Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Rran]

Just wanna say I friggin' love this commentary team <3

 

[The_Bookworm]

Just wanna say I friggin' love this commentary team <3

I had to look it up. According to the WarioWiki, it doesn't mention anything related to Mona being Daisy's and Luigi's daughter, saying that her parents are unnamed, so Coney must be capping.

Anyways, Maister 3-2 Marss. ESAM cannot afford to lose vs Light, or else he has to deal with Maister.

 

[Rizen]

Wait, did Leo swap back to Pythra after losing like at Summit? Also is there a stream for this?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Wait, did Leo swap back to Pythra after losing like at Summit? Also is there a stream for this?

He only used the Aegis vs Pink Fresh this tournament. Very close set, with Leo winning 3-2.

 

[Kokiden]

Such a shame Leo lost. Using Byleth initially with that winners game with Esam wasn't a good idea. He basically gave up 2 games for no reason. His Joker seems rusty too since before, he used to beat esam quite easily.

 

[Cheryl~]

ESAM is really good at the video game, and Pikachu has a slight advantage over Joker. Enough of the rustiness talk, if Leo wants to not be rusty with Joker anymore he can stop whooping everybody's asses with a mid tier.

 

[Nemesis561]

Let the copium flow in this forum.

 

[The_Bookworm]

While not as big as Riptide, victory in Glitch 8.5 is a huge W for ESAM .
He had to go through a gauntlet of very close sets in order to reach this point. While I feel that Light's flame fizzled out by the end of game 4 and Kola kinda threw game 5 away with the switch to Snake, ESAM remained consistent throughout the top 8 and pulled through. He sometimes has the power to pull comebacks out of nowhere, evident with how it went vs Leo game 4 in grand finals.

His last (and previously only) major win was Glitch 7, 2 years ago. I guess ESAM gets a powerup by being in Glitch tourneys?

 

[TennisBall]

Maister beating Marss is still really cool and he got super close to beating Leo, happy for him.

It's interesting that the meta kinda evolved to beat GnW given how common sword characters are now + Palu but Maister still manages to consistently place excellently. Some characters and players are just built like that.

 

[SapphSabre777]

ESAM 3 - 1 MKLeo for Grands.

And after watching that set, and not much in terms of recency bias, I am really thinking Pikachu might be the best character in the game, because I have never seen just how positively BS and stacked Pikachu really is. Until now.

Pikachu's neutral is absolutely oppressive, and a lot of that is the combination of extremely low committal, extremely high reward options in Quick Attack and Thunder Jolt, along with his aerials. Pikachu can effectively zip around the stage with QA and it ends up being nearly impossible to punish. All the while that if you get hit by Quick Attack, you are stuck in disadvantage. ESAM played the lame game and the aggro game to perfection and it shows that Pikachu might have one of the best neutral kits in the entire game, to the point where he either became a one-touch death machine or a completely untouchable rodent that chips away until you get hit with any of his combo starters, and it is practically seamless.

What strikes me the most about this game is that Pikachu, imo, might have the best advantage state in the entire game, bar none. The fact that a character can 0-to-death on a true combo off of one of the safest multihits in the entire game is downright criminal. Game 4's ending showed that, with ESAM practically fishing with B-Air until he got it off and got the stock. If it isn't that, it is Pikachu chaining U-Airs from coast-to-coast, or drag-down N-Airs that can loop into whatever, and the aforementioned B-Air and F-Air. Low damage output does not matter whatsoever when you can chain a move to the point of dragging them coast-to-coast and then KOing your opponent for it, which combined with Pikachu's downright godlike edgeguarding tools, allows him to basically call out recoveries seamlessly. If this is optimal Pikachu, then I cannot in good faith see a single character come close to this level, and again, this is from one of the lowest-risk neutrals out there.

Then there is his disadvantage, or his lack thereof. Quick Attack's only real flaw is the learning curve with it, but outside of that, it allows Pikachu to go as deep as he wants, however he wants, and most characters cannot do anything about it. If it isn't deep, then he can just mix up his QA due to its speed and versatility. You could try and snipe Pikachu with it, but with how quick it is (no pun intended), PIkachu can cross up and even KO you for even daring challenge it, since it combos at %s where Pikachu can get KOs, as see in one game in GFs where Leo attempts to challenge ESAM doing jump QA, but gets punished and the game taken from him for daring to challenge it.

Sure, we can talk about Leo being rusty with Joker, or talk about the dual nature of Pyra/Mythra, or how the MU was one in Pika's favor, but what was seen tonight was optimal Pikachu, and again, I cannot see any character, even DLC, having these sorts of traits so stacked like it is. A win like this will only push Pikachu players further and breed new ones, especially if this is above the #1 player twice. A person on Twitter said it best, paraphrasing: "Pikachu is Joker without the crutch of not having Arsene. He's broken from the very start of the game to end."

