Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Frihetsanka]

Though I'm skeptical Cosmos will actually commit to Pika unless he already had a Pika secondary in the works.

It's his old Smash 4 main (before he switched to Corrin) so he should be able to pick up Pikachu fairly easily. Hard to tell if he'll actually stick to it, but he should be able to if he's dedicated enough.

 

[NotLiquid]

Cosmos clarified on his stream a little earlier that right now he's planning on co-maining Inkling and Pikachu, so it seems like he's still sticking to the character.

 

[SapphSabre777]

Some thoughts about post-Frostbite, now that I've had a few days to soak everything in:

Representation is reigning supreme over in Ultimate currently, and it is no surprise that when the best representation comes in to a major and does well, it speaks volumes to the characters in mind. Along with top tiers that we know, we also had some break-out performances with and , despite the results varying. The fact that their representation in their attended players did so well says a lot into this new 7.0 meta: there is a huge boost to your viability and your competitive chances to upset based upon how many and how often the top players of these characters come into play. Of course, it also means that characters that are not commonly represented or lack top player representation will be in the pits here, and while the gaps between character tiers are closer than ever before, the overwhelming distance in representation, data, and labbing between a popular character with common top representation and an unpopular character with little representation might be the nail in the coffin for some characters moreso than just simply lacking the tools.

As for the characters themselves...three big examples come to mind:

swiftly proved just how dangerous he truly is in Frostbite, and so the title of best Link easily goes to him now, with the potential to grasp even the lower end of top tier provided these results and breakout performances continue. The amount of damage he can do swiftly, his multitude of KO setups, his near-suffocating amounts of safe pressure and projectiles will easily snuff out characters unable to handle the barrage, though the range thing and the projectile-reliance might need to be kept in check to avoid being too predictable. Overall, not surprised, and players need to be ready for the waves of this character.

may not have received the best results, but the amount of upsets and placings that this character received says to me that this character is a mid-tier with a positive prospect to go even just a little higher. Those buffs to Din's Fire and Phantom make her a glass cannon that certainly emphasizes on the cannon aspect projectile-wise, and can tack on damage surprisingly well, she just doesn't like pressure, but characters also have to be careful with someone loaded with powerful tools like Zelda. The new N-Air is a good tool and she is easily in her best viable spot in the series.

is the biggest surprise to me after the tournament. Two Ikes breaking through in the same tournament and doing damage in-bracket, as well as competing with powerful meta characters is a great display of Ike's strengths. He isn't the top tier or high tier that we portrayed him as, but his monstrous range in combination with how sturdy his aerials are is something that many characters would die for. It does not matter if it is one-note at times, its effectiveness was seen with Leo in the early Ultimate days, and now they've come back again.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Really nice example on how to fight a seemingly bad MU for a character, in this case Ness against Shulk.
A set worth watching and FOW takes full advantage of all of Ness' move in order to beat Nicko, especially the usage of Magnet and PK Flash are nearly immaculate her and it's also a set that shows that Ness doesn't always have to worry when being off-stage. Nicko only caught Fow once but I think Nicko could've been a tad more agressive off-stage.
I just hope FOW will be able to compete on a larger scale again.

There is also Gackt reverse 3-0'ing Kome at Kongo Saga.

This makes me think that the matchup isn't as bad as some people think, mostly because while Shulk easily out-ranges Ness, Ness can also take advantage of Shulk's rather poor frame data and linear recovery.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

There is also Gackt reverse 3-0'ing Kome at Kongo Saga.

This makes me think that the matchup isn't as bad as some people think, mostly because while Shulk easily out-ranges Ness, Ness can also take advantage of Shulk's rather poor frame data and linear recovery.

While it is only two games unfortunately given how little you have in terms of top level Shulk talent these are good to go off.

Also notably Gackt is 2-1 vs Kome in sets. (And 4-1 and 3-2 versus Proto and Etsuji respectively but that’s another topic). Also notable is that Nicko did 3-0 FOW in WFs of this tournament (Tho by watching you can tell FOW lacks MU experience if it doesn’t exist in Vegas at his level. Such as being approaching buster art, letting himself get grabbed at ledge during smash art and trying to covert off PKF during shield art with aerials). FOW adapted pretty fast only dropping one game in the GFs and reset because he SD’d it really could had been a 6-0.

Anyways this MU, a lot of Ness players will still point to it being his worst but over these past few months honestly sentiment is staring to shift from that mostly due to Gackt and now FOWs exploits against the limited top level and Shulk player base. Ness gets out range to high hell sure but much like the Ike MU the lack of good frame data is a saving grace as it lets Ness still manage to slip large chunks of damage in when he does get a hit and can covert well off putting Shulk off stage when he doesn’t have access to jump art. Ness doesn’t like range but PKF buffs have helped a lot in that aspect of his swordsmen MUs and having range alone doesn’t beat Ness. I see more people starting to argue Palutena is worst than Shulk and I can’t say I don’t agree with that notion even tho his Shulk MU ain’t what anyone should consider decent still.

Really the only characters that are a roadblock for the character is Palutena and possibly G&W (which I’m adamant Ness players aren’t playing that MU right) He still loses to characters such as Shulk, Lucina or Chrom but they aren’t large mountains to overcome.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

While it is only two games unfortunately given how little you have in terms of top level Shulk talent these are good to go off.

Also notably Gackt is 2-1 vs Kome in sets. (And 4-1 and 3-2 versus Proto and Etsuji respectively but that’s another topic). Also notable is that Nicko did 3-0 FOW in WFs of this tournament (Tho by watching you can tell FOW lacks MU experience if it doesn’t exist in Vegas at his level. Such as being approaching buster art, letting himself get grabbed at ledge during smash art and trying to covert off PKF during shield art with aerials). FOW adapted pretty fast only dropping one game in the GFs and reset because he SD’d it really could had been a 6-0.

