Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hydreigonfan01]

That sucks. Marss was one of the few US players who could have stood up to the Mexican juggernauts MKLeo, Maester and Spargo. I wouldn't be surprised if they steamroll everyone.

Tweek and Dabuz qualified, and other players such as KEN have as well. I don't think it'll be a complete steamroll by any of them, not even Leo.

 

[Thinkaman]

So NA's contributions to the finals are:

6 of the following from the west:

• Scend
• Kiyarash
• MVD
• Hanayome
• BassMage
• Larry Lurr
• T3 DOM
• Midnight
  
  
• SKITTLES!!
• Pandarian
• Middy
• Domnique
• Big D
• Exodia
• Silver
• Justice

...and 6 from the east:

• Vendetta
• ESAM
• Kola
• Yez
• Wrath
• KirbyKid
• Epic_Gabriel
• Rivers
  
  
• Tweek
• Syrup
• LeoN
• Armadillo
• WaDi
• Riddles
• Dabuz
• Sharp

Neat that each regionals will feature entirely unique mains within them, with the exception of the 2 ROBs in the east.

These events are many months in the future though!

 

[SKX31]

Tweek and Dabuz qualified, and other players such as KEN have as well. I don't think it'll be a complete steamroll by any of them, not even Leo.

Out of the 112 Regional players:

• 18 were amongst the PGRU v2 up until Area 51 (5 in the top 10, 10 in the Top 20). And additional 3 were in the X-Factor.
• An additional 14 were amongst the Wi-Fi Warrior rank v6. Again, up until Area 51. One can also expand on the definition and include Japan's Wi-Fi ranking summate (SmashMate I believe) - Kuroponzu, HERO and Omuatsu are in that ranking, 25th, 45th and 2nd respectively currently. [Edited to take the current ranking into acount]

The regional distribution of those 38 are:

• Oceania: None, although there are some notable names like Jdizzle (first Aussie to beat a PGR player, although that was back in Smash 4) (1 Finals slot).
• East Asia: KEN, Kuroponzu, Omuatsu, ProtoBanHam. Shuton, Gackt, HERO (7 total - 6 Finals slots).
• Europe: Bloom4eva, Gluttony, SuperStriker (3 total - 6 Finals slots)
• South America: None, although Br1 AV was previously ranked in the Wi-Fi rank v5. (1 Finals slot)
• Central America: Sparg0, MKLeo, Maister, Chag, Sonix, ShinyMark (6 total - 6 Finals slots)
• NA West: Scend, SKITTLES!!, Pandarian, Kiyarash, Middy, MVD, Big D, Larry Lurr, T3 DOM (9 total - 6 Finals slots)
• NA East: Tweek, ESAM, Kola, LeoN, Yez, Wrath, WaDi, KirbyKid, Riddles, Epic_Gabriel, Dabuz, Rivers, naitosharp (13 total - 6 Finals slots. With 16 total slots in the Regional, it means that at least 3 of these 13 will qualify for the Global Finals.)

Yeah, this should illustrate how absurdly stacked quite a lot of these regions are.

Overall, I'd consider the online qualifiers a relative success. Yes, there were a lot of hiccups, weird region arrangements (like treating EU / South America as one whole qualifier when the two could be splintered into sub-regions, as well as the Midwest being carved into the different NA regions) and no real clarity in regards to what the seeding actually means - which lead to quite a lot of sandbagging in the seeding rounds*. But none of the regions felt like foregone conclusions. Especially not the more hotly contested regions - and that's a good sign, despite it all being on the horrendously laggy online.

There were a lot of prominent Smashers eliminated in the qualifying rounds but also a lot who qualified, which honestly is a good sign considering they made most out of a really bad situation to begin with. You also have a significant number of lesser known players making quite an impression: Syrup's a great example, but so is Oceania's online winner Kinaji (who are both 13). People like Sejun qualifying to the Regionals also helps SWT's legitimacy partly due to his pedigree, but also since lesser-known scenes may benefit a lot from that.

That said, next time the qualifying matches should take priority over the seeding matches, even if a lot of people stayed to watch more Tweek. (Also, additional streams to help cut down on dead time would help.). I'm not sure what to do with the regions next year (and I'm going to assume that SWT continues to be a thing) - splitting Japan and East Asia into separate regions may be a decent-to-good idea here, although how many spots each region should get is going to be heavily dependent on if SWT expands from 32 Global slots or not.

The Regionals will be scattered throughout the coming months, with the first being Oceania's (June 25th-27th).

*(Edit; Although said sandbagging sometimes lead to hilarity, like the Dabuz / Sharp all-random set.)

 

[blackghost]

to me leon is quickly becoming the sonicfox of this game. not in the sense he is so much better than everyone. but in a idfferent way.

in sports there are some teams that win by mudding up the game turning normal situations into scramble situations by using approaches normally are avoided. I dont think leon has exceptional game knowledge, matchup knowledge or spacing. i think he wants to turn every match ingto a down and dirty brawl. knowing it platys to bowsers strengths of punishing bad decisions (that command grab is nasty). and even in a brawl where both characters are taking a lot of damage bowser still has armor, tough guy and weight to live.

beating leon is very bit as much as knowing you are playing leon as much as bowser. he will press dair, bowser bomb and command grab. even when its techincally "wrong" to do so. thats why leon often steamrolls people the first few times they have a set against him.

on a different note. i hope players go learn their ROB matchups.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Since this thread is likely going to be inactive until the next character reveal (likely next month), since we don't really have any tournaments to speak of until June 25th (the next SWT tournament), so I want to stur-up some character discussion.

I want to know you guy's thoughts about , since he is a relatively obscure character despite a few top players thinking highly of him.

Ever since the start of the game, the character is rarely seen in tournaments, especially at high level. He has seen some success in locals and regional events, but these said instances are both scattered and only happens at certain time periods. His success at high level is extremely limited, even in comparison to other mid tier characters.
Even with SSB4 Lucas at 2018, a time where Taiheita was completely absent, I have seen Lucas more often and make more of an impact in tournaments.