Of course, it could all be me overreacting over a character I've long loathed for over 20+ years in the history of Smash (or me hating the player for the person he is rather than the player, but that's neither here nor there), but I'm not blind or daft enough to see the absolute unit of a character Pikachu is. If this is continued at optimal level, he could be a humongous problem with him being so stacked and having practically everything a character could dream of.

 

[ARISTOS]

Let the copium flow in this forum.

When Byleth wins it was "Byleth is actually bottom 40, MKLeo is just godlike". Now that Pikachu has won, the response is "Pikachu is actually top 0, stay mad hoes". Pull it together.

No one is saying Pikachu is bad - simply that the numbers did not point to a top 5 character, and that they hadn't for quite a while. Somehow this has been made out to be some kind of hidden agenda against the rat which is like - not really? Pikachu being good in Ultimate does not cause me to go down in leprosy or any other horrific illness, I don't have that much of a stake in this. I'm just following numbers and making a call.

 

[NairWizard]

Let's put this tournament into context, in multiple different ways.

First, that Joker didn't look rusty at all. It didn't look as elegant in Grands as it did in Winners, but that's not rust, that's just playing worse in the moment.

He wasn't able to get any of his f-air 1 confirms because he wasn't able to condition ESAM into dropping shield at the right times. You might get shield drops by making your opponent parry Eiha or out of fear of being tomahawk grabbed, but Leo wasn't landing Eiha or tomahawk grabs, so there was no reason for ESAM to get hit by f-air 1. Leo kept pushing the f-air to no avail and not getting stocks. When Leo had Arsene, ESAM just kept his distance, and Leo didn't dare overcommit since Joker with Arsene is easier to edgeguard so he couldn't afford to be taken offstage.

The other thing that went wrong is that Leo just didn't get any reward from having ESAM at ledge. At the start, when Leo tried to cover the typical options like ledge jump and ledge getup, ESAM kept Quick Attacking him and reversaling him. Then, later, when Leo tried to cover Quick Attack, ESAM just mixed in getup and jump for free and Leo got no reward from his advantage state. Leo had to do better with covering those mixups with safe Eihas and counters, but he just didn't even try.

It's possible that rust was a contributing factor to Leo's lack of successful gameplan, but it isn't the first conclusion you should jump to. Typically rust shows up as missing executions or mistiming mixups, not just simply not knowing what to do.

Kola kinda threw game 5 away with the switch to Snake

I don't think he threw. The alternative was playing Roy on Lylat, and Roy on Lylat is really bad. It's a lot easier to edgeguard Roy with the tilting stage since Roy has fewer mixups to get back when the tilt is low and sometimes misses his snaps, and Roy himself can't do his usual jab ledgetrap or side-b close to ledge.

Pikachu's neutral is absolutely oppressive, and a lot of that is the combination of extremely low committal, extremely high reward options in Quick Attack and Thunder Jolt, along with his aerials

The strongest thing about Pikachu's neutral is the OOS game. Typically, characters with strong OOS options don't kill you out of those options at low %. Game and Watch, for example, can up-b OOS, but the up-b is rarely killing you, even if it does a lot of percent. If you hit Pikachu's shield at the wrong time, he simply gets a b-air and can set you up into a potential death scenario, and if he misses, he can repeat just by running up in shield. To make it even worse, Pikachu is short and hard to hit, so you have to time your falling aerials very specifically against him.

There are some characters who can avoid this problem, such as Peach, Game and Watch, and Olimar, and some other characters who just don't care about his shield so much, like Pacman or Ness. It's noteworthy that ESAM didn't run into any of those matchups in this tournament's top 32 (though I think that he played a Peach early on). What did he run into?

Byleth, Joker, Roy, Fox.

All of those to some degree or another need to run up and hit Pikachu's shield. Joker's the best of these, because Eiha and Gun, but if Pikachu's neutral looked oppressive to you today, the bracket probably had a lot to do with why.

What strikes me the most about this game is that Pikachu, imo, might have the best advantage state in the entire game, bar none

I don't think Pikachu is even in the running for this. Pikachu's disadvantage and neutral are pretty strong, but for advantage, this game has characters like Captain Falcon, Sephiroth, Meta Knight, and Min Min running around. Pikachu doesn't hold a candle to most of those. Pikachu certainly has options in advantage, but he doesn't have an aerial that kills you from onstage, and his limited range makes converting advantage to stocks difficult sometimes. If you manage to avoid the low-percent gimps (should happen most of the time), then you can play keepaway from Pikachu and watch him struggle to land his kill confirms on you because he has low horizontal airspeed. It isn't foolproof, but it's something that you can't really do against, say, Sephiroth or Falcon, since they will eventually just kill you for being in shield too long.

That up-air up-air thunder combo on Leo tonight at the end is only possible with particular DI (in/down), which ESAM had to get a hard read on to go for. There was an entire set of conditioning Leo to DI that way prior to that combo happening, so that's truly just an example of a top player being a top player.

