Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[DougEfresh]

I suppose I'll try to indulge the continued Zelda MU discussion and elaborate on my thoughts of the Zelda MU with both my characters.

/: Even. Lucario has the mobility to get around neutral against Zelda most of the time, but we do need to be cautious with our approaches to get in on her and be sure we're mixing things up to maximize survivability against her. Up air is now really strong and can kill early off of jump reads, and a released phantom from mid-range can also catch our jumps well, too. We need to be cautious about AS usage because of nayru's love of course, but we can use the projectile to bait that out and get punishes or at least close the gap more. We can combo her well with up throw combos, and tools like cross-up bair and b-reverse AS are strong tools for punishing Zelda trying to set up phantom too close to us. In my experience, getting off ledge against Zelda is the trickiest thing in this MU for Luc, but outside of that, I think we should be able to live long enough to use aura as long as we don't mash on her shield to get sweetspot fair'd/bair'd or get jump happy only to get caught by up air. She's light, so killing her is also relatively easier as well and I think our ledge trapping strong enough to take stocks more reliably and rely less on risky reads to do this.

/: Even. Banjo can struggle a bit more to get past Zelda's phantom zoning in neutral because of his lacking aerial speed/approach options, but rear egg can help to neutralize the wall a bit to steadily close in on her, and once he does, he can really do a number on Zelda and rack up decent percent quickly. This is good for us and bad for Zelda, since again, she's light and Banjo is pretty heavy. Rear egg can be used as a bait tool for nayru's love much like Lucario's aura sphere, and if the bait is taken, we can just go for wonderwing to take the stock or set up a ledge trap/edgeguard situation. I feel like both can kind of struggle against the other's ledge trapping, but I'm not super experienced in this MU with Banjo in all honesty. Either way, it doesn't appear to me that there's much either character has that clearly swings the match up in their favor. That's all I got.

Stay tuned for my next post, in which I'll be elaborating on more MUs from Banjo's perspective in the near future once I've grinded a few more of them out to give thoughtful explanations on them!

 

[NairWizard]

Some thoughts on the Zelda-Charizard matchup since people seem so interested. I think both sides make some good points, but here are some others to round it out:

• Someone mentioned above that Zelda and Charizard play at different ranges, because Zelda has Phantom and isn't good against shield. This is true, but as always with characters who play at different ranges, the faster character has an advantage because the faster character can get into its preferred range more easily. In this case, Charizard can use that fast run/dash speed to put Zelda in a situation where Charizard is shielding at a distance where Zelda can't easily set up Phantom, and Zelda doesn't have good tools against that shield.
• Zelda does commit less than Charizard, but that's just because time commitment at a greater distance away is almost always lower, and usually doesn't mean that overall commitment in the neutral is lower. For example, Samus commits less than Roy when each is at their preferred spacing distance, but I'd say that Roy wins the neutral in that matchup pretty handily and that Roy commits less overall.
  • Getting away from a fast character to exercise your range advantage involves commitment--if you have any kind of firm stage control you have to corner yourself or give up center (which commits the stage), and if you don't, then you have to make a risky play like roll or aggressive option while cornered (which commits frames).
• Pokemon switch is almost entirely in the hands of the PT player, meaning that Charizard chooses when he gets to come out. It will likely happen when Zelda is offstage, in the air, or otherwise in disadvantage, so Charizard, on coming out, will immediately have stage control (this isn't always true, though, sometimes Ivysaur is forced into the switch).
• Charizard lands from a full hop in 48 frames, whereas Zelda lands in 56, a whopping 8 frames later. So if Charizard jumps and Zelda jumps, Charizard commits way less. Flamethrower makes the difference even bigger, though there's counterplay to it.
• For landing, Charizard has options that heavies typically don't, such as an f3 airdodge (heavies usually have f4), an extra jump, and an f1 switch to a smaller hurtbox. His hurtbox also isn't as big as you would think.

I could see it easily leaning toward Charizard, but ultimately it doesn't matter since you don't fight Charizard--you fight PT.

Squirtle and Ivysaur seem to lean toward Zelda favor. Squirtle is in the Pikachu archetype which Zelda does great against, and Ivysaur is just too slow and Razor Leaf doesn't do enough in the MU after its nerfs. So the matchup overall could be either slight Zelda favor or even.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

I actually played a good zelda as PT and....I couldn't catch her. She had an amazing keep away game, and when I put up shield she easily caught me in grab because she was at a distance where phantom was fully charged or so and she could react later using phantom as a trap option. (In other words if I dropped shield to avoid grab I'd get hit by phantom, if I kept shield up to block phantom I got grabbed) this could be because of my generally poor spacing options and Zelda's overall superior air mobility (she kept jumping out of range.)

 

[NairWizard]

Yeah, that definitely will happen. In almost every matchup (minus Isabelle/Villager, and even then there's counterplay), Zelda Phantoming you is a bad time. If you're already at a range where Zelda is using Phantom, you've likely lost neutral, even with a reflector. You can't really shield it, you can't short hop past it, you can't usually challenge it, you have no choice but to forfeit stage control.

Phantom is quite beautiful in that way--a neutral forcing mechanic unlike any other.

except spindash

 

[Rizen]

's problem is phantom only travels about half of BF: not very far. Unless you get cornered it's fairly easy to see phantom coming and wait out of range. Zelda's a good defensive character but falls apart when she has to be the aggressor.

I agree the MU chart seemed optimistic and probably wins that match. On paper Zelda has good anti-zoning tools with Nayru's and phantom. But YL's zoning tools are better. It's much easier to hit Zelda with arrows, especially if she tries to charge phantom, than it is for Zelda's anti-zoning to hit YL. YL has a lot of freedom to be a jerk and hop around throwing stuff at her until something hits. As I've stated: reflectors are an annoyance, not a counter, to YL. Relying on reflectors can end up getting her punished instead. Farow's can snipe YL if he's stupid but this shouldn't happen if he knows the MU. Zelda has to chase YL down and she does not have the best kit to do it.

In Zelda's defense, if she does outplay she can kill YL very early. She has better defensive tools than most characters so YL can't camp her for free; he has to be smart and stay on his toes.

Zelda wants to take YL to BF, Yoshi's Story or Lylat, the triplats. It's a lot easier to chase down YL there and he doesn't control platforms well with his dinky aerial hitboxes. YL of course likes big stages where he can be evasive like PS2 and TnC.

PS
Stages should be included more in MU discussions.

