Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[Hippieslayer]

Mostly annoyed by Cloud being kinda low, the fact that Roy is above him bothers me when Cloud is obviously the more well rounded and flexible of the two and no Roy player has been able to reach the heights that Sparg0 has brought Cloud to.

Pikachu and Shulk also don't belong in top tier. A tier sure. But top tier? Come on man the game has been out for a long time now. Mario is a character that's very similar to Pikachu in a lot of ways and he's looked like the stronger of the two for a while now imo.

 

[L9999]

I think the voters are still on the edge with Cloud because of how the Byleth situation turned out, for all the good traits Byleth has (Nair, Up B, etc) a lot of that was MK Leo being nutsy. But I don't see it with Cloud being carried by Sparg0, it might just be denial because Cloud is not as uber broken as Smash 4, but come on, in comparison Ike is a big pile of mediocrity whose only broken move got butchered. Cloud has similar range to Ike, but his movement is better, he has limit, and his frame data is better in everything. Cloud's Bair is likely better than Ike's entire moveset. The character is very privileged, the casuals rant about how DLC kills Ultimate and all but...Cloud was DLC, he has the traits of DLC, cheering for Cloud is like cheering for Min Min, Aegis, and so on. Ironically Cloud is more successful in Ultimate than Smash 4 because someone is actually winning with him as (mostly) solo main, a lot of Cloud players in Smash 4 were dual mains, 33th shoe-ins/pool fodder, or eventually dropped him for Bayonetta.

As for Pikachu and Mario comparison I think the more comparable character is Peach. Pikachu and Peach were hyped a lot at the start of Ultimate, and both of their metas died because of covid and Nintendo's awful trash online. So in the time that offline has returned the Peach players have stepped it up, Umeki and MuteAce have been doing fine again, but Pikachu still eats dust. Mario's meta was dead but he has come back, with Nao and Kurama doing some sick runs, I find Peach to be a better comparison because Pikachu is often defended by the excuse that he is hard to play, if that's the case how did Peach recover from 2 years of soft ban if she is just as hard to play and has more (supposedly) polarizing matchups than Pikachu?

And the funny part about the covid format is that supposedly Joker sucks online but more people were willing to play Joker in covid format than Pikachu, Peach or Mario, and before MK Leo played Joker seriously again what little Joker players there were had started to "get good," or at least Tsubaki has gotten good. The same kind of people that say Joker is carried and overrated are the same kind of people that say Pikachu is top 5 but there are more people that are not MK Leo playing Joker while Pikachu is dust and hot air. Even Pichu players have been more active, Pichu is supposedly worse than Pikachu, a B- lame-o whose meta is dead without FTilt right?

 

[Hippieslayer]

I don't get how they can still be on the edge with Cloud. With Byleth it was obvious from the get go that the character would drop off a bit, they are just too slow.

We are making different kinds of comparisons. I get yours. It makes sense. What I meant was more that I think that Mario plays kinda similar to Pikachu. Combo heavy close range character without a lot of range but decent mobility and a hurtbox thats on the smaller side and who also pancakes with some moves; has a good ranged game as well as the potential for early kills via inescapable combos. Pikachu has the better recovery but Mario's is still really good and he's heavier.

Of the two I think Mario edges it out. Fireball is inferior to Jolt. But Mario has fludd and cape too. Pikachu has that incredible up-b, but Mario has slightly better base mobility (I think? Maybe I'm wrong on this lol). Most importantly Mario seems to have more consistent kill combos, his frame data is superior to the rat's.

 

[Aligo]

I think that Mario can also kill earlier and more consistently than pikachu without combos too thanks to his excellent smash attacks. Difficulty killing tends to be the second biggest frustration people have with a character after not being able to recover.

 

[Sucumbio]

Welp that didn't take long. Steve bans showing up all over the place.

 

[L9999]

I don't get how they can still be on the edge with Cloud. With Byleth it was obvious from the get go that the character would drop off a bit, they are just too slow.