Despite the character being known to being a WiFi warrior character, with some of his most talented players playing WiFi exclusively ever since SSB4, I don't really see this character much at all in online tourneys. I don't think I have seen a Lucas player place within the top 32 of any Lunch Box tournaments, and there was only one Lucas player in the entire SWT that placed at the top 32 (REM!!!'s 25th placement at NA Southeast).

I have a strong feeling why this is the case, and want to share my opinion on it, but I want to see what you guys think of the character first.

 

[Nekoo]

If you guys need a tournament to talk about soon, France start offline slowly but surely, and the 20th june, there is a Major Wanted with 260 players with literally all of it's talent coming in for it. Glutonny, Ogey, Flow, Homika, Flow, Raflow, NaetorU and others.

 

[DougEfresh]

Since this thread is likely going to be inactive until the next character reveal (likely next month), since we don't really have any tournaments to speak of until June 25th (the next SWT tournament), so I want to stur-up some character discussion.

I want to know you guy's thoughts about , since he is a relatively obscure character despite a few top players thinking highly of him.

Ever since the start of the game, the character is rarely seen in tournaments, especially at high level. He has seen some success in locals and regional events, but these said instances are both scattered and only happens at certain time periods. His success at high level is extremely limited, even in comparison to other mid tier characters.
Even with SSB4 Lucas at 2018, a time where Taiheita was completely absent, I have seen Lucas more often and make more of an impact in tournaments.

Despite the character being known to being a WiFi warrior character, with some of his most talented players playing WiFi exclusively ever since SSB4, I don't really see this character much at all in online tourneys. I don't think I have seen a Lucas player place within the top 32 of any Lunch Box tournaments, and there was only one Lucas player in the entire SWT that placed at the top 32 (REM!!!'s 25th placement at NA Southeast).

I have a strong feeling why this is the case, and want to share my opinion on it, but I want to see what you guys think of the character first.

I'm no expert on Lucas (since as you've said here, he's quite obscure), but he seems to be "solid" in most areas without being too ridiculous in any respect. He does have good fdata overall and decent disjoints to space and box with, but he's much more technical than Ness overall and since Lucas lacks the raw "oomph" that Ness has for kill power, I think he needs the tech and fancy combo game more to keep up with the cast at a high level. Even then, I've heard that some match ups are extremely rough for him, such as and .

While other swordies are likely more manageable for Lucas, I think he does have trouble against them similar to Ness and being a floaty, mid-weight character makes him combo food that has a hard time landing; ergo, his disadvantage state can be pretty suspect. His recovery goes a much further distance though, and his off-stage pressure/edgeguarding seems to be very good from what I've seen.

Overall, I think Lucas is a decent character, but unless his playerbase really masters his tech and combo game (the latter of which is apparently very character-specific, meaning lots of time in the lab) for consistency at high level play, he'll likely never be seen in the same light of viability as Ness (even though he could be just as good as Ness imo) when there are easier characters available to play for tournament success. It doesn't help that WebbJP, one of the best Lucas players in the world both online and offline, dropped him in favor of ZSS some time ago, though I still think he keeps him as a secondary/pocket character.

TL; DR - Lucas is an interesting, enigmatic character in Ultimate's roster that's solid enough most of the time imo, but is unlikely to show what he's capable of in the meta due to higher technical demands and some glaring flaws that have to be worked around in his current state.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

If you guys need a tournament to talk about soon, France start offline slowly but surely, and the 20th june, there is a Major Wanted with 260 players with literally all of it's talent coming in for it. Glutonny, Ogey, Flow, Homika, Flow, Raflow, NaetorU and others.

InfinityCON as well, which is an offline tournament with Sparg0, Kola, Ned, Aaron, Rivers, Goblin, Myran, Muteace, Fatality, Nicko, Mew2King and Hungrybox. It's on June 5th-7th.

Edit: Results for the Lunchbox 11.

1. Sparg0
2. Sonix
3. WaKa
4. Tilde
5. WebbJP
5. JeJaJeJa
7. ShinyMark
7. SassyFlygon

 

[SKX31]

Since this thread is likely going to be inactive until the next character reveal (likely next month), since we don't really have any tournaments to speak of until June 25th (the next SWT tournament), so I want to stur-up some character discussion.

I want to know you guy's thoughts about , since he is a relatively obscure character despite a few top players thinking highly of him.

Ever since the start of the game, the character is rarely seen in tournaments, especially at high level. He has seen some success in locals and regional events, but these said instances are both scattered and only happens at certain time periods. His success at high level is extremely limited, even in comparison to other mid tier characters.
Even with SSB4 Lucas at 2018, a time where Taiheita was completely absent, I have seen Lucas more often and make more of an impact in tournaments.

Despite the character being known to being a WiFi warrior character, with some of his most talented players playing WiFi exclusively ever since SSB4, I don't really see this character much at all in online tourneys. I don't think I have seen a Lucas player place within the top 32 of any Lunch Box tournaments, and there was only one Lucas player in the entire SWT that placed at the top 32 (REM!!!'s 25th placement at NA Southeast).

I have a strong feeling why this is the case, and want to share my opinion on it, but I want to see what you guys think of the character first.

I'm no expert on Lucas (since as you've said here, he's quite obscure), but he seems to be "solid" in most areas without being too ridiculous in any respect. He does have good fdata overall and decent disjoints to space and box with, but he's much more technical than Ness overall and since Lucas lacks the raw "oomph" that Ness has for kill power, I think he needs the tech and fancy combo game more to keep up with the cast at a high level. Even then, I've heard that some match ups are extremely rough for him, such as and .

While other swordies are likely more manageable for Lucas, I think he does have trouble against them similar to Ness and being a floaty, mid-weight character makes him combo food that has a hard time landing; ergo, his disadvantage state can be pretty suspect. His recovery goes a much further distance though, and his off-stage pressure/edgeguarding seems to be very good from what I've seen.