Anyways this MU, a lot of Ness players will still point to it being his worst but over these past few months honestly sentiment is staring to shift from that mostly due to Gackt and now FOWs exploits against the limited top level and Shulk player base. Ness gets out range to high hell sure but much like the Ike MU the lack of good frame data is a saving grace as it lets Ness still manage to slip large chunks of damage in when he does get a hit and can covert well off putting Shulk off stage when he doesn’t have access to jump art. Ness doesn’t like range but PKF buffs have helped a lot in that aspect of his swordsmen MUs and having range alone doesn’t beat Ness. I see more people starting to argue Palutena is worst than Shulk and I can’t say I don’t agree with that notion even tho his Shulk MU ain’t what anyone should consider decent still.

Really the only characters that are a roadblock for the character is Palutena and possibly G&W (which I’m adamant Ness players aren’t playing that MU right) He still loses to characters such as Shulk, Lucina or Chrom but they aren’t large mountains to overcome.

I think may be another meta relevant MU that may be slightly losing for Ness.

Yes Ness can combo him hard. But R.O.B can harass Ness really hard with his nuts advantage stage and he can be a big problem offstage

 

[Kiligar]

Young Link is top tier now.

 

[Rizen]

Young Link is top tier now.

I'm not saying you're wrong but I'm also not ready to say you're right yet. If anything keeps out of top tier it's his disadvantage vs big disjoints. YL is ranked 60th in air speed and has no burst option specials aside from upB which causes freefalling. Against characters without big disjoints YL has a great disadvantage; Dair covers his lower body in a (weak) kill move, FF Nair is a sex kick with 6 f landing lag and he can rain bombs down. However big disjoints beat all of these options and YL is left with poor airspeed. All YL's projectiles lose to hitboxes. YL gets walled hard in disadvantage by several characters.

 

[Tri Knight]

swiftly proved just how dangerous he truly is in Frostbite, and so the title of best Link easily goes to him now, with the potential to grasp even the lower end of top tier provided these results and breakout performances continue. The amount of damage he can do swiftly, his multitude of KO setups, his near-suffocating amounts of safe pressure and projectiles will easily snuff out characters unable to handle the barrage, though the range thing and the projectile-reliance might need to be kept in check to avoid being too predictable. Overall, not surprised, and players need to be ready for the waves of this character.

It's a bit too early to call him top tier but ironically, everything you said to make his case as a fully viable high to top tier potential character are qualities that he's always had in the first place. The buffs definitely enhanced his style more than people initially thought, but really, in Frostbite Toast was doing mostly the same thing he's always done with Young Link, just better, plain and simple. There were certainly instances where those buffs proved their worth for Young Link when he got earlier Uair kills, brawling up close with a few of his quicker jabs, or those few kills he landed with Usmash, but Toast really was mostly playing the same way, just at a much more focused level until he fell apart against Wrath.

Like I said before, that special sauce - the one that makes a truly threatening character - was always there with Young Link imo. But obviously those buffs certainly helped solidify his spot with the big bois.

I'm not saying you're wrong but I'm also not ready to say you're right yet. If anything keeps out of top tier it's his disadvantage vs big disjoints. YL is ranked 60th in air speed and has no burst option specials aside from upB which causes freefalling. Against characters without big disjoints YL has a great disadvantage; Dair covers his lower body in a (weak) kill move, FF Nair is a sex kick with 6 f landing lag and he can rain bombs down. However big disjoints beat all of these options and YL is left with poor airspeed. All YL's projectiles lose to hitboxes. YL gets walled hard in disadvantage by several characters.

I agree, but remember the Young Link buffs, as he can now at least rush in and outbutton swordies, while still having a fast disjoint vs brawlers. So keeping Young Link on the ground is a lot more viable now. He also has a now viable Zair which should help with spacing and lead to set ups, which for some reason hasn't been taken advantage of yet.

This effectively means he has even more options than he did pre-buffs. Despite definitely having that weakness to big disjoints, he at least has a good amount of options to cover it, or many other situations for that matter.

 

[The_Bookworm]

It's is OrionStat time! There are HUGE changes to the stats this weekend that should be noted.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...TcuC5TIvAxMC9fV6ZbxTsyx7Y/edit#gid=1982478003

Thanks to Zackray's performance, as well as some nice placements by Grayson and Raffi-X, he takes it over as the 2nd character in results, only below Wolf.
After underperforming for a little bit, Joker has risen to 4th place, now above .
After being down in the slumps for a little bit, Tweek's performance with Trainer has increased him to 10th.
Roy has finally taken it over as the highest ranked sword character in the game, only one placement above her at 13th.
Both has taken a notable increase this weekend thanks to Maister's and Tea's performances, now being 17th and 18th, respectively.
Took a notable increase this weekend too, now being ranked 20th, one placement above , and two above (who has increased as well).
Thanks to Toast, Young Link has taken a notable increase to 26th. He is starting to regain some of the ground he lost after week 1 (edit: of season 3).
With YLink's increase thanks to Toast, you would assume Sonic would rise? His position didn't actually change that much, but still at a nice 25th place.
I knew that Pika was going to drop this weekend, but dang, I didn't know it was going to drop all the way to 29th. This is a bigger blow to Pikachu's "top 5" status than I expected. Right now, it starting to become questionable if Pika is even top 10, but that is a conversation for another time.
For reasons unknown to me, Wii Fit was taken an increase to 38th place. varun's performance was nice at Frostbite, but I definitely don't think his performance alone could be the cause behind this increase.
Has officially entered top 40. That is all I have to say.
Remains high in the list relative to his overall negative reception, remaining at 41st.


Now this is where things get truly spicy:
Both of these FE reps have taken a notable increase after this weekend, with Ike rising to 42nd and Byleth rising to 43rd.