 

[The_Bookworm]

With 8158 entrants, we have a big online tournament this weekend: Le'Veon Bell and Hungrybox Presents: The Box. For simplicity sake, we are going to call this tournament simply The Box.

The vast majority of the top online players are going to attend this tourney, so please stay tuned.
https://smash.gg/tournament/le-veon-bell-and-hungrybox-present-the-box/event/the-box/overview

 

[Lacrimosa]

's problem is phantom only travels about half of BF: not very far. Unless you get cornered it's fairly easy to see phantom coming and wait out of range. Zelda's a good defensive character but falls apart when she has to be the aggressor.

I agree the MU chart seemed optimistic and probably wins that match. On paper Zelda has good anti-zoning tools with Nayru's and phantom. But YL's zoning tools are better. It's much easier to hit Zelda with arrows, especially if she tries to charge phantom, than it is for Zelda's anti-zoning to hit YL. YL has a lot of freedom to be a jerk and hop around throwing stuff at her until something hits. As I've stated: reflectors are an annoyance, not a counter, to YL. Relying on reflectors can end up getting her punished instead. Farow's can snipe YL if he's stupid but this shouldn't happen if he knows the MU. Zelda has to chase YL down and she does not have the best kit to do it.

In Zelda's defense, if she does outplay she can kill YL very early. She has better defensive tools than most characters so YL can't camp her for free; he has to be smart and stay on his toes.

Zelda wants to take YL to BF, Yoshi's Story or Lylat, the triplats. It's a lot easier to chase down YL there and he doesn't control platforms well with his dinky aerial hitboxes. YL of course likes big stages where he can be evasive like PS2 and TnC.

PS
Stages should be included more in MU discussions.

His reasoning here is that she can block projectiles with Phantom charging in front of her (Ace Attorney gets this tech consistently). That way, arrows rarely hit her, same with angled boomerang. He rarely uses the reflector against YL players but you'll rarely find a Zelda player that uses that which is a bummer (her meta develops slowly).
That means she can effectively push YL into a bad position or create a literal wall, pretty much the same way she's able to do with Falco. And yeah, YL still has good attributes like mobility and framedata but she doesn't get snuffed out by his arrows and boomerang like she otherwise would.

 

[StoicPhantom]

Spoiler

If Diddy is all about neutral, then Zelda is very anti-neutral in terms of how she can force most characters to deviate from their norm. Diddy isn't really an exception because he tends to want the opponent to approach and baits with his shield/banana shenanigans which something Zelda will shutdown with Phantom. RAR Phantom displacement will both provide cover against Banana and allow Zelda to return fire. This essentially shuts down any neutral that relies on camping or shield and forces the opponent to approach.

Should Diddy be force to approach, his options are rather lackluster. Shield advantage is pretty not good on most of his moves and the ones that would be ok lead to linearity issues in his approach. Bair, D-Tilt, F-Tilt, and grab come along the same plane and can be covered by Zelda's Fsmash, Nayru's Love, and Up-Tilt. Banana in hand allows Diddy mixups, but without Banana, prospects aren't great.

That being said, Diddy does a fair amount of damage when he does get in and can make up for lost ground pretty easily. But that leads into the endgame where he needs to land a kill. Diddy has lots of potential setups with Banana and Monkey Flip, but their usefulness will be greatly limited in this MU. Without those tools, he pretty much has to rely on using his kill moves in isolation. You're not likely to be killing Zelda with Diddy's aerials anytime soon, so you have to rely on Fsmash and Up-Smash. Up-Smash is quick, but limited and not safe on shield. Fsmash is powerful, but laggy. Both introduce the problem of linearity and a smart Zelda can easily bait those out.

That being said, Diddy is small and agile and can be very frustrating to hit for Zelda. She also will suffer in the endgame in terms of landing a kill and whiffs can potentially open up an opportunity for Diddy. I'm going to say that both characters will struggle in dealing with each other, so it will ultimately be down to how clever the other is in baiting their opponent.

Diddy very much reminds me of a projectile zoner and that archetype struggles against Zelda. But his size and agility is not something that archetype usually has, so I'm going to say even on this one.

Spoiler

Bowser is pretty fast for a heavy but is still laggy in the frame data department. He's not going to be able to camp against Phantom, so he's going to be forced to approach. If he approaches he also doesn't have much in that way either. Like Diddy, Bowser's shield advantage leaves much to be desired and he's going to be susceptible to Zelda's stellar OoS game. Up-Tilt can also stuff out quite a lot of Bowser's aerial moves, including Fair and Bowser Bomb.

If he hangs in the air too long or if Zelda gets a hit on him, he doesn't really have much in way of landing options that can't be stuffed with Up-air. He's pretty easily juggled in the first place, but disadvantage is not something he can come back from without significant damage.

Then you have kill time where almost all of his kill options are too laggy to risk. Bowser seems to rely on his ability to tank a lot of moves, but you can't really tank Zelda's moves. She hits like truck and even heavy characters are in danger of being flung into the blast zone. Even if he isn't killed, it puts him in disadvantage where he's very susceptible to getting edgeguarded. Phantom and Din's Fire will KO him from above the ledge, while Nayru's Love can beat his recovery from below. The daring Zelda can also trade Dair and spike him.

He is the heaviest character in the game however and has his command grab and Up-B as his saving grace(s). Up-B is good as a mixup but also risky in that it can be punished hard. His command grab is actually difficult to work around as Zelda. It's very versatile and can be used as a tomahawk grab to a general punish. This is probably his only real viable kill move in this MU. But staling will diminish it's power, so he can't just use it for everything.

Bowser's weight allows him more headroom than others in his archetype but he can't utilize it as effectively as other MUs. He has to play his cards right or Zelda will just power through him. Combined with his command grab, I'm going to put this as Zelda having a slight advantage, instead of an advantage like I normally would with this archetype.

Spoiler

Right off the bat, Luigi is dealing with a massive range deficit. Maybe if this was Smash 4 with that ridiculous grab range of his, but in Ultimate he's more spacey. And that's bad news when his opponent outranges him. Unlike his brother, Luigi does not have a versatile projectile, does not have the speed and agility, and does not have anti-Phantom tools to easily get in on Zelda. He has good jump speed and height yes, but he has pretty stubby aerials that make it difficult to work around things like Up-Tilt or Nayru's Love. His one spacing tool happens to be his Zair and that's easily outranged by Phantom.

