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Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

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    584

Idon

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I find :ultsimon::ultrichter: to be worse than :ultroy: for Ike. Idk, I practice with CPUs since I don't have a working TV to use a LAN adapter with. So maybe level 9 Roy isn't that good or something, but Simon and Richter feel much worse to face. Ike's poor mobility just feels so bad against them. Trying to approach from the air? They can axe, or dash back and whip/cross/holy water. Trying to stay grounded? They can whip/cross/holy water/down tilt/dash attack/nair. It feels so difficult to weave around their projectiles as Ike. Meanwhile, Ike outranges Roy. I wouldn't list Roy as a good matchup for Ike but his worst? I'm doubtful on that.
:ultmegaman:, :ultpacman:, :ultyounglink:, :ulttoonlink:, and :ultlink: likewise have similarly good projectile games and strong enough traits in CQC/killing that I'd probably also consider them more difficult than Roy. Ike handles projectiles better than some other characters, but they're still rough for him imo.
Well speaking from personal experience online,
Getting past the projectile wall the Belmonts set up might be hard, but once Ike gets in, his huge aerials make it a nightmare for the Belmonts to go back and set up once they're in disadvantage.

Good Roys meanwhile feels like they always got a whole host of fast aerials that both break combos/strings and ways to keep close range pressure on Ike while Ike doesn't really have anything fast to counter it beyond his stubby jab or going for a read with Aether.
 

StrangeKitten

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I also feel like :ultsamus:/:ultdarksamus: are worse for Incineroar than :ultduckhunt:, but they're about equally as rough so this probably comes down to personal preference. The Samuses are much heavier, while Duck Hunt being light is a bit of a saving grace. And Samuses have a miles-long tether grab while at least Duck Hunt has to get close. Samuses also have much better kill power. I think Duck Hunt's edge here is can, though. It edgeguards Incineroar better than the Samuses can (though they're not slouches there either). So it's really pick your poison between these two
 

Djmarcus44

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Not sure how creditable this video is, but found it interesting:



Can confirm that :ultshulk: along with :ultlucina: are :ultdoc: worst MU's along with the all the 40-60 half the roster has on him.

I wish I was exaggerating.
I have no idea why Sonic would be considered Gunner's worst matchup. Gunner players generally think that this matchup is even, and Sonic players think that this matchup is even or +1. He mentions that Sonic has the speed to get in, but ignores how effective Gunner's projectiles are at stopping spin dash and spin charge. Homing attack can be pretty effective against Gunner, but the Gunner player can counter this with good movement and keeping Sonic away. He also claims that Sonic deals more damage which isn't true either.
 

Hydreigonfan01

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Hikaru updated his DK matchup chart very recently.
 

Lacrimosa

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Hikaru updated his DK matchup chart very recently.
These are 6 categories, so whhat's "even" here?
 

Space thing

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I'm guessing even is the yellow one. Orange is -1, Red is -2 and Purple is -3.
Yes pretty much this. From top to bottom: "Impossible," "disadvantage," "small disadvantage," "even," "small advantage," "advantage." The right image is basically winnable and unwinnable match ups in tournament setting.

I'm not too familiar with DK, but this seems more optimistic than I would be. Though with that said, there aren't very many winning match ups at all. I'm surprised by a few placements, such as sonic in the winning section. I would think Sonic would just be too hard to catch for DK.
 

Hydreigonfan01

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Yes pretty much this. From top to bottom: "Impossible," "disadvantage," "small disadvantage," "even," "small advantage," "advantage." The right image is basically winnable and unwinnable match ups in tournament setting.

I'm not too familiar with DK, but this seems more optimistic than I would be. Though with that said, there aren't very many winning match ups at all. I'm surprised by a few placements, such as sonic in the winning section. I would think Sonic would just be too hard to catch for DK.
We have seen the DK vs Sonic matchup twice in an offline setting. KEN notoriously lost to Runes and also lost to Hikaru very recently in an offline invitational which probably fuels a lot of why Hikaru thinks DK wins.
 

The_Bookworm

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I would think Sonic would just be too hard to catch for DK.
That would assuming that DK is a slow character.