Pikachu in disadvantage can reversal you pretty hard with Skull Bush -> head to ledge -> Quick Attack, though, and I'm not sure what kind of counterplay it's possible to develop to that, so he may end up being a problem because of that; we'll have to see.

 

[NotLiquid]

Let the copium flow in this forum.

I think you care a little too much than most do here about Pikachu for your confirmation bias to be this transparent.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Continuing the discussion on

With ESAM's win at Glitch 8.5, Pikachu will begin an ascent. Pikachu's current 36th position absent ESAM or ShinyMark could ultimately bode well for the character since the latter seems likely to travel and the former saw success in a difficult bracket.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 27, 2021

The basic idea here: If Pikachu is top half with only one of his best mains (Neeroz) active, the character is poised for a rapid rise. We won't see a ton out of this event alone, but it's worth paying attention too the next few weeks.

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) September 27, 2021

So expect Pikachu’s results to go up quickly, possibly even more then before Quarantine.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Yeah, I knew people would ridicule the argument that Pikachu has no results, but frankly: it was a really good showing of ESAM and he finally proved it's not only just training mode tech.
So, it's good to see what happened at Glitch.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Yeah, I knew people would ridicule the argument that Pikachu has no results, but frankly: it was a really good showing of ESAM and he finally proved it's not only just training mode tech.
So, it's good to see what happened at Glitch.

You could tell ESAM has been labbing a lot during Quaratine.

 

[Nobie]

I think the thing that makes people believe Pikachu is either top 5/top 2 or overrated is just that its advantage state is extremely finicky. Combos are strong, but not only are they hard to execute—they're very unrewarding if flubbed even a little. Kill confirms are extremely precise. Offstage edgeguarding is top notch and not terribly risky, but if you're fighting someone who laughs at that (G&W), you lose one of the biggest strengths you have. Pikachu does have some raw kill moves out of neutral (dash attack, up throw, smash attacks), but they're all limited by commitment and/or range.

When things go well, Pikachu looks perfect. When things go south, Pikachu doesn't flounder, but you see a kind of Marthritis develop.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Glitch 8.5
1. ESAM (He used Brawler in some pools matches)
2. MkLeo
3. Kola
4. Maister
5. Chag
5. Light
7. Cosmos
7. Marss
9. Larry Lurr
9. WaDi
9. Tilde
9. Charliedaking
13. naitosharp
13. Yoda Cage
13. Dabuz
13. BigBoss
17. Syrup
17. Bryce
17. LingLing
17. Zinoto
17. yonni
17. Ned
17. BONK!
17. Pink Fresh
25. NoTag
25. TheTurtleKing
25. Zomba
25. LeoN
25. Suarez
25. Puppeh
25. ZD
25. Dark Wizzy

 

[Nemesis561]

I think the thing that makes people believe Pikachu is either top 5/top 2 or overrated is just that its advantage state is extremely finicky. Combos are strong, but not only are they hard to execute—they're very unrewarding if flubbed even a little. Kill confirms are extremely precise. Offstage edgeguarding is top notch and not terribly risky, but if you're fighting someone who laughs at that (G&W), you lose one of the biggest strengths you have. Pikachu does have some raw kill moves out of neutral (dash attack, up throw, smash attacks), but they're all limited by commitment and/or range.

When things go well, Pikachu looks perfect. When things go south, Pikachu doesn't flounder, but you see a kind of Marthritis develop.

Yes. This is why I made the point that people don't pick him up because the level of execution needed to truly make him seem broken is very difficult. That's literally why the character doesn't have the representation and results.

When Byleth wins it was "Byleth is actually bottom 40, MKLeo is just godlike". Now that Pikachu has won, the response is "Pikachu is actually top 0, stay mad hoes". Pull it together.

No one is saying Pikachu is bad - simply that the numbers did not point to a top 5 character, and that they hadn't for quite a while. Somehow this has been made out to be some kind of hidden agenda against the rat which is like - not really? Pikachu being good in Ultimate does not cause me to go down in leprosy or any other horrific illness, I don't have that much of a stake in this. I'm just following numbers and making a call.

You shouldn't be a slave to the data and numbers. Just use your eyes Results are one part in showing a characters viability but not the whole thing

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

On the topic of , someone did a collaboration in matchup charts of what the majority of Pikachu players think.

I'm very happy to present a project me, and many others have been working on for.

A Joint Pikachu Matchup Chart!

With many high and top level representatives present in the data. With 21 Pikachu players, all with varying opinions, you can see the Pikachu consensus for mu's. pic.twitter.com/vgp74Bdbu6

— CoolKid85 (@ZajacKristian) July 24, 2021

 

[Ark of Silence101]

ESAM is really good at the video game, and Pikachu has a slight advantage over Joker. Enough of the rustiness talk, if Leo wants to not be rusty with Joker anymore he can stop whooping everybody's asses with a mid tier.

A mid tier that he absolutely enjoys using but more people are slowly catching up to(Pink Fresh straight up forced him out of Byleth, Maister, whom Leo beats with little issues, took him to a close game 5 and Kola, who also brought him to game 5, would have won had it not been for a slight error in judgement on his part).