We are making different kinds of comparisons. I get yours. It makes sense. What I meant was more that I think that Mario plays kinda similar to Pikachu. Combo heavy close range character without a lot of range but decent mobility and a hurtbox thats on the smaller side and who also pancakes with some moves; has a good ranged game as well as the potential for early kills via inescapable combos. Pikachu has the better recovery but Mario's is still really good and he's heavier.

Of the two I think Mario edges it out. Fireball is inferior to Jolt. But Mario has fludd and cape too. Pikachu has that incredible up-b, but Mario has slightly better base mobility (I think? Maybe I'm wrong on this lol). Most importantly Mario seems to have more consistent kill combos, his frame data is superior to the rat's.

There I can agree. With Pikachu they hype his loops but 1/10 times they actually kill anybody, since they are read reliant. Regarding mobility Mario wins in air speed, he ties with Inkling, and Sonic, Pikachu's is comparable to suckers like the Belmonts. Mario's air acceleration is only slightly worse than Fox and Wolf's, Pikachu's air acceleration is tied with Ness's. For initial dash Pikachu is tied with Yoshi and below Joker, Mario is tied with Bayonetta, Squirtle, and Ken. Whatever those mobility numbers do they have helped Mario with sword matchups, it also helps to have killer combos.

I think that Mario can also kill earlier and more consistently than pikachu without combos too thanks to his excellent smash attacks. Difficulty killing tends to be the second biggest frustration people have with a character after not being able to recover.

Right, Mario can afford to do the Maister and throw out USmash every now and then. It is not as strong as "dashdance" USmash from Smash 4 but it gets the job done, no weird hitboxes like Pikachu's USmash. He also has FSmash in the arsenal, IIRC it can 2 frame but I could be misremembering it with Sonic's. In theory Pikachu can do the Fox and do run USmash, but he doesn't have the same amount of pressure tools to throw it out.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Pikachu has down smash which is really good since it hits on both sides and always sends the opponent in the direction the rat is facing. They can confirm into it with dragdowns. Mario doesn't have anything like that. But his other Smashed are superior. The urine colored rodent may have more range on its fsmash but Mario's is stronger and has that hurtbox shift which is really good. And Mario's upsmash is just a really solid move that makes approaching him from the air risky at kill percents because it will beat out even long range aerials.

About Steve it's s quite understandable that people are asking for a ban, the tech looks game breaking. But the fact that Nintendo might patch it out makes the situation weird. If we end up in a situation where Steve players are doing this **** consistently and there's no patch then he should be banned. But right now? Don't know.

Larry Lurr was basically saying ban him now or it's going to be too late. I'm not so sure about that. I think it's fully possible to wait and see and then ban Steve if all goes to hell. The fact that not that many top players use him will make it possible to ban him later. He's not a crucial part of the game or community.

 

[NairWizard]

Shulk is a mediocre character held together by one trait -- getting out of hitstun fast, gated by a time-based resource limit.
Steve is a great character with access to a better version of that same trait -- without resource gating.

Yeah, it's not hard to see why the community is up in arms over this. Any top 10 character who suddenly discovered this tech would have deserved a ban conversation. Any. Not just Steve. Heck, even if you gave this to Mario he'd deserve a ban conversation.

This tech is also easy. My very mediocre Elite Smash Steve is doing this consistently online. There's no way that top Steves won't use this.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Sounds like he should banned in that case.

 

[NotLiquid]

Beyond The Summit is closing up shop after 11 years. Ultimate Summit 6 will be the last Smash Summit event.

On the Future of Beyond the Summithttps://t.co/ZfsCGY3iM3

— LD (@LDeeep) February 27, 2023

 

[st0pnsw0p]

Well that escalated quickly. Looks like some places are already banning Steve/the tech, including Collision.