However, with the 28th fastest run speed, 17th-23rd fastest initial dash, and 12th-16th fastest air speed (although below average air acceleration), DK is far from slow. He is a very mobile character for his size, and having arguably the fastest frame data for a super-heavy backs that up.
 

MrGameguycolor

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Hikaru updated his DK matchup chart very recently.
Dang, Japan must really struggle against Doc.

Good job Tsumusuto (and other Japanese Docs) for putting some work into this underpowered character.
 
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SwagGuy99

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Dang, Japan must really struggle against Doc.

Good job Tsumusuto (and other Japanese Docs) for putting some work into this underpowered character.
Yeah, I often see people in Japan putting Doc in much different spots in matchup charts than the usual +2 that you'll commonly find in European matchup charts. HIKARU's opinion does seem to line up with Tsumusuto's opinion of the matchup (who thinks it's even).

Speaking of Tsumusuto's opinions on Doc's matchups, a common trend I've noticed in Dr. Mario matchup charts made by his best players (Tsumusuto, Tday4444, Chinori, Aiyu) is that Dr. Mario players (while they don't believe that he wins many matchups) all seem to believe that Doc has a much larger amount of even matchups than people give him credit for.

It's also worth noticing that most of these players actually seem to be in agreement about a large number of Doc matchups, even Tday who is an American player unlike the other 3 who are all from Japan (where the meta is different and Doc seems to be regarded as bit of a better character than in other regions from what I can tell). While this doesn't necessarily mean anything, since players often will overrate or underrate their mains matchup spread (I mean, we just saw a matchup chart from HIKARU that makes DK look like a halfway decent character who beats Mario and Sonic), the fact that the opinions of these 4 players line up so well is something to take note of.
 
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KirbySquad101

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Sonic's issue with DK isn't so much of a neutral problem; in fact, it plays out a lot like you would expect: DK is fast, but he has little means of forcing Sonic to approach him, and while his frame data certainly isn't bad, his giant hurtbox combined with the hurtbox shifting that he does in a lot of his attacks leaves him very open to Sonic's whiff punishing. This doesn't even cover how Sonic can get away with mashing on his shield more than other characters because DK's OoS are very limited, or how bad it can be for DK can deal with Sonic's up air/neutral aerial juggles. For the most part, Sonic's going to be tacking on a lot more damage than DK is, and that was evident in KEN's and HIKARU's set at the invitational.

Which - oddly enough - can end up being Sonic's achilles heel in the MU. Really think about it: DK's main issue (among others) in his losing MUs is that his big boy mass rarely plays a factor because characters like Pika, G&W, or Palu are exploiting his poor offstage game and sniping him out of Spinning Kong before he has a chance to take advantage of his tacked on percent. On the other hand, Sonic doesn't really have this luxury. While his edgeguarding game certainly isn't bad, Sonic doesn't have much ways to challenge Spinning Kong outside of Spring Jump (which is at best, an annoyance) and forward aerial, which lacks a big enough disjoint to beat it out in most instances.

With that in mind, Sonic's below average kill power REALLY starts becoming an issue, especially against DK of all characters. Spin Dash into forward aerial isn't killing DK even at 150%, and the only way FSmash or BAir are going to kill at reasonable percents is if DK's practically hugging the edge of the stage, and this is on top of the fact that those moves are already hard to land for Sonic anyways. He's constantly winning neutral, but he's also constantly building DK's rage and on top of that, giving him more and more chances to bounce back. Meanwhile, DK's living to +150% percents and with all that rage, all he needs to do is land a grab at Sonic at 50% and he just explodes. And it's not even just Cargo Throw - Things like Grounded Spinning Kongs near the ledge of the stage, spikes into USmash confirms, shield breaks with Headbutt, yolo Giant Punches, etc., these are all things that Sonic has to be aware of just to avoid dying at 60%, and if he ends up falling behind in stocks, DK doesn't even have to approach anymore at that point.

I'm not sure if I'd say it's enough to tip the MU in DK's favor - if anything, it looks more like a volatile even because it's really hard for both characters to come back when they're behind in stocks - but it's definitely something to be aware of.
 