He's also not good in the landing department and his offstage his pretty abysmal versus Zelda. Not only can she juggle him, but Side-B is pretty easily beaten by Phantom and Din's Fire, unless he lucky enough to misfire. And he has to misfire under the ledge and is still susceptible to spikes and Nayru's Love. Provided he doesn't get stuck to the side of the stage, which is death. Tornado can be a good mixup against an aggressive Zelda, but it's risky at the best of times.

One that shouldn't be underestimated about Zelda is her ability to nickle and dime. Almost all of her moves do damage in the double digits and what doesn't usually combos. Phantom in particular can do up to 17% on one hit with the last couple charges. An opponent that has difficulty approaching like Luigi can be over half-way to kill percent by the time he can successfully get in. That offsets any potential damage the opponent does to Zelda.

And yes, Luigi does have good combos that do lots of damage. But that isn't unique to this MU and he still has to kill. And that's where another big issue lies, in that his kill moves are short and they're not particularly powerful. And all of them have lots risk attached to them. They either require him to be close or to mixup in Zelda's disadvantage. Cyclone can be stuffed with Nayru's Love and it's not exactly subtle when Luigi wants to go for it. Up-B and Fsmash require a particular range that isn't something that Zelda isn't likely to be at in the first place and aren't safe on shield.

This really isn't a good MU for Luigi. The only thing you can really say for him is he has combos. But those require putting Zelda in disadvantage in the first place. Which is something he's clearly going to struggle with.

Definitely an advantage for Zelda.

Spoiler

The trend with Zelda shutting down camping continues and RAR Phantom displacement will shutdown Aura Sphere and put Lucario in a tight spot. He does have tricks with B-reverse and the like but the ability to detach from Phantom will make that more risky. He weirdly has an effective counter against Phantom where he can counter from across the stage but Zelda can also shield it so maybe not that effective after all.

Once that is shutdown, Lucario will have to approach like the others. Nair is actually pretty good on shield, if a bit tricky to time, and can lead to proper shield pressure. It's also realistically his only safe approach option and runs into linearity issues. That startup time can potentially lead to preempts from an aware Zelda. This tends to cause a weird dance between the two where Lucario tries to bait Zelda into approaching or move in behind her. Neither being something Zelda needs to allow happen.

Once Aura starts building then things like Bair really get online and Zelda is in danger of dying earlier than she normally would. But at the same time, when Aura starts becoming dangerous is when almost everyone of Zelda's kill moves are optimal. It kind of becomes a similar game as Charizard where the first to screw up loses. But Lucario still needs setups to avoid risky attempts and Zelda has more versatile kill options. This also completely moot if she manages to get an early kill.

Neither character really can exploit or suffers the others disadvantage/advantage tbh. You might have a case where Zelda can take advantage Extreme Speed's startup to to successfully edgeguard, but that is tricky timing and can be pretty risky in some scenarios.

I'd say even to slight advantage for Zelda.

Spoiler

This one of the few MUs where the opponent can shutdown Phantom camping. Wonder Wing will bulldoze through all forms of Phantom thanks to it's very generous I-frames. This leaves Zelda unable to safely use it at any distance other than long range where she can tank the sourspot. But it also means that BK must be more conservative than usual or it's back to business as usual. Should BK use up too much, all forms of projectile zoning will be shutdown. But that doesn't mean Phantom is completely offline and a smart Zelda can sneak some in here and there to keep BK from being comfortable.

The rest is honestly difficult to figure out. BK has good disjoints that can poke shields, but doesn't have much in the way of approaching. He can be covered by projectiles but getting too close can lead to him getting preempted. He may be diet Snake in that regard, but he's not Snake. Dash attack and grab are good but linear and can be worked around.

Zelda can combo him pretty hard in return and the second Wonder Wing goes offline the game shifts heavily in her favor. BK is highly vulnerable to her edgeguard options without it and doesn't have much in the way of safely dealing with Phantom. She can kill fairly easily but he can't really in return without a grab or projectile setup. It also doesn't help that Nayru can reflect his projectiles back at him and potentially blow him up at close range.

I feel like Wonder Wing is too much of BK's advantage in this MU to really rate this even. It'd be one thing if he didn't have to rely on it to recover, but successful ledge traps on Zelda's part can make him burn through rather quickly.

Probably slight advantage to Zelda.

Spoiler

Like Link, RAR Phantom displacement completely shuts down his projectile game (except bombs). Unlike Link, YL doesn't have a busted Nair and Bair or has the range Link has. He also can't use his bombs to safely edgeguard Zelda or setup traps as easily. He can't use them to recover as well either. Not if doesn't want to eat Phantom or Din's Fire. His Up-B also isn't near as potent in terms of trapping and recovery.

With zoning shutdown, he has to approach and his tiny hitboxs are going to be an issue. Yes he's very fast, but he still has to travel to Zelda eventually. There's no need for Zelda to try and chase him down because he dies so early compared to her. All it takes is one good hit to KO him and his recovery is pretty bad. His ground moves have poor shield advantage and his aerial moves require him to get dangerously close.

What he does have is a tether grab (Zair) and his bombs allow him to have an active hitbox covering him. Those are annoying for Zelda to deal with up close and can provide him some cover. Then the one thing he does have over Link in this MU is advantage. He's very good at keeping Zelda in disadvantage and racking up some insane combos. It's a lot of technical stress on the YL's part but he can do some pretty devastating things. If he can survive neutral he can quickly make for some lost ground and he has plenty of kill setups that disallow Zelda to squirrel away like she normally does at kill percent.

But one mistake on his part can reset things back to the iffy neutral. And he dies so easily. So I might have to give a slight advantage to Zelda.

Charizard can use that fast run/dash speed to put Zelda in a situation where Charizard is shielding at a distance where Zelda can't easily set up Phantom, and Zelda doesn't have good tools against that shield.

If we are talking about Zelda approaching a shield like I was, then yeah she doesn't have much in the way pressuring shields at that range. If we are talking about the opponent approaching and going into shield, that's a different story. It's pointless for Zelda to ever approach a shield without Phantom, because Phantom is always going to be a better option. That's why Charizard's OoS options are irrelevant. But if he forces such a situation, that's another matter entirely.

Should Charizard and Zelda get into a shield war, Zelda has the better options. If Charizard runs up and shields, then Zelda can shield a bit later. Charizard's shield is naturally going to run out faster. Meaning, he's going to be forced to attack first or retreat with a roll. Should he attack first, he has Fair, Nair, and shield drop dash grab.