Now Ike's is understandable, as Ravenking did really well there, with Ryuga and San not falling too behind.

Byleth is a bit more confusing (and somewhat controversial). I bet many of you would point out to MkLeo's Byleth at grand finals, but even if they added all the theoretical points for that, I doubt that alone would result in this high of an increase, and I personally doubt they would add that many just for the grand finals stunt alone. Might want to ask Das Koopa later for this.


Now back to more normal placements:
Has both taken a notable increase, with Sheik at 45th and Zelda at 46th (tied with ). We will see how much this will change in the future.
Possibly as a result of Salem's decent performance at Frostbite, Hero has risen to 49th. However, it is unknown how much Salem has truly used Hero over his other characters, as well as anyone notable he has beaten with Hero, so I would personally take it with a grain of salt.
Possibly as a result of the increase of some characters, as well as stagnation, both Bayo and Belmonts has fallen out of top 50.
Has taken a small, but notable increase to 54th, probably as a result of Tearbear's performance at DreamHack Anaheim.
Our biggest change between the previous rankings and now, is Mewtwo's large increase to 63rd (tied with ), which is understandable considering ????'s and Zenkai's performance at Frostbite. Already higher than his season 2 self, but still has ways to go to reach his season 1 self.
On a side note, Mewtwo's current point counter erroneously is placed at 0 (the amount of points it had last weekend lol), when it is supposed to be 12.
With that, Marth is now at last place at absolutely 0 points. isn't doing much better with only 0.5 points, and with only 1 point.


So yeah, a lot has happened. Again, I don't think the Byleth increase was from MkLeo alone. There are actually quite a bit of Byleths doing some stuff in a regional/local level, even used by some already established players.


DLC Rankings (2/26/20):
(4th) > (40th) > (43rd) > (49th) > (54th) > (71st)

Basically every DLC character, aside from PPlant who is now even deeper in the shadow realm lol, got an increase this weekend.

 

[Das Koopa]

re: Byleth. MKLeo's was counted as a straight secondary, but it really should be noted that (unless my memory is wrong here) most of Byleth's results up to this point are secondary. It's something I'd just note in a larger piece analyzing her results. Worth noting that single game win characters counting as secondaries isn't new here, it's just this was a very high profile example

not really sure how to count it otherwise since that could open up a weird can of worms for cases that are way less certain or way more ambiguous so my thought process is that overestimating Byleth by the numbers and clarifying the numbers by interpretation is probably fine

 

[SwagGuy99]

It's is OrionStat time! There are HUGE changes to the stats this weekend that should be noted.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...TcuC5TIvAxMC9fV6ZbxTsyx7Y/edit#gid=1982478003

While opinions on seem to be a little less optimistic than they were 3-4 months ago, he's remained surprisingly consistent during this PGR season being consistently ranked around 30-32. has also been ranked in a similar position this whole time as well.

Also, has dropped down to 57th, which is really surprising considering that he is usually considered a much better character than those near him like and .

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Seems as though Dabuz is looking to pick up. In addition, Zackray is using him in online now and might be playing him competitively.

Young Link 🧠👁🧠

— Liquid | Dabuz (@DabuzSenpai) February 27, 2020

 

[MrGameguycolor]

People seem awfully interested with

It's cool for Yink mains, but I'm certain this character will make top tier again one day and I'm not on board with that future...

I must have been onto something...
*pats self on back*

 

[The_Bookworm]

Seems like after Frostbite, many players are now nowadays seeking to pick up other characters.

Cosmos wants to pick up , Dabuz wants to pick up , Marss has a better interest in , WaDi is for the second time trying out , the list goes on.
This is nothing unusual with players as a whole. After big tourneys, top players tend to experiment around with other characters.

However, most of the time, I found that it usually doesn't turn out well. Ryuga's and MkLeo's are two of the biggest examples of this.

These players tend to bring out these characters for probably the first few smaller events, try them out at a bigger event, then drop them afterwards.
And the cycle continues.

So I would take these "I want to pick up 'X' character" announcements with a grain of salt, simply because it usually doesn't turn out too well.

 

[|RK|]

I wouldn't toss best Link title to YL. Both YL and BotW have proven to be able to top 8 majors.

TL would be the... *sigh* weak Link here, but even he does well in Japan. All three are high tier minimum, which is crazy progression from the days of Hyrule tier.

Alas, poor Ganondorf.

On a different note:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

He's not wrong.

 

[NairWizard]

If I had to make a top 5 "top tier," right now, it'd look something like:


"But that's 16 characters!"

It is, huh? Too bad. Okay, 5 character retry: "2hard"

 

[The_Bookworm]

If I had to make a top 5 "top tier," right now, it'd look something like:


"But that's 16 characters!"

It is, huh? Too bad. Okay, 5 character retry: "2hard"

Why is Sheik on that list?
If she is there, then should be there as they have placed top 5 in a tournament at some point more consistently (the latter of which won EVO Japan).

Edit: Or maybe I am misunderstanding your post? It seems odd to group Sheik with those other characters...

 

[Tri Knight]

All three are high tier minimum, which is crazy progression from the days of Hyrule tier.

Our revenge is nigh.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I wouldn't toss best Link title to YL. Both YL and BotW have proven to be able to top 8 majors.

TL would be the... *sigh* weak Link here, but even he does well in Japan. All three are high tier minimum, which is crazy progression from the days of Hyrule tier.

Alas, poor Ganondorf.

On a different note:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

He's not wrong.

I’m just glad people are starting to acknowledge ROB is top tier. “Bad disadvantage ” hasn’t stopped anyone before from being top tier. .

Next up, I still genuinely believe is better than he’s given credit for and will one day showcase it. Not top ten but not too far off.

 

[NotLiquid]

I’m just glad people are starting to acknowledge ROB is top tier. “Bad disadvantage ” hasn’t stopped anyone before from being top tier. .