Overall, I think Lucas is a decent character, but unless his playerbase really masters his tech and combo game (the latter of which is apparently very character-specific, meaning lots of time in the lab) for consistency at high level play, he'll likely never be seen in the same light of viability as Ness (even though he could be just as good as Ness imo) when there are easier characters available to play for tournament success. It doesn't help that WebbJP, one of the best Lucas players in the world both online and offline, dropped him in favor of ZSS some time ago, though I still think he keeps him as a secondary/pocket character.

TL; DR - Lucas is an interesting, enigmatic character in Ultimate's roster that's solid enough most of the time imo, but is unlikely to show what he's capable of in the meta due to higher technical demands and some glaring flaws that have to be worked around in his current state.

I'm no expert either, but to offer my input:

I don't think he's much worse than Ness at all: since Lucas does have some good disjoints to help play something of a keep-away game if neccessary and the fact that he's got PK Freeze as a great edge guard tool means he can snipe out some edgeguard kills pretty well. Lucas does also have several multi-hits: while they can be janky they nevertheless linger and provide extra coverage if needed in a lot of situations, which not only helps his keep-away game but also his ability to extend stuff.

You're right though Doug, and I think part of the problem is the same kind of spiel has: There's a major, if not massive, difference between a Lucas combo that does 30 % vs. one that does 50, 60 or even 70+ %. Especially given that Lucas - like Ness - does not want to take too many neutral losses. His kill moves aren't as safe as Ness' either (No Yoyo to finish off missed footstool techs or edgeguards for example - while Lucas' Down Smash is great at edgeguarding it is much more commital than Ness' D-Smash IIRC) which also makes him have to commit for kills more.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I'll give my two cents in the conversation.

For starters, while the character is trickier to play than let's say Ness, we must also consider who is playing the character.
We have players like ChocoTaco, Hakadama, Mekos, Regalo, Remi, Rizeo (co-mains with Isabelle), ShiNe (before dropping him for PkMn Trainer), WebbJP (before dropping him for ZSS), and WhYYZ.
What do these players have in common?
They all have mained Lucas for many years in previous Smash games. All of them mained him in SSB4 (with Rizeo solo-maining him), with a few (like Mekos) even maining him as far back as Brawl.

So I don't really think character difficulty is much of a factor with Lucas as a result.
You could argue that Lucas in this game is harder to play than in SSB4 (which is something I am still on the fence about), but all of these players have many years of experience with the character, yet they have trouble achieving success in high level play (or consistent success across-the-board in general), especially in comparison with their performances with SSB4 Lucas.


While it is strange to say this, but I think it kinda ties in on why is a noticeably better character than , despite receiving mostly nerfs in the transition from Brawl to SSB4.
Yes, had the whole grab release issue that hurt him quite a bit in that game.
However, the vast majority of his moves are arguably at its absolute best between his three iterations, between his moveset having the best frame data of the three iterations by far, sometimes in terms of damage output, the fact that his sweetspots generally have higher priority over his sourspots, and his sourspots being generally more advantageous on hit plus having more range on those said moves.

Between the transition, Lucas has received nerfs across the board in frame data, range, damage, and sometimes knockback, in addition of the significant weakening of his sourspots (they have less range, generally less advantageous on hit, and higher priority).
The impact of these nerfs can still be felt with Ultimate Lucas today despite all the buffs to these moves, especially regarding the sourspots.

So why is SSB4 Lucas a much better character?
Well we have the grab release issue fixed, and as well all know, Lucas has obtained a powerful grab combo game, tether attack, and PK Fire being buffed in the transition. This gives him a psuedo-zoner bait-and-punish playstyle. Forward air is still a good/key tool despite all the nerfs it has received. We all know Lucas plays in SSB4, and has received overall respectable tournament success thanks to it, especially in the middle years of SSB4's lifetime.

But with all the nerfs to his moveset, being the weakest of the three iterations in terms of the overall effectiveness of his moveset by far, why is his SSB4 iteration the one he obtained the most tournament success with by far?

I think it is largely because Lucas' general moveset is fundamentally flawed to function as a more aggressive or even all-rounder playstyle, which is the direction both his Brawl and Ultimate iterations lean towards.

Between the awkward sourspot system and general lack of reach, and some of his normals being mostly geared to being purely edgeguarding tools (back air, down air, down smash, etc.), Lucas CAN function as an all-rounder, but he shouldn't. His moveset generally has a lot of holes for him to function effectively this way. He isn't going to execute this playstyle better than anyone else.

With SSB4 Lucas, you have his general changes leaning towards an entirely different playstyle than the other two versions, utilizing a bait-and-punish playstyle with a few strong tools rather than using his other moves like an all-rounder playstyle. His other moves are the support cast that pieces this new playstyle together, rather than the primary focus. If Lucas isn't going to function that well as an all-rounder, he shouldn't.

In the transition between to , we see the opposite problem: receiving mostly buffs across the board, yet has not achieved anywhere close to the tournament success of the previous iteration.
He has received general buffs to his frame data and damage output, with his aerial game being the best of the three iterations by far thanks to the autocanceling capabilities and increased shieldstun of Ultimate. This comes at the cost of losing the main thing that made his playstyle from the previous game worth it (namely the severe nerfs to down throw), as well as the nerfs to tether attack as a general zoning tool.

Lucas is now back to square-one: his moveset is now more leaning towards a more all-rounder playstyle, that can pull off some stuff from his bait-and-punish playstyle from the previous game (namely the buffs to PK Fire over the years). As a result, he is a bit more of a mix-up type in this game.