🚨#Collision2023 Update🚨

The Collision team has spent the past 48 hours discussing the new Steve adv. tech (PMLG) that was revealed by @XCidoClipDump and @ron_yt0510. Due to the nature of PMLG and the potential complications that it could provide during https://t.co/UTEAkDUhpt…

— Collision Gaming Series (@CollisionSmash) February 27, 2023

Steve has been indefinitely banned in all of Kansas, and two of the three main regions in Missouri

Banning just the new tech itself is a band aid solution that requires a lot of leg work on our TOs

We hope this is a step in the right direction for Ultimate moving forward pic.twitter.com/7wpcwx81mM

— RiD | campagne (@campagne_papi) February 27, 2023

 

[Sucumbio]

Beyond The Summit is closing up shop after 11 years. Ultimate Summit 6 will be the last Smash Summit event.

On the Future of Beyond the Summithttps://t.co/ZfsCGY3iM3

— LD (@LDeeep) February 27, 2023

This sucks. I wish them all to find success. Idk if it's a hot take but I preferred them to VGBC.

 

[NairWizard]

I'm still not totally convinced that we should ban Steve, just that we should have a conversation about how good this makes Steve. I'd be way more worried if Min Min or Cloud had this tech, but Steve has an archetypal matchup weakness that ignores this pretty well--Steve's biggest weakness is swords, and swords can still just enjoy advantage state if Steve does this just because they have so much range. I have to see a few sword matchups vs. Steve to make the call, personally, so I still think it's too early to ban.

Sad to see BTS go.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

I'm still not totally convinced that we should ban Steve, just that we should have a conversation about how good this makes Steve. I'd be way more worried if Min Min or Cloud had this tech, but Steve has an archetypal matchup weakness that ignores this pretty well--Steve's biggest weakness is swords, and swords can still just enjoy advantage state if Steve does this just because they have so much range. I have to see a few sword matchups vs. Steve to make the call, personally, so I still think it's too early to ban.

Sad to see BTS go.

The problem is that you can't space 100% perfectly 100% of the time. Plus, minecart has enough range to hit most things beyond fully spaced sephiroth moves.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Yeah it really is that the tech is that bonkers.

Before the tech was found, I was firmly in the anti-ban camp. Most of Steve's annoying elements could be played around with careful play. The reason people wanted a ban before was frankly, people don't like having to be careful. And that's a major weakness as a competitor. I argued that Steve play would be figured out, and counterplay would develop. And for a long time, that's what happened.

This tech breaks the game. It turns what should be a safe action into a very dangerous one. And if it's this bonkers now, its only going to get worse with time. I highly doubt Nintendo will do anything about this. Balance patches haven't been done in ages. Its finally time to ban Steve.

 

[NairWizard]

The problem is that you can't space 100% perfectly 100% of the time. Plus, minecart has enough range to hit most things beyond fully spaced sephiroth moves.

But this is against aerial Steve, so you surely can space pretty well. Steve's air drift is terrible. Against swords, Steve has to guess right about when you misspace or else he's still in disadvantage (on a block, sure, but in disadvantage) for hitting this tech. Direct minecart or anvil or airdodge are competing options to consider based on the spacing.

Now, it's a great tech and it is quite dominating -- for sure, at the least, it makes Steve the best character in the game, and probably by himself in a lonely tier -- but the criteria for ban should be higher than "this character is clearly the best in the game."

Even if Steve won every matchup in the game +1, that wouldn't be enough to warrant a ban, because other fighting games deal with top tiers who are just as good as that.

If Steve won every matchup in the game +2 or +3 though, then that is clearly ban-worthy. That is the line, imo.

 

[Hippieslayer]

But do we really want a meta that's based around countering one broken character?

 

[Sucumbio]

But do we really want a meta that's based around countering one broken character?

No. Actually that's one of the basis for Brawl MK bans... Just having to develop 2 metas. Fighting mk and fighting everyone else.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Well if this comes to be maybe they got it right placing Sephiroth where they did on the tier list lol.

 

[NairWizard]

But do we really want a meta that's based around countering one broken character?