Nair is the quickest and safest option, but isn't viable at that range really. Fair is next, but is frame 11 OoS and is -14 on shield. Shield drop dash grab is frame 19. And should the Zelda opt to not shield and just react to Charizard, that shield drop is 11 frames of a 12 frame F-Tilt that will end Charizard's career.

If this were ZSS or Megaman at this range then Zelda would be pretty helpless. Charizard isn't really an issue though. He actually has it worse in this situation. Let's also not forget that a dash is a commit and Zelda has a frame 6 dash attack. Or the ability to pivot grab. Charizard's linearity on the ground counteracts his speed in this MU.

this isn't always true, though, sometimes Ivysaur is forced into the switch

I find this to be more often than not. Zelda's not very forgiving to that brand of disadvantage. Especially not with the new Up-air.

• Charizard lands from a full hop in 48 frames, whereas Zelda lands in 56, a whopping 8 frames later. So if Charizard jumps and Zelda jumps, Charizard commits way less. Flamethrower makes the difference even bigger, though there's counterplay to it.
• For landing, Charizard has options that heavies typically don't, such as an f3 airdodge (heavies usually have f4), an extra jump, and an f1 switch to a smaller hurtbox. His hurtbox also isn't as big as you would think.

Zelda's short hop Up-air has enough range to tag anyone on the top platform of Battlefield. It can easily hit Charizard's full hop and more. That gives her the ability to cover options like airdodge or account for stalling or whatever. Switching to Squirtle really depends on the situation. He might just die harder.


One thing I forgot to make clear in my previous post, is that the Phantom buffs now make it a legitimate kill option on even heavy characters. A stray Phantom hit can now kill making things much more difficult for the opponent in these high percent situations. Zelda may not even need Up-air as Phantom can trap landings quite well with Zelda finishing things off.

's problem is phantom only travels about half of BF: not very far.

That's immense. It basically guarantees center stage. And then corners you after. It's not like other projectiles that usually have some form of linearity. You have a giant sword covering the air and large shield/windbox covering the ground. You either get out of the way or get hit/pushed. And then Zelda can potentially be lurking behind Phantom.

 

[DougEfresh]

To theorycraft a bit more about the Zelda/Banjo MU (since I admittedly don't have much personal experience with it and I'm not familiar of any high level sets showcasing what this MU generally looks like), I think Banjo has sufficient versatility to deal with her and make it feel like even. Yes, he doesn't have the greatest approach options, but all it takes is one opening with his stellar ground speed to close the gap on Zelda and dish out some good damage most likely, and because of her significantly lighter weight, this can put her in a tight spot to play an immaculate keep away game and rack up damage on him to minimize the chances of him finding another opening to win neutral and push his advantage with ledge traps and even some edgeguarding.

I think Banjo's main task is to identify the patterns that the Zelda is using phantom, move around it with up b, his double jumps and potentially other resources while making sure ro get back to the ground as quickly as possible so he can burst in on Zelda. It can be tricky to use all of these with various mix ups against phantom to move around it well, but I do think it's possible for Banjo and his 3 jumps in particular help to mix up the timing of when he lands with his aerials when he does end up getting in on Zelda.

Banjo can also use his rear eggs more as z-grabbed projectiles that he can throw at mid range or from across the stage to that quick opening to close in on her. Breegull/blue eggs I still think they can be useful enough as a poking tool that also gradually racks up damage and can help closing the distance, so neutral might be slightly challenging, but nothing exceedingly opppressive to deal with.

I'm not so sure that Banjo has to be over-reliant on wonderwing for a win condition against Zelda, and while it clearly does have the ability to burst through her phantom walling, running into it can allow the hitbox to be extended long enough to give Zelda more time to react to it before hitting her and now BK are getting hard punished. I have to imagine that higher level Banjo mains will remain diligent in conserving their wonderwings as a mix up to call out complacency in neutral and/or push advantage once he's able to approach and win neutral and to aid with his recovery mix ups (which I think he has enough of those even without wonderwings to make him not quite as helpless in disadvantage against her as it may seem).

As a final note, I do think Banjo's much heavier weight is what keeps the MU in check and make it even. Sometimes, you accept that you'll make a mistake and eat decent damage for it, but his survivability makes an error or 2 sting a bit less overall. A good banjo can be and often is rather slippery in moving around the tools other characters have to keep him out in neutral and put him in disadvantage, so I think he'll be living considerably longer than Zelda most stocks to allow him more chances to make the plays and reads he needs to open Zelda up and take her stock (even if it's a little tricky for him to find them at times). His two projectiles are sufficient for keeping her out a lot once Banjo has the lead while keeping her in the range to land a fair or bair to continually reset neutral and steadily extend his lead.

Since I don't know the MU well from personal experience, I can't speak thoughtfully about whT stages might be good for Banjo to take Zelda to. As far as the rest of what I've mentioned goes, keep in mind that this is once again just my speculation and hypothesizing about how the match up looks when both sides are played well as there are no VODs or other concrete data I know of to look at regarding this MU to start drawing fully coherent thoughts and conclusions about it.

 

[NairWizard]

edit: I'll just make a separate topic about this instead

 

[NotLiquid]

This video generally has to do with wi-fi play but it brings up a lot of concepts people might not fully know about burst range.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Here are the notable upsets in The Box so far that I can find:

Middy 2-0 Mr E
Prodigy 1-2 SmokingPuddingEveryday (This tag is hilarious)
MVD 2-1 Sparg0
Daybreak 2-0 ESAM
Daybreak 2-1 MVD
TonyZTank 2-1 Cosmos
AxF 2-0 Mekos
Yez 2-1 Benny&TheJets
WeaponRaid 2-1 Regi Shikimi
E 2-0 Riddles
Jw 2-1 MkLeo
Palpiblade 2-1 Samsora (Literally the first match of his pool)
Aghi 2-0 Mekos (out at 128th)
SKITTLES!! 2-1 Samsora (out at 65th)
Aarow 2-1 Ven (out at 65th)
tAngelt 2-0 Regi Shikimi (out at 65th)
Jboss 2-0 Fatality (out at 49th)
Prodigy 2-0 MkLeo (out at 33rd)

Something I found weird is that both Pelca and Stroder DQ'ed when they were coming against Maister.
Did something happen there?