The issue is that his overall effectiveness with this playstyle is still held-back by his moveset's fundamental disadvantages, something that while it got helped out in the transition, did not get fixed.
It doesn't help that the on-stage things Lucas DOES excel in Ultimate is either hard-to-land, inconsistent, or both.
The buffs to his edgeguarding isn't as significant as it is on first glance. One point is from the committal nature of his edgeguarding. The other, more significant thing, is the fact that Lucas already excels at edgeguarding. The buffs to PK Freeze, down air, and down smash, all help his edgeguarding indeed, but it doesn't add anything substantial to Lucas as a character because edgeguarding was never an issue with him in the first place, while these buffed tools doesn't change the way Lucas edgeguards anyways.

is another character that faces this same issue.
He has received mostly buffs in the transition from the transition from SSB4 to Ultimate, with his general moveset getting frame data buffs, improvements to his hitboxes and range, and as well as improvements to his already great mobility.
However, with the nerfs to his most powerful aspects (dash attack, up air, Shuttle Loop latter combos), and while the buffs help his primary issues in reach, damage output, and some fundamentally flawed aspects to his moveset (jab, f-tilt, etc.), these issues are far from fixed, leading to an overall much less effective character than in SSB4.

The end result is that Lucas does end up missing the tools he had in the previous game a lot. If you watch top level Lucas footage, you generally see Lucas players lean towards the patient playstyle of zair, fair, and PK Fire, because they still kinda have to.
In other words, Lucas players is forced to play Ultimate Lucas like a watered-down version of his SSB4 iteration, despite all the buffs he has received in the transition.

Lucas as a whole, feels like he lacks cohesion in Ultimate. He has a weird mix of his Brawl and SSB4 iteration tools, while possessing some his own unique stuff, but he has trouble piecing these tools together for an overall effective playstyle that allows him to have (consistent) tournament success on especially high level play. Unlike SSB4 Lucas who knows what he wants to be, Ultimate Lucas does not.
I have heard many returning Lucas players express their dismay with how Ultimate Lucas plays and functions as a character, especially prior to his 4.0.0 buffs (which is a long time ago now and is merely a few QoL changes),

Of course, is still a better character than , namely thanks to the improved keep-away, combo ability, and lack of grab release issues, but you still see some of the similar fundamental issues come back to hurt Lucas in the long run.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Poppt1 released his tier list.

There's quite a lot of things I really don't agree with on here, to say the least. First off, Pika overrated. But I think the biggest issues are ROB being high tier, Olimar being mid tier, Chrom being that much worse than Roy, Wolf not being top 10 and Steve being top 15.

 

[blackghost]

Poppt1 released his tier list.
View attachment 316711
There's quite a lot of things I really don't agree with on here, to say the least. First off, Pika overrated. But I think the biggest issues are ROB being high tier, Olimar being mid-tier, Chrom being that much worse than Roy, Wolf not being top 10 and Steve being top 15.

Anytime someone releases a tier lst that resembles an upside down pyramid I'm going to have issues. if we went through each character in top tier and high tier most of those chaarcters do not have matchup charts that resemble a top tier or high tier.
stop. putting. pika. that. high.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Anytime someone releases a tier lst that resembles an upside down pyramid I'm going to have issues. if we went through each character in top tier and high tier most of those chaarcters do not have matchup charts that resemble a top tier or high tier.
stop. putting. pika. that. high.

With I don't have a problem with him being top 10 or top 5, mostly because he's in the same category as Shulk in terms of results with only two Shulk mains that get good results (Just like how there's only two Pika mains which are ESAM and ShinyMark). That said, no one thinks Shulk is top 1, so Pika being top 1 is strange.

 

[SKX31]

Anytime someone releases a tier lst that resembles an upside down pyramid I'm going to have issues. if we went through each character in top tier and high tier most of those chaarcters do not have matchup charts that resemble a top tier or high tier.
stop. putting. pika. that. high.

With I don't have a problem with him being top 10 or top 5, mostly because he's in the same category as Shulk in terms of results with only two Shulk mains that get good results (Just like how there's only two Pika mains which are ESAM and ShinyMark). That said, no one thinks Shulk is top 1, so Pika being top 1 is strange.

When looking at Pika's matchup chart compilation, there are 10 matchup charts, of which the highest score is Mada (from Idaho) who gave a 99 % and no losing MUs (compared to ESAM's 96 % and 2 losing MUs). The lowest, Cerulean (8 losing MUs) and Pillow (13 losing MUs) at 78 %, would still be enough to put the character comfortably in the top 10 within the Doc's rank page.
The Pika players and opponents do not diverge a lot in their opinions: there are only a few cases ( , , , , , , ) where the opponents' opinions and Pika players' opinions diverge to a greater extent. For example, the 9 Doc matchup charts have the Doc-Pika matchup averaged to roughly an Even, while the 10 Pika mains think that the same MU averages to a +2 in Pika's favor. Other than those, Pika players and opponents generally agree to more or less same extent. Both Pika and Palu mains agree that that MU is Pika favored for example.

Pikachu also has the highest "Opponents' Opinion" score at 85,7%, the next highest is at 83,3%. Opponents also average out to 0,97, or +1 for Pika (Shulk has a +0.79 OO score). The difference between Pika Players' and Opponents' averages or scores isn't that high (Pika players' opinions average out to 92,5 %, 6,8 % higher than the opponents, while Pika players' score is +1,29) and Pika's opponents average out so that Pika have a 65-14-5 MU spread. Shulk's opponents average out so that Shulk winds up with a 58-24-2 MU spread, but the Document rewards more wins / lack of even MUs, so Pika gets a better OO score.

Now yes, the Document has quite a lot of jank in it (quite a few really weird MU charts are included for example) and most crucially Ultimate is still young enough that we simply don't have close to enough material - in fact, we won't have close to enough for years to come. Still, the document is useful for measuring how (in)consistent players' and opponents' opinions are. And in Pika's case, things are puretty consistent.

