Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hydreigonfan01]

Keep in mind that "made" includes things like Onin picking Robin/Shulk/Joker versus acola in Grand Finals and getting destroyed, so some characters get boosted by desperation picks/pockets etc.

Also, it being 2021-2022 is why Steve doesn't rule the bracket. If it was 2022 only it is confirmed that Steve would be higher then Pyra/Mythra.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Remember Shockwave, the local scene that the decided to try banning a bunch of characters in order to increase attendance? It's been two months now and we have a decent amount of data, so let's look at it.

Let's start by looking at some tournaments before the bans: Shockwave 129 had 50 entrants, Shockwave 130 had 55 entrants, Shockwave 131 had 67 entrants. Okay, that's a pretty decent baseline for what we could expect from a Shockwave. The first week (Shockwave 132) was the most hyped up, the FP2 week, and it had... 91 entrants. This was a notable increase in entrants, but many believe it was largely because of it being the first tournament of the banned series. The second week, with only Steve banned (Shockwave 133), had 67 entrants. Shockwave 134, with only Kazuya banned, had 60 entrants. Then both Steve and Kazuya were banned for 135 and 100 entrants, with people traveling out of region to attend. 136, with all DLC banned, had 51 entrants.

Moving on to "Happy Have Fundies Holidays", 137, with Steve and Kazuya banned, had 32 entrants. 138, with Steve, Kazuya, and ROB banned, had 46 entrants. 139, with no bans at all, had 51 entrants. 140, with Steve, Kazuya, and ROB banned, had 61 entrants.

It seems pretty obvious to me that 132 (FP2 banned and first week of the experiment) and 135 (first time both Kazuya and Steve were banned) were outliers. Compare 135 with 137 and 138 and 140.

It is hard to know about every circumstance. It seems fairly likely that many people would be unable to attend for the 21st, and more would be home for the 28th, so that could affect the numbers. Still though, it seems that bans didn't greatly affect numbers one way or the other, aside from certain outliers. A ban in order to increase attendance seems unlikely to work long term, even after one month people seemed to stop caring too much about Steve/Kazuya being banned or not (at least when it comes to attendance).

Those who were hoping that banning characters would inject new life into local scenes will likely end up being disappointed by this experiment. Those that are against a ban will likely be pleased, since it shows that one of the pro-ban arguments ("If we ban X character more people will attend our tournaments") is likely to be a very weak argument long-term.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Remember Shockwave, the local scene that the decided to try banning a bunch of characters in order to increase attendance? It's been two months now and we have a decent amount of data, so let's look at it.

Let's start by looking at some tournaments before the bans: Shockwave 129 had 50 entrants, Shockwave 130 had 55 entrants, Shockwave 131 had 67 entrants. Okay, that's a pretty decent baseline for what we could expect from a Shockwave. The first week (Shockwave 132) was the most hyped up, the FP2 week, and it had... 91 entrants. This was a notable increase in entrants, but many believe it was largely because of it being the first tournament of the banned series. The second week, with only Steve banned (Shockwave 133), had 67 entrants. Shockwave 134, with only Kazuya banned, had 60 entrants. Then both Steve and Kazuya were banned for 135 and 100 entrants, with people traveling out of region to attend. 136, with all DLC banned, had 51 entrants.

Moving on to "Happy Have Fundies Holidays", 137, with Steve and Kazuya banned, had 32 entrants. 138, with Steve, Kazuya, and ROB banned, had 46 entrants. 139, with no bans at all, had 51 entrants. 140, with Steve, Kazuya, and ROB banned, had 61 entrants.

It seems pretty obvious to me that 132 (FP2 banned and first week of the experiment) and 135 (first time both Kazuya and Steve were banned) were outliers. Compare 135 with 137 and 138 and 140.

It is hard to know about every circumstance. It seems fairly likely that many people would be unable to attend for the 21st, and more would be home for the 28th, so that could affect the numbers. Still though, it seems that bans didn't greatly affect numbers one way or the other, aside from certain outliers. A ban in order to increase attendance seems unlikely to work long term, even after one month people seemed to stop caring too much about Steve/Kazuya being banned or not (at least when it comes to attendance).

Those who were hoping that banning characters would inject new life into local scenes will likely end up being disappointed by this experiment. Those that are against a ban will likely be pleased, since it shows that one of the pro-ban arguments ("If we ban X character more people will attend our tournaments") is likely to be a very weak argument long-term.