Next up, I still genuinely believe is better than he’s given credit for and will one day showcase it. Not top ten but not too far off.

I rarely see anyone downplaying Yoshi. He's had results across the entirety of the year to back his qualities up (ranked in the low #20 range on Orionstats, above Pikachu across all seasons).

What is more fair to say is that people just don't seem to want to talk about him, and there's probably a few reasons for it. He's "Buttons: The Character", meaning that for a lot of people YMMV on whether that makes him either intrinsically boring to talk about, or intrinsically annoying to think about.

 

[NairWizard]

Why is Sheik on that list?
If she is there, then should be there as they have placed top 5 in a tournament at some point more consistently (the latter of which won EVO Japan).

Edit: Or maybe I am misunderstanding your post? It seems odd to group Sheik with those other characters...

It's just that I think Sheik is a contender for top 5-10, but I don't have the same faith in those other 4 characters,

Before Frostbite, Void made a 7.0.0 Sheik matchup chart. Here's the reference:

Many top players make matchup charts, but Void's one of the best "theory" players the game has. He really understands the mechanics of basically any game he plays, and it shows in his reasoning. If you watch his stream you'll see that he actually practices what he preaches, too.

There was even solid evidence for his theories at Frostbite. Who did Void lose to? Tweek's Pokemon Trainer, which he lists as a -2 matchup, and Light's Fox, which he lists as a -1 matchup. The loss to Fox was in a close game 5 situation. And while Pokemon Trainer looks like Sheik's hardest matchup, it didn't look insurmountable at all--it seemed like Tweek was never for sure in the lead in any single game, and was getting camped and having to make risky reads with every single Pokemon. Meanwhile, Void beat Zackray and Goblin with exactly the tools he described on stream, such as whiff punishing Roy's sword swings.

Sheik is by far the best character in the game against swords. Sword users just can't do much against a Sheik who is devoted to camping.

But that's not all. Just think about Sheik for a bit.

1) She has Mario-level startup frame data (as in, among the best in the game) with higher overall mobility (worse air speed but better accel, run speed, and initial dash, +Bouncing Fish as a burst option) and needles that confirm into dash attack off the ground (15-20% for a mostly unpunishable neutral non-commitment). This makes her so good at camping that almost every character in the game has to approach her. Only small characters and a handful of strange exceptions (such as Pacman) are exempt. At even percents, Sheik is basically "in the lead."

2) Her reward off of stray hits is huge. She gets one f-tilt or one needle conversion and you're taking 35-45% damage, even more than you would from some Pika loops, and she's way better at ledgetrapping than 90% of the cast. If you're a floaty, forget about beating Sheik--your disadvantage is going to get mauled and kill confirms work on you for huge windows. So many good characters are floaties in this game. Peach and ROB, two characters in contention for top tier, likely have -2 matchups vs. Sheik.

3) She's got KO confirms off of multiple unreactable moves both in the air and on the ground.

Wrecking an entire archetype of character (swords) and an entire subset of characters with a particular character attribute (floatiness), and making almost all of the rest have to approach in neutral, with so, so, so much room to develop, just roars top-tier to me.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

https://youtu.be/55JgWQD__rI

I’m just glad people are starting to acknowledge ROB is top tier. “Bad disadvantage ” hasn’t stopped anyone before from being top tier. .

Next up, I still genuinely believe is better than he’s given credit for and will one day showcase it. Not top ten but not too far off.

ROB is often still kinda overlooked despite his results due to the "bad disadvantage stigma" and that by design does not seem to have a top-tier MU spread"on paper"
At first glance many characters considered top-tiers should beat him hard.

However and discussion on how an MU with ROB should go can burn in flames when he can get into advantage once and delete stocks.

Take his set of Zackray vs Nietono at Frostbite

Many people who do not think of ROB's advanage state. may say
Oh wins this MU, he can just combo R.O.B all day and will take stocks easy in advantage

But R.O.B in can kill Pichu far easier and earlier and Pichu could .

 

[Y2Kay]

It's just that I think Sheik is a contender for top 5-10, but I don't have the same faith in those other 4 characters,

Before Frostbite, Void made a 7.0.0 Sheik matchup chart. Here's the reference:

Many top players make matchup charts, but Void's one of the best "theory" players the game has. He really understands the mechanics of basically any game he plays, and it shows in his reasoning. If you watch his stream you'll see that he actually practices what he preaches, too.

There was even solid evidence for his theories at Frostbite. Who did Void lose to? Tweek's Pokemon Trainer, which he lists as a -2 matchup, and Light's Fox, which he lists as a -1 matchup. The loss to Fox was in a close game 5 situation. And while Pokemon Trainer looks like Sheik's hardest matchup, it didn't look insurmountable at all--it seemed like Tweek was never for sure in the lead in any single game, and was getting camped and having to make risky reads with every single Pokemon. Meanwhile, Void beat Zackray and Goblin with exactly the tools he described on stream, such as whiff punishing Roy's sword swings.

Sheik is by far the best character in the game against swords. Sword users just can't do much against a Sheik who is devoted to camping.

But that's not all. Just think about Sheik for a bit.

1) She has Mario-level startup frame data (as in, among the best in the game) with higher overall mobility (worse air speed but better accel, run speed, and initial dash, +Bouncing Fish as a burst option) and needles that confirm into dash attack off the ground (15-20% for a mostly unpunishable neutral non-commitment). This makes her so good at camping that almost every character in the game has to approach her. Only small characters and a handful of strange exceptions (such as Pacman) are exempt. At even percents, Sheik is basically "in the lead."