I'm kinda starting to doubt that ESAM was the sole reason why Pika's viewed so highly. Yeah, he's a loud voice (and that + his success does a lot) but I'm getting the impression that it's also partly due to the adherence to theorycrafting as well as the relative lack of percieved even MUs. Pika has the least amount of even MUs in the Document (discounting characters included for some weird reason like solo ) and that leads me to believe that Pika's the kind of polarizing character where a lot of people believe that "Pika is capable of getting these combo extensions on my character and can kill my character off stage early? Plus [Insert another reason, like pancaking]? Whelp, this is a difficult MU". And it may be with good reason, even if a lot of the Pika conversation is perhaps overhyped with "PIKACHU BUSTED!".

Yes, theorycrafting has its own jank like being peppered with inherent personal biases, and yes, it may not be as valid of a measuring tool now as in games past. When there were way less characters to worry about (incl. less high / top tier characters frequently used in tournaments). But I do understand why those players rely on it at least a bit: It's not just a fall-back option considering we lack enough hard data (we'd likely need truly human-level or beyond AIs to be able to analyze Ultimate's entire metagame within the span of a year or so, and the most advanced AIs out there aren't there yet) but also allows for some exploration where people may not have the time to sit down and lab MUs. Even if it winds up a bit inaccurate in the end.

 

[Rizen]

A thing to note about ESAM as a player is he has a very aggressive play style while also being very good. Most players simply aren't good enough to handle it and get wrecked. Players of equal or greater skill however can counter this and frequently force ESAM to switch off pikachu or in some cases even rage quit. Dabuz is a good example of this. My point being, ESAM's superior skill makes pika look like he wins MUs by more than he does but pika can be limited too. Even lower characters like Ken and Ryu can hold up to pika if they have someone like Vendetta behind them.

When I went to tournaments there were a few pika players but they certainly weren't destroying everyone, not anywhere near the level ESAM's MU chart suggests. And, based on watching Orionstats over the last few seasons, this seems to be the case with other smash scenes as well. Pika is definitely a very good character with excellent tools but not the shining god people make him out to be.

 

[Frihetsanka]

There's been some talk on Twitter about Hero's menu being a major issue for some people with dyslexia (not to mention language barriers, like Japan to US or US to Japan), and it's been compared with talks about banning Northern Cave because of motion sickness issues. There seems to be three solutions to this problem: Banning Hero as a whole, banning Hero's menu only, and allowing Hero and throwing people with dyslexia under the bus.

If the third option is chosen, then it's a bit odd to also ban Northern Cave with the argument that Smashers care about disabilities. Granted, banning a stage is very different from banning a character. Either way it's a discussion the Smash community should be having (probably quite some time ago although I personally never considered the dyslexia aspect of Hero).

The Discussion started with Nicko (as far as I know):

really awesome how northern cave is getting banned because of visuals but people with dyslexia just gotta hold that L against Hero

— Niko (@Niko_SSBU) May 27, 2021

Dusty Carpet's take:

I personally think both Northern Cave and Hero are fine for competitive play

But it would not make sense to have one banned and not the other. They’d both need to be allowed/banned

The logic of including everyone, even ppl with dyslexia/motion sickness, needs to stay consistent

— Dusty_Carpet (@Dusty_Carpet_) May 27, 2021

Apparently bad eyesight can also be an issue:

i don't have dyslexia but i have bad eyesight and it's the same, it's hard to read hero spells for me that's also why i don't like playing the character myself

— Exelium (@Exelium2) May 27, 2021

 

[WatwatBreton]

Some pika tidbits:

The lowest, Cerulean (8 losing MUs)

This might be my favorite pika mu chart yet lol, this feels... more grounded in reality XD some annoying matchups, quite a lot of even,/slight winning against most relevant characters and body most bad characters. This is the sort of things I usually see in gren matchup charts for reference - characters that are good and have tools to fight pretty much anyone but aren't gamebreaking either.

Curious on whether Doc VS Pika has any recorded games (maybe in japan? will have to check). I assume most pika put it at +2 because "doc bad" and "edgegard" and maybe bair loops are that oppressive, but I could also totally see the matchup as even - doc has the damage and frame data to contest pika at point blank, and a very neat tool in sh cape to deal with tjolt camping.

In general I feel like one of the reasons pika is overrated (and has been since smash 4 lmao, remember when he was viewed on the same level as prepatch sheik aka god_among_men?), is that he feels... awful to play against. Nair loop take an eternity to do and make u watch ur character stop playing the game for 10s, tjolt put an immense amount of pressure on some characters (and players!) while pika just had to press b (hard character!!), having ur move being low profiled sucks, so does being shieldpoked by random_safe_aerial...

Combine that with twitter matchup impressions of "he's small and hard to hit and has good edgegard +1 matchup!" and ESAM propaganda and you get urself a big scaremongering of Pika the MetaSlayer and his #20 results. Meanwhile in the corner palutena is just sitting with godlike (lol) results since release and rob keeps getting away with robbery (lol²) as he hits his third ACTUALLY_RELEVANT_IN_GAME 0->death confirm out of a safe nair, which also comes with a "whats a shoto" -5 on shield dtilt .

 

[Rizen]

Speaking of , here's an upset for you. Nair^ CPed Hero to beat MKLeo, beat Maister in winner's finals then 3-0ed Maister again in grands. This tournament's a pretty good example of menu jank. There's instant shield breaks and thwack killing below 50%. These things happen.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Seems Epic_Gabriel has dyslexia and struggles with Hero:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I was wondering why not more people have spoken up about it, but I guess speaking up might lead to people counter-picking you ("Oh, Epic_Gabriel has dyslexia, time to bring out Hero"), which is incentive to keep it hidden. Hero being legal might also dissuade US and European players for travelling to Japan, since they might end up facing a Japanese Hero and might have to deal with menu in Japanese (though I suppose they could lab the MU in Japanese before travelling to Japan, which probably isn't easy but doable).

