Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 32 seeding for Maesuma TOP 7

1. ProtoBanham
2. Shuton
3. Tea
4. Rizeasu
5. HERO
6. Gackt
7. KEN
8. Paseriman
9. acola
10. Repo
11. Kome
12. Yoshidora
13. Kameme
14. Lea
15. Sigma
16. DIO
17. Jogibu
18. Eim
19. Omuatsu
20. tk3
21. Raito
22. Toura
23. Shirayuki
24. Brood
25. Asimo
26. ZAKI
27. Rido
28. Sylph
29. Manzoku
30. Munekin
31. Nao
32. Mottsuan

EDIT: OrionStats update

OrionStats character update for late April; ROB regains his crown. Kazuya also has his best week in a while, coming just short of hitting the top 20. Samus continues to stay in the top 10, but a significant gap between her and the Aegis has formed. pic.twitter.com/tjfZIOP5h4

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) April 27, 2022

 

[NairWizard]

A bit late, but on the topic of Wario, I think what's happening is a bit more nuanced than simply Gluto being great (which he is). Wario is definitely hard to play, there's no denying that. Both knowing what to do for every matchup and also actually doing it can be tricky. And Gluttony is definitely playing like a top 3 player, there's also no denying that.

But Wario is also extremely good right now imo.

Without getting too deeply into the sets, we believed previously that Wario had some terrible matchups like Olimar and Sonic, and losing matchups to disjoints. Over the course of the last couple of months, Gluto has been saying that he re-envisioned his playstyle to match that of MKLeo's, and thus found counterplay to Olimar and Sonic. He cited those as even matchups. He also thinks that instead of losing to disjoints, Wario actually beats most sword users like Byleth and Corrin.

Asked what Wario's worst matchup is, Gluto said that only Roy might be a -1, and everyone else even or better. Leo and Gluto on their stream said that Wario is one of the best characters in the meta right now, likely better than Aegis.

Now, players do claim to have figured out counterplay all the time, but it's rare that players actually get a chance to showcase it and do so convincingly. Gluto played against both Sonic and Olimar at Pound, and dominantly won both matchups. He's been beating the best sword spacing players too with his whiff punishing style.

Keep in mind that we're not seeing Gluto make a bunch of reads to outplay his opponents. He does that sometimes, but what we're mostly seeing is Gluto generating guaranteed, reaction-based situations in neutral that lead to stocks, even without Waft. That's something that anyone with the right reaction time and practice can replicate. It's definitely not just a player thing.

It will take a while for other Warios to catch on to what Gluto is doing, if they even do at all, but as usual when we look at top-level play, it's not out of pure admiration for the skill of our top players; we also look to it as a predictor of how things might look at other levels if the playstyles at the top catch on elsewhere.

So yes, smash Ultimate is mostly about players and not about tiers, but it's hard to overstate just how capable and dominant Wario looks right now. The character, not just Gluto.

 

[Arthur97]

Bit surprised to see Roy dethroned, but R.O.B. has been bringing the sheer numbers.

Wario also brings up an interesting point of how much if at all should difficulty in execution matter in tiers? Is it a vacuum? If so, then it makes tiers less important as no one plays perfectly.

Something else I don't think has been brought up is BacoN's Dr. Mario run. Yes, we've established tiers don't matter much, but this is a fighter often seen as bottom 3. That may still be true, but it's impressive nonetheless even with the DQ.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Leo and Gluto on their stream said that Wario is one of the best characters in the meta right now, likely better than Aegis.

Gluto and MkLeo think Wario is top 3? That's certainly an interesting implication. For now that take is a bit of an outlier, I don't think I've seen any recent tier lists where Wario is even close to top 3, but who knows, maybe people will change their minds? Tweek doesn't seem to think that highly about Wario though, last I heard he didn't even have Wario in top 10.

 

[superjm]

This Wario talk is giving me shades of when was being seriously considered for top 1 because of Hungrybox being Hungrybox mostly on the strength of the argument that her obvious matchup issues with fellow top tiers weren't nearly as bad as they were made out to be. And then counterplay continued to develop and become more consistent and that talk all died down with people realizing that wait, no, never mind, Puff's obvious matchup issues are exactly as bad as we thought.