The cost of preventing dozens or hundreds of good Steve mains from participating in tourneys with their main character and the aura of (additional) illegitimacy that will surround the competitive scene after this decision makes banning anyone a huge deal, and that's why it's never been done before in a smash title. The bar is very high.

It should not be about what we want to deal with, but rather what we can deal with.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I dunno about that. Maybe I'm underestimating the cost of banning him, but the alternative being that a large part of the cast will never be viable at all also seems very costly. If he's not banned won't there inevitably be people who will "join the dark side" too when their mains stand no chance? There will be Steve dittos.

 

[NairWizard]

I dunno about that. Maybe I'm underestimating the cost of banning him, but the alternative being that a large part of the cast will never be viable at all also seems very costly. If he's not banned won't there inevitably be people who will "join the dark side" too when their mains stand no chance? There will be Steve dittos.

Much of the cast is imo already not viable. People just don't learn matchups (because there are too many), and it gives the illusion that "even mid tiers can win majors."

I get what you're saying, but some kind of centralization happens with every "best" character in games. It's normal and expected, and competitive integrity demands that we tolerate it.

But there is absolutely a threshold for that tolerance. If Steve has +3 matchups against many top or high tiers, then yeah, he should go.

Brawl Meta Knight did not have bad or even matchups, so the comparison is completely unwarranted currently.

 

[NotLiquid]

I've said this before and I'll say it again; the optics of the Smash community coming into agreement of banning a character from competitive play is kind of a moot concern considering we saw the FighterZ community last year be the first high profile competitive fighter in what feels like eons to pull the trigger on banning a character who was simply just too good to allow remaining unchecked. If anything I'd say the one thing it proved was that the FGC are still way more ahead of the game in terms of making the hard decisions that the Smash scene often times humms and errs over just because we're too self conscious about our game being a serious and competitive title.

That's not to say that Lab Coat 21 is the same situation as Steve, or that I'm necessarily even in agreement of a ban in this case, but the fact that the generally agreed best character in the game is now uniquely in possession of a blatantly unfair mechanic happening to him at a systemic level that doesn't play anything into his overall design and is basically going to make every matchup even worse by association makes it hard for me to lose much sleep over a ban if it were to happen. Normally I say tough luck whenever a character winds up being dominant or good, but with this discovery it's clear that this probably ain't gonna continue happening for the right reasons. If Smash were an in-house developed game, this feels like the kind of issue that Nintendo would assemble a skeleton crew for to patch things up, so I wouldn't rule things out that this could be addressed, but with how many moving parts there exists to this game I wouldn't expect it.

I also don't think arbitrary MU thresholds are a good barometer to dictate a ban. These kinds of things don't become evident until a whole lot of concentrated testing, will never stop being bogged down by subjectivity, and by that point it'll already have been too late. Ultimately bans are an enforcement of collective community biases and what we all figure is fair play to have to put up with, and it'd suck to have to pay the piper for what shouldn't be an issue that's left in the community's hands to solve. A lot of people might have argued for Meta Knight to be kicked to the curb, but I think his circumvention had less to do with how good he himself was and more about the fact that removing him out of the equation wouldn't solve Brawl's myriad of problems; in some cases it'd only exacerbate them.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Based on how the conversation is going right now, it does seem like Steve will end up banned soon. The conversation was finally dying down, and then this tech was made public... While I personally think it's a good idea to wait before a global ban (and he won't be globally banned before Collision anyways) the cases people are making for a ban right now seem stronger than any cases before in Smash Ultimate. It is unfortunate, but it wouldn't be the first time a character was banned because of a bug, Akuma in Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix was rebalanced for that game but due to bugs he still ended up banned.

If you main Steve, you have my sympathies if he does end up being banned. I hope people will get some time to adjust to a new character, it might be a good idea to work on a backup character in case he gets banned.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I totally agree about the matchup thing, but one of the good things about having such a large cast is that characters like Pit can suddenly go and make big waves. And there's so many characters that are good enough to do that. I don't think people are going to be able to have all the matchups down for a long time if ever.