True but that also means that we need to know what's killing the smash scene overall, since, as you said, some people were hoping the bans would inject life into the local scenes. Do you think Smash Ultimate has run it's course now?

 

[Frihetsanka]

True but that also means that we need to know what's killing the smash scene overall, since, as you said, some people were hoping the bans would inject life into the local scenes. Do you think Smash Ultimate has run it's course now?

I don't think the Smash scene is dying. According to Liquidpedia, Ultimate in 2022 had 41 major tournaments, 2019 had 34. Super Smash Con 2022 had 2,388 entrants, COLOSSEL 2022 had 1,024, GENESIS 8 had 1,959.

If we compare to Smash 4, 2017 GENESIS 4 had 1,012 entrants, EVO 2017 1,508 entrants, Super Smash Con 2017 1,531 entrants, and 30 major tournaments. I think the scene is going to do decently well for years to come. Will Melee overtake Ultimate as the #1 competitive Smash game? Perhaps, although it has a long way to go (17 major tournaments in 2022, and fewer entrants in general. Melee getting ranked for Slippy is going to be a big boost for it.

As for local scenes, my guess is that it's basically a matter of more people leaving than joining. That's pretty common when games are no longer new, younger people might start playing some other game rather than competitive Smash, older people quit for other games (or for real life reasons). Many local scenes still do fine, it's not like you need 70 people locals in order to have a strong local scene.

I don't think Steve or Kazuya are the boogeymen people make them out to be, and I don't think they will kill the scene. Nintendo might, though I really hope it won't come to that.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Dabuz has finished his tier list videos before the New Year.

Gonna also post the whole tier list flat out too
Upper Top Tier: , , / , , , , , ,
Lower Top Tier: , , , , , , ,
Upper High Tier: , , , , , / , , , ,
Lower High Tier: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Upper Mid Tier: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Mid Tier: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Upper Low Tier: , , , , , , ,
Low Tier: , , , , , , , ,

I think the most disputable ones here would be Shulk, Greninja, Sora and Sheik being rather low compared to where most people would put them, but otherwise this looks pretty good. I think Kazuya might be a bit high too, he's absolutely top 10 and I think he's poorly designed but I don't think he's better then everyone but Steve.

 

[Arthur97]

Not entirely sure about Steve, but, yes, Kazuya seems overhyped.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I don't think it's too implausible that Kazuya would be that high. The character appears to have a lot of depth and if Kazuya players get better the character is going to be really hard to deal with. He's one of the characters with the most potential if you execute properly, but even Riddles often drops combos. Even at the current level players like Riddles and Tea are doing really well with Riddles, and if they keep practicing I could see a future where Kazuya is top 2.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

Steve gets buffed every 48 hours

introducing TACO #ssbu_steve https://t.co/6pxMzwvmSG pic.twitter.com/2VQRcXpONH

— WhyDo (@WDBTHtGP) December 28, 2022

And so the Ban Steve movement continues.

 

[Frihetsanka]

And so the Ban Steve movement continues.

Sounds like this is mostly not a very important tech, from what I've heard.

 

[True Blue Warrior]

Sounds like this is mostly not a very important tech, from what I've heard.

True.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprise if Steve’s performance dropped significantly in 2023 compared to 2022.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

L4st's tier list. He isn't a top player, but he's a strong coach and possesses a lot of knowledge of the game so I thought I'd post it.

I hit a sub goal, please go easy on me pic.twitter.com/Z6xKQdPZ92

— Ryan (@L4st_v1) January 1, 2023

 

[True Blue Warrior]

Ike is pretty low on that list.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Ike is pretty low on that list.

Ike is a decently predictable character that struggles to get off the ledge who loses to fast characters and Anti-airs in a meta full of fast characters with Anti airs that can ledgetrap extremely well.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Kyojin Dojo, a super regional.