As for the video Rizen posted, yes, RNG quite often plays a significant role in Hero MUs. Hocus Pocus does not (usually considered too risky to pick), but other aspects, such as getting the right buff, getting the right projectile/melee move, getting Zoom, etc, do matter. Also random crits occasionally matter but not nearly as often as menu.

It seems likely that Hero is at least high tier tier, many Hero players think he's top tier but I'm not convinced yet. He's still a character you have to be ready for and him being legal does make it much harder for people who want to travel and people with dyslexia. Perhaps one way to mitigate the travel aspect is to let the non-Hero player pick the language (perhaps limit it to Japanese and English so Hero mains won't have to learn Russian, Korean, etc etc). This wouldn't help people with dyslexia though, and it wouldn't do anything for the RNG aspects.

 

[williamsga555]

I'm not convinced that dealing with Hero with dyslexia is as equivalent as the visual noise of Northern Cave, but it's at least worth discussing.

The main objection I have is that the counterplay to his spells is largely the same regardless of which one he chooses -often times, mid-match, you don't have time to react to Hero opening his menu and reading the options he has before he makes his selection. Generally, you know the counterplay is either going to be jump (avoids all attack spells except Magic Burst and Kamikaze), shield (avoids everything except Hatchet Man), or nothing (buff spells). Is being able to read his selection in a split second so pivotal that the character should be banned? I'm not convinced, personally, but I'm far from a high enough level to know how crucial this kind of reaction actually is.

Northern Cave, however, potentially affects your ability to deal with any character in the cast in a huge variety of situations. If someone is physically incapable of tuning out the lighting effects, there will be several instances in every game, regardless of character where they could face an unfair situation.
Now, I'm not necessarily calling for the Northern Cave ban, but I think the argument for it is a good deal stronger than that of Hero

 

[Ziodyne 21]

To me seems like a lesser suffer of where they have a strong and very explosive toolset (special moves) that would be very strong, maybe broken on paper But is anchored down both figureativley and literally by poor mobility and unfavourable frame data.

Of course Hero has better mobility than Inceneroar not that its a high bar to cross. Plus Hero can figureativley and literally explode in the enemies face to take stocks quicker tham even Inceneroar after the hardest of reads.


Hero as he is built will be an eternal wild card in the meta of this game.

 

[ZephyrZ]

Sometimes having a disability means playing at a disability. It sucks but that's how it is.

We should try to accomidate for disabilities where we can but when it starts become an issue for other players is where I would personally draw the lines. For a more extreme example, no one would expect us to turn off the moniters to even the playing field against blind players. It might be hyperbole but my point is that a line has be be drawn somewhere.

And its not like Hero makes the game unplayable to dyslexic players, it just gives them a disadvantage in a niche match up.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Sometimes having a disability means playing at a disability. It sucks but that's how it is.

We should try to accomidate for disabilities where we can but when it starts become an issue for other players is where I would personally draw the lines. For a more extreme example, no one would expect us to turn off the moniters to even the playing field against blind players. It might be hyperbole but my point is that a line has be be drawn somewhere.

And its not like Hero makes the game unplayable to dyslexic players, it just gives them a disadvantage in a niche match up.

Speak for yourself I have a mental disability and I am now eternally depressed and miserable

 

[Cutie Gwen]

What a surprise, Hero causes an upset and there's now legality discussions, surely this and every other time this happened is a coincidence and not at all reactionary. At the risk of sounding like a massive asshole, I think this is the first time I see dylsexia concerns for Hero, you know, almost 2 years after they came out. Surely this would have been brought up significantly more often like "RNG bad" and language barrier concerns? Considering the massive outrage because Samsora got whacked at 0% once but still won the set or how I've seen someone on this thread argue Hatchet Man of all moves was an issue, I get the feeling it's not out of genuine concern but looking for a reason to get rid of a matchup that's deemed unpleasant.

For a more extreme example, no one would expect us to turn off the moniters to even the playing field against blind players.

It's funny you mention this as there are multiple blind players in the FGC, they manage to get around it by using the game's audio cues, which I think is wonderful.

Hang on, audio cues? What about deaf or hard of hearing players? Aren't they at a disadvantage with every matchup unlike this Hero specific concern? If we let this go through then we should mute all the audio for every match and maybe ban cheaters who use sound when online, right? What about Steve's UI? It's so small that I and many others can't read it too well, ban Steve too then, right? Oh, and what about Pyra and Mythra? I genuinely struggle telling the two apart when a player uses the Pneuma palette, the green and white one for those who don't know, only realizing it when I'm either getting combo'd, get smacked really hard or see a special move get used, so do we ban the palette/character too? I hate to say it but like Zachmac said, lines need to be drawn, and a character like Hero who has failed to dominate the scene despite what all these legality debates would have you think is a pretty damn important line

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Initial Seeding for Pandemic Anniversary Series: Finale (32 entrees, invitational event)

1. Sparg0
2. Sonix
3. naitosharp
4. ESAM
5. Riddles
6. Jake
7. Maister
8. Scend
9. Chag
10. Yez
11. Dabuz
12. Epic Gabriel
13. Pokelam
14. Grayclash
15. SassyFlygon
16. WaKa

 

[$.A.F.]

Personally I definitely think that banning Hero is a dumb idea. Character bans based solely on disability are a very slippery slope.

 

[FruitLoop]

InfinityCON as well, which is an offline tournament with Sparg0, Kola, Ned, Aaron, Rivers, Goblin, Myran, Muteace, Fatality, Nicko, Mew2King and Hungrybox. It's on June 5th-7th.

Edit: Results for the Lunchbox 11.

1. Sparg0
2. Sonix
3. WaKa
4. Tilde
5. WebbJP
5. JeJaJeJa
7. ShinyMark
7. SassyFlygon

Random fun fact about that Lunchbox.

Mr. E and Cosmos (who were both part of the tourney) got sent to losers during pools by both me (who 2-0d Cosmos) and Arsenic (Who 2-1'd Mr. E) while we're both DDD mains. This happened on the SAME pool as well.