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Untouch

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Seems extremely optimistic for DK, I can't see WFT being even at all. He's kind of the thesis of what makes a matchup favourable for WFT.
DK can't challenge WFT off stage, which is a major problem.
DK being a large heavy takes a lot of damage from a single string.
DK can't outcamp DB.
DK can't really deal with WFT's projectiles (notably the ball).

Nair->USmash kills at like 90~ with deep breathing,
 

SwagGuy99

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Seems extremely optimistic for DK, I can't see WFT being even at all. He's kind of the thesis of what makes a matchup favourable for WFT.
Yeah, speaking of the HIKARU matchup chart, even with Luigi seems extremely optimistic to me as well. I know myself and some other Luigi players frequently cite it as being one of Luigi's best matchups, if not Luigi's single best matchup, for several reasons.

  • Disadvantage is very bad for DK, even when not considering how easy Luigi can ZTD him off of a grab. Pretty much any of Luigi's grounded normals minus f-smash and d-smash can start combos on him, and can frequently can lead to DK dying off of one bad interaction.
  • Luigi's neutral isn't exactly great by any means, at least not against projectile zoners, but against DK in particular, it's pretty good, since DK has to commit hard in neutral and when approaching. Fireballs are really good for creating openings on DK and are good at hindering his approaches. DK also has no solid way to deal with z-air other than to stay out of Luigi's face and try to space with b-air. And while DK's b-air is a good move, depending on how well spaced DK's b-airs are, it's still punishable for Luigi.
  • DK's recovery easy for Luigi to edgeguard. Not much else to say really, pretty much everyone has decent edgeguarding options on DK.
  • DK can't dash attack safely against Luigi or else he risks eating an up-b, up-smash, or f-air OOS.
  • DK's tilts are risky to use against Luigi at lower percents due to their unsafely on hit giving Luigi opportunities to punish DK for hitting him.
  • A well spaced pivot grab is useful for punishing a lot of DK's grounded options due to the amount of lag some of them have when whiffed.
DK's best strengths in the matchup are probably his juggling and edgeguarding (both of which are solid against Luigi), but he also suffers from poor approach options, a lack of options in neutral, and the risk of losing stocks off of a single interaction at any percent.
 
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StrangeKitten

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DK is such a polarizing character. I feel like he's a little better than a lot of people give credit for. But he's huge, like have you seriously taken a look at him? I think there's no way out of his huge hurtbox plaguing him for the entirety of Ultimate, unfortunately.
 

The_Bookworm

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DK is such a polarizing character. I feel like he's a little better than a lot of people give credit for. But he's huge, like have you seriously taken a look at him? I think there's no way out of his huge hurtbox plaguing him for the entirety of Ultimate, unfortunately.
Characters can be viable even with a tall hurtbox.

:ultrob:, a character with a large hurtbox and 21 units lighter than DK, happens to be one of the most viable picks in today's metagame, with :ultbowser: being a pretty good character in his own right. Heck, most of SSB4's top tiers had relatively tall hurtboxes.

Granted the former has ways to cheat disadvantage (and cheat in general) and the latter has armor everywhere, but it is still very possible.
 

StrangeKitten

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Characters can be viable even with a tall hurtbox.

:ultrob:, a character with a large hurtbox and 21 units lighter than DK, happens to be one of the most viable picks in today's metagame, with :ultbowser: being a pretty good character in his own right. Heck, most of SSB4's top tiers had relatively tall hurtboxes.

Granted the former has ways to cheat disadvantage (and cheat in general) and the latter has armor everywhere, but it is still very possible.
It is, but DK has almost none of their perks. And I don't think the huge hurtbox dooms DK entirely, but it hurts him in a lot of matchups for sure
 

Thinkaman

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DK has an aggressively high move speed, attack speed, and range for his weight. That's his "perk."

Unfortunately, as has been discussed in this topic, such generic perks lead to a sink-or-swim character that can make matches a bit of a slog and really struggle when he's down. Contrast with say, Ultimate Bowser, whose advantages are more aptly targeted to being a superheavy.