1. Tea
2. KEN
3. Shuton
4. Gackt
5. Kome
5. Chag
7. Tooky
7. Earth
9. $BK
9. 3li_SSB
9. SteelRhydon
9. Sui
13. Fairess
13. Divine
13. Yousef2AT
13. Lems

 

[Rizen]

's good; a solid high tier. Swords in general are very strong in ultimate. He has big hitboxes that combo into other moves. Ike's main problem is he gets overshadowed by better swordies like Cloud and Aegis. Although he's strong there are characters who do what he does better so he doesn't get played very often.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 32 seeding for Let's Make Big Moves 2023

1. Sparg0
2. Tweek
3. MkLeo
4. Light
5. Glutonny
6. Onin
7. Riddles
8. Sonix
9. Kola
10. Dabuz
11. Cosmos
12. Maister
13. Zomba
14. ApolloKage
15. Anathema
16. Jakal
17. Jake
18. Quidd
19. Syrup
20. Lima
21. Tilde
22. Ned
23. Goblin
24. MKBigBoss
25. Jahzz0
26. Chag
27. SHADIC
28. Puppeh
29. Chronos
30. Fatality
31. Peabnut
32. Chase

 

[Cheryl~]

Welp, we know what happened last time MkLeo got seeded 3rd. I hope to see another showdown between him and Tweek this weekend to see if Tweek truly has gotten the upper hand.

Also, top 32 seeding for Umebura SP 9 is out.

1. Acola
2. Miya
3. Tea
4. Shuton
5. Yoshidora
6. Hero
7. Kameme
8. Aaron
9. HIKARU
10. Zackray
11. Asimo
12. KEN
13. Kome
14. Gackt
15. Repo
16. Abadango
17. DIO
18. Umeki
19. Munekin
20. Shirayuki
21. Yaura
22. Futari no Kiwami Ah~!
23. Nietono
24. Paseriman
25. Shissho
26. Jdizzle
27. Rizeasu
28. Huto
29. MASA
30. AC
31. Atelier
32. sssr

This is the first big Japanese tournament with foreign invaders in a very long while, in the form of Aaron, Jdizzle, and AC (Yez technically can count as a US player but he's been living in Japan for the past year so not really). It's refreshing to see since we were stripped of having the opportunity to see how Western players would fare in Japanese majors for the past two years.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for Sumabato SP 34

1. Miya
2. Yoshidora
3. Yaura
4. Kaninabe
5. Rizeasu
5. sssr
7. Tsuna
7. YamaD
9. Karaage
9. Kikuzakari
9. Sigma
9. Shogun
13. Doramigi
13. Lunamado
13. Tarakotori
13. Luminous

 

[NairWizard]

5. Rizeasu

what

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

what

Yep, he didn't go Byleth, Marth or Sephiroth at all. Just solo Wolf that he's been practicing for a week.

 

[Cheryl~]

Yep, he didn't go Byleth, Marth or Sephiroth at all. Just solo Wolf that he's been practicing for a week.

Rizeasu's character choices are an enigma. Also, having never seen Kaninabe's Fox before this tournament, I am super impressed. I don't know how long he's been competing but his Fox honestly looks even better than Paseriman's currently!

 

[Goty Rase]

I think that Joker is better than Pyra and Mythra.Also better than Sonic.Sora can by higher, link top 20.

L4st's tier list. He isn't a top player, but he's a strong coach and possesses a lot of knowledge of the game so I thought I'd post it.

I hit a sub goal, please go easy on me pic.twitter.com/Z6xKQdPZ92

— Ryan (@L4st_v1) January 1, 2023

 

[Goty Rase]

Sounds like this is mostly not a very important tech, from what I've heard.

It isn’t the best but also have others techs, like meteor cancel and EPIC

 

[Frihetsanka]

EchoRank 2022 - Graphic Release

Instead of a traditional rolling release this year, I decided to write an article detailing some quirks and pitfalls of the algorithm. It ended up being rather long, but please read it if you're interested or confused!

Links below ↓ pic.twitter.com/TEHHIJRn3n

— EchoStats (@EchoStats) January 5, 2023

EchoRank 2022 is out! Sparg0 #1, MkLeo #2, acola #3, Light #4, Tea #5, Onin #6, Tweek #7, Shuton #8, Sonix #9, Riddles #10, Kola #11, Dabuz #12, Glutonny #13, ProtoBanham #14, Kurama #15. Some interesting placements! Sparg0 taking #1 over MkLeo and acola is impressive, but not too surprising.

zackray #16, despite seemingly dropping off a bit compared to his 2019 performance that's still a strong showing. Maister #17 and Miya #18, for now Maister got the better ranking (for EchoRank) but maybe Miya will overtake him in 2023? DDee #19 surprises me a bit, and Big D #20 as well. Zomba #21 is a tad lower than I would've expected. Bloom4Eva #22, second highest European, interestingly enough. Sisqui is "only" #32. SHADIC #53, the young Corrin main almost made top 50 in the world, which is quite impressive. Now that he has a sponsor he might be able to attend more majors. yonni at #87 is not too surprising given that his results haven't been as amazing as before, but Quandale Dinglelingleton (DDog) at #88 surprises me, I thought he would've placed higher.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

EchoRank 2022 - Graphic Release

Instead of a traditional rolling release this year, I decided to write an article detailing some quirks and pitfalls of the algorithm. It ended up being rather long, but please read it if you're interested or confused!