 

[NairWizard]

Characters like Olimar and Sonic can always develop counter-counterplay. That won’t be particularly surprising. The surprising part is Wario developing counterplay for those matchups in the first place, given how he was perceived for a while. Unviable or barely viable characters don’t have the ability to overturn bad matchups even temporarily.

Take Ike, for example. Ike isn’t a bad character, but he has some terrible matchups, and no amount of Ike meta development will make those matchups feel Ike-favored, even temporarily or even if Mkleo picks Ike up again.

under the guise of a favorable meta with good players backing, a high tier can masquerade as a toptier for a while, but lower than that and the disguise is poor

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

PGStats did an article on the favourites for Low Tide City.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/uf88im

 

[The_Bookworm]

I haven't really payed much attention to Low Tide City singles as of right now.
Has anything particularly interesting happened yet (i.e. upsets, crazy bracket runs)?

Edit: Looking at the bracket. Oh boy.... there are upsets indeed. A lot of them.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Maesuma TOP 7

1. acola
2. Shuton
3. Yoshidora
4. Tea
5. Kameme
5. Hero
7. Jogibu
7. KEN
9. DIO
9. Sigma
9. Kome
9. Abadango
13. Rinkururu
13. Shirayuki
13. Injelly
13. Paseriman
17. Take&Watch
17. Luminous
17. Shogun
17. Lea
17. ProtoBanham
17. Umeki
17. Rido
17. YamaD

acola is now the youngest Ultimate player to win a major, surpassing Sparg0's win at Summit 4 at the age of 16. as acola won this event at the age of 15.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

As more time has gone on I feel that forcing yourself to play a character is generally worse than playing the character you like. Mostly because of how people have been picking up Aegis but after a while go back to what they like. I’m really glad to see it, on a competitive and casual level. It leads to having more fun in the game but you are also more passionate, and have the drive to push your character to their limits. I will say that when Aegis came out I was one of the people who wanted to main her. She looked (and is) incredibly powerful who can reasonably fit many playstyles. However… I didn’t feel very good. I was winning more often however was unfulfilled and unmotivated. Then it really dawned on me. I wasn’t playing her because I like the character of the game she is from. I played her because she was good. So I started playing Hero/Link again but even though I was winning less, I felt that not only was I having more fun, I was improving at a more rapid rate. I now had the motivation to push my characters more and find creative solutions to tough challenges.

However, this has been happening everywhere, and I feel that players are improving because of it. I love this game because of this variety, and I sincerely wish this continues in the future.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Johny 3-0 Elegant in a dominant fashion. Seph does seem like a miserable MU for Luigi as Seph seems to have everything needed to exploit Luigi's weakness.

Basically like the Master vs Bassmage set earlier .I mean what can Puff even do vs G&W's Up-B?

 

[Arthur97]

As more time has gone on I feel that forcing yourself to play a character is generally worse than playing the character you like. Mostly because of how people have been picking up Aegis but after a while go back to what they like. I’m really glad to see it, on a competitive and casual level. It leads to having more fun in the game but you are also more passionate, and have the drive to push your character to their limits. I will say that when Aegis came out I was one of the people who wanted to main her. She looked (and is) incredibly powerful who can reasonably fit many playstyles. However… I didn’t feel very good. I was winning more often however was unfulfilled and unmotivated. Then it really dawned on me. I wasn’t playing her because I like the character of the game she is from. I played her because she was good. So I started playing Hero/Link again but even though I was winning less, I felt that not only was I having more fun, I was improving at a more rapid rate. I now had the motivation to push my characters more and find creative solutions to tough challenges.

However, this has been happening everywhere, and I feel that players are improving because of it. I love this game because of this variety, and I sincerely wish this continues in the future.

It's actually kind of ironic that I've had a bit of the opposite. I don't care for Marth's moveset on Lucina, I don't want to primarily use Mythra, playing with Robin just seems to really stress me out. Guess Chrom could be okay, unless you're up against a counter. I really have a hard time settling on a "main" even if there are those I play more.

