Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[KirbySquad101]

MSM240 early seedings are here!

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/p7g2c3
Roy and Palu galore, you love to see it.
Also I think this is the first time in quite a while I've seen a ROB seeded outside of Top 50, but I think we could ALL use a break from ROB lol.
Outside of that, the seeding seems pretty standard for the most part. Despite already being invited to Summit, Charliedaking is still participating (it IS the local he goes to regularily after all).
This is gonna be fuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnn

 

[DJ3DS]

the fact an average character like bayo is still taking somewhat strong events and placements (paerticularily in europe is very telling) many people never learned to fight her.

I remember back when tournament seeders compared Europe to penguins. This reeks of the same dismissive mentality as that and frankly I think it's appalling. I can't imagine you saying the same thing about any number of the niche characters that perform well in Japan.

Perhaps you should consider the idea that Europe simply has strong Bayonetta players, particularly when those players have strong records with multiple wins against top US players during the online era.

 

[NotLiquid]

If a strong region has a strong contingent of players known to main a certain character, I don't think my first instinct would be assuming that they never learned to fight her. The logic seems kind of backwards for something that feels like it has an answer that carries less assumptions.

It's especially salient of a point in light of KirbyKid.

 

[DJ3DS]

Just to add to this, as it's kind of riled me up: the Bayo who is putting up results in Europe is Bloom4Eva, and they are an exceptionally good player. Look up their smashdata page and see who they have winning records against. As a sneak preview, it includes:

• Maister
• WaDi
• Epic_Gabriel
• Sharp
• Wrath

And a ton of assorted others. This players success is not just a case of "lol Europe", and it is exhausting having to defend any player from here not named Glutonny.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Just to add to this, as it's kind of riled me up: the Bayo who is putting up results in Europe is Bloom4Eva, and they are an exceptionally good player. Look up their smashdata page and see who they have winning records against. As a sneak preview, it includes:

• Maister
• WaDi
• Epic_Gabriel
• Sharp
• Wrath

And a ton of assorted others. This players success is not just a case of "lol Europe", and it is exhausting having to defend any player from here not named Glutonny.

Ah yes. I recall Bloom4Eva also getting to the winners GF in the SWT Europe online qualifiers. .Technically you could not call an actual winner for the qualifier since he and the Sisqui a Dark Samus player who upset Gluttony in LF played random characters for that set for the lolz I guess. Well hey both already qualified for the actual SMT and were just having fun with it

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Over the weekend SWT: Central America Regional Finals is happening and it is the first offline SWT event.
Players who are going:

• MKLeo /
• Sparg0 /
• Maister
• Chag
• Nair^
• AlanDiss
• Cloudy /
• Andrik
• WaKa
• BigBoss
• Capitancito
• Sonix
• ShinyMark
• Echofire
• Mtkat
• Tuitt
• Yei
• 0mart

In addition, for Japanese players, there will be a stream for them on VGBootCamp's second channel with commentary from some Japanese top players.

【告知】
遂に世界規模で行われるスマブラツアー大会@SmashWorldTour

スマブラSP中米地域部門開催！オフのMkLeoとSpalg0を見逃すな

🕒配信時刻
8/23🌕2:00〜☀️11:00

🎥配信https://t.co/qpT5m3cXrr

🇯🇵🗣実況解説
【前半】@HIKARU_ssbu @Tsubotsubo_ssb
【後半】@Fuuhi78 @Abadango

(⬇️続く) https://t.co/V1cj9MiMAR

— VGBC|わっち📺(watch) (@watch_ssbm) August 19, 2021

 

[Diddy Kong]

I remember back when tournament seeders compared Europe to penguins. This reeks of the same dismissive mentality as that and frankly I think it's appalling. I can't imagine you saying the same thing about any number of the niche characters that perform well in Japan.

Perhaps you should consider the idea that Europe simply has strong Bayonetta players, particularly when those players have strong records with multiple wins against top US players during the online era.

It's like people even forget Leffen and Armada are European top players. But yeah, no surprise honestly. Whenever the USA enters anything competitive, they assume they're best at it.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

How round robin pools is going to work for the SWT Central America Regional Finals.
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/p8bpxo

It's like people even forget Leffen and Armada are European top players. But yeah, no surprise honestly. Whenever the USA enters anything competitive, they assume they're best at it.

Is this referencing Melee or Ultimate? Because they don't play Ultimate anymore.

 

[SKX31]

Going off of Twitter, a lot of Steve players are young teens so it may be difficult for them to travel to big events.

Also I think the character may be the worst out of all of FP2, due to his poor mobility.

Still though, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case, those young teens will sooner or later grow up and get enough money to compete regularily. That's something one has to consider when a lot of the younger players in the scene (Sparg0 etc.) are garnering a lot of attention.

Btw, I haven't really seen much of lately.

Well.. sort of. The character is EVERYWHERE online and in lower levels of play.

Over two months ago, we got a few somewhat promising placements offline.
Jake's performance at InfinityCON Tally 2021 (June 5th-6th) where he placed 9th beating ChunkyKong, Goblin, and Mugen.
DDee's performance at Maji Georgia Invitational (June 19th-20th) where he placed 4th beating Fatality (though Fatality won later), Wrath, Mugen, and Vendetta.