Anyways, this is top 32:

Winner's
LingLing vs Epic_Gabriel
Pandarian vs Jw
Laid vs Tweek
Dabuz vs Daybreak
Myran vs Raffi-X
TonyZTank vs BluStriker
Maister vs Yez
Mj vs BestNess

Loser's
Frosty vs Nimble
Prodigy vs tAngelt
Wrath vs Stroder
MVD vs Jboss
EnhancedPV vs Big D
Cosmos vs Pharaoh
Synergy vs colinies
Gen vs ESAM

There is a notable amount of R.O.B. and Sonic players in top 32, including the dreaded Sonic ditto coming up.
Two Robin players making it to top 32 is also fascinating to see.
Anyways, we will see what happens tomorrow.

 

[BitBitio]

Dang, Leo lost to Prodigy again.

 

[SwagGuy99]

We are aware that players are experiencing errors accessing Nintendo network services and are working to address the issue. Thank you for your understanding and we hope to share an update when available. https://t.co/ji7VJD0Njf

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 10, 2020

This hasn't been confirmed to be just Smash related, but as far as we know, it could be.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

There have been lots of ROB's and Sonics in just about all of these online tournaments . Despite things like online Samus and Zelda memery think ROB is almost the 2nd most complained about character on wi-fi.

Looking at ROB also has lots of tools and attributes that are pretty abusable in online lag

 

[KirbySquad101]

Here are the notable upsets in The Box so far that I can find:

Middy 2-0 Mr E
Prodigy 1-2 SmokingPuddingEveryday (This tag is hilarious)
MVD 2-1 Sparg0
Daybreak 2-0 ESAM
Daybreak 2-1 MVD
TonyZTank 2-1 Cosmos
AxF 2-0 Mekos
Yez 2-1 Benny&TheJets
WeaponRaid 2-1 Regi Shikimi
E 2-0 Riddles
Jw 2-1 MkLeo
Palpiblade 2-1 Samsora (Literally the first match of his pool)
Aghi 2-0 Mekos (out at 128th)
SKITTLES!! 2-1 Samsora (out at 65th)
Aarow 2-1 Ven (out at 65th)
tAngelt 2-0 Regi Shikimi (out at 65th)
Jboss 2-0 Fatality (out at 49th)
Prodigy 2-0 MkLeo (out at 33rd)

Something I found weird is that both Pelca and Stroder DQ'ed when they were coming against Maister.
Did something happen there?



Anyways, this is top 32:

Winner's
LingLing vs Epic_Gabriel
Pandarian vs Jw
Laid vs Tweek
Dabuz vs Daybreak
Myran vs Raffi-X
TonyZTank vs BluStriker
Maister vs Yez
Mj vs BestNess

Loser's
Frosty vs Nimble
Prodigy vs tAngelt
Wrath vs Stroder
MVD vs Jboss
EnhancedPV vs Big D
Cosmos vs Pharaoh
Synergy vs colinies
Gen vs ESAM

There is a notable amount of R.O.B. and Sonic players in top 32, including the dreaded Sonic ditto coming up.
Two Robin players making it to top 32 is also fascinating to see.
Anyways, we will see what happens tomorrow.

Pelca DQing was probably an arriving late thing, but Stroder wasn't feeling too well at the time, so he dropped out of fighting Maister.

Also TAngelt defeating Regi isn't too much of an upset, dude's been killing it lately if his recent online results are anything to go by: https://smashdata.gg/smash/ultimate/player/tAngelt?id=357407

He's defeated Cosmos before and has taken Maister to game 5 twice.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Here are the notable upsets in The Box so far that I can find:

Middy 2-0 Mr E
Prodigy 1-2 SmokingPuddingEveryday (This tag is hilarious)
MVD 2-1 Sparg0
Daybreak 2-0 ESAM
Daybreak 2-1 MVD
TonyZTank 2-1 Cosmos
AxF 2-0 Mekos
Yez 2-1 Benny&TheJets
WeaponRaid 2-1 Regi Shikimi
E 2-0 Riddles
Jw 2-1 MkLeo
Palpiblade 2-1 Samsora (Literally the first match of his pool)
Aghi 2-0 Mekos (out at 128th)
SKITTLES!! 2-1 Samsora (out at 65th)
Aarow 2-1 Ven (out at 65th)
tAngelt 2-0 Regi Shikimi (out at 65th)
Jboss 2-0 Fatality (out at 49th)
Prodigy 2-0 MkLeo (out at 33rd)

Something I found weird is that both Pelca and Stroder DQ'ed when they were coming against Maister.
Did something happen there?



Anyways, this is top 32:

Winner's
LingLing vs Epic_Gabriel
Pandarian vs Jw
Laid vs Tweek
Dabuz vs Daybreak
Myran vs Raffi-X
TonyZTank vs BluStriker
Maister vs Yez
Mj vs BestNess

Loser's
Frosty vs Nimble
Prodigy vs tAngelt
Wrath vs Stroder
MVD vs Jboss
EnhancedPV vs Big D
Cosmos vs Pharaoh
Synergy vs colinies
Gen vs ESAM

There is a notable amount of R.O.B. and Sonic players in top 32, including the dreaded Sonic ditto coming up.
Two Robin players making it to top 32 is also fascinating to see.
Anyways, we will see what happens tomorrow.

I don't want anyone to say that Zelda does better on Wi-Fi than offline.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Yez 2-0 Maister
tAnglet 2-0 Prodigy (out at 25th)
Jboss 2-1 MVD (out at 25th)
Jboss 2-1 Myran (out at 17th)
Laid 2-1 Cosmos (out at 17th)

This got accidentally posted, but here it is.

Edit: Frosty 2-1 Maister (out at 13th)

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Okay we may need to talk about Jboss. So far this Yoshi player has run he beaten MVD, Myran and now Wrath in his losers bracket run. He now going to face JW to get into top 8

Also 2 R.O.B's in top 8 winners side. Sonic may have some completion for most despised online character soon. Speaking of which , all Sonic players are now eliminated .
Although the Sonics ending up having to face eachother is partly the reason for that.

On one last topic. The set between BigD and Daybreak may be a contender for the shortest set in competive Ultimate so far

https://m.twitch.tv/clip/GoodEncouragingCocoaPJSalt

Christ that was a complete slaughter

 

[The_Bookworm]

Top 8

Winner's
Epic_Gabriel vs Tweek
Raffi-X vs BestNess

Loser's
Jw vs Dabuz
ESAM vs Yez

 

[Tri Knight]

Sonic may have some completion for most despised online character soon.