 

[Goodstyle_4]

Pikachu is good, but let's not downplay what eSAM did here. He labbed the absolute **** out of almost every match up he played today, he was doing things against Byleth for example that other players simply weren't doing. Nobody else is punishing Leo out of shield like that, nobody else was edgeguarding like he was, nobody else seemed to be doing the same amount of homework.

A lot of players are going to pick up Pikachu and fail to get close to the same results is my prediction.

 

[NotLiquid]

If you're going to make as extreme of an assertion as "Pikachu is unequivocally the best character in the game" for a game that has about 5 different characters in that contention, you do, in fact, need data to support it. That extends not only to character tourney placements but also matchup knowledge, character metrics, various ratios, and more. Thinkaman made an incredible post in June specifically dissecting all sorts of elaborate statistics that explain both why Pikachu is commonly perceived as such an indominable threat at a top level, and also why there's conversely a valid argument to be made that "top 5" is overselling it, much of which still rings true to this day. You can't arbitrarily say "just use your eyes" as an argument when having to observe ESAM's performance in and of itself makes for a data point. Not only do you invoke an inherent contradiction but you also undersell the players who rely on that data to make the magic happen. If people are to point out that ESAM's up air bridge was a hard read dependent on specific DI, what do you call that? What do you make of that knowledge? Would you call Byleth a Top 5 character because MkLeo has previously taken sets off of who is widely considered to be the second best player in the game?

If the argument people were making here was "Pikachu is not a great character", then yeah, I'd say ESAM's immaculate performance would serve to quickly shut down some kind of argument - against a strawman which doesn't exist.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Would you call Byleth a Top 5 character because MkLeo has previously taken sets off of who is widely considered to be the second best player in the game?

I think the difference is the gap between MkLeo and ESAM and the fact that Leo has won supermajors with a mid tier before, back at Genesis 6 with pre-patch (Granted I think Byleth is a high tier and Leo has proven that the character is better then we thought). Just as an example of the gap between the two, ESAM got a 75.5 on the Fall 2019 PGRU, while Leo got the full 100 due to being the best. Obviously the gap isn't super huge, hence why ESAM can beat him, but it is noticeable. There's a difference in the skill gap between being number 1 and being top 15-top 10.

 

[ZephyrZ]

You shouldn't be a slave to the data and numbers. Just use your eyes Results are one part in showing a characters viability but not the whole thing

"Just use your eyes" and "most people agree on match up charts" aren't much of an argument.

They're just easy ways to try to shoot discussions down because you don't agree with them.

Regardless of who's right, when people are putting actual thought and effort into their arguments, it takes more then a snarky one liner to dissect it.

 

[Nemesis561]

"Just use your eyes" and "most people agree on match up charts" aren't much of an argument.

They're just easy ways to try to shoot discussions down because you don't agree with them.

Regardless of who's right, when people are putting actual thought and effort into their arguments, it takes more then a snarky one liner to dissect it.

The only real argument people have had against Pikachu is his lack of results. The character on paper and theory is ridiculous, barely loses matchups and when executed at the highest level(very very difficult) is absurd. There's a reason all the top players have such a high opinion of the character because they have had to go against Esam and have had to face the character played at top level.

Take maister off of GNW, what is that character's results? Would he be thought of nearly as highly as he is? How about cosmos and inkling? Void off of sheik? Fox without Light? My point is there is a ton of variables that come into play when it comes to results, so one shouldn't look at that as the end all be all when it comes to a characters viability. It is an important factor yes but not everything

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

The only real argument people have had against Pikachu is his lack of results. The character on paper and theory is ridiculous, barely loses matchups and when executed at the highest level(very very difficult) is absurd. There's a reason all the top players have such a high opinion of the character because they have had to go against Esam and have had to face the character played at top level.

Take maister off of GNW, what is that character's results? Would he be thought of nearly as highly as he is? How about cosmos and inkling? Void off of sheik? My point is there is a ton of variables that come into play when it comes to results, so one shouldn't look at that as the end all be all when it comes to a characters viability. It is an important factor yes but not everything

Cosmos doesn't play Inkling anymore. Strange comparison.

 

[Nemesis561]

Cosmos doesn't play Inkling anymore. Strange comparison.

My point is the characters results went out the window without cosmos..... but glad that's all you got from that buddy

 

[KirbySquad101]

I think what I find the most interesting about this tournament is that ESAM didn't just beat MKLeo, he completely stuffed out the "Game 4 Leo" that's run rampant prior to this tournament and completely overtook Maister and Kola in their respective sets.