That said, the variety is pretty nice. For perhaps the first time in recent history, it seems the bottleneck on variety is more on the amount of players and less on viability.

 

[toonito]

Results for Maesuma TOP 7

1. acola
2. Shuton
3. Yoshidora
4. Tea
5. Kameme
5. Hero
7. Jogibu
7. KEN
9. DIO
9. Sigma
9. Kome
9. Abadango
13. Rinkururu
13. Shirayuki
13. Injelly
13. Paseriman
17. Take&Watch
17. Luminous
17. Shogun
17. Lea
17. ProtoBanham
17. Umeki
17. Rido
17. YamaD

acola is now the youngest Ultimate player to win a major, surpassing Sparg0's win at Summit 4 at the age of 16. as acola won this event at the age of 15.

IIRC acola might be the youngest person to ever win a Smash major, not just Ultimate.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

MuteAce 3-2 Sparg0


MuteAce played out of thier mind to made that upset. I wonder now if Sparg0 will now be pushed to use Aegis for the losers bracket.


Also Ned 3-0 Elegant in losers meaning he got 3-0'd two Sephs in the same tourament . Good lord That MU seems like a nightmare for Luigi

 

[KirbySquad101]

Today I re-learned having good air weaving and broken DTilts is good to have against Cloud

 

[The_Bookworm]

Elegant 0-3 Ned (out at 13th)

6-0'd by Sephiroth today, even after beating Goblin 3-0.
The matchup looked doable without wing, but when wing becomes active, it turned into a one-player game in favor of Sephiroth.

 

[NairWizard]

Acola's Steve is the news of the week for me. The kid is absolutely insane, has beaten Tea, Shuton, Kome, Abadango, and others. Hasn't gotten below top 2 in an offline event. Just won a major. And is 15 years old, making him the same age as Mkleo when he won his first major (and thus the youngest person to ever win a major in this game, or maybe any smash game, since Leo was almost 16). Looking like a future top 3 player the way he's going.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Low Tide City 2022 Top 8

Winner's
MuteAce vs Dabuz
Kola vs Lui$

Loser's
Sparg0 vs Maister
ApolloKage vs Zomba


Pretty diverse top 8. We are about to see a Mexico team kill immediately.

 

[NairWizard]

we never do predictions in here but this thread doesn't see as much activity as it used to, so I'm going to throw one in the hat. Predicting that Kola goes to winners side grands, then sparg0 meets him there but wins with Aegis instead of Cloud

also predicting Aegis if he fights Zomba again

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Hot take: Maister is gonna dominate Sparg0 in convincing fashion.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

we never do predictions in here but this thread doesn't see as much activity as it used to, so I'm going to throw one in the hat. Predicting that Kola goes to winners side grands, then sparg0 meets him there but wins with Aegis instead of Cloud

also predicting Aegis if he fights Zomba again

Sparg0 did say on his stream that he'd go Aegis against Zomba and maybe Kola. And Sparg0 is great at losers runs.

It's looking like a strong possibility this could happen.

 

[superjm]

Sparg0 goes 3-2 over Lui$, notable for Sparg0 dusting off the Aegis to counterpick Palu. Lui$, to his credit, immediately counterpicked with Fox to force back the Cloud game 5 and even got to 0-0 last stock... then he taunted and immediately got zero-to-death'd in 5 seconds.

Looks increasingly likely that Aegis is coming out if/when he faces Zomba next round.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

good lord Zomba straight up ROBBED (pun totally intended) from MuteAce one crazy 3-1 stock comeback.

MuteAce was actullay playing the MU so incredibly well too. Using the R.O.B's Gyro against him for even more crazy peach combos and being able to read and beat most Zombairs.. but sadly fell to the one that closed the set.

