor's edge against Ike he's far from helpless. The mere threat of G&W's out-of-shield options prevents Ike from aggressively spacing him as much as others, because getting too short-hop nair-happy can let G&W stuff it with his own nair and start a nice juggle. And G&W can bully Ike on the ledge almost as much, where he can throw sausages before Ike can swing his sword to deflect them, and if he baits the jump he's in prime spitball position.

 

[AxelVDP]

I dunno, while it does feel like G&W is constantly dancing on a razor's edge against Ike he's far from helpless. The mere threat of G&W's out-of-shield options prevents Ike from aggressively spacing him as much as others, because getting too short-hop nair-happy can let G&W stuff it with his own nair and start a nice juggle. And G&W can bully Ike on the ledge almost as much, where he can throw sausages before Ike can swing his sword to deflect them, and if he baits the jump he's in prime spitball position.

I don't have numerical data to back this up, but I STRONGLY believe you simply don't have enough time and range to punish Ike's nair with anything, let alone with a slow nair (again, assuming Ike spaced his nair at least decently)
and getting Ike in a -low- edgeguard situation is hard AF (and in those situations he suffers against basically everyone), since he can always recover high due to G&W lack of strong upwards aerials, worst case scenario he gets hit by a weak upair that removes sideB freefall and now just has to try landing instead of getting back on stage

 

[meleebrawler]

I don't have numerical data to back this up, but I STRONGLY believe you simply don't have enough time and range to punish Ike's nair with anything, let alone with a slow nair (again, assuming Ike spaced his nair at least decently)
and getting Ike in a -low- edgeguard situation is hard AF (and in those situations he suffers against basically everyone), since he can always recover high due to G&W lack of strong upwards aerials, worst case scenario he gets hit by a weak upair that removes sideB freefall and now just has to try landing instead of getting back on stage

G&W's nair hits quite fast up close. A spaced nair from Ike may not technically be punishable but he still has to back off somehow if it gets shielded, or at least G&W a chance to regroup.

This is true. People look at the downsides way more than what the character is still capable of. I think Diddy, Mewtwo and Sheik are currently the most underrated. Outside of maybe Marth, who has obvious potential but Lucina is just favored over him now due to how much easier she is. Top Tiers being so easy to pick up and play also has a whole lot to do with it.

I wonder how Mario managed to avoid that stigma for losing his dthrow ultra combo?

 

[JustCallMeJon]

Gimr found an IC infinite

It works on good chunk of characters and you cannot SDI if you got infinited. It requires bigger skill unlike Brawl and Melee's infinite.

ICs infinite work on many top tiers such as Pichu, Olimar, Pikachu, Inkling and Wario.

 

[Adamonado]

Why is it surprising a low mid to even low tier character is doing well? I thought the consensus was that this game is reasonably balanced.

I think what surprises most people is in what way the low tier is doing well. Maister took down both Esam and MVD with the character, two of Ultimate's current top players who play characters considered to be top tier and high tier respectively, and he also went to game 5 against both Marss and Cosmos.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I wonder how Mario managed to avoid that stigma for losing his dthrow ultra combo?

Mario did not exactly avoid that stigma, at the first few weeks of the game at least. But Mario is still very well capable of those big ladder combos . He just cant start them off d-throw anymore. In fact thanks to his buffed UP-B it looks like he can even kill off the top a bit more consistently than in Smash 4.

Really the bigger stigma Mario has is popular were, (and still are ) swordies are in the meta now, and Mario nutoriously has issues vs swords.

FYI I still think Mario is still pretty good though. Rembmer how Prodigy managed to get either 9th ir 13th place at Genesis 6 with Mario and that kid is what, 13 Years old?

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

If you blocked a move you know is safe on shield, why would you try to punish it? You already know you'll fail. I don't see what the issue is.

Almost every smash attack that is safe on shield has ample startup anyway. You should be able to stuff them out with faster moves. For example, meta knight's fsmash hits frame 24. Off the top of my head one that doesn't come out extra late is olimar's up smash (frame 12), and that one gets beaten out by every hitbox.

Well, yes. If something is unsafe you should not try to punish it. I don't think most smash attacks should be safe in the first place though. Also, most of them look really unsafe but have deceptive interrupt frames which makes them difficult to understand at a glance.

If ganon uses fsmash, his character by default will enter very long "flourish" animation where he resheaths his sword. Seeing that, you'd think that is recovery, but it isn't. I spent the first couple of weeks getting baited by this sort of stuff constantly and judging by how common smash into immediate attack or spotdodge is – both in quick play and in tourney – i have to imagine I'm not the only one.

I'm aware of my mistake. I think the fact that it's a mistake is bad design though. If you don't that's fair enough.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Mario did not exactly avoid that stigma, at the first few weeks of the game at least. But Mario is still very well capable of those big ladder combos . He just cant start them off d-throw anymore. In fact thanks to his buffed UP-B it looks like he can even kill off the top a bit more consistently than in Smash 4.

Really the bigger stigma Mario has is popular were, (and still are ) swordies are in the meta now, and Mario nutoriously has issues vs swords.