Is there any footage backing up Hikaru's views on Cloud and Mario? (Losing to DK)
 

Nathan Richardson

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I think in the recent MU chart ivysaur and charizard are being underestimated.
Ivysaur is the only pokemon that has any real zoning abilities and thanks to DKs huge frame it's very easy to get hit by razor leaf and get nailed by an uair or worse one of ivysaurs smash attacks.
DK does have startup super armor on Kong Punch, Spinning Kong, and Headbutt but those are easily outprioritized by grabs. And here's where things get interesting versus charizard. Charizard has DK beat on the ground, with better ground movement speed, nearly identical frame data on tilts and an actual projectile in flamethrower. He also can use flare blitz to get early stocks.
Squirtle is actually the only one who has issues with DK. Due to DKs long limbs squirtle has a super hard time getting in and his surprisingly quick frame data not to mention wide hitbox spread means it's easy for DK to simply swat squirtle away whenever he has to. Squirtle despises characters with long range with good frame data because it means they're hitting squirtle before squirtle is in range to hit them making fighting them a royal pain.
 

TennisBall

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I think in the recent MU chart ivysaur and charizard are being underestimated.
Ivysaur is the only pokemon that has any real zoning abilities and thanks to DKs huge frame it's very easy to get hit by razor leaf and get nailed by an uair or worse one of ivysaurs smash attacks.
DK does have startup super armor on Kong Punch, Spinning Kong, and Headbutt but those are easily outprioritized by grabs. And here's where things get interesting versus charizard. Charizard has DK beat on the ground, with better ground movement speed, nearly identical frame data on tilts and an actual projectile in flamethrower. He also can use flare blitz to get early stocks.
Squirtle is actually the only one who has issues with DK. Due to DKs long limbs squirtle has a super hard time getting in and his surprisingly quick frame data not to mention wide hitbox spread means it's easy for DK to simply swat squirtle away whenever he has to. Squirtle despises characters with long range with good frame data because it means they're hitting squirtle before squirtle is in range to hit them making fighting them a royal pain.
This brings up a pretty conflicting viewpoint in terms of the DK - PT matchup.

A commonly viewed side in terms of what most Pokemon Trainer mains say is pretty similar to the post says.
Although Squirtle gets a lot of damage when getting in DK greatly outpaces Squirtle's sluggish ground movement and has greater hitboxes in the air compared to Squirtle, and his confirms and combos as a light water turtle can certainly make things difficult at times.
Ivysaur on the other hand has great zoning tools to effectively play lame and make DK really struggle, while not having to commit to anything. Ivy abuses DK's poor landing game heavily with that Up Air making him take great damage and combined with Down Air, Tether cancels, Razor leaf and Nair, DK has an extremely tough time recovering against an Ivysaur who knows the matchup and what options and mixups they have to cover.
Charizard has some incredible ground options with his amazing framedata with Inital Dash and Runspeed allowing for a good bait and punish game and his disjointed poking tools like Ftilt, DTilt, and Flamethrower, and while Dk has the better airgame with better air speed and faster attacks you can never ignore the sheer power and range Charizard possess with his full of cheese Back Air, his anti-airing and safe Nair, his combo and confirm heavy Up Air which can combo into every aerial and his good Forward Air which gives a good powerful burst option often used offstage. His Down Air is also quite strong and can be used after conditioning DK to recover low with Flamethrower and 2 framing with Ftilt.
So in conclusion, a match up that heavily favors using Ivysaur to lame out DK and using the other Pokemon flexibly when you need to in order to not be too linear.