2) Her reward off of stray hits is huge. She gets one f-tilt or one needle conversion and you're taking 35-45% damage, even more than you would from some Pika loops, and she's way better at ledgetrapping than 90% of the cast. If you're a floaty, forget about beating Sheik--your disadvantage is going to get mauled and kill confirms work on you for huge windows. So many good characters are floaties in this game. Peach and ROB, two characters in contention for top tier, likely have -2 matchups vs. Sheik.

3) She's got KO confirms off of multiple unreactable moves both in the air and on the ground.

Wrecking an entire archetype of character (swords) and an entire subset of characters with a particular character attribute (floatiness), and making almost all of the rest have to approach in neutral, with so, so, so much room to develop, just roars top-tier to me.

That’s not the MU spread of top tier, imo.

How many matchups do y’all think Greninja lose? And how badly? I’m curious. I know I get dismissed as an optimist for the character, but a lot of these characters people believe are better have wayyyy more losing MU’s than I can even fathom tbh. Hate to make every conversation about my character, was just wondering.

 

[Zinith]

I rarely see anyone downplaying Yoshi. He's had results across the entirety of the year to back his qualities up (ranked in the low #20 range on Orionstats, above Pikachu across all seasons).

What is more fair to say is that people just don't seem to want to talk about him, and there's probably a few reasons for it. He's "Buttons: The Character", meaning that for a lot of people YMMV on whether that makes him either intrinsically boring to talk about, or intrinsically annoying to think about.

"Buttons: The Character?" As opposed to what? "VR: The Character?"

Or is it that with Yoshi it's a situation of "if you get 300 monkeys maining different characters in Smash in a room, one will be competitively viable and it's most likely a Yoshi player?" Being "boring to talk about" or "annoying to think about" didn't stop conversation of similar characters before...

 

[Rizen]

's disadvantage is a meme that needs to die. ROB doesn't do anywhere near as bad as the super heavies because he has one of the best stall games in the air. ROB can hover offstage with an upB that doesn't freefall and shoot things to create an opening to the ledge or stall above the stage and land with Nair, which is so big it's hard to punish. ROB has proven over and over that he's a top tier threat who's not weighed down by bad MUs or a bad disadvantage. I do admit that he gets ledge trapped hard however.

 

[NairWizard]

That’s not the MU spread of top tier, imo.

How many matchups do y’all think Greninja lose? And how badly? I’m curious. I know I get dismissed as an optimist for the character, but a lot of these characters people believe are better have wayyyy more losing MU’s than I can even fathom tbh. Hate to make every conversation about my character, was just wondering.

I think that most matchup charts are way off base to be honest. You have mkleo claiming that joker only loses like 4 matchups in the game and Lucina only 5. Those are both top characters but nether of these seem reasonable at all to me for a game as balanced as this one. I think that even the top of top tiers lose close to ten matchups or more if we are being completely objective.

If you think Greninja loses fewer than that then I think your perspective differs from mine on what constitutes a losing matchup, and I probably can’t reconcile that difference in the space of a few posts.

Void’s matchup chart is very reasonable and what I expect a top 5 character’s chart to look like.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Calling and top-tier is a bit far-fetched for now. For that, they have to get these results consistently (hello, ). However, mid-tiers and low-tiers don't get such results at the highest(?) stacked tournament of Ultimate's history, right after EVO.

Also, placed identical as Void's here. Is he top-tier? I doubt that but most, if not all players, consider Luigi as a high-tier now.

Speaking of high-tier: I think gained this "title" now as well and should never be considered lower than that. BestNess, Gackt and FOW all have very remarkable results (even though FOW doesn't attend outside of Vegas and very rarely SoCal) and the accumulated results at the OrionStats don't seem to be shabby either.

 

[Minordeth]

If I had to make a top 5 "top tier," right now, it'd look something like:


"But that's 16 characters!"

It is, huh? Too bad. Okay, 5 character retry: "2hard"

Yes.

Although... I'd replace GnW with Chrom.

Or Greninja. Or both.

Maister is really good, and GnW is, too. However, I'm not convinced he is quite up there. Watching MX tournies, or even just Vertex, demonstrates how hard GnW can struggle if the opponent doesn't hold forward when he just barely resists approaching.

But, eh, it doesn't kill me for him to be placed in top tier. Unlike some characters.

*cough**cough*

I think that most matchup charts are way off base to be honest. You have mkleo claiming that joker only loses like 4 matchups in the game and Lucina only 5. Those are both top characters but nether of these seem reasonable at all to me for a game as balanced as this one. I think that even the top of top tiers lose close to ten matchups or more if we are being completely objective.

If you think Greninja loses fewer than that then I think your perspective differs from mine on what constitutes a losing matchup, and I probably can’t reconcile that difference in the space of a few posts.

Void’s matchup chart is very reasonable and what I expect a top 5 character’s chart to look like.

Also: YES.

Matchup charts in Ult are just godawful. From the hilarious "55:45" to the "even but it's hard" designation, players are just not great at evaluating matchups in a comprehensive way.

How many times have I seen an MU chart where a character has a winning MU because "[Nameless-character-chu] wrecks them offstage" or some equally one-dimensional reason.

Finally, yes to Sheik being top tier-ish. I'm sick of the Twittersphere telling me that insane frame data + insane projectile + insane mobility + stupid damage + stupid kill confirms = Mid tier lol.

Sheik is a dumb character, and she's been low-key buffed to be dumb again because her adoption rate lags behind her capabilities.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Yes.

Although... I'd replace GnW with Chrom.

Or Greninja. Or both.

Maister is really good, and GnW is, too. However, I'm not convinced he is quite up there. Watching MX tournies, or even just Vertex, demonstrates how hard GnW can struggle if the opponent doesn't hold forward when he just barely resists approaching.

But, eh, it doesn't kill me for him to be placed in top tier. Unlike some characters.

*cough**cough*




Also: YES.

Matchup charts in Ult are just godawful. From the hilarious "55:45" to the "even but it's hard" designation, players are just not great at evaluating matchups in a comprehensive way.