I just don't see the game surviving in a relatively healthy state for that long if we have a character who is broken like Sm4sh Bayo. In general I think it's more reasonable to compare Steve to Bayo. Meta Knight was always there and the dittos were always a thing, people were ok with it. But if we get a bunch of ****ing Steve dittos now this late in the meta it's a completely different thing. There's no telling when the next smash game comes out or if there will be a patch.

I'm imagining the worst case scenario were the scene dies out or shrinks considerably due to a loss of interest following a period of supermajors with top 8s dominated by Steve. In the light of that banning him seems worth it. I'm guessing this is what Larry is picturing too.

Edit: Also I just think the technique is such utter bull**** that it warrants a ban. Steve was already an annoying character that carries inferior players letting them defeat better ones by being overtuned. Add this **** on top of that and it's too much.

Mii Swordfighter should've had this tech instead. Or Ganondorf.

 

[Aligo]

It should not be about what we want to deal with, but rather what we can deal with.

I suppose the issue is not Steve being overcentralizing (not yet at least) but uncompetetive. To draw an example to Pokémon competitive abilities such as moody and shadow tag aren't necessarily unbeatable, but they heavily detract from the experience as a whole while also partially removing player skill from the equation.

You may have years of experience with sheik, but the other guy spent a couple of days in training mode and can now punish you for landing attacks.

I hope that this stuff can be patched, it is 2023 the community shouldn't have to be banning characters due to game breaking bugs, but here we are.

 

[superjm]

The big issue I see with all this is splitting the meta on international lines. The NA community may collectively decide on banning Steve, but there's no reason to think that most overseas communities would follow just because. EU barely has any Steve players to begin with and Japan in particular has zero incentive to ban Steve just because NA did so and would have to come to that determination independently. And considering Japanese events aren't played for money in the first place and the country's best player is a Steve main, I have doubts they'll easily agree to such a thing.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Eu barely having any Steve's makes it easier for them to ban him, I doubt they will go contrarian. About the Japanese I don't know. They have several other top level competitors. Protobanham at his best looks like a potential number 1 in the world player. They wont fall under the radar without Steve.

I think that if Steve gets banned almost everywhere then that might get the attention of Nintendo for a few reasons, which in turn might get us a hotfix getting us out of this unfortunate situation. So I'm kinda all for banning him.

 

[StrangeKitten]

I've been adamantly against banning Steve in the past. He was a very good character with a lot of incredibly annoying tools, but still fair. But this? This is the straw that breaks the camel's back. He shouldn't be able to punish you for landing what should be safe moves. What would be, against any other character, the correct move choice. If it was on a worse character, I might still be okay with allowing such a tech, as I am convinced by some of WhyDo's arguments that it has more weaknesses than it initially appears to. But we clearly see Steve converting into true combos that kill. I'm sorry, but this is too much, and I am now in the ban Steve camp.

I also hope that, by banning Steve, maybe we'll get the attention of Nintendo and they'll patch the tech out. That would be the best case scenario, because honestly I do kinda like Steve and still want to see the character grow and be further optimized. Just not with something this broken. (Though I also would like some tiny nerfs for him, which maybe they'd also do if we can get their attention for a Steve patch)

 

[williamsga555]

Honestly I'm not sure why the tech itself is being written off as something that we can't ban without banning Steve himself. I've seen some comments here-and-there about how it's not an easily noticed animation, but at that same merit, completely ignoring hitstun is a pretty obvious occurrence. It's one thing to fall out of a multihit link and another to bypass a standard aerial, surely.

If I'm missing something obvious here, ignore me, but the tech doesn't seem all that hard to ban on its own from my perspective.

 

[StoicPhantom]

If I'm missing something obvious here, ignore me, but the tech doesn't seem all that hard to ban on its own from my perspective.