I can however see where HIKARU is coming from, it is important to note that he has played and gotten serious competitive results with Pokemon Trainer, and knows the character very well, probably better than me anyways, and while I can't see his reasoning, I can guess as to why he might think that.
Ivysaur despite what I have previously stated, has a very tough time landing, and DK is very good at juggling with his frametrapping invincible Up Air, not even Switch can help most of the time as you'll be frametrapped and will be forced to eat a bunch of damage, and DK is pretty good at getting you into that spot. A misspaced Razor Leaf could find yourself on the wrong end of a Grounded Spinning Kong, putting you in a not ideal spot and giving DK lots of stage control to roam around in and abuse Ivysaur's poor disadvantage.
Charizard while having better grounded options, is throughly beat in the air and will eat a lot of damage from a bad interaction, both having the tools to make each other explode offstage, in a juggle spot, in neutral, a pretty standard heavy vs heavy fight, where one interaction will decide the stock from these heavy-hitting large giants.
Squirtle, contrasting to what I previously have said, has the tools to effectively weave around DK's hitboxes and absolutely puliverize DK with a single grab. DK is taking at worst, 50%, and it's likely to be closer to the 70%-80%, not even mentioning how difficult it can be to hit Squirtle not letting DK get anything started, his good edgeguarding tools with Nair, Waterfall, Down Tilt, Water Gun to force DK to Up-B, (Fun Fact:DK's Up B is immune to windboxes, at least he gets something.) and how easily it can be to get something started with as little as one hit opening a gateway of pain and helpless SDI.
In conclusion, a matchup that heavily favors using Squirtle to weave around and punish DK heavily and using the other Pokemon flexibly when you need to in order not to be too linear.

So which one is right?

That's really up to you as the player to decide, how you use your Pokemon, your preferences, playstyle, and ablility to deal with DK as all 3 starters can cause different viewpoints as to how the tiny details of this MU really are. It's considered +1 or higher for PT regardless of viewpoint, but that doesn't always mean everything, we did see HIKARU win a Japanese offline invitational, even beating Raito, in a matchup that is generally considered -2 for DK at absolute best.

Now as to why Mario is in +1 is a completely mystery to me, I'll have to get back to you on that one.
 

SwagGuy99

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Now as to why Mario is in +1 is a completely mystery to me, I'll have to get back to you on that one.
Mario being in +1 could be bias from Smash 4 where the matchup was debatably slight DK favored or even, but I don't think DK's overall tools in the matchup are good enough to justify that being the case anymore, given that Mario is now quite a bit better at maneuvering his way around disjoinsts while other aspects of his kit have also become more useful such as FLUDD (and this is a matchup where I think FLUDD would be quite useful).
 
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blackghost

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New Ryu/Ken tech, Ryu and Ken have some new tech allowing Focus Attack to be unpunishable on shield, and can beat out some of the best OOS options in the game including anything Frame 3 such as Mr Game and Watch's Up-B if spaced correctly.
Game & Watch players:
c24.jpg
 

Lacrimosa

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Dabuz' Min-Min MU chart:
He obviously thinks of her as a high-tier, lowkey top-tier maybe.

Can't say anything about other chars, but the Zelda placement looks fine here.
Zelda likes fighting from a distance and Min-Min does exactly that. She also multiple options to punish Min-Min depending on what she does: Phantom is obvious but Din's Fire and Teleport are also things to consider as her arms have a good amount of cooldown. Din's Fire + Phantom is a very strong combination against Min-Min.
Min-Min can't edgeguard her at all but she in return gets edgeguarded with Din very hard (pretty much all tethers do except those with formidable horizontal range which Min-Min to my knowledge doesn't have, and even those are are punishable).
 

NotLiquid

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I agree with the order of the spacies. I mentioned this before but Wolf gets bottomed out the moment he gets forced off-stage in the MU. Despite sporting transcendent lasers, they're slow enough that her range gives her the opportunity to punish them fairly reliably. What Wolf is left having to do is play a boxing game that isn't as potent as Fox's, nor does he sport an advantage state that's as oppressive as Falco's. He's least likely to go off-stage and edgeguard because his recovery is the worst of the three, so trading/risking off-stage hits is rarely an option. He still gets by on having pretty meaty conversions and some generally good raw buttons, but he's a little too basic to hold a clear advantage on Min Min's cheese.

Fox is a swing, he has the mobility, conditioning and CQC - things Min Min doesn't like - but he also has a susceptible disadvantage, questionable shield pressure, and is lightweight - things Min Min likes. I would generally give Fox the advantage in most cases but it ain't something you can sleep on.