However ever since then, two months later, there has been dead silence on this character. There has been fairly sparse online major tournaments lately, and I haven't really seen much of the character there either.

Any thoughts?

It might not only be that Steve mains are generally not travelling. but also that adjusting to offline play is going to take a while. Not just because of the horrid movement stats, but also since combo timings are going to be different offline compared to online. I'm spitballing here (especially since I have no Steve experience) but the combos are the primary means Steves rack up damage.

That doesn't explain why Jake nor DDee haven't been to other offline tournaments though. The answer there might be simply that they haven't had the opportunity, felt the need to lab Steve some more, or something else.

Over the weekend SWT: Central America Regional Finals is happening and it is the first offline SWT event.
Players who are going:

• MKLeo /
• Sparg0 /
• Maister
• Chag
• Nair^
• AlanDiss
• Cloudy /
• Andrik
• WaKa
• Capitancito
• Sonix
• ShinyMark
• Echofire
• Mtkat
• Tuitt
• Yei
• Wolfen
• 0mart

Apparently quite a few Central American players could not attent (Tuitt, Echofire and Wolfen), so that's why 0mart, WaKa and BigBoss are there in their respective places. It does suck, but those are really difficult to avoid when those three who couldn't attend have seemingly no offline experience outside of their respective home countries.

 

[Nobie]

Protobanham has a full tier list out. There are a number of changes from that brief snapshot we saw, and while it's not ultra controversial, there are some surprising placements.

The ranks are S, A+, A, and B, and it looks ordered within each tier. A is extremely generous. Protobanham describes S Tier as just the characters who feel like they can do anything, and who can always force the opponent to take action. Note that Joker gets bumped up to top of A+ along the way.

Notable placements:

-Shiek Top 7
-Pikachu outside of Top 10
-Mario, Palutena, Game & Watch nowhere near S tier
-Donkey Kong, Plant, Pits, Meta Knight, and more above Palutena

 

[Idon]

Top 3 Hero?
Now that... is a first.

 

[Game7a1]

The first pool of the SWT Central American Regional Finals has finished, and nearly every set went about as expected (in terms of who won), except one. Nair beat Sparg0 3-2, in spite of Sparg0 3-stocking Nair in game 2 (Final Destination seems to be a good counterpick against Ridley as Nair lost on all games he was taken to FD). Things are looking well for Ridley and Nair.
1st Nair (used Hero against BigBoss to win)
2nd Sparg0
3rd BigBoss
4th Mtkat

The second pool should be starting soon, with Yei, Capitancito, Chag, and Cloudy in the pool.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Edit: Yeah I edited in a ton of stuff.

Capitancito delivers. Missiles super important move for gunner, covers so much more than the other side b's = best side-b by a wide margin. Extremely good on shield when smash input is used. Smash input missiles should almost always be used over the homing missiles. I get that stealth missile is nice for killing, but the move is very limited by the fact that the projectile has to travel a bit of distance before it attains a hitbox. This means that the move can't be used at a close distance, and it means that it loses to rushdown hard. In contrast: you can get away with firing a missile in someone face because of how solid it is on shield. The fact the missiles linger in front of Gunner for a few frames make them a kind of shield for Gunner. Missiles also do kill, albeit later than stealth missile, but there's another projectiles thats way better than stealth missiles, namely charge shot. Together Charge shot and Missiles do most everything that stealth missiles do and they do it better. The nesslike side-special is interesting but its too crappy on shield to work for a character like Gunner who has to be able to keep their opponents out, it also doesn't last as long and covers as much space as the other side specials.

Charge Shot>Grenade Launcher, grenade launcher = highly overrated, not easy to land on people who know what they are doing, you kinda have to jump in with it, it requires quite a bit of reading. It's massively positive on shield but GL landing it on the shield of someone familiar with the MU. It's also very good for ledgeplay with its lingering multiple hitboxes, but so is bomb drop, and bomb drop lingers for longer and has less endlag. Missiles are way more useful as a spammable projectile in neutral. In most situations where you can use Grenade Launcher its better to use missiles or bomb drop. Grenade Launcher just doesn't complete Gunner like Charge shot does.

Meanwhile: Charge shot when charged is safe AF, and is harder to react to than Samus's ditto because it moves much faster. Charge shot is also very good at late percents where every hit you get nets you time to charge it up. You can combo into it easily at low percents in a myriad off ways, and its checks tecks, and at later percents where you can't combo into it you can still use it as a followup and have a decent chance to land it because of how damn fast it is. It does massive damage when fully charged.. It's also a great for reversing opponents from disadvantage. While hanging from the ledge you can ledge drop > jump > charge shot, and even if its shielded you are very likely to get away it. You also get a free charge everytime you take a stock. Having a charge shot max charged makes gunners neutral very oppressive. The threat of it changes things. The other Gunner ranged special attacks which make up part of their neutral are reactable unless you're right next to Gunner. But you have to be way further away from Gunner to react to charge shot. This is the biggest reason it complements missiles and bomb drop way better than grenade launcher.