You are correct, but people are clearly using this as an excuse to ban a character they've been salivating over banning for a long time now. People acting as if multihits are now ruined when top tiers with broken hurtboxs casually falling out of multihits and destroying your stock has been a thing for a while now. It would be great if we actually got a test period to see if this tech can even consistently be done in a way that is useful or can't be countered, but Ultimate players are allergic to competition it seems.

 

[Idon]

Honestly I'm not sure why the tech itself is being written off as something that we can't ban without banning Steve himself. I've seen some comments here-and-there about how it's not an easily noticed animation, but at that same merit, completely ignoring hitstun is a pretty obvious occurrence. It's one thing to fall out of a multihit link and another to bypass a standard aerial, surely.

If I'm missing something obvious here, ignore me, but the tech doesn't seem all that hard to ban on its own from my perspective.

It's not obvious considering this is Ultimate and people falling out of multi-hits isn't an uncommon occurrence.

Doing it whenever you want, whenever it counts, subtly, is almost entirely imperceptible, especially in the heat of battle and especially when the ultimate replay system is terrible having no rewind, fast forward, or slowmotion, and you're going to hold up the venue even longer by asking a TO to review it. In which case you're expecting every TO to train to catch it and watch replays just to move the bracket along. It's a completely unfair expectation.

And that's offline. Online offstream matches it's just flat out impossible.

No TO, already swamped and frustrated as they are, wants to do any of this nonsense, accommodate and sacrifice so much, for the sake of a single character.

It has already been discussed multiple times by multiple top players, tournament organizers, and Steve labbers/players themselves, but I've a feeling questions like this one will be asked again by the willfully ignorant and downplayers.

 

[StoicPhantom]

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

First off, it only applies to weak, non-tumble hitstun.

That certainly narrows things down a bit.

Second, Steve needs to be in the air, and Steve needs to 'prime' this technique out of another animation by doing a phantom block (basically pressing B JUST before you become actionable.) This will ready the hitstun cancel, which you can trigger by pressing B after getting hit by a weak move. But for that tech to work after priming, Steve CAN'T enter most animations aside from jab/uair. That means that Steve has to be a sitting duck from below while fishing for this tech. Using fair/bair/dair/specials, jumping, etc all disable it. If anything it's similar to Olimar's Whistle where there's a window where you aren't a threat to your opponent, but also can resist the knockback of attacks done to you. Of course in comparison Steve's is active for a long time, and he can still jab or uair, but critically Steve only defends you against WEAK KNOCKBACK. Any even reasonably strong hit will deal full damage + KB and hard punish him for attempting this. At mid percent this tech becomes near useless against all but the weakest moves.

So not only does this require some setup and tight execution, Steve can't actually do most of his moves and has to pray his opponent doesn't do a strong move or one that might send him into tumble. Meaning that this tech has to be obviously premeditated in order to pull off.

Now, it seems you can actually 'prime' that phantom block as early as Frame 1 out of hitstun. This can let you escape certain low-knockback combos and yes, I think it has a lot of potential. But this is only possible when (a) there is ALREADY a gap in the hitstun, (b) all the hits are non-tumble, and (c) there is enough time to 'prime' the tech off one hit and activate it off another and (d) you are timing every button press perfectly here. All just to take the combo's full damage, and attempt a reversal. It's a very interesting option but I think it'll be a specific tool against long, low-knockback combos that already have tiny gaps, like Pikachu up air bridges or Mii Brawler combos at low percent. And it'll require a LOT of matchup specific knowledge and practice, far from the game-breaking combo nullifier everyone's hyping up.

So the combo can't be true, send Steve into tumble or have too strong of knockback, must be at low percents, and the tech requires perfect execution.

I guess an easy way to determine if this is being done is to watch for the very few situations this tech will ever be relevant, observe if Steve is weirdly deviating from normal movement, and is able to instantly and consistently counter out of a combo that normally can't be countered easily.

Not that I think this tech needs to be banned given the extremely situational and high risk nature of it. Looks like we're continuing the trend of having extreme overreactions to tech discoveries that won't have a major impact on the game.