FYI I still think Mario is still pretty good though. Rembmer how Prodigy managed to get either 9th ir 13th place at Genesis 6 with Mario and that kid is what, 13 Years old?

Mario is indeed doing really well right now. Doesn't have the peak results SSB4 Mario has, mostly due to powercreep and not having Ally and ANTi anymore (though both still has a pocket Mario), but still pretty good.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I wonder how Mario managed to avoid that stigma for losing his dthrow ultra combo?

He didn't at first (some people even thought Dr. Mario might be better), but then he started getting good results and now most people seem to agree that he's somewhere in high tier.

 

[Impax]

I wonder how Mario managed to avoid that stigma for losing his dthrow ultra combo?

I remember Mario getting labeled as awful when the game first came out.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Well, yes. If something is unsafe you should not try to punish it. I don't think most smash attacks should be safe in the first place though. Also, most of them look really unsafe but have deceptive interrupt frames which makes them difficult to understand at a glance.

If ganon uses fsmash, his character by default will enter very long "flourish" animation where he resheaths his sword. Seeing that, you'd think that is recovery, but it isn't. I spent the first couple of weeks getting baited by this sort of stuff constantly and judging by how common smash into immediate attack or spotdodge is – both in quick play and in tourney – i have to imagine I'm not the only one.

I'm aware of my mistake. I think the fact that it's a mistake is bad design though. If you don't that's fair enough.

Let's look at the raw frame data for a second.

Ganondorf's F-Smash comes out on frame 29, is active until frame 31, and has a FAF of 70. That's a 39 frames of cooldown, so the move takes almost half a second to come out and has over half a second of vulnerability. That's actually quite a big punish window. It's just so powerful that it's hard to punish if it's both spaced properly and shielded...but coming out on frame 29 it's so slow and reactable that it's difficult to space it properly. It's extremely punishable if you get a feel for the timing and spacing, and I say this as an online player who has to deal with input lag.

 

[adom4]

Let's look at the raw frame data for a second.

Ganondorf's F-Smash comes out on frame 29, is active until frame 31, and has a FAF of 70. That's a 39 frames of cooldown, so the move takes almost half a second to come out and has over half a second of vulnerability. That's actually quite a big punish window. It's just so powerful that it's hard to punish if it's both spaced properly and shielded...but coming out on frame 29 it's so slow and reactable that it's difficult to space it properly. It's extremely punishable if you get a feel for the timing and spacing, and I say this as an online player who has to deal with input lag.

F-smash is only safe on the tip of it, and even then sometimes it needs some charge.

 

[Rizen]

Ike and Ganon's smashes are slow but cover a huge area and deal massive shield damage. They have uses, although are very punishable. They're generally good for reads by out spacing the opponent and covering disadvantage states like having to land.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I wonder how Mario managed to avoid that stigma for losing his dthrow ultra combo?

Mario, in fact, is in a similar situation to the characters I mentoined (those being Diddy, Sheik and Mewtwo). Yet Mario's backed by Top Players, at least a little. He's lost at least as much as the aforementoined characters with his nerf to grabs in general and U Tilt "auto-combos". So yes, it's a wonder why Mario avoids the stigma and the others are critizised a lot.

Speaking of Mario, I fought one in Elite Smash just now and I think I improved a little according to what NairWizard said.

Fun fact; I think the Diddy vs Mario matchup in Ultimate is waaaaaay less stressful than the Diddy vs Mario matchup in Smash 4. *insert shrug animation when Diddy tries to throw a Banana but it's unvailable*

 

[KirbySquad101]

Mario, in fact, is in a similar situation to the characters I mentoined (those being Diddy, Sheik and Mewtwo). Yet Mario's backed by Top Players, at least a little. He's lost at least as much as the aforementoined characters with his nerf to grabs in general and U Tilt "auto-combos". So yes, it's a wonder why Mario avoids the stigma and the others are critizised a lot.

From what I can tell, losing DThrow -> UTilt really doesn't matter when UThrow -> DAir -> FAir/UpB/UAir nets you just as much if not more damage than the former.

Grab nerfs do hurt him, but he's got a plethora of other ways of getting combos and guaranteed grabs on characters, whether it's DTilt, UTilt, landing with any of his aerials barring DAir (THREE of his aerials only have 6 frames of landing lag; as far as I can tell, only a few other characters such as share this trait). Aerial strings are still silly thanks to NAir/UAir/BAir being really solid combo tools, and as far as I can tell, he can still UAir characters into oblivion on stages like Battlefield. Honestly, I think the thing that hurt him the most was USmash's knockback nerf, but even then, it's still lightning and fast and gives him intangibility on the head, so a slightly weaker head swing isn't much to lose sleep over.

He lost a bit of jank overall, but his strengths from Smash 4 to Ultimate have carried over very well.

When you consider that , , and to an extent (and even in ZSS' case she's only been dropped because she plays differently, not that she was nerfed) and are - for the most part - pretty much the only Smash 4 top tiers still being used by the same players from the previous game, I think it is safe to assume that Mario wasn't hurt nearly as bad as other Smash 4 top tiers.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

From what I can tell, losing DThrow -> UTilt really doesn't matter when UThrow -> DAir -> FAir/UpB/UAir nets you just as much if not more damage than the former.