The falco laser neutral-b is underrated. Better than grenade launcher but worse than charge shot. It seems to have a little bit more range than falco's laser and it does actually complement the other ranged attacks in a nice way because it lets Gunner harass players who are far enough away to react to any other projectiles Gunner might fire at them. You cant avoid the lasers on reaction. They stop you like Falco's does and being stopped by an unreactable projectile while trying to approach gunner can really **** you up because they might have a smash input missile out that they used before they fired their lasers, a missile you were gonna manouvre around that is now gonna hit you. And if you get shot and stopped in the air and fall down toward the ground there might be a bomb drop there waiting for you.

So yeah. Grenade launcher is an overrated move because it just doesn't synergize with the rest of gunners projectiles like the other neutral specials do and it has a slow startup and travels rather slowly making it easy to react to and dodge in contrast to the other neutral b's. Because of how slow it is, you kinda have to surprise jump or jump back > b-reverse into people with it in order to land it vs an opponent, this requires conditioning which requires time. Since it also has a lot of endlag it's is something that's very risky to do. The fact that it invalidates a lot of recoveries and screws with all of them means its still a very good move, but it's outclassed by charge shot, and most of the time the laser is more useful too.

The other two specials aren't really up for debate atm. Cannon Jump Kick is nice. But Mii gunner already has good OOS kill options in usmash and charge shot. Gunner, being small and heavy and able to cover their own ass in late percents disadvantage with bomb drop, thrives off of living long and snowballing with a stock advantage because of how they can keep opponents away and unable to kill them. But for this they do need the additional options that the manouverable up-b gives them. Without that they are quite vulnerable to gimping.

Also Mii Gunner is at least Mid Tier. Potentially better. Swordfighter is the weakest Mii and I don't think it's obvious Brawler is the best.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

People already seem to be getting effective at gimping Pyra/Mythra's recoveries offline. It seems that if your character has a counter special or a projectile that falls offstage at tricky angles (a.k.a Ridley's Plasma Breath) are issues for both the Aegis Now that you can react better offline..

 

[Sucumbio]

Capitancito delivers. Missiles super important move for gunner, covers so much more than the other side b's = best side-b by a wide margin. Extremely good on shield when charged. Should almost always be charged when used on opponents on stage.

Charge Shot>Grenade Launcher, grenade launcher = highly overrated, not easy to land on people who know what they are doing, requires quite a bit of reading. Meanwhile: Charge shot when charged is safe AF, and is harder to react to than Samus's ditto because it moves much faster. Charge shot very good at late percents where every hit you get lets you charge. This and the fact that you can combo into it easily at low percents in a myriad off ways and it does massive damage makes it the best neutral-b. You also get a free charge everytime you take a stock. Having a charge shot max charged makes gunners neutral very oppressive. The threat of it changes things.

The other two specials aren't really up for debate atm. Cannon Jump Kick is nice. But Mii gunner already has good OOS kill options, and they thrive off of living long due to being small and a heavyweight and being able to covers themselves in disadvantage with down-b while having a stellar recovery.

Also Mii Gunner is at least Mid Tier. Potentially better. Swordfighter is the weakest Mii and I don't think it's obvious Brawler is the best.

What about brawler vs gunner?

 

[KirbySquad101]

Second pool really did look like it was going to be the most unpredictable of the four brackets, and that's exactly how it played out:

• Capitancito won his pools over Chag, Cloudy, and Yei, all with just .
• On the flip side, Chag didn't win a single set, and ended up only winning one game out all of the sets he played (which was against Cloudy's ).

1. Capitancito
2. Cloudy (He used Joker to take two games off Chag and win)
3. Yei
4. Chag

Pool 3 is coming up, featuring MKLeo, WaKa, Sonix, and AlanDiss

 

[Game7a1]

Second pool really did look like it was going to be the most unpredictable of the four brackets, and that's exactly how it played out:

• Capitancito won his pools over Chag, Cloudy, and Yei, all with just .
• On the flip side, Chag didn't win a single set, and ended up only winning one game out all the sets he played (which was against Cloudy's ).

1. Capitancito
2. Cloudy (He used Joker to take two games off Chag and win)
3. Yei
4. Chag

Pool 3 is coming up, featuring MKLeo, WaKa, Sonix, and AlanDiss

I was writing a paragraph about pool 2, and you summarized what I was going to write.
Pool 3 is going to be very interesting as we get to see offline Sonix vs Leo.

 

[Hippieslayer]

What about brawler vs gunner?

Don't know. I'm biased cuz I main Gunner. Brawler has more obvious strengths, classic and well understood strengths of the smash series. He can be judged by the power of his buttons. Gunner is harder to judge, a lot of their buttons aren't that great but if they are used in the right sequence they can cover for each others weaknesses. It comes down to the mindgames between the Gunner and the opponent and how far the gunner player can push that and keep the opponent from counterplaying them via conditioning, reads, mixups etc. To what degree can Gunner be figured out? We don't know. And that's sort of why it's harder to judge where that places Gunner IMO. So like, Brawler seems better, at least on paper. The specials make Gunner to a higher extent than brawler. And people use a lot of different specials in a lot of different ways.