Let's remember, not even counting his losses to ESAM, MKLeo didn't exactly look invincible this tournament (as Ark of Silence pointed out). He had some good sets against Cosmos and Chag, but Pink Fresh, Maister, and Kola were all up by at least one game against MKLeo in their sets against him at one point. Maister and Kola in particular looked poised to outright take thier sets given how convicing their second wins looked, and Pink Fresh and Kola were arguably one or two flubs away from taking their games and potentially the set altogether. And yet, things like missing the edgeguard against Mythra side B or Roy missing the tech chase FSmash arguably costed them their win. These are 1-2 interactions in a game that's filled with over a 1000 in total, and when I look at the bigger picture or all the interactions, I have to ask - are these players losing to MKLeo/Byleth or are they losing to themselves?

Well, obviously, they're losing to MKLeo lol. But I mean more in a mental kind of sense. Obviously MKLeo is a fantastic player and he made some great adaptations in all of his sets against the three examples I mentioned, at some point - more often than not Game 4 - it felt like these players lost their patience with trying to keep up with MKLeo's pace and returned to certain habits that are borderline self-destructive to pull against such a strong player. Things like Pink Fresh continuously holding shield for so long when he knows Mythra can just dance around Min Min's OoS options. Things like Maister continuously trying to DAir out of disadvantage when he knows Byleth will just shred through it with UAir. Kola trying to press any button OoS when he knows Byleth NAir on block is practically impossible to punish with a character like Roy. These are all moments that - when repeated often - are dead giveaways to revealing whose really in control. And this almost always happens when MKLeo is down 2 games against these players.

And yet, ESAM is the one exception to this. Even when it looked like MKLeo was going to pull the UNO reverse card twice, he managed to put a stop to that in its tracks. And I think that's because even when ESAM was potentially down in stocks, MKLeo was never fully in the driver's seat. He never really did figure out how to stop ESAM from Quick Attack'ing to center stage for free in the end. He never really did figure out how to play around Pika's OoS options in the end, with neither Joker or Byleth. ESAM had a point lead, just like Kola, Maister, and Pink Fresh, but unlike them, he made sure went through with it and closed things off at Game 4. That gets me to my main point:

Does the "MKLeo Game 4" shtick instill a major psychological fear for a majority of these players? I get that it's a "funny meme" and I'm probably overthinking this, but maybe there is a genuine fear most of these players have in knowing they're on the cusp of defeating the greatest Ultimate player in the world, but also knowing they have to go an extra inch to accomplish that, with that extra inch in of itself being potentially the scariest to overcome. And that's when the nerves and bad habits come out to play. The Kola that lost those three games against MKLeo didn't look like the Kola who won the first two.

And through all of this, ESAM never really succumbed to this fear because at the end of the day, regardless of what game number it is, he knows he has the momentum, and it's MKLeo who has to figure him out. I guess you can just equate to "it's Pika, and MKLeo's characters suck against Pika", but I really have to wonder if players like Kola and Maister could develop the mental fortitude ESAM has against MKLeo and carry the momentum they have till the end without that fear. They have the point leads, they have the counterplay, they have the counterpick advantage, but they don't quite have the steam yet. I think NAirWizard's previous point made in Riptide that more and more top players have the chops to take out MKLeo is justified more than ever. Especially in the case of players like Maister and Sparg0, the former of which has long since cleaned up his act from Summit and has only ever lost to other Mexican players outside of that event, even overcoming Marss in this tournament.

 

[Thinkaman]

OrionStats TTS delta for Glitch 8.5 (estimates; I dunno where he will draw the cutoff for secondaries used early, or if my memory of secondaries is accurate. Does not include Friday's Grind)

+33
+29.5
+26.5
+25
+23
+19
+19
+16
+15
+15
+15
+14
+14
+14
+14
+13
+13
+13
: +12.5
+12
+12
+10
+10
+10
+9
+9
+8
+8
+8
+7
+6
+6
+6
+6
+5
+5
+5
+5
+5
+5
+4.5

Commentary:
and his 4.5 players actually further increase his overall lead in both nominal and relative terms, gaining 6.6% of the overall points in this estimate.
all had a good week with not just top 8 placement but 3-4 players in top 64. also had ZD in addition to Light. All 5 characters outperformed their previous placements quite a bit, losing ground to ROB nominally but closing the gap relatively.
has an amazing weekend, almost doubling his 2021 results in a single event with 3 players in the top 64. (48, even)
outperforms past results on ESAM alone, but all other players drowned outside top 64. The result is good for Pikachu but more modest than one might think--only +10 points more than Pikachu would typically get at an event of this size without ESAM. This will only leapfrog Pikachu 3-4 ranks; if ESAM has to carry Pikachu back to the top 20 alone, it might take awhile! As always, eyes should be less on a single top player and more on everyone else.
is even more carried by a single player. Leo's #2 with Byleth is almost twice as relatively significant to past performances as ESAM's #1, and that's with MKLeo already contributing major Byleth wins. There is surely no character as single-handedly carried as Byleth.
overperforms without Tweak. also shows good staying power.
all did very well, and would probably be happy to get these results every week. (If they did, they would be top half of the roster.)
did okay, definitely outperforming the average. They are not typically expected to show up at an event this big at all.
all underperformed slightly, while remaining relevant. Bigger loss for the AWOL crowd obviously:

This event had 9 characters in top 8, 18 in top 16, 25 in top 24, 30 in top 32.