Links below ↓ pic.twitter.com/TEHHIJRn3n

— EchoStats (@EchoStats) January 5, 2023

EchoRank 2022 is out! Sparg0 #1, MkLeo #2, acola #3, Light #4, Tea #5, Onin #6, Tweek #7, Shuton #8, Sonix #9, Riddles #10, Kola #11, Dabuz #12, Glutonny #13, ProtoBanham #14, Kurama #15. Some interesting placements! Sparg0 taking #1 over MkLeo and acola is impressive, but not too surprising.

zackray #16, despite seemingly dropping off a bit compared to his 2019 performance that's still a strong showing. Maister #17 and Miya #18, for now Maister got the better ranking (for EchoRank) but maybe Miya will overtake him in 2023? DDee #19 surprises me a bit, and Big D #20 as well. Zomba #21 is a tad lower than I would've expected. Bloom4Eva #22, second highest European, interestingly enough. Sisqui is "only" #32. SHADIC #53, the young Corrin main almost made top 50 in the world, which is quite impressive. Now that he has a sponsor he might be able to attend more majors. yonni at #87 is not too surprising given that his results haven't been as amazing as before, but Quandale Dinglelingleton (DDog) at #88 surprises me, I thought he would've placed higher.

BTW here's a link to the article about the ranking system. It discusses some placements that are surprising/controversial, such as Sparg0 being over Leo, DDee and Big D's placements, ProtoBanham and Yoshidora being seemingly low, MASA being lower then Tilde and Larry Lurr etc.

 

[Frihetsanka]

BTW here's a link to the article about the ranking system. It discusses some placements that are surprising/controversial, such as Sparg0 being over Leo, DDee and Big D's placements, ProtoBanham and Yoshidora being seemingly low, MASA being lower then Tilde and Larry Lurr etc.

The link was already in the tweets.

Personally I'd be interested to see a panel PR at some point. I think PGRU was supposed to be a panel but they opted to go for an algorithm, maybe it was hard to get a panel to agree on PR placements?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

The link was already in the tweets.

Personally I'd be interested to see a panel PR at some point. I think PGRU was supposed to be a panel but they opted to go for an algorithm, maybe it was hard to get a panel to agree on PR placements?

Raccoon Stats is doing a ranking system for all of 2022 and it'll be panel based.

With the start of 2023 comes our new ranking, RaccRank ‘22! This full-year ranking will begin with Attendance Cuts and Rising Stars on Sun 1/15, proceeding to our top 10 on Fri 1/20! Our last 3 groups will also have videos highlighting each player’s best moments from the year! pic.twitter.com/cFDjvPBWvs

— RaccStats on Hiatus... (@RaccoonStats) January 5, 2023

 

[NairWizard]

But if you close your eyes...

 

[Nathan Richardson]

A bit more explanation please? Who is this character and what are the hitboxes being shown?

View attachment 366147
View attachment 366148

But if you close your eyes...

 

[Arthur97]

A bit more explanation please? Who is this character and what are the hitboxes being shown?

Pretty sure the first is the Byleths' fair and the latter is at least one of Joker's neutral special hitbox sets. As for why, no idea.

 

[NairWizard]

A bit more explanation please? Who is this character and what are the hitboxes being shown?

Joker horizontally spacing with full hop Gun feels a lot like Byleth horizontally spacing with full hop f-air. It's a straight thin hitbox, it's very hard to punish, a very generous % of the hitbox leads to advantaged posiitions, and while Gun doesn't send you offstage, it leads to so much. I saw Gun f-air1 dragdown kills in Doubles today.

Joker's Gun meta developments have him playing less like Sheik and more like a sword character. In addition to aerial intercepts with Gun and Gun zoning, Joker can afford to risk spacing the normally thin n-air in neutral with his double jumps because he can now edgeguard a wider variety of characters offstage due to Gun.