Imo Gunner doesn't have an easy time vs speedy characters who can apply nonstop pressure with arcing disjointed hitboxes, cause those counter a lot of Gunners projectiles in many ways. Like it's easy for a characters like Cloud or Pythra to jump in towards Gunner swinging and hit both Gunners projectile and Gunner themself. And being a bit floaty with decent air mobility is good for weaving past Gunner's projectiles too. Also gunners disadvantage is kinda good but not when the opponent is directly below them and just sticks to their trajectory, then its bad, and swordies have those kind of juggling uairs which are perfect for that kind of juggling. We also saw it with Palutena's uair. This is why Capitancito went wolf for Pythra.

Disadvantage can be improved by using another down-b but I don't think it's worth it losing the bomb drop because it has so many uses. I guess the absorb could be good if it allowed for some kind of effective tech but we haven't seen that. Gunner does have the nesslike side'b to go with the magnet if they please, which in itself combos into stuff including charge shot. Gunner hasn't really been explored a lot: another reason why they are hard to place.

 

[blackghost]

I remember back when tournament seeders compared Europe to penguins. This reeks of the same dismissive mentality as that and frankly I think it's appalling. I can't imagine you saying the same thing about any number of the niche characters that perform well in Japan.

Perhaps you should consider the idea that Europe simply has strong Bayonetta players, particularly when those players have strong records with multiple wins against top US players during the online era.

I was not dismissive of Europe I said that is where her results remain the strongest it's also coincidentally the same region that had scenes banning bayo in 4. I see correlation. I watched bloom4ever runs and his big wins. There were ALOT of bad decisions made by his opponents. Poor punishes, missed punishes, bad di ect. Tweek and Panda global did a video of their players reacting to the matches and they echoed those sentiments as well.

Bloom4ever is good but I watched lima stream yesterday the gap between the two of them even after Lima being gone for a year plus is astounding. He's taking these matches in Europe and I'm not sure if he's better than multiple us bayo players.

 

[Lacrimosa]

If you look at US tourneys, then Glutonny also "struggles" against some opponents but he cooks everyone in Europe, including Mr. R who all of you should know.
Also, all the French top players (Ogey, Flow) made 33rd place at best (maybe I'm a bit too generous) at a big American major.

It's no big secret; Europe is not as good as America when it comes to Smash. Both in the top (there's only Glutonny) and in the runner-up positions. Just ask Meru, if you want to know more.

In other words: Foreign (US) players would probably make it to top 8 in French majors (just see Fatality last Wanted and Larry Lurr who isn't as good as he used to be but barely missed Top 8).

 

[Thinkaman]

I think it's not controversial to state that that Europe is a both a very strong/respectable region with a number of strong players, while still being weaker than Japan, the eastern US, and possibly Mexico. (The peak Mexico players in particular)

I'm sure everyone here agrees both parts of that, so there's not any point to continuing the discussion. Let's get back to the great (in-person!!!) SWT sets playing live now.

 

[Game7a1]

The third pool has finished, and while the pool could be described as "normal", how it went down was so bizarre. MKLeo decided to use his secondaries over Joker, winning against Waka with and Sonix with Pyra and Mythra . All three Aegis players in this Regional Finals play so differently, but Leo really pushes the Smash fundamentals part of the character the most at the cost of his Mythra combos not being as good compared to Sparg0's and Cloudy's.
1st MKLeo (used Joker to win 2 games against AlanDiss)
2nd Sonix
3rd WaKa
4th AlanDiss

The last pool consists of ShinyMark, Maister, 0mart, and Andrik.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Capitancito is going up against Sparg0 in the next phase. Gunner kinda struggles vs both Cloud and Pythra, especially Cloud. Cloud jumping in and swinging with bairs and fairs is really hard for Gunner to deal with and Cloud juggles Gunner really well. I think he's gonna be screwed vs Sparg0, but then again matchup inexperience is a thing. Figuring out how to counterplay Gunner ain't that easy because the character has so many small adjustments it can make on the spot.

Reflectors don't really counter Gunner. It's annoying when fair gets reflected, but Gunner can beat reflectors in a myriad of ways. Many reflectors can only reflect one projectile, all of those projectiles lose to Gunner using two projectiles in sequence, the second one landing. Reflecting also gives Gunner precious time to setup missiles and bomb drop if read. It's also not that hard to bait a reflect and punish with charge shot. Smash Inputed Missiles linger for so long that they have a tendency to reach the opponent just as the reflect stops working and even if they get reflected they are super easy to dodge so long as there is a little bit of distance for the same reason. The Gunner player is going to be used to the mindgames that a reflect introduces moreso than the character with the reflector. Much of this could be seen in Capitancito's set vs Chag.

 

[Game7a1]

Final pool has finished, and it was a clean sweep from Maister. Interestingly, 0mart reversed 3-0 ShinyMark. I would have thought ShinyMark would have brought out his Lucina against Maister, but he did not. Maybe if he gets the runback tomorrow, he can fare better or pull out his counterpick pockets.
1st Maister
2nd 0mart
3rd ShinyMark
4th Andrik

 

[The_Bookworm]

Maister won his RR without dropping a single game, with dominating games all-around. By far the most dominating performance today.


The round robins this tourney has been very.. odd to say the least. While the latter two ones with MkLeo and Maister went pretty much the way you would expect, the first two ones went in completely wild ways. Two fairly rare characters, characters typically seen as not very good, gave us a show today.