Falco on the other hand, hoo boy. Min Min does not like to be in airborne disadvantage, this is well documented. Falco is a character that operates on pure advantage. He doesn't have the neutral to outpace Wolf or Fox, but considering winning a neutral exchange will in most scenarios either send Min Min airborne or off stage, which are areas Falco does not struggle keeping opponents in, she's in for a pretty bad time. He generally gets the most off of grabs, so he has more shield options than Fox does. Not only is he the spacie who's more commonly going to attempt going off-stage to edgeguard, he's also risky to go off-stage against because of his side B spike. Min Min doesn't normally struggle with low recoveries but against Falco, it's easy to get cold feet. It's also hard to really play campy against him specifically since his lasers being a middle ground kinda sorta makes them the best against Min Min.

Stray thoughts otherwise on placements; Inkling is a weird one that I think he's too optimistic about but that might be more emblematic of Dabuz generally having a good history of knowing what works against the character. I haven't seen enough of Wario to make a passing judgment but in terms of superheavies I think Bowser is overvalued while DK is undervalued. DK is notorious for robbing stocks with some absolutely dummy advantage, and given Min Min is blatantly sub-par when forced off-stage, DK can take stocks earlier with her than with most other characters. There's other stuff here I'm skeptical about as well (Meta Knight, Kirby, maybe Greninja) but I recognize that he admits it could be wrong, and moreover it seems like he's among the notable amount of people starting to realize she's got the degeneracy sauce.
 

ARISTOS

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I agree with the order of the spacies. I mentioned this before but Wolf gets bottomed out the moment he gets forced off-stage in the MU. Despite sporting transcendent lasers, they're slow enough that her range gives her the opportunity to punish them fairly reliably. What Wolf is left having to do is play a boxing game that isn't as potent as Fox's, nor does he sport an advantage state that's as oppressive as Falco's. He's least likely to go off-stage and edgeguard because his recovery is the worst of the three, so trading/risking off-stage hits is rarely an option. He still gets by on having pretty meaty conversions and some generally good raw buttons, but he's a little too basic to hold a clear advantage on Min Min's cheese.

Fox is a swing, he has the mobility, conditioning and CQC - things Min Min doesn't like - but he also has a susceptible disadvantage, questionable shield pressure, and is lightweight - things Min Min likes. I would generally give Fox the advantage in most cases but it ain't something you can sleep on.

Falco on the other hand, hoo boy. Min Min does not like to be in airborne disadvantage, this is well documented. Falco is a character that operates on pure advantage. He doesn't have the neutral to outpace Wolf or Fox, but considering winning a neutral exchange will in most scenarios either send Min Min airborne or off stage, which are areas Falco does not struggle keeping opponents in, she's in for a pretty bad time. He generally gets the most off of grabs, so he has more shield options than Fox does. Not only is he the spacie who's more commonly going to attempt going off-stage to edgeguard, he's also risky to go off-stage against because of his side B spike. Min Min doesn't normally struggle with low recoveries but against Falco, it's easy to get cold feet. It's also hard to really play campy against him specifically since his lasers being a middle ground kinda sorta makes them the best against Min Min.

Stray thoughts otherwise on placements; Inkling is a weird one that I think he's too optimistic about but that might be more emblematic of Dabuz generally having a good history of knowing what works against the character. I haven't seen enough of Wario to make a passing judgment but in terms of superheavies I think Bowser is overvalued while DK is undervalued. DK is notorious for robbing stocks with some absolutely dummy advantage, and given Min Min is blatantly sub-par when forced off-stage, DK can take stocks earlier with her than with most other characters. There's other stuff here I'm skeptical about as well (Meta Knight, Kirby, maybe Greninja) but I recognize that he admits it could be wrong, and moreover it seems like he's among the notable amount of people starting to realize she's got the degeneracy sauce.
I don't have much to add, other than I think Min Min is strong - I think conceptually, not having to play in scrambles like most characters in this game is very strong and her ability to delete people off of one mistake in unparalleled, it's hard to think of other characters in the game that can do it with the regularity Min Min can.