If you meant competition for most despised character, then ROB is safe from that. I can tolerate fighting ROBs. What I can't tolerate is Sonic. No disrespect to anyone who mains him but to me, Sonic is just flat out excruciating to play against and to watch in matches. Going up against Sonic is like watching a pendulum swing back and forth for 7 minutes.

 

[SwagGuy99]

If you meant competition for most despised character, then ROB is safe from that. I can tolerate fighting ROBs. What I can't tolerate is Sonic. No disrespect to anyone who mains him but to me, Sonic is just flat out excruciating to play against and to watch in matches. Going up against Sonic is like watching a pendulum swing back and forth for 7 minutes.

I agree. ROB is much more manageable (online) because he's not impossible to hit. And when you do hit him, a lot of characters can still combo him pretty easily (despite it being online) due to how big he is. Some aspects of him do get better online, but it's nowhere near the amount that Sonic or even Cloud does (although I feel like Cloud is still noticeably worse than Sonic online). I know a lot of people have been talking about banning Sonic online (which is kind of funny to me since it feels like the Smash community can almost never agree on banning anything), and honestly, I personally wouldn't be against it (or at least trying it out). Not every online tournament is won by Sonic (I mean, look at the Top 8 for The Box, there's no Sonic to be seen) but Sonic is still capable of winning tournaments and of upsetting players who shouldn't be getting upset just because their character can't deal with Sonic online.

On one last topic. The set between BigD and Daybreak may be a contender for the shortest set in competive Ultimate so far

https://m.twitch.tv/clip/GoodEncouragingCocoaPJSalt

Christ that was a complete slaughter

Despite this clip being online, it does a good job of showing what ICs are capable of in Ultimate despite their inability to chaingrab like in past games. It's up for debate how good they actually are, but they are definitely capable in some matchups.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Despite this clip being online, it does a good job of showing what ICs are capable of in Ultimate despite their inability to chaingrab like in past games. It's up for debate how good they actually are, but they are definitely capable in some matchups.

To be fair, Daybreak played pretty bad during that clip, running into Smash attacks, doing very unsafe approaches against the character, while Big D capitalized on it hard (that parry -> forward smash was pretty slick though). He did not know what to do against the character.

 

[SwagGuy99]

To be fair, Daybreak played pretty bad during that clip, running into Smash attacks, doing very unsafe approaches against the character, while Big D capitalized on it hard (that parry -> forward samsh was pretty slick though). He did not know what to do against the character.

I agree with that too. It felt like he wasn't really spacing a lot of his n-air and f-airs correctly and was getting punished for it. But it still is a good show of ICs punish game either way.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The Box

1st: BestNess
2nd: Tweek
3rd: Dabuz
4th: ESAM
5th: Raffi-X
5th: Epic_Gabriel
7th: Jw
7th: Yez
9th: Frosty
9th: Jboss
9th: Laid
9th: BluStriker
13th: Maister
13th: Wrath
13th: Big D
13th: Pandarian
17th: Mj
17th: tAnglett
17th: TonyZTank
17th: Myran
17th: Daybreak
17th: Cosmos
17th: colinies
17th: LingLing
25th: Nimble
25th: Prodigy
25th: Stroder (Stroder roulette returns it seems...)
25th: MVD
25th: Enhancedpv
25th: Pharaoh
25th: Synergy
25th: Gen
33rd: MkLeo
33rd: SKITTLES!!
33rd: Pokelam
33rd: Middy
33rd: Salem
33rd: WebbJP
33rd: Peabnut
33rd: Ravenking
33rd: matteus
33rd: Fwed
33rd: FlashBlaziken
33rd: AxF
33rd: Mailbox
33rd: Chrininja
33rd: M.M.Leo
33rd: Lt. Surge


This is BestNess' second major online tournament victory (the first one being The Quarantine Series: Minor Tournament 1), and this is arguably the biggest online tournament of all time, at least it is the online tournament with the most amount of entrants.

 

[$.A.F.]

The Box

1st: BestNess
2nd: Tweek
3rd: Dabuz
4th: ESAM
5th: Raffi-X
5th: Epic_Gabriel
7th: Jw
7th: Yez
9th: Frosty
9th: Jboss
9th: Laid
9th: BluStriker
13th: Maister
13th: Wrath
13th: Big D
13th: Pandarian
17th: Mj
17th: tAnglett
17th: TonyZTank
17th: Myran
17th: Daybreak
17th: Cosmos
17th: colinies
17th: LingLing
25th: Nimble
25th: Prodigy
25th: Stroder (Stroder roulette returns it seems...)
25th: MVD
25th: Enhancedpv
25th: Pharaoh
25th: Synergy
25th: Gen
33rd: MkLeo
33rd: SKITTLES!!
33rd: Pokelam
33rd: Middy
33rd: Salem
33rd: WebbJP
33rd: Peabnut
33rd: Ravenking
33rd: matteus
33rd: Fwed
33rd: FlashBlaziken
33rd: AxF
33rd: Mailbox
33rd: Chrininja
33rd: M.M.Leo
33rd: Lt. Surge


This is BestNess' second major online tournament victory (the first one being The Quarantine Series: Minor Tournament 1), and this is arguably the biggest online tournament of all time, at least it is the online tournament with the most amount of entrants.

It’s kind of surprising too. As you can see there were no other Ness players in top 48 except for him. In fact ness hasn’t been doing significantly better online except for best ness. I honestly thought the character overall would have a significant boost in results.

 

[Rizen]

Hot take: are low tier or lower mid at best. BigD's just really good with them but they have a lot of issues (and yes I watched his sets). You have to babysit Nana and poor range while not being the most mobile characters are big ones. They have some desynk punishes but a lot of characters can get good combos without having to rely on a CPU partner. The only characters who might be worse are low tiers.

The Box

1st: BestNess
2nd: Tweek
3rd: Dabuz
4th: ESAM
5th: Raffi-X
5th: Epic_Gabriel
7th: Jw
7th: Yez
9th: Frosty
9th: Jboss
9th: Laid
9th: BluStriker
13th: Maister
13th: Wrath
13th: Big D
13th: Pandarian
17th: Mj
17th: tAnglett
17th: TonyZTank
17th: Myran
17th: Daybreak
17th: Cosmos
17th: colinies
17th: LingLing
25th: Nimble
25th: Prodigy
25th: Stroder (Stroder roulette returns it seems...)
25th: MVD
25th: Enhancedpv
25th: Pharaoh
25th: Synergy
25th: Gen
33rd: MkLeo
33rd: SKITTLES!!
33rd: Pokelam
33rd: Middy
33rd: Salem
33rd: WebbJP
33rd: Peabnut
33rd: Ravenking
33rd: matteus
33rd: Fwed
33rd: FlashBlaziken
33rd: AxF
33rd: Mailbox
33rd: Chrininja
33rd: M.M.Leo
33rd: Lt. Surge


This is BestNess' second major online tournament victory (the first one being The Quarantine Series: Minor Tournament 1), and this is arguably the biggest online tournament of all time, at least it is the online tournament with the most amount of entrants.