 

[The_Bookworm]

good lord Zomba straight up ROBBED (pun totally intended) from MuteAce one crazy 3-1 stock comeback

It wasn't really robbery. MuteAce kinda just choked as Zomba nickeled-and-dimed his way to the comeback victory.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

It wasn't really robbery. MuteAce kinda just choked as Zomba nickeled-and-dimed his way to the comeback victory.

Well it was Basically 2 Games where Zomba somehow got the comeback from what seemed certian defeat. It kinda of felt like robbery in the sense that MuteAce seemingly was outplaying Zomba for most of the set and seems to have Zombas number by gaje 5... until he didn't and had Cosmos level choke that allowed Zomba to take that game 5

 

[superjm]

MuteAce absolutely gave that last game away. On the last stock he went from not playing scared enough of ROB to playing way too scared of ROB and Zomba was more than happy to take advtange.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Low Tide City 2022 (561 Entrants)

1st: Sparg0
2nd: Kola
3rd: Dabuz
4th: Zomba
5th: MuteAce
5th: Lui$
7th: ApolloKage
7th: Maister

Spoiler: Top 16

9th: SHADIC
9th: Dark Wizzy
9th: Jonhy
9th: Ned

13th: Aaron
13th: BigBoss
13th: Elegant
13th: ATATA

Spoiler: Top 32

17th: Lima
17th: Zie
17th: Goblin
17th: Chase
17th: BassMage
17th: yonni
17th: Xillion
17th: Kazma

25th: ChocoTaco
25th: _trey5
25th: Todayyz
25th: Skitz
25th: varun
25th: Suarez
25th: Anathema
25th: Shoe

 

[superjm]

After nearly losing to Lui$ in 5 games Sparg0 goes on an absolute tear to rip through the rest of the bracket. Made Zomba, Dabuz, and Kola look overmatched.

His 3-0 over Zomba with Aegis was particularly gruesome. If he truly commits to maining both Cloud and Aegis again then that's gonna be a major problem for everyone else going forward.

EDIT - Also special mention to Sparg0's set against Kola, where it seemed like in nearly every situation where Kola usually manages to convert a solid neutral win into insane damage, if not an outright stock, that Sparg0 just manages to mix up his escape routes and reset, or even sometimes reverse the situation in his favor. Extending his own stocks so many times allows Sparg0 the opportunity to find enough of his own openings to maintain initiative and stock advantage. The game Kola won (out of seven) was the only time where his spacing, tech chasing, and combo routes actually went according to plan.

 

[Rizen]

After nearly losing to Lui$ in 5 games Sparg0 goes on an absolute tear to rip through the rest of the bracket. Made Zomba, Dabuz, and Kola look overmatched.

His 3-0 over Zomba with Aegis was particularly gruesome. If he truly commits to maining both Cloud and Aegis again then that's gonna be a major problem for everyone else going forward.

EDIT - Also special mention to Sparg0's set against Kola, where it seemed like in nearly every situation where Kola usually manages to convert a solid neutral win into insane damage, if not an outright stock, that Sparg0 just manages to mix up his escape routes and reset, or even sometimes reverse the situation in his favor. Extending his own stocks so many times allows Sparg0 the opportunity to find enough of his own openings to maintain initiative and stock advantage. The game Kola won (out of seven) was the only time where his spacing, tech chasing, and combo routes actually went according to plan.

Cloud and Aegis ends up being more of a playstyle counterpick than an MU CP. They generally both do great on the same stages and vs the same characters. They also have basically the same weaknesses. Fortunately IMO they've both top tiers so they probably have very few slightly losing MUs- if any.

Playstyle CPs are still extremely valuable. It's a lot harder for an opponent to get in your head if you have multiple characters. Seriously, I would recommend everyone do this. It's just a good strategy.

 

[NairWizard]

I mean, that is essentially how Leo is still staying abreast of sparg0. Skillwise, when you watch sparg0 play, he clearly looks better than Leo, but then Leo will mix him up on the character CP every other tourney and come out ahead in the head-to-head

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Update on characters who have won majors/made top 8 at majors post quarantine

 

[Arthur97]

Wow, DK, Lucario and Doc all making top 8 seems fairly impressive.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Wow, DK, Lucario and Doc all making top 8 seems fairly impressive.