Curiously, Squad Strike rosters and top performers included a somewhat different set of characters: top 4 in included 7 additional characters not seen in singles, and top 24 included 20 more. 9 Wolfs though, and plenty of PT, Chrom, Roy, Palu, Joker, Sephiroth, Fox, and Pyra rounding out teams.

Teams was similar to singles, though again with 3 Incineroars in the top 16 teams and guest appearances by MPg's Mega Man and Citadel's Ridley that put the overall number of high-placing characters at this event over 50. Surprisingly lack of Aegis for a character theorized to be so amazing in doubles.

Perhaps the Smash4-Cloud-in-Doubles fear shouldn't be Pyra in Doubles, but Wolf in Squad Strike.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Leo choked a lot when he had Arsene.

 

[Trunks159]

I think what I find the most interesting about this tournament is that ESAM didn't just beat MKLeo, he completely stuffed out the "Game 4 Leo" that's run rampant prior to this tournament and completely overtook Maister and Kola in their respective sets.

Let's remember, not even counting his losses to ESAM, MKLeo didn't exactly look invincible this tournament (as Ark of Silence pointed out). He had some good sets against Cosmos and Chag, but Pink Fresh, Maister, and Kola were all up by at least one game against MKLeo in their sets against him at one point. Maister and Kola in particular looked poised to outright take thier sets given how convicing their second wins looked, and Pink Fresh and Kola were arguably one or two flubs away from taking their games and potentially the set altogether. And yet, things like missing the edgeguard against Mythra side B or Roy missing the tech chase FSmash arguably costed them their win. These are 1-2 interactions in a game that's filled with over a 1000 in total, and when I look at the bigger picture or all the interactions, I have to ask - are these players losing to MKLeo/Byleth or are they losing to themselves?

Well, obviously, they're losing to MKLeo lol. But I mean more in a mental kind of sense. Obviously MKLeo is a fantastic player and he made some great adaptations in all of his sets against the three examples I mentioned, at some point - more often than not Game 4 - it felt like these players lost their patience with trying to keep up with MKLeo's pace and returned to certain habits that are borderline self-destructive to pull against such a strong player. Things like Pink Fresh continuously holding shield for so long when he knows Mythra can just dance around Min Min's OoS options. Things like Maister continuously trying to DAir out of disadvantage when he knows Byleth will just shred through it with UAir. Kola trying to press any button OoS when he knows Byleth NAir on block is practically impossible to punish with a character like Roy. These are all moments that - when repeated often - are dead giveaways to revealing whose really in control. And this almost always happens when MKLeo is down 2 games against these players.

And yet, ESAM is the one exception to this. Even when it looked like MKLeo was going to pull the UNO reverse card twice, he managed to put a stop to that in its tracks. And I think that's because even when ESAM was potentially down in stocks, MKLeo was never fully in the driver's seat. He never really did figure out how to stop ESAM from Quick Attack'ing to center stage for free in the end. He never really did figure out how to play around Pika's OoS options in the end, with neither Joker or Byleth. ESAM had a point lead, just like Kola, Maister, and Pink Fresh, but unlike them, he made sure went through with it and closed things off at Game 4. That gets me to my main point:

Does the "MKLeo Game 4" shtick instill a major psychological fear for a majority of these players? I get that it's a "funny meme" and I'm probably overthinking this, but maybe there is a genuine fear most of these players have in knowing they're on the cusp of defeating the greatest Ultimate player in the world, but also knowing they have to go an extra inch to accomplish that, with that extra inch in of itself being potentially the scariest to overcome. And that's when the nerves and bad habits come out to play. The Kola that lost those three games against MKLeo didn't look like the Kola who won the first two.

And through all of this, ESAM never really succumbed to this fear because at the end of the day, regardless of what game number it is, he knows he has the momentum, and it's MKLeo who has to figure him out. I guess you can just equate to "it's Pika, and MKLeo's characters suck against Pika", but I really have to wonder if players like Kola and Maister could develop the mental fortitude ESAM has against MKLeo and carry the momentum they have till the end without that fear. They have the point leads, they have the counterplay, they have the counterpick advantage, but they don't quite have the steam yet. I think NAirWizard's previous point made in Riptide that more and more top players have the chops to take out MKLeo is justified more than ever. Especially in the case of players like Maister and Sparg0, the former of which has long since cleaned up his act from Summit and has only ever lost to other Mexican players outside of that event, even overcoming Marss in this tournament.

On Mkleo

• Yes though I feel like Leo usually doesn't look invincible. A good amount of his reputation has been built on his ability to make comebacks. Perhaps his performance vs Esam is most similar to his performance against Tweek's at summit where Leo definitely didn't have an answer at the time.
• I will say when Leo isn't sure about whether the character he's using is the right pick, you can see it. \
• With his character lineup right now I don't think he has an answer to the matchup so I think it's inevitable that he'll be upset by one of the good ones like Pink Fresh one of these days.