The online environment is certainly friendlier to non top 20 players and non top tier characters. A big factor in this is MKLeo and Samsora not dominating top 8s. They both were huge roadblocks to many players. We also are missing several top 20 players like Light and Tea.

I don't play wifi but have noticed it upsets the normal character balance offline. Precision characters like don't do as well. Other characters like seem to benifit from being less punishable, although they did fine offline too. Cloud's definitely feeling his buffs. despite being top tier on ESAM's wifi tier list has preformed slightly better offline. does well on both fronts. It's hard to say if is better or if BestNess is better online. Or both.

 

[Firox]

The Box

1st: BestNess
2nd: Tweek
3rd: Dabuz
4th: ESAM
5th: Raffi-X
5th: Epic_Gabriel
7th: Jw
7th: Yez
9th: Frosty
9th: Jboss
9th: Laid
9th: BluStriker
13th: Maister
13th: Wrath
13th: Big D
13th: Pandarian
17th: Mj
17th: tAnglett
17th: TonyZTank
17th: Myran
17th: Daybreak
17th: Cosmos
17th: colinies
17th: LingLing
25th: Nimble
25th: Prodigy
25th: Stroder (Stroder roulette returns it seems...)
25th: MVD
25th: Enhancedpv
25th: Pharaoh
25th: Synergy
25th: Gen
33rd: MkLeo
33rd: SKITTLES!!
33rd: Pokelam
33rd: Middy
33rd: Salem
33rd: WebbJP
33rd: Peabnut
33rd: Ravenking
33rd: matteus
33rd: Fwed
33rd: FlashBlaziken
33rd: AxF
33rd: Mailbox
33rd: Chrininja
33rd: M.M.Leo
33rd: Lt. Surge


This is BestNess' second major online tournament victory (the first one being The Quarantine Series: Minor Tournament 1), and this is arguably the biggest online tournament of all time, at least it is the online tournament with the most amount of entrants.

I see my boi Greninja in top 8, baby! Whoooot! And freaking Stroder! Just surrender to the dark side and commit to Kermit, son. Stop philandering with the Mario Bros and learn the beauty of frog monogamy!

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

The online environment is certainly friendlier to non top 20 players and non top tier characters. A big factor in this is MKLeo and Samsora not dominating top 8s. They both were huge roadblocks to many players. We also are missing several top 20 players like Light and Tea.

Tea is a case where Japanese players don't enter at all because it's all become region locked, so there's no other roadblocks coming in from Japan like Zackray or Shuton either.

 

[Nemesis561]

Hot take: are low tier or lower mid at best. BigD's just really good with them but they have a lot of issues (and yes I watched his sets). You have to babysit Nana and poor range while not being the most mobile characters are big ones. They have some desynk punishes but a lot of characters can get good combos without having to rely on a CPU partner. The only characters who might be worse are low tiers.

The online environment is certainly friendlier to non top 20 players and non top tier characters. A big factor in this is MKLeo and Samsora not dominating top 8s. They both were huge roadblocks to many players. We also are missing several top 20 players like Light and Tea.

I don't play wifi but have noticed it upsets the normal character balance offline. Precision characters like don't do as well. Other characters like seem to benifit from being less punishable, although they did fine offline too. Cloud's definitely feeling his buffs. despite being top tier on ESAM's wifi tier list has preformed slightly better offline. does well on both fronts. It's hard to say if is better or if BestNess is better online. Or both.

How is this a hot take? Isn't this mostly the consensus on ICs?

 

[DougEfresh]

How is this a hot take? Isn't this mostly the consensus on ICs?

Yea I think now it's mostly consensus that they're fairly mediocre, despite what they're capable of when the desync combos actually work and nana's AI isn't being a dumbass. I do remember Icies being put in high tier on some tier lists earlier on when Big D was first having breakout performances with them after dropping , though. Might be why Rizen thought it was a "hot take".

 

[CandySamaurai92]

Ok since we’re doing thoughts on characters, here’s what I think on a few due to advancing of opinions

: Underrated powerhouse. I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. He has a kill confirm at 50%, and it is stupidly simple to pull off. It’s literally his fully charged Neutral B. Simply smack the opponent 3-5 times, Side B for the line up, and then kill confirm. This can KO any fighter. And I mean ANY fighter, even the super heavyweights.

: Shows promise. The mechanics are great and unique, but I still am struggling to figure out how to fill up ink while you still have some in the tank. Yeah I’m not the best at this.

I’ll probably have more comments in the future.

The way to fill up ink is to hold shield button and special button

 

[Rizen]

Whether it's a hot take or not is beside the point. just aren't very good. If they had better mobility it would help a lot but for the present: they aren't the best campers as icebergs can be repelled, they don't have good range with little mallets and they don't have good mobility to escape juggles or rush down with. They're over reliant on the team gimmick but it's not that powerful and inconsistent. Other characters can do what they do without the handicap.

Tea is a case where Japanese players don't enter at all because it's all become region locked, so there's no other roadblocks coming in from Japan like Zackray or Shuton either.

Oh that sucks.

 

[CandySamaurai92]

Also, I have something to confess with Sakurai: WTF DUDE! Why did you take Young Link, Roy, Pichu, and Dr. Mario out of Brawl?! Young Link is my boy! (Pichu good, too)

 

[DougEfresh]

Whether it's a hot take or not is beside the point. just aren't very good. If they had better mobility it would help a lot but for the present: they aren't the best campers as icebergs can be repelled, they don't have good range with little mallets and they don't have good mobility to escape juggles or rush down with. They're over reliant on the team gimmick but it's not that powerful and inconsistent. Other characters can do what they do without the handicap.