How many times have I seen an MU chart where a character has a winning MU because "[Nameless-character-chu] wrecks them offstage" or some equally one-dimensional reason.

Finally, yes to Sheik being top tier-ish. I'm sick of the Twittersphere telling me that insane frame data + insane projectile + insane mobility + stupid damage + stupid kill confirms = Mid tier lol.

Sheik is a dumb character, and she's been low-key buffed to be dumb again because her adoption rate lags behind her capabilities.

So, what about Samsora's MU chart?

 

[The_Bookworm]

It is interesting to see some optimism after VoiD's performance (even though some other non-top tier characters like did just as good or better than her at Frostbite), but also have that said optimism go as high as top tier.

However I remain conservative about the character "suddenly, the character high tier!" (let alone top tier), especially to due to one thing that not a lot of people are bringing up.
That thing is matchup experience. I don't think anyone from that tournament had any matchup experience against , because barely anyone plays her, let alone at a high level like VoiD does.
matchup experience? Well hop on WiFi and count how many there are there, plus there being much more offline Zelda players than Sheik players.
on the other hand? Uh... There is VoiD, and..... uh... Sharp from New England? That is pretty much it, aside from Kameme using her as a rare secondary.

This is also reflected on VoiD's match against Light. Discarding the first game against , VoiD's then won games 2 & 3 last stock and semi-last hit.
Light then putted the petal-on-the-metal, winning game 4 last stock but still somewhat commanding, then proceeds to 3-stock VoiD on game 5 to win the set. Light adapted to matchup quite well.

The players he did beat, such as Goblin and Zackray, also have a rather less than optimal record against random rare characters in the game (for example Zackray has a pretty notoriously poor record against Ice Climber players). This is not to downplay on VoiD's performance, because he played amazing during that tournament. However, in the meantime, I personally think Sheik's high performance on that tournament is contributed to mostly matchup inexperience and VoiD himself being an amazing player.

There is also the issue that Sheik is still an inherently flawed character. If she isn't putting you in a combo, her damage per hit is still meme'fully low, she is still a very light character for a non-glass cannon character, and her KO potential is still inconsistent (sometimes she can just nail the KO confirm or edgeguard, or they will live until very high percents).
While having top tier frame data is very nice (as well as great mobility specs), it isn't really too special in a game of Ultimate where everyone's frame data is much faster and can actually compete with Sheik's frame data, unlike previous games where no one is even comparable to her frame data (aside from Luigi and Brawl MK, but Luigi is sluggish on the air and Brawl MK is... Brawl MK). There are also characters in this game with more consistent/stronger punish games while not dying to a sneeze.


So I would still hold off from jumping into any conclusions about the character until we more consistent results from VoiD and/or her playerbase grow as a result.
Frostbite 2020 as a whole was a circus act of random upsets and surprising character picks, so I personally would avoid using that tournament alone as a basis for why a character is better than other people think.


I am not saying that it is wrong to theorycraft about a character, as who knows, maybe Sheik reps and consistent results may increase as a result (no one can see into the future), but I am saying that we should show a shed of conservation when talking about a pop-up performance such as this, especially since something like this has happened before with VoiD at first placing high with Sheik, then trailing off afterwards.

 

[Vyrnx]

I was planning on making a post about how little faith I have in any "widely regarded" top 4/10/20/whatever, especially after Frostbite, but it seems like that conversation already started, so here are several characters who I think go under the radar and are probably way better than they're generally considered to be:

When I was planning this post I was going to post VoiD's MU chart and go through it, but SolidSense just did, so I'll only add--when VoiD was doing his MU chart he started off with what was basically, "I'm going to automatically list all sword characters, floaties, and big bodies as winning MUs for Sheik, and then maybe reevaluate them case-by-case as I go." Similarly, small characters were automatically assumed to be losing MUs, and then were reconsidered individually. Now, of the very large portion of the cast that falls under at least one of the three "auto-win" categories and isn't a small character, Rosalina, Yoshi, Pacman and Ice Climbers were the only characters he did not leave in a +1 or better category. In other words, VoiD thinks Sheik auto-wins vs a ton of characters.

Sheik's combos are indeed locked behind an execution barrier, but for the players who have overcome it--VoiD, Charliedaking, etc.--they're getting low percent combos that do over 40, but a more uncommon trait when compared to the rest of the cast is that Sheik's mid percent combos also do up to 40% or so, with a strong potential for extensions or even a kill confirm at the end. On that same note, I already made a post about this--but Sheik is way better at killing in Ultimate than in Smash 4, and for an in-game comparison, she's netting kills at lower percents than Peach. She also has an ability to rob stocks at startlingly low percents, a trait that several characters lost between titles.

Dabuz thinks Diddy is a top tier. That's already a pretty big deal, because this is Dabuz we're talking about, and he's often right about these things. I wish I could find the clip where he talked about this during Frostbite commentary, but the gist of it was: his neutral is among the best in the game, he's tough to whiff punish because of low endlags and the speed with which his hurtboxes retract, and when he plays Dakpo or Aaron online and they're doing everything right it feels incredibly hard to beat.

But Aaron (formerly Dyr), Zinoto, and Dakpo (iirc) also all think that Diddy is in the top 15 range (i.e. top tier)--the mains of this character and the people who play against these mains all have high opinions of him. Add in the fact that Aaron dismantled Kome and was very close to beating Shuton (and though Dyr is an amazing player, he's not at the level of Kome or Shuton, the top two at EVO Japan)--this character should have our attention.

Especially with her shield buff, I don't see much holding Rosa back--she's obviously incredibly strong and nearly won a supermajor last patch via Dabuz, who himself has a high opinion of the character.