Grab nerfs do hurt him, but he's got a plethora of other ways of getting combos and guaranteed grabs on characters, whether it's DTilt, UTilt, landing with any of his aerials barring DAir (THREE of his aerials only have 6 frames of landing lag; as far as I can tell, only a few other characters such as share this trait). Aerial strings are still silly thanks to NAir/UAir/BAir being really solid combo tools, and as far as I can tell, he can still UAir characters into oblivion on stages like Battlefield. Honestly, I think the thing that hurt him the most was USmash's knockback nerf, but even then, it's still lightning and fast and gives him intangibility on the head, so a slightly weaker head swing isn't much to lose sleep over.

He lost a bit of jank overall, but his strengths from Smash 4 to Ultimate have carried over very well.

When you consider that , , and to an extent (and even in ZSS' case she's only been dropped because she plays differently, not that she was nerfed) and are - for the most part - still being used by the same players from Smash 4, I think it is safe to assume that Mario wasn't hurt nearly as bad as other Smash 4 top tiers.

Well out of the Smash 4 Top tiers.

is still top-tier, and his Up-Smash was actullay buffed from Smash 4 for some insane reason. So far the nerfs to his weight or Fox Illusion have not impacted him at all.

May have had what defined thier metgame and top-tier status in Smash 4 taken away in Ultikate. But they seem to have gotten various other buffs and improvements to compensate for it. They play "differently" for sure but not exactly all THAT worse.

Marss has shown what ZSS can do by Winning Collision and Full Bloom back-to-back and Sonic has beem getting pretty good overall results.

Is likely still very good. Its just that no one freaking uses him anymore . Seriously, what previous Smash 4 pro player still uses him, can you name any? So its kinda hard to really get a good gague on his competitive viability. At least still has some dedicates mains sticking with him.
Hell previous Bayo mains at least TRIED to make her work..

Really the only ones that have really fallen off hard are .

At least can be considered mid-tier at least.

 

[KakuCP9]

The fact that Mario's down air is now a practical KO move makes him straight buffed in my eyes given how his mobility/strings can set it up at kill percents. The fact that top players haven't flocked to this character in droves or at least have him as a secondary baffles me.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Honestly, I think the thing that hurt him the most was USmash's knockback nerf, but even then, it's still lightning and fast and gives him intangibility on the head, so a slightly weaker head swing isn't much to lose sleep over.

He lost a bit of jank overall, but his strengths from Smash 4 to Ultimate have carried over very well.

Quick correction: they actually apparently slightly improved up smash's KO power. The thing that was nerfed about his up smash, was that they moved the intangibility of the move from the startup, to the duration and endlag of the move, which harms it's anti-air capabilities (although it still is somewhat good at that). The intangibility now covers his whole body, so that is cool I guess.

What they basically did to G&W in this game, is tone down, but not remove, the few very potent moves he had in SSB4, while giving the rest of his moveset (particularly undertuned ones like his special moves) numerous buffs and new utility to compensate.

 

[KirbySquad101]

Quick correction: they actually apparently slightly improved up smash's KO power. The thing that was nerfed about his up smash, was that they moved the intangibility of the move from the startup, to the duration and endlag of the move, which harms it's anti-air capabilities (although it still is somewhat good at that). The intangibility now covers his whole body, so that is cool I guess.

What they basically did to G&W in this game, is tone down, but not remove, the few very potent moves he had in SSB4, while giving the rest of his moveset (particularly undertuned ones like his special moves) numerous buffs and new utility to compensate.

I was referring to Mario when I made that statement about Up Smash XD Though now that I think about it, their durations are nearly the same on both Smash attacks.

As for G&W, I agree that they focused more on toning down his best stuff from 4 (I.e. USmash, Toot-Toot), while making a lot of his other attacks more useful overall (DSmash, Chef, DTilt, Fire, FTilt, NAir, UAir). I think he might end up in a slightly better spot than his 4 counterpart, assuming patches aren't a factor.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

The fact that Mario's down air is now a practical KO move makes him straight buffed in eyes given how his mobility/strings can set it up at kill percents. The fact that top players haven't flocked to this character in droves or at least have him as a secondary baffles me.

It probably has something 5o do with perception. They perceive Mario to be bad so they don't bother with him. Mario isn't the same character but he still has a great combo game and great frame data. At least some Mario players still kept playing him. A lot of people jumped ship from their sm4sh characters and in most cases it wasn't justified. Rosalina and m2 where the only characters that should've legitimately been dropped in the beginning stages of ultimate. Rosalina after the patch maybe a bit more interesting and m2 is just bleh.

 

[Phoenix_is_OK]

Gimr found an IC infinite

It works on good chunk of characters and you cannot SDI if you got infinited. It requires bigger skill unlike Brawl and Melee's infinite.

ICs infinite work on many top tiers such as Pichu, Olimar, Pikachu, Inkling and Wario.

Ice Climbers mains everywhere sighing in relief that they can break the game over its back again.

Theoretically speaking, how big of an impact would this have on the Icies Meta?