 

[blackghost]

Speaking of , here's an upset for you. Nair^ CPed Hero to beat MKLeo, beat Maister in winner's finals then 3-0ed Maister again in grands. This tournament's a pretty good example of menu jank. There's instant shield breaks and thwack killing below 50%. These things happen.

honestly this goes more back to my point about commentators influecing how poeple view characters.

4:30 commentator "he got another powerup from hocus pocus" - blantant lie. he just pressed psych up.

4:00 commentator "if that was a crit he would have died" meister got hit with a raw f smash for no reason if that was vs a heavy character we'd hear them say that meister is lucky to live. and hero fmsash frame data is worse than most heavies smash frame data wise.

 

[RonNewcomb]

I'm in broad agreement with this thread. If I fight a colorblind player must I turn down hue and saturation to 0 on the monitor? As someone who on Umbra Clock Tower, North Cave isn't that bad.

Also didn't the devs tone down the brightness on Final Destination in 4?

 

[Arthur97]

Smash commentators can be...something. Though there isn't commentary free versions of most of these games, so you have to live with questionable commentary. Or bow out.

 

[Krysco]

My understanding is that Unova was banned due to colorblind issues despite people claiming it was because of teleport recovery issues so there is precedent for removing stages for such reason and while people like to bring up FD, namely the Smash 4 one, Omegas were a thing and I particularly recall Omega Palutena's Temple being used often. If someone truly had an issue with the blinding light from Smash 4 FD, there were alternatives. Northern Cave doesn't quite have that. The overall platform layout is shared with Kalos but the platform height, wall vs no wall and I think even the stage length and blastzones are different so NC doesn't have a perfect replacement the way FD does.

As for Hero, I would say accommodating for disabilities is fine until it directly conflicts with an entire characters playerbase or even the entire playerbase of the game. People have brought up accommodating for blind and deaf people but there's even more. People that are prone to seizures are outright warned about playing video games in general if I'm not mistaken but they could still play. Do they accept their disadvantage or try to have as much removed from the game as possible to remove said disadvantage? What about people with hand issues? Do we remove any character that requires intensive SDI like Bayo or Steve? Melee players in general have been putting up with that and it's how we got controllers like the Smashbox or whatever it was called. That's an attempt at accommodating for a disability without hindering a playerbase for either a character or the entire game. Ideally Hero would have icons for his spells to help with the language issue, dyslexia and just making the menu easier in general for both the player and the opponent but that hasn't happened and I don't think we should disadvantage the entire Hero playerbase while we wait for a fix that may never even come.

 

[RonNewcomb]

Smash commentators can be...something. Though there isn't commentary free versions of most of these games, so you have to live with questionable commentary. Or bow out.

I'll cut them some slack if they're just doing their locals or whatever. Commentators need somewhere to practice too. I'm also forgiving if they don't know the finer details of some of the more technical characters. What's wrong with having a wind monado? It brings flavor.

 

[Rizen]

The most painless way to deal with would be not to ban him but allow players who have dyslexia or can't read the language to request the opponent use another character. It's not perfect but it accounts for everyone. I know I'd be pissed if hero was ledge trapping me and I couldn't read his menu.

 

[Gleam]

"This isn't fair, why can't just have a textbox with vocals telling me when he's going to use hammer, when it's going to be #9 and how I can avoid it. Instead I've got to do this...reacting thing. Like what kind of player just "reacts?" How the hell am I suppose to fight anyone if there's not a huge textbox popping up on my screen telling me what they're going to do!?"


That's what this issue with Hero sounds like. It's like, who cares if you can or can't read the textbox. That shouldn't be your concern, your concern should be reacting to Hero just as you would with anything else. And yes, at times you'll get caught by the RNG, just as you'll get caught by the RNG of the rest of the game. That's just the way it is.

Good lord, this community (not necessarily this forum) will do anything to take away the fun of this game.

 

[Frihetsanka]

"This isn't fair, why can't just have a textbox with vocals telling me when he's going to use hammer, when it's going to be #9 and how I can avoid it. Instead I've got to do this...reacting thing. Like what kind of player just "reacts?" How the hell am I suppose to fight anyone if there's not a huge textbox popping up on my screen telling me what they're going to do!?"


That's what this issue with Hero sounds like. It's like, who cares if you can or can't read the textbox. That shouldn't be your concern, your concern should be reacting to Hero just as you would with anything else. And yes, at times you'll get caught by the RNG, just as you'll get caught by the RNG of the rest of the game. That's just the way it is.

Good lord, this community (not necessarily this forum) will do anything to take away the fun of this game.

Seems rather insensitive towards people with dyslexia, don't you think? Regardless of whether you think Hero should be banned or not you cannot, in good faith, argue that these situations are comparable, surely? Dyslexia is very real.

 

[Gleam]

Sorry but I"m going to be the a**hole here. I don't care if your blind, deaf, dyslexic, or whatever your disability is. A person with a disability playing a game must simply cope with their disability as they play the game. If you're disability is so negating that not being able to read a small textbox throws you completely off the battle against Hero...

Than I can't imagine the idea of that same person playing literally any other character in which no textboxes show up. If that's seriously such a problem then maybe Smash isn't the game for them. Perhaps something like "Checkers" which doesn't require you to read textboxes and you can make nice and slow and methodical choices instead of reacting on the fly.

Like it's been said, this wasn't an issue 2 years ago despite the fact that nothing about Hero has changed. But now that Hero's making a name for himself, suddenly everyone's pulling out whatever crap they can to put him down instead of just...I don't know...getting better at the game.

I really don't care what your disability is. In fact if anything, I'm more impressed by those who continue to play despite their disability, then to cry and use it as a handicap excuse.

 

[Honest Slug]

Tbh the solution to this is really easy. Just put visual icons next to Hero's spells which represent what they are. It's really frustrating how this seems to have been ignored through every balance patch.