• We have Nair^, defeating Sparg0 3-2 and Mtkat 3-0. He had to switch to Hero in order to defeat BigBoss 3-1 by taking off two games at the end, but this is a very potent showing for Ridley.
• We have Capitancito, defeating Chag 3-0, Yei 3-1, and Cloudy 3-2 after switching off of Wolf. Fairly dominate performances, as his Gunner only dropped a game against Yei's Palutena. Very potent showing for Gunner.

Honorable belongs to Yei defeating Chag 3-0, although Chag honestly played pretty poorly as a whole today.


Fun fact: according to Smash.gg, Capitancito is projected to lose to Sparg0 immediately, but then win against MkLeo and Maister at Loser's Semi-Finals and Loser's Finals, respectively.
Smash.gg projected wins can be very... strange sometimes.

 

[SKX31]

Final pool has finished, and it was a clean sweep from Maister. Interestingly, 0mart reversed 3-0 ShinyMark. I would have thought ShinyMark would have brought out his Lucina against Maister, but he did not. Maybe if he gets the runback tomorrow, he can fare better or pull out his counterpick pockets.
1st Maister
2nd 0mart
3rd ShinyMark
4th Andrik

Matchups tomorrow:

WB Quarters (group records shown in games unless noted):

Nair^- Cloudy. Honestly feels like the most even quarterfinal. Cloudy played steady throughout, going 8-5 - defeating Yei and Chag, but also a very narrow 2-3 loss to Capitancito - and will be assumed to have the MU advantage. But at the same time Nair^ went 9-3 in his group, upset Sparg0 and gained valuable matchup experience from said upset. The two will probably be studying a lot of each others' tape, Nair will look out for what Cloudy does differently from Sparg0 while Cloudy will look to avoid Sparg0's mistakes in that set (incl. an early airdodge in game 1's last stock that Nair^ capitalized on with an up smash) and capitalize on Nair's habits.

Maister - Sonix. Maister emerged from his group with a clean sheet, and a 9-0 game record. Sonix did play really well too, a 7-3 game record and the only losses coming from his set with MKLeo. Maister's looking like the favorite, but Sonix might have the slight MU upper hand. Either way, this looks to be a very scrappy quarterfinal considering how the characters play.

Capitancito - Sparg0. Capitancito not only went 9-3 but also inched past Cloudy in a 3-2 nailbiter. Sparg0 went 8-5, with another nailbiter in the form of his 2-3 loss to Nair^. Sparg0 should be favored not only because he's the more well known name, but also due to assumed MU... buuuut, like Nair^ Capitancito defeated another Aegis player and gained valuable MU knowledge from that set. Going to be back and forth, with Sparg0 looking to avoid stray hits / edgeguards and Cito seeking to minimize the damage he gets where he can.

MKLeo - 0mart. Leo went 9-4 with three different characters - showing his versatility. 0mart went 2-1 in sets and 6-6 in games in his group - the UB clinching victory was a really close 3-2 set vs. ShinyMark. Leo's the clear favorite here, although 0mart will likely look to turn this into a very scrappy series. Might be a bit difficult to do not only since Joker's considered favored vs. Snake going by assumed MU consensus, but also since one of Leo's biggest strengths is his ability to anticipate opponents' movements.

(The winners of each set are guaranteed Top 6 and thus qualification to the global finals)

LB Round 1:

Yei - MtKat. Yei went 5-9 in his group, sweeping Chag but going 1-3 vs. both Cloudy and Capitancito. MtKat went 0-9, with 4 of those 9 losses being two stock and the rest one stock. Feels like Yei is favored (outside of MU, but Yei did win vs. a Palu main), however I don't wanna count out Mtkat here since Mtkat might know a bit more about Yei's habits than Yei does his.

WaKa - Andrik. WaKa went 4-6, including a sweep vs. AlanDiss but got 0-3'd by Sonix. Andrik finished with a 2-9 record, with a lot of close losses. This one is going to be volatile as all hell, since both WaKa and Andrik play characters that want to get as much % off of one confirm as possible. WaKa might have the potential MU favor since Andrik will have to approach, but this is not a surefire set to call.

BigBoss - Chag. BigBoss finished 6-6, including a very close 2-3 loss to Sparg0 to start off the day. Chag struggled noticeably to a 1-9 record, with his lone win coming off of two-stocking Cloudy in their game 3. Despite the records this feels very difficult to determine - Chag's a very strong player still, and Palu is considered to have a decent-to-strong MU with ROB. BigBoss for his part might come into the set with better form though.

ShinyMark - AlanDiss. ShinyMark went 5-7, with the 2-3 loss he took to 0mart winding up sending him to losers. AlanDiss finished 2-9, with his two game wins coming notably vs. MKLeo's Byleth. Mark's coming into this one slightly favored IMHO, but Alan is a capable player himself and the character MU is pretty much dead even.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I don't think it's that strange a prediction in regards to Maister vs Capitancito. Leo could lose due to matchup inexperience combined with how he screws around rather than use his best character right away. But both Pythra and Joker are tough matchups for Gunner.