No TO, already swamped and frustrated as they are, wants to do any of this nonsense, accommodate and sacrifice so much, for the sake of a single character.

Manual reminder that the profits or job description of others are not relevant nor should they take priority over and ruin the game for the actual players.

 

[StrangeKitten]

Since Pikachu was brought up and it got a placement I actually agree with in the official tier list, I think I'd like to go over what I believe Pika's weaknesses to be:

1) Low damage per hit. Now of course, we all know Pika has a strong combo game that helps mitigate this, but still. In scramble and trade situations, the mouse does not have numbers on its side. Pikachu is the only character I play where I think, "Wow I did so little damage". I think this is something people didn't take into consideration with their early evaluations of Pikachu. Yes, it has a strong combo game and very good neutral tools, but more often than not, it will find itself in situations where the opponent is at 60+ percent. Its strong low% combo game is done, and it hasn't gotten one of its rare, read-dependent strings that kill early. Racking up more damage will now be a slower process than most other characters because its moves do low damage individually. And it's going to have to go through that slow process, because...

2) It lacks anything with explosive kill power. I'm aware it has some zero-to-death combos, but how often are those pulled off by even Pikachu's best players? Probably twice a set at most, and they are very frame-tight and probably don't work on a good chunk of the cast. If you're not getting those, and not getting edgeguards, Pikachu is going to have some trouble killing. As far as edgeguarding goes, we overvalued it early on. It turns out, the vast majority of recoveries in Ultimate are strong enough as to make edgeguarding a very risky option most of the time. Not only is your opponent likely to make it back, they may very well reversal you, leading to a stock loss. So Pikachu definitely has to pick its edgeguards carefully, especially since, while it has a great recovery, it's only great if both zips of Quick Attack are executed... and we've all seen good Pikachu players, even ESAM, just barely not nudge their joystick enough and not get the second zip. So it's definitely something Pikachu players have to be mindful of. But back to explosive kill power, look at it this way: Incineroar has a strong, armored command grab that kills very early, especially if powered up by Revenge. Characters like Byleth and Min Min have long-ranged smash attacks that can kill extremely early. Pikachu simply isn't killing that early onstage, giving it less ability to cheese stocks than a lot of other characters. We undervalued the ability to cheese stocks early on; look no further than MkLeo's Byleth f-smashes and Skyjay's Revenge-boosted Alolan Whips for exaamples of how strong such tools can be. When Pikachu's opponent will live a lot longer more often than not, it presents more opportunity for them to make comebacks. And just so we're clear, I know Pika's dash attack and forward air kill around 140, and up throw around 160, so I wouldn't say it has a lot of trouble killing. But some. Those are pretty late %s for Pika's opponent to live to, when a lot of other characters consistently kill a lot earlier than that.

3) Lack of range. We all know how strong sword characters continue to be. It can be difficult at times to get in on them as Pika, as well as some characters who don't use swords such as Wolf and Min Min. While not necessarily bad matchups for Pikachu, they definitely make things more difficult. While T-Jolt is a strong projectile, it is both a little slow to come out, and has some endlag. Imo this gives Pikachu a healthy amount of counterplay to how it can approach neutral, especially by characters with long range.

While these are pretty small weaknesses, I think they all add up enough to be the reasons why Pikachu fails to be the dominant force people made it out to be. The characters above it on the tier list tend to only share the flaw of lacking explosive kill power (base Joker, Sonic, Diddy), or share none of its flaws. I am by no means calling Pikachu a bad character. I just don't see the "busted, absolute best character" so many seemed to see, and instead, see a pretty solid top tier. I don't abide by the whole "results don't matter" thing. It's been four years. If Pikachu was this amazing, absolutely-best-character, we would see Pikachu players dominate. But we don't. I don't care that the character is said to be hard. It's been so long that the difficulty of the character should have been largely mastered by its best players to allow it to dominate. And it just hasn't. Its best players place very well most of the time, and ESAM has placed first on occasion... but not nearly often enough for me to view Pikachu as the best character, or even that close to, anymore. Pikachu should pretty consistently be placing first and second if it's so "busted" at this point, and it just isn't.