As is though, I'm not in favor of banning Hero. While dyslexic people have a disadvantage against Hero, he isn't such an overpowering character that he becomes impossible to beat. Hero still has the same disadvantages that he always does, such as his bad frame data. I still feel like good matchup familiarity can make Hero less of a problem, and banning him feels like a short-sighted move to me.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I think the community should try to be accessible if possible, though what exactly it entails in this situation could be argued. Perhaps there should be a "Hero clause" rather than a ban, that lets players veto playing vs him (or perhaps limiting it to only people with dyslexia). Perhaps only his down-B should be banned (like: "If he presses down-B and then selects a spell, he has to forfeit a stock, and if the spell he selected wins the game, he instead forfeits the whole game). Perhaps Hero should be banned (could be a way to bring attention to the issue, if Hero is banned for dyslexia + the language barrier issue then perhaps they will be more likely to patch in symbols for his spells). Alternatively, don't change the ruleset but do talk about it on Twitter etc in an attempt to get Nintendo's attention.

We shouldn't do nothing, but what should be done can be discussed. It doesn't necessarily have to be an outright Hero ban. Bringing this up for Nintendo (or whoever is doing the updates these days, Bandai-Namco?) could also work, potentially.

Northern Cave is most likely getting banned because a minority of players struggle with the background, so it wouldn't be the first time the ruleset were affected in order to make the game more accessible for a minority. It's a stage I personally like but I understand that a decent number of players struggle with the background. Dyslexia is fairly common too, with estimations between 2-10% having dyslexia.

 

[Thinkaman]

When GOTY 2016 The Witness came out, it included some puzzles that were entirely audio-based. While these puzzles were actually not required to progress to other sections of the game, you couldn't 100% the game without completing those puzzles obviously.

Predictable elements of Twitter pointed out that this was unfair to deaf players. However, it was unclear what solution was being proposed; the puzzles in question would be ruined if there was any kind of visual pop-up that spoiled them. (Including subtitles)

The only logical interpretation of this objection then becomes "We can't have subtle audio puzzles in games because deaf people exist." Which I think we'd all agree is insane.

I'm colorblind. There are lots of red/green content in games that are obnoxious for me. Other things too: the first time I discovered I was colorblind was when I saw both teams in a sport as having the same color uniform. I've started rock-climbing recently, and often I can't tell the color-coded routes apart.

Pictured: 3 colors of rock climbing holds. I have no idea why they only have half as many blues as the other 2 colors.​

It would be nice if the rock climbing gym used more color-blind friendly colors, but there are multiple reasons why that might not be a simple ask. What's more, while red-green varieties are the most common, other forms of colorblindness exist. Is accomodating just people like me and not the more rare types any different from prioritizing the general public and not people like me? The only way to be "fair" to everyone would be to not use color on the holds at all, which would make everyone equally miserable and confused.

At some point someone has to say "Wait a second! Rock climbing already differentiates by just about every physical characteristic and handicap imaginable! I mean, it's rock climbing! Thinkaman, you are 6'2" and weigh like negative 30 lbs, surely both of those things are 10x the advantage of not seeing colors well!"

Something something Ayn Rand The Incredibles Mark Twain. We can't just stop having rock climbing because people are short or missing limbs or can't see colors all that great. And we can't just stop having Smash because people have bad reaction time or carpal tunnel or can't see colors all that great.


We can respect one another by pursuing solutions to accessibility issues that are proportional in their cost to their frequency and magnitude of impact on the affected groups. This is inherently subjective and up for debate. Should we ban a stage for photosensitive concerns? Maybe, maybe not. It's up for debate. How many people are affected? How much of an issue is it for them? How much is everyone else affected if we play without the stage? It's an unavoidable calculus, it has to be.

Relevant to that math is that banning a character is not the same thing as banning a stage. Like, it's not even close. For many players, banning their character is equivalent from personally banning them from participating. Given that the frequency of individuals with severe dyslexia is itself in the same ballpark as the frequency of Hero mains, the moral calculus here is incredibly lopsided.

Given that, it's impossible for me to see people objecting to Hero as anything other than bad-faith reactionaries whining about a character they just plain don't like.

Nothing about this passes the smell test--it's a political hit-job, and we're dumb for giving it oxygen.

 

[Rizen]

This reminds me of the ban talks back in Brawl. A little backstory. was a stupidly broken character, he beat everyone in the cast except arguably Pikachu and that was mainly because ESAM was unwilling to compromise his views on pika. A lot of MK's winning MUs were +3 (hard counter) and +4 (realistically unlosable). He was so broken that several rules had to be made just to limit his power. At that time ledge grabs had invulnerability no matter how many times you grabbed them and you couldn't trump people. So ledge grab limits were implemented with MK's being lower than everyone else. Otherwise he could just drop> Uair a few times>regrab the ledge and most characters couldn't stop this "planking". MK had an infinite cape glitch where he could get the lead, spam it and become intangible for the rest of the game; that was banned. And several stages were removed because MK could fly under them and "shark" with Uairs through the stage then safely retreat to a ledge. Brinstar, Norfair and Delfino Plaza were banned primarily for this reason. That really sucked because those were some of Link's best stages and I played him.
MK never was banned. Too many top players used him, you know because he was OP, and complained. Brawl suffered for it. The game didn't grow very much; I remember going to a regional in Denver, CO's largest city with only 65 participants. I've attended Ultimate tournaments in Boulder, a much smaller city, with 128 entries for comparison.

My point is: banning a character will never happen. That's how the community is. They didn't ban MK and they certainly won't ban Hero. It's pointless to talk about. But they did tweek a few rules to at least make the game playable. I already gave a perfectly reasonable solution. Just let players who can't read the menu because dyslexia or the language barrier request a different character is played for one match. 90% of the time this won't even come up. Players are usually known in the smash community and lying about it could be exposed fairly easily. This would really help when players from Japan come over.