Kinda dislike how much Leo screws around. He nearly dropped a set because of it. I think it's likely he has some kind of mentality issue going on. That he feels its taxing to play Joker partly because he's more difficult to play than his alts but mostly because if he loses with Joker then there's no excuse to be had. He has missed out on so much Joker experience by going with secondaries during the pandemic. Now that were back offline, he's still doing it. Refusing to play Joker unless he's down, and sometimes not until he's down 2-0. He was super close to dropping a set because of this vs Alandiss. He should've gone Joker from the get go. Joker does great vs Snake and Leo knows this. He destroyed Ally who was clearly the best snake player at the time using Joker. He also knows people want to see his Joker. Lamenting over what character to pick can be a detrimental distraction during tournaments, we've seen this many times.

It doesn't make sense to me why he's doing this unless it's because there's something mental going on. But hey, I dunno maybe he's just very confident and feels like it's safe for him screw around, but that's also a kind of mentality that tends gets you overtaken. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens when he's up against Tweek who has got his main and secondaries figured out and plays them accordingly, and who has seemed more focused during the pandemic. The effects of Leo not using Joker in tournaments unless he has to are gonna add up over time. He might not be rusty, but he's probably not as polished as he could be either, hard to tell since he's the best Joker.

 

[Djmarcus44]

Spoiler: Pokecheese vs. Riddles

I watched the 2 Gunner games for Riddles vs. Pokecheese. In the first game, Pokecheese was spacing improperly and whiffed several aerials that led to huge punishes. At 1:14, It was unusual how Gunner fell slowly from the spike. It looked like an SD. Pokecheese was able to find more success using Gunner's specials from a longer range which led to him getting Riddles to the last stock. Game 2 had a somewhat similar trend of Pokecheese finding more success at long ranges than mid to close ranges. One big turning point was him getting antsy for the kill from 5:56-6:00. He tried to edgeguard which allowed Riddles to return to the stage, and he went for 2 smash attacks. This allowed Riddles to take the stock lead. Pokecheese tried to be more aggressive for the kill, but it got him punished in most cases.

In neutral, Pokecheese should have relied more on his specials and played from farther away. His ledgetrapping was good, but he could improve on his grab game and getting kills. Using up throw up air would have given him a much better chance at winning. At 3:03, he could have shield grabbed for the kill instead of dropping shield to jab. This would have given him a better shot of making the comeback at 65% rather than 107%. At 6:12, He could have gotten 2 pummels and killed from the grab to tie it up.

In general, I think charge blast is better against heavier characters. Gunner still has plenty of other options for zoning and ledge trapping, and charge blast would help secure kills more consistently.

GIMB 4 Winners Final - Riddles (Kazuya) Vs. Pokecheese (Mii Gunner) SSBU Ultimate Tournament

Get In My Basement Invitational #4►Get In My Basement is Streamed Live at: https://twitch.tv/angryburlybros►Check out Angry Burly Bros: https://twitter.com/A...

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Hippieslayer Mkleo may just be looking to develop his other characters. If I recall correctly, he has expressed interest in co-maining Pyra/Mythra with Joker.

I agree with a good portion of your Gunner thoughts, but I have some corrections. Some players in the discord tested Absorbing Vortex, and the move is +3 on hit at best. It does not true combo into anything. Grenades actually have low lag after the projectile comes out. They come out frame 36, but the lag ends on frame 53. This allows grenades to be +10 on shield at worst and combo into a vast majority of Gunner's moves.

I don't think that Gunner does badly against sword characters. Gunner's transcendant fair is still able to go through swords and outrange a vast majority of sword moves. Also, Gunner's projectiles have low endlag so Gunner can punish the opponent for jumping in with good spacing. As a Gunner main and Cloud secondary, I think the matchup is even. While Cloud has effective juggling, Gunner has a better combo game and kill confirms. Gunner's fair outranges his aerials, and outspeeds his fair. I also don't feel the Pyra/Mythra matchup is too bad either. The matchup feels even imo, but I am waiting on the Pyra/Mythra meta to develop some more.

Capitancito can be pessimistic about Gunner at times. Although he started with Wolf against Cloudy, he won all of his games with Gunner in the set.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Outside of the SWT, there was a Georgia monthly today and we actually have Steve results after a while.

1. Kola
2. DDee (Only used Pac-Man for a couple of games against Kola in GFs and PT round 1)
3. Sonido
4. Fatality
5. Jahzz0
5. Kota
7. Stain
7. Fallen

DDee actually beat Kola the first time, then beat Sonido only to play Kola again, Kola then reset the bracket and won the event.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Hippieslayer Mkleo may just be looking to develop his other characters. If I recall correctly, he has expressed interest in co-maining Pyra/Mythra with Joker.

I agree with a good portion of your Gunner thoughts, but I have some corrections. Some players in the discord tested Absorbing Vortex, and the move is +3 on hit at best. It does not true combo into anything. Grenades actually have low lag after the projectile comes out. They come out frame 36, but the lag ends on frame 53. This allows grenades to be +10 on shield at worst and combo into a vast majority of Gunner's moves.

I don't think that Gunner does badly against sword characters. Gunner's transcendant fair is still able to go through swords and outrange a vast majority of sword moves. Also, Gunner's projectiles have low endlag so Gunner can punish the opponent for jumping in with good spacing. As a Gunner main and Cloud secondary, I think the matchup is even. While Cloud has effective juggling, Gunner has a better combo game and kill confirms. Gunner's fair outranges his aerials, and outspeeds his fair. I also don't feel the Pyra/Mythra matchup is too bad either. The matchup feels even imo, but I am waiting on the Pyra/Mythra meta to develop some more.