Yea, I wasn't trying to make it any kind of argument about whether or not your statement was a "hot take". I was just trying to explain to Nemesis why it could have been said to be one (though at the very least, I think it is no longer one and completely agree with you on all fronts about Icies). definitely pulls off the team/puppeteer mechanic much more effectively that actually rewards mastering the very high execution difficulty of many of their set ups and tech.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Whether it's a hot take or not is beside the point. just aren't very good. If they had better mobility it would help a lot but for the present: they aren't the best campers as icebergs can be repelled, they don't have good range with little mallets and they don't have good mobility to escape juggles or rush down with. They're over reliant on the team gimmick but it's not that powerful and inconsistent. Other characters can do what they do without the handicap.

I was checking on their mobility stats to see exactly how slow they are.

That is when I discovered that the are actually tied with with the 3rd worst air speed in the game.
Air acceleration is thankfully much better with 21st-29th with Popo and the 20th with Nana, but it doesn't compensate for their abysmal air speed.
Ground speed is also very lackluster as well, being the 68th fastest run speed (45th for Nana) and tied with as the 5th worst initial dash in the game.
And then in a similar case with (albeit to a slightly lesser degree) this is compounded with them not having much range.

So yeah, I knew that the character wasn't the fastest, but I didn't know they were THIS slow when I did my research.


The characters also has quite a bit of other issues like a predictable approach (that not many people knows how to deal with because this character rarely shows up), not being too difficult to separate, and being probably the worst character in the game as a solo character. Compound this with poor AI and their recovery move randomly malfunctioning, and then you get Ultimate Ice Climbers.

If it weren't for desync walling and desync combos, this character would likely be a bottom 10 contender, but at least the character has the liberty of having a strong advantage state once they get a grab.

Big D is pretty much a godlike player of making the work as much as he does.
He is also the madman who made work for the first-half of SSB4's lifespan, so this isn't much of a surprise.

 

[Nemesis561]

If you are forced to approach ICs, they are actually really really difficult to deal with. But they're way too fragile, especially off stage, and they can't deal with zoning very well, and also struggle vs swordies. Characters like Snake and Belmonts for example just demolish them in neutral just by standing on one side of the stage and forcing them to approach through the barrage of projectiles

 

[DungeonMaster]

Samus grabs one of the icies from a mile away, and tosses it in the opposite direction then proceeds to combo/kill/juggle either one. The length of the tether grab whip means that even at very low percents they are pushed very far apart. CS and zair blow away all their neutral options and fully combo or string into... grab. The matchup may be borderline unwinnable. I know they are not meta relevant but should you have an IC problem due to your personal playstyle, pick up Samus.

 

[SwagGuy99]

If you are forced to approach ICs, they are actually really really difficult to deal with. But they're way too fragile, especially off stage, and they can't deal with zoning very well, and also struggle vs swordies. Characters like Snake and Belmonts for example just demolish them in neutral just by standing on one side of the stage and forcing them to approach through the barrage of projectiles

Agreed ICs rely on getting in at close range to grab you or hit you with a jab or up-tilt (I think those are their mains combo starters that they use in desync combos, or at least the ones I've seen ICs use the most) where they can oftentimes kill you off one hit. The problem is that the large amount of projectile and sword characters in this game prevent them from getting in and playing neutral a lot of matchups and once they are separated, they lack the tools to do much of anything since Nana's AI is so inconsistent.


I think a lot of why IC's are not great comes down to how many relevant matchups they do well in vs how many characters can exploit their weaknesses to an extreme degree.

I've seen multiple high level ICs matchup charts with and as 60:40 MUs for ICs, ICs mains seem to agree they go even with , and and mains also seem to agree ICs either go even or win slightly against them so in a best case scenario, they do well in about 6 relevant Top/High Tier matchups which on the surface, seems good because that's about as many as some other mid tiers like or but they just lose to so many characters compared to other mid tiers, and they lose those matchups by a pretty significant amount as well.

You really just need be good at one of these things to do well against IC's in Ultimate which I think is why so many characters do well against them.

• Disjoints that are long enough to outrange ICs ()
• A strong projectile game that is able to effectively keep ICs out ()
• Ways to separate ICs reliably ()
• Or maybe you just have all of these things available to you ( yes, I think K. Rool should be here)

That last group especially does really well against ICs and and to a lesser degree and are not all that uncommon at top level play as either solo-mains or counterpicks and are also great picks against ICs.

I think this is largely why ICs won't be relevant without a major buff to their speed and range. Their terrible speed and mediocre range makes approaching extremely hard for them in a lot of matchups and since a lot of the characters that they lose to are fairly relevant in the meta, they just aren't going to do as well as time goes on and people start to figure them out.

 

[Nemesis561]

Agreed ICs rely on getting in at close range to grab you or hit you with a jab or up-tilt (I think those are their mains combo starters that they use in desync combos, or at least the ones I've seen ICs use the most) where they can oftentimes kill you off one hit. The problem is that the large amount of projectile and sword characters in this game prevent them from getting in and playing neutral a lot of matchups and once they are separated, they lack the tools to do much of anything since Nana's AI is so inconsistent.


I think a lot of why IC's are not great comes down to how many relevant matchups they do well in vs how many characters can exploit their weaknesses to an extreme degree.

I've seen multiple high level ICs matchup charts with and as 60:40 MUs for ICs, ICs mains seem to agree they go even with , and and mains also seem to agree ICs either go even or win slightly against them so in a best case scenario, they do well in about 6 relevant Top/High Tier matchups which on the surface, seems good because that's about as many as some other mid tiers like or but they just lose to so many characters compared to other mid tiers, and they lose those matchups by a pretty significant amount as well.

You really just need be good at one of these things to do well against IC's in Ultimate which I think is why so many characters do well against them.

• Disjoints that are long enough to outrange ICs ()
• A strong projectile game that is able to effectively keep ICs out ()
• Ways to separate ICs reliably ()
• Or maybe you just have all of these things available to you ( yes, I think K. Rool should be here)

That last group especially does really well against ICs and unfortunately, and to a lesser degree and are not all that uncommon at top level play as either solo-mains or counterpicks and are also great picks against ICs.

I think this is largely why ICs won't be relevant without a major buff to their speed and range. Their terrible speed and mediocre rage makes approaching extremely hard for them in a lot of matchups and since a lot of the characters that they lose to are fairly relevant in the meta, they just aren't going to do as well as time goes on and people start to figure them out.

Well said, agreed on all fronts. And unfortunately for ICs players, due to their polarizing character design, there is zero point in ever approaching them if your character has the means to pressure them from a distance. I wish they would be designed a bit different with actual neutral tools and the ability to approach. Of course this would be frightening due to their ridiculous conversions off one neutral win, so its probably for the best