On Esam

• While Leo doesn't have great answers and MAYBE , I don't think Esam has great answers to :ultpikachu 's bad matchups like the obvious .

 

[Firox]

Sakurai: "Hmmm, I wonder how things are going with the Pro Ultimate scene these days..." (turns on the highlights of Glitch 8.5) "...huh, I guess Pikachu is pretty broke." (busts out his "nerf hammer" notepad)

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Sakurai: "Hmmm, I wonder how things are going with the Pro Ultimate scene these days..." (turns on the highlights of Glitch 8.5) "...huh, I guess Pikachu is pretty broke." (busts out his "nerf hammer" notepad)

If that was how Sakurai thinks R.O.B would of been pounded with the nerf bat until there was nothing but scrap metal and broken circuit boards long ago...instead of well not beimg directly altered at all since launch.

On the other hand. Min-Min was a FP2 was nerfed twice because she was doing well in a single, albeit big region in Japan' with its community being rather exceptionally vocal with their dislike of her.

So yeah..Its kinda of wash to expect who may be buffed/nerfed in the next and very possibly last balance patch in this game

 

[Arthur97]

That generally makes me think Pyra and Mythra may be nerfed despite not being shown to be the dominant force people made them out to be simply because people call for it a lot. Remember how K. Rool got nerfed early on cause people complained?

 

[Rizen]

That generally makes me think Pyra and Mythra may be nerfed despite not being shown to be the dominant force people made them out to be simply because people call for it a lot. Remember how K. Rool got nerfed early on cause people complained?

This is just false. Pythra have incredibly dominate results. 2 in top 8, although Leo used them as a secondary, in Glitch (2nd, 7th), Riptide (1st, 3rd) and summit (2nd, 3rd). Cosmos won MSM 240 to get into summit. Spargo, Leo and Cosmos have all won multiple tournaments with them including solo pythra and they've sky rocketed up Orion rank. They've consistently won tournaments throughout wifi during quarantine including multiple very stacked juiceboxes and seamlessly transitioned into offline. They've literally won more tournaments than I can keep track of:
SWT: Central America Ultimate Regional (16 entrants) Leo 1st, Cloudy 4th
XGT 2021 March (69 Entrants) (Taiwan)

1st: ShiNe /Mythra
Mega Smash Mondays 233 Mega Smash Mond... | Brackets
(224 entrants) (La Mirada, CA)

1. Sparg0 |
Abierto Puerto Vallarta (113 entrants) (Mexico)
Abierto Puerto ... | Brackets (smash.gg)

1. Chag
2. Sparg0
The Comeback (258 entrants) (Laurel, MD)

https://smash.gg/tournament/the-comeback-feat-tweek/event/singles/standings

1st: Tweek
2nd: Cosmos

And more I can't even remember. These are just tournaments where they get top 2. Seriously, what other single character has had this level of success (I mean actually winning or 2nd in tournaments) since they were released? Pikachu??? /disgruntled rant

Edit plus wifi era stuff:

Add getting 2nd in Proving Grounds with partial Pyra/Mythra to the growing list of their accomplishments in this short time. Tell me if I missed any. So far we've got MKLeo getting 2nd at the Mexican Regional Qualifiers with partial PM and first going all them for frame perfect series. Spargo going full PM to win a Juice box, partial PM to win another and Collision and Shuton using mostly them to get 5th at the Japan online qualifier. They also have reps in Void and Cosmos, who I've yet to see enter a tournament with them.

Pyra Mythra
Edit 2 more results
Pinnacle 2021 (247 Entrants) (British Columbia)

1st: Ouch!?
2nd: Grape
3rd: Big D
4th: Jw
5th: Lemmon
5th: Blacktwins
7th: Tickle
7th: Riddles
Smash The Line: Third Impact (79 entrants) (Enfield, CT)
Smash The Line:... | Bracket Settings

1st: Light
2nd: naitosharp
3rd: DM
4th: Don
5th: Pelca
5th: KOM
7th: 6:00am
7th: Average Alex
Mash Harder (104 Entrants) (Massachusets)

1st: Naitosharp
2nd: DM
Glitch 8.5 - Konami Code (421 entrants) (Laurel, MD)
Glitch 8.5 - Ko... | Standings (smash.gg)

1st: ESAM |
2nd: MkLeo |
3rd: Kola
4th: Maister
5th: Light
5th: Chag
7th: Marss
7th: Cosmos
Riptide (1,024 entrants) (Sandusky, Ohio)
Riptide | Standings (smash.gg)

Seibugeki 8 (192 entrants) (Tokyo, Japan)
西武撃 #8 | Standings (smash.gg)