Watch Wrath vs Glutonny. That set was kind of a wash, and he made this character look ridiculous. Many of the "best" characters in this game primarily abuse strong midrange options--Peach ground float bair, Wairo or Wolf high air speed into any safe aerial, Zero Suit's everything, etc.--but Sonic doesn't engage your midrange game at all. He punishes you for even trying to play it with a slew of unreactable options from a ~1/3 to 1/2 stage length away. Wrath was double eliminated by Tea at Frostbite, but blew through everyone else--I would've loved to see him vs Leo.

I have a high opinion of the four characters above also because their character designs were already proven top tier in Smash 4. It's not going to take much to put them back up there.

Samus got every improvement she needed in Smash 4 and then some, including a zair that as of this patch is just amazing. quiK is a full-time Smash player now and won a B tier over the weekend. Of the characters I listed, this is maybe the least likely sleeper top tier, but with the buffs she just got and the fact that she was an already good character, I don't think it's impossible. I'm expecting to see a lot more from the character in the future.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

This thread is the kind of thread to theorycraft about Sheik being top tier because of VoiD's performance recently, yet not even think Pikachu is top 10 despite how much more consistent ESAM has been recently. Just because VoiD had a good run doesn't mean he'll be consistent with it. He had a great Mainstage performance, but after that was getting stuff like 65th at Kongo Saga. I still have doubts and is skeptical on Sheik unless VoiD continues having good runs.

 

[BitBitio]

is probably top 2, maybe 1 at this point. She has excellent framedata, good hitboxes and range, some nutty setups, a get of of jail free card/kill option/recovery tool/kill setup/mobility tool, a good recovery, great KO power, an amazing airgame, and top 5 mobility. Freaking broken

 

[Diddy Kong]

If I had to make a top 5 "top tier," right now, it'd look something like:


"But that's 16 characters!"

It is, huh? Too bad. Okay, 5 character retry: "2hard"

Why is Sheik there?

Personally I'd go for a list like this:



With strong runner ups as;

And characters who are at least competitively viable , but less so and might need an actual Top Tier secondary;

And I think this just about sums up all the characters with a good chance of winning majors.

Surprise factor might go to;

That's more than 1/3rd of the roster. So that's pretty great.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well to play devils advocate Characters considered top-tier like had somewhat undetwhelming performances at Frostbite yet no one really says amything about that. Especially when their resutls hsvr not been all that consistent for a while now

 

[NotLiquid]

Well to play devils advocate Characters considered top-tier like had somewhat undetwhelming performances at Frostbite yet no one really says amything about that. Especially when their resutls hsvr not been all that consistent for a while now

Snake's results have always been good. That's the danger of looking at majors in a vacuum, he pulls in numbers that are leaps ahead of most top 10 contenders and that's pretty notable given it's in spite of lacking a PGR rep on the level of any other top tier candidate. Even a character like ROB gets the spotlight for having Zackray.

Lucina's results have generally zig-zagged the most throughout Ultimate's history out of those three partially because she's buoyed heavily by being the easiest character to pick as a secondary, despite only a handful of notable players using her as a dedicated main.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Japanese meta sure seems different:

配信見てくれた人、協力してくれたクロ(@_kuro258 )さんとEim(@eim09ssbu )さん、ありがとうございました。
一応完成したキャラランクはこちらとなりますが、キャラランク作成は過程を楽しむものだと思うので怒らないでください。
返信しないかもだけど意見ある人(特に上位勢)はどうぞ！(面白いので) pic.twitter.com/zU5d28tp3N

— ぱせりまん (@Paseriman98) February 28, 2020

Samus, WFT, Zelda all super slow but hey, at least near bottom tier chars can make do well at majors.

 

[NairWizard]

This thread is the kind of thread to theorycraft about Sheik being top tier because of VoiD's performance recently, yet not even think Pikachu is top 10 despite how much more consistent ESAM has been recently

It has nothing to do with their performance; it has everything to do with watching them play the game. I see Void play the game and I genuinely see some degenerate things.

I see ESAM play the game and I see a player making reads left and right in advantage.

Pikachu might be top 10 just because of the number of characters who claim to have him as their worst matchup--it would be hard to argue them all down. But having played this character for something like 5 years in S4, I have a hard time believing those matchup charts. People did the same thing in S4, for very similar reasons ("he's so small, can't hit him, gets free edgeguards").

---------

I don't personally give a lot of weight to results in these discussions. I mean, results as the most important objective measure we have, but they're also conversation-enders sometimes; if we wanted to get a good picture of what top 5 and top 10 looks like, OrionStats is there and Das Koopa does a great job maintaining it; very little need to add anything to the stats. But mostly, results validate theories for me, or indicate that theories need closer examination when they don't match.

I understand the conservatism. Sometimes (most of the time), theory is wrong. It has to be done right to have any value. For example, if "ROB is losing matchups on paper, but winning them in practice," then maybe we're putting down the wrong things on paper. Too often when people are wrong they go, "well I guess this means that the theory doesn't matter," instead of going back, re-evaluating why they were wrong, and fixing their theory going forward.

But some players, like Dabuz and Void, are constantly re-evaluating their theories and figuring out where they went wrong before. When a player like Dabuz says that Diddy is top tier, I'm inclined to consider his stance, even if we don't have the backing results to prove it.


Bit of a tangent about results in spoiler tags:

Spoiler

I don't want to bark up this tree too far, but there's so much that goes into results beyond just character strength. Player mentality is the number one thing. Tournaments are slogs; national tournaments are huge slogs. The player with the most stamina and best mentality almost always wins. The player with the most practice who can still perform just as well despite playing 10 hours will beat the player without practice who's exhausted in winners finals.

Then you have bracket luck, matchup experience, etc. Some of these things average out with enough representation and with a large enough sample size--both things that we don't have given this huge character roster and the relatively low number of tournaments we have per year (dozens at the regional+ level; we'd need hundreds or thousands to speak with certainty with this big of a cast--OrionStats cleverly counts usage data as an important metric to get around this, but it's still not completely accurate).