As far as spacies go, I agree Wolf is the worst one but Fox feels worse than Falco, generally in that Falco's neutral struggles are much worse and Min Min can still punish him hard from the stage very well as he's recovering. I feel as long as you don't get taken to a tri-plat (which Min Min should be avoiding anyways), this feels fine - nerve wracking but fine.

I agree that both DK and Bowser are under/overrated, respectively. VS Bowser I feel not overcommitting is huge given he's just begging for a reason to jump in, but MU-to-MU I feel he carries a lot of the same weaknesses. DK is more exploitable but much more stressful to fight against.

The one difference I can point out from Dabuz's opinion to my own is that of Zelda - I haven't played many good Zeldas, but I feel this MU is quite bad for Zelda. I don't see how Zelda even gets the time to set up Phantom nor how she escapes the corner without putting herself at risk.
 

KirbySquad101

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I do agree with Dabuz in that she beats out most swordies aside from Chroy and maybe Lucina. Many of them like Byleth, Ike, Cloud, Richter, and Shulk want to focus a lot on spacing out the opponent with massive disjoints, but that gameplan gets pretty gimped when you're dealing with someone whose arms can reach half the stage.

The one placement I'm skeptical on the most is Mario. Given Dabuz's thoughts on the Wario/Pika MUs, I'm not sure what Mario's lacking in comparison that makes Min Min much harder to deal with for him.
 
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NotLiquid

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I do agree with Dabuz in that she beats out most swordies aside from Chroy and maybe Lucina. Many of them like Byleth, Ike, Cloud, Richter, and Shulk want to focus a lot on spacing out the opponent with massive disjoints, but that gameplan gets pretty gimped when you're dealing with someone whose arms can reach half the stage.

The one placement I'm skeptical on the most is Mario. Given Dabuz's thoughts on the Wario/Pika MUs, I'm not sure what Mario's lacking in comparison that makes Min Min much harder to deal with for him.
Mario is gimpable, Pikachu and Wario aren't. Whether that makes the disparity big enough is debatable though.
 

SwagGuy99

Smash Ace
Joined
Dec 28, 2016
Messages
713
Mario is gimpable, Pikachu and Wario aren't. Whether that makes the disparity big enough is debatable though.
I mean, Wario is fairly gimpable too, assuming he doesn't have bike, or at least he is for most characters.
 

NotLiquid

Smash Lord
Joined
Jul 14, 2014
Messages
1,336
I mean, Wario is fairly gimpable too, assuming he doesn't have bike, or at least he is for most characters.
Bike conservation is probably a skill most Wario players would have down pat for the MU. I definitely wouldn't put Wario's off-stage capacity at the levels of Pikachu but you're still contending with one of the characters sporting the best air speeds in the game (another Min Min blind spot), and can opt to cross up underneath the stage in some instances.

To be frank, I'm not entirely convinced Wario actually is as bad of a MU as Dabuz thinks, mainly because he lacks a good projectile that can conditions Min Min to engage. She doesn't like being forced to commit to anything and that's at least one thing Mario and Pikachu have going in comparison (although their projectiles are not the best against her since her ARMS beat TJolt/Fireball - with the caveat that the former can occasionally go over them).
 
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StrangeKitten

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 25, 2020
Messages
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Min Min's ability to play lame is unparalleled. She walls out opponents more consistently than any other character in the game. She's not lacking at all in kill power, either, when she's got easy edgeguards that don't force her to give up stage control if she misses, and Megawatt. I think she's easily high tier and I could potentially see low top tier
 

PK Bash

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
196
I'm not entirely convinced Wario actually is as bad of a MU as Dabuz thinks, mainly because he lacks a good projectile that can conditions Min Min to engage. She doesn't like being forced to commit to anything and that's at least one thing Mario and Pikachu have going in comparison (although their projectiles are not the best against her since her ARMS beat TJolt/Fireball - with the caveat that the former can occasionally go over them).
To be fair, he does have Waft, which for all intents and purposes achieves the same thing. Don't really want to give him two of those in a game if you don't have to.