Capitancito can be pessimistic about Gunner at times. Although he started with Wolf against Cloudy, he won all of his games with Gunner in the set.

Hey other Gunner main. Yesterday was cool. I use the same setup as Capitancito does, and I used it before I ever saw Capitancito. Watching him is great because he kinda plays like how I'm trying to play. It's nice to have someone way better than myself to get ideas from. Thanks for the corrections, I should join the Gunner discord. If Absorbing vortex can't be used to do anything interesting then I guess that's the nail in the coffin for other Gunner setups. I don't think the reflectors worth giving up bomb drop for. What do you think about the Laser? I think its good when fighting other projectile zoners in particular, when the match is gonna play out with the players being at a fair distance from each other.

So uhh what do you think about Gunners matchups vs the upper calibre of the cast? Like uh the ones that are clearly at least high tier as well as the top tiers.

About Leo yeah I guess that's what he's doing. Pythra seems worth the investment, but Byleth? No. Waste of time for someone of his calibre. Insisting on going Byleth even when down vs people that can beat him is weird. There was something going on in that set vs Alandiss.

About Cloud I don't feel like Gunner has the better combo game in that matchup. Or at least not the better advantage state. And I think it's kinda hard to consitently space out a swordie like Cloud or Pythra using Gunners fair. It's a decently small hitbox that hits directly in front of him only while the swordies have these big arcing hitboxes which can cover a huge amount of space if used as they move up or down. Like uh, yeah Gunners fair wins when you only consider horizontal spacing but when you add in the vertical spacing component they win.

 

[Game7a1]

ShinyMark - AlanDiss. ShinyMark went 5-7, with the 2-3 loss he took to 0mart winding up sending him to losers. AlanDiss finished 2-9, with his two game wins coming notably vs. MKLeo's Byleth. Mark's coming into this one slightly favored IMHO, but Alan is a capable player himself and the character MU is pretty much dead even.

Actually, I think AlanDiss is the favorite to win. Doing some light searching, at Lunch Box 12 and 13, AlanDiss beat ShinyMark 2-0 and 3-0, respectively. While that might be online, considering they were recent events, I don't think ShinyMark would be able to get a win on him this time.
Edit: I ended up being wrong.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Yonni's MU chart

i feel like now is a good time to update my propaganda mu chart for steve

Top 15 imo pic.twitter.com/tZ6P77ZdiT

— Yonni (@FrYonni) August 22, 2021

 

[KirbySquad101]

Smol update, but Loser's Round 1 is wrapped up at the SWT qualifiers. All victories were fairly dominant barring ShinyMark's Game 5 set agaisnt AlanDiss, which escalated to a Time Out at one point:

BigBoss 3-1 Chag (Out at 13th)
Yei 3-0 Mtkat (Out at 13th)
ShinyMark 3-2 AlanDiss (Out at 13th)
WaKa 3-0 Andrik(Out at 13th)

Rough to see Chag out so early, but BigBoss has also beaten Chag at least once before iirc.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Gunner Cloud did not look even.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

It actually looked pretty decent it was more on sparg0 adapting pretty well during set 2, and capitancito didnt get much call outs like yesterday.

To be honest i think a big amount players on this tournament looked very off, like chag, nair, andrik, hell even players like maister looked a bit rusty.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

ShinyMark 3-1 Nair^
Some of those games were 2 and 3 stocks. When ShinyMark continues travelling to big tournaments and gets used to the stage and crowd, I'm absolutely convinced he'll be on par with ESAM.

Edit: Nair^ is maining Pythra but he's not dropping Ridley.

Also sadge i never reached peak Ridley there's so much undeveloped tech and things i couldn't do in all these years but that's just how destiny works ig
A new start with a new character pic.twitter.com/BXADHEOtNn

— SBx | Nair^ (@Nairsitto) August 22, 2021

This really reminds me of when some low/mid tier players ended up picking up (e.g. Tweek getting rid of Bowser Jr)

 

[Djmarcus44]

Hey other Gunner main. Yesterday was cool. I use the same setup as Capitancito does, and I used it before I ever saw Capitancito. Watching him is great because he kinda plays like how I'm trying to play. It's nice to have someone way better than myself to get ideas from. Thanks for the corrections, I should join the Gunner discord. If Absorbing vortex can't be used to do anything interesting then I guess that's the nail in the coffin for other Gunner setups. I don't think the reflectors worth giving up bomb drop for. What do you think about the Laser? I think its good when fighting other projectile zoners in particular, when the match is gonna play out with the players being at a fair distance from each other.

So uhh what do you think about Gunners matchups vs the upper calibre of the cast? Like uh the ones that are clearly at least high tier as well as the top tiers.

About Leo yeah I guess that's what he's doing. Pythra seems worth the investment, but Byleth? No. Waste of time for someone of his calibre. Insisting on going Byleth even when down vs people that can beat him is weird. There was something going on in that set vs Alandiss.