Character strength is probably the lowest on the list, right above or probably tied with stage counterpicking. In a very tightly balanced game (like this one), character strength doesn't really matter that much until you get to the lower tiers. But the top 30-40% of the cast, or even 50% of the cast in this game? It's so hard to tell who could potentially win a major, or why they're getting the results that they're getting.

Sheik's combos are indeed locked behind an execution barrier, but for the players who have overcome it--VoiD, Charliedaking, etc.--they're getting low percent combos that do over 40, but a more uncommon trait when compared to the rest of the cast is that Sheik's mid percent combos also do up to 40% or so, with a strong potential for extensions or even a kill confirm at the end. On that same note, I already made a post about this--but Sheik is way better at killing in Ultimate than in Smash 4, and for an in-game comparison, she's netting kills at lower percents than Peach. She also has an ability to rob stocks at startlingly low percents, a trait that several characters lost between titles.

This exactly. It's the numbers that make me consider Sheik to be strong. I see Void taking someone from 0 to 44 and then getting another hit and going from 44 to 86 and then possibly confirming into a kill from it. And this is off of safe, unreactable neutral tools; Sheik barely takes any risk to get those kinds of numbers. That's insane to me.

There is also the issue that Sheik is still an inherently flawed character. If she isn't putting you in a combo, her damage per hit is still meme'fully low, she is still a very light character for a non-glass cannon character, and her KO potential is still inconsistent (sometimes she can just nail the KO confirm or edgeguard, or they will live until very high percents).

Most of these things also apply to Joker, except that Joker does less damage per string and doesn't have needles to force engagements (Eiha and gun are not nearly as good). Of course, Joker has Arsene, but you can run from Arsene, which no one at Frostbite seemed willing to do--Tweek kept engaging Arsene Joker and taking 60% each time, instead of waiting it out. Joker also takes a bit more risk to get some of his conversions--he has to run in and dash grab, but on the flip side, Void was getting Needles -> Dash attack on characters that Sheik can camp out well (such as Game and Watch) and doing like 15% or more for each conversion. Needles is barely a commitment at all against slower characters.

Sheik also has the potential to get kills earlier than almost anyone else with a similar design with the right confirm, so while her KOing happens at inconsistent percent ranges, it averages out to be just as good or even better than some of the other top characters.

It's true that he got 3-stocked by Light, but I notice that he lost almost every single neutral interaction in that matchup, and he went for a lot of f-air, getting stuffed out by Fox shielding and up-tilting and b-airing (actually Void even went for an f-air while Fox was b-airing at the ledge, and died for it). Sheik spamming f-airs just doesn't look as strong to me as Sheik needle-camping. If that turns out to be her only viable approach in the Fox matchup, then I'll concede that it looks pretty bad, but I think that she can build a strong game around shield (n-air oos, drop shield f-tilt, probably not grab?) in this MU. It's definitely at least -1 though, just as Void theorized.

Meanwhile in that very game where he got 3-stocked I also see things like this: https://youtu.be/Zhj1W4ae3-E?t=1053

This could have been DIed, but it also looks like a basic juggle that you should get reasonably often if you read the DI, and Sheik took Fox from 28% to 71%, and this would have killed with just a bit more percent on Fox.

Yes

.

Although... I'd replace GnW with Chrom.

Or Greninja. Or both.

Maister is really good, and GnW is, too. However, I'm not convinced he is quite up there. Watching MX tournies, or even just Vertex, demonstrates how hard GnW can struggle if the opponent doesn't hold forward when he just barely resists approaching.

But, eh, it doesn't kill me for him to be placed in top tier. Unlike some characters.

It's just that Game and Watch shuts down so many characters with short range or heavily projectile-reliant characters "automatically." I give a lot of value to characters with "free-win" matchups. Game and Watch looks like Samus' worst matchup, and Pikachu's worst matchup, and one of Ness' worst matchups, and one of Mario's worst matchups, and probably Peach's worst matchup, and Pichu's worst matchup, and one of Inkling's hardest matchups, and Zackray actually refuses to go ROB against Game and Watch at all, and.... the list just keeps going on.

I also think that he has tools to deal with camping--we saw Dabuz camping Maister very heavily, and Dabuz is one of the premiere campers in the game, but Maister still managed to win that set, using a combination of shield/b-air/n-air/f-tilt.

It's also somewhat telling that MKleo put the Lucina-GnW matchup as even on his MU chart, even though swords are theoretically Game and Watch's biggest weakneses.

But I'll agree that many players aren't playing the matchup correctly.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Next up, I still genuinely believe is better than he’s given credit for and will one day showcase it. Not top ten but not too far off.

I actually agree. He seems like a solid high tier to me and he has a lot of good things going for him.

• Frame data that rivals characters like and .
• Among the best overall attributes in the game along with and
  • 1st fastest air speed
  • 76th fastest fall speed (compliments air speed)
  • 14th fastest air acceleration
  • 21st highest weight
  • 64th highest gravity
  • 26th fastest walk speed
  • 18th fastest run speed
  • 29th fastest initial dash
• Decent kill power (n-air, up-smash, up-air, f-air, down-smash)
• Strong combos and juggles
• Solid neutral
• Hard to hit
• Hard to edgeguard recovery
• Strong edgeguarding game
• Decent OOS game (mostly due to n-air)
• Strong matchup spread overall (loses to swords and Palu, but goes even with or wins against notable characters like among others)
• High survivability

IMO, Yoshi is at least top 25. His results back this up as well (currently 24th on OrionStats). Unlike with where he went down with time, I actually think that could actually get better results and opinions of him might improve with time since he's much more versatile and has been getting much more consistent results than in Smash 4.