I've not been (mis)fortunate to play the Min Min-Wario MU yet, and the VOD archives bring up nothing useful either, but I would expect him to be relatively resistant to Min Min's cheese given his weight, recovery and tiny frame. Being small and fast doesn't sound much fun to fight with this character in general to be honest. That's just theory though with no practice to back it up.

I do think she's really good however. She's got fantastic shield pressure with good tools to actually capitalise on that pressure (being able to more or less deny GW up B is pretty funny), high damage BnBs which work on everyone at broad %s, is able to stay mobile while putting up an offense in a way which gives me shades of Snake and S4 Villy (and is a huge draw over Byleth or Plant, for example), generally great advantage tools that cover what they need to and set up extremely well for each other, and a hell of a lot of cheese. You can't really checkmate this character because she can kill so early and safely off of standard options, kinda like Wolf with FAir > BAir or DSmash on ledge. I'm a huge fan of Min Min.
 

The_Bookworm

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 10, 2018
Messages
3,195
It is indeed difficult to find :ultminmin vs :ultwario: footage.

It is hard to find good :ultwario: footage in general lately.
The best Wario player in the Unites States currently plays other characters, and we don't have much information on the other online scenes, which contains the other top Wario players in the world.

This indirectly hurts :ultsamus::ultdarksamus: as well, as their best players also reside outside the US.
 

Lacrimosa

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 31, 2019
Messages
1,255
Location
Germany
It is indeed difficult to find :ultminmin vs :ultwario: footage.

It is hard to find good :ultwario: footage in general lately.
The best Wario player in the Unites States currently plays other characters, and we don't have much information on the other online scenes, which contains the other top Wario players in the world.

This indirectly hurts :ultsamus::ultdarksamus: as well, as their best players also reside outside the US.
Yeah, even though Europe does have in-person tournaments but they're also very rare.
The latest Glutonny tournament I can find is listed on Liquipedia is also listed here and he mostly went Wolf there, at least in the Grand Finals.
 

DougEfresh

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Mar 23, 2020
Messages
212
Hard to find much :ultjoker:footage either, since Leo has been playing :ultgreninja::ultbyleth::ultwolf: as of late. Joker is considered a much worse character online.
I'm not so certain Joker is that much worse online (I think arsene at least gets a buff on wifi), even though his combo game is bound to be less consistent overall. Leo is just a very reaction-based player, which online is obviously not conducive for and honestly I think lots of people just don't like playing their mains on wifi most of the time.

It's curious to see him use :ultgreninja:at certain points though, since the frog doesn't have the comeback/snowballing mechanic of arsene but otherwise seems to have a number of similarities to :ultjoker: in terms of overall playstyle and the precision you need to use greninja well.
 
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Hydreigonfan01

Smash Master
Joined
Aug 24, 2018
Messages
4,307
Kept is hosting a 32 man bracket offline invitational in Japan, featuring most of the top 100 in the Japan Power Rankings including Zackray, Kameme, KEN, Kuro, Abadango, Raito, T, HIKARU and Choco. It's Kanto players only, so Shuton, Tea and ProtoBanham are not coming. It's also on 4 different days for the four different groups being 9/26, 10/3, 10/10, 10/17 and for the final bracket 10/24.

It's the most stacked offline event since Frostbite easily.
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/irfr7p Here's a Reddit post about it, but this is basically the size of a Smash Summit.
 
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Firox

Smash Master
Joined
Jan 7, 2019
Messages
3,336
It's curious to see him use :ultgreninja:at certain points though, since the frog doesn't have the comeback/snowballing mechanic of arsene but otherwise seems to have a number of similarities to :ultjoker: in terms of overall playstyle and the precision you need to use greninja well.
As someone who plays both characters, I can say that :ultgreninja: has more consistent kill power and kill confirms online than :ultjoker: does. Arsene definitely helps Joker when it's up, but he suffers from Shiek syndrome pretty badly when it's not. You'd be surprised how much easier it is to kill with the frog off of a stray Fair, Nair or Ditlt than it is to get reads with Joker. Plus, the two characters play similarly enough that any precision from Joker's play translates nicely to Greninja as well.
 
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