DK was HIKARU at Maesuma TOP 6, Lucario was Tsu at Kagaribi 3 and Doc was Oryon at VCA 2021.

Important to mention they didn't do it solo.

 

[Cheryl~]

As for the characters in the bottom tier, the only ones who really have a shot at making a top 8 at a major with their current playerbases are Bayonetta (Lima, Bloom4Eva could easily make top 8 with a good bracket and some upsets), Ice Climbers (Big D has done some crazy stuff already this year like beating Maister, not out of the cards but would need an incredibly fair bracket), and maaaybe Link just based on the fact that Rido is a really good up-and-coming player in Japan who's placed high already. (T would also count if he WENT TO TOURNAMENTS). Oh, and maybe Duck Hunt/Banjo too because Raito has a great run in Japanese tourneys every so often, although his results have kind of stagnated recently.

The others I don't have faith in making top 8 only because their playerbases aren't quite there yet, although for some like Little Mac and Ganondorf they would need to be a secondary pick for a really good player to even have a shot.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

As for the characters in the bottom tier, the only ones who really have a shot at making a top 8 at a major with their current playerbases are Bayonetta (Lima, Bloom4Eva could easily make top 8 with a good bracket and some upsets), Ice Climbers (Big D has done some crazy stuff already this year like beating Maister, not out of the cards but would need an incredibly fair bracket), and maaaybe Link just based on the fact that Rido is a really good up-and-coming player in Japan who's placed high already. (T would also count if he WENT TO TOURNAMENTS). Oh, and maybe Duck Hunt/Banjo too because Raito has a great run in Japanese tourneys every so often, although his results have kind of stagnated recently.

The others I don't have faith in making top 8 only because their playerbases aren't quite there yet, although for some like Little Mac and Ganondorf they would need to be a secondary pick for a really good player to even have a shot.

T is going to Kagaribi 7, but he might still be rusty because he's only just returned.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

T is going to Kagaribi 7, but he might still be rusty because he's only just returned.

Yea, I doubt he will be able to do fair loops into Up-B consistently. Plus a lot of people are probably gonna start trying to SDI out of it to make it harder. His main trump card is probably gonna be the easy yet effective place bomb at neutral get up and f-tilt at roll range reaction. If he fights a lot of Aegis he might struggle as well because most of his combos are destroyed by foresight and he gets out neutral’ed the entire time. Plus ledge is a STUGGLE, Pyra f-tilt is a menace for Link. Not to mention that Link is super easy to hit with Dair…. But the moment Link gets her offstage he just kinda wins. Bomb can gimp Aegis at like 30%, its nasty, its so ridiculous, I love it.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Seibugeki #10

1. Shuton
2. Asimo
3. LISUTO
4. sssr
5. Luminous
5. Manzoku
7. Youyou
7. TKM
9. yuzu
9. Paseriman
9. Motsunabe
9. Ryuoh
13. Rido
13. Taikei
13. Renami
13. Konokururu
17. Munekin
17. haruka.
17. Abadango
17. takera
17. Tsubotsubo
17. Wada
17. Jogibu
17. Mao

 

[Iron Maw]

Wow, DK, Lucario and Doc all making top 8 seems fairly impressive.

And honestly that really makes me happy. 4 years after ultimate's release and yet who can or can't truly win a major yet has to be set in stone. It not only reaffirms SSBU as being the most balance smash game ever, but how much more room the meta can grow.

 

[Arthur97]

And honestly that really makes me happy. 4 years after ultimate's release and yet who can or can't truly win a major yet has to be set in stone. It not only reaffirms SSBU as being the most balance smash game ever, but how much more room the meta can grow.

Definitely. While, yes, they didn't do it on their own, you also have BacoN doing an impressive Doc run. We really do seem to be at the point where the players are the bottleneck as opposed to the fighters. Like even that super impressive Ryu (Ikan was it?) got beat out by a Robin. Plus, now that patches are done, the meta now has to develop on its own, and we've already seen that with Gluttony and Wario.