1st: ProtoBanHam
2nd: Eim
3rd: Gackt
4th: Shuton



Results for WINNER! #4

1. Shuton
2. Zackray
3. Mao
4. Umeki
5. shky
5. Raito
7. Paseriman
7. HIKARU

Kagaribi 5
1st. Zackray
2nd. Shuton /

Port Priority 6

1st: MkLeo
2nd: Sparg0
3rd: Tweek
4th: BigBoss
5th: LeoN
5th: Lui$
7th: Dark Wizzy
7th: Chag

CyPhaCon Mini Esports results

1. Cosmos
2. Niko
3. yonni
4. LarryLurr
5. Lima
5. KirbyKid
7. Goblin
7. Sem


Seibugeki 9

1. Shuton

 

[Arthur97]

This is just false. Pythra have incredibly dominate results. 2 in top 8, although Leo used them as a secondary, in Glitch (2nd, 7th), Riptide (1st, 3rd) and summit (2nd, 3rd). Cosmos won MSM 240 to get into summit. Spargo, Leo and Cosmos have all won multiple tournaments with them including solo pythra and they've sky rocketed up Orion rank. They've consistently won tournaments throughout wifi during quarantine including multiple very stacked juiceboxes and seamlessly transitioned into offline. They've literally won more tournaments than I can keep track of:
SWT: Central America Ultimate Regional (16 entrants) Leo 1st, Cloudy 4th
XGT 2021 March (69 Entrants) (Taiwan)

1st: ShiNe /Mythra
Mega Smash Mondays 233 Mega Smash Mond... | Brackets
(224 entrants) (La Mirada, CA)

1. Sparg0 |
Abierto Puerto Vallarta (113 entrants) (Mexico)
Abierto Puerto ... | Brackets (smash.gg)

1. Chag
2. Sparg0
The Comeback (258 entrants) (Laurel, MD)

https://smash.gg/tournament/the-comeback-feat-tweek/event/singles/standings

1st: Tweek
2nd: Cosmos

And more I can't even remember. These are just tournaments where they get top 2. Seriously, what other single character has had this level of success (I mean actually winning or 2nd in tournaments) since they were released? Pikachu??? /disgruntled rant

They've done well, but maybe it was just the seeming terror being thrown their way, but they don't seem to have lived up to the fear. Even faltering more than expected in other places. They aren't dominating, they're doing well. I do not, however, think they are this overwhelming force some might have you think they are. Plus, Spargo would probably have done really well without them anyway so....

 

[The_Bookworm]

2 in top 8, although Leo used them as a secondary, in Glitch (2nd, 7th), Riptide (1st, 3rd) and summit (2nd, 3rd).

That is kinda deceptive, because as you said, Leo only used them as a secondary. He only really used them once or twice per tournament (in the case for Riptide, he only used them at pools), while his Byleth was front-and-center almost the entire time.

It is mainly Sparg0 and Cosmos that is pushing their top level results, and even then, it can get a bit dicey in terms of consistency. This can be seen with Riptide where Cosmos fell very early, while Sparg0 is the main force of the Aegis that tourney but he also used quite a bit of Cloud as well.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 48 character representation at Glitch 8.5 (Counting secondaries)

If we're talking about dominant characters, clearly we should be more talking about then / . Obviously there's less ROB players getting into top 8 then Aegis players, but there are some that can get to top 8 and even win majors like Zackray who are on a similar skill level to Sparg0 and Cosmos, it's just that Japan didn't travel to the States once outside of Summit.

In case you want to compare ROB's dominance this season to or , the peak of was 9 players in top 48 of Frostbite 2018, while 's peak was 19 players in top 48 of Apex 2012. We're still way off from those two and thank god for that. It's safe to say Ultimate is a much more balanced game then Brawl or Smash 4 was.

 

[Firox]

If that was how Sakurai thinks R.O.B would of been pounded with the nerf bat until there was nothing but scrap metal and broken circuit boards long ago...instead of well not beimg directly altered at all since launch.

On the other hand. Min-Min was a FP2 was nerfed twice because she was doing well in a single, albeit big region in Japan' with its community being rather exceptionally vocal with their dislike of her.

So yeah..Its kinda of wash to expect who may be buffed/nerfed in the next and very possibly last balance patch in this game

My comment was meant in jest, though you raise some interesting questions about why and how the dev team determines balance adjustments. In the case of Rob, I definitely agree that the character is very good, though I'm curious how many major tournaments he's won. I see him doing consistently well overall, but he's never made headlines in the same way Joker, Pikachu and the Aegis have. That's not to say that he's inferior to them per se, but ROB has managed to slip under the radar a bit better them. Could that be a reason why he hasn't seen any nerfs? So far, the only characters to really get meaningful nerfs have been the ones that have demonstrated heavy dominance. Min Min and Joker are two of the most obvious examples. If you look at the online winrates, just about every character is leveling close to 50%, hence why the balance patches have become increasingly hands off. It just makes me wonder exactly how the dev team is deciding balances. Is it online results with the occasional pro tournament nod, or is it something more or less arbitrary?