About Cloud I don't feel like Gunner has the better combo game in that matchup. Or at least not the better advantage state. And I think it's kinda hard to consitently space out a swordie like Cloud or Pythra using Gunners fair. It's a decently small hitbox that hits directly in front of him only while the swordies have these big arcing hitboxes which can cover a huge amount of space if used as they move up or down. Like uh, yeah Gunners fair wins when you only consider horizontal spacing but when you add in the vertical spacing component they win.

It is great discussing Gunner with you too. I appreciate the complement, but it has been a little while since I played. We have a lot of strong players in the Gunner discord, and we have a 9 crew battle win streak. Capitancito is in the discord, and he is pretty active. This is the link.https://discord.com/invite/7CdEzy9

Laser is discussed as a option against other zoners. I personally think that Gunner does fine against zoners so I haven't used it much myself. The issue is that lasers are the least useful neutral special for Gunner's advantage state by far, and the character already has strong neutral tools. Most Gunner players think that it is the worst neutral special, but it is still a viable option that has some results.

Absorbing vortex has a good hitbox for ledgetrapping and OOS, and it has some movement and recovery tech. Reflector has a fast hitbox that can be used to break some strings.

Cloud definitely has a worse combo game than Gunner. Cloud isn't a character that has big combos. Gunner has multiple moves that combo into most of the character's moves. Gunner can get more combos from missiles and bombs alone than Cloud gets from his entire moveset. While Gunner's fair doesn't have a big vertical hitbox, the backwards momentum from the move can be used to help with spacing. If the sword character tries to use full hops or double jumps to get higher than Gunner, we can move out of the way to punish their landing. We can also punish rising aerials with up smash OOS because the first hit has great horizontal range. Our other projectiles are useful for zoning against swords. Homing missile is still a low comittment conditioning tool. Missiles are good for applying faster pressure. Bombs are tougher to use, but we can still space them diagonally with full hops, or use them to catch landings. Charge blast is great for getting the opponent to approach and catching landings.

I don't think that one set pushes the match into Cloud's favor. Capitancito had a close 1-3 set with a top 50 PGR player that was top 10 online. The first 3 games of the set were very close. In the last game Sparg0 made some great reads on Capitancito's ledge options that made that game a 2 stock. There were quite a few moments where up throw up air could have made Capitancito's life easier. I can analyze this set further if needed.

SWT CA RF Winners Quarters - Spargo (Cloud) Vs. Capitancito (Mii Gunner) SSBU Ultimate Tournament

Smash World Tour Central America Regional Finals is a Smash Ultimate Tournament. This Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Tournament will help players qualify for the...

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There is another set online where Atmosphere was able to force Capitancito off of Cloud with Gunner. https://youtu.be/DBgrtvfVToU

I also use 1332. My opinion of Gunner is higher than most because I know a lot about Gunner's combo game and options (I have a combo thread on the Mii Gunner thread for this site). Among top and high tiers, I only think that the spacies are possible 40-60 matchups. Palutena and Mario are matchups that I could see as 45-55. Zss, Greninja, Joker, Pichu, and Pikachu are some where between even and losing for me. I think that Olimar, ROB, Hero, and GnW, are even but decently hard. I have Snake, Samus, Diddy Kong, PT, Peach, Inkling, and Mii Brawler as matchups that are no worse than even. I think we beat Bowser, SF and KOF characters, Luigi, and WFT. Among recent DLC, I think we could beat Steve and Kazuya, but I have to check their metas to be sure. I think we go even with any top/high tier not mentioned, but you can ask me to be sure. I listed every character some people think to be top/high tier that isn't clearly even imo.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The dream of a moving on to the SWT has unfortunately come to a end.

Yei 3-2 Capitancito on probably the closest set today. You can tell that Yei had a lot of nerves going as we went deeper into the set. However, a clutch edgeguard by him at game 5 sealed the deal.

Also Maister 3-1 ShinyMark, ending his run at 7th.


With that being done, we now have our 6 players moving on with the Smash World Tour. They are now fighting for seeding.
The players consist of:
Cloudy
Sonix
Sparg0
MkLeo
Yei
Maister


Edit:
Cloudy 1-3 Sonix (Sonix got the craziest comeback at game 4)
Sparg0 2-3 MkLeo (very close set between the two)

Both Aegis players are now at loser's.


Edit 2:
Cloudy 3-2 Yei (wacky character switching set here, like most of Yei's sets tonight has been)
Sparg0 2-3 Maister (reverse 3-0 victory for Maister)


Edit 3:
MkLeo 3-1 Sonix (started close, then MkLeo kinda just ran away with it with games 3 & 4)
Maister 3-1 Cloudy (far more dominant set than with Sparg0)

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I think its safe to say Maister has started to figure out the Pyra/Mythra MU after repeatedly getting steamrolled by them in online tournaments. A shame that still cannot be said for the MKLeo matchup

 

[The_Bookworm]

SWT: Central America Ultimate Regional Finals (16 Entrants)

1st: MkLeo
2nd: Maister
3rd: Sonix
4th: Cloudy
5th: Sparg0
5th: Yei

7th: Capitancito
7th: ShinyMark
9th: 0mart
9th: WaKa
9th: BigBoss
9th: Nair^
13th: Mtkat
13th: Chag
13th: Andrik
13th: AlanDiss


Mexico seems to be THE region for top Aegis players, especially since Nair^ is planning on joining the fray.