Very interesting to watch, really.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Joker horizontally spacing with full hop Gun feels a lot like Byleth horizontally spacing with full hop f-air. It's a straight thin hitbox, it's very hard to punish, a very generous % of the hitbox leads to advantaged posiitions, and while Gun doesn't send you offstage, it leads to so much. I saw Gun f-air1 dragdown kills in Doubles today.

Tsubaki also did some Fair 1 Dragdown confirms from Gun too at Japan 24.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Top 8 for Umebura SP 9

Winners
acola vs Shuton
Kameme vs Tea

Losers
Toura (Lost to acola) vs Atelier (Lost to Umeki)
Yoshidora (Lost to KEN} vs DIO (Lost to acola)

Meanwhile at LMBM...
https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/1061pkq Leo is going Joker again.

 

[The_Bookworm]

OrionStats now has their individual character breakdowns for the July 2022-December 2022 season, including how much each player contributed to their characters.

Here is the doc for the full list:

Character Data by Player - July 2022-December 2022

Character Data - Half 2, 2022 Mario,Donkey Kong,Link,Samus Kurama,55,24.2%,HIKARU,30,31.1%,VinS,17,21.8%,Sisqui,116,29.3% Dark Wizzy,49,21.6%,ChunkyKong,19,19.7%,T,13,16.7%,IcyMist,47,11.9% Nao,20,8.8%,Rarikkusu,9,9.3%,Yoshi_95,11,14.1%,quiK,40,10.1% NoTag,18,7.9%,JohnY,6,6.2%,RaZe,11,14.1%,Abad...

docs.google.com

There is a lot to unpack here, and a lot to discuss about.
In the meantime, here are the two biggest gaps between first and second place, and it should not come to any surprise. lol

 

[Cheryl~]

Results of Umebura SP 9's top 8:

1st: Acola ()
2nd: Tea
3rd: Yoshidora
4th: Kameme
5th: Toura
5th: Shuton
7th: Atelier
7th: DIO

for the rest of top 16:

9th: Umeki
9th: Asimo
9th: KEN
9th: Munekin
13th: zackray
13th: Kaninabe
13th: Miya
13th: Harasen

 

[Eremurus]

Acola slapping Tea with his own... secondary, was quite something. It's not like Tea is a slouch at the matchup. He beat Riddles in the Kazuya ditto.

 

[NotLiquid]

Masterful stroke of cinematic genius on behalf of the VGBootCamp team by having Onin, Riku, and Quandale/DDog all play their sets on stream at the same time and all being sent to losers in their sets. Shadic's set against Onin was especially of note since it was a clean 3-0. DDee's matchup chart posted on last page listed Corrin as an even MU, but it certainly didn't feel like one.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Top 16 of Let's Make Big Moves 2023

Winner's
Sparg0 vs BigBoss
Light vs Glutonny
Tweek vs Riddles
MkLeo vs Cosmos

Loser's
Sonix vs Chronos
Gen vs Jake
Dabuz vs ApolloKage
Riku vs Anathema



Edit:
And here is top 8.

Winner's
Sparg0 vs Glutonny
Tweek vs MkLeo

Loser's
Sonix vs Riddles
Light vs BigBoss

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Results for LMBM 2023

1. Tweek
2. Sparg0
3. Sonix
4. MkLeo
5. Glutonny
5. Light
7. Riddles
7. MKBigBoss
9. Cosmos
9. Gen
9. Dabuz
9. Anathema
13. Chronos
13. Jake
13. ApolloKage
13. Riku
17. quiK
17. Armadillo
17. MPg
17. goblin deez
17. SHADIC
17. enhancedpv
17. Tilde
17. Zomba

Somewhat related question. Is Armadillo's 17th the best Lucario result at a supermajor or has Tsu done something better then that?

 

[The_Bookworm]

Somewhat related question. Is Armadillo's 17th the best Lucario result at a supermajor or has Tsu done something better then that?

In terms of a tournament the size of LMBM, yes, this is easily the best placing of Lucario in a supermajor.
As a matter of fact, I think is the best showing of Lucario in a tournament since Tsu's antics with the character in 2017 with SSB4 Lucario. I don't remember him doing anything too impressive with the character at 2018 SSB4 and anything in Ultimate.