 

[Aligo]

The lack of damaging high % combo routes on Pikachu is something rarely discussed but quite substantial when combined with late kill options. Other top tier rushdown characters can either transition into multiple kill setups, like Fox, or can combo even at very high percents, like Mythra.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I've seen some comments here-and-there about how it's not an easily noticed animation, but at that same merit, completely ignoring hitstun is a pretty obvious occurrence.

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Imagine if something like this happens in a tournament. Is this the tech? Nope, it's just Falco's up-tilt not working as intended. Plenty of similar example with Zero Suit Samus etc etc. Would every TO be able to watch a replay once and determine that this is, in fact, not the tech? Keep in mind that you can't rewind replays in Smash, so if you're unsure you might have to watch the whole replay over and over again until you can make a decision.

This tech is not as obvious as previously banned bugs/techs, like the Melee freeze glitch or Brawl infinite dimensional cape. It's less obvious than wobbling as well. Banning just the tech would be highly problematic and many locals, regionals, and even majors might not have enough people to deal with the situations that might occur, not to mention that it can be tricky to know when the tech happened or not.

I think our main options are either banning Steve or not banning anything.

 

[Hippieslayer]

The exact frame at which Steve escapes from hitstun varies too depending on the timing of the tech; thereby furthering the difficulty of detecting it. It's just not going to be possible to ban the tech.

 

[NairWizard]

Doesn't make sense to me -- why would you ban the tech? The tech itself is strong but it isn't an infinite (wobbling) or a stalling technique (infinite dimensional cape) and it wouldn't be overpowered on a bad character like Ganon. Shulk already has access to a way to escape hitstun, too, so there is precedent for the tech. Shulk's has lower reward but can also be done on reaction to a combo and can get him out of kill confirms.

The problem is definitely not the tech, the problem is that Steve specifically (as a top character) has it, and the question is whether you think having this tech pushes him over the top.

We should be having this conversation, but jumping to an immediate ban is a bit much.

As for me, I think he's not strong enough to merit a ban. Steve's weaknesses are pretty clear to me. He's just as slow as Byleth and has less range; the only burst you have to watch for is Minecart, which is a strong move but is definitely a commitment. Steve is terrible at getting in or getting off the ledge and even acola is rolling all over the place in panic situations because Steve doesn't have good options there. So many of the characters I've played over the years have multiple functional and easy gameplans to exploit such weaknesses. Min Min can skip half of the counterplay and just play her game, even.

One thing worth noting as an addendum to the above is that this technique seems to allow (note: have not tested myself, so feel free to correct me if I've heard wrong) Steve to reduce/ignore the punishment for missing Minecart since you can Minecart into the tech. That part is pretty strong and might be what pushes him over because if you can't rely on punishing Minecart, then Steve counterplay is hard to come by.

But immediate ban? Overreaction and a half.

People only want to jump to an immediate ban because they feel like Steve already breaks the rules of competition and isn't fun to fight against. If Roy were to have this tech, he'd be insanely broken too, but no one would be calling for a ban without more data.

 

[Garo]

Even having witnessed Smash community's kneejerk nature before I was surprised how soon bans were enacted. Really feels like it was done in bad faith.

 

[BlueRando]

If it were up to me, I would at least try to test to see if we could ban just the tech, but I am not a TO and I realize it may not be that simple. so I can only accept Steve's ban, as much as I dislike the idea of banning a character.

That said, it really bothers me this exaggerated sensationalism that is always going on in the smash community. On one hand you have the Twitter warriors who enjoy the mere idea of finally having an excuse to ban Steve, and reproach the fact that he should have been banned sooner. On the other hand you have Steve players (not all of them of course) who go as far as go against the guy who posted the tech video.

Is it so difficult to come together to a final decision